Leon
Trotsky: On Students and Intellectuals
November
1932
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 331-334]
And
so Trotsky arrived. Anyone expecting to be faced with an old, brutal,
fearful figure would be disappointed. Quite the opposite. There was
something friendly, highly cultivated, pleasant, and likable about
him. After greeting each of his visitors, he sat down in the empty
armchair and waited for our questions.
Where
does the revolutionary outlook of students come from — when in
fact they are revolutionary?
At
the addition of this last qualification, a very revealing and
mischievous smile came over the familiar features of his face.
"There
you put your finger on it!"
Do
they owe this to their social and economic position, or do we have to
turn to psychology, perhaps even to psychoanalysis, to explain it?
Once
again a mischievous smile. "First and foremost, you have to
understand that students do not constitute a distinct and unified
group in society. They fall into various groups, and their political
attitude closely corresponds to the one prevailing in these various
groups in society. Some students are radical-oriented; but of these,
only a very tiny number can be won over to the revolutionary party.
"The
fact is that very often radicalism is a sickness of youth among what
are actually petty-bourgeois students. There is a French saying:
'Avant
trente ans révolutionnaire, après canaille'
— Under thirty a revolutionist, thereafter a scoundrel. This
expression is not heard only in France. It was also known and used in
connection with the Russian students in the prewar period. Between
1907 and 1917 I was living in exile, and I traveled around a lot,
giving speeches to the various colonies of Russian students abroad.
All these students were revolutionary in those days. During the
October Revolution in 1917, 99 percent of them fought on the other
side of the barricades.
"You
find this radicalism among youth in every country. The young person
always feels dissatisfied with the society he lives in — he always
thinks he can do things better than his elders did. So the youth
always feel they are progressive — but what they understand by
progress varies quite a bit. In France, for example, there is both a
radical and a royalist
opposition.
Naturally this radicalism includes a certain number of healthy
oppositionist forces, but for the most part it amounts to what can
only be called careerism.
"Here
we have the real psychological motor force. The young feel shut out;
the old take up all the space, and the young can't find any outlet
for their abilities. They are dissatisfied quite simply because they
themselves are not sitting in the driver's seat. But as soon as they
are
sitting there, it's all over with their radicalism.
"It's
like this: gradually these young people move into the available
posts. They become lawyers, office heads, teachers. And so they come
to look upon their earlier radicalism as a sin of their youth, as a
simultaneously repulsive and charming error. As a result of this
memory of his own youth, the academician comes to lead a double life
throughout his entire life. What it is, is that he himself believes
that he still possesses a kind of revolutionary idealism, and in
reality he retains a certain liberal veneer. But this veneer is only
a coating for what he really is — a narrow-minded, petty-bourgeois
social climber, whose real interests boil down to his career."
Trotsky
shifted in his chair a bit and looked around with a kind, apologetic
smile.
Can
students be of any importance to a revolutionary movement?
"The
revolutionary student can only make a contribution if, in the first
place, he goes through a rigorous and consistent process of
revolutionary self-education, and, in the second place, if he joins
the revolutionary workers' movement while he is still a student. At
the same time, let me make clear that when I talk about theoretical
self-education, I mean the study of unfalsified
Marxism."
What
should be the relationship between the academician and the workers'
movement?
A
stern and determined expression comes into Trotsky's eyes.
"He
must realize that he is coming into the workers' movement as a
learner
and not as a teacher.
He must learn to subordinate himself and do the work that is demanded
of him, and not what he wants to do. The workers' movement for its
part must regard him with the greatest skepticism. A young
academician must first 'toe the line' for three, four, or five years,
and do quite simple and ordinary party work. Then, when the workers
have confidence in him and are completely certain that he is not a
careerist, then he can be allowed to move up — but slowly,
very slowly. When he has worked with the workers' movement in this
way, then the fact that he was an academician is forgotten, the
social differences disappear."
What,
then, is the role of the intellectual in the revolutionary movement?
"His
role is to draw general conclusions on the basis of concrete facts.
If this process of drawing generalizations out of current conflicting
material is not constantly going on, the movement becomes banalized."
Earlier
you said that by a theoretical self-education you meant the study of
unfalsified Marxism. What do you mean by unfalsified Marxism?
"Criticism
of Marxism is not so dangerous. Falsification is a different matter.
What I mean by it is theories that go by the name of Marxism, but
that have actually abandoned the essence of Marx's teachings. The
revisionist Bernstein, for example, made the movement itself the main
thing in his theory and pushed the ultimate goal into the background.
What resulted from this 'Marxism'? In England, a MacDonald — or a
Lord Snowden. You can find other examples yourselves. Such
falsification only uses the name of Marxism in order to deceive the
workers."
Well,
but, as Lis Tørsleff wrote, the world hasn't stood still since
Marx's time, has it?
"Of
course not. I'm no fetishist — Marxism did not come to a halt when
Marx died. Marx could also be wrong — mainly in his predictions of
when events would occur, and then he erred only in his assessment of
the timing. Lenin integrated newly emerged historical factors into
Marxism and thus adapted it to our time."
Trotsky
then took up the question of democracy and dictatorship: "We
Communists do not deny — as, for example, the anarchists do —
the importance of democracy. But we recognize its importance only up
to a very definite point That point is reached as soon as the class
contradictions become so great that the tension causes a short
circuit to occur. At that point, democracy can no longer function,
and the only alternatives are either a proletarian or a bourgeois
dictatorship. Look at the evolution of the Social Democratic republic
in Germany from 1918 to the present. In the early days, the Social
Democrats had power, but now it is reactionary generals who are
sitting at the wheel.
"Democracy
can no longer even play its own game because of the class
contradictions. Look, for example, at how the democratic right to
asylum — the right of an exiled person to residency — is
observed these days."
With
the mention of the right to asylum, you could see that Trotsky was
again coming back to Dalgas Boulevard. With a broad smile, he
continued:
"I
am not a stubborn Marxist. You can still get me to believe in
democracy. But first you'll have to comply with two wishes: first
bring about socialism in Germany through democratic means, and second
get me a residence permit in Denmark."