We propose to consider the work of L. D. Trotsky “Joseph Stalin. The experience of characterization”, published in the book“Trotsky L. Portraits of Revolutionaries”(M., 1991, pp. 46-60), in the part concerning the Second World War. For ease of analysis, Trotsky's text is in bold.
“The alliance between Stalin and Hitler, [1] so astonishing to everyone, grew inevitably out of the fear of the [Soviet] bureaucracy before the war. This alliance could have been foreseen: diplomats should only change their glasses in time. This union was foreseen, in particular, by the author of these lines. But gentlemen, diplomats, like mere mortals, usually prefer plausible predictions to correct predictions. Meanwhile, in our crazy era, correct predictions are often implausible. " (p. 58).
Here, of course, we are talking about foreign diplomats, since Soviet diplomats themselves were part of the Soviet bureaucracy. After all, the point is not in the "glasses", but, firstly, in the organic rejection of the Bolshevik regime by the West, and secondly, in the historically formed geopolitical rivalry between Russia and Great Britain. That is, in the future, the Nazi regime was seen by Great Britain, the United States and France as enemy number 2.
When Trotsky speaks about the fear of the "[Soviet] bureaucracy before the war," he thus refutes the hypothesis about Stalin's impending attack on Hitler, which was so developed, in particular, by V. Rezun (V. Suvorov).
Here we also see a reproach to the Soviet nomenklatura for rejecting Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution.
"An alliance with France, with England, even with the United States could benefit the USSR only in case of war." (p. 58).
In peacetime, an effective alliance between the USSR and the aforementioned powers was not possible due to political myopia, or rather, the ideological intransigence of Great Britain, which became the reason for its political myopia. Suffice it to recall the assassination in 1934 of the French Foreign Minister Louis Bartoux, who advocated the creation of a collective security system with the Soviet Union.
L. Barth
The new French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval, who replaced the murdered Bartou, followed the path of pacifying Germany, and later Italy, whose support the French government needed, acutely feeling the German threat. So, in January 1935 in Rome, Laval and Mussolini signed the so-called "Pact of Rome", also known as the "Laval-Mussolini Agreement" - a package of agreements by which France tried to disrupt the German-Italian rapprochement, and Italy - to obtain diplomatic support their actions in Africa.
P. Laval (left) and B. Mussolini (right)
However, the growth of public discontent and the activity of Soviet diplomacy forced Laval to take concrete steps to create a system of collective security. On December 5, 1934, in Geneva, People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov and Laval signed an agreement on the mutual interest of the USSR and France in concluding an "Eastern Regional Pact", that is, an agreement on mutual assistance, the idea of which, but on the scale of the entire Eastern Europe, was put forward by Bartou at one time. On December 7, Czechoslovakia joined this agreement. Despite the fact that due to German opposition the Eastern Pact project was not implemented, the Geneva Protocol created conditions for the conclusion of full-fledged agreements on mutual assistance between the USSR and France in Paris and the USSR and Czechoslovakia in Prague in May 1935. The rapprochement between Moscow and Paris was demonstrated during Laval's visit to Moscow also in May 1935. However, negotiations on concrete steps to provide mutual assistance in case of war, the French government agreed to begin only in the spring of 1938, that is, after the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
P. Laval (left) and M. M. Litvinov (right)
“But the Kremlin wanted more than anything to avoid war. Stalin knows that if the USSR, in alliance with the democracies, had emerged victorious from the war, then on the way to victory he would certainly have weakened and overthrown the current oligarchy. The Kremlin's job is not to find allies for victory, but to avoid war. This can only be achieved through friendship with Berlin and Tokyo. This is the starting position of Stalin since the victory of the Nazis (p. 58).
Here Trotsky, as history has shown, is wrong. First, Stalin, of course, understood that war was inevitable. Secondly, as you know, "on the road to victory" the USSR did not "overthrow the current oligarchy", and did not even "weaken". As a result of the Second World War, Stalin became a victorious leader, and the USSR became a superpower with ambitions for world leadership.
“We must also not close our eyes to the fact that it is not Chamberlain [2], but Hitler who appeals to Stalin. In the Fuehrer, the master of the Kremlin finds not only what is in himself, but also what he lacks. Hitler, for better or worse, was the initiator of a great movement. His ideas, pathetic as they are, managed to unite millions. This is how the party grew up and armed its leader with might not yet seen in the world. Today Hitler - a combination of initiative, treachery and epilepsy - is going no less and no more than how to rebuild our planet in his own image and likeness " (pp. 58-59).
Here, the kinship of the totalitarian souls of Hitler and Stalin is obvious.
A.-N. Chamberlain
“The figure of Stalin and his path are different. Stalin did not create the apparatus. The apparatus was created by Stalin. But the apparatus is a dead machine, which, like a pianola, is incapable of creativity. The bureaucracy is permeated through and through with the spirit of mediocrity. Stalin is the most outstanding mediocrity of the bureaucracy. His strength lies in the fact that he expresses the instinct of self-preservation of the ruling caste more firmly, more decisively and more mercilessly than all others. But this is his weakness. He is shrewd at short distances. Historically, he is short-sighted. An outstanding tactician, he is not a strategist. This is proved by his behavior in 1905, during the last war of 1917. Stalin invariably carries the awareness of his mediocrity within himself. Hence his need for flattery. Hence his envy towards Hitler and secret admiration for him (p. 59).
Here Trotsky is clearly exaggerating.
“According to the story of the former chief of Soviet espionage in Europe, Krivitsky [3], Stalin was greatly impressed by the purge carried out by Hitler in June 1934 in the ranks of his own party.
"This is the leader!" The slow Moscow dictator said to himself. Since then, he has clearly imitated Hitler. The bloody purges in the USSR, the farce of "the most democratic constitution in the world", and finally, the current invasion of Poland - all this was instilled in Stalin by a German genius with a mustache Charlie Chaplin " (p. 59).
It is unlikely that this was the reason for the Stalinist repressions.
V. G. Krivitsky
“The Kremlin's lawyers - sometimes, by the way, also its opponents - are trying to establish an analogy between the Stalin-Hitler alliance and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918. The analogy is like a mockery. The negotiations in Brest-Litovsk were conducted openly in the face of all mankind. The Soviet state did not have a single combat-ready battalion in those days. Germany was advancing on Russia, seizing Soviet regions and military supplies. The Moscow government had no choice but to sign the peace, which we ourselves openly called the surrender of an unarmed revolution to a powerful predator. There was no question of our help to the Hohenzollern [4]. As for the present pact, it was concluded with a Soviet army of several million; his immediate task is to make it easier for Hitler to defeat Poland; finally, the intervention of the Red Army under the guise of "liberation" of 8 million Ukrainians and Belarusians leads to the national enslavement of 23 million Poles. Comparison reveals not similarity, but the exact opposite. " (p. 59).
Trotsky is silent that he personally refused to sign a peace treaty with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk in February 1918.
Yet its “immediate task”, that is, the “Non-Aggression Pact”, is not “to make it easier for Hitler to defeat Poland,” but to push the USSR's borders to the west on the eve of a war with Germany, a war that Stalin had no doubt about the imminent beginning.
“By occupying Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Kremlin is trying, first of all, to give the population patriotic satisfaction for the hated alliance with Hitler. But Stalin had his own personal motive for the invasion of Poland, as always almost - the motive of revenge. In 1920, Tukhachevsky, the future marshal, led the Red troops to Warsaw. The future Marshal Egorov attacked Lemberg [5]. Stalin walked with Yegorov. When it became clear that a counterstrike threatened Tukhachevsky on the Vistula, the Moscow command gave Egorov the order to turn from the Lemberg direction to Lublin in order to support Tukhachevsky. But Stalin was afraid that Tukhachevsky, having taken Warsaw, would "intercept" Lemberg from him. Hiding behind the authority of Stalin, Yegorov did not comply with the order of the headquarters. Only four days later, when Tukhachevsky's critical situation was fully revealed, Yegorov's armies turned to Lublin. But it was too late: the catastrophe had broken out. At the top of the party and the army, everyone knew that Stalin was responsible for the defeat of Tukhachevsky. The current invasion of Poland and the seizure of Lemberg is a revenge for Stalin for the grandiose failure of 1920 " (pp. 59-60).
M. N. Tukhachevsky
A. I. Egorov
It is known that Stalin was a vindictive and vindictive man. Otherwise he would not have been Stalin! Nevertheless, Stalin was, first of all, a pragmatist, otherwise he would not have come to the Yaroslavl railway station to personally see off the Japanese delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, after the signing of the "Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan" on April 13, 1941.
“However, the superiority of the strategist Hitler over the tactician Stalin is obvious. Through the Polish campaign, Hitler ties Stalin to his chariot, deprives him of his freedom to maneuver; he compromises him and kills the Comintern along the way. Nobody can say that Hitler became a communist. Everyone says that Stalin became an agent of fascism. But even at the cost of a humiliating and treacherous alliance, Stalin will not buy the main thing: peace. (p. 60).
Yes, Stalin did not buy peace. But he continued to freely maneuver, as can be seen from the example of the above-mentioned "Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan", and the example of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. The Comintern, on the other hand, was abolished on May 15, 1943 by the need to open the 2nd front by the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
“None of the civilized nations will be able to hide from the world cyclone, no matter how strict the laws on neutrality are. Least of all, the Soviet Union will succeed. At each new stage, Hitler will make ever higher demands on Moscow. Today he gives the "Great Ukraine" to a Moscow friend for temporary storage. Tomorrow he will raise the question of who should be the master of this Ukraine. Both Stalin and Hitler violated a number of treaties. How long will the agreement between them last? " (p. 60).
Here, as history has shown, Trotsky was right.
“The sanctity of union obligations will seem like an insignificant prejudice when the peoples writhe in clouds of suffocating gases. "Save yourself, who can!" - will become the slogan of governments, nations, classes. The Moscow oligarchy, in any case, will not survive the war, which it so thoroughly feared. The fall of Stalin, however, will not save Hitler, who, with the infallibility of a somnambulist, is drawn to the abyss " (p. 60).
This is true only in relation to Hitler.
“Even with the help of Stalin, Hitler will not be able to rebuild the planet. Others will rebuild it (p. 60).
Right!
“September 22, 1939.
Coyoacan [6] " (p. 60).
