Leon
Trotsky: Replies to an Associated Press Correspondent
July
14, 1931
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 3, 1930-1931, New York 1973, p. 275-278]
[The
New York Times, July 19, 1931.
Trotsky
Reaffirms Loyalty
To Soviet
In
First Interview in Nearly Two Years He Denies He Was Ever Hostile to
Regime.
Analyzes
New Policies
Exile
at His Home in Turkey -Says Stalin Is Retreating, but Not Turning to
Capitalism.
Copyright,
1931, By The Associated Press.
Moda,
Turkey, July 18 (AP) - For the first time in nearly two years Leon
Trotsky has unlocked the Iron gates of his retreat to admit an
interviewer. He received an Associated Press correspondent tn his
small wooden villa at Moda, an Asiatic suburb of Istanbul and a
favorite Summer resort of the Anglo-American colony.
The
house, which the exile rented here after fire destroyed his residence
on Prinkipo Island, is a modest, unpainted eight-room structure
standing in a neglected garden. High walls and locked barbed wire
gates surround it on three sides.
M.
Trotsky would scarcely be recognized as the man who slipped out of
the Soviet embassy’s semi-prison three years ago. He is ruddier and
more agile and his face reflects humor rather than bitterness. The
heaviness and sallowness are gone.
Still
Shows Power.
The
sporting costume he wears, a white shirt open at the neck, white
trousers and blue jacket, adds to the atmosphere of vitality about
him. His thin, pointed face is sunburned from hours spent fishing on
the Sea of Marmara — his one recreation. His bristling hair and
pointed beard are almost white. Despite recurrent attacks of malaria,
he is a man of such power that the air about him tingles.
M.
Trotsky shot out cordial greetings in French with some English “How
are you’s” and “All right’s" thrown in. He reads English
easily, but prefers not to speak it.
First
stipulating that his declarations were to be published word for word
or not at all, he attacked .the questions which at his request had
been sent in advance.]
You
have asked me a number of very complicated questions concerning the
internal development of the Soviet Union. To answer these questions
seriously and conscientiously it would be necessary to write several
articles.
Within
the space of an interview it is impossible to give an analysis of the
complicated processes which form the contents of the present
transitional economic system of the Soviet Union, a system which
constitutes a bridge between capitalism and socialism.
You
know that ordinarily I avoid interviews, especially because they too
easily give rise to misunderstandings even if they are absolutely
faithfully transmitted. In fact, this abstention from interviews as
shown by my recent experience does not insure one against the most
unbelievable misunderstandings and distortions.
In
recent weeks a Reuters dispatch from Warsaw went the rounds of the
world press, ascribing to me views that are the exact opposite of
those I have presented and defended.
After
my expulsion from the Soviet Union, the enemies of the Soviet regime,
at least the most obdurate and least perspicacious, counted on
hostile actions on my part against the regime they hate so much. They
miscalculated, and all that remains for them is to take refuge in
falsifications which rely on credulity or ill will.
I
shall use the opportunity of the questions asked by you to declare
again that my attitude toward the Soviet regime has not wavered even
one iota since the days when I participated in its creation.
The
fight which I carry on, together with my friends and my closest
cothinkers within the communist ranks, has to do, not with general
questions of socialism, but with the methods to be used in carrying
out the tasks posed by the October Revolution.
If
the people in Warsaw or Bucharest hope that the internal difficulties
in the USSR will drive the tendency represented by me into the camp
of the "defeatists" of the Soviet Union, they are in for a
bitter disappointment, as are their more powerful inspirers.
At
the moment of danger the so-called "Trotskyists" (Left
Opposition) will fill the most combative positions, as they did
during the October upheaval and during the years of the civil war.
You
ask whether the new course proclaimed in the recent speech of Stalin
signifies a turning toward the road of capitalism. No. I find no
basis for such a conclusion.
We
have before us a zigzag along the road from capitalism to socialism.
Viewed separately and apart, it is a zigzag of retreat. But the
retreat is nevertheless of a tactical nature. The strategic line can
remain the same as before. The necessity for the turn, and its
sharpness, were brought about by the mistakes of the Stalinist
leadership in the previous period.
These
mistakes, as well as the inevitability of the turn itself, were
pointed out by me dozens of times during the last two years in the
Biulleten
Oppozitsii,
published abroad (Paris-Berlin). Hence this turn was least of all a
surprise to the Left Opposition. To speak of a renunciation of
socialist aims in referring to this turn is to speak nonsense
The
new course of Stalin may, nevertheless, not only encourage some
light-minded enemies but also discourage some friends of the Soviet
Union who do not think very deeply. The former feared and the latter
hoped that over a few years the kulak would disappear, the peasantry
would be collectivized completely, and socialism would reign.
The
question of the five-year plan took on the inadmissible character of
a sweepstakes competition. The Left Opposition emphatically warned
against this policy, especially against the premature and precipitate
transformation of the five-year plan into a four-year plan.
It
goes without saying that it is necessary to do everything for the
acceleration of industrialization. But if when put to proof it should
be shown that the plan is realizable not in four but in five or even
in six or seven years, that too would be a magnificent success.
Capitalistic society developed immeasurably more slowly and with a
much greater number of zigzags, turnings, and clashes.
It
is undeniable that the present zigzag to the right, caused by the
previous mistakes of the leadership, signifies an inevitable,
temporary strengthening of bourgeois tendencies and forces. However,
as long as state ownership of the land and of all the basic means of
production is preserved, it does not by any means signify the revival
of capitalism, as yet. Such a revival is in general inconceivable
without the restoration, by force, of private property in the means
of production, which would require the victory of a
counterrevolution.
By
this I do not mean at all to deny that there are certain political
dangers connected with the new turn. The fight against these dangers
requires the regeneration of the independent political activity of
the masses, suppressed by the bureaucratic regime of Stalin.
It
is precisely along these lines that the principal efforts of the Left
Opposition are now directed. With the regeneration of the soviets,
trade unions, and party, the Left Opposition will naturally and
inevitably take its place in the common ranks.
You
ask me about my own plans and prospects. I am working now on the
second volume of The
History of the Russian Revolution.
If my political recess continues I want to write a book on the year
1918, which in the Russian Revolution occupied the same place as 1793
in the French Revolution. It was a year of enormous difficulties,
dangers, and deprivations, of colossal exertions by the revolutionary
masses, the year of the German offensive, the beginning of
intervention by the Entente Powers, of domestic plots, uprisings, and
terrorist attacks — the year of the creation of the Red Army and of
the commencement of the civil war, whose fronts soon encircled the
Moscow center in a vise.
In
this book I wish, by way of comparison, to make an analysis of the
Civil War between the Northern and Southern states in America. I
suppose that American readers will be as surprised by the many
analogies as I was myself in studying the U. S. Civil War.
It
is unnecessary to say that I am following the development of events
in Spain with great interest. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lerroux
expressed himself to the effect that he saw no reason for refusing me
a visa. However, the Provisional Government, headed by Alcalá
Zamora, found it more prudent to postpone a decision on the question
until the convocation of the Cortes and the formation of the new
government.
I
shall not fail, naturally, to renew my demand as soon as the
government is formed.
[M.
Trotsky closed the interview with a sudden smile and an emphatic
final nod. As he rose he picked up a book, lying on the table and
asked, “Have you read this? No? Take it along. It's an extra copy.”
The
interviewer went off with a recent book of Stalin, published in
America.
Downstairs,
in the cool, quietly furnished rooms of the old Turkish villa, a
tanned girl with large spectacles brushed by. It was M. Trotsky's
daughter. She suffers from serious throat trouble and will probably
have to be sent to Europe for an operation this Winter. That will
leave M. Trotsky and his wife, herself in ill health, alone. The son
Ivan, who came with them from Russia, is now in Germany and takes
care of his father’s publications there.
Through
the garden In which strolled a Turkish secret service man, a revolver
on his hip, M. Trotsky’s Austrian secretary conducted the
correspondent down steep steps to a little wharf and into the same
rowboat in which the exile takes his long fishing hours of rest from
writing.
Looking
back as the boat pulled away, it was hard to realize that such a,
quiet crumbling house in such a peaceful garden overlooking a sea of
such tranquillity held the man who has played so fiery a
part
in world history.]