Vladimir Lenin on Trotsky:
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Lenin insulted Trotsky in his letters, telegrams and articles 219 times. How did Lenin call him? “Pustozvon” (“bell”, man who talks much and does nothing), “svin’ya” (pig), “podlec iz podlecov” (scoundrel of scoundlers), “iudushka” (“Judas”/traitor), “politicheskaya prostitutka” (political prostitute) and his most elegant phrase concerning Trotsky that became Russian proverb – “pizdit kak Trotskiy” – “to lie/bitch/bullshit like fu**ing Trotsky”.
“Trotsky is very fond of explaining historical events . . in pompous and sonorous phrases, in a manner flattering to Trotsky” (Lenin, SW #4 194).
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Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned.
(Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914).
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Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one’s transfer to Paris except Trotsky’s (the scoundrel, he wants to ‘fix up’ the whole rascally crew of ‘Pravda’ at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists.
(Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400).
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In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, ‘conciliation’ in inverted commas, of a sectarian and philistine conciliation, which deals with ‘given persons’ and not the given line of policy, the given spirit the given ideological and political content of Party work.
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It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism; which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the ‘conciliation’ of Trotsky and Co., which actually RENDERS THE MOST FAITHFUL SERVICE TO THE LIQUIDATORS AND OTZOVISTS, AND IS THEREFORE AN EVIL THAT IS ALL THE MORE DANGEROUS TO THE PARTY THE MORE CUNNINGLY, ARTFULLY AND RHETORICALLY IT CLOAKS ITSELF WITH PROFESSEDLY PRO-PARTY, PROFESSEDLY ANTI-FACTIONAL DECLAMATIONS.
(Notes of a Publicist, Collected Works, Vol. 16, June 1910, p 211).
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The struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is… a struggle over the question whether to support the liberals or to overthrow the hegemony of the liberals over the peasantry. Therefore to attribute [as did Trotsky] our splits to the influence of the intelligentsia, to the immaturity of the proletariat, etc, is a childishly naive repetition of liberal fairy-tales.
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Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution.
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Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the ‘general Party tendency’ I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators.
(The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia, Collected Works, Vol. 16 pp. 374-392).
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It is an adventure in the ideological sense. Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the ‘Lenin-Plekhanov’ bloc, as they like to call it. TROTSKY UNITES ALL THOSE TO WHOM IDEOLOGICAL DECAY IS DEAR; ALL WHO ARE NOT CONCERNED WITH THE DEFENCE OF MARXISM, all philistines who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the ‘hero of the hour’ and gather all the shabby elements around himself. The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat.
(Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, Collected Works, Vol. 17, pp. 17-22 – December 1910)
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It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists, but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide the errors of both these trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a diplomat of the smallest calibre.
(Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform, Collected Works, Vol. 17 pp. 360362).
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Trotsky’s dirty campaign against Pravda is one mass of lies and slander… This intriguer and liquidator goes on lying right and left.
(Collected Works, Vol. 35, pp. 40-41).
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But the liquidators and Trotsky,… who tore up their own August bloc, who flouted all the decisions of the Party and dissociated themselves from the ‘underground’ as well as from the organised workers, are the worst splitters. Fortunately, the workers have already realised this, and all class-conscious workers are creating their own real unity against the liquidator disrupters of unity.
(Collected Works, Vol. 20 pp. 158-161).
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Needless to say, this explanation is highly flattering, to Trotsky… and to the liquidators… Trotsky is very fond of using with the learned air of the expert pompous and high-sounding phrases to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky. Since ‘numerous advanced workers’ become ‘active agents’ of apolitical and Party line [Bolshevik Party line] which does not conform to Trotsky’s line, Trotsky settles the question unhesitatingly, out of hand these advanced workers are ‘in a state of utter political bewilderment’, whereas he, Trotsky, is evidently ‘in a state’ of political firmness and clarity, and keeps to the right line!… And this very same Trotsky, beating his breast, fulminates against factionalism parochialism, and the efforts of the intellectuals to impose their will on the workers!
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Reading things like these, one cannot help asking oneself. – is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices come?
(Collected Works, Vol. 20 pp. 327-347).
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The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof except ‘private conversations’ (i.e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), classifying the ‘Polish Marxists’ in general as supporters of every article by Rosa Luxemburg…
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Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And thee gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned.
(The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 447-8).
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What a swine this Trotsky is – Left, phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!
(Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 285).
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There is also a letter from Kollontai who… has returned to Norway from America. N. Iv. and Pavlov… had won Novy Mir, she says,… but … Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing of Novy Mir against the Left Zimmerwaldists!! That’s it!! That’s Trotsky for you!! Always true to himself, twists, swindles, poses as a Left, helps the Right, so long as he can…
(Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 288).
