590
LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI ,
all political conflicts directly to the class struggle without the intenne–
diary of organized structures. After joining the Bolsheviks in
1917,
where
he was always regarded as an alien by Party leaders, he kept repeating
the same error. He opposed the control of the army by political com–
missars during the civil war, and later he proposed to solve economic •
difficulties with military means, including forced labor. As a result
of his neglect of the role of the Party he turned the whole Bolshevik
Old Guard against himself; he did not notice Stalin's growing im–
portance as Party secretary and he was unable to form a block of Left
and Right in order to prevent Stalin from concentrating the full power
in his hands. This was because he believed that all, even the least sig–
nificant quarrels and tensions within the Party must directly reflect
class conflicts. And, Krasso continues, the theory of permanent re\'olu–
tion is based on the same error. Since Trotsky's concern was the global
struggle of the bourgeoisie and the proleta riat, he saw the forthcoming
revolution in the West, but not the victory of the proletariat in an
isolated Russia with overwhelming peasa nt popula tion, and he expected
that capitalist countries must all unite against the Soviet Union. Stalin,
who gave up any hope for the European revolution, turned out to
be
more sober. Too la te, in exile, Trotsky admitted his mistake and tried
to imitate Lenin's success by founding a new International. And he
failed again.
Everything is false in this picture, Mr. Mandel replies. He admits
that before
1917
Trotsky rejected Lenin's theory of party, but bal–
anced Lenin's error in not foreseeing the socia list perspective of the
coming Russian revolution. Both corrected their respective errors in
1917
and from that moment on they collaborated in full harmony–
theoretical and tactical. Trotsky's writing after
1917
stressed the crucial
role of the party that is defined both by its correct program and the
ability to win the majority of the proletariat. I t was Stalin, not Trot–
sky, who believed in pure power politics caITied through by the political
apparatus as an (apparently ) independent body. The ultimate victory
of Stalin is explained by the failure of other leaders to notice early the
danger of bureaucracy as a new social force. "Trotsky fought in order
to have the party act as a brake upon the process of bureaucratic de–
generation, as Lenin called upon him to do." It was not error to predict
other revolutionary movements in the foreseeable future. Mandel argues
that revolutionary situations arose many times after October: in Ger-
I
many in
1918- 19.
in
1920,
in
1923 ;
in Spain in
1931 , 1934, 1936- 37;
in Italy in
1920, 1945, 1948 ;
in France in
1936, 1944- 47.
Trotsky wanted
the Communist movement to be prepared for these and similar situa- \
tions and to turn revolutionary possibilities into reality. The fact that
Communist movements failed to do so and consequently that no rev-
