Leon
Trotsky: The Valuable Work of F. Dingelstedt
June
1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 2, 1930, New York 1975, p. 274]
Comrade
Dingelstedt's article printed below is not a finished work. We
received the manuscript, unfortunately, as a third or fourth copy,
with the errors and omissions unavoidable in such cases; for despite
the fact that Marxism continues to be considered the official
doctrine of the Soviet state, genuinely Marxist works, insofar as
they are concerned with present-day questions, lead in the USSR,
alas, an illegal existence and are distributed in manuscript form.
As
we have already written (see number 6 [of. Biulleten
Oppozitsii}),
the author of the article, Comrade Dingelstedt, a member of the party
since 1910, is one of the few "red professors" with a
revolutionary past and with a deep hostility to that "as you
please" spirit with which the greater part of that not very
honorable body is inspired. Dingelstedt is the author of a work on
agrarian relations in India, written by him in the British Museum
while on scientific leave (F. Dingelstedt: The
Agrarian Question in India,
Priboi, 1928).
Comrade
Dingelstedt has belonged to the Communist Left Opposition since the
day it was founded. Removed by the apparatus from active political
work, F. Dingelstedt was for several years rector of the Leningrad
Forestry Institute. At the time of the great liquidation of the left
wing of the party Comrade Dingelstedt was arrested and sent into
exile, where he has remained since that time (in Kansk, Siberia).
The
comrade who brought us the manuscript reports that according to his
information it was a draft appeal to the Sixteenth Congress of the
CPSU. This is not fully apparent from the manuscript itself. In view
of the length of the work, or rather of the part which has reached
us, we are compelled to print it in extracts. We must take on
ourselves the responsibility for using an author's draft without the
agreement of the author; the interest of the matter is above formed
considerations. We do not doubt that readers will agree with us when
they have got to know the valuable work of Comrade Dingelstedt.