The Reality of Lenin and Trotsky After 1917

Anyone who's spent time engaging with Trotskyists has probably heard this story: after 1917, Trotsky became Lenin's closest ally and chosen successor, only to be brutally suppressed by the bureaucratic counter-revolutionary Stalin.

According to Trotskyists, Stalin was an arch-revisionist and counter-revolutionary who fell out of favor with Lenin and ultimately usurped power from the man Lenin had actually intended to succeed him.

The purpose of this article is to examine these claims and determine whether they are supported by the available evidence. To do this, we'll examine Lenin's relationship with Trotsky after 1917 and the so-called Testament.

Lenin & Trotsky Post-1917

From 1903 to 1917, Lenin waged a relentless struggle against Trotsky. The polemics, speeches, criticisms, and disputes are too numerous to cover here. Even Trotskyists recognize this fact.

Marxist-Leninists often cite Lenin's writings and speeches from this period to demonstrate the irreconcilable differences between the two, and the relentless struggle Lenin waged against Trotsky.

In response, Trotskyists usually argue that it's unfair to rely on Lenin's pre-1917 criticisms because, after 1917, Trotsky and Lenin were completely aligned and worked together without any significant disagreements. According to this view, Trotsky abandoned his earlier positions and became a principled Bolshevik.

Did he, though?

1918: Brest-Litovsk

In 1918, the first order of business for the young Soviet state was to end Russia's involvement in the First World War. On October 26 (November 8), the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies approved Lenin's Decree on Peace.¹ Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and tasked with preparing for peace negotiations with Germany.

Within the Bolshevik Party, three approaches were debated. The Left Communists wanted to wage a revolutionary war against Germany. Trotsky wanted to declare neither peace nor war. Lenin wanted an immediate peace to preserve the young and fragile Soviet state. The Central Committee initially adopted Trotsky's position over Lenin's objections.

On January 17 (January 30), before the Soviet delegation left for Brest, Lenin instructed Trotsky to stall the peace talks until Germany presented an ultimatum, at which point Lenin wanted Trotsky to sign the peace treaty.²

On January 27 (February 9), Germany issued an ultimatum. Trotsky requested instructions from Lenin on how to respond.

On January 28 (February 10), Trotsky received a telegram signed by Lenin and Stalin stating: You know our point of view; it has only strengthened recently. In other words, accept the ultimatum and conclude peace.³

Instead, Trotsky refused to conclude peace and broke off the negotiations. This prompted the German government to end the armistice, resume its offensive, and seize vast amounts of territory. Following these events, the Central Committee adopted Lenin's position. However, by then the Soviet government was forced to accept a far more severe peace settlement.

At the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), Lenin stated:⁴

What I predicted has come to pass; instead of the Brest peace we have a much more humiliating peace, and the blame for this rests upon those who refused to accept the former peace.

Lenin didn't merely blame those who refused to accept peace, he accused them of assisting German imperialism. Interestingly, Stalin, the man who Trotskyists accuse of being anti-Leninist, consistently voted in favor of Lenin's position during the Central Committee vote on the Brest-Litovsk negotiations.

1920-1921: The Trade Union Debate

By 1920, there was an important dispute regarding the role and tasks of the trade unions. Trotskyists tend to downplay this dispute by highlighting Lenin's softer language toward Trotsky. But there are a few things readers have to keep in mind.

Lenin's critiques of Trotsky pre-1917 were vicious. He was highly polemical and never held back, insulting Trotsky time and time again. However, post-1917 the polemical and offensive nature of his criticisms was toned down significantly. There are two reasons for this. First, Trotsky was now a Bolshevik, and members of the Party were treated differently in critiques than outsiders. Second, in this period Lenin was involved in an intense struggle against factionalism and focused on maintaining Party unity. Despite the toned-down language, these disputes weren't irrelevant, as will be shown in the following section.

In December 1920 Lenin gave a speech called, On The Trade Unions, The Present Situation and the Mistakes of Comrade Trotsky.⁵

To briefly explain for readers who are unfamiliar with this debate, Trotsky argued that the trade unions should be subjected to greater state control and called for what Lenin described as the further "tightening of the screws" of War Communism. The general Party line at the time was that the trade unions should maintain some autonomy and function as a "school of communism." For Lenin, the trade unions stood between the Party and the state.

In his speech Lenin addressed a number of Trotsky's theoretical mistakes and accused him of being in "ideological confusion." As was common, Lenin argued that Trotsky didn't understand the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This accusation would reemerge years later in Krupskaya's critiques of Trotsky.

In his concluding remarks, Lenin stated:

The net result is that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky’s and Bukharin’s theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky’s “theses” are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject it.

Ultimately, the 10th Party Congress rejected Trotsky's position and adopted Lenin's. This dispute reveals the differences in their approaches to socialist construction, Trotsky’s theoretical misunderstandings, and what Lenin saw as bureaucratic tendencies in Trotsky’s position.

As the trade union dispute went on it began to develop into a factional struggle, Lenin would criticize Trotsky more severely in January 1921 in a pamphlet called Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin.⁶

This struggle began to represent a much more serious issue for the Party.

1921: The Party Crisis

In January of 1921, Lenin described the situation in what is known as The Party Crisis.⁷

Lenin commented on Trotsky:

The Central Committee sets up a trade union commission and elects Comrade Trotsky to it. He refuses to work on the commission, magnifying by this step alone his original mistake, which subsequently leads to factionalism. Without that step, his mistake (in submitting incorrect theses) remained a very minor one, such as every member of the Central Committee, without exception, has had occasion to make.

This is where things move from a dispute into factionalism and dereliction of duty. Trotsky was elected into a position, given instructions by the Party, and refused to carry out the assigned work. This is a breach of Party discipline and a failure to fulfill his duties. As Lenin put it, Trotsky was blowing up the mistake out of all proportion and creating a faction on a faulty platform.

Despite Trotskyists rejecting charges of factionalism post-1917, it's clear that Trotsky hadn't fully abandoned his earlier patterns. Lenin’s 1914 criticisms of Trotsky were still reflected in his later concerns in 1921.

To quote Lenin in 1914:⁸

And that fact proves that we were right in calling Trotsky a representative of the “worst remnants of factionalism”

For obvious reasons factionalism would go on to be banned by the Party in March of 1921 at the 10th Congress.⁹

1922: Further dereliction

In 1922, the relationship between Lenin and Trotsky would be further strained when Trotsky, once again, refused to carry out his Party duties. The event was described by Trotsky's biographer, Isaac Deutscher, on page 35 of The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921-1929:¹⁰

In April 1922 an incident occurred which did much to cloud relations between Lenin and Trotsky. On 11 April, at a session of the Politbureau, Lenin proposed that Trotsky should be appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. Categorically and somewhat haughtily Trotsky declined to fill this office. The refusal and the manner in which it was made annoyed Lenin; and much was made of this in the new controversies which, added to old animosities, divided the Politbureau.

On page 65 and 66 Deutscher notes:¹¹

Throughout the summer of 1922 the disagreements in the Politbureau over domestic issues dragged on inconclusively. The dissension between Lenin and Trotsky persisted. On II September from his retreat in Gorki, outside Moscow, Lenin made contact with Stalin and asked him to place before the Politbureau once again and with the utmost urgency a motion proposing Trotsky's appointment as deputy Premier. Stalin communicated the motion by telephone to those members and alternate members of the Politbureau who were present in Moscow.

Deutscher continues:

He himself and Rykov voted for the appointment; Kalinin declared that he had no objection, while Tomsky and Kamenev abstained. No one voted against. Trotsky once again refused the post. Since Lenin had insisted that the appointment was urgent because Rykov was about to take leave, Trotsky replied that he, too, was on the point of taking his holiday and that his hands were, anyhow, full of work for the forthcoming congress of the International. These were irrelevant excuses, because Lenin had not intended the appointment to be only a stopgap for the holiday season. Without waiting for the Politbureau's decision, Trotsky left Moscow. On 14 September the Politbureau met and Stalin put before it a resolution which was highly damaging to Trotsky; it censured him in effect for dereliction of duty. The circumstances of the case indicate that Lenin must have prompted Stalin to frame this resolution or that Stalin at least had his consent for it.

Here it is straight from Trotsky’s biographer Isaac Deutscher. With that said, these are the most significant disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky after 1917, and they are enough to make the point. The claim that Lenin and Trotsky worked together after 1917 without serious disagreements simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny. This brings us to Lenin's so-called Testament.

1922-1923: Lenin's "Testament"

In late 1922 and early 1923, the so-called Testament of Lenin was drafted. This document is often wielded by Trotskyists as the ultimate trump card. They claim it's the nail in the coffin for Stalin and proof that Lenin wanted Trotsky to succeed him.

However, there are some serious issues with the so-called Testament. First and foremost, it must be noted that Trotsky himself rejected the narrative surrounding the Testament.¹² In July 1925, Trotsky stated in a Letter on Max Eastman’s Book about him:

Eastman asserts in several places that the Central Committee has “concealed” from the party a large number of documents of extraordinary importance, written by Lenin during the last period of his life. (The documents in question are letters on the national question, the famous “Testament,” etc.) This is pure slander against the Central Committee of our party. Eastman’s words convey the impression that Lenin wrote these letters, which are of an advisory character and deal with the inner-party organization, with the intention of having them published. This is not at all in accordance with the facts.

Trotsky continued:

Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”; the character of his relations to the party, and the character of the party itself, preclude the possibility of such a “Testament.” The bourgeois and Menshevik press generally understand under the designation of “Testament” one of Comrade Lenin’s letters (which is so much altered as to be almost unrecognizable) in which he gives the party some organizational advice.

Also, to the accusations that the Party suppressed the publishing of articles and pamphlets by Trotsky, he said:

Eastman’s assertions that the Central Committee confiscated my pamphlets and articles in 1923 or 1924, or at any other time or by any other means has prevented their publication, are untrue, and are based on fantastic rumors.

Trotsky went on to criticize and expose multiple fabrications made by Max Eastman, who, incidentally, would later abandon socialism, become a rabid anti-communist, and advocate capitalist economics (a topic that will be covered at a later date).

More important than Trotsky's rejection of the narrative surrounding the "Testament," is the research over the years that has brought its authenticity into question.

Was the So-Called Testament a Forgery?

V.A. Sakharov concluded in his research called, The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament', that the Testament was a fabrication.¹³ Readers should review this research themselves because it's very insightful.

Sakharov's analysis is often dismissed by Trotskyists. However, Sakharov was not alone in questioning the document's authenticity. Notorious anti-Stalin historian Stephen Kotkin reached a similar conclusion in Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928.¹⁴

A portion of Chapter 11 from Kotkin's book is reproduced below:

Lenin’s vexation by Trotsky was amply documented over a long period, but Lenin’s alleged exasperation with Stalin emerged all of a sudden in cryptic documentary form, in spring and summer 1923. The centerpiece would become known as Lenin’s Testament (zaveshchanie) and was brought forth by Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, with the assistance, or collusion, of the women working for Lenin, especially Maria Volodicheva and Lidiya Fotiyeva, the head of Lenin’s secretariat. There are no extant originals of the most important documents attributed to Lenin (which had no such title as “testament,” indeed no title at all when they first surfaced). Their authenticity has never been proven, as one Russian scholar has demonstrated in a scrupulously detailed examination. He argues, correctly, that unless persuasive documentary evidence comes forward corroborating Lenin’s generation of this dictation, we must treat his authorship with caution.

Considering Sakharov's analysis and Kotkin's position on the matter, it would be difficult to treat the "Testament" as definitive evidence against Stalin. At the very least, its authenticity remains disputed. Furthermore, as shown, Trotsky himself publicly rejected the "Testament" narrative.

For the sake of argument, however, let us assume the "Testament" is genuine. Even then, it doesn't establish that Trotsky was Lenin's chosen successor. Stalin held his position because he had been elected by the Party according to the principles of democratic centralism, and the Central Committee reaffirmed that decision for years afterward. Stalin was the Party's choice, not Trotsky.

Conclusion

It's clear from the evidence that Trotsky wasn't Lenin's "chosen successor." There has never been any indication that he was, even in the likely forged Testament. The assertion that Lenin and Trotsky had no issues post-1917 is contradicted by the disputes over Brest-Litovsk, the trade unions, Trotsky's factionalism, and his repeated refusal to carry out Party duties.

None of this is to say that disagreeing with Lenin by itself was unusual or unacceptable. Though it does demonstrate that the two weren't completely in line with each other. The more important issue is what these disagreements developed into. In the cases examined here, they escalated into actions that Lenin himself condemned as politically harmful, factionalist, and, at times, derelictions of Party duty. That's a very different picture from the claim that Lenin and Trotsky remained completely aligned after 1917.

The so-called Testament has never been authenticated and there are strong reasons to believe it's a forgery. This makes it a shaky foundation on which to build an argument. It also ignores the Party's democratic functions, which no individual's wishes could override. But it shouldn't shock anyone that Trotskyists don't care about democratic centralism or the decisions of the Party. That's their modus operandi.

Many of the common Trotskyist narratives aren't just simple mistakes or misunderstandings. They're part of a decades-long distortion of communist history that has created confusion, factionalism, and hostility toward not only Stalin and the Soviet Union, but nearly every successful socialist project of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

It’s necessary for comrades to recognize Trotskyism for what it is: a counter-revolutionary tendency that's driven more by hostility toward actually existing socialist states than by any serious engagement in building socialism in their own countries.