Leon Trotsky: On Workers' Self-Defense

October 25, 1939

[Writings of Leon Trotsky, Vol 12, 1939-1940, New York ²1973, p. 99-105]

Every state is a coercive organization of the ruling class. The social regime remains stable so long as tie ruling class is capable, by means of the state, of imposing its will on the exploited classes. The police and the army are the most important instruments of the state. The capitalists refrain (though not fully, by far) from maintaining their own private armies, declining in favor of the state, so as thus to hinder the working class from ever creating its own armed force.

While the capitalist system is on the rise, the state monopoly of the armed forces is perceived as something natural, even by the oppressed classes.

Before the last world war, the international Social Democracy, even in its best periods, did not even raise the question of arming the workers. What's more, they rejected such an idea as a romantic echo of the remote past.

It was only in czarist Russia that the young proletariat in the first years of this century began to resort to arming their own fighting detachments. This revealed the instability of the old regime in the most vivid fashion. The czarist monarchy found itself less and less able to regulate social relations by means of its normal agencies, i. e., the police and the army; and it was forced more and more to resort to the aid of volunteer bands (the Black Hundreds with their pogroms against the Jews, Armenians, students, workers, and others). In response to this the workers, as well as various nationality groups, began to organize their own self-defense detachments. These facts indicated the beginning of the revolution.

In Europe the question of armed workers' detachments arose only toward the end of the war; in the United States it arose even later. In all cases, without exception, it was and is the capitalist reaction that first begins to set up special fighting organizations, which exist side by side with the police and army of the bourgeois state. This is explained by the fact that the bourgeoisie is more farsighted and ruthless than the proletariat. Under the pressure of class contradictions, it no longer relies totally on its own state, since the state's hands are still tied to a certain extent by "democratic" norms. The appearance of "volunteer" fighting organizations that have as their objective the physical suppression of the proletariat is an unmistakable symptom that the disintegration of democracy has begun, owing to the fact that it is no longer possible to regulate the class contradictions by the old methods.

The hope of the reformist parties of the Second and Third Internationals and trade unions that the organs of the democratic state would defend them from fascist gangs has always and everywhere turned out to be an illusion. During serious crises, the police invariably maintain a posture of friendly neutrality, if not outright collaboration, with respect to the counterrevolutionary gangs. However, the extreme vitality of democratic illusions results in the workers being very slow to take up organizing their own fighting detachments. The designation "self-defense" fully corresponds to their intentions, at least in the first period, because the attack invariably originates from the side of the counterrevolutionary gangs. Monopoly capital, which is backing them up, launches a preventive war against the proletariat, in order to render it incapable of making a socialist revolution.

The process by which workers' self-defense detachments come into being is inseparably linked with the entire course of the class struggle in a country; and, therefore, reflects its inevitable aggravations and moderations, its ebbs and flows. Revolution comes upon a society not by a steady unbroken process, but through a series of convulsions, separated by distinct, sometimes protracted intervals, during which the political relations are so modified that the very idea of revolution seems to lose any connection with reality.

In accordance with this, the slogan of self-defense units at one time will meet a sympathetic response, and at another will sound like a voice calling in the wilderness, and then again, after a while, will acquire new popularity.

This contradictory process can be observed especially clearly in France over the course of recent years. As a result of a creeping economic crisis, reaction openly went over to the offensive in February 1934. Fascist organizations experienced rapid growth. On the other hand, the idea of self-defense acquired popularity in the ranks of the working class. Even the reformist Socialist Party in Paris was compelled to create something akin to a self-defense apparatus.

The "People's Front" policy, i. e., the complete prostration of the workers' organizations before the bourgeoisie, postponed the danger of revolution to the indefinite future and allowed the bourgeoisie to take the fascist coup off the agenda. Moreover, having been freed from immediate internal dangers and finding themselves face to face with an intensifying threat from abroad, the French bourgeoisie began immediately to exploit, for imperialist aims, the fact that democracy had been "saved."

The impending war was again proclaimed to be a war to preserve democracy. The politics of the official workers' organizations took on an openly imperialist character. The section of the Fourth International, having taken a serious step forward in 1934, felt isolated in the period that followed. The call for workers' self-defense hung in mid-air. Who in fact were they to defend themselves from? After all, "democracy" had triumphed all along the line… The French bourgeoisie had entered this war under the banner of "democracy" and with the support of all the official workers' organizations, which permitted the "Radical Socialist" Daladier to immediately set up a "democratic" likeness of a totalitarian regime.

The question of self-defense organizations will be revived in the ranks of the French proletariat with the growth of revolutionary resistance against the war and imperialism. The subsequent political development of France, and of other countries as well, at the present time is inseparably linked with the war. The growth of mass discontent will at first give rise to the most savage reaction from above. Militarized fascism will come to the aid of the bourgeoisie and its state power. The issue of organization for self-defense will confront the working class as a life-and-death matter. This time, one must assume there will turn out to be a sufficient supply of rifles, machine- guns, and cannons in the hands of the working class.

Similar phenomena, although in less vivid form, were revealed in the political life of the United States. After the successes of the Roosevelt era, betraying all expectations, gave way in the autumn of 1937 to a headlong decline, reaction began to come forward in an open and militant manner. The provincial mayor Hague immediately became a "national" figure. The pogrom-minded sermons of Father Coughlin were echoed widely. The Democratic administration and its police retreated in the face of monopoly capital's gangs. In this period the idea of military detachments for the defense of the workers' organizations and press began to get a response among the most conscious workers and the most threatened stratum of the petty bourgeoisie, particularly among the Jews.

The new economic revival, which began in July 1939, obviously connected with armaments expansion and the imperialist war, revived the faith of the Sixty Families in their "democracy." To this was added on the other hand the danger of the United States being drawn into the war. This was no time to rock the boat! All the sections of the bourgeoisie closed ranks behind a policy of caution and preservation of "democracy." Roosevelt's position in Congress is becoming stronger. Hague and Father Coughlin have retired far into the background. Simultaneously the Dies Committee, which neither the right nor the left took seriously in 1937, has acquired in recent months considerable authority. The bourgeoisie is again "against fascism as well as communism"; it wants to show that it can cope with all types of "extremism" by parliamentary means.

Under these conditions, the slogan of workers' self-defense cannot help but lose its power of attraction. After an encouraging beginning His as though the organizing of workers' self defense has wound up at a dead end.

In some places it is difficult to draw the workers' attention to the matter. In others, where large numbers of workers have joined self-defense groups, the leaders don't know how to make use of the workers' energy. Interest wanes. There is nothing unexpected or puzzling about all this. The entire history of workers' self-defense organizations is one of constantly alternating periods of rise and decline. Both reflect spasms of the social crisis.

The tasks of the proletarian party in the area of workers' self-defense flow from the general conditions of our epoch as well as from its particular fluctuations. It is immeasurably easier to draw relatively broad sections of the working class into fighting detachments in circumstances when reactionary gangs are making direct attacks on workers' picket lines, trade unions, press, etc. However, when the bourgeoisie considers it more prudent to abandon the irregular bands and push methods of "democratic" domination over the masses into the foreground, the workers' interest in self-defense organizations inevitably diminishes. This is what is happening right now. Does this mean, however, that we should abandon the task of arming the workers' vanguard under these conditions?

Not at all. Now, at a time when the world war has begun, more than ever before, we proceed from the inevitability and imminence of the international proletarian revolution. This fundamental idea, which distinguishes the Fourth International from all other workers' organizations, determines all our activities, including those which relate to the organization of self defense detachments. This does not mean, however, that we do not take into account the conjunctural fluctuations in the economy as well as in politics, with the temporary ebbs and flows. If one proceeds only on the basis of the overall characterization of the epoch, and nothing more, ignoring its concrete stages, one can easily lapse into schematism, sectarianism, or quixotic fantasy. With every serious turn of events we adjust our basic tasks to the changed concrete conditions of the given stage. Herein lies the art of tactics.

We will need party cadres specializing in military affairs. They must, therefore, continue their practical and theoretical work even now, in a time of "low tide." The theoretical work must consist of studying the experience of military and combat organizations of the Bolsheviks, the Irish and Polish revolutionary nationalists, the fascists, the Spanish militia, and others. We must put together a model program of studies and a library on these matters, arrange lectures, and so forth.

Staff work must at the same time be continued without interruption. We must assemble and study newspaper clippings and other information concerning every kind of counterrevolutionary organization and, at the same time, of national groupings (Jews, Negroes, and others), which in a critical moment can play a revolutionary role. This is, in fact, relevant to an extremely important part of our work, devoted to defense against the GPU.

Precisely on account of the exceptionally difficult situation into which the Comintern has fallen -and to a considerable extent the foreign GPU secret service which is supported by the Comintern — we can expect vicious blows at the Fourth International on the part of the GPU. We must be able to find them out and avert them in time!

Alongside this tightly restricted work, intended for party members only, we must create broader, open organizations for various kinds of particular objectives, one way or another connected to the future military tasks of the proletariat. This would pertain to various kinds of workers' sports organizations (for athletes, boxers, marksmen, etc.), and finally, choral and music societies. When there is a shift in the political situation, all these subsidiary organizations can serve as an immediate basis for broader detachments for workers' self-defense.

In this outline of a program for action we proceed from the view that the political conditions of the given moment, above all the weakening of the pressure of domestic fascism, leave narrow limits for work in the area of self-defense. And that is the case in so far as it is a matter of creating strictly class- based military detachments.

A decisive turn in favor of workers' self-defense will come only with a new collapse of democratic illusions, which under conditions of world war should come quickly and should assume catastrophic proportions.

But by way of compensation, the war is opening up now, at this very moment, such possibilities for the training of workers in military affairs as were impossible even to conceive of in peacetime. And this is true not only of the war but also of the period immediately preceding the war.

It is impossible to foresee all the practical possibilities beforehand; but they will undoubtedly become wider with each passing day as the country's armed forces expand. We must focus the greatest attention on this matter, creating a special commission for this purpose (or entrusting the matter to a self-defense staff and enlarging it as need be).

Most of all we must take full advantage of the interest in military problems which has been aroused by the war and organize a series of lectures on questions of contemporary arms types and tactical methods. Workers' organizations can enlist for this military specialists who have absolutely no ties to the party and its aims. But this is only the first step.

We must use the government's preparations for war in order to train in military matters the largest possible number of party members and trade unionists under its influence. While fully maintaining our fundamental aim — the creation of class- based military detachments — we must firmly link its accomplishment with the conditions created by the imperialists' preparations for war.

Without in any way wavering from our program we must speak to the masses in a language they understand. 'We Bolsheviks also want to defend democracy, but not the kind that is run by sixty uncrowned kings. First let's sweep our democracy clean of capitalist magnates, then we will defend it to the last drop of blood. Are you, who are not Bolsheviks, really ready to defend this democracy? But you must, at least, be able to the best of your ability to defend it so as not to be a blind instrument in the hands of the Sixty Families and the bourgeois officers devoted to them. The working class must learn military affairs in order to advance the largest possible number of officers from its own ranks.

"We must demand that the state, which tomorrow will ask for the workers' blood, today give the workers the opportunity to master military technique in the best possible way in order to achieve the military objectives with the minimum expenditure of human lives.

"To accomplish that, a regular army and barracks by themselves are not enough. Workers must have the opportunity to get military training at their factories, plants, and mines at specified times, while being paid by the capitalists. If the workers are destined to give their lives, the bourgeois patriots can at least make a small material sacrifice.

"The state must issue a rifle to every worker capable of bearing arms and set up rifle and artillery ranges for military training purposes in places accessible to the workers."

Our agitation in connection with the war and all our politics connected with the war must be as uncompromising in relation to the pacifists as to the imperialists.

"This war is not our war. The responsibility for it lies squarely on the capitalists. But so long as we are still not strong enough to overthrow them and must fight in the ranks of their army, we are obliged to learn to use arms as well as possible!"

Women workers must also have the right to bear arms. The largest possible number of women workers must have the opportunity, at the capitalists' expense, to receive nurse's training.

Just as every worker, exploited by the capitalists, seeks to learn as well as possible the production techniques, so every proletarian soldier in the imperialist army must learn as well as possible the art of war so as to be able, when the conditions change, to apply it in the interests of the working class.

We are not pacifists. No. We are revolutionaries. And we know what lies ahead for us.