The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 10, 1925, Page 10

Bolshevism or Trotskyism? (Continued fron from page 1) party was not yet a Communist Party), I declare that the comrades of the soeial-revolutionists (it was the question of the left social-revolution- ists whom the central committe of our party, with Comrade Lenin at the head, tried at that time to induce to participate in the first Soviet govern- ment) should not have started to criti- size us Bolsheviki while events were taking place in the streets of Moscow regarding which our Moscow dele- gates have reported today. (At this time the struggle for the Soviet power was still going on in Moscow.) On this occasion we remind the comrades of the social-revolutionists that before we published the composition of our government we called upon them to take part in the government, but they declared that they would take part in the work of the government, but for the time being would not enter the government.” At the session of the Petrograd Soviet of Nov. 3, 1917, the writer stated: : “Comrades:—There are among us comrades from the red army, soldiers and sailors, who in a few hours will hasten to the aid of our Moscow com- .rades and brothers. (Loud and pro- longed applause.) The revolutionary military committee. wished two days ago to send help, but met with ob- stacles precisely from those quarters from which one could only have ex- pected support. I speak here of some leading circles of the railway em- ployes, who in these hours so fateful for the revolution have adopted a ‘neutral’ attitude. In these terrible hours, however, one cannot be ‘neith- er hot nor cold’—I do not wish to speak too sharply, but you yourselves will understand, comrades, how the future will judge these facts. “Just recently a transport of troops to Moscow was held up. When the leaders of the railway workers’ union were asked how they could act in this manner, they replied: We have also held up transports from the other side, “We must appeal to the lower sec- tions of the railwaymen and explain to them what ‘neutrality’ means un- der present conditions. I do not doubt that 99 per cent of the lower sections of the railway employes and workers will side with the fighting soldiers and workers. A whole number of cen- tral committees are sitting on the fence. Unfortunately, among these is the central committee of the railway workers. No one could have foreseen that the leading organ of the railway workers would preserve ‘neutrality’ whilst workers and and soldiers were fighting on the barricades. This state of affairs must be ended. The railway proletariat must stand like one man on the side of the fighting workers and soldiers, they must help them to break the resistance of the bour- geoisie and of the landowners... . “Greetings to the comrades who are hastening to the help of the revolu- tionaries in Moscow (long and stormy applause). Now we are giving back to Moscow what it gave the revolution in 1905. At that time the Moscow proletariat began the revolt, and de- livered the first blow against despot- ism. We are happy we are now able to help, that we now have the possi- bility of throwing our victorious troops on the Moscow front. “Long live the comrades proceeding to Moscow—all Russia is watching them.” On the evening of the 3rd of No- vember and on the morning of the 4th, our negotiations with the left social- revolutionists and with that confer- ence which had invited the leaders of the railway workers’ union. arrived at the most critical stage. At this mo- ment we committed the greatest errors. (The famous declaration of some comrades, among them myself, in the central committee of the Bol- sheviki and the council of people's commissaries (regarding the resigna- tion of our responsible posts owing to the obstinacy of our central com- mittee) was signed on Nov. 4, 1917, and on Nov. 7, 1917, my “Letter to the Comrades” was published in the Pravda (No. 183). In this letter we said: (I quote the most important part). “The central committee of the All- Russian Soviet Congress placed in the foreground a definite plan of agree- ment (the resolution of Nov. 3), which I fully agree with, as it demands the immediate recognition of the decrees regarding the land. peace, workers’ control, and the recognition of the Soviet power. “In reply to the resolution of the central executive committee, the men- sheviki submitted a number of pre- conditions. The central executive committee, as it did not wish to place any difficulties in the way, adopted a resolution proposed by us which re- moved the hindrances in the way of these negotiations. “In spite of this the other side would not make any concessions to the cen- tral executive committee. The condi- tions submitted by the latter were rejected by the mensheviki and the social-révolutionists. The attempt to arrive at an agreement was consist- ently carried out in spite of all ob- stacles; it led, however, to no result. It is now evident that the mensheviki and the social-revolutionists did not want an understanding and only sought for a pretext to wreck it. “Now all the workers and soldiers will know who bears the responsi- bility for the wrecking of the agree- ment. Now—I am _ convinced—also the left social-revolutionists will throw the blame for the wrecking of the un- derstanding upon the mensheviki and for refusing to enter into our govern- ment. “In the present state of affairs I adhere to the proposition of. the com- rades and withdraw my declaration regarding resignation from the central committee. “I appeal to my immediate com- rades. ~Comrades, we made a great sacrificee when we openly raised a protest against the majority of our central committee and demanded the agreement. This agreement, however, was rejected by the other side. We are living in a serious, responsible time. It is our duty to warn the party of errors. But we remain with the party, we prefer to commit errors along with the millions of workers and soldiers and to die with them than to stand aside from them at this decisive historical moment. “There will and shall be no split in our party.” Since Nov. 8 I participated as pre- viously in the work of our central committee. On Nov..9 I spoke in its name at the All-Russian Peasants’ Congress, and on the 10th of Novem- ber at the session of the Petrograd Soviet. Here I said that we would recognize the constitutent assembly, “if the constituent assembly would give expression to the actual will of the workers, soldiers and peasants.” Naturally, now after seven years, it seems monstrous to every member of our party how one could deceive him- self with regard to the real forces of the leaders of the railwaymen and those alleged internationalists from the camp of the social-revolutionists and mensheviki grouped round the railway leaders. Of course, in order to understand the situation one must place one’s self in the position obtain- ing at the time. It was not until six months after the October revolt that it became evident that the left social- resoviutionists had also become a counter-revolutionary force. In Octo- ber, 1917, however, they were ex- Pressly invited by Comrade Lenin and our central committee to participate in our first Soviet government, as they were then connected with a large section of the peasants and with a portion of the workers. In fact, even the negotiations with the leaders of the railwaymen’s union were, as the reader has seen, conducted with the approval of the central committee. The result of the exposure of the mensheviki and of the social-revolu- tionists on the occasion of the rail- way workers’ conference was, that the left social-revolutionists, whom Comrade Lenin had formerly in vain called. upon to participate in the Soviet government, now entered into it; altho some days before the social- revolutionists had the intention even to resign for the central executive committee, which under the conditions then existing would have meant a severe blow for the Bolsheviki and would have hindered the winning of the peasantry. In the Pravda of Nov. 4 we read: “The fraction of the left social-revo- lutionists in the central executive committee. submitted an _ ultimative declaration regarding the necessity of drawing up of a platform in the name of the central executive committee. The central executive committee agreed to this demand and in the name of the central executive commit- tee a platform was drawn up.” It was just the rejection of this platform by the mensheviki and the social-revolutionists at the conference convened by the railway leaders which led to the change in the tactics of the left social-revolutionists in favor .of the Soviet power. At this time there was published in the Pravda a number of resolutions from the most important factories in which we find the following. “Whilst we regard the agreement of the socialist parties as desirable, we workers declare that the agreement can only be reached on the basis of the following conditions .. .” (These conditions were practically the same as our representatives had submitted to. the railway men’s conference.) In our attitude during these days there was again reflected the hesita- tion of these workers—in this respect our error was not a personal, not an accidental error. Now, seven years afterwards, do not the words in the resolution of our central committee that “the assertion that the Bolsheviki would not share power with anybody is devoid of all foundation” sound monstrous from our present standpoint? And yet these words were written down by Comrade Lenin on Nov. 3, 1917, and approved by our central committee. Everyone who reflects over these facts, every- one who remembers that the left social-revolutionists at that time rep- resented an important section of the peasants, everyone who reflects at all over the conditions at that time, will understand the extent, and the char- acter of our error. It was a great, but nevertheless not a “social-democratic” error. We, of course, do not say that in order to prove that our error was a small one. We stood outside of the central committee of the party only for three days—from Nov. 4 to 7. In spite of this, this error, as we already said at the opening session of the Fourth World Congress of the Comin- tern, was the greatest error we made in our life. The only thing we wish to prove here is that it is not correct to draw from this error the conclusion that there existed a “right wing” in Bolshevism. Every one who experienced those historical days’ knows that these dif- ferences, how much they strained the relations of such near comrades and friends, left no bitter feeling behind. Everybody adopted a sincere attitude towards the errors of the others. with- out attempting to “make use of” these errors for “diplomatic,” fractionist purposes. Everybody understood that only the exceptional moment led to exceptional means of solving differ- ences, which arose like a whirlwind but which, like a whirlwind, soon calmed down without causing great damage. These differences were swept away by the avalanche of fresh events— they remained isolated with the tead- ing circles of the party. A few days passed and the error was admitted by those who had committed it and the general staff of the party and the whole party could proceed to the solu- tion of actual tasks. These differences have left behind such little traces in the party that at the first party con- ference (VII) which took place after the October revolt (which dealt already with the question of the Brest peace), nobody mentioned a single word regarding these differences. Nobody reproached us regarding this error, altho it so happened that I, on behalf of the central committee, had to fight energetically against Comrade Trotsky and the “left”*) and its is clear that the party, under the fresh impression of the differences, would have attacked the guilty ones if they had estimated this guilt as Comrade Trotsky does now. Comrade Trotsky now says in the “Lessons of October.” seven years after these events, that onr attitude to the question of the Brest peace was one of capitulation. What did Trotsky himself say on this Seventh Party Congress some weeks after the October differences: “Before the last journey to Brest- Litovsk we discussed during the whole time the question of our further tactics. And there was only one vote in the central committee in favor of immediately signing the peace: that of Zinoviev. (We assert that there was not only one one vote, but also Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlovy said the same thing; Comrade Kamenev was arrested in Finland, G. Z.) What he said was, from his standpoint, quite correct: I was fully in agreement with him. He said, that hesitation would only render worse the peace condi- tions, and that they must be signed at once.” (Minutes of the seventh party conference, page 79.) If the proposal to sign the Brest peace was a “capitulation,” then Com- rade Lenin was a “capitulator.” (As a matter of fact, the tactics of Trotsky at that time would have led to the downfall of the revolution, i. e., to an actual capitulation.) If Comrade Trotsky himself spoke in the above mentioned way as to this affair, who can give credit. to his present ultra- polemic remarks? Is it not evident that all this has been discovered after- wards? At the*Seventh Party Congress the debates turned upon quite other ques- tions. It was Comrade Trotsky this time who submitted a declaration re- garding his resignationa from ali re- sponsible posts. (Minutes, pages 147-148.) Against Trotsky and against the “left” Communists, there was directed the resolution of Lenin and Zinovievy (Minutes, page 3), and as regards resignation from the central committee in general, Comrade Lenin said the following words: “I also found myself in a similar situation in the central committee when the proposal was adopted not to sign the peace, and I kept silent without closing my eyes to the fact that I could not take over responsi- bility for this. Every member of the central committee is free to repudiate responsibility without resigning from the central committee and without creating a scandal. It is, of course, permissable under certain conditions, and is sometime even unavoidable; but whether that was necessary just now, with this organization of the Soviet power which enables us to control insofar as we do not lose con- tact with the masses, there can only exist one opinion.” At the Seventh Party Congress Comrade Trotsky, who at that time had only been six months in our party, provoked the first Trotsky crisis, Since that time, unfortunately, these crises occur periodically. *It is interesting to mention the re sult of the election of the new central committee at this party conference. The writer of these lines received only one vote less than Comrade Lenin. (To be Continued) . “Polikushka” is coming to Gertner's Independent Theater, Jan. 15, GAPE PRR NN oh IOUR TL SORRELL ITT cna