Vol. 80/No. 29 August 8, 2016
(Books of the Month column)
USSR disfigured by parasitism, bureaucracy
under Stalin
Writings of Leon Trotsky (1936-37), one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for August, covers the first year in exile in Mexico of Trotsky, a central leader of the Russian Revolution. Many of the articles, letters and interviews focus on exposing the bloody purges and frame-up trials being used by the regime headed by Joseph Stalin to eliminate all opposition to its totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union. Trotsky helped initiate the Commission of Inquiry, chaired by the prominent liberal John Dewey, professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. The commission investigated the proceedings of the Moscow Trials in which Trotsky and his son Leon Sedov were the main ones accused. It conducted hearings in Mexico April 10-17, 1937, and concluded that Trotsky and Sedov were not guilty. The excerpts below are from the April 27, 1937, interview, “Answers to the Jewish Daily Forward,” a New York Yiddish-language social democratic daily. Copyright © 1970 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY LEON TROTSKY
Q: Will the new constitution adopted in Russia actually give more freedom to the laboring classes and to the population as a whole?
A: Constitutions cannot in general change the regime. They only inscribe on paper the real relationship of forces. In the USSR the relationship of forces during the last ten years has definitely changed in favor of the privileged bureaucracy and to the detriment of the laboring classes. The new constitution sanctifies this new relationship of forces. It officially consolidates power in the hands of the bureaucracy, which appears in the text of the constitution under the pseudonym of the “Communist Party.” Under the new constitution still more than under the old, whoever attacks the rights and privileges of the bureaucracy will be declared a Trotskyite and placed outside the law.
Q: Do prosecution and death sentences against the loyal old Communists constitute a definite policy of the present Russian administration, or are they just the result of individual revenge against people disliked by Stalin?
A: Stalin is only an instrument in the hands of the new leading caste. His personal vindictive character naturally plays a certain role. But the extermination of the old generation of Bolsheviks is dictated by the interests of the privileged summits of the bureaucracy.
Q: What kind of political regime now prevails in Russia? Is it state capitalism or dictatorship?
A: In my book The Revolution Betrayed, I tried to show that to call the Soviet regime “state capitalism” is neither scientific nor correct. The forms of property created by the October Revolution are still preserved. On this basis — with favorable international and internal conditions — the development of socialism is possible. However, the growth of the bureaucracy shakes and weakens the new forms of property, in the degree that the bureaucracy more and more arbitrarily disposes of the productive forces of the country and swallows up a larger and larger portion of the national income. The economic regime of the USSR has a transitional character, that is, represents a certain stage between capitalism and socialism, closer to capitalism than to socialism. This transitional regime, however, is more and more disfigured by the parasitism of the bureaucracy. In the political sense the regime represents a historical equivalent of Bonapartism. The further development of the bureaucratic autocracy threatens to undermine the forms of property created by the October Revolution and to throw the country far back. That is why the overthrow of the Bonapartist bureaucracy is the most important condition for the further movement of the USSR toward socialism. …
Q: Does the activity developed by the Soviet government at Birobidzhan follow strategic plans to fortify this section in the event of war with Japan, or does it actually represent the creation of a free, autonomous state for the Jewish nation within the Soviet Union?1
A: Both tendencies have played a role since the creation of Birobidzhan. Under a regime of Soviet democracy, Birobidzhan could undoubtedly play a serious role as regards the national culture of Soviet Judaism. Under a Bonapartist regime which nourishes anti-Semitic tendencies, Birobidzhan threatens to degenerate into a sort of Soviet ghetto. …
Q: Have you been well-informed about the standpoint of the Forward with reference to the attacks made upon you in Russia and America?
A: My friends in New York have kept me regularly informed of the position of the Forward as regards the judicial frame-ups in Moscow. I deeply appreciate the objective reports which the Forward has given and is giving to its readers on this question. It is unnecessary for me to recall here the profound difference between our principled positions. However, all the parties of the working class and of the laboring masses in general are interested in seeing that the ideological struggle is not poisoned by slander, falsifications, frame-ups, and juridical assassinations. That is precisely why I hope that the Forward will open its pages to the work of the Inquiry Commission presided over by Professor Dewey.
Q: Do you consider satisfactory the results attained by the Inquiry Commission of which Professor Dewey was a prominent member?
A: I am satisfied to the highest degree with the first step of the work of the New York commission. The report of the investigation which it made will shortly be published. Every thinking man will be able to compare the verbatim report of the Moscow trial with the verbatim report of the Coyoacan [Mexico] investigation. I do not doubt for an instant that the truth will find its way over all obstacles.
1 Birobidzhan was a section of the Russian
Republic on the border with China, set
aside by the Soviet government in 1928
for colonization by Jews. It was made an
autonomous region in 1934 and was dissolved
in 1938-39 by Stalin, who claimed
it had become a haven for opposition elements.