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The enemy is the new aristocracy, the new Bolshevik bourgeoisie
For Trotsky, the main enemy was at the head of the Soviet State: it was the `new Bolshevik aristocracy', the most anti-Socialist and anti-democratic layer of the society, a social layer that lived like `the well-to-do bourgeois of the United States'! Here is how he phrased it.
`The privileged bureaucracy ... now represents the most antisocialist and the most antidemocratic sector of Soviet society.'
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Trotsky, Thermidor et l'antisémitisme (22 February 1937). La lutte, pp. 143--144.
`We accuse the ruling clique of having transformed itself into a new aristocracy, oppressing and robbing the masses .... The higher layer of the bureaucracy lives approximately the same kind of life as the well-to-do bourgeois of the United States and other capitalist countries.'
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Trotsky, The World Situation and Perspectives (14 February 1940). Writings, vol. 12, pp. 148--149.
This language makes Trotsky indistinguishable from the Menshevik leaders when they were leading the counter-revolutionary armed struggle, alongside the White and interventionist armies. Also indistinguishable from the language of the classical Right of the imperialist countries.
Compare Trotsky with the main anti-Communist ideologue in the International Confederation of Christian Unions (CISC), P. J. S. Serrarens, writing in 1948:
`There are thanks to Stalin, once again `classes' and rich people .... Just like in a capitalist society, the élite is rewarded with money and power. There is what `Force Ouvrière' (France) calls a `Soviet aristocracy'. This weekly compares it to the aristocracy created by Napoleon.'
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P. J. S. Serrarens, La Russie et l'Occident (Utrecht: Confédération Internationale des Syndicats Chrétiens, n.d.), pp. 33, 37.
After World War II, the French union Force Ouvrière to which Serrarens was referring was directly created and financed by the CIA. The `Lambertist' Trotskyist group worked, and still works, inside it. At that time, the CISC, be it in Italy or Belgium, worked directly for the CIA for the defence of the capitalist system in Europe. To mobilize the workers against Communism, it used a revolting `anti-capitalist' demagoguery that it borrowed from the social-democrats and the Trotskyists: in the Soviet Union, there was a `new class of rich people', a `Soviet aristocracy'.
Confronting this `new aristocracy, oppressing and robbing the masses',
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Trotsky, The World Situation, p. 148.
there were, in Trotsky's eyes, `one hundred and sixty millions who are profoundly discontented'.
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Ibid. , p. 149.
These `people' were protecting the collectivization of the means of production and the planned economy against the `ignorant and despotic Stalinist thieves'. In other words, apart from the `Stalinists', the rest of the society was clean and led just struggles! Listen to Trotsky:
`Twelve to fifteen millions of the privileged --- there are the ``people'' who organize the parades, demonstrations, and ovations .... But apart from this ``pays légal'' as was once said in France, there exist one hundred and sixty millions who are profoundly discontented ....
`Antagonism between the bureaucracy and the people is measured by the increasing severity of the totalitarian rule ....
`The bureaucracy can be crushed only by a new political revolution.'
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Ibid. , p. 149.
`(T)he economy is planned on the basis of nationalization and collectivization of the means of production. This state economy has its own laws that are less and less tolerant of the despotism, ignorance and banditry of the Stalinist bureaucracy.'
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Trotsky, La capitulation de Staline (11 March 1939). La lutte, p. 216.
Since the re-establishment of capitalism was impossible in Trotsky's eyes, any opposition, be it social-democratic, revisionist, bourgeois or counter-revolutionary, became legitimate. It was the voice of `one hundred and sixty millions who were profoundly discontented' and aimed to `protect' the collectivization of the means of production against the `new aristocracy'. Trotsky became the spokesperson for all the retrograde forces, anti-socialist and fascist.
Next: Bolshevism and fascism Up: Trotsky's rôle on Previous: Trotsky's rôle on
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995