Leon Trotsky: 1905 - Marxists Internet Archive

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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Table of Contents
Leon
Trotsky's
1905
Table
of
Contents
Prefaces
[To the
First Edition, Second Edition and Preface to the German Editions]
Part of the First St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers Deputies in 1905
Trotsky is in the middle row, fourth from the left.
PART ONE
Russia's Social Development and Tsarism Russian Capitalism
Russian Capitalism
The Peasantry and the Agrarian Question
The Driving Forces of the Russian Revolution
The Spring
January Ninth
The Strike in October
The Creation of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies
October Eighteenth
Witte's Ministry
The first Days of the "Freedoms"
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Table of Contents
The Tsar's Men at Work
Storming the Censorship Bastilies
Opposition and Revolution
The November Strike
Eight Hours and a Gun
The Peasant Riots
The Red Fleet
On the Threshold of Counter-Revolution
The Last Days of the Soviet
December
Summing Up
Annexes
The Proletariat and the Russian Revolution
Our Differences
The Struggle for Power
On the Special Features of Russia's Historical Development
Instead of a Preface to the Second Part 349
The Trial of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies
The Soviet and the Prosecution
My Speech Before the Court
There
Back
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Table of Contents
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
Leon Trotsky's
1905
Preface to the First Edition
The events of 1905 formed a majestic prologue to the revolutionary drama of 1917. For a number of
years, when the reaction was triumphant, the year 1905 appeared to us as a completed whole, as the
Russian revolution. Today it has lost that independent nature, without at the same time forfeiting any of
its historical significance. The revolution of 1905 grew directly out of the Russo -- Japanese war, just as
the revolution of 1917 was the direct outcome of the great imperialist slaughter. In this way, both in its
origins and in its development the prologue carried within it all the elements of the historical drama
whose witnesses and participants we are today. But in the prologue these elements appeared in a
compressed, not as yet fully developed form. All the forces engaged in the struggle of 1905 are today
illuminated more clearly than before by the light cast back on them by the events of 1917. The Red
October, as we used to call it even then, grew after twelve years into another, incomparably more
powerful and truly victorious October.
Our great advantage in 1905 was the fact that even during this phase of revolutionary prologue, we
Marxists were already armed with the scientific method of comprehending historical processes. This
enabled us to understand those relations which the material process of history revealed only as a series of
hints. The chaotic July strikes of 1903 in the south of Russia had sup plied us with material for
concluding that a general strike of the proletariat with its subsequent transformation into an armed rising
would become the fundamental form of the Russian revolution. The events of January 9, a vivid
confirmation of this prognosis, demanded that the question of revolutionary power be raised in concrete
fashion. From that moment on, the question of the nature of the Russian revolution and its inner class
dynamic became a burning issue among the Russian social democrats of that time.
It was precisely in the interval between January 9 and the October strike of 1905 that those views which
came to be called the theory of "permanent revolution were formed in the author's mind. This rather
high-flown expression defines the thought that the Russian revolution, although directly concerned with
bourgeois aims, could not stop short at those aims; the revolution could not solve its immediate,
bourgeois tasks except by putting the proletariat into power. And the proletariat, once having power in its
hands, would not be able to remain confined within the bourgeois framework of the revolution. On the
contrary, precisely in order to guarantee its victory, the proletarian vanguard in the very earliest stages of
its rule would have to make extremely deep inroads not only into feudal but also into bourgeois property
relations. While doing so it would enter into hostile conflict, not only with all those bourgeois groups
which had supported it during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses
of the peasantry, with whose collaboration it -- the proletariat -- had come into power.
The contradictions between a workers' government and an overwhelming majority of peasants in a
backward country could be resolved only on an international scale, in the arena of a world proletarian
revolution. Having, by virtue of historical necessity, burst the narrow bourgeois-democratic confines of
the Russian revolution, the victorious proletariat would be compelled also to burst its national and state
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
confines, that is to say, it would have to strive consciously for the Russian revolution to become the
prologue to a world revolution.
Despite an interruption of twelve years, this analysis has been entirely confirmed. The Russian revolution
could not culminate in a bourgeois-democratic regime. It had to hand power over to the working class. In
1905, the working class was still too weak to seize power; but subsequent events forced it to gain
maturity and strength, not in the environment of a bourgeois-democratic republic, but in the underground
of the Tsarism of June 3. The proletariat came to power in 1917 with the help of the experience acquired
by its older generation in 1905. That is why young workers today must have complete access to that
experience and must, therefore, study the history of 1905.
As appendices to the first part of this book I have decided to print two articles, one of which (concerning
Cherevanin's book)- was published in Kautsky's journal Neue Zeit in 1908; while the other, devoted to
expounding the theory of "permanent revolution" and a polemic against views on this subject which were
dominant within Russian social democracy at the time, was published (I believe in 1909) in a Polish
party journal whose guiding spirits were Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. It seems to me that these
articles will not only make it easier for readers to orient themselves in the debate among Russian social
democrats during the period directly following the first revolution, but will also shed a reflected light on
certain extremely important problems of the present day. The seizure of power in October 1917 was by
no means an improvisation as the ordinary citizen was inclined to believe, and the nationalization of
factories and plants by the victorious working class was by no means an 'error" of the workers'
government which, it is said, failed to give timely heed to the warning voice of the Mensheviks. These
matters were discussed, and were solved in principle, over a period of a decade and a half.
The debate over the character of the Russian revolution had, even during that period, gone beyond the
confines of Russian social democracy and had engaged the attention of the leading elements of world
socialism. The Menshevik conception of bourgeois revolution was expounded most conscientiously, that
is to say, most badly and candidly, in Cherevanin's book. As soon as it appeared, the German
opportunists seized hold of it with glee. At Kautsky's suggestion I wrote an analytical review of
Cherevanin's book in Neue Zeit. At the time, Kautsky himself fully identified himself with my views.
Like Mehring (now deceased), he adopted the viewpoint of "permanent revolution." Today, Kautsky has
retrospectively joined the ranks of the Mensheviks. He wants to reduce his past to the level of his present.
But this falsification, which satisfies the claims of an unclear theoretical conscience, is encountering
obstacles in the form of printed documents. What Kautsky wrote in the earlier -- the better! -- period of
his scientific and literary activity (his reply to the Polish socialist Ljusnia, his studies on Russian and
American workers, his reply to Plekhanov's questionnaire concerning the character of the Russian
revolution, etc.) was and remains a merciless reaction of Menshevism and a complete theoretical
vindication of the subsequent political tactics of the Bolsheviks, whom thick-heads and renegades, with
Kautsky today at their head, accuse of adventurism, demagogy, and Bakuninism.
As my third appendix I print the article The Struggle for Power, published in 1915 in the Paris newspaper
Nashe Slovo, which is a presentation of the idea that those political relations which became clearly
outlined in the first revolution must find their culmination and completion in the second.
This book lacks clarity on the question of formal democracy, as did the whole movement it describes.
And this is not surprising: even ten years later, in 1917, our party was not yet completely clear in its own
mind on this question. But this ambiguity, or lack of complete agreement, has nothing to do with matters
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
of principle. In 1917 we were infinitely far removed from the mystique of democracy; we envisaged the
progress of revolution, not as the putting into operation of certain absolute democratic norms, but as a
war between classes which, for their temporary needs, had to make use of the slogans and the institutions
of democracy. At that time, we directly advanced the slogan of the seizure of power by the working
class, and we deduced the inevitability of this seizure of power, not from the chances of "democratic"
election statistics, but from the correlation of class forces.
Even in 1905 the workers of Petersburg called their Soviet a proletarian government. The name became
current and was entirely consistent with the program of struggle for the seizure of power by the working
class. At the same time we opposed to Tsarism a developed program of political democracy (universal
suffrage, republic, militia, etc.). And indeed we could not have done otherwise. Political democracy is an
essential phase in the development of the working masses -- with the important proviso that in some
cases the working masses may remain in this phase for several decades, whereas in another case the
revolutionary situation may enable the masses to liberate themselves from the prejudices of political
democracy even before its institutions have come into being.
The state regime of the socialist revolutionaries and Mensheviks (March -- October 1917) completely
and utterly compromised democracy, even before it had time to be cast in any firm bourgeois-republican
mold. And during that time, although having inscribed on our banner: "All power to the Soviets," we
were still formally supporting the slogans of democracy, unable as yet to give the masses (or even
ourselves) a definite answer as to what would happen if the cogs of the wheels of formal democracy
failed to mesh with the cogs of the Soviet system. During the time in which this book was written, and
also much later, during the period of Kerensky's rule, the essence of the task for us consisted in the actual
seizure of power by the working class.
The formal, legalistic aspect of this process took second or third place, and we simply did not take the
trouble to disentangle the formal contradictions at a time when the physical onslaught on the material
obstacles still lay ahead.
The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly was a crudely revolutionary fulfillment of an aim which might
also have been reached by means of a postponement or by the preparation of elections. But it was
precisely this peremptory attitude towards the legalistic aspect of the means of struggle that made the
problem of revolutionary power inescapably acute; and, in its turn, the dispersal of the Constituent
Assembly by the armed forces of the proletariat necessitated a complete reconsideration of the
interrelationship between democracy and dictatorship. In the final analysis, this represented both a
theoretical and a practical gain for the Workers' International.
The history of this book, very briefly, is as follows. It was written in Vienna in 1908 -- 1909 for a
German edition which appeared in Dresden. The German edition included certain chapters of my Russian
book Our Revolution (1907), considerably modified and adapted for the non-Russian reader. The major
part of the book was specially written for the German edition. I have now been obliged to reconstruct the
text, partly on the basis of sections of the Russian manuscript still in existence, and partly by means of
re-translating from the German. In this latter task I have been greatly helped by Comrade Ruhmer, who
has done his work with extreme conscientiousness and care. I have revised the whole text and I hope that
the reader will not be plagued with those innumerable mistakes, slips, misprints, and errors of all kinds
which today are a constant feattire of our publications.
L. Trotsky
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
Moscow
12 January 1922
Preface to the Second Edition
The present edition differs from the first Russian edition in two respects. 1) I have added the speech
delivered by the author at the London party congress (1907) concerning the relationship of social
democracy (as it then was) with the bourgeois parties involved in the revolution. 2) The volume now
includes the author's reply to Comrade Pokrovsky on the subject of the special features of Russia's
historical development.
10 July, 1922
Preface to the German Edition
The time has not yet come for an exhaustive historical appraisal of the Russian revolution; the relations
are not yet sufficiently de fined; the revolution continues, giving rise to new consequences all the time,
and its full significance cannot be taken in at a glance. The book here presented to the reader does not
claim to be a historical work; it represents the evidence of a witness and a participant, written while the
traces of the events are still fresh in his mind, and illuminated from the author's party viewpoint -- the
author being a social democrat[At the time this preface was written we still bore the name of social
democrats.] in politics and a Marxist in science. Above all, the author has attempted to make clear to the
reader the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat which found its culmination -- and, at the
same time, its tragic conclusion -- in the activities of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. If he
has succeeded in doing this, he will consider his main task to have been fulfilled.
* * *
The introduction is an analysis of the economic basis of the Russian revolution. It covers Tsarism,
Russian capitalism, agrarian structure, production forms and relations, and social classes: the landowning
nobility, the peasantry, large capital, the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, the proletariat -- in their
relationships to one another and to the state. Such is the content of the "introduction," the purpose of
which is to show to the reader in their static form those social forces which, subsequently, will appear
before him in their revolutionary dynamic.
* * *
The book makes no claim, either, to any completeness as to factual material. We have deliberately
refrained from attempting to give a detailed description of the revolution in the country as a whole;
within the limited framework of our work, we could, at best, have furnished a list of facts which might
have been useful for reference purposes but would have told nothing of the inner logic of the events nor
of the form they actually assumed in life. We chose a different method: having selected those events and
institutions which, as it were, summed up the very meaning of the revolution, we have placed the center
of the movement -- Petersburg -- at the center of our narrative. We leave tile northern capital only to the
extent that the revolution itself shifted its central arena to the shores of the Black Sea (The Red Fleet), to
the villages (The Peasant Riots), and to Moscow (December).
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
Having thus limited ourselves in space, we were compelled also to limit ourselves in time.
We have devoted most of the available space to the last three months of 1905 -- October, November, and
December -- the culminating period of the revolution, which began with the great all- Russian strike and
ended with the crushing of the December rising in Moscow.
As to the preceding preparatory period, we have extracted from it two moments which arc essential for
an understanding of the progress of events as a whole. In the first place, we have chosen to discuss the
brief "era" of Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky, that honeymoon of rapprochement between the government and
"the public," when trust was the general watchword and when government announcements and liberal
leading articles alike were written with pens dipped in a sickening mixture of aniline and treacle.
Secondly, we discuss January 9, the Red Sunday unequalled in dramatic horror, when the atmosphere so
saturated with mutual confidence was suddenly pierced by the scream of bullets fired from guardsmen's
rifles and shattered forever by the curses of the proletarian masses. The comedy of the liberal spring had
come to an end. The tragedy of revolution was beginning.
We pass over in almost complete silence the eight months between January and October. Interesting
though that period was in itself, it does not add anything fundamentally new without which the history of
the three decisive months of 1905 might not be understood. The October strike was almost as much a
direct consequence of the January procession to the Winter Palace as the December rising was a
consequence of the October strike.
The final chapter of the historical part sums up the events of the revolutionary year, analyzes the method
of revolutionary struggle and gives a brief description of the political developments of the three years
that followed. The essential conclusion of this chapter can be expressed thus: La révolution est morte,
vive la révolution!
The chapter devoted to the October strike is dated November 1905. It was written during the final hours
of the great strike which drove the ruling clique into a blind alley and forced Nicholas II to sign with
trembling hand the manifesto of October 17. At the time, this chapter was published as an article in two
issues of the Petersburg social-democratic paper Nackalo; it is reproduced here almost without change,
not only because it draws the general picture of the strike with a degree of completeness sufficient for
our present purpose, but also because by its very mood and tone it Is, to some extent, characteristic of
the political texts that were published in that period.
* * *
The second part of the book represents an independent whole. It is the history of the court trial of the
Soviet of Workers' Deputies and, subsequently, of the author's exile to Siberia and his escape therefrom.
However, there is an inner link between the two parts of the book; not only because at the end of 1905
the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies stood at the very center of revolutionary events, but also, and
above all, because its collective arrest marked the opening of the era of counter-revolution. One after the
other, all revolutionary organizations throughout the country fell victim to the counter-revolution.
Systematically, step by step, with ferocious determination and bloodthirsty vengefulness, the victors
eradicated every trace of the great movement. And the less they were aware of any immediate danger,
the more bloodthirsty became their contemptible vindictive ness. The Petersburg Soviet of Workers'
Deputies was brought before the court in 1906. The maximum sentence passed was privation of all civil
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Leon Trotsky: 1905: Preface to the First Edition
rights and exile to Siberia for an unlimited period. The Yekaterinoslav Soviet of Workers' Deputies was
not tried until 1909, but the results were very different: several dozen of the condemned were sentenced
to forced labor and thirty-two death sentences were pronounced, of which eight were actually carried
out.
After the titanic struggle and the temporary victory of the revolution came the epoch of liquidation:
arrests, exiles, at- tempted escapes, dispersion over the entire world -- and therein lies the connection
between the two parts of my book. We conclude this preface by expressing our warmest gratitude to Mrs.
Zarudnaya-Kavos, the well-known Petersburg artist, who put at our disposal her pencil sketches and pen
drawings made during the court trial of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.
Vienna,
October 1909

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Leon Trotsky: 1905: CHAPTER 1-- Russia's Social Development and Tsarism
Leon Trotsky's
1905
CHAPTER 1
Russia's Social Development and Tsarism
* * *
Our revolution [I am speaking of the revolution of 1905 and of the changes it introduced into Russia's
social and political life: the forming of parties, representation in the Duma, open political struggle, etc.]
destroyed the myth of the "uniqueness" of Russia. It demonstrated that history does not have special laws
for Russia. Yet at the same time the Russian revolution bore a character wholly peculiar to itself, a
character which was the out come of the special features of our entire social and historical development
and which, in turn, opened entirely new historical perspectives before us.
There is no need to dwell on the metaphysical question of whether the difference between Russia and
Western Europe is a "qualitative" or a "quantitative" one. But neither can there be any doubt that the
principal distinguishing characteristics of Russia's historical development are its slowness and its
primitive nature. In point of fact, the Russian state is not all that much younger than the European states;
the chronicle of Russia's life as a state begins in the year 862. Yet the extremely slow rate of our
economic development, determined by unfavorable natural conditions and a sparse population, has
delayed the process of social crystallization and has stamped the whole of our history with the features of
extreme backwardness.
It is hard to tell how the life of the Russian state would have developed if it had taken place in isolation,
influenced by internal tendencies alone. Suffice it to say that this was not the case. Russia's social
existence was always under constant pressure from the more developed social and state relations of
Western Europe, and as time went on this pressure became more and more powerful. Given the relatively
weak development of international trade, a decisive role was played by military relations between states.
First and foremost, the social influence of Europe found expression in the form of military technology.
The Russian state, having been formed on a primitive economic basis, was brought face to face with stare
organizations -which had developed on a higher economic basis. Two possible presented themselves the
Russian state had either to fall in struggle with those state organizations, as the Golden Horde fallen in
the struggle with Muscovite Tsardom, or it had to the development of its own economic relations,
swallow- up, under pressure from outside, a disproportionately large of the nation's vital juices. The
Russian national economy was no longer primitive enough to allow of the former solution. The state did
not collapse; it began to grow, at the price of monstrous pressure upon the nation's economic forces.
Up to a certain point all the above also applies, of course, to any other European state. The difference is
that in their mutual struggle .for existence those states could draw on economic bases of an
approximately equal kind, so that their development as states was not subject to such powerful and
economically intolerable outside pressures.
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