Introduction by Rob Sewell

1924 witnessed another turning point in the struggle of the Opposition. It was at this time that Trotsky published a preface for volume three of his writings and speeches devoted to 1917. This preface was entitled the “Lessons of October”, a brief but brilliant analysis of the Russian Revolution and its lessons. Trotsky pointed to two internal crises in the Party in 1917: one in April when Lenin fought against the Old Bolsheviks to rearm the Party for the coming revolution, and again in October when Zinoviev and Kamenev wavered and came out against the insurrection. At each crucial stage, Lenin had met the opposition of the “Old Bolsheviks”. He went on to analyse parallels with the German revolution, especially the behaviour of a right-wing tendency within the Party. Whereas in Russia, Lenin and Trotsky overcame the right-wing tendency of Zinoviev and Kamenev, this was not the case in Germany. In the German Revolution, there was no Lenin or Trotsky and the right wing tendency in the leadership was dominant, who succeeded in shipwrecking the revolution. The German October confirmed negatively what the Russian October had confirmed positively, namely the importance of far-sighted leadership.

The publication of “Lessons of October” proved to be a bombshell. The triumvirate was aghast. They immediately went on the offensive with a series of articles attacking Trotsky. Isolated quotes, ripped out of context, were splashed across the newspapers to distort Trotsky’s past and present. The violence of the attacks against him was without precedent. In 1925, the British Communist Party published a book containing Trotsky’s “Lessons of October”, together with a stream of articles attacking him by Zinoviev, Stalin, Kamenev and Krupskaya. The title of the book was The Errors of Trotskyism.

Rob Sewell
From ‘Origins of Trotskyism’, Marxist.com
6 September 2018