From: Godenas-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 16:33:15 -0500
Subject: Re: Trotsky's prose


Surely, you're not serious about Lenin being an unqulaified endorser of T.
 My reading of Lenin convinces me that he had a deep distrust of this
opportunist since first meeting him in 1902 ("Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame"
was the name of one article written by Lenin in January 1911 in criticizing
the former's "liquidationist" articles in Vorwarts).  Your friend Jerry, who
has read, by his own admission, all 45 volumes of Lenin, can give you the
exact citation (Collected works, Vol. 17, p.45)  A good account, in fact, of
Lenin's assessment of T.'s position on the Russian trade unions can be found
in "Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of
Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin" (1921).   Allow me to quote:  
"In this one month, Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial towns have
shown that the Party responded to the discussion and has rejected Comrade
Trotsky's wrong line [called "factionalist" by Lenin elsewhere in the
article]by an overwhelming majority....The mass of Party workers...came out
solidly against this wrong line....[t]he Party's enemies had rejoiced too
soon."  (Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 70-107).  Doesn't sound like much of
an endorsement to me, Justin.
As your friend Jerry, who has read all 45 volumes, can tell you, Lenin's
works, from about 1910 on, reflect a deep and persistent suspicion of T and
his menshivik and liquidationist tendencies, as well as his essentially
petty-bourgeois outlook.  True, T. was valued for his contributions to the
defense of the workers' state, but I think it is a mistake to assume that T.
enjoyed the confidence of Lenin, much less his being "practically" Lenin's
successor, as was alleged in an earlier post.
                                        Louis Godena    


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