Leon Trotsky: “Down with Stalin” Is Not Our Slogan

Autumn 1932

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 13. Supplement (1929-1933), New York 1979, p. 168-172]

All the letters we have received recently testify that the most popular saying in party circles, particularly in Moscow, is: “Down with Stalin.” To understand the origin of this concise and limited slogan is not difficult. But it is nevertheless clearly untenable. Individually, Stalin does not exist: he does not write, speak, or even appear at the Comintern plenum. He lives as the bureaucracy’s unifying myth. Molotov and even Kaganovich could well take Stalin’s place. At one time, for certain purposes, the Austrian governor in Switzerland, Gessler, was replaced by his hat.

Is it a matter of differences on fundamentals or only over the way the slogan has been formulated? This will be more quickly determined the more we try to grasp the precise essence of the problem.

Three basic groupings live and struggle within the party: the left, the centrist, and the right. Among them and around them sub-factions and shadings are arranging themselves. Stalin’s name is the name of the apparatus faction which today still rules. Do we consider it necessary to make an organizational break with this faction? And further: Do we believe it is possible to call for its armed overthrow?

Political slogans must now be evaluated, not within the narrow confines of “inner-party discussion,” but within the broad framework of the class groupings in the country. For the Thermidorean forces the slogan “Down with Stalin” is only a personalized expression of the slogan “Down with the Bolsheviks.”

If the Left Opposition were today so strong that it could, by direct action of the proletarian vanguard, liquidate the dictatorship of the bureaucracy, the slogan “Down with Stalin” would have a fully-defined meaning: reform of the party regime under the leadership of the Bolshevik-Leninists. It was precisely in this “propagandists” sense that we wrote in the open letter to the central Executive Committee that it was time to heed Lenin’s advice and remove Stalin.

But the Opposition today cannot directly aspire to take the place of the Stalinist faction and secure the reform of the party and the Soviets. In the time ahead, diverse variants are possible. The pressure of the Thermidorean forces may, even in the near future, take on such a character that we will find ourselves in a united front with the Stalinists and even with a significant sector of the right wing of the party.

The possibility is not at all excluded that the Stalinist upper echelon, and Stalin included, will not want, or will not know how, to break with the Thermidorean forces at the necessary moment but, on the contrary, will lead them for a time in the interests of self-preservation. Under those circumstances, the slogan “Down with Stalin” would mean a call for a direct struggle against the forces of Thermidor.

The most serious consequence of the illusions and disappointments of the first five-year plan is the demoralization of the working class. All the letters refer to the mood of “pessimism” and “depression.”

“In the work of the party organization,” even Pravda writes in connection with the Stalingrad tractor factory, “there is not now that Bolshevik spark, that energy, which is a prerequisite for success.” And where would it come from?

It would be contrary to human nature for the workers, coming into the second five-year plan in the midst of serious privations, to maintain those feelings of enthusiasm which accompanied the first two years of the first five-year plan. The political moods of the proletariat, the most tempered and stable class, have their ups and downs too. But it would be fundamentally false to think that the Russian proletariat has exhausted its historic revolutionary role for a long time to come, if not forever, as happened with the bourgeoisie, or, more accurately, the petty bourgeoisie, during the bourgeois revolutions. The bourgeoisie achieved its goal. The continuation of the revolutions could only have worked against it. The proletariat has not achieved its goals. The excessive strain on its energies and its disillusionment undoubtedly introduce corruptive elements into its present condition. But it is safe to say, even from afar, that the sense of confusion is taking the heaviest toll on the consciousness of the proletariat. Over the past nine years, the proletariat has been present, more and more in the capacity of observer, as the old leadership was smashed, all power was concentrated in the hands of the apparatus, power was gradually transferred to the highest echelons of the apparatus, and all knowledge, qualities, authority, and finally absolute infallibility, became concentrated, first in the “Leninist Central Committee,” and then in Stalin alone. The consequences of Stalin’s leadership are plain for all to see. Stalin himself has politically vanished.

All those who are still speaking are for the present speaking in the name of Stalin. But they are talking only in order to say nothing. The vanguard of the proletariat is confused; it is inclined to regard any new plans and formulas with a preconceived mistrust.

Major developments, clearly posed tasks, and an immediate concrete danger would show at once how strong the forces of the Soviet proletariat are.

A major development, in fact the most important, would of course be a revolution in the West. Germany is clearly next in line. The Stalinist bureaucracy’s sabotage with respect to the German revolution is right now the most terrible of historical crimes. The course of German events drills into us imperiously the lesson that to carry out revolutionary policy in a single country is impossible. The regeneration of the CPSU is inextricably linked with the regeneration of the Comintern.

But, on the other hand, a strengthening of reaction in Germany and the associated danger of an imperialist war against the USSR may serve as a direct impetus for a new political upsurge of the Soviet proletariat. Finally, the actual results of the first five-year plan could have the same effect when the hour of a decisive reckoning comes.

In order to tap their own sources of potential energy, the workers must analyze, understand, and verify what has taken place, understand the causes, and dear a path to the future.

It is precisely here that the historical function of the Left Opposition opens up.

We will not at this time try to guess which possible variant is more likely or more imminent. On the basis of guesses alone, however well-grounded they may be in and of themselves, it is impossible to construct a policy. It is necessary to keep different tactical variants in mind.

It is true that the slogan “Down with Stalin” is very popular right now not only inside the party but also far beyond its perimeters. In this one can see the advantage of the slogan but at the same time, undoubtedly, also its danger. To assume a protective coloring and politically dissolve into the general dissatisfaction with the Stalinist regime is something we cannot, we will not, and we must not do.

How quickly the impending events will unfold, we, from here — from afar — will not try to predict. And what is more, it is hardly possible even at close range to make such predictions. In general, they are made extremely difficult, if not excluded, by the very nature of the crisis, which politically is more and more taking the form of an open conflict between the bureaucracy and the class which produced it.

The slogan “Down with Stalin” that has been advanced, allegedly by a new opposition, we believe to be incorrect because it is ambiguous. On the one hand, it can be interpreted in the spirit of the French saying: “Get up so that I can sit in your place.” On the other hand, it can be interpreted as a call to smash the Stalinist faction, expel its members from the party, etc. Neither of these is our goal. We need a change of the party regime as a prerequisite for fundamental reform of the workers’ state. Least of all are we forswearing collaboration with the Stalinist grouping. We have no doubt that the right wing will produce from its midst not a few elements who will find their place and make their stand on our side of the barricades. Due to the character of the regime, the present groupings — as regards their cadre — are embryonic, rough-hewn, and moreover, very limited. Real political differentiation in all respects is still a thing of the future.

The Left Opposition will not tie its own hands by reminiscences of yesterday and by old deportment records. While forgetting nothing, it opens the way to the future.

In essence, the entire program was outlined concretely enough during the last two years in the works of the Left Opposition, especially in the remarkable article by C.G. Rakovsky. He warned against haste and demanded that the time period of the plans be increased. The result is well known: at any rate, Rakovsky’s term of exile was increased — by three more years.

There is a great deal of dissatisfaction and criticism in the party. The number of opposition groupings and tendencies is continuously growing, and the old political groupings, which it seemed had been totally liquidated or had totally liquidated themselves, are coming to life. Such always happens in the first stages of political crisis. These manifestations of the chaotic state of the opposition will inevitably grow for a certain period of time. The Left Opposition can even find itself, for a certain time, pushed back into a secondary position. There is no reason to be frightened by this. Political correctness paves a way for itself more quickly during an epoch of crisis than at any other time.

The necessary condition for this is the organized emergence of the Left Opposition itself. It must make its voice heard.