Reviewed by Charles Andrews
Osip Pyatnitsky was the secretary of the executive committee of the Communist International, often called the Comintern, from 1923 to 1935, when he was replaced by Georgi Dimitrov. Pyatnitsky’s tenure thus runs from the middle 1920s, when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union debated socialist industrialization at length and agreed on it, to the first seven years of implementing the policy.
A small percentage of party members, especially some who came from intellectual backgrounds in largely illiterate Russia and spent years as anti-tsarist propagandists, never accepted socialist industrialization – a bold march into the unknown with no guarantee of success. Unable to prolong the debate indefinitely, Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev opposed it secretly, forming a network of Trotskyite and Rightist conspirators.
Furr and Bobrov marshal evidence to prove that Pyatnitsky, holding a key position in the Comintern, was an active member of the conspiracies.
– “Pyatnitsky diverted Comintern funds to Trotsky – evidently $15,000 a year for several years.”
– “Pyatnitsky was able to obtain intelligence about the communist parties of Germany and other countries, which he passed on to Trotsky. Trotsky then passed this information on to the Germans.”
– “Pyatnitsky was apparently also involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Lazar Kaganovich, the workaholic executive of the drive to build heavy industry for defense against Nazi invasion.”
– “Pyatnitsky knew about the Opposition’s involvement in trying to foment a war against the Soviet Union by the major capitalist powers.”
– “He knew that the Opposition was also planning an uprising against the Soviet government, which they believed was their best chance to seize power.” (Furr and Bobrov, p. 295)
The evidence that Furr and Bobrov dug up in various archives is especially valuable in two respects. One is political insight into the anti-socialist essence of the Trotskyite current then and now. The other is a strong argument that historians can and must work with confessions.
Against Socialism
Trotskyites oppose socialism in action and theory. Pyatnitsky was at the center of networks connecting the exiled Trotsky with Zinoviev and Bukharin in the Soviet Union, the German military spy service, and other foreign powers. They were set on toppling the Soviet regime and replacing it with one headed by Trotsky and company – but not a socialist one. On the contrary, Pyatnitsky and company recognize among themselves that they will restore capitalism in order to get German help, which they need to … put Trotsky in power! Pyatnitsky admitted, “With a successful uprising, the new government will reduce expenditure on industrialization, leave only voluntary collective farms, and allow private capital.” (p. 229)
Trotskyites, though addicted to disputes among themselves, all insist that socialism can never succeed in one country, even a big one like Germany.[1] We must either go for “world revolution” now – or wait until all or most of the globe is on the eve of it.
This view was in action when Trotsky opposed the new Soviet government signing peace with Germany at the beginning of 1918. Lenin argued against his super-militant but defeatist posture: “On examining the arguments in favor of an immediate revolutionary war, the first argument we encounter is that a separate peace at this juncture would, objectively speaking, be an agreement with the German imperialists, an ‘imperialistic deal’, and so forth, and that, consequently, such a peace would mean a complete break with the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism. This argument, however, is obviously incorrect. Workers who lose a strike and sign terms for the resumption of work which are unfavorable to them and favorable to the capitalists, do not betray socialism.” (“Theses on the Question of the Immediate Conclusion of a Separate and Annexationist Peace,” Jan. 1918)
In 1933 Trotsky preached, “The proletariat can build a complete socialist society only on the basis of the world division of labor and world cooperation. The undersigned categorically reject, therefore, the theory of ‘socialism in one country.’“ (Writings of Leon Trotsky [1933-34], Pathfinder, 1975, p. 49) Trotsky wrote this while he and the bloc of conspirators around him and the Rightists were doing all they could to wreck socialist construction and bust up the Soviet state.
Today some Trotskyites still dwell on cursing Stalin, while others prefer to move on. This is a secondary thing. The Trotskyites’ central doctrine of world revolution remains an accurate reflection of their political activity: leftish but not in the least oriented to achieving socialism. Trotskyites argue fiercely about trade unions, presidential elections, a third party in the U.S., and how to relate to social democrats. But they almost never tie issues to the problems and practice of socialist revolution – the central work of communists.
How to Use Confessions
Presenting evidence tracked down in various archives, Bobrov and Furr prove that Pyatnitsky and company did conspire. Since conspirators do not write down their conspiracy, the authors lay out the dense tangle of confessions by many persons.
Many historians refuse to examine confessions, to compare them with each other and with established facts. This includes historians who are largely free of anti-Stalin venom and are socialist in their own convictions.[2] They maintain that confessions, especially if given under coercive police tactics, are useless as evidence. Furr and Bobrov recognize this view and refute it:
Since confessions can be ‘forced’ by threats, and since we can’t reconstruct the exact conditions under which a confession was obtained, confessions should be discarded as evidence. This is all wrong.
Any and all evidence can be faked: material evidence – photographs, appointment books, handwritten notes, anything. … Historians must deal with confessions in the same way as any other material evidence … compared, where possible, with each other and with other evidence. (p. 118f., emphasis added)
Indeed, Furr and Bobrov quote at length and compare a wide set of confessions, trial transcripts and other documents. It is clear that no police agency could interrogate, threaten, and beat people to get testimonies that fit a consistent made-up story. The archives of different Soviet agencies have yielded abundant evidence, but no one has found a document that hints at, let alone spells out, a frame-up to guide the different interrogators of various witnesses.
In Soviet history, evidence is controversial because it affects fundamentally opposed political interests. Compare civil lawsuits, where only two private parties are at odds. Every week in the U.S., juries hear conflicting testimony and establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Furr and Bobrov invite you to become a juror.
Trotsky’s Comintern Conspiracy – The Case of Osip Pyatnitsky is an important contribution to Soviet historiography. The events it documents also show how deep opposing class loyalties are and how far people will go in pursuit of them. This reviewer would note only one difficulty that readers can easily correct: the organization of chapters could be more inviting. It helps to get the big picture first, then put the details in place. The reader will be rewarded if she begins with the conclusion (chapter 15); then chapter 13; chapters 3 to 12; chapter 14; and finally chapters 1 and 2.
Charles Andrews is the author of The Hollow Colossus and other books.
Footnotes
[1] “It would be hopeless to think – as is borne out both by historical experience and theoretical considerations …. that Socialist Germany could remain isolated in a capitalist world.” (Trotsky, “The Programme of Peace,” June 1917, which Trotsky reprinted in 1923, at https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch11.htm)
[2] For example, “Khrushchev Lied But What Is the Truth?”, MLToday, Nov. 23, 2011, https://mltoday.com/Khrushchev-lied-but-what-is-the-truth
