Leon Trotsky and the Art of Insurrection 1905-1917

Harold Walter Nelson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780714640655
• eBook ISBN: 9781135174934
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in 1988. A functional definition of revolutionary military leadership is essential in understanding Leon Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution, and it is this goal that Harold Walter Nelson explores in this title. The author states that the words, revolutionary and general carry a heavy connotative burden, and when the first is used to modify the second the new term does not lend itself to easy definition. This book pursues an analysis of this title from the context of the Russian military from 1905-1917.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Revolutions need generals; men who study the problems of armed conflict, organize the resources of war, and inspire men in battle are indispensable in the revolutionary situation. Without their leadership the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses will be dissipated without effecting change. The revolutionary leader fears that the old order will be able to defend itself against uncoordinated revolutionary action, leaving power in the withered hands of an outmoded social class. In a workers’ revolution the title of “general” may be anathema, but the function must still be performed. This is not to say that revolutionary military leaders and conservative military leaders will be interchangeable. In the definition of the nature of the struggle, in the selection and use of resources, and in the methods of leadership the revolutionary “general” will differ dramatically from his enemy who defends the established order. The similarity is one of function rather than style.

This functional definition of revolutionary military leadership is essential in understanding Leon Trotsky’s role in the Russian Revolution, for most of the confusion which impedes our ability to analyze effectively the part he played in the October coup springs from an unwillingness to reconstruct carefully the functional role which Trotsky played and the experiences which had prepared him to fill that role. Trotsky was one of the revolution’s “generals”.

Contemporaries perceived this, and historians in the West have been echoing them for more than fifty years, so why spend more time on the most famous of the Russian revolutionary generals? The answer is embarrassingly simple. Each word – “revolutionary” and “general” carries a heavy connotative burden, and when the first is used to modify the second the new term does not lend itself to easy definition. Most writers who have described and analysed Trotsky have concentrated on the revolutionary, evaluating his performance in terms of the Marxian model which seems to be the best standard. Others have concentrated on his performance as a general, using what our Soviet colleagues like to call “bourgeois standards and assumptions” to evaluate his actions. Confusion arises because he seems to measure up quite well on both scales. Trotsky stayed much closer to Marxian ideals than his antagonists in the period after Lenin’s death, and he defeated the White forces by borrowing many of the techniques of “bourgeois” military theory. The pro-revolutionary historian is encouraged to discover that the Stalinist aberration was not inevitable, and the military historian is pleased to discover that Trotsky insisted on firm discipline while appreciating the fact that he enjoyed the advantage of interior lines. But these observations, while comforting, are misleading. In his formative years before 1917 Trotsky had effectively integrated the two standards of performance into one, and he came into the revolutionary situation prepared to use his talents to provide solutions to the problem of armed conflict which faced the revolutionary masses. He was a military revolutionary theorist.¹

We cannot understand this aspect of Trotsky’s contribution simply in terms of early twentieth century European Marxian revolutionary theory or in terms of the military theory of the time. In military revolutionary theory Trotsky was above all a Russian theorist, drawing on the traditions as well as the innovations of the Russian revolutionary left. We must recognize that Russian Marxist military history does not begin with the origins of the Red Army in 1918 or with Petrograd military committees of 1917. The first conference of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party Military Organizations met in October, 1906. Earlier that year, at the Fourth Party Congress in Stockholm, the delegates had given careful consideration to questions of partisan warfare and armed insurrection. Russian Marxists, especially Bolsheviks, were engaged in developing a revolutionary military doctrine which went far beyond that of Marx and Engels. When Trotsky began to write on military topics after the revolution of 1905 he was responding to this preoccupation with violent revolution which had seized the imagination of his Russian colleagues.

When he had additional opportunities to test and develop his thoughts on military subjects in the Balkan Wars and in World War I, he used this framework of revolutionary military thought as the foundation for his analysis. When he returned to Russia in 1917 he was equipped to apply these theories to do what they had always been intended to do: achieve victory for the proletarian revolution in Russia. As a “revolutionary general”, Trotsky’s theories could take him no further. When he assumed the post of Commissar of War before the Russian revolution had triggered the world revolution, he was forced to improvise.

The accounts of the brilliance of that improvisation are numerous, and this study does not attempt to add to their number. Instead, it is devoted to that little-known area of Party history dealing with military questions. Trotsky’s writings are used as the principal means of charting a course through the shifting theories and confusing polemics which fill the period from 1905 to 1917.

Trotsky supported himself by working as a journalist during most of this period. His numerous newspaper columns can be combined with his theoretical work to give a sufficient picture of Trotsky’s progress as a student of military affairs. The bulk of Trotsky’s written efforts were brought together in his published Sochineniia (Collected Works) in the mid-1920s.² Unlike many published items dealing with Trotsky, this collection is quite reliable. Checks of the newpapers to which Trotsky contributed revealed that virtually all of his articles were included in the Sochineniia. Those which were omitted have no bearing on this study. Textual comparisons of the original newspaper articles with the versions appearing in the Sochineniia reassures the researcher, for Trotsky’s editors did not alter the content.³

Alterations of the historical record plague the student of Trotsky. Once the Sochineniia has been used to chart the course further research must be conducted cautiously. The accuracy of war correspondent Trotsky’s impressions of military affairs can be gauged by comparing them with the observations of other military analysts. It is more difficult to judge Trotsky’s contributions as a political activist who sought to organize and direct violent means to support a revolutionary cause.

Judgments in this area are central to an understanding of Trotsky’s maturation as a theoretician, but sources lack trustworthiness. Modem Soviet scholarship has not yet restored Trotsky to the gallery of revolutionary leaders, so many otherwise excellent works produced by our Soviet contemporaries on the period 1905–17 are of little value. Much of Trotsky’s retrospective work of the 1930s lacks objectivity in its treatment of the pre-revolutionary period, and works produced by Trotsky’s supporters generally have the same flaw. Most of these biases were avoided by concentrating research efforts on materials produced before 1927.

Published document collections and extracts of party records still gave Trotsky his due in the first decade after the revolution, and memoirists did not fear retribution if they gave Trotsky a central place in their accounts of revolutionary events. These sources have been used to put Trotsky’s thoughts and actions into context.

Context is an important aspect of this study. Trotsky’s most competent biographer chose to omit discussion of military thought.⁴ There have been efforts to fill this obvious gap by surveying Trotsky’s military thought throughout his lifetime,⁵ but this survey approach fails to investigate the broader issues which shaped Trotsky’s thinking on military subjects. Before 1918 he was interested in determining the proper relationship between organized violence and revolutionary victory. The Bolshevik success in 1917 resulted in a new set of military problems. Trotsky’s solutions to those post-revolutionary problems cannot be lumped together with his approach to the revolutionary issues addressed here.

As we follow Trotsky through the period from 1905 through 1917 he emerges as a genuine revolutionary general – one who can lead and coordinate decisive revolutionary action. He comes to understand the problems of armed conflict which the revolution must solve, he gains an appreciation of the resources which the revolution can call upon to solve these problems, he develops schemes for organizing these resources for maximum effectiveness, and he discerns the factors which motivate the men who must fight to gain the revolutionary victory.

This process of growth began during the revolution of 1905. Trotsky was only twenty-five years old when he returned from exile to participate in the exciting long-awaited events following the clash between workers and soldiers in St. Petersburg on Bloody Sunday, 9(22) January 1905. However, his insights into the theories of revolution were remarkably well-developed.⁶ Born Lev Davidovoch Bronstein on 26 October (7 November) 1879, he spent his early years in a small settlement near Kherson in the Ukraine. When he was old enough to begin his education he stayed with relatives, first in Gromokla, then in Odessa, and finally in Nikolaev, progressing through the Realschule regimen. The young Lev Davidovoch demonstrated the combination of studious habits and brilliant verbal skills that was to characterize the mature Trotsky, but the development of a revolutionary philosophy was not so straightforward.

Russia in the 1880s and 1890s was cleary ripe for change, and discussion of proper methods and direction of change was a common surreptitious pastime for schoolboys. Tolstoyan arguments initially attracted Lev Davidovoch, but these were soon replaced by narodnik notions. Vague socialist ideas were common fare in a small circle he joined in Nikolaev in 1896. The conflict between agrarian socialism and the relatively new ideas of Marx soon penetrated this circle, and by the spring of 1897 Lev Davidovoch considered himself a Marxist and had set about organizing the workers of Nikolaev.

This effort provided the first outlet for his journalistic skills and also led to his first arrest early in 1898. After nearly two years in prison he was finally sentenced without trial and ordered into four years of administrative exile in Siberia. He did not complete the sentence. In the summer of 1902 he escaped from his place of exile near Irkutsk and by October of that year he joined Lenin in London.

During his years in prison and in exile Trotsky had been able to study and write. His knowledge of revolutionary theories had developed rapidly, and his talents as a polemicist had become more sophisticated. Lenin and his colleagues capitalized upon these skills, and Trotsky’s speeches and newspaper articles soon gained him the respect of prominent Russian Social Democrats in emigration. When factional infighting split the party in 1903 Trotsky had already become one of the principal spokesmen, but his inability to accept Lenin’s theories weakened Trotsky’s position. Trotsky opposed Lenin’s concept of a tightly-controlled, centrally-directed party apparatus, fearing that it would stifle initiative within the party and deter popular support. Yet he was equally distressed with gradualist elements in the Menshevik faction advocating programs having no apparent revolutionary content. Trotsky found himself differing with almost everyone in 1904.

The revolutionary events of 1905 seemed to promise an end to all the theoretical hair-splitting of politics in emigration, and Trotsky eagerly returned to Russia in February, 1905. Throughout the spring and summer he engaged in clandestine activity, and in October he emerged in the St. Petersburg Soviet. This Council of elected representatives of the Petersburg workers lasted only fifty days, but before it was disbanded by the forces of reaction Trotsky had become its chairman. He was once again imprisoned, but Trotsky had established his position as a prominent Social Democrat committed to solving the problems preventing revolutionary success. One of the most difficult of these was the question of military power, and Trotsky seems to have realized that neither his family background and boyhood studies nor his previous revolutionary experience had prepared him to cope with this problem. He failed to solve it in 1905, and his failure had disastrous consequences for the revolution. In the years that followed he gave military matters careful attention, ultimately developing the skills he demonstrated in the triumph of 1917.

CHAPTER TWO

Trotsky’s Analysis of the Lessons of 1905

To concentrate on Trotsky’s development as a military theorist is not to isolate this aspect of his intellectual growth from all others. Leon Trotsky never concentrated his full attention on military matters; even as Commissar of War he found time for numerous intellectual pursuits which had virtually nothing to do with military affairs. Yet even though his study of war was not systematic, it can be analyzed systematically if it is viewed in the larger context of his “revolutionary development”. Throughout his adult life Trotsky was attempting to improve his capability to discern and interact with the revolutionary forces of the moment. The bitter lessons of 1905 convinced him that the use of armed force was one of the revolutionary skills which had to be mastered, and from that time forward he consciously worked to understand the revolutionary implications of military conditions (and the military implications of revolutionary situations). As time passed he became more sophisticated in his analysis of military affairs, ultimately emerging as an innovative theorist. But throughout this process of self-development and education he was considering military problems in the broader context of the fundamental issue – the successful proletarian revolution.

This context is most important in understanding Trotsky’s assessment of the military implications of the experiences of the St. Petersburg Soviet in the Revolution of 1905. In his early writings on the subject, Trotsky discussed the military situation as a source of lessons to be learned. The lessons he learned were important ones which he never discarded, but they were extremely general in application and were to become more fully articulated as a result of his later military experiences.

The fundamental military observation which Trotsky made after the 1905 revolution was that “the Russian Proletariat in December 1905 foundered, not on its own mistakes, but on a more real force: the bayonets of the peasant army”.¹ This generalization was justified, for the army that was unable to defeat Japan’s forces proved strong enough to suppress internal rebellion. Some units mutinied, but throughout the Russian Empire, in Europe and Asia, in cities and in villages, sufficient numbers of loyal troops responded to the tsar’s call, moved to the critical points, and restored order. The government imposed martial law. As Trotsky wrote the army was enforcing martial law even though embers of revolution flared up into small isolated flames of violence. Officers and soldiers worked together against the revolutionaries. Execution squads performed their duties as the army employed nooses and bullets as well as bayonets to consolidate tsarist power.

Trotsky’s observation that the revolution foundered on the bayonets of the peasant army serves as his thesis in his analysis of the military implications of the 1905 revolutionary experience. This analysis has several components, the most important of which are the inevitability of armed conflict, and the proper relationship between revolutionary armed might and the revolutionary masses during the conflict. While Trotsky’s thinking on the first subject is clear and logical, his assessment of the last two is fuzzy and contradictory. All three must be examined carefully if his viewpoint of the military significance of 1905 is to be understood.

THE ROLE OF ARMED CONFLICT IN THE REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION

Trotsky’s most detailed and explicit discussion of the inevitability of armed conflict between the forces of revolution and reaction occurred in his famous defense speech at the trial of the Soviet Deputies in October 1906. In this speech Trotsky argued that the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was not guilty of the charge of preparing an insurrection. Instead, he argued, the insurrection was unavoidable because of the situation, and the Soviet merely reflected the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. Trotsky pointed out that “the subject of an armed rising as such was not raised or discussed at any of our [the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies] meetings”,² but he went on to say that the only reason the subject never came up for explicit discussion was that everyone shared the opinion that an armed rising would eventually occur. Armed insurrection “was and remains a historical necessity in the process of the people’s struggle against the military and the police state”, and therefore “the idea of armed insurrection, if different forms but essentially the same, runs like a red thread from the very beginning of the Soviet’s existence, through all the Soviet’s discussions”.³

The reasons for this belief in the inevitability of an armed clash are complex. Essentially Trotsky was arguing that the political strikes which had created the Soviets had also created a situation of fundamental political and social tension. Since the state resisted the demands of the workers as being contra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Trotsky’s Analysis of the Lessons of 1905
• 3. The Russian Social Democrats and Military–Revolutionary Activity, 1905–1912
• 4. Trotsky Reports the Balkan Wars
• 5. Trotsky’s Analysis of Military Matters during the World War
• 6. The Military and the Revolution, February–June, 1917
• 7. Trotsky and the Organization of the Petrograd Revolution
• 8. Conclusions
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• MAP