Trotsky - The Lessons of October

W e met with success in the October Revolution, but theOctober Revolution has met with little success in our press. Up to the present time we lack asingle work which gives a comprehensive picture of the October upheaval and puts the proper stressupon its most important political and organizational aspects. Worse yet, even the available firsthand material includingthe most important documents directly pertaining to the various particulars of thepreparation for the revolution, or the revolution itself remains unpublished as yet. Numerousdocuments and considerable material have been issued bearing on the pre-October history of therevolution and the pre-October history of the party; we have also issued much material and manydocuments relating to the post October period. But October itself has received far less attention.Having achieved the revolution, we seem to have concluded that we should never have to repeat it.It is as if we thought that no immediate and direct benefit for the unpostponable tasks of futureconstructive work could be derived from the study of October; the actual conditions of the directpreparation for it; the actual accomplishment of it; and the work of consolidating it during thefirst few weeks.

Such an approach though it may be subconscious is, however, profoundlyerroneous, and is, moreover, narrow and nationalistic. We ourselves may never have to repeat theexperience of the October Revolution, but this does not at all imply that we have nothing to learnfrom that experience. We are a part of the International , and the workers in all other countries are still faced with the solutionof the problem of their own October. Last year we had ample proof that the mostadvanced Communist parties of the West had not only failed to assimilate our October experience butwere virtually ignorant of the actual facts.

To be sure, the objection may be raised that it is impossible to study October or even topublish documents relating to October without the risk of stirring up old disagreements. But suchan approach to the question would be altogether petty. The disagreements of 1917 were indeed veryprofound, and they were not by any means accidental. But nothing could be more paltry than anattempt to turn them now, after a lapse of several years, into weapons of attack against those whowere at that time mistaken. It would be, however, even more inadmissible to remain silent asregards the most important problems of the October Revolution, which are of internationalsignificance, on account of trifling personal considerations.

Last year we met with two crushing defeats in Bulgaria. First, the party let slip anexceptionally favorable moment for revolutionary action on account of fatalistic and doctrinaireconsiderations. (That moment was the rising of the peasants after the June coup of Tsankov.) Thenthe party, striving to make good its mistake, plunged into the September insurrection withouthaving made the necessary political or organizational preparations. The Bulgarian revolution oughtto have been a prelude to the German revolution. Unfortunately, the bad Bulgarian prelude led to aneven worse sequel in Germany itself. In the latter part of last year, we witnessed in Germany aclassic demonstration of how it is possible to miss a perfectly exceptional revolutionary situationof world historic importance. Once more, however, neither the Bulgarian nor even the Germanexperiences of last year have received an adequate or sufficiently concrete appraisal. The authorof these lines drew a general outline of the development of events in Germany last year. Everythingthat transpired since then has borne out this outline in part and as a whole. No one else has evenattempted to advance any other explanation. But we need more than an outline. It is indispensablefor us to have a concrete account, full of factual data, of last years developments inGermany. What we need is such an account as would provide a concrete explanation of the causes ofthis most cruel historic defeat.

It is difficult, however, to speak of an analysis of the events in Bulgaria and Germany when wehave not, up to the present, given a politically and tactically elaborated account of the OctoberRevolution. We have never made clear to ourselves what we accomplished and how we accomplished it.After October, in the flush of victory, it seemed as if the events of Europe would develop of theirown accord and, moreover, within so brief a period as would leave no time for any theoreticalassimilation of the lessons of October.

But the events have proved that without a party capable of directing the proletarian revolution,the revolution itself is rendered impossible. The proletariat cannot seize power by a spontaneousuprising. Even in highly industrialized and highly cultured Germany the spontaneous uprising of thetoilers in November 1918 only succeeded in transferring power to the hands of thebourgeoisie. One propertied class is able to seize the power that has been wrested from anotherpropertied class because it is able to base itself upon its riches, its cultural level, and itsinnumerable connections with the old state apparatus. But there is nothing else that can serve theproletariat as a substitute for its own party.

It was only by the middle of 1921 that the fully rounded-out work of building the Communistparties really began (under the slogan Win the masses, United front,etc.). The problems of October receded and, simultaneously, the study of October was also relegatedto the background. Last year we found ourselves once again face to face with the problems of theproletarian revolution. It is high time we collected all documents, printed all available material,and applied ourselves to their study!

We are well aware, of course, that every nation, every class, and even every party learnsprimarily from the harsh blows of its own experience. But that does not in the least imply that theexperience of other countries and classes and parties is of minor importance. Had we failed tostudy the Great French Revolution, the revolution of 1848, and the Paris Commune, we should neverhave been able to achieve the October Revolution, even though we passed through the experience ofthe year 1905. And after all, we went through this national experience of ours basingourselves on deductions from previous revolutions, and extending their historical line. Afterwards,the entire period of the counter-revolution was taken up with the study of the lessons to belearned and the deductions to be drawn from the year 1905.

Yet no such work has been done with regard to the victorious revolution of 1917 no, noteven a tenth part of it. Of course we are not now living through the years of reaction, nor are wein exile. On the other hand, the forces and resources at our command now are in no way comparableto what we had during those years of hardship. All that we need do is to pose clearly and plainlythe task of studying the October Revolution, both on the party scale and on the scale of theInternational as a whole. It is indispensable for the entire party, and especially its youngergenerations, to study and assimilate step by step the experience of October, which provided thesupreme, incontestable, and irrevocable test of the past and opened wide the gates to the future.The German lesson of last year is not only a serious reminder but also a dire warning.

An objection will no doubt be raised that even the most thorough knowledge of the course of theOctober Revolution would by no means have guaranteed victory to our German party. But this kind ofwholesale and essentially philistine rationalizing will get us nowhere. To be sure, mere study ofthe October Revolution is not sufficient to secure victory in other countries; but circumstancesmay arise where all the prerequisites for revolution exist, with the exception of a farseeing andresolute party leadership grounded in the understanding of the laws and methods of the revolution.This was exactly the situation last year in Germany. Similar situations may recur in othercountries. But for the study of the laws and methods of proletarian revolution there is, up to thepresent time, no more important and profound a source than our October experience. Leaders ofEuropean Communist parties who fail to assimilate the history of October by means of a critical andclosely detailed study would resemble a commander in chief preparing new wars under modernconditions, who fails to study the strategic, tactical, and technical experience of the lastimperialist war. Such a commander in chief would inevitably doom his armies to defeat in thefuture.