Trotsky - Terrorism and Communism

T he argument which is repeated again and again incriticisms of the Soviet system in Russia, and particularly in criticisms of revolutionary attemptsto set up a similar structure in other countries, is the argument based on the balance of power.The Soviet regime in Russia is utopian because it does not correspond to the balanceof power. Backward Russia cannot put objects before itself which would be appropriate toadvanced Germany. And for the proletariat of Germany it would be madness to take political powerinto its own hands, as this at the present moment would disturb the balance of power.The League of Nations is imperfect, but still corresponds to the balance of power. The struggle forthe overthrow of imperialist supremacy is utopian the balance of power only requires arevision of the Versailles Treaty. When Longuet hobbled after Wilson this took place, not becauseof the political decomposition of Longuet, but in honor of the law of the balance of power. TheAustrian president, Seitz, and the chancellor, Renner, must, in the opinion of Friedrich Adler,exercise their bourgeois impotence at the central posts of the bourgeois republic, for otherwisethe balance of power would be infringed. Two years before the world war, Karl Renner, then not achancellor, but a Marxist advocate of opportunism, explained to me that the regime ofJune 3 that is, the union of landlords and capitalists crowned by the monarchy mustinevitably maintain itself in Russia during a whole historical period, as it answered to thebalance of power.

What is this balance of power, after all that sacramental formula which is to define,direct, and explain the whole course of history, wholesale and retail? Why exactly is it that theformula of the balance of power, in the mouth of Kautsky and his present school, inevitably appearsas a justification of indecision, stagnation, cowardice and treachery?

By the balance of power they understand everything you please: the level of production attained,the degree of differentiation of classes, the number of organized workers, the total funds at thedisposal of the trade unions, sometimes the results of the last parliamentary elections, frequentlythe degree of readiness for compromise on the part of the ministry, or the degree of effrontery ofthe financial oligarchy. Most frequently, it means that summary political impression which existsin the mind of a half-blind pedant, or a so-called realist politician, who, though he has absorbedthe phraseology of Marxism, in reality is guided by the most shallow maneuvers, bourgeoisprejudices, and parliamentary tactics. After a whispered conversation with thedirector of the police department, an Austrian Social-Democratic politician in the good, and not sofar off, old times always knew exactly whether the balance of power permitted a peaceful streetdemonstration in Vienna on May Day. In the case of the Eberts, Scheidemanns and Davids, the balanceof power was, not so very long ago, calculated exactly by the number of fingers which were extendedto them at their meeting in the Reichstag with Bethmann-Hollweg, or with Ludendorff himself.

According to Friedrich Adler, the establishment of a Soviet dictatorship in Austria would be afatal infraction of the balance of power; the Entente would condemn Austria to starvation. In proofof this, Friedrich Adler, at the July congress of Soviets, pointed to Hungary, where at that timethe Hungarian Renners had not yet, with the help of the Hungarian Adlers, overthrown thedictatorship of the Soviets.

At the first glance, it might really seem that Friedrich Adler was right in the case of Hungary.The proletarian dictatorship was overthrown there soon afterwards, and its place was filled by theministry of the reactionary Friedrich. But it is quite justifiable to ask: Did the lattercorrespond to the balance of power? At all events, Friedrich and his Huszar might not eventemporarily have seized power had it not been for the Roumanian army. Hence, it is clear that, whendiscussing the fate of the Soviet Government in Hungary, it is necessary to take account of thebalance of power, at all events in two countries in Hungary itself, and inits neighbor, Roumania. But it is not difficult to grasp that we cannot stop at this. If thedictatorship of the Soviets had been set up in Austria before the maturing of the Hungarian crisis,the overthrow of the Soviet regime in Budapest would have been an infinitely mere difficult task.Consequently, we have to include Austria also, together with the treacherous policy of FriedrickAdler, in that balance of power which determined the temporary fall of the Soviet Government inHungary.

Friedrich Adler himself, however, seeks the key to the balance of power, not in Russia andHungary, but in the West, in the countries of Clemenceau and Lloyd George. They have in their handsbread and coal and really bread and coal, especially in our time, are just as foremostfactors in the mechanism of the balance of power as cannon in the constitution of Lassalle. Broughtdown from the heights, Adlers idea consists, consequently, in this: that the Austrianproletariat must not seize power until such time as it is permitted to do so by Clemenceau (orMillerand, i.e., a Clemenceau of the second order).

However, even here it is permissible to ask: Does the policy of Clemenceau himself reallycorrespond to the balance of power? At the first glance it may appear that it corresponds wellenough, and, if it cannot be proved, it is, at least, guaranteed by Clemenceaus gendarmes,who break up working-class meetings, and arrest and shoot Communists. But here we cannot butremember that the terrorist measures of the Soviet Government that is, the same searches,arrests, and executions, only directed against the counter-revolutionaries are consideredby some people as a proof that the Soviet Government does not correspond to the balance of power.In vain would we, however, begin to seek in our time, anywhere in the world, a regime which, topreserve itself, did not have recourse to measures of stern mass repression. This means thathostile class forces, having broken through the framework of every kind of law includingthat of democracy are striving to find their new balance by means of amerciless struggle.

When the Soviet system was being instituted in Russia, not only the capitalist politicians, butalso the Socialist opportunists of all countries proclaimed it an insolent challenge to the balanceof forces. On this score, there was no quarrel between Kautsky, the Austrian Count Czernin, and theBulgarian Premier, Radoslavov. Since that time, the Austro-Hungarian and German monarchies havecollapsed, and the most powerful militarism in the world has fallen into dust. The Soviet regimehas held out. The victorious countries of the Entente have mobilized and hurled against it all theycould. The Soviet Government has stood firm. Had Kautsky, Friedrich Adler, and Otto Bauer been toldthat the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat would hold out in Russia firstagainst the attack of German militarism, and then in a ceaseless war with the militarism of theEntente countries the sages of the Second International would have considered such aprophecy a laughable misunderstanding of the balance of power.

The balance of political power at any given moment is determined under the influence offundamental and secondary factors of differing degrees of effectiveness, and only in its mostfundamental quality is it determined by the stage of the development of production. The socialstructure of a people is extraordinarily behind the development of its productive forces. The lowermiddle classes, and particularly the peasantry, retain their existence long after their economicmethods have been made obsolete, and have been condemned, by the technical development of theproductive powers of society. The consciousness of the masses, in its turn, is extraordinarilybehind the development of their social relations, the consciousness of the old Socialist parties isa whole epoch behind the state of mind of the masses, and the consciousness of the oldparliamentary and trade union leaders, more reactionary than the consciousness of their party,represents a petrified mass which history has been unable hitherto either to digest or reject. Inthe parliamentary epoch, during the period of stability of social relations, the psychologicalfactor without great error was the foundation upon which all current calculationswere based. It was considered that parliamentary elections reflected the balance of power withsufficient exactness. The imperialist war, which upset all bourgeois society, displayed thecomplete uselessness of the old criteria. The latter completely ignored those profound historicalfactors which had gradually been accumulating in the preceeding period, and have now, all at once,appeared on the surface, and have begun to determine the course of history.