Saturday, 28 October 2017

Modern History HSC Course - Leon Trotsky Notes

Essay 3: Personalities in the Twentieth Century: Leon Trotsky


Main Points
Explanation
Q1. Background of the personality
Family background and education
  • Childhood



  • Education

... religious faith is an insult to intelligence.
- Not particularly deprived; nor particularly Jewish
- Closer to his father than mother
- Lived his early years in some isolation

- Did not have much Jewish education
- He was a model student
- By his mid teens, some of his life-long ideas were slowly taking shape; atheism was well founded
Development of political ideas
  • The South Russian Workers’ Union

  • Exile in Siberia and escape to London

Throw light on the complex content of life by singing out its typical features” -Trotsky

  • 1903: The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party
- Was a populist
- Was not attracted to Marxism
- His future wife brought him around to Marxism

- Studied Marxist classics and held discussions
- Argued that even in revolutionary times ‘art’ should boom
- Politics was his main preoccupation
- 1902 = Arrived in England, met Lenin
- They had a very close relationship
- Disliked Lenin’s “corrections” of his work, kept this silent

- Ideas: the revolutionary party must have strict disciple, it must be highly centralised, it must a tight/hierarchical structure, tight-knit
- Trotsky opposed Lenin’s ideas
- Trotsky attacked Lenin’s position
- Did not want the split in the party to be permanent
- Sep/1904 = formal break w/ the Mensheviks
Rise to prominence
Emerging role 1905-1917
  • Key Features






  • Emerging role
- The 53 days of the Soviet was a hectic time
- Worked behind the scenes to bring B & M together
- Awaited trial and probable exile
- ‘Results and Perspectives’ = permanent revolution
- Trotsky was dismissive to the peasantry; Lenin not
- 1/1907 = sentenced to exile for life

- 5/1905 = fled to Finland
- Spent his time writing and developing his rev. thinking
- Clashed with Lenin’s idea of a tight organisation
- Saw the potential of the Soviet
- Years in exile: spent his time writing, developing his ideas and trying to reunite the RSDP → it was a dispiriting time for a revolution
- Once the news of the March 1917 Revolution reached him, he was eager to return to Russia
Role in 1917 revolution
  • The July Days




  • The Kornilov Affair






  • The November Revolution



  • The Bolsheviks were now ready
- Joined Bolshevik leaders in attempting to quieten the demonstrations
- Open letter to the PG; beliefs were the same as arrested ppl
- Was the leader of the B for a short time

- Conservatives within the PG set their sights on undermining the Soviets
- A Soviet-lead revolution was inevitable
- The Soviets had no greater enemy than General Kornilov, who emerged as the leader of a new counter-revolution
- Kornilov demanded authority; Kerensky dismissed him, and so he surrounded Petrograd with his troops

- Managed to persuade Lenin to hold off taking power until early November
- Set up MRC = Military Revolutionary Committee
- Planned the actual details of the takeover

- Was largely responsible for the planning of the group
- Bolshevik troops went to the Winter Palace and arrested PG ministers who were hiding
- Red Guards were positioned in key installations
- 8/11/1917 = ARCS met; Bolsheviks announced that power had been seized in its name
- Lenin arrived and declared that a B government was formed
- First moves were to enact decrees calling for peace with Germany and transference of land to peasants
Q2. Significance and evaluation
Role as Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Peace Decree -
  • Was immensely popular = first decree made
  • Principle of self-determination; promised the people land, bread, and peace
  • Bolshevik was heavily divided
  • Trotsky understood the instability and weakening state of the Bolshevik’s power

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk -
Positive:
  • Rebuild the economy; Russia could focus on what was going on inside
Negative:
  • Lost a lot of assets → agriculture and economy
  • Natural resources were essential in industrialising the country
  • Significant amount of potential labour was lost
  • Unpopular throughout Russia → severity of terms

Impact on Russia’s involvement in the War:
  • March 3rd 1918 = officially ended Russia's Involvement in WWI
  • Officially ended their involvement provided a short “breaking space” for them
  • Created more threats; decreased the amount of commitments in the Triple Entente
Role as Commissar for War
Significance:
  • He wasn’t afraid to go the hard line = torturous and brutal acts
  • For the sake of winning the war, he was willing to compromise elements of C
  • Became Commissar of War in 1919, whereas the Civil War went from 1917-1922
  • His charismatic style of leadership drew people in; his speeches boosted the morale of his officers and ensured their victory
  • Initiated the creation of the NEP
Power struggle following the death of Lenin
  • Trotsky believed he was Lenin’s equal; Stalin believed that he was lesser
  • Stalin’s policy of ‘Socialism in One Country’ proved popular
  • Stalin worked closely with the peasants whereas Trotsky did not
  • Zinoviev and Kamenev urged the Central Committee not to publish the will
  • ‘..Trotsky present at the meeting, was too proud to intervene in a situation which affected his own standing too. He kept silent, expressing only through his mien and grimaces his disgust at the scene.’ → Congress
Expulsion from the Communist Party
  • 1921: 10th Party Congress outlaws factionalism - later used against Trotsky
  • 1923: Fails campaign against centralisation and growing bureaucratic tendencies
  • 1924: Lenin died; Trotsky misses Lenin’s funeral and Lenin’s will is not read
  • 1925: Trotsky loses his post as Commissar of War
  • 1926: Trotsky is removed from the Politburo
  • 1927: Trotsky is expelled from the party
  • 1929: Expelled from the Soviet Union

  • When exiled, was sent to the Alma-ata; continued to write in opposition to Stalin and the government
  • Was discredited by Stalin after his expulsion, propaganda was spread to create hate towards him and his followers
  • Anyone seen as supporting Trotsky was imprisoned, exiled, or sent to the Gulags
Life and activities in exile
Internal exile -
  • To gain an income, he worked on translations of various Marx-Engels works; started to work on his autobiography

External exile (1): 1929-36 -
  • Immersed himself in writing his autobiography, a history of the Russian Revolution, and a work that opposed Stalin’s ‘correct’ view of the history
  • He was allowed to live in France under strict conditions
  • In mid-1935, Trotsky and his wife were given sanctuary in Norway → worked on writing The Revolution Betrayed
  • Was placed under house arrest in 1936

External exile (2): 1937-40 -
  • Was granted political asylum in Mexico; arrived 9th January 1937
  • He continued to write → In the Face of a New World War, Fourth International (1938)

The murder of Trotsky -
  • Trotsky’s final months in Mexico reveal a complex and at times pathetic image
  • For all his faults, it seems that he remained deeply loved
  • NKVD → “Operation Duck” → died on 21 August 1940
Evaluation: for example practical revolutionary, naive idealist?
  • Trotsky was a great revolutionary without whom the Bolsheviks would never have gained and held on to power.
  • Trotsky was a brilliant Marxist theoretician
  • The USSR would have been able to develop into a far more humane society
  • Trotsky was naive and idealistic
  • Trotsky was never a true Bolshevik and saw himself as being above the party and superior to other Bolsheviks.
  • Trotsky was arrogant, condescending and contemptuous of all around him and his final demise can have come as no surprise.
  • Trotsky’s career and written legacy continue to be of significance even into the 21st century.
c. Madison F

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