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Tony Cliff

Trotsky: The darker the night
the brighter the star
1927-1940

(1993)

Tony Cliff, Trotsky: 4. The darker the night the brighter the star 1927-1940, Bookmarks, London 1993.
Traqnscribed by Martin Fahlgren (July 2009).
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

Introduction


1. Stalin turns to forced collectivisation

Russia enters a deep economic and social crisis

The July 1928 plenum of the Central Committee

But still failure ...

Forced labour

In conclusion


2. The forced march of industrialisation


3. Trotsky’s reaction to the Five-Year Plan

Trotsky on the triangle of party forces: Left, Centre and Right

Why Trotsky’s prediction proved right

Trotsky’s attitude ton the collectivisation and industrialisation drive

Trotsky’s sharp criticism of Stalin’s management of the economy

The Shakhty Trial, the ‘Industrial Party’ Trial and the ‘Menshevik Centre’ Trial

Entangled in contradictions


4. Trotskyists in the USSR

Trotskyists active among the workers

Deep crisis in the Left Opposition

Trotskyists in prisons and isolators

An interesting episode

Galloping capitulation

Ideological split in the Trotskyist camp

Flying the flag of revolution


5. The struggle against the Nazis

Trotsky on the ‘Third Period’

Trotsky and the ‘Third Period’

The ‘Red Referendum’

What is National Socialism?

The pause before the deluge

After 30 January 1933

Trotsky after the victory of Hitler


6. The Trotskyist movement in Germany

The Right Opposition: the KPO

The Leninbund

A third obstacle to Trotskyism: the SAP

KPD immune to Trotskyism

German Trotskyist organisation in permanent crisis

The role of Stalinist plants in the Trotskyist movement

Basic weaknesses of the Trotskyists in Germany

In conclusion


7. Trotsky as historian of the Russian Revolution


8. First steps towards a new international

Effort to break out of isolation

Declaration of the Four

Hopes turn to ashes

Rightward moving centrists

Trotskyists pulled into the London Bureau


9. Trotsky on France

The rise of the Popular Front

Revolutionary strikes

Massive growth of the Communist Party

Trotsky’s reaction to the June events

The wave recedes

Trotsky draws the balance sheet of the Popular Front


10. The French Trotskyists

The rise of mass revolutionary struggle

The Trotskyists during the June ’36 days

Footnote on the ‘French Turn’


11. Trotsky and the Spanish Revolution

Trotsky proved right

The Trotskyist organisation in Spain

From Popular Front election victory to fascist uprising

The fascist uprising

The birth of dual power

The fatal role of the Popular Front

The liquidation of workers’ power

The May events

Trotsky on the May days

Further advance of the counter-revolution


12. Why the Fourth International failed to take off

Trotsky’s optimism

The Transitional Programme

Organisational measures

Did Trotsky have a choice?


13. The Revolution Betrayed

In defence of socialism

The theory of the ‘degenerated workers’ state’

Critique of Trotsky’s position

Russia’s definition as a workers’ state and the Marxist theory of the state

The form of property considered independent of the relations of production – a metaphysical abstraction

The Russian bureaucracy – a gendarme who appears in the process of distribution?

Stalinist Russia becomes state capitalist

Stalin’s satellites and the definition of Russia as as workers’ state

What prevented Trotsky from renouncing the theory that Russia was a workers’ state?

Toward the denouément of the Stalinist regime

Post mortem of the Stalinist regime


14. Nightmare: the Moscow Trials and the mass purges

The Kirov assassination

The August 1936 frame-up trial

The irrationality of the trial

Further Moscow trials

The Trial of the Generals

The Trial of the Twenty-One

Elimination of the Old Bolsheviks

The historical role of the bloody purges

Trotsky fights the avalanche of slanders

Trotsky’s family engulfed by the purges


15. Sliding towards the Second World War

Headquarters of the Fourth International transferred to the United States

Courage without equal

Trotsky’s death

The legacy

Acknowledgements

Several people have helped in the writing of this book. A number of them helped in locating material: Panos Garganas, Volkhard Mosler, John Mullen, Jean Peltier, Knut Sand and Ahmed Shawki. A number of comrades translated various texts: Ersy Contogouris, Elana Dallas, Gareth Jenkins, Jake Hoban, Einde O’Callaghan and Mary Phillips. Many thanks are due to Chris Bambery, Alex Callinicos, Lindsey German, Chris Harman and John Rees for their advice and suggestions. Chanie Rosenberg deserves a special thanks for participating in the editing of the manuscript and for typing it. Thanks are due to John Molyneux and Donny Gluckstein for expert critical comments and most valuable stylistic suggestions, and Duncan Blackie for editing the book.

Tony Cliff, April 1993

 
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