The Bolshevik Party was the most revolutionary party in history. But even the most revolutionary party has its conservative side. This conservatism develops as a consequence of years of routine work, which is absolutely necessary, but can lead to certain habits and traditions that, in a revolutionary situation, can act like a brake, if they are not overcome by the leadership. At the decisive moment, when the situation demands a sharp change in the orientation of the party, from routine work to the seizing of power, the old habits can come into conflict with the needs of the new situation. It is precisely in such a context that the role of the leadership is vital.
The recent publication of the completed version of Trotsky’s monumental biography of Stalin is perhaps the best source for a study of the history of the Bolshevik Party, apart from the Collected Works of Lenin. Unfortunately that work was left unfinished by the assassination of Trotsky in August 1940. For the last 75 years it was only available in the heavily abridged and mutilated version of Charles Malamuth.
For ten years a small dedicated team worked to reassemble the missing material with a view to making as much of Trotsky’s work as possible available to the reading public. I had the honour and privilege of editing this work, which was finally published (in English) in 2016, and is now being translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, French, German, Urdu and other languages.
Even in its earlier incomplete and mutilated version this was an invaluable source for anybody interested in the history of Bolshevism, and I drew heavily on it for my own history. But in the new, greatly expanded edition it is a veritable treasure trove of the history and ideas of the Russian revolutionary movement in the first half of the twentieth century.
In that book Trotsky wrote the following:
The struggle between classes reaches a point where intolerable tensions arise. That is the economic premise of revolution. On the basis of this objective reality a definite regroupment must arise, expressed in definite political relations and definite states of consciousness in the relationship between classes. These processes have a psychological character. In the final analysis, they are, of course, governed by the objective social crisis. But they have their own internal logic and dynamic: will-power, the willingness to fight and, conversely, perplexity, decadence and cowardice – it is precisely this dynamic of consciousness that directly determines the direction and outcome of the revolution.
What characterises the epoch of the revolutionary flood tide is on the one hand growing contradictions, antagonisms and perplexity among the old ruling classes, while on the other there is the growing solidarity of the main revolutionary class, around which all the oppressed classes gather in the hope of bettering themselves. Finally, the intermediate classes and strata that either remain neutral or are sucked into the maelstrom of events on the side of one or other of the main classes.
The revolution can be victorious when the revolutionary class manages to win over the majority of the intermediate layers, and so becomes the spokesperson of the majority of the nation. In a revolutionary epoch, one can distinguish the slogans under which the struggle takes place: the revolutionary class that strives for power. Revolution becomes possible when the vanguard of the proletariat, organised in the Party, draws the vast majority of the class behind it, isolating the crushed and demoralised elements and reducing them to insignificance.
The highest attainment of solidarity of the revolutionary class corresponds in equal measure to the dissolution and internal divisions within the old classes. However, classes are not homogeneous, either socially or ideologically. Within the proletariat it is always possible to distinguish its vanguard, the intermediate and middle layers, and finally the backward and even reactionary rearguard. Once the proletariat in its majority is united around the revolutionary vanguard, it sweeps along a significant portion of the intermediate, discontented and oppressed classes and the lower classes of the petty bourgeoisie, neutralising the other layers, and the thrust of its onslaught throws into crisis the ruling class that has outlived itself. It breaks the resistance of the army, winning over a significant part of it to its side and neutralising the rest, isolating the most reactionary elements. This, in general outline, is the formula of the proletarian revolution. (Trotsky, Stalin, The Thermidorian reaction, pp. 651-2, the new English edition)
In these few concise paragraphs, Trotsky brilliantly summarises the real role of the revolutionary party.