Zinoviev and Kamenev, already worried about Stalin’s growing power, rudeness and disloyalty, were profoundly shocked by this development. Within a year, they had broken with Stalin and went over to the Left Opposition. This realignment at the top of the Party was due to the growing pressures from the workers of Leningrad, who were alarmed by the policy of enriching the kulaks and NEPmen. Zinoviev and Kamenev later admitted that the myth of Trotskyism had been deliberately invented to discredit Trotsky. In a typically Bonapartist fashion, Stalin now leaned on the right wing of Bukharin and Tomsky to attack the Left Opposition. The Left Opposition waged a heroic battle to maintain the original ideas of the Revolution against the growing bureaucratic reaction within the Party. Not only did they fight for the restoration of party democracy, but they argued for an economic plan that could harness the productive potential of the Soviet economy. The Opposition had understood early on that industry could not continue by resting upon equipment inherited from the past but needed, on the basis of ‘socialist accumulation’, to expand industry through national planning. Such a plan could increase the tempo of production far faster than in the capitalist West but the Stalin leadership chose to move with great caution, attacking the leaders of the Opposition as ‘super-industrialisers’.
Stalin’s belated reply to the Opposition proposals was a pessimistic draft Five-Year Plan published in 1927. Industrial production was projected to grow at a declining rate from 9 per cent to 4 per cent! Under the harsh criticism from the Opposition, the plan was finally revised upwards to 9 per cent annually, but was still far below the projections of between 15 per cent and 18 per cent growth rates of the Opposition. Stalin continued to attack Trotsky and the Opposition as super-industrialisers. As late as April 1927, he argued at the Central Committee that to build the Dnieperstroy hydroelectric power station would be the same as asking a peasant to buy a gramophone instead of a cow! The ruling group’s policy of support for the kulak and reliance on the market was leading to a growing differentiation in town and country. The increasing power and influence of NEPmen and kulaks was reaching dangerous proportions. The rising tide of capitalism was visible everywhere. These alien class pressures had earlier opened up a struggle in the Communist Party leadership. Those on the Right Wing – Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky – wanted to give still greater concessions to the kulaks. Stalin balanced between the different factions in the Politburo, preferring to adopt a centrist position on questions and leaning for support, now on the left, now on the right. In his struggle with the Left Opposition he rested on Bukharin’s right wing. In 1925, Stalin even began to prepare for the denationalisation of the land. Bukharin, who in April 1925 urged the peasantry to “get rich”, envisaged these rich kulaks “growing into socialism”. He talked of “riding into socialism on a peasant nag”. This policy, which would have led to the restoration of capitalism in Russia, was bitterly opposed by Trotsky and the Left Opposition, which advocated a policy of voluntary collectivisation of agriculture and industrial planning.
Despite the hopes of the leadership, the kulaks moved, not to socialism, but to capitalist counter-revolution. By the spring of 1926, almost 60 per cent of grain for sale was in the possession of 6 per cent of the kulaks. And by early 1928, with the kulak blockade of grain, the spectre of famine in the towns became a serious threat. According to Alec Nove: “The shortfall in grain procurements may be seen from the fact that by January 1928 the state had succeeded in purchasing only 300 million poods [a pood is a Russian unit of measurement. 1 pood is approximately equal to 16.38 kilograms], as against 428 million on the same date in the previous year.” (Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, p. 149.) The whole regime was shaken to its foundations by the impending crisis. Every town and city was faced with a food blockade. The kulaks had acquired tremendous power and were now determined to use it to overturn the regime.
On 7 November 1927, the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, the United Opposition[2] intervened in the marches and demonstrations with banners proclaiming: “Strike against the kulak, the NEPmen and bureaucrat!” “Carry out Lenin’s Testament!” and “Down with opportunism!” Trotsky and the other Opposition leaders were given a tremendous reception by the workers of Leningrad, who voiced their dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic leadership. The workers and the youth were sympathetic to the Opposition, but exhausted and disheartened. As Trotsky warned the impressionistic Zinoviev, who took this as a sign that the situation had changed, this sympathy did not mean that the masses were prepared to take action. On the contrary, this demonstration convinced the ruling group of the need to take immediate measures against the Opposition. One week later, after a ferocious campaign of denigration, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rakovsky, Smilga and Yevdokimov were expelled from the Central Committee. In December, the entire Left Opposition was expelled from the Communist Party. As a consequence, those who lacked a political perspective and backbone capitulated. The Zinovievists deserted the Opposition. Demoralised and disoriented, Zinoviev and Kamenev surrendered to Stalin. The Trotskyists, in contrast, refused to submit.
Tens of thousands of Left Oppositionists were sacked from their jobs, their families hounded, and sent into exile. Now the campaign of repression against the Opposition began in earnest. After their break with Stalin, Kamenev, who knew Stalin very well, had warned Trotsky: “Do you think that Stalin is now busy thinking how best to refute our criticism? You are mistaken. He is thinking of how best to destroy you… First morally, and then, if possible, also physically. By covering you with slander, by organising a provocation, by laying a military conspiracy at your door, by staging a terrorist act. Believe me, this is not guesswork. In our triumvirate, we had many occasions to be frank with one another, although even at that time our personal relations more than once verged upon an explosion. Stalin wages a struggle on a totally different plane from yours…” (Trotsky, Writings, 1936-37, p. 43.) At the 15th Congress Stalin proclaimed the Opposition ‘liquidated’. Trotsky and his family were exiled to Alma-Ata, then deported to Turkey. This was a turning point in the consolidation of the power of the Stalinist bureaucracy.