PETER WEISS
wardly to directives which are wrong for the revolution in Asia.
GERMAN STUDENT: Proof of Moscow's great reputation as the center of
world revolution.
INDOCHINESE STUDENT: And the great influence of Lenin's writings.
Nguyen
Ai
Quoc, the leader of our party, has told us how he broke
into tears when he first read Lenin's essays on the national and
colonial problem. That was when he was an emigrant in Paris after
the war. Yes, that's what we need, he cried. National heroes, martyrs.
That is our way to freedom.
TR.OTSKY: The fight for freedom always begins where the position
is
most intolerable. In the darkest, most completely forgotten places.
GERMAN STUDENT: Comrade Trotsky. You have got rid of the old re–
gime. You have fundamentally changed the whole concept of owner–
ship. But you have not succeeded in spreading the revolution to the
hearts of men.
TROTSKY: Can we transform human thinking in the space of a few
years? You forget we stood alone. That the struggle for a new eco–
nomic policy took all our strength.
GERMAN STUDENT: You got trapped in your own authoritarian thinking.
You abolished class distinctions, yes. But you prevented the liberation
of human consciousness. You, Comrade Trotsky, introduced forced
labor, which is now a reality. You helped to break the power of the
trade unions, leaving them helpless, as they are today. You yourself
wanted complete state control over the proletariat. You ordered work–
ers who resisted you to be shot. (TROTSKY
jumps up
angrily)
TROTSKY: The revolution was in danger of collapsing. There was no
other way. You want to remove all authority, all restrictions right
away. Like our old anarchists. They thought, when everything was
smashed, the new order would create itself. But you forget that rev–
olution is the most authoritarian thing on earth. One part of the
population using extreme violence to enforce its will on the other part.
And
if
the victorious part wishes to keep its power, it cannot for a
long time afford to give up its weapons.
GERMAN STUDENT: Our fathers saw the October Revolution as the great
beginning. But we see its weak points. What has happened to all
those famous cooks?
FRENCH FEMALE STUDENT: What cooks?
GERMAN STUDENT: Lenin said any cook would be capable of running the
state. Yet the workers are led by state managers. And what happened
to the plans for abolishing the family, the most reactionary of institu–
tions? It's now back to the domestic hearth, the sacred cell, the joys
of motherhood. Instead of independence through learning and knowl-
