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IRVING HOWE
regime. Far more skillful as the spokesman of a revolutionary up–
surge than as a factional maneuverer, painfully aware that he was
caught in a moment of social retreat which must prove inhospitable
to his austere demands and standards, Trotsky fought doggedly,
with intellectual flair and personal pride. But he fought on the
terrain of the enemy, accepting the destructive assumption of a
Bolshevik monopoly of power, and there were times when he sud–
denly withdrew into silence and illness, as if in disgust at having to
cope with the hooliganism and intellectual vulgarity of his opponents.
The very aspects of post-revolutionary Russia which Trotsky saw as
conducive to the rise of Stalinism-social weariness, pervasive poverty,
Jack of culture, asphyxiation of independent thought, loss of spirit
among Bolshevik cadres learning to prefer the comforts of ad–
ministration to the heroism of revolution, the decline in strength and
numbers of a proletariat bled white by civil war and industrial col–
lapse-aIl this made it almost inevitable that Trotsky, no matter
what his tactics, would fail. Years earlier, in
1909,
he had provided
a vivid description of parallel circumstances:
When the curve of historical development rises, public thinking
becomes more penetrating, braver and more ingenious. . . .
But when the political curve indicates a drop, public thinking
succumbs to stupidity. The priceless gift of political generaliza–
tion vanishes somewhere without leaving a trace. Stupidity
grows in insolence and, baring its teeth, heaps insulting mock–
ery on every attempt at a serious generalization. Feeling that it
is in command of the field, it begins to resort to its own
means.
Many centuries earlier Thucydides had put the matter
III
his own
words:
Those who enjoyed the greatest advantages were the men of
limited intelligence. The consciousness of their inability and
of the talent of their adversaries made them fear that they
would be duped by the fine speeches or the subtlety of spirit
of their enemies and therefore they advanced straight toward
their aim; while the others, scorning even to foresee the
schemes of their adversaries and believing that action was
superfluous when talk seemed to suffice, found themselves
disarmed and defeated.
