Leon Trotsky: Interview by the Associated Press

Observations, Political and Personal

February 26, 1932

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 52-56]

I have neither the text of the decree of which you speak nor official confirmation that such a decision has been made, but supposing the information is correct, which I believe highly probable, I can give the following explanation:

The list of names in the decree is wholly artificial. It is the famous "amalgam" system. They have combined a list of opponents and enemies of the Soviet regime, expelled from Soviet Russia since 1921, as a specific entourage around my name. Stalin's need for resorting to such methods is due to the fact that his personal situation is thoroughly shaken and compromised.

Indisputable economic successes have been made along the lines advocated by the Opposition, while difficulties have resulted from Stalin's purely bureaucratic method. The working classes of Russia are clearly aware of this. After declaring us dead four years ago, Stalin found himself forced some months ago to launch a desperate international campaign against "Trotskyism" and me personally. The present decree is merely the crown of this campaign, which indicates the strength of our tendency in the Soviets.

We have come again to Prinkipo where, with my family, I spent the first two years of my exile until fire destroyed our dwelling and everything it contained, including my library. Here we are even more isolated from the outside world than at Moda. At present during stormy days in February the post does not arrive for a day or two days at a time. All houses are tightly closed. You can see there are ideal conditions here for abstaining from politics. However, the world press does not allow me a political holiday. Not long ago news appeared in the papers of several countries that I was planning to leave for Germany to take upon myself the defense of the Brüning government. The Spanish press, basing its opinions partly on the theory of permanent revolution, which I uphold, and partly on police communications, accuses me of organizing recent movements against Civil Guards there.

At the same time at Moscow the Stalin faction decided during its last conference that I was directing "the vanguard of bourgeois counterrevolution." Again it must be remembered that a few months ago there appeared in the world press an announcement of my plot, together with the former emir of Afghanistan, to free India.

Which of these communications is true and exact? I have to disappoint you. They are all false.

If you ask me which of them pleases me most, my choice will fall on the plot with the emir of Afghanistan. In this story there is at least the most creative fantasy. I am only sorry we aren't accorded as a third ally Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. It is true that, without officially taking part in a plot, he does all in his power for the quickest possible liberation of India from England. To have introduced him officially into the conspiracy would have been tantamount to compromising him unnecessarily.

When I was arrested in Madrid during the war the director of police thus answered my questions as to the reasons for the arrest: "Your ideas are too advanced for Spain." Thereupon I was incarcerated in a "model" prison at Madrid, which I confess did not appear especially model to me.

Since that time monarchy has given place in Spain to a republic, which even in its constitution is called a republic of labor. I do not know to what extent the police of Madrid have been renovated, but apparently they have the same conviction that my ideas are too advanced for Spain.

Nevertheless they consider this very brief formula sufficient to motivate a refusal of a visa. Thence arises this version of my long-distance direction of the recent popular movement in Spain.

How should the Stalin faction's new campaign against me be explained? There are two causes, one general, the other personal.

In spite of everything that many newspapers write, the personal position of Stalin and his limited group is tottering precariously. The economic and cultural successes of the Soviet Union have considerably aroused the self-confidence of the working class and, at the same time, its criticism of the bureaucratic regime which Stalin personifies.

There is nothing anti-Soviet in this movement; on the contrary, it is entirely impregnated with the traditions of October and the Bolshevik Party. But it is directed against the dictatorship of the Stalin faction. This is the explanation for hundreds and hundreds of articles and annotations in Soviet newspapers, which disclose everywhere "Trotskyist contraband."

That is the title which simply leads one to understand the increasing independence of the workers and their animosity against the bureaucracy.

There is a second and more personal cause for the campaign against us. It goes back to the past, but is connected with the present. Unkind tongues say there exist in America not a few estimable men who, despite their modest birth, try, as soon as their "price" begins to express itself in numbers of seven figures, to seek out their ancestors among the English aristocracy or even the Scottish dynasty.

The bureaucratic faction of Stalin cannot take this road, but the members of this faction try to prove their special rights by their roles in the fight against the czar and in the October Revolution. Thus are created apocryphal biographies and thus apocryphal history is written. During my years of exile I have edited a series of historical documents in the Russian language. I have devoted my time on this island principally to historical works. Two of the latter, My Life and the history of the revolution of February, have appeared in America, England, and other countries. The third, the revolution of October, should appear shortly. I am at present working on its last chapter.

All these books are absolutely forbidden to be imported into the Soviet Union. But many Soviet citizens, and some Communists among them, leave for abroad for economic, diplomatic, scientific, and other reasons. They read my books and carry back in their heads to the Soviet Union the so-called "Trotskyist contraband."

The veritable picture of the revolution of 1917 which I have made on the basis of positive and indisputable documents is in complete disaccord with the official legend of the Stalin bureaucracy. Stalin and his creatures have discovered with horror that Trotskyist contraband has pierced its way into historical research, historical journals, and even into school books. In November of last year Stalin gave the alarm signal to begin the recent campaign against the Trotskyists.

Not long ago a young historian named Keen was accused of irrational contraband and repented with the following words before the Society of Marxist Historians: "Our fault was that we wanted to be too objective, whereas the history of the revolution should not be objective but conformable to our goal." In other words, it should respond to the exigencies of the Stalin bureaucracy just as genealogical researches should to the exigencies of canning-factory millionaires in Chicago.

The words of the young historian I have named are not ironical — that is, not ironical for himself. He is merely expressing with too much frankness what is at the bottom of the affair: one must not write the history of the Russian Revolution too objectively or one will get Trotskyist contraband. Not one of my fervent friends could give a more favorable report of my historical work.

If living on the island of Prinkipo doesn't facilitate the direction of the movement at Seville, on the other hand one can in this tranquility ponder quietly and thoroughly the logical succession of great historic events and in that light the roles of parties and men. Two-thirds of my time is consecrated to this and the other third — one-fourth, let us say — of all my time is devoted to articles and pamphlets on current political events.

There remains a twelfth, you say? I see that you are strong in arithmetic. This little time permit me to reserve for fishing and hunting.