Contents Preface 7 Part 1: Preparing the revolution 15 1. On trial for insurrection 17 2. Zimmerwald manifesto against the war 38 3. The February revolution and its results 45 On the eve of a revolution 46 Two faces Internal forces of the Russian revolution 48 The growing conflict 53 War or peace? 55 4. All power to the Soviets 59 5. President of the Petrograd Soviet 63 Acceptance speech 64 Answer to Skobelev 65 To the Soviets of the Northern Region 69 6. Organizing the insurrection 72 In answer to a rumor 73 Three resolutions 75 Brother Cossacks! 77 Message to the garrison 79 Report to the Extraordinary Session 80 The overthrow of the Provisional Government 83 To the army committees and soldiers soviets 87 Walkout of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries 88 On the arrest of socialist ministers 90 The organization of power 91
Part 2: Defending the revolution 97 7. Commissar of foreign affairs 99 For peace Against secret diplomacy! 99 Appeal to the toiling, oppressed, and exhausted peoples of Europe 104 8. A word to the Russian workers and peasants on our friends and enemies, and how to preserve and strengthen the Soviet Republic 109 9. Civil war 139 Lenin wounded 139 Recruiting the Red Army 145 Strike the enemy, spare the prisoner! 156 10. Tasks of the Twelfth Congress of the Russian Communist Party 158 11. For the internationalist perspective 206 On the road to the European revolution 207 Prospects and tasks in the East 234 12. The war danger The defense policy and the Opposition 247 Part 3: Preparing anew 265 13. Open letter to the workers of the USSR 267 14. Interview from Prinkipo 275 15. In defense of the Russian Revolution 287 16. Farewell to Prinkipo 318 17. I stake my life! 327 18. The founding of the Fourth International 349 19. On the eve of World War II 353 20. Testament 367 Notes 371 Index 387
Preface The growing number of books by Leon Trotsky in print or in preparation now attests to a growing interest in his life, ideas, and personality. In an age of revolution this is understandable as Trotsky was above all a revolutionary, probably the greatest of the century next to his contemporary Lenin. The present collection, unlike other Trotsky anthologies which are based primarily on his books, pamphlets, and other written works, is focused on his speeches. Along with his other talents theoretician, writer, military commander, organizer, historian, social and cultural critic Trotsky had great oratorical powers, of which there is testimony from those who heard him and from those who studied his work. Anatoly V. Lunacharsky, commissar of education in the first Soviet government and a notable speaker himself, gave an evaluation of Trotsky as a speaker which appeared in a small book, Silhouettes, written in 1923 when he had known Trotsky for almost two decades: The chief external endowments of Trotsky are his oratorical gift and his talent as a writer. I consider Trotsky probably the greatest orator of our times. I have heard in my day all the great parliamentary and popular orators of socialism, and very many of the famous orators of the bourgeois world, and I should have difficulty in naming any of them, except Jaures, whom I might place beside Trotsky. Effective presence, beautiful broad gesture, mighty rhythm of speech, loud, absolutely tireless voice, wonderful compact- 7
8 / leon trotsky speaks ness, literariness of phrase, wealth of imagery, scorching irony, flowing pathos, and an absolutely extraordinary logic, really steel-like in its clarity those are the qualities of Trotsky s speech. He can speak epigrammatically, shoot a few remarkably well-aimed arrows, and he can pronounce such majestic political discourses as I have heard elsewhere only from Jaures. I have seen Trotsky talk for two and a half to three hours to an absolutely silent audience, standing on their feet, and listening as though bewitched to an enormous political treatise. Similar estimates are made by writers who did not know and hear Trotsky personally. Isaac Deutscher, the biographer of Trotsky, studied his speeches in the Russian and investigated the opinions of people who had heard Trotsky speak. In The Prophet Armed, finished in 1952 as book one of his trilogy, Deutscher wrote of the twenty-three-year-old Trotsky after his first escape from Siberia in 1902: No sooner had he arrived in London than Lenin and Martov pitted him in debate against venerable old Narodnik and anarchist emigres in Whitechapel. The novice was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which he swept the floor with his graybearded opponents. After that he toured the Russian colonies in western Europe. Contemporaries have described the first sudden and irresistible impact of his oratory, the elan, the passion, the wit, and the thunderous metallic voice, with which he roused audiences and bore down upon opponents. This appears all the more remarkable as only a few years before he could only stammer in blushing perplexity before a tiny, homely audience and as he had spent most of the time since in the solitude of prison and exile. His oratory was quite untutored: he had hardly yet heard a single speaker worthy of imitation. This is one of those instances of latent unsuspected talent, bursting forth in exuberant vitality to delight and amaze all who witness it. The literary critic Edmund Wilson, in his 1940 study of the Russian Revolution To the Finland Station, drew the following picture of Trotsky in the 1905 revolution: He had developed, through much lecturing in exile, into an
preface / 9 extraordinary public speaker it was the opinion of Lunacharsky that he even surpassed Jaures a master of both delivery and argument, who, whatever the imperfections of his relationships with people as individuals, had the genius for compelling them in the mass. He could handle the grim Marxist logic with a freer and more sweeping hand so as to make it an instrument for persuasion and wield the knife of the Marxist irony for purposes of public exhibition, when he would flay the officials alive and, turning their skins inside out, display the ignominious carcasses concealed by their assurances and promises; he could dip down and raise a laugh from the peasant at the core of every Russian proletarian by hitting off something with a proverb or fable from that Ukrainian countryside of his youth; he could point epigrams with a swiftness and a cleanness that woke the wonder of the cleverest intellectuals; and he could throw wide the horizons of the mind to a vision of that dignity and liberty that every man among them there should enjoy. In a more recent study completed in 1967, The Russian Revolution, Marcel Liebman saw Trotsky as the poet of the 1917 revolution: It was he who at meeting after meeting, in proclamation after proclamation, gave voice to the enthusiasm and fury of the people; he who had his finger on the people s pulse; he who made it beat faster; he who showed the entire nation that their actions had a scope far beyond the narrow confines of Russia. Life had fully prepared him for his double role of organizer and poet of the revolution. To begin with he was an outstandingly talented writer and speaker; he had the temperament of an artist and the brain of a mathematician. As a writer he scaled the heights; as an orator he was peerless. Trotsky himself left accounts of his speaking during the turbulent events of 1917. In his autobiography written in 1929, My Life, he recalled: Life was a whirl of mass meetings. When I arrived in Petrograd, I found all the revolutionary orators either hoarse or
10 / leon trotsky speaks voiceless. The revolution of 1905 had taught me to guard my voice with care, and thanks to this, I was hardly ever out of the ranks. Meetings were held in plants, schools, and colleges, in theaters, circuses, streets, and squares. I usually reached home exhausted after midnight; half-asleep I would discover the best arguments against my opponents, and about seven in the morning, or sometimes even earlier, I would be pulled painfully from my bed by the hateful, intolerable knocking on the door, calling me to a meeting in Peterhof, or to go to Kronstadt on a tug sent for me by the navy boys there. Each time it would seem to me as if I could never get through this new meeting, but some hidden reserve of nervous energy would come to the surface, and I would speak for an hour, sometimes two, while delegations from other plants or districts, surrounding me in a close ring, would tell me that thousands of workers in three or perhaps five different places had been waiting for me for hours on end. How patiently that awakening mass was waiting for the new word in those days! The mass meetings in the Modern Circus were for me quite special. My opponents likewise considered them so, but in a different light. They regarded the Circus as my particular fortress, and never even attempted to speak in it. But whenever I attacked the conciliationists in the Soviet, I was interrupted by bitter shouts: This is not your Modern Circus. It became quite a refrain. I usually spoke in the Circus in the evening, sometimes quite late at night. My audience was composed of workers, soldiers, hard-working mothers, street urchins the oppressed underdogs of the capital. Every square inch was filled, every human body compressed to its limit. Young boys sat on their fathers shoulders; infants were at their mothers breasts. No one smoked. The balconies threatened to fall under the excessive weight of human bodies. I made my way to the platform through a narrow human trench, sometimes I was borne overhead. The air, intense with breathing and waiting, fairly exploded with shouts and with the passionate yells peculiar to the Modern Circus.
preface / 11 Above and around me was a press of elbows, chests, and heads. I spoke from out of a warm cavern of human bodies; whenever I stretched out my hands I would touch someone, and a grateful movement in response would give me to understand that I was not to worry about it, not to break off my speech, but keep on. Few of Trotsky s speeches were transcribed before 1917; he was able to make few after 1929, when he was exiled from the Soviet Union. One of the latter was made at Trotsky s home in Coyoacan, Mexico, on November 7, 1937, at a celebration of the Russian Revolution and of Trotsky s birthday, which dates coincide. This was described by Joseph Hansen, Trotsky s secretary and guard, in his introduction to the 1970 edition of My Life: During the day the patio and house filled with people coming for the fiesta. They were mostly very poor people, members of the unions in which Trotsky s Mexican followers were active.... Trotsky, of course, was called on to make a speech. I noticed that he seemed hesitant. No doubt he would have preferred to avoid it. After all, he had arrived in Mexico only the previous January and the speech had to be given in Spanish. Despite his reluctance, there was no escape. He appeared to brace himself, as if he were taking a deep breath. He stepped forward to the balustrade; and he was transformed. He took complete possession and spoke out as if this were completely natural and something he did every day. He pitched his voice so that it soared somewhat and could be heard with complete ease. It was a simple speech of thanks and appreciation. A few words about the October Revolution and its meaning. An expression of gratitude for the hospitality of Mexico and the warmth of the Mexican people. Trotsky spoke only a few minutes but it gave me a glimpse of him as a speaker. It was quite clear that he had studied the art and had practiced it until it had become virtually effortless for
12 / leon trotsky speaks him. He was decidedly not of the school that speaks at an audience or reads it a lecture, glass of water in one hand, hanging on to the podium with the other. The audience responded with emotion and acclaim. Trotsky also made a striking impression when he spoke informally with visitors, journalists, and his comrades. Jean van Heijenoort, who served as Trotsky s secretary and guard in all four countries of his last exile, remembered in a 1941 essay, Lev Davidovich (reprinted in Leon Trotsky, The Man and His Work, 1969): In conversations with Lev Davidovich what visitors were struck by chiefly was his capacity to find his bearings in a novel situation. He was able to integrate it in his general perspective, and at the same time always give immediate and concrete advice. During his third emigration he often had the opportunity of conversing with visitors from countries he was not acquainted with directly, perhaps from the Balkans or Latin America. He did not always know the language, did not follow their press, and had never had any particular interest in their specific problems. First of all he would allow his interrogator to speak, occasionally jotting down a few brief notes on a slip of paper in front of him, sometimes asking for a few details: How many members has this party? Isn t this politician a lawyer? Then he would speak, and the mass of information that had been given him would be organized. Soon one could distinguish the movements of different classes and of different layers within these classes, and then, bound up with these movements, there would be revealed the play of parties, groups, and organizations, and then the place and the activities of various political figures, down to their profession and personal traits, would be logically fitted into the picture. When Trotsky spoke... what attracted attention was his mouth. Whether he spoke in Russian or a foreign language his lips constrained themselves to shape words distinctly. He was irritated at hearing confused and precipitate speech from others, and always compelled himself to enunciate with complete
preface / 13 distinctness. It was only in addressing Natalia Ivanovna in Russian that on occasion his enunciation became more hurried and less articulate, descending sometimes into a whisper. In conversations with visitors in his study his hands, resting on the edge of his worktable at first, would soon begin moving with large, firm gestures, as though aiding his lips in molding the expression of his thought. Many of Trotsky s speeches were never transcribed; others were transcribed but remain locked in the files of the Soviet secret police; still others remain to be translated. The aim of the present volume is to provide a selection of Trotsky s speeches representative of his style and content in the three periods into which we have divided his political career. To better serve as an introduction to Trotsky, the speeches are preceded by background historical and biographical information and are followed by notes about persons, groups, and events cited by Trotsky with which the reader of today may not be familiar. While the majority of this volume consists of actual speeches, we have not hesitated to include items whose contents added something substantial. None of the material printed here has been abridged by us; the texts are either complete or were abridged before their first appearance in print. With few exceptions, we have avoided using speeches readily available in other Trotsky books and pamphlets. Some translations were made especially for this book; with the others, we have taken the liberty of revising spellings, punctuation, etc., in order to achieve greater stylistic uniformity. Credit to the translators, when known, and data about sources are given in the prefatory information to each chapter. Sarah Lovell January 1972