The history of the Russian revolution can be considered the central work of Trotsky in terms of volume, power of presentation and completeness of expression of Trotsky's ideas about the revolution. As a story about the revolution of one of the main characters, this work is unique in world literature` - this is how the well-known Western historian I. Deutscher assessed this book. Nevertheless, it has never been published either in the USSR or in Russia and is only now being offered to the Russian reader. The first part of the second volume tells about the events that followed the February Revolution and preceded the October Revolution.

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The following excerpt from the book History of the Russian Revolution. Volume II, part 1 (L. D. Trotsky) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

COULD THE BOLSHEVIKS TAKE POWER IN JULY?

The demonstration, banned by the government and the Executive Committee, was of a grandiose nature; on the second day, at least 500,000 people took part in it. Sukhanov, who cannot find enough harsh words to evaluate the “blood and dirt” of the July days, writes, however: “Regardless of the political results, it was impossible to look at this amazing movement of the masses with admiration. It was impossible, considering it disastrous, not to admire its gigantic elemental scope. According to the commission of inquiry, 29 people were killed and 114 wounded, approximately equally on both sides.

That the movement had begun from below, apart from the Bolsheviks, to a certain extent against them, was recognized in the first hours by the Compromisers. But by the night of July 3, especially the next day, the official estimate is changing. The movement is declared an uprising, the Bolsheviks are its organizers. “Under the slogans ‘All power to the Soviets’,” Stankevich, who was close to Kerensky, later wrote, “there was a formal uprising of the Bolsheviks against the then majority of the soviets, made up of defense parties.” The accusation of an uprising is not only a method of political struggle: during the course of June these people had become too convinced of the strength of the influence of the Bolsheviks on the masses and now simply refused to believe that the movement of workers and soldiers could overflow the heads of the Bolsheviks. Trotsky tried to explain at a meeting of the Executive Committee: “We are accused of creating a mood in May; it's not true, we're just trying to formulate it." In the books published by the opponents after the October Revolution, in particular by Sukhanov, one can come across the assertion that the Bolsheviks, only as a result of the defeat of the July uprising, hid their true goal, hiding behind the spontaneous movement of the masses. But is it possible to hide, like a treasure, a plan for an armed uprising that draws hundreds of thousands of people into its maelstrom? Didn't the Bolsheviks before October find themselves compelled quite openly to call for an insurrection and to prepare for it in front of everyone? If no one disclosed this plan in July, it is only because it did not exist. The entry of machine gunners and Kronstadters into the Peter and Paul Fortress with the consent of its permanent garrison - this "capture" was especially pressed by the Compromisers! - was by no means an act of armed insurrection. The building located on the island - more a prison than a military position - could still, perhaps, serve as a refuge for the retreating, but did not give anything to the advancing. Rushing towards the Tauride Palace, the demonstrators indifferently passed by the most important government buildings, which would have been enough to occupy the Putilov detachment of the Red Guard. They took possession of the Peter and Paul Fortress in the same way that they took possession of the streets, bridges, and squares. An extra incentive was the proximity of the Kshesinskaya Palace, which could come to the rescue from the fortress in case of any danger.

The Bolsheviks did everything to reduce the July movement to a demonstration. But didn't it nevertheless go beyond these limits by the logic of things? This political question is more difficult to answer than a criminal charge. Assessing the July days immediately after they were over, Lenin wrote: “An anti-government demonstration—such would be the formally most accurate description of the events. But the fact of the matter is that this is not an ordinary demonstration, it is something much more than a demonstration, and less than a revolution. When the masses have internalized an idea, they want to implement it. While trusting the Bolshevik Party, the workers, and especially the soldiers, have not yet had time to develop the conviction that it is necessary to act only at the call of the Party and under its leadership. The experience of February and April taught rather differently. When Lenin said in May that the workers and peasants are a hundred times more revolutionary than our party, he was undoubtedly generalizing the experience of February and April. But the masses also generalized this experience in their own way. They said to themselves: even the Bolsheviks are pulling and holding back. The demonstrators were quite ready in the July days - if it turned out to be necessary along the way - to liquidate official power. In the event of resistance from the bourgeoisie, they were ready to use weapons. To the extent that there was an element of an armed uprising. If, nevertheless, it was not carried even to the middle, not only to the end, it was because the Compromisers confused the picture.

In the first volume of this work, we characterized in detail the paradox of the February regime. The petty-bourgeois democrats, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries received power from the hands of the revolutionary people. They did not set themselves this task. They have not gained power. Against their will, they were in power. Against the will of the masses, they sought to transfer power to the imperialist bourgeoisie. The people did not believe the liberals, but believed the Compromisers, who, however, did not believe themselves. And they were, in a way, right. Even if they ceded power completely to the bourgeoisie, the democrats would remain something. Taking power into their own hands, they had to turn into nothing. From the democrats, power would almost automatically slip into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The trouble was irreparable, for it consisted in the organic insignificance of Russian democracy.

The July demonstrators wanted to hand over power to the soviets. To do this, it was necessary that the councils agreed to take it. Meanwhile, even in the capital, where the majority of the workers and active elements of the garrison were already following the Bolsheviks, the majority in the Soviet, by virtue of the law of inertia inherent in any representation, still belonged to the petty-bourgeois parties, which considered an attempt on the power of the bourgeoisie as an attempt on themselves. The workers and soldiers clearly felt the contradiction between their moods and the policy of the Soviet, that is, between their present day and their yesterday. In revolting for the power of the soviets, they by no means carried their confidence in the compromising majority. But they didn't know how to deal with it. To overthrow it by force would be to disperse the Soviets, instead of transferring power to them. Before finding a way to renew the soviets, the workers and soldiers tried to bend them to their will by direct action.

In a proclamation from both executive committees on the occasion of the July Days, the Compromisers indignantly appealed to the workers and soldiers against the demonstrators, who allegedly "tried to impose their will on the representatives you elected by force of arms." As if demonstrators and voters were not two names for the same workers and soldiers! As if voters have no right to impose their will on the elected! And as if this will consisted of anything other than the demand to fulfill a duty: to seize power in the interests of the people. Concentrating around the Tauride Palace, the masses shouted into the ears of the Executive Committee the very phrase that the nameless worker presented to Chernov along with his callused fist: "Take power, if they give it." In response, the Compromisers called on the Cossacks. Gentlemen democrats preferred a civil war with the people to a bloodless transfer of power to their own hands. The White Guards fired first. But the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries created the political atmosphere of the civil war.

Having stumbled upon an armed rebuff from the very body to which they wanted to transfer power, the workers and soldiers lost consciousness of the goal. The political core of a mighty mass movement has been pulled out. The July campaign was reduced to a demonstration, partly carried out by means of an armed uprising. With the same right it can be said that this was a semi-rebellion in the name of a goal that did not allow other methods than demonstration.

While renouncing power, the Compromisers at the same time did not completely surrender it to the liberals: and because they were afraid of them - the petty bourgeois is afraid of the big one; and because they feared for them—a purely Cadet ministry would have been immediately overthrown by the masses. Moreover, as Milyukov rightly points out, “in the fight against unauthorized armed uprisings, the Executive Committee of the Soviet reserves the right, declared during the days of unrest on April 20-21, to dispose of the armed forces of the Petrograd garrison at its discretion.” The Compromisers, as before, continue to steal power from under their pillow. In order to give an armed rebuff to those who write on their posters the power of the soviets, the Soviet finds itself compelled in practice to concentrate power in its own hands.

The Executive Committee goes even further: it formally proclaims its sovereignty these days. “If the revolutionary democracy recognized the necessity of the transfer of all power into the hands of the Soviets,” the resolution of July 4 read, “then only the full meeting of the Executive Committees could decide this question.” Having declared the demonstration for the power of the soviets a counter-revolutionary uprising, the Executive Committee at the same time was constituted as the supreme authority and decided the fate of the government.

When, at dawn on July 5, the “loyal” troops entered the building of the Tauride Palace, their commander reported that his detachment was completely and completely subordinate to the Central Executive Committee. Not a word about the government! But the rebels also agreed to submit to the Executive Committee as an authority. When the Peter and Paul Fortress was handed over to the garrison, it turned out to be sufficient to declare their subordination to the Executive Committee. No one demanded submission to official authorities. But even the troops called in from the front placed themselves entirely at the disposal of the Executive Committee. What caused the bloodshed in this case?

If the fight had taken place at the end of the Middle Ages, both sides, killing each other, would have quoted the same sayings of the Bible. Formalist historians would later come to the conclusion that the struggle was over the interpretation of texts: medieval artisans and illiterate peasants, as you know, had a strange addiction to let themselves be killed because of the philological subtleties in the revelations of John, just as Russian schismatics brought themselves under extermination from -for a question, be baptized with two fingers or three. In fact, in the Middle Ages, no less than now, under the symbolic formulas there was a struggle of vital interests, which one must be able to reveal. One and the same gospel verse meant serfdom for some, and freedom for others.

But there are much more recent and close analogies. During the June days of 1848 in France, the same cry was heard on both sides of the barricades: "Long live the Republic!" To the petty-bourgeois idealists, therefore, the June battles appeared to be a misunderstanding caused by the blunder of some and the vehemence of others. In fact, the bourgeois wanted a republic for themselves, the workers wanted a republic for everyone. Political slogans more often serve to disguise interests than to call them by name.

Despite all the paradoxical nature of the February regime, which the Compromisers, moreover, covered with Marxist and Narodnik hieroglyphs, the real relations of classes are quite transparent. It is only necessary not to lose sight of the dual nature of the conciliatory parties. The enlightened petty bourgeois relied on the workers and peasants, but fraternized with titled landowners and sugar refiners. Entering the Soviet system, through which the demands of the lower classes rose to the official state, the Executive Committee served at the same time as a political cover for the bourgeoisie. The propertied classes "obeyed" the Executive Committee as it shifted power in their direction. The masses submitted to the Executive Committee because they hoped that it would become the organ of the rule of the workers and peasants. Opposite class tendencies intersected in the Taurida Palace, both of which were covered up in the name of the Executive Committee: one out of inconscience and gullibility, the other out of cold calculation. The struggle was no more and no less than about who should rule this country: the bourgeoisie or the proletariat?

But if the Compromisers did not want to take power, and the bourgeoisie did not have enough strength for this, perhaps in July the Bolsheviks could seize the helm? Within two critical days power in Petrograd fell completely out of the hands of government institutions. The Executive Committee for the first time felt its complete impotence. Under these conditions, it would not have been difficult for the Bolsheviks to take power into their own hands. It was possible to seize power in separate provincial points. In that case, was the Bolshevik Party right in refusing to insurrection? Could it not, having gained a foothold in the capital and some industrial regions, then extend its dominance to the whole country? This is an important question. Nothing helped the triumph of imperialism and reaction in Europe at the end of the war more than the brief months of Kerenskyism, which exhausted revolutionary Russia and inflicted immeasurable damage on its moral authority in the eyes of the warring armies and the working masses of Europe, who hopefully awaited a new word from the revolution. Having shortened the birth pangs of the proletarian revolution by four months—an enormous time! - the Bolsheviks would have received the country less exhausted, the authority of the revolution in Europe less undermined. This would not only give the Soviets enormous advantages in negotiating with Germany, but would also have a major influence on the course of war and peace in Europe. The prospect was too tempting! Nevertheless, the leadership of the party was absolutely right not to embark on the path of an armed uprising. It is not enough to take power. Gotta keep her. When in October the Bolsheviks felt that their hour had come, the most difficult time came for them after the seizure of power. It took higher voltage forces of the working class to withstand the innumerable attacks of enemies. In July, even the Petrograd workers did not yet have this readiness for selfless struggle. Having the opportunity to take power, they offered it, however. Executive Committee. The proletariat of the capital, the overwhelming majority of which already gravitated towards the Bolsheviks, had not yet severed the February umbilical cord that linked it with the Compromisers. There were still many illusions in the sense that by word and demonstration everything can be achieved; as if, by frightening the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, one could induce them to pursue a common policy with the Bolsheviks. Even the advanced part of the class did not realize clearly in what ways one could come to power. Lenin soon wrote: “The real mistake of our party in the days of July 3-4, now revealed by the events, was only that ... that the party considered it still possible to peacefully develop political transformations by changing the policy of the soviets, bound themselves by conciliation with the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie became so counter-revolutionary that there could no longer be any talk of any peaceful development.

If the proletariat was politically heterogeneous and not decisive enough, then the peasant army was all the more so. By their behavior during the days of July 3-4, the garrison created a full opportunity for the Bolsheviks to take power. But the garrison included, however, neutral units, which by the evening of July 4 had decisively swung in the direction of the patriotic parties. On July 5, the neutral regiments take the side of the Executive Committee, and the regiments leaning towards Bolshevism strive to take on the coloring of neutrality. This freed the authorities much more than the belated arrival of front-line units. If the Bolsheviks had rashly seized power on July 4, the Petrograd garrison would not only not have been able to hold it on their own, but would have prevented the workers from defending it in the event of an inevitable blow from outside.

The situation in the active army looked even less favorable. The struggle for peace and land, especially since the June offensive, made her extremely susceptible to the slogans of the Bolsheviks. But the so-called "spontaneous" Bolshevism of the soldiers was by no means identified in their minds with a particular party, with its Central Committee and leaders. Soldiers' letters of that time very clearly express this state of the army. “Remember, gentlemen ministers and all the main leaders,” writes a clumsy soldier’s hand from the front, “we don’t understand parties well, only the future and the past are not far away, the tsar exiled you to Siberia and put you in prison, and we will put you on bayonets.” The extreme degree of bitterness against the leaders who are deceiving is combined in these lines with the recognition of their impotence: "we do not understand the parties well." The army continuously rebelled against the war and officers, using slogans from the Bolshevik dictionary for this. But the army was far from being ready to raise an uprising in order to transfer power to the Bolshevik Party. The government singled out reliable units for the suppression of Petrograd from the troops closest to the capital, without active resistance from other units, and transported them in echelons - without opposition from the railways. The discontented, rebellious, flammable army remained politically formless; in its composition there were too few solid Bolshevik cores capable of giving a uniform direction to the thoughts and actions of the loose soldier mass.

On the other hand, the Compromisers, in order to oppose the front to Petrograd and the peasant rear, not without success made use of the poisoned weapon which the reaction in March tried in vain to use against the Soviets. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks told the soldiers at the front: the Petrograd garrison, under the influence of the Bolsheviks, will not give you a change; the workers do not want to work for the needs of the front; if the peasants listen to the Bolsheviks and seize the land now, then there will be nothing left for the front-line soldiers. The soldiers still needed additional experience in order to understand for whom the government was protecting the land: for front-line soldiers or for landlords.

The provinces stood between Petrograd and the active army. Her response to the July events itself can serve as a very important criterion a posteriori (Latin - based on experience. - Ed.) to decide whether the Bolsheviks did the right thing in July by avoiding a direct struggle for power. Already in Moscow the revolution pulsed incomparably weaker than in Petrograd. At a meeting of the Moscow Committee of the Bolsheviks, there was a stormy debate: individuals belonging to the extreme left wing of the party, such as Bubnov, offered to occupy the post office, telegraph, telephone exchange, the editorial office of the Russian Word, that is, take the path of insurrection. The committee, very moderate in its general spirit, resolutely resisted these proposals, believing that the Moscow masses were not at all ready for such actions. Despite the Council's ban, it was decided to stage a demonstration. Significant crowds of workers were drawn to Skobelevskaya Square with the same slogans as in Petrograd, but not with the same enthusiasm. The garrison did not respond at all unanimously, separate units joined, only one of them was fully armed. The artillery soldier Davydovsky, who was to take a serious part in the October battles, testifies in his memoirs that Moscow turned out to be unprepared for the July days and that the leaders of the demonstration had "some kind of bad aftertaste" from the failure.

In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the textile capital, where the Soviet was already under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, the news of the events in Petrograd penetrated along with the rumor that the Provisional Government had fallen. At a night meeting of the Executive Committee, it was decided, as a preparatory measure, to establish control over the telephone and telegraph. On July 6, work was suspended in the factories; the demonstration was attended by up to 40 thousand people, many armed. When it turned out that the Petrograd demonstration did not lead to victory, the Ivanovo-Voznesensky Soviet hastily retreated.

In Riga, under the influence of information about the Petrograd events, on the night of July 6, a clash between Bolshevik-minded Latvian riflemen and a "death battalion" occurred, and the patriotic battalion was forced to retreat. On the same night the Riga Soviet adopted a resolution in favor of the power of the soviets. Two days later, the same resolution was passed in the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg. The fact that the slogan of Soviet power, put forward in the first months only in the name of the party, became henceforth the program of individual local soviets, undoubtedly signified a major step forward. But from the resolution for the power of the soviets to the uprising under the banner of the Bolsheviks, there was still a long way to go.

In some parts of the country, the Petrograd events served as an impetus that defuse acute conflicts of a private nature. In Nizhny Novgorod, where the evacuated soldiers for a long time resisted being sent to the front, the junkers sent from Moscow aroused the indignation of two local regiments with their violence. As a result of the skirmish, with dead and wounded, the junkers surrendered and were disarmed. The authorities are gone. A punitive expedition of three types of troops set off from Moscow. It was headed by the commander of the troops of the Moscow district, the impulsive Colonel Verkhovsky, the future Minister of War of Kerensky, and the chairman of the Moscow Soviet, the old Menshevik Khinchuk, a man of a low militant nature, the future head of the cooperatives, and then the Soviet ambassador in Berlin. However, there was already no one to pacify them, since the committee elected by the rebellious soldiers managed to completely restore order in the meantime.

In the same approximately night hours and on the same basis of refusal to go to the front, soldiers of the regiment named after Hetman Polubotko rebelled in Kyiv, in the amount of 5 thousand people, seized the weapons depot, occupied the fortress, the headquarters of the district, arrested the commandant and the chief of police. The panic in the city lasted for several hours, until the combined efforts of the military authorities, the committee public organizations and bodies of the Ukrainian Central Rada, the arrested were released, and most of the rebels were disarmed.

In distant Krasnoyarsk, thanks to the mood of the garrison, the Bolsheviks felt so strong that, despite the wave of reaction that had already begun in the country, they staged a demonstration on July 9, in which 8-10 thousand people took part, most of them soldiers. Against Krasnoyarsk, a detachment of 400 people with artillery was moved from Irkutsk, under the leadership of the district military commissar, the Social Revolutionary Krakovetsky. Within two days of conferences and negotiations, inevitable for the regime of dual power, the punitive detachment was so corrupted by the soldiers' agitation that the commissar hastened to return it to Irkutsk. But Krasnoyarsk was rather an exception.

In most provincial and district towns the situation was incomparably less favorable. In Samara, for example, the local Bolshevik organization, with news of the fighting in the capital, "waited for a signal, although there was almost no one to count on." One of the local members of the party says: “The workers began to sympathize with the Bolsheviks, but it was impossible to hope that they would rush into battle; soldiers had even less to rely on; as for the organization of the Bolsheviks, the forces were very weak - there were a handful of us; there were a few Bolsheviks in the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, but it seems that there weren't any at all in the Soldiers' Soviet, and it consisted almost exclusively of officers. The main reason for the country's weak and unfriendly response was that the provinces, which accepted the February Revolution from the hands of Petrograd without a fight, digested new facts and ideas much more slowly than the capital. An additional term was needed so that the vanguard had time to politically draw up heavy reserves.

The state of consciousness of the masses, as the decisive instance of revolutionary politics, thus ruled out the possibility of the Bolsheviks seizing power in July. At the same time, the offensive at the front spurred the party to counteract the demonstrations. The collapse of the offensive was absolutely inevitable. In fact, it has already begun. But the country did not know about it yet. The danger was that, if the party were not careful, the government might hold the Bolsheviks responsible for the consequences of their own folly. It was necessary to give the offensive time to exhaust itself. The Bolsheviks had no doubt that the change in the masses would be very abrupt. Then you will see what to do. The calculation was absolutely correct. However, the events have their own logic, which does not take into account political calculations, and this time it brutally fell on the heads of the Bolsheviks.

The failure of the offensive on the front took on the character of a catastrophe on July 6, when German troops broke through the Russian front for 12 versts in width and 10 in depth. In the capital, the breakthrough became known on July 7, in the midst of pacifying and punitive actions. Many months later, when the passions were to subside or at least take on a more meaningful character, Stankevich, not the most vicious of the opponents of Bolshevism, was still writing about the “mysterious sequence of events”, in the form of a breakthrough at Tarnopol following the July days in Petrograd . These people did not see or did not want to see the real sequence of events, which consisted in the fact that the hopeless offensive launched under the stick of the Entente could not but lead to a military catastrophe and could not at the same time not cause an outburst of indignation of the masses deceived by the revolution. But does it really matter what happened in reality? It was too tempting to connect the Petrograd action with the failure at the front. Not only did the patriotic press not hide the defeat, on the contrary, they exaggerated it with all their might, not stopping at disclosing military secrets: divisions and regiments were named, their location was indicated. “Starting from July 8,” Miliukov admits, “the newspapers began to publish deliberately frank telegrams from the front, which struck the Russian public like a thunderbolt.” This was the goal: to shock, frighten, stun, in order to more easily connect the Bolsheviks with the Germans.

The provocation undoubtedly played a certain role in the events at the front, as well as in the streets of Petrograd. After the February coup, the government threw into the army a large number of former gendarmes and policemen. None of them, of course, wanted to fight. They feared Russian soldiers more than the Germans. In order to make them forget their past, they imitated the most extreme moods of the army, incited the soldiers against the officers, spoke out loudly against discipline and the offensive, and often directly passed themselves off as Bolsheviks. Maintaining a natural connection of accomplices with each other, they created a kind of order of cowardice and meanness. Through them, the most fantastic rumors were penetrated into the troops and quickly spread, in which ultra-revolutionaryism was combined with the Black Hundreds. During critical hours, these subjects were the first to give the signal for panic. The press has more than once pointed out the corrupting work of the police and gendarmes. References of this kind are no less frequent in the secret documents of the army itself. But the high command remained silent, preferring to identify the Black Hundred provocateurs with the Bolsheviks. Now, after the collapse of the offensive, this method was legalized, and the Menshevik newspaper tried to keep up with the dirtiest chauvinist leaflets. With cries about "anarcho-bolsheviks", German agents and former gendarmes, the patriots, not without success, drowned out for a while the question of the general state of the army and the policy of peace. “Our deep breakthrough on the Lenin front,” Prince Lvov openly boasted, “is, in my deep conviction, incomparably more important for Russia than the breakthrough of the Germans on the southwestern front ...” The venerable head of government resembled Chamberlain Rodzianko in the sense that did not distinguish where to be silent.

If on July 3-4 the masses had been kept from demonstrating, the uprising would inevitably have erupted as a result of the Tarnopol breakthrough. A delay of only a few days would, however, introduce important changes in the political situation. The movement would immediately take on a wider scope, capturing not only the provinces, but to a large extent the front as well. The government would be politically naked, and it would be immeasurably more difficult for it to place the blame on the "traitors" in the rear. The position of the Bolshevik Party would have been more advantageous in every respect. However, even in this case it could not yet be a matter of direct conquest of power. Only one thing can be said with certainty: if the movement had broken out a week later, the reaction would not have been able to unfold so victoriously in July. It was the "mysterious sequence" of the timing of the demonstration and the breakthrough that went entirely against the Bolsheviks. A wave of indignation and despair, rolling from the front, collided with a wave of broken hopes, coming from Petrograd. The lesson learned by the masses in the capital was too severe for any immediate resumption of the struggle to be considered. Meanwhile, the acute feeling caused by a senseless defeat was looking for an outlet. And the patriots, to a certain extent, managed to direct him against the Bolsheviks.

In April, in June and in July the main active figures were the same: the liberals, the Compromisers, the Bolsheviks. The masses sought at all these stages to push the bourgeoisie away from power. But the difference in the political consequences of the intervention of the masses in events was enormous. As a result of the "April Days" the bourgeoisie suffered: the annexationist policy was condemned, at least in words, the Kadet Party was humiliated, its portfolio of foreign affairs was taken away from it. In June, the movement ended in a draw: the Bolsheviks were only swung at, but not struck. In July, the Bolshevik Party was accused of treason, defeated, deprived of fire and water. If in April Milyukov flew out of the government, in July Lenin went underground.

What determined such a sharp change over the course of ten weeks? It is quite obvious that there has been a serious shift in the ruling circles towards the liberal bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, it was precisely during this period, April - July, that the mood of the masses changed sharply in the direction of the Bolsheviks. These two opposite processes developed in close dependence on one another. The more the workers and soldiers rallied around the Bolsheviks, the more resolutely the Compromisers had to support the bourgeoisie. In April, the leaders of the Executive Committee, in their concern for their influence, could still take a step towards the masses and throw Milyukov overboard, though equipped with a solid life belt. In July, the Compromisers, together with the bourgeoisie and officers, smashed the Bolsheviks. The change in the correlation of forces was consequently brought about this time also by the turn of the least stable of the political forces, the petty-bourgeois democracy, by its sharp shift towards bourgeois counter-revolution.

But if so, did the Bolsheviks do the right thing by joining the demonstration and taking responsibility for it? On July 3, Tomsky commented on Lenin's thought: "It is impossible to talk now about a speech without a desire for a new revolution." How, then, did the party, within a few hours, lead an armed demonstration without calling for a new revolution? The doctrinaire will see this as inconsistency or, even worse, political frivolity. This is how Sukhanov, for example, looked at the matter, in whose Notes many ironic lines are devoted to the hesitations of the Bolshevik leadership. But the masses intervene in events not on doctrinaire orders, but when it follows from their own political development. The Bolshevik leadership understood that only a new revolution could change the political situation. However, the workers and soldiers did not yet understand this. The Bolshevik leadership clearly saw that the heavy reserves should be given time to draw their own conclusions from the adventurous offensive. But the advanced layers rushed to the streets precisely under the influence of this adventure. The deepest radicalism of tasks was combined in them with illusions about methods. Bolshevik warnings did not work. The Petrograd workers and soldiers could check the situation only from their own experience. The armed demonstration became such a test. But, despite the will of the masses, the test could turn into a general battle and thus into a decisive defeat. In such a situation, the party did not dare to stand aside. To wash one's hands in the water of strategic moralizing would simply mean handing over the workers and soldiers to their enemies. The party of the masses had to stand on the ground that the masses had taken, in order, without sharing their illusions in the least, to help them assimilate the necessary conclusions with the least possible loss. Trotsky replied in the press to innumerable critics of those days: “We do not consider it necessary to justify ourselves to anyone that we did not step back expectantly, leaving General Polovtsev to “talk” with the demonstrators. In any case, our intervention from any side could neither increase the number of victims, nor turn a chaotic armed manifestation into a political uprising.

We meet the prototype of the "July days" in all the old revolutions, with different, general rule, an unfavorable, often catastrophic outcome. This kind of stage is embedded in the internal mechanics of the bourgeois revolution, since the class that sacrifices itself the most for its success and places the most hope in it receives the least from it. The pattern of the process is quite clear. The propertied class, brought to power by a revolution, is inclined to believe that the revolution has thereby exhausted its mission, and is most concerned with proving its trustworthiness to the forces of reaction. The "revolutionary" bourgeoisie arouses the indignation of the masses of the people by the very measures by which it rushes to win the favor of the classes it has overthrown. The disillusionment of the masses sets in very soon, before their vanguard has time to cool off from the revolutionary battles. It seems to the people that they can, with a new blow, complete or correct what they have done before not decisively enough. Hence the impulse for a new revolution, without preparation, without a program, without looking back at reserves, without thinking about the consequences. On the other hand, the stratum of the bourgeoisie that has come to power, as it were, is only waiting for a stormy impulse from below in order to try to finally crack down on the people. Such is the social and psychological basis of that additional semi-revolution, which more than once in history has become the point of departure for a victorious counter-revolution.

On July 17, 1791, Lafayette shot a peaceful demonstration of Republicans on the Champ de Mars, who tried to petition the National Assembly, which covered up the treachery of royal power, just as the Russian Compromisers 126 years later covered up the treachery of the liberals. The royalist bourgeoisie hoped, with the help of a well-timed bloodbath, to defeat the party of revolution forever. The Republicans, who did not yet feel strong enough to win, avoided the fight, which was quite prudent. They even hastened to dissociate themselves from the petitioners, which in any case was unworthy and erroneous. The regime of bourgeois terror forced the Jacobins to quiet down for several months. Robespierre took refuge with the carpenter Dupleix, Desmoulins was in hiding, Danton spent several weeks in England. But the royalist provocation still failed: the massacre on the Champ de Mars did not prevent the republican movement from coming to victory. The Great French Revolution thus had its "July days" both in the political and in the calendar sense of the word.

Fifty-seven years later, the "July Days" fell in France in June and took on an immeasurably grander and more tragic character. The so-called "June Days" of 1848 grew with irresistible force out of the February upheaval. The French bourgeoisie proclaimed in the hours of its victory the "right to work," as it had proclaimed since 1789, many magnificent things, as it swore in 1914 that it was waging its last war. From the magnificent right to work arose miserable national workshops, where 100,000 workers who had won power for their masters received 23 sous a day. A few weeks later, the republican bourgeoisie, generous in phrases, but stingy in money, could not find enough insulting words for the "parasites" who were sitting on a starvation national ration. The redundancy of the February promises and the consciousness of the pre-June provocations reveal the national traits of the French bourgeoisie. But even without this, the Parisian workers, with a February gun in their hands, could not but react to the contradiction between the magnificent program and the pitiful reality, to this unbearable contrast, which every day hit them in the stomach and conscience. With what calm and almost undisguised calculation, in front of the eyes of the entire ruling society, Cavaignac allowed the uprising to grow in order to deal with it the more decisively. Not less than twelve thousand workers were killed by the republican bourgeoisie, not less than 20 thousand were arrested in order to wean the rest from faith in the “right to work” proclaimed by it. Without a plan, without a program, without leadership, the June days of 1848 are like a powerful and inevitable reflex of the proletariat, injured in its most elementary needs and offended in its highest hopes. The rebellious workers were not only crushed, but also slandered. The left-wing democrat Flaucon, a follower of Ledru-Rollin, the forerunner of Tsereteli, assured the National Assembly that the rebels had been bribed by monarchists and foreign governments. The Compromisers of 1848 did not even need the atmosphere of war in order to open English and Russian gold. Thus the democrats paved the way for Bonapartism.

End of introductory segment.

"He ignited the masses"

How Leon Trotsky ensured the victory of the Bolsheviks in 1917

Image: Victor Denis

Life in New York and concentration camp in Canada

Lenta.ru: When the February Revolution began, Trotsky was in the United States. What did he do there and how did he live?

Gusev: By the beginning of World War I, Trotsky had been living in exile for several years. He was forced to leave Vienna, after which he moved first to Switzerland, and then to France. In 1916, the French authorities, dissatisfied with Trotsky's anti-war activities, expelled him from the country to Spain, from where he was expelled again in December 1917 - this time to the United States. In New York, Trotsky continued to engage in political activities, and made a living by journalism and public lectures on the Russian revolution and the international situation. The American historian Theodor Draper wrote that Ludwig Loore, deputy editor of the local left-wing German-language newspaper New-Yorker Volkszeitung, helped Trotsky at that time. A vast German diaspora lived in the United States, so the newspaper was influential and widely circulated.

Could you live in New York with this money?

Trotsky at the editorial office was paid about $15 a month. For each lecture (also through the newspaper), Trotsky received 10 dollars, for almost three months of his stay in the United States, according to Draper, he gave 35 such lectures. This income allowed him to make ends meet - his family rented a small apartment in the Bronx, on the working outskirts of New York, for $18 a month.

The American historian Anthony Sutton, in his book Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, claims that after the February Revolution, Trotsky was given a passport to return to his homeland on the personal instructions of the US President.

Sutton is not a historian, he is an economist by training and the author of many eccentric conspiracy publications. Sutton does write that Trotsky was an agent for Wall Street bankers and the British government, but such claims should not be taken seriously. For example, Sutton's claim that President Wilson issued Trotsky with an American passport to enter Russia is pure myth. In fact, Trotsky received the necessary documents from the Russian diplomatic mission. Other conspiracy theorists claim that Trotsky spied for the Germans, who allegedly gave him ten thousand dollars before he left the US for Russia. But these are all artificial hypotheses, not supported by documentary evidence.

Why, then, in Canada, in Halifax, Trotsky was removed from the steamer en route to Russia and sent to a concentration camp for German prisoners of war? Explaining this move, the British embassy in Petrograd explicitly declared Trotsky an agent of Germany.

From the point of view of the British authorities, Trotsky was a hostile and dangerous element. They feared that upon returning home, he would begin to destabilize the situation in Russia and agitate for her withdrawal from the war. Trotsky spent about a month in the concentration camp until he was released at the request of the Provisional Government.

What do you think, if Milyukov (Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first composition of the Provisional Government - approx. "Tapes.ru") would not have turned to the British with a request to release Trotsky, would he have remained in a Canadian concentration camp?

Milyukov did not like the prospect of Trotsky returning to Russia. At first, he really demanded to release Trotsky, but then changed his mind and asked the British to leave him in a concentration camp until better times, but under strong pressure from the Petrograd Soviet, he again asked to release Trotsky. What would have happened if Trotsky had stayed in Halifax? I think his fate would have turned out differently, and he would hardly have played a key role in the subsequent events of 1917.

Towards Lenin

Why, after returning to Russia, did Trotsky join the Bolsheviks, and not the Mensheviks or Mezhrayontsy?

He just headed the Mezhrayontsy - a group of Social Democrats who sought to overcome the split of the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Although in their main positions the Mezhrayontsy were closer to the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky himself contributed a lot to this rapprochement when he got acquainted with Lenin's April Theses.

But why didn't he immediately come to Lenin?

As Trotsky himself explained, for this he led the Mezhrayontsy in order to bring them in full force into the Bolshevik Party. Formally, this happened at the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) in July 1917, but in fact Trotsky joined Lenin even earlier, immediately after his arrival in Russia.

Why did Trotsky in 1917 so unequivocally take the side of Lenin?

It was a counter movement. Initially, they had different views on the revolutionary process in Russia. After the split of the RSDLP in 1903, Trotsky first joined the Mensheviks, then moved away from them and took a non-factional position, and during the events of 1905-1907 he formulated his theory of permanent (continuous) revolution. He believed that the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia must inevitably develop into a socialist revolution with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then into a world revolution.

Lenin then sharply criticized Trotsky, accusing him of ultra-leftism and semi-anarchism. He believed that Russia, with its small working class and incomplete modernization, was not yet ready for socialism, and only the beginning of a socialist revolution in the developed countries of the West could open a socialist perspective for Russia.

Lenin held this position until April 1917, when, to the amazement of many of his party comrades, he put forward radical ideas similar to those that Trotsky had advocated ten years earlier. But Trotsky, who had previously accused Lenin and his party of "sectarianism", sided with him. He no longer tried to reconcile the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and other left-wing socialists, but began to defend the course of seizing power exclusively by the forces of Lenin's party. So in 1917, Trotsky and Lenin became the closest political allies.

But they had a long and difficult history of personal relationships ...

This is true. Being in exile, Lenin and Trotsky reviled each other with the last words. But in 1917 they were able to forget personal grievances and overcome previous conflicts for the sake of a common political interest. Actually, this skill is the talent of real politicians.

Do you think there was a rivalry between them? Was the ambitious and ambitious Trotsky content with the role of second man in the party?

They had a certain division of roles in the revolutionary movement of 1917. Trotsky was a bright rally speaker who could speak to a huge mass of people for several hours at a time. He was an unsurpassed propagandist and agitator who could ignite and win over any audience. As for Lenin, he was an outstanding strategist and party organizer. He rallied the party, developed a common political line and tactics of the struggle for power.

Of course, Trotsky was better known to the broad masses, and it was Lenin who was the indisputable authority in the party. But Trotsky did not claim supreme leadership in the Bolshevik Party in place of Lenin.

Trotsky in October

An American historian wrote that while Lenin was hiding in Finland, it was Trotsky who led the preparations for an armed uprising. In your opinion, whose role in organizing the seizure of power in October 1917 was more significant - Lenin or Trotsky?

Of course, the main organizer of the October Revolution was precisely Trotsky, who headed the Petrograd Soviet from September 1917. All practical preparations for the seizure of power were under his direct supervision. By the way, a year later, in his article in Pravda, Stalin quite rightly pointed out this: “We owe the skillful organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee and the attraction of the Petrograd garrison to the side of the revolution, first of all and mainly to Comrade Trotsky.”

True, a few years later, at the height of the internal party struggle, Stalin would already write that Trotsky played no role in preparing the uprising, since he was a newcomer to the party. To which Trotsky immediately presented the Stalinist article of 1918 and sarcastically asked in which of them the truth was written.

Stalin knowingly focused on attracting the capital's garrison to the side of the Bolsheviks. The October coup went so smoothly and easily due to the fact that by October 25 the Provisional Government had essentially no troops loyal to it left, with the exception of the cadet schools, the ensign school and the women's shock battalion.

Why did it happen so?

On October 12, at the initiative of Trotsky, the Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC) was formed under the executive committee of the Soviet, which actually became the headquarters for the preparation of the uprising. In all parts of the Petrograd garrison, commissars were appointed from the Military Revolutionary Committee, without whose sanction not a single order of the officers could be executed. That is, the garrison was under the control of the Bolsheviks, who explained these measures by the need to fight the counter-revolution, the danger of the second "Kornilovism".

The Bolsheviks claimed that the right-wing forces were preparing to surrender Petrograd to the Germans in order to strangle the revolution with their hands.

Quite right. The Bolsheviks called the official goal of creating the Military Revolutionary Committee the protection of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets, scheduled for October 25, from the second "Kornilovism" and the possible betrayal of the counter-revolutionary officers, who were ready to let the Germans into the capital. As Trotsky later admitted, this was a cunning operation to divert the attention of the Provisional Government from the main task of the MRC - preparations for the seizure of power.

In the well-known article "Lessons of October", Trotsky wrote that the October Revolution took place in two stages. First, in mid-October, the Bolsheviks established control over the Petrograd garrison - after that they were actually doomed to success. The second stage - the direct seizure of power on October 25 (November 7) - only formalized what was done at the first stage.

Is it true that Lenin planned to seize power in early October, but Trotsky persuaded him to wait until the opening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was supposed to legalize the coup?

True, Lenin proposed starting an uprising as early as September 1917, during the All-Russian Democratic Conference. But his party comrades did not support him then.

How did it happen?

There were three positions in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin insisted on the speedy seizure of power through an armed uprising. The opposite opinion was held by an influential group of moderate Bolsheviks: Kamenev, Rykov, Nogin and Zinoviev. They objected to the forceful methods of political struggle, splitting the camp of "revolutionary democracy", and tended to compromise with other socialist parties. Moderate Bolsheviks predicted that the seizure of power by one party would not do anything good for the country: first, a dictatorship would be established, which would be based only on terror, which would inevitably lead to civil war and the subsequent death of the revolution.

And, finally, there was one who recognized the need for an armed uprising, which must be covered up with legal forms. That is, in his opinion, the seizure of power had to be timed to coincide with the opening of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. As a result, first Lenin, and then the majority of the party leadership, agreed with Trotsky. When the congress began its work, its delegates were confronted with the fact of overthrowing the Provisional Government. Subsequently, Lenin admitted that this line was correct and effective at that moment.

Two hypostases of Leon Trotsky

Trotsky later said that if in 1917 he had not been in Petrograd, but Lenin had been, the revolution would have happened anyway. On the other hand, according to him, if neither he nor Lenin had ended up in the capital then no revolution would have occurred. And what do you think?

I think this is true: the role of Lenin was key. He succeeded in setting a course for an armed uprising and managed to impose his will on the leadership of the party, crushing the resistance of the moderate Bolsheviks. But Trotsky's role was also significant. Firstly, he supported the radical position of Lenin, and secondly, he led the organization of the seizure of power. Without both of them, the October Revolution would hardly have been possible.

On the other hand, it is no coincidence that Lenin and Trotsky ended up in that time and place. Both of them came to the fore in 1917 not only because of their outstanding personal qualities, but also as a result of the natural development of revolutionary events. In other words, they were simply carried away on the crest of a revolutionary wave. However, if we think objectively, the victory of the Bolsheviks in October 1917 was not fatally programmed. The Russian revolution could develop in other ways.

For example what?

I think it was quite realistic to create a homogeneous socialist government - a coalition of all left parties represented in the Soviets. Moreover, immediately after the October Revolution, there were intensive negotiations about this with other parties, and a significant part of the Bolshevik leadership supported such a compromise. But it was Lenin and Trotsky who destroyed this very real alternative with their irreconcilable radical position.

What, in your opinion, was the main role of Leon Trotsky in the revolutionary events of 1917?

Trotsky in 1917 spoke in two guises. On the one hand, a skilled propagandist and agitator who inflamed the masses with his seething energy and attracted them to the side of the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, he was a brilliant organizer of the revolutionary forces, who was directly involved in the preparation and organization of the uprising.

But Trotsky had weakness. His organizational skills were well manifested within the framework of public politics, but he was a poor party organizer. In the internal party factional and apparatus struggle, he never achieved success. This helps to understand why, until 1917, Trotsky was politically alone, and in the 1920s he lost the confrontation with Stalin.

1. How Vladimir Ilyich quarreled with Lev Davidovich

It all started with cooperation, cooperation and ended. At the II Congress of the RSDLP (July-August 1903) in London, the future "enemy of the people" number one Leon Trotsky ardently supported the future "leader of the world proletariat" Vladimir Lenin. Together they argued furiously with delegates from the General Jewish Union (Bund) and the Struggle group. David Ryazanov. Lenin and Trotsky also argued with the so-called moderate Social Democrats Vladimir Akimov and Alexander Martynov. The latter opposed the inclusion in the party program of a clause on the "dictatorship of the proletariat", while Lenin categorically insisted on this. And here he was strongly supported by Leon Trotsky, who, however, made a reservation that this dictatorship itself would not be a "secret seizure of power." In his opinion, we should talk about the political domination of "the organized working class, which constitutes the majority of the nation."

As a matter of fact, even before the congress, Trotsky collaborated very fruitfully with Lenin, publishing bright, incendiary articles in the party newspaper Iskra. Vladimir Ilyich liked his work very much, and he even offered to include a talented author in the editorial office. However, this was categorically opposed by the patriarch of the Russian Social Democracy Georgy Plekhanov, who considered the young and early publicist an "upstart". Despite this fiasco, cooperation with Lenin continued, and Trotsky was awarded the somewhat offensive nickname - "Lenin's club."

True, the romance of two outstanding revolutionaries did not last long and died at the Second Congress. Trotsky turned out to be too wayward, who did not like Lenin's approach to party building. Vladimir Ilyich insisted that only a Social Democrat who takes part in the activities of one of its organizations can be a party member. But his opponent, Julius Martov, considered any (even material) assistance to be sufficient.

“At first, Trotsky spoke cautiously, but from the very beginning he was critical of the Leninist formula,” writes Georgy Chernyavsky. “I am afraid that Lenin's formula creates fictitious organizations that will give only qualifications to their members, but will not serve as a means of party work,” he said. At first, Lenin was rather sluggish in defending his position, but he gradually became excited, refusing any compromises, turning a petty disagreement into a matter of principle disagreement, guided to a large extent by his own ambition. “Behind the scenes there was a struggle for each individual delegate,” Trotsky recalled. “Lenin spared no effort to win me over to his side.” “The “Old Man”, as Lenin was already called at that time, invited Trotsky for a walk with the Bolshevik P.A. Krasikov, a man of a narrow mind, but very rude, who during the walk gave such unceremonious characteristics to the editors of Iskra that even Lenin, himself a very rude and peremptory person, frowned at the same time, "and I shuddered." It was decided to hold a behind-the-scenes conference of the "Iskra-ists" chaired by Trotsky. An attempt to find a way out of the impasse did not work. Lenin left the meeting, slamming the door. After that, the "old man" made another attempt to bring Trotsky back to his side, to set him on the "right path." He sent his brother Dmitry, who became close to Lev during a trip to the congress. The conversation lasted for several hours in one of the quiet London parks. This mission did not yield any results either. As a result, Trotsky not only did not return, but began to vigorously oppose Lenin's formulation and in support of Martov" ("Lev Trotsky").

Further more. When Lenin proposed to expel from the editorial board of the party newspaper "Iskra" Pavel Axelrod and Vera Zasulich Trotsky opposed this. A period of enmity began: a former ally of Lenin declared his “Jacobinism”, and then called him “Maximilian Lenin”, clearly alluding to the leader of the French Jacobins, Robespierre. In addition, Vladimir Ilyich was awarded such epithets as "brisk statistician" and "sloppy lawyer." Lenin did not remain in debt and called Trotsky "Babalaykin" - according to the character of the story Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Balalaykin & Co.

2. Maximilian vs Judas

However, Trotsky did not stay long in the Mensheviks. Already in 1904, he became close to the German socialist and businessman Alexander Parvus, from which he borrowed his famous "permanent revolution". The offended Mensheviks accused him of trying to create his own Social Democratic Party. Meanwhile, until the summer of 1917, Trotsky positioned himself as a non-factional Social Democrat, advocating the unity of all party groups. He created for himself the image of a politician standing above the fierce party fights.

It must be said that Lenin made some conciliatory gestures towards Babalaykin. So, at the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP in London (April-May 1907), he said: “A few words about Trotsky. I have no time here to dwell on our disagreements with him. I will only note that Trotsky, in his book In Defense of the Party, expressed in print his solidarity with Kautsky, who wrote about the economic community of interests of the proletariat and the peasantry in the modern revolution in Russia. Trotsky recognized the permissibility and expediency of a left bloc against the liberal bourgeoisie. These facts are sufficient for me to recognize Trotsky's approach to our views. Regardless of the question of "continuous revolution", there is solidarity here on the main points of the question of the attitude towards the bourgeois parties."

Still, there was always some kind of sympathy between these two leaders, despite quarrels and an exchange of “courtesies”. And their rapprochement in 1917 undoubtedly had a psychological basis.

Trotsky argued about unity, while at the head of a single RSDLP, which had forgotten about factional squabbles, he clearly saw himself. This is evidenced at least by his behavior at the Fifth Congress. “The role of the leader of the “arithmetic mean”, which suits both factions with its facelessness, did not suit Trotsky,” writes Yuri Zhukov. “I refuse the honor of directing my thought in advance along this supposed resultant,” he announced. Trotsky applied for a more active role, declaring: "I decisively claim the right to have my own definite opinion on every question ... I reserve the right to defend my own opinion with all my energy." In his speech, Trotsky coquettishly quoted a statement from Milyukov’s pamphlet, which spoke of the “revolutionary illusions of Trotskyism,” immediately remarking: “Mr. Milyukov, as you see, does me too much credit by associating with my name the period of the highest upsurge of the revolution.” And yet Trotsky clearly hinted that he had acquired a fairly solid political weight over the past two years, and therefore had the right to offer the party his own path to the victory of the revolution. Trotsky announced that the unification of the party is historically inevitable, and when this happens, the RSDLP will choose the "most proletarian", "most revolutionary" and "most cultured" platform. He did not call this platform "Trotskyist", but that was how he could be understood. In order to achieve the adoption of a platform acceptable to him, Trotsky actively participated in the preparation of the congress documents. He was harsh in defending his position and scolded the recognized leaders of the party, accusing Lenin himself of hypocrisy” (“Trotsky. Myth and Personality”).

In August 1912, at a conference in Vienna, Trotsky with great difficulty was able to create the so-called August bloc, which included party organizations in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa and other large cities. In addition, it included representatives of national socialist parties: the General Jewish Workers' Union (Bund), the Polish Socialist Party and the Social Democracy of the Lithuanian Territory. However, the Bolsheviks refused to enter this bloc. Refused to support the idea of ​​Trotsky and Plekhanov, who has always been distinguished by a long-standing and persistent dislike for the "upstart". Therefore, it was impossible to talk about any real unification.

During this period, Lenin and Trotsky were at enmity with each other in the most fierce way. It was then that Lenin glued his famous epithet "Judas" to Lev Davidovich. True, he did not do this publicly - the article "On the paint of shame in Judas Trotsky" remained in the draft. It was published only in 1932, which helped a lot. Joseph Stalin in his propaganda struggle against Trotskyism.

Trotsky could rage as much as he wanted, but Lenin put things on a grand scale. His Pravda was published daily and enjoyed great popularity among Russian workers. But they no longer wanted to read Trotsky's Pravda, and in the spring of 1912 this printed organ ceased to exist. At the same time, Lenin hit Trotsky where it hurt, pointing out his unscrupulousness, constant maneuvering, and political inconstancy. Indeed, Trotsky repeatedly supported the Mensheviks, and then moved away from them, which developed a stable dislike for this faction. In a letter to Inesse Armand Lenin exclaimed indignantly about the arrival of Trotsky in America: “... Trotsky arrived, and this bastard immediately got in touch with the right wing of the New World against the left Zimerwalders !! So that!! That's Trotsky!! Always equal = wags, cheats, poses like a leftist, helps the right while he can. Lenin himself positioned himself as a principled politician, true to his convictions and comrades in the struggle.

3. Number one and number two

The February Revolution changed everything. Political emigration was over, and with it, emigrant squabbles and the struggle for, in general, meager organizational and financial resources became a thing of the past. Now it smells of the real - power over the vast Russia. And here the interests of Lenin and Trotsky converged. Both leaders advocated the continuation of the revolution, for the strengthening of its proletarian and socialist principles. Lenin shocked his own party with the unexpected and bold "April Theses", in which he put forward the avant-garde slogan "All power to the Soviets!" At first, most of the functionaries rejected these theses, but then Lenin managed to insist on his own. However, his position was precarious; there were many opponents of his April platform in the party leadership. At the same time, after all, many supporters supported Lenin not because they were completely imbued with his views, but out of respect and even admiration for the super-authoritative "old man".

Lenin needed support, even from outside the party. And then Trotsky returned to Russia, who also advocated the continuation of the revolution. He joined the radical left group of non-factional Social Democrats (mezhraiontsy), immediately becoming their informal leader. And Lenin immediately realized the full benefit of cooperation with Trotsky in his new status. He himself took the first step towards his sworn opponent. May 10, 1917 Lenin, together with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev attended an interregional conference. There he proposed to unite both organizations into one party. At the same time, there was no question that the relatively few (4,000 members) Mezhrayontsy would be swallowed up by the much larger Bolshevik Party, which at that time numbered about 200,000 members.

And Trotsky reacted positively to this, although he was in no particular hurry to unite, carefully considering all the consequences of this step. In addition, many inter-district residents were horrified by such a prospect. So, Adolf Ioffe exclaimed: “Lev Davidovich! They are political bandits! To this Trotsky replied: "Yes, I know, but the Bolsheviks are now the only real political force." It was to this real force that Trotsky joined, not at all losing and winning a lot.

However, the association itself was delayed until the VI Congress, which took place in July-August. On it, the entry of the Mezhrayontsy into the Bolshevik Party was proclaimed. The absorption nevertheless took place, and it was precisely when Trotsky himself was in the "Crosses", where he was taken away after the July events. Perhaps he would have tried to translate the association into a more profitable format, but he simply did not have such an opportunity. Meanwhile, the “absorption” itself was arranged very respectfully. Trotsky was elected honorary chairman congress. In addition, he was elected in absentia to the Central Committee, and during the voting he took third place, losing only to Lenin and Zinoviev.

Now Trotsky's political star has risen to unthinkable heights. former leader a small organization becomes chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, forms the Military Revolutionary Committee, leading the uprising. After the victory of the uprising itself, Trotsky headed the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and in May 1918 became the head of all the armed forces of the young Soviet Republic. Now he is number two in the party and in the state. Lenin is pleased with him, during a discussion about the creation of a "homogeneous socialist government" (together with the Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries), he calls his recent opponent "the best Bolshevik." And this despite the fact that Trotsky had some disagreements with Lenin about how to take power. He advocated first convening a Congress of Soviets and only then overthrowing the Provisional Government. Thus, the uprising acquired an aura of legitimacy. After all, an unelected government would depose an elected body. Lenin, on the other hand, feared that the congress would falter and take half measures and compromises that could ruin the whole thing. He insisted that the Bolsheviks (and the Left Radicals allied with them) first overthrow the "provisional", and then confront the delegates with a fait accompli.

Lenin's confidence was not shaken even by Trotsky's behavior during the Brest peace talks. Then the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs violated Lenin's instructions - to immediately conclude peace. He put forward a formula that pleased the Germans: "No peace, no war." As a result, the German offensive began, and the "obscene peace" had to be concluded on much more humiliating terms.

Perhaps the leader's disposition reached its peak in July 1918, when Trotsky fiercely argued with representatives of the "military opposition" ( Andrey Bubnov,Kliment Voroshilov and others). The opposition opposed the creation of a regular army according to the "bourgeois model" (in particular, the appointment of "military experts" to command positions). During the aggravation of the discussion, Trotsky made a strong move, threatening his resignation from all posts. And then Lenin expressed the highest confidence in him. He defiantly gave Trotsky a blank and pre-signed order form. And he said at the same time: “Comrades! Knowing the strict nature of the orders of Comrade. Trotsky, I am so convinced, absolutely convinced, of the correctness, expediency and necessity for the good of the cause given by Comrade. Trotsky orders that I support this order entirely.

4. Twilight of the Old Chiefs

Of course, Trotsky was weary of the role of "only" the second man in Soviet Russia. He always felt like he was number one. And after all, he had real chances to become the head of the country during Lenin's lifetime. More precisely, when Lenin himself was on the verge of life and death. As you know, on August 31, 1918, an assassination attempt was made on the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) Lenin. He was in a very difficult condition. And this posed the question point-blank: who would lead the country in the event of his death? Here, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) had a rather strong position. Yakov Sverdlov, who at the same time headed the rapidly growing apparatus of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - RCP (b), being the secretary of its Central Committee. Trotsky, who led the army, also had a serious resource. On September 2, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopts the following, very characteristic, resolution: “The Soviet Republic is being turned into a military camp. The Revolutionary Military Council is placed at the head of all fronts and military institutions of the Republic. All the forces and means of the Socialist Republic are placed at his disposal.

The new governing body was headed by Trotsky. Moreover, neither the party nor the government participated in the adoption of this decision. Everything was decided by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, or rather, its chairman, Yakov Sverdlov. “It is noteworthy that there was no decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on the creation of the Revolutionary Military Council,” notes Sergei Mironov. - It is not known about any plenum of the Central Committee these days. Sverdlov, who concentrated all the highest party positions in his hands, simply removed the party from deciding the question of creating the Revolutionary Military Council. A "completely independent state power" was created. Military power of the Bonapartist type. No wonder contemporaries often called Trotsky the Red Bonaparte” (“Civil War in Russia”).

Obviously, Sverdlov and Trotsky wanted to wipe the still living Lenin from power, and then to sort things out among themselves. After recovering from his illness, Lenin learned that the power of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars had been severely curtailed. Moreover, the creation of the Revolutionary Military Council headed by Trotsky played an important role in this. But Maximilian knew how to play such hardware games better than Judas. He created a new body - the Union of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (since 1920 - the Union of Labor and Defense), headed by himself. Thus, the "Trotskyist" RVS was forced to obey the "Leninist" SRKO.

5. Twilight of former leaders

The time for open quarrels has already passed, but has not yet arrived. It was necessary to defeat the whites, and only then it was possible to deal with internal disassemblies with taste. And in December 1920, after the Red troops defeated General Peter Wrangel, Trotsky came up with his own large-scale project of "militarization" of the entire national economy. It was supposed to transfer the economy to a war footing, entrusting this task to the militarized trade unions.

Lenin was not happy with this, to put it mildly. Not only did such a reorganization smack of outright adventure (even against the backdrop of war communism), the militarization of the economy automatically turned Trotsky's head of the armed forces into man number one. Therefore, a discussion unfolded in the party, during which Lenin attacked his opponent for the "administrative approach to this issue." The "exchange of courtesies" took place again. Trotsky declared that Lenin was "arch-cautious", in response he was reproached for "confusion". But, of course, it could not be compared with pre-war swearing.

Trotsky had many supporters, but most of the functionaries did not want to get a "red Bonaparte." In the course of the discussion about trade unions, Lev Davidovich suffered a crushing defeat. On the eve of the quarrel, he had the support of 8 members out of 15. At the same time, after it, three Central Committee Trotskyists were removed from the party Areopagus. As is obvious, the ambitious project of militarization went sideways to Trotsky. From that moment on, his political star only rolled up.

At the same time, man number two did not lose hope of becoming the first. In the beginning. In the 1920s, he launched an attack on the ideological front. Trotsky republished some of his old works, accompanied by his own commentaries. So, a collection of his articles dedicated to the history of the Russian revolution was published. “As an appendix to the collection, Trotsky placed his article “Our Differences”, containing a polemic with Lenin on the place and role of the peasantry in the socialist revolution, on the revolutionary democratic dictatorship,” writes Valentin Sakharov. - In comments to it, written from the standpoint of 1922, he wrote: "The anti-revolutionary features of Bolshevism threaten great danger only in the event of a revolutionary victory." Since 1917 brought victory to the Bolsheviks, then, according to Trotsky's logic, the time has come when Lenin and his supporters become dangerous for the revolution. It is impossible to say this directly, but the hint is more than transparent. The facts of the victory of the Bolsheviks in 1917, the victory in the civil war and the development of the revolution connected with this had to be "reconciled" with their thesis about the "anti-revolutionary essence of Bolshevism." Trotsky “removes” this contradiction between his forecast and the fact of history with the help of the assertion that “under the leadership of Comrade Lenin, Bolshevism accomplished (not without an internal struggle) its ideological rearmament in the spring of 1917, that is, before the conquest of power.” In other words, he declared that in October 1917 it was not the Bolsheviks themselves who took power, but the newly-minted Trotskyists, who had not yet realized themselves in this capacity and, by inertia, retained their former name and loyalty to the former theoretical and political schemes. From here it is not far to the assertion that they took power with the participation of Lenin, but under the ideological (and organizational) leadership of Trotsky, who allegedly was the real leader of the October Revolution. This has not yet been directly stated here (it will be said later - in the article "The Lessons of October" in October 1924), but a quite definite application for this role has already been made. These speeches marked the beginning of Trotsky's political attack on the historical front. He needed to show that he, Trotsky, as a theoretician and politician was higher than Lenin, that he was the true leader of the "de-Bolshevik" Bolshevism - the party that took power in October 1917, therefore it is to him that the revolution owes all its best achievements and victories "( Lenin's "Political Testament: The Reality of History and the Myths of Politics").

Another quarrel was pecking, but Lenin was no longer up to Trotsky. Seriously ill, he ended up in isolation arranged by high-ranking associates. Trotsky's "trade union" fiasco strengthened the position of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, who later created a leading triumvirate. Lenin is plotting a fight against "bureaucracy" which would mean the weakening of high-ranking functionaries. And it was Trotsky, who also strongly criticized "bureaucratism", that he saw as a natural ally in this struggle. Lenin invites Trotsky to become deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. And then the political instinct failed the sick leader. The fact is that there were already three of these deputies, and Trotsky would have been the fourth. Of course, this did not suit the ambitious Lev Davidovich. He refused Lenin's proposal, and the new Trotskyist-Leninist bloc never took place. Lenin's twilight coincided with Trotsky's twilight, although the latter's twilight lasted much longer.

In his famous “political testament” (“Letter to the Congress”), Vladimir Ilyich gave the following description of Lev Davidovich: “Comrade. Trotsky is perhaps the most capable person in the present Central Committee, but he also boasts excessively of self-confidence and excessive enthusiasm for the purely administrative side of things.

Well, that's pretty mild wording. Especially if you take into account the former intensity of passions and the then formulations.

Alexander ELISEEV

Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most controversial figures in the history of the 20th century. He was the ideologist of the revolution, created the Red Army and the Comintern, dreamed of a world revolution, but became a victim of his own ideas.

"Demon of the Revolution"

Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was pivotal. You can even say that without his participation, it would have collapsed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.

The importance of Trotsky for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrosoviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who in the future would become Trotsky's main enemy, wrote in 1918: "All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky." During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city.

Trotsky was called the "demon of the revolution", but he was also one of its economists.

Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" about Trotsky, it is written that he was closely associated with the Wall Street bigwigs and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally issued Trotsky a passport and allocated $10,000 to the "demon of the revolution" (over $200,000 in today's money).

This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the newspaper “ New life» dollar rumors from bankers:

“Regarding the story with 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither
government, nor I knew anything about it until the news about her
already here, in Russian circles and in the Russian press.” Trotsky further wrote:

“Two days before my departure from New York for Europe, my German associates arranged for me” a farewell meeting. At this rally, a meeting was held for the Russian revolution. The collection gave $310”.

However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.

Creation of the Red Army

Trotsky also has the merit of creating the Red Army. He headed for the construction of the army on traditional principles: unity of command, the restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, the restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on the Khodynka field.

An important step in the creation of the Red Army was the fight against the "military anarchism" of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky restored executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the red commanders how to restore discipline.

On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment arbitrarily fled from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation to deserters (execution of every tenth by lot).

On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. With the filing of Trotsky, by a decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service aged 18 to 40 years was registered, military horse service was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, about half a million people were already in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.

detachments

When it comes to barrage detachments, they usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back”, however, in creating barrage detachments, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent. It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs Around October, he wrote that he himself justified to Lenin the need to create detachments:

“In order to overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments made up of communists and militants in general. Must be forced to fight. If you wait until the man is out of his senses, perhaps it will be too late.

Trotsky was generally sharp in his judgments: “As long as, proud of their technology, evil tailless monkeys called people build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between possible death ahead and inevitable death behind.”

Over-industrialization

Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first way, which was supported by Nikolai Bukharin, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.

Trotsky, on the other hand, insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted in growth with the help of internal resources, using funds to develop heavy industry Agriculture and light industry.

The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything took 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to "pay" for the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the "Bukharin approach", then by the beginning of 1928 Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to forced industrialization. In order to catch up with the developed countries of the West, it was necessary to “run a distance of 50-100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.

red five pointed star

Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential "art directors" of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR. With its official approval by order of the People's Commissar of the Republic of Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name "Mars star with a plow and a hammer." The order also stated that this sign "is the property of persons serving in the Red Army."

Seriously fond of esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.

The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become a symbol of Soviet Russia. She was depicted on the "kerenki", swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Fedorovna before being shot, but by the sole decision of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century has shown that the "star" is stronger than the "swastika". Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.

The Great Russian Revolution, 1905-1922 Lyskov Dmitry Yurievich

4. Theory of the Permanent Revolution and the World Revolution. Lenin against Marx, Trotsky for Lenin

Lenin went, it seemed, to the unthinkable: due to the special specifics of Russia, the driving force and leader of the revolution, which by all indications should have been bourgeois, he declared the proletariat - "the only completely revolutionary class". He announced the revolution folk: “The outcome of the revolution depends on whether the working class plays the role of an accomplice of the bourgeoisie, powerful in the strength of its onslaught on the autocracy, but politically impotent, or the role of leader folk (highlighted - D.L.) revolution".

In order to understand the innovation of the idea, it should be recalled that earlier Marxists fundamentally switched to a secular scientific definition of social forces, expressed in the economically determined division of society into classes. Lenin made a "reverse revolution" - he returned to the existential concept of "people", characterizing the specifics of the Russian revolution.

In conditions when the bourgeoisie did not show itself as a sufficient revolutionary force to overthrow feudalism, and the revolution nevertheless began, Lenin saw the guarantee of victory in the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry: “The force capable of achieving a “decisive victory over tsarism” can only be the people, that is, the proletariat and the peasantry ... “The decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism” is the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry”.

The peasantry itself was assigned an almost central role in the revolution: “Who really understands the role of the peasantry in the victorious Russian revolution Lenin wrote, he would not be able to say that the scope of the revolution would weaken when the bourgeoisie recoiled. For in reality, only then will the real scope of the Russian revolution begin, only then will it really be the greatest revolutionary scope possible in the era of a bourgeois-democratic revolution, when the bourgeoisie recoils and the mass of the peasantry along with the proletariat emerges as an active revolutionary..

Moreover, Lenin was well aware that this "leave a proletarian imprint on the revolution". But this was not a rejection of the Marxist idea of ​​progressive change of formations. This did not mean the "cancellation" of the bourgeois revolution. This meant something more - the accomplishment of the bourgeois revolution by the forces of the workers and peasants, and in the future - the reduction of the time interval between the change of formations, the flow of the bourgeois revolution into the socialist revolution. That is, a permanent (continuous) revolution - bourgeois and, further, socialist.

The essence of the idea is simple: the proletariat, in alliance with the peasantry, makes a bourgeois revolution and completes it, once in power - by establishing a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." But this gives him the opportunity to move on to a new stage - to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat (only the proletariat, since the peasantry is not a class, but within the peasantry there is its own proletariat). That is - in the future - to the socialist revolution.

Here is how it is expressed in the work of Lenin in 1905: “The proletariat must carry through to the end the democratic revolution(bourgeois revolution - D.L.), annexing to itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush by force the resistance of the autocracy and to paralyze the instability of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must carry out a socialist revolution, drawing on the masses of the semi-proletarian elements of the population, in order to break by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyze the instability of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie..

In another work, Lenin expressed his thought more specifically: “... From the democratic revolution(bourgeois - D.L.) we will immediately begin to pass ... to the socialist revolution. We stand for continuous revolution. We won't stop halfway.".

Subsequently, Lenin's doctrine was called "The theory of the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution." Almost simultaneously with Lenin, a similar theory was put forward by Trotsky, a social democrat who balanced between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, taking the side of one or the other, but himself remaining "out of factions." His theory would later be called the "Permanent Revolution" theory. Here are its main provisions, formulated by Trotsky himself in the 1929 book of the same name. I cite them in a significant reduction only because the book was written in the polemic of a later period, against the backdrop of the revolution in China, and contains many attacks that are not related to our topic against the already Stalinist interpretation of the issue.

“In relation to countries with belated bourgeois development ... the theory permanent revolution means that the complete and real solution of their democratic ... tasks is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the leader of an oppressed nation, primarily its peasant masses ... Without an alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, the tasks of a democratic revolution cannot be not only resolved, but even seriously posed. The union of these two classes can be realized, however, only in an uncompromising struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie.

“Whatever the first episodic stages of the revolution in individual countries, the realization of a revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard, organized in the Communist Party. This means, in turn, that the victory of the democratic revolution is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat, based on an alliance with the peasantry and solving, first of all, the tasks of the democratic (bourgeois - D.L.) revolutions.

The difference in the doctrines of Lenin and Trotsky consisted in a number of essential, but not fundamental issues. First of all, Trotsky, who initially applied his theory only to Russia, eventually gave it the features of universalism, expanding it to all countries with belated bourgeois development. While Lenin avoided generalizations, speaking about the special path of development of Russia in particular. Following Trotsky sought to concretize the political component of the union of the proletariat and the peasantry. He tried to get an answer to the question of which parties would represent this union, how it would be represented in the authorities. And is the peasantry even capable of creating its own party: The democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, as a regime distinct in its class content from the dictatorship of the proletariat, would be feasible only if an independent revolutionary party expressing the interests of the peasant and petty-bourgeois democracy in general, a party capable of , with the assistance of the proletariat in one way or another, to seize power and determine its revolutionary program. As the experience of all new history, and especially the experience of Russia over the past quarter century, an insurmountable obstacle to the creation of a peasant party is the economic and political lack of independence of the petty bourgeoisie and its deep internal differentiation, due to which the upper strata of the petty bourgeoisie (peasantry), in all decisive cases, especially in war and revolutions go with the big bourgeoisie, and the lower classes with the proletariat, thereby forcing the intermediate layer to make a choice between the extreme poles".

“Lenin's formula,” wrote Trotsky, “did not predetermine what the political relations between the proletariat and the peasantry would be within the revolutionary bloc. In other words, the formula deliberately allowed for a certain algebraic nature, which had to give way to more precise arithmetic values ​​in the process of historical experience. This latter, however, showed, moreover, under conditions that exclude any false interpretations, that no matter how great the revolutionary role of the peasantry may be, it cannot be independent, much less leading. The peasant follows either the worker or the bourgeois. This means that the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry” is conceivable only as the dictatorship of the proletariat leading the peasant masses.”

This was the “underestimation of the role of the peasantry” on the part of Trotsky, which was repeatedly blamed on him during the Stalin period. In reality, the difference lay in the fact that Lenin deliberately operated with a capacious, but devoid of specifics, concept of “people”. And it was not an "algebraic formula", as Trotsky believed, and it did not at all need to be "filled with more precise values." Just an attempt to analyze it from a class and political point of view - "fill it with exact values" - led Trotsky to the actual conclusion that an equivalent union of the proletariat and the peasantry is impossible.

Lenin, on the other hand, needed reliance on the masses, on the people, and if the class theory divided this mass, showing the impossibility of an alliance, then Lenin was ready to give up the class approach.

Finally, the theory of permanent revolution proclaimed: “The dictatorship of the proletariat, which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution, inevitably, and, moreover, very soon, sets before it tasks connected with deep intrusions into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution directly develops into a socialist one, thereby becoming a permanent revolution..

That is, the proletarian political superstructure that arose as a result of the bourgeois revolution, according to Trotsky, simply by virtue of its nature “inevitably, and moreover very soon” invaded the economic basis, which was the beginning of socialist transformations. Lenin, on the contrary, in the development of his theory allowed for a definitely long period of existence of capitalist relations under the rule of the proletariat and the peasantry. The transition to socialism, according to Lenin, was conceived only as the world revolution progressed. In the meantime, the socialists who came to power had to wait for the development of the international movement and go through the theoretically determined capitalist stage of the country's development.

In both Lenin's and Trotsky's concepts, the world socialist revolution was the central condition for the socialist transition. Only in this case would the progressive proletariat of the developed countries be able to come to the aid of their less developed Russian comrades and provide support both in the class struggle and in the construction of socialist life.

This moment is extremely important for us, and it should be emphasized. According to Marx, socialist transformations in an agrarian country that has just entered the industrial path of development are impossible: there is no developed industry, insufficient managerial and technical experience, there is no “abundance” that developed capitalism approaches towards the end of its existence.

Thus, the most fundamental and most important condition for the transition to a socialist revolution in Russia was declared a world socialist revolution - by virtue of the assistance that the developed countries that had converted to socialism could provide to our country.

In recent years, starting with perestroika, this concept has been seriously distorted and brought almost to statements about the intentions of Trotsky and Lenin to “burn Russia in the fire of the world revolution”, to export the revolution from Russia to the rest of the world. The revolutionaries themselves would have fallen into a stupor from such interpretations of their ideas. After all, the problem lay precisely in the underdevelopment of the Russian proletariat. What could he "export" to his "senior" comrades in the capitalist countries of Europe? On the contrary, he himself, according to the theory, needed help to establish a normal life.

Even after coming to power, he had only to wait for the European proletariat to throw off its bourgeoisie and share technologies and managerial experience - for the implementation of socialist transformations.

After the October Revolution, much time was spent arguing about the form in which such assistance would be necessary and sufficient. Lenin did not specify this issue, Trotsky insisted on the exceptional role of state support - the Western countries should have come to the aid of the RSFSR after the socialist revolution won them, and come at the level of states and their socialist governments. Stalin believed that such assistance could also be provided by the Western proletariat within the framework of the bourgeois system - by putting pressure on their own governments in favor of the country of the Soviets - by strikes, strike movements, political actions.

From this grew different concepts of the construction of Soviet Russia. Stalinist socialism in a single country partly stemmed from Stalin's "soft" interpretation of the idea of ​​world revolution, but it was also in irreconcilable contradiction with Trotsky's "state" concept. In this sense, Trotsky's permanent revolution was the antithesis of building socialism in a single country. Once again, the ideological dispute repeated the disagreements between Westerners and Slavophiles. Should Russia go its own way, or follow the West in anticipation of events that will determine its fate?