(the ending)

At first, the military situation of the Bolsheviks looked extremely hopeless. The old army simply fell apart; there is practically nothing left of it. Its tiny fragments - mostly pro-Bolshevik units on the Don and elsewhere - were good for nothing. They were dismissed: it was better to start all over again.

Trotsky. Biography. video film

In fact, by that time there was no trace left of the Russian army. Apart from one division of the Latvian riflemen, the only more or less organized force was Red Guard, which has not been replenished since October 1917. In the summer of 1918, the new government seemed defenseless.

To begin with, Trotsky had to find military specialists outside the ranks of the party. He himself, of course, had no military training; he acted only as the main organizer.

The question was even broader: would the new government be able to hold out at all if it rejected all specialists - doctors, scientists, technicians, engineers, writers, intellectuals?

Trotsky proceeded, of course, from the real state of affairs: one cannot do without tsarist officers. But his possibilities were limited by the vulgar formulation of the party doctrine: the party would harness the tsarist officers to the team only to "squeeze them like a lemon and throw them away." This wording not only prevented the recruitment of vital officers into the army, but also offended the feelings of Trotsky himself, who was sincerely outraged by such a dismissive attitude towards people. His own moral principles, intelligence, and self-confidence made a favorable impression on many of the tsarist officers, with whom he spoke not haughtily, pompously, or condemningly, but calmly, seriously, and above all, intelligently. In addition, he decided to update the officer corps at the expense of non-combatants and junior officers.

But an even more fundamental issue remained: Trotsky felt the need to revise the traditional Marxist attitude towards militarism on the fly. He needed to find a theoretical justification for the very fact of creating an army.

The brute force of the facts accelerated the creation of a new "ideology". The Bolsheviks were no longer just defending their lives - they were defending the Cause; elementary self-defence was portrayed as the purest idealism.

An integral part of this 180° turn was the restoration of the old command system, which had practically disappeared after the fall of tsarism in February 1917. The party rejected the principle of the election of commanders and the management of the army with the help of soldiers' committees. Genuine democracy, she proclaimed, does not at all mean that the masses actually lead the army; they just "control" the leadership that "represents" their interests.

Trotsky introduced a principle that was destined to have a long life: in parallel with the usual army command, he appointed political commissioners. This system, copied from the institution of political commissars during the French Revolution, had already been used by Kerensky; Trotsky's innovation was that the system of parallel leadership was extended to all levels of command, starting with the company commander, and duties were also distributed accordingly.

Trotsky with the Red Army

Trotsky introduced centralized one-man command in the army, pacifying - sometimes with great difficulty and in spite of fierce resistance - countless bandit guerrilla groups of anarchists of all stripes. This was a constant source of sometimes open, sometimes covert opposition to his policies, especially when it came to subordinating the Bolsheviks to former tsarist generals.

Trotsky opened the "green light" to the cruelty inherent in any civil war: everything, even the death penalty, could be justified by the interests of the Cause. Trotsky's total fusion with the Great Idea made him inexorable; the word "ruthless" became his favorite expression. He executed one of the admirals (Schastny) on charges of sabotage. Shchastny was appointed by the Bolsheviks themselves; he saved the Baltic Fleet and, overcoming enormous difficulties, brought it to Kronstadt and the mouth of the Neva. He was very popular among the sailors; a firm position in relation to the new government made him completely independent. This annoyed Trotsky, who personally acted - and besides, the only one - as a witness; without embarrassing himself with evidence, he simply stated at the trial that Shchastny was a dangerous state criminal who should be "mercilessly" punished. Many leftists, as well as sailors, were outraged by this outright political assassination.

Leon Trotsky and the Red Army

Trotsky also introduced another barbaric measure: the taking of hostages; on his orders, a list of relatives of officers who had gone to the front was compiled.

The Bolshevik regime was saved by the military defeat of Germany in the autumn of 1918 and the subsequent rapid collapse of the monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary; now the Bolsheviks could devote all their strength to the flaring civil war.

Lenin, preoccupied with political and economic problems, had little understanding of military matters, in general he supported Trotsky's position in the matter of centralization, but was not sure of the wisdom of using tsarist officers; he was amazed when Trotsky told him that there were at least thirty thousand of them serving in the Red Army. Such a scope made it possible to neglect individual possible cases of treason; Lenin praised Trotsky for "building communism" with the ruins of the old regime. He said to Gorky: “Name another person who could organize an almost exemplary army within one year and, moreover, win the respect of military specialists.”

Both belligerents were unusually slow in organizing their armed forces, but the problem of the Bolsheviks, although they had to defend a five thousand-mile front, was easier, since they occupied the center of the country. In the course of successive offensives and counter-offensives, the White Guard launched three important attacks: the Spring Offensive Kolchak from Siberia to the Urals and Moscow, Denikin's summer offensive against Moscow from the south and the autumn offensive Yudenich to Petrograd.

These attacks were not coordinated. Each was cut off from the others by vast distances, developed according to its own plans and pursued its own, often selfish goals.

Being essentially a deeply civilian, Trotsky was forced to plunge headlong into the confusion of front-line affairs. August 6, 1918 Bolshevik units left Kazan- the most important point on the eastern bank of the Volga. It was enough for the whites to cross the river, and the path to Moscow would be open to them. The next day, Trotsky personally went to the front, on the very train in which he was destined to live, apart from brief trips to Moscow, for two and a half years. In Sviyazhsk, lying on the other side of the Volga, opposite Kazan, he found complete chaos - mass desertion and absolute confusion among the commanders and Bolshevik commissars. Standing under the fire of enemy guns, he turned to the panic-stricken soldiers and commanders with a fiery speech. Gathering them around him, Trotsky personally led them back into the line of fire. Accompanied by Kronstadt sailors, he even made a night sortie near Kazan on a broken torpedo boat; the small flotilla led by the Kronstadters along the Volga silenced the enemy artillery on the opposite bank. Trotsky returned without a single scratch; his presence sealed the fate of the sortie.

This unremarkable, but under the circumstances decisive battle was the beginning of Trotsky's military education. The first lesson, which lasted a whole month, was devoted to the science of stopping a wave of panic retreat - after all, even new reinforcements arriving in high morale quickly became infected with lethargy and apathy. Near Kazan, Trotsky saw with his own eyes what possibilities lie in the firm determination to resist what he called "cowardly historical fatalism."

Trotsky's countless telegraphic calls from Kazan galvanized the party leadership into action. Thousands of people rushed to Kazan. Within a month, the Bolsheviks managed to recapture not only Kazan, but also Simbirsk; the entire Volga region again came under their control. This coincided with the beginning of the open Bolshevik terror that followed the assassination of the party commissar Uritsky and assassination attempt socialist-revolutionaries Kaplan to Lenin.

At the end of September, Trotsky carried out in Moscow the reorganization of the Supreme Military Council into Revolutionary War Council; in the course of this reorganization, he encountered resistance from Voroshilov of the Tenth Army, the largest Red Army unit in the south of the country, where White forces were now concentrated. The 10th Army turned out to be the main stumbling block. Led by Stalin, it blocked all Trotsky's plans aimed at streamlining and cohesion of the entire army; Stalin himself spent most of the summer of 1918 in Tsaritsyn; in September he became Chief Commissar of the Southern Front. Kolchak had been defeated by that time; Trotsky had about half a million men under arms and nearly a million and a half in the army overall (after the trade unions had mobilized their personnel at 50 percent). After the defeat of Kolchak, the question arose of his expulsion from Siberia. Trotsky was opposed to pursuing the defeated Kolchak units: he preferred to ensure the security of the European part of Russia, rather than run the risk of being trapped in Siberia, where Kolchak was supposed to have reserve units. The emergence in the spring of 1919 of the Soviet regimes in Bavaria and Hungary gave powerful support to the Bolsheviks and made it even more expedient to strengthen the European Front.

Party commissars on the Eastern Front approached Lenin directly; Trotsky was recalled. As it turned out, he made a strategic miscalculation, playing into the hands of numerous personal enemies, which he created for himself.

After the defeat of Kolchak, Trotsky headed for the Ukraine, where Denikin's offensive unfolded very successfully. The Bolsheviks, already unpopular in these places, were also constantly harassed by numerous anarchist detachments, partisan bands, the Red Guards, who did not obey anyone, and other elements that did not recognize the law, prowling everywhere in an atmosphere of almost complete disorganization and chaos.

Stalin was responsible for the Southern Front; he did his best to make the most of his mistakes and failures against Trotsky; he managed to beat Trotsky on two major issues - on the issue of the removal of the commander of the Eastern Front appointed by Trotsky and on the issue of restructuring the Revolutionary Military Council. Trotsky himself was kept as chairman, but his associates were expelled and replaced by commissars who were in conflict with him and who were patronized by Stalin.

Trotsky suffered a humiliating defeat in a third major clash, over the Southern Front, where Denikin's lines stretched from the Volga and Don to the Ukrainian steppes in the west. Denikin's main forces were the Don Cossacks and the White Guard. Trotsky proposed to attack the White Guard, which was advancing on the central and western sectors of the front. He hoped to play on the lack of internal unity between these two parts of Denikin's army and recommended advancing on Kharkov and Donbass in order to cut off the Cossacks from the White Guard and take advantage of the area populated by pro-Soviet and relatively proletarian people. In fact, he tried to refute the purely military objections of the front commander, based on weighty general theoretical social and economic considerations. These considerations were again rejected by the Politburo, which decided to deploy the main attack in the eastern direction.

A few weeks later the front collapsed; Denikin occupied almost all of Ukraine, including Kyiv; he moved by the shortest route to Moscow.

The new government was again on the brink of disaster: Moscow could fall. Trotsky again demanded that the bulk of the army be transferred from the east to the center to defend Moscow. The proposal, although with hesitation, was finally accepted: in early October 1919, Denikin's army approached Tula, the last major city before Moscow, and at the same time Yudenich's White Guard, armed and supported by the British and their fleet, was already almost on the outskirts of Petrograd.

Trotsky's proposals were accepted with a dangerous delay. The mood in the Politburo changed drastically; even Stalin joined in the unanimous condemnation of the former strategy. Trotsky perked up, feeling the fresh surge of energy he always felt when a tense and dangerous situation pushed him to the forefront of controllable events. His operational plan was carried out; the front line was significantly reduced; ammunition began to flow in abundance. By this point, the enemy lines were extremely stretched. The moral factor also came into play, which has always been, so to speak, Trotsky's specialty. He called on the fighters to do heroic deeds; his oratorical talents once again won stormy applause.

The Politburo meeting on October 15 was gloomy: there was a feeling that Petrograd would have to surrender. Lenin demanded that Moscow be defended at all costs, but both Trotsky and Stalin vigorously defended the need to defend both cities. Trotsky's position was partly dictated by the fact that the surrender of Petrograd would have made the most depressing impression on all those who supported the Soviets. He volunteered to personally take over the defense of Petrograd and outlined to the members of the Politburo an emergency plan that included full mobilization. The next day, without waiting for the Politburo to approve his plan, he was already on his way.

In Petrograd, Trotsky found complete collapse and confusion. Yudenich's army had already captured Krasnoe Selo on the outskirts of the city.

Here is what Trotsky himself reports.

“I found myself in the most terrible confusion. Everything was cracking at the seams. The troops retreated in complete disarray. The army headquarters appealed to the communists, the communists to Zinoviev. Zinoviev was the center of general confusion. Sverdlov told me: "Zinoviev is the embodiment of panic." In calm times, when, according to Lenin, there was nothing to be afraid of, Zinoviev easily ascended to the seventh heaven. But as soon as the situation shook, Zinoviev usually lay down on the sofa - not metaphorically, but in the literal sense - and began to sigh. Since 1917, I have been convinced that Zinoviev has no intermediate states - either in the seventh heaven, or on the couch. This time I found him on the couch."

Here is an eyewitness account:

Trotsky's presence had an immediate effect, like the arrival of fresh reinforcements. Discipline has been restored. Those unable were removed. His clear and precise orders immediately revealed the presence of a firm master's hand. An internal regrouping has begun. Communication, still dormant, began to improve. The supply service began to function. Desertion has been drastically reduced. Military tribunals began to operate everywhere. Everyone began to realize that there is only one way - forward. Trotsky delved into every detail, investing his seething, indefatigable energy and amazing self-control into the matter.

A week after Trotsky's arrival in Petrograd, the Bolshevik units seized the initiative. The White Guard, whose morale was undermined by corruption, apathy, internal confusion and inflamed by Jewish pogroms, which, according to Denikin, “also influenced the morale of the units, corrupted their minds and destroyed discipline”, suffered defeat everywhere.

From the end of 1919, Trotsky's participation in military affairs declined sharply. Although he was the creator of the army, from the very beginning he was tormented by the need to combine command with the inevitable turnover and intrigue.

Trotsky celebrated his fortieth birthday in Moscow; It was the second anniversary of the October Revolution.

At the zenith of his career and at the pinnacle of his destiny, Trotsky, who had just reported to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets on the triumph of Soviet power, was hailed as the architect of its victory and pompously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

But even in this triumph, an unpleasant note sounded: Stalin, who was not present at the ceremony and did not take any part in the desperate defense of Petrograd, received the same award. Trotsky notes this incident with obvious irritation.

130 years ago, on November 7 (October 26), 1879, Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Bronstein) was born ...

The figure of this leader of the revolutionary movement in Russia was so sinister that he was awarded the nickname - "the demon of the revolution." And even today, few people dare to give a positive assessment of the activities of Trotsky, who embodied everything anti-national that was in the Russian revolution.

1. Red Westerner

The founder of "scientific socialism" K. Marx taught that the socialist revolution could win only on a planetary scale. And this should happen when world capitalism has exhausted all possibilities for further development.

Followers of Marx in Russia interpreted this provision in different ways. Moderate Social Democrats (Mensheviks) believed that the main task was the development of capitalism. In their opinion, the Russian revolution had to limit itself to the framework of bourgeois-democratic transformations. And only in the distant future, after successful capitalization, will it be possible to talk about socialist transformations.

On the contrary, the revolutionary Marxists (Bolsheviks), led by V. I. Lenin, saw a huge advantage in the weakness of Russian capitalism. Lenin argued that it would be difficult for the Western proletariat to take the first step towards the socialist revolution because the "advanced" countries of the West had reached a high level of development of capitalism. Another thing is Russia. She went through a certain path of capitalist development, but did not fully penetrate it. Therefore, Russia is the "weak link" in the chain of world imperialism.

Lenin hoped that the Russian workers, in alliance with the poorest peasantry, would start a world revolution and thereby inspire the advanced Western proletariat. And he will bring everything "to a victorious end."

Trotsky took a special position on this issue. He did not really hope for the Russian bourgeoisie and its ability to bring the development of capitalism to the end. Back in 1906, the “demon” predicted: “In a country an economically backward proletariat may find itself in power earlier than in a capitalist advanced country ... The Russian revolution creates, in our opinion, such conditions under which power can (with the victory of the revolution - must) pass into the hands of the proletariat before the politicians of bourgeois liberalism have the opportunity to fully develop the state genius. ("Results and Prospects")

Like Lenin, Trotsky admitted that a socialist revolution might well begin in Russia. But with regard to the socialist movement in the West, Lev Davidovich experienced serious skepticism - as it turned out later, quite justified. Trotsky decided to place his main bet not on the Western proletariat, but on the Western bourgeoisie. He believed that it was quite possible to conclude a mutually beneficial deal with her. Western plutocrats were supposed to support the socialist revolution in Russia, and the leaders of this revolution, having come to power, were supposed to render many different services to the West.

At the same time, Trotsky was guided by the "advanced" circles of the Western bourgeoisie, who advocated the erasure of national borders and the dismantling of national statehood.

He proceeded from the fact that the internationalization of capital and the globalization of the world will push the development of capitalism, and, consequently, will accelerate the process of its exhaustion. At the same time, Russia, led by the socialists, will become something of a "red gendarme" of the West, protecting it from the forces of nationalism and "reaction". In addition, such a Russia would become a source of financial and natural resources for European countries. They themselves, according to Trotsky, should be united in a single federation: “The United States of Europe is the slogan of the revolutionary epoch into which we have entered. Whatever course military action takes in the future; no matter how diplomacy summed up the results of the current war; Whatever pace the development of the revolutionary movement may take in the next period, the slogan of the United States of Europe will in all cases acquire tremendous significance as the political formula for the struggle of the European proletariat for power. This program expresses the fact that the nation-state has outlived itself as a framework for the development of the productive forces, as a basis for the class struggle, and thus as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ("Peace Program")

Russia was also assigned the role of a catalyst for the revolutionary movement in the West. “According to Trotsky, the periphery revolutionizes the center,” writes B. Mezhuev. “But at the same time, the former hierarchical relations between it and the periphery are preserved and even strengthened - the center in the process of world revolution restores its dominant position.” ("In the arms of Bolshevism")

2. The demon teacher is a financial genius

Trotsky, for the most part, borrowed these ideas from Alexander Parvus (Gelfand), a German social democrat and, at the same time, a major entrepreneur who successfully traded in food and weapons. Parvus expressed the interests of that part of the bourgeoisie that advocated the all-round development of world trade - up to the abolition of any protectionism. “Customs barriers have become an obstacle to the historical process of the cultural unification of peoples,” argued this social capitalist. “They have intensified political conflicts between states.”

Historian Yu. V. Emelyanov in the book “Trotsky. Myths and Personality” writes: “It seems that the representative of influential financial circles, Parvus (and, apparently, he was not alone) did everything in his power to ensure that the coming to power of the Social Democrats in Western European countries did not lead to the collapse of the capitalist system. But, expressing the interests of transnational financial groupings, he was clearly interested in social changes in the world leading to the national bourgeoisie of various countries being placed under the control of international monopolies and supranational structures of integrated Europe. Ultimately, the history of the 20th century in Western Europe went exactly along the path that Parvus outlined.

It is Parvus who owns the project of creating a kind of revolutionary center that would take part in managing the world economy - at the expense of the national wealth of some country.

“Parvus, from the position of a financier, believed that a world revolution was possible under one condition: the “headquarters” of this revolution should gain control over the world financial system, which, in turn, would allow dictating and implementing Marxist ideology,” writes V. Krivobokov. – To achieve this goal, it is necessary to start a revolution in one country, as rich as possible, to cash in all its national wealth and, having thus received an unprecedented colossal amount, to integrate it under your control into the world financial system. At the same time, Parvus, pragmatic to the marrow of his bones, believed that it was absolutely not necessary to rebuild this system, adjusting it to suit his goals, it was quite enough to gain control over it. The fact that the world financial system of that time was formed exclusively by capitalist states and was intended to serve capitalism in its purest form did little to worry the Marxist Parvus.” ("Financial genius of Lenin")

As you can see, Parvus opposed the elimination of capitalism - in the foreseeable future. As a capitalist, he considered the most important task to accelerate the process of internationalization of capital. And as a socialist, he wanted to "dig" a gigantic channel for the export of Marxism. For these purposes, Russia was chosen.

3. Together with the plutocracy - for socialism

Parvus and Trotsky tried to realize their left-globalist project in 1905, when Russia was writhing in the fire of the “first Russian revolution”. This sweet couple managed to saddle the Soviet movement in St. Petersburg. Using his finances and connections, Parvus promoted Trotsky to deputy chairman of the Petersburg Soviet (he himself became a member of the executive committee of this body). At the same time, under the auspices of the Council, a certain “Financial Manifesto” was issued, in which the population of Russia was urged to undermine the Russian ruble in every possible way: “Depreciation payments should be abandoned, as well as all payments to the state in general. When concluding any transactions, including wages, payment must be made in gold, and if the amount does not exceed 5 rubles, in full-fledged coins. All deposits must be withdrawn from the savings banks and from the State Bank and payments must be made in gold.”

It is clear that in this case, Trotsky and Parvus acted as heralds of the world financial oligarchy, which sought to overthrow the Russian autocracy in order to establish their control over the wealth of Russia.

They hoped to use the power of Western plutocracy to socialize Russia. In other words, a huge deal was being prepared.

However, it was thwarted - by the Russian army and police. Trotsky and Parvus were arrested and sentenced to exile, but they managed to escape. In the future, they continued to cooperate for some time, but already during the First World War, Trotsky began their own game - relying on more powerful patrons.

So, it can be said with full confidence that the "demon of the revolution" was involved in the activities of the Masonic lodges. In this regard, S. A. Sokolov, a member of the Berlin lodge "The Great Light of the North", provides very important information. In his letter (March 12, 1932) to the “master” A. K. Elukhen, he analyzes the list of persons whom the extreme right emigrants from Russia referred to as Freemasons: “As analysis shows, the list was compiled according to the following recipe. There is a certain number of genuinely Masonic names, to which are added various names of emigrant figures and persons who do not belong to Freemasonry, and all this is flavored with the names of the most prominent Bolsheviks, dead and living: Lenin, Yankel Sverdlov, Maxim Gorky, Zinoviev ... We resolutely and categorically declare that all the mentioned Bolsheviks do not and did not belong to Freemasonry (especially Russian). In this sense, there is only one exception ... Trotsky was once ... an ordinary member of one of the French lodges, from where, according to the Charter, he was mechanically expelled for moving to another country without notice and for non-payment of mandatory fees.

But did Trotsky really cease to be a Freemason? Analyzing the circumstances of his exclusion, the historian O. F. Solovyov draws attention to the fact that “non-payment of fees usually entails not an exception, but the so-called. radiation, or the temporary suspension of the violator from classes in the lodge until the debt is paid, when all his rights are restored. It follows from this that Trotsky remained a freemason with the possibility of obtaining help and assistance from the initiates in solving their affairs. ("Russian Freemasons")

Freemasonry united in its lodges all the then elite of Western democracies. Therefore, it is not surprising that these same democracies provided Lev Davidovich with the greatest possible assistance. In 1915-1916 he lived in France, where he took an active part in the publication of the social democratic newspaper Nashe Slovo. The newspaper occupied a radical internationalist and defeatist position, in connection with which the Russian ambassador in Paris, A.P. Izvolsky, repeatedly demanded that the allies close this body, which was clearly unfriendly to Russia. “Only after the discovery of two copies of the publication by the soldiers of the Russian expeditionary corps who did not want to go to the front, and a new appeal from the tsarist ambassador on September 14, 1916, did the government decide to expel Trotsky from the country and close Nashe Slovo,” writes O. F. Solovyov. “But even then he remained in place for more than a month, seeking permission to leave for Switzerland or Sweden, until he and his family were sent under an escort of two policemen to Spain. However, a strange courtesy was shown to him by the French police, because in the apartment of the “dangerous” revolutionary they did not even make a trivial search, limiting themselves to sealing the front door. ("Russian Freemasons").

In the end, Trotsky left the Old World and moved to the United States of North America (USA). There is evidence that it was there that he was recruited by British and American intelligence agent W. Weissman.

But Trotsky did not stay long in America - an anti-monarchist revolution took place in Russia, organized with the lively participation of Trotsky's Masonic "brothers". The finest hour of the “demon of the revolution” has come.

Trotsky sailed away from America on the ship "Christian-Fiord". On the way, he was detained by special services from the Canadian Bureau of British Intelligence on suspicion of spying for Germany, and Trotsky was forced to spend a month in a German prisoner of war camp. (True, the conditions of his detention were rather mild.) There is an opinion according to which the British then carried out a “cover operation” - subsequently no one should have suspected Trotsky of collaborating with the British. After all, they also imprisoned him ... In the end, Trotsky was released, and this "fiery revolutionary" safely reached Russia.

4. Agent of influence of the Entente

In revolutionary Russia, Trotsky joined Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. There used to be serious disagreements between the two social democratic leaders, but they were tactfully forgotten - for pragmatic purposes. It was very important for Lenin to enlist the support of the world oligarchy. He reasonably assumed that the Entente could take the most decisive measures to prevent the Bolsheviks from gaining power, because the Leninists were in favor of an immediate peace with Germany.

The alliance with the Westerner Trotsky was a signal that Lenin was quite ready for all sorts of compromises with the Entente.

And the Entente took the October Revolution quite calmly, because the second person in the Soviet state was its agent of influence. Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, having done everything in this post to get closer to England and France. In the first half of 1918 he was in active contact with British intelligence. The hardened English spy B. Lockhart tells about this. According to him, "British intelligence hoped to take advantage of the differences between Trotsky and Lenin." Lockhart himself was in constant contact with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and even met with him in his own office. The spy, without any hesitation, claims that he "dreamed of organizing a grand coup with Trotsky."

The “Demon of the Revolution” stubbornly lobbied for the idea of ​​a union between the RSFSR and the Entente, and on very difficult conditions for Russia. The People's Commissar was ready to provide the allies with control over our railways, provide them with the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk for the purpose of importing goods and exporting weapons, and allowing Western officers to enter the Red Army. Moreover, the “demon of the revolution” proposes to carry out the intervention of the Entente in Russia at the invitation of the Soviet government itself. Such a proposal was repeatedly and quite officially discussed at meetings of the Central Committee. The last time this happened was May 13, 1918.

Trotsky was already frankly in favor of the war on the side of the Allies - on April 22, he declared that the Soviets needed a new army "specially for the resumption of the world war together with France and Great Britain against Germany." Many leaders of the Entente hoped for a "pro-Soviet" intervention, and in these hopes they were supported by Western representatives in the RSFSR. Thus, Lockhart considered it necessary to conclude a detailed agreement with the Bolsheviks and “prove to them by deeds that we are ready, although not directly supporting the existence of the Soviets, not to fight them politically and honestly help them in the difficult beginning of the reorganization of the army.”

A trial step was already taken on March 2, when the Murmansk People's College, which was a coalition (Soviet, Zemstvo, etc.) local authority and headed by Trotsky's supporter A. Yuryev, "invited" two companies of British marines to the city. This was done with the blessing of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs himself, who telegraphed: "You are obliged to immediately accept any assistance from the allied missions." The next day, 150 British sailors entered the city (by the beginning of May there will be 14,000 foreign soldiers).

Three days later, on March 5, Trotsky officially met with the British and American representatives - Lockhart and R. Robinson. At the meeting, he announced that the Bolsheviks were ready to accept military assistance from the Entente. And on March 11, during the IV Congress of Soviets, US President R. Wilson sent a telegram in which he promised the RSFSR all-round support in protecting its sovereignty - it is clear from whom. But the political scales had already leaned too far in favor of the "Germanophile" Lenin, and the help of the democracies was eventually abandoned. Trotsky, on the other hand, was soon removed from his post, which was taken over by the more controlled G.V. Chicherin. Lev Davidovich was sent to lead the Red Army.

4. Creator of the Civil War

In his new position, Trotsky did everything to unleash a fratricidal slaughter in Russia. So, on May 25, 1918, he gave a provocative order to disband the Czechoslovak Corps. And this led to the fact that the corps rebelled, after which the Soviet government was overthrown in large areas of Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region. From that moment on, a real civil war began in Russia - before that, the anti-Bolshevik forces could not boast of any serious successes.

In the spring of 1918, a large-scale clash could still have been avoided. Lenin then thought about a compromise with entrepreneurs, as evidenced by his article "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power." But after the rebellion, war became inevitable.

Here Trotsky acted clearly on the orders of the Entente. The decision to revolt was made by the "allies" back in December 1917 in Iasi. But they still decided to wait a while, hoping that Trotsky would be able to draw Russia into an alliance with the Entente. And when these plans finally failed, a large-scale provocation was organized, plunging Russia into a long war.

And Trotsky tried to make this war drag on as far as possible. He, like Western democracies, needed a weakened Russia that could easily be made dependent on the West.

There is every reason to believe that the civil war could have ended as early as 1919. However, Trotsky, with his "military genius", did not allow this.

So, in the spring of 1919, the People's Commissar of the Navy transferred many red units to the West, in the direction of the Carpathians - ostensibly to support the Hungarian Soviet Republic. But these units would be very useful in battles with the whites. And so, in May 1919, 60,000 Reds were forced to hold back 100,000 Denikinists. The Whites then took Tsaritsyn and Yekaterinoslav, after which Trotsky resigned (she was never accepted). Moreover, he declared that the center of the world revolution must now be moved from Russia to India, where a corps of 30-40 thousand horsemen should be thrown. What else is this but sabotage? Trotsky clearly wanted the Reds to get bogged down as much as possible in the confrontation with the Whites. Therefore, he "played the fool" about India, temporarily disconnecting his seething energy from the "red project". Of course, this extra-class schemer did not seriously think about any red horsemen in India. He played the fool, but he was not a fool himself.

By the way, the same Trotsky was categorically against the creation of large cavalry formations in the Red Army. So, he told S. M. Budyonny the following: “You do not understand the nature of the cavalry. This is an aristocratic branch of the army, commanded by princes, counts and barons. And there is no need for us with peasant bast shoes to meddle in the Kalash row. But without the cavalry, the Reds would not have had a very difficult time.

A separate topic for conversation: "Trotsky against Makhno." In June 1919, the “demon of the revolution” accused the Makhnovists of opening a front to the whites in a 100-kilometer section. Although the partisans of the legendary father fought stubbornly with the whites - for two weeks after they were defeated in the twentieth of May. Makhno was outlawed by Trotsky and he was no longer supplied with ammunition and other military equipment. At the same time, the Whites specially printed Trotsky's order and distributed it - in order to demoralize the Reds. As a result, “Ukraine was lost through the fault of Trotsky, and the White Guards launched an offensive against Moscow, although there was an opportunity to counterattack them and push them back to the south.” (R. K. Balandin. "Marshal Shaposhnikov. "Military adviser to the leader")

5. Lobbyist for foreign capital

Trotsky is often portrayed as a fanatic of world revolution, ready to engage in battle with Western capitalism. In fact, Trotsky did everything to prevent this battle. Apparently, it was he who reported, through his foreign channels, about the preparation of the German "revolution" of 1923, in which it was planned to involve the 200,000th corps of the Red Army. It is known that Trotsky's guarantor E. Berens was in close contact with the emigrant circle of the freemason and liberal A. I. Guchkov. For some reason, he needed to discuss with the Guchkovites the question of possible assistance to the Red Army - as if the emigrants were somehow interested in him. In fact, Trotsky simply leaked information to his Western patrons, and even secured an alibi to his Kremlin colleagues.

At the same time, Trotsky often argued with the Comintern and its leader G. E. Zinoviev, who insisted on exporting the revolution to Europe and Asia. Thus, he argued: "The potential Soviet revolution in the East is now beneficial for us mainly as the most important subject of diplomatic barter with England."

Moreover, the "demon of the revolution" actively contributed to the enrichment of Western capitalists. In the early 1920s, he was placed at the head of the People's Commissariat of Railways. It was then that he made a deal that was extremely beneficial for Western bigwigs.

It was under his leadership that a mass purchase of steam locomotives took place in Sweden, at a plant owned by the Nidqvist and Holm company. The Soviet side ordered 1000 steam locomotives - for a total of 200 million gold rubles (this, by the way, is about a quarter of the country's gold reserves). For some reason, the red leaders chose a company whose production capacity did not allow the production of this quantity. But it doesn't matter - the Soviet side paid money to the Swedes so that they could build a decent factory for the production of steam locomotives. “When you want to buy shoes, do you have to give a shoe merchant a loan to build a leather factory?” - the historian N. V. Starikov reasonably asks about this. In 1921, it was planned to assemble 50 steam locomotives. “And then the order was evenly distributed over ... five years, during which the Swedes had to build a plant with our money! In 1922, the buyer received 200, in 1923-1925. - 250 steam locomotives annually. In addition, the Soviet side acted not only as a buyer, but also as a creditor. And we are not talking about the cost of steam locomotives paid in advance. In May 1920, the Swedish company received not only an advance of 7 million Swedish crowns, but also an interest-free loan of 10 million crowns ... According to the agreement, the loan was to be repaid upon delivery of the last 500 locomotives. If the Soviet side cut the order by half, and the Swedes may no longer give back the loan! ... It turned out to be a very piquant picture: prices are too high. Money paid, no goods. And when it will be unclear! ("Who made Hitler attack Stalin")

It is unlikely that all this was done for the sake of some Swedish company. Trotsky simply financed Western democracies. It is even argued that this was a hidden form of paying off the royal debts, which the Bolsheviks so pathetically refused at the Genoa Conference of 1922.

Lev Davidovich was closely connected with foreign financial circles - in particular, through his uncle, the Stockholm banker A. Zhivotovsky, who, in turn, collaborated with the powerful banking house Kuhn, Loeb and Co. And the head of this house, J. Schiff, did a lot for the victory of the “Russian revolution”.

As head of the State Committee for Concessions, Trotsky helped foreign entrepreneurs who were joking around in impoverished Russia in every possible way. So, he resolutely stood up for the notorious A. Hammer, whose firm "Alamerica" ​​was subjected to an inspection by the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. It turned out that she writes off huge amounts for personal expenses, provides unreasonable discounts to partners and transfers money to third parties. But Trotsky did not care - he resolutely took the side of the capitalist Hammer, with whose socialist father the "demon of the revolution" collaborated back in New York.

When Trotsky again found himself in exile, the capitalists did not leave their furious "accuser" and patron in trouble. The bourgeois press willingly provided him with the pages of their publications. The "Demon of the Revolution" was even printed in Lord Beaverbrook's fiercely reactionary newspaper, ostensibly justifying this by the fact that he had no money. However, Trotsky's biographer and his sincere admirer I. Deicher admits that poverty never threatened his idol. Only living on the Princes' Islands, he had an income of 12-15 thousand dollars a year. In 1932, the Saturday Evening Post paid him $45,000 to publish a book, The History of the Russian Revolution.

It wasn't just about money. Trotsky, for all his leftist phraseology, really believed that Soviet Russia should not fight capitalism, but integrate into its system, feeding the West with Russian resources and Marxist ideas. In 1925, he proposed his plan for the industrialization of the country, according to which the industrial modernization of the USSR was to be based on long-term imports of Western equipment, amounting to 40 to 50% of all capacities. This import should be carried out at the expense of exports of agricultural products. In addition, it was supposed to actively use foreign loans.

And in 1932, the Bulletin of the opposition published Trotsky's article "The Soviet economy is in danger." There you can read the following lines: “Imported goods worth one chervonets can bring domestic products worth hundreds and thousands of chervonets out of a dead state. The general growth of the economy, on the one hand, and the emergence of new needs and new disproportions, on the other, invariably increase the need for ties with the world economy. The program of "independence", that is, the self-sufficient character of the Soviet economy, is increasingly revealing its reactionary-utopian character. Autarky is Hitler's ideal, not Marx's or Lenin's."

Here Trotsky appears as a real marketer, arguing: “The plan is tested and, to a large extent, carried out through the market. The regulation of the market itself must be based on the trends revealed through it.”

As you can see, Trotsky advocated a "normal" capitalist economy - after all, planning, in itself, does not cancel capitalism. (In the 1930s, the West began to actively use planning levers.) At the same time, the "demon of the revolution" did not at all intend to dismantle the power of the Communist Party. He allowed the restoration of capitalism only in the economic sphere, while in politics the Bolshevik party had to remain in power. And here the influence of Parvus' ideas is clearly traced. Let us recall that Parvus considered socialization untimely. The main thing for him was the globalization of the world economy - in the presence of a certain "headquarters of the revolution", gradually shifting the West towards socialism.

In this optics, the Stalinist regime, striving for maximum economic independence, appeared to Trotsky as enemy number one. And in the fight against Stalin, the “demon of the revolution” willingly collaborated with Western intelligence services.

So, on July 13, 1940, the “demon of the revolution” personally handed over to the American consul in Mexico City a list of Mexican public and political figures and civil servants associated with the local pro-Moscow Communist Party. Attached to this list was a list of agents of the Soviet special services. Five days later, through his secretary, Trotsky provided a detailed description of the activities of the head of the New York NKVD agent Enrique Martinez Rica. Among other things, Lev Davydovich worked closely with the notorious Commission on Un-American Activities of the US House of Representatives.

Western democrats were preparing to use Trotsky and his supporters in the event of a war with the USSR, plans for which began to be developed in the autumn of 1939. Here is an excerpt from the report of the German consul in Geneva: “The agent in France reports that the British are planning, through Trotsky’s group in France, to establish contact with Trotsky’s people in Russia itself and try to organize a putsch against Stalin. These coup attempts must be seen as closely related to the intention of the British to get their hands on Russian oil sources. In fact, it was these plans for Trotsky that prompted the Soviet leadership to take the decision to liquidate him.

The fate of Trotsky clearly demonstrates what various internationalist utopias can lead to. In Russia, he is perceived as an anti-hero. Even in the camp of the extreme left, the "demon of the revolution" does not have very many admirers. And this is very revealing.

Almost all the leaders of the Bolsheviks did not come from the workers and peasants, but even against their background, Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Bronstein) stood out - the son of the richest Kherson land tenant. In 1918, Bronstein Sr. arrived in Petrograd, and told his son everything he thought about the new government and about the participation of people from decent families "in this disgrace." People who grew up in the USSR, as a rule, do not realize that Trotsky was not just a prominent revolutionary, but a figure practically equal to Lenin.

Only two of them were officially called "leaders" in Soviet Russia: "the leader of the revolution, Comrade Lenin" and "the leader of the Red Army, Comrade Trotsky."

Only their portraits hung side by side everywhere. Few people knew the rest of the rulers by sight. Lenin's Mongolian appearance, which made one think of Genghis Khan, and Trotsky's Mephistophelian beard inspired those who reveled in the elements of destruction and instilled mystical horror in peaceful inhabitants.

As milady from the Three Musketeers, Trotsky had a fantastic paper in his hands: "Everything done by Comrade Trotsky is unconditionally supported by me, and all his orders must be unquestioningly executed, as if they were personally mine. Presovnarkom Ulyanov (Lenin)".

Rebel

During the revolution of 1905, when Lenin only briefly returned from exile and did nothing special, Trotsky was, no less, chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet. Shone at rallies, sat, ran.

After the split of the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Trotsky declared himself independent and persuaded the warring parties to make peace. For this, Lenin called him "Judas", but the position "above the fray" helped Trotsky earn political points.

Brilliant in several languages, he sent reports from the Balkan war of 1912 to the leading European newspapers, so that in the West he
knew well.

During the World War Trotsky lived in the USA. No one foresaw imminent changes in Russia. Lenin, in the weeks leading up to February, told young Swiss socialists that his generation would not live to see the revolution, and was most concerned about the situation in the fraternal Social Democratic Party of Sweden. Trotsky discussed plans for a socialist republic in the Hawaiian Islands with the American left.

From across the ocean, he ripened to revolutionary Petrograd only in May of the 17th year - three weeks later than Lenin - but his authority in revolutionary circles was such that Lenin persuaded Trotsky to join the Bolsheviks, and he set conditions.

After the first unsuccessful attempt to seize power on July 3-4, when Lenin and Zinoviev hid in a hut on Lake Razliv, Trotsky went to prison, but after the "Kornilov rebellion" he emerged from it in triumph and headed the Petrograd Soviet for the second time.

Today, historians almost unanimously admit that the October coup was led mainly by Trotsky. The famous march of Lenin to Smolny in makeup and with a bandaged cheek was caused by the desire to be in time at least for the analysis of hats and not be completely on the sidelines of victory.

Vladimir Mayakovsky described the situation in the "headquarters of the revolution" as follows:

"Comrade Stalin is calling you,
third to the right, he's there."
"Comrades, don't stop, why are you up?
In armored cars and at the Post Office
by order of Comrade Trotsky!"
"There is!" - turned and disappeared soon.
And only on the tape at the naval
under the lamp flashed: "Aurora".

The poem "Good!" was written for the 10th anniversary of October, when Trotsky was already in deep disgrace, but Mayakovsky found it impossible not to mention him.

From all subsequent editions, the line about Trotsky was deleted. Attentive readers wondered why there was no rhyme for the word "naval".

"No peace, no war"

In the first Bolshevik government, Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. His main task was peace negotiations with Germany.

Stalin's "Short Course" and all subsequent Soviet history textbooks left no stone unturned from Trotsky's "absurd" and "treacherous" idea: "No peace, no war, but disband the army."

A number of modern researchers point out that Trotsky, of course, made a mistake in his calculations, but the thought itself was not so stupid. Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee did not consider him a traitor or an idiot, and did not try to correct him.

Trotsky hoped that Berlin would take the opportunity to transfer all available forces to the Western Front and would not present territorial claims to Soviet Russia. In addition, he was waiting for a revolution in Germany from day to day, and in every possible way played for time, drawing the German delegation into philosophical discussions.

PrerevolutionaryCouncil

On January 28, 1918, a decree was promulgated on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (the signing of the document took place two weeks earlier, but the publication was delayed so as not to irritate the Germans).

On February 23, hastily assembled detachments of volunteers fled from Narva and Pskov at the news of the approach of the Kaiser's troops. Lenin put forward the slogan: "Learn military affairs in a real way!".

On March 3, the Soviet delegation signed the "obscene" Brest Treaty, and the next day Trotsky was appointed chairman of the Supreme Military Council (since September 1918 - the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic).

On March 13, he also became the people's commissar for military and naval affairs, but he liked the first position more: there are many people's commissars, and he is the only one of the Pre-revolutionary Military Council.

Trotsky came up with the hammer and sickle emblem and the Order of the Red Banner of Battle, personally wrote the text of the oath, which, with some changes, is still taken by Russian military personnel, and created the military registration and enlistment office system that is still in effect today.

He lived in a special armored train with a bedroom, an office, a meeting room, a bathhouse, machine guns on the platforms, cars on the platforms and guards from Baltic sailors who wore special stripes on their sleeves: "Train of the Pre-revolutionary Military Council."

Trotsky did not believe in any "revolutionary initiative of the masses" and built the army on the basis of conscription and severe discipline. By the end of the Civil War, about 5 million people were mobilized, despite the fact that the size of Kolchak's army never exceeded 300 thousand, and Denikin's - 150 thousand. Whites were crushed by numbers.

Trotsky waged war with merciless cruelty. In May 1919, when the Red Army launched an offensive against the Cossack Don, he issued Order No. 100: "The nests of dishonorable traitors and Cains must be destroyed. Cains must be exterminated."

The villages were demolished by artillery fire, and those who tried to escape were finished off with machine guns. Teams of torchbearers set fire to the surviving houses.

In September 1919, after the raid of General Mamantov (through "a" and not through "o"!) On Tula, Trotsky ordered not to take Cossacks prisoner in order to "wean them from such raids."

"In order to win the civil war, we robbed Russia," he publicly admitted.

Stalin in speeches and articles throughout his life never used the word "execution". Trotsky always did as he said, and spoke as he thought.

military experts

Perhaps Trotsky's main merit to the Soviet government was the massive recruitment of former tsarist officers, without whom the Reds would hardly have been able to win.

“Ninety-nine hundredths of the officers declare that they cannot participate in the civil war,” he wrote. “This must be finished! The officers received their education at the expense of the people. Those who served Nikolai Romanov can and will serve when the worker orders them Class".

Many in the party elite considered the idea dubious and dangerous, but Trotsky insisted on his own.

Of the 200,000 officers of the former imperial army, 75,000 served with the Reds, and only 50,000 with the Whites.

Of the 20 commanders of the red fronts, 17 were officers of the tsarist time, 82 of the 100 commanders, the chiefs of staff of the fronts, armies and divisions - all.

Among the "military experts" there were such "stars" as the most famous Russian general of the First World War, Alexei Brusilov, or Boris Shaposhnikov, who under Nicholas II was a former colonel of the General Staff, and under Stalin twice headed the "brain of the army."

Of course, they went to the Whites exclusively voluntarily, and they were called to the Red Army through the military registration and enlistment offices, threatening to repress families in case of refusal or going over to the side of the enemy. The title of red commander gave rations and getting rid of the dangerous stigma of "a class alien element."

However, the officers served the Bolsheviks not only out of fear, but also out of conscience. Four former generals, having been captured by the Whites, did not renounce the new oath and were shot.

The meaning of life for most officers was the great and indivisible Russia. They were disappointed in the Romanov monarchy, liberal values ​​were an empty phrase for them, and many saw in the Bolsheviks a force capable of gathering a collapsed empire and even leading it to new heights of power.

Back in the summer of 1917, while in German captivity, Mikhail Tukhachevsky told his comrades: "The garb of dictatorship is most suitable for us. If Lenin manages to make Russia a strong country, I will choose Marxism."

The officers of the General Staff - the elite of the armed forces, a hereditary "military bone" - went to the Bolsheviks more willingly than the intellectuals drafted into the army during the war. Over 600 former General Staff officers signed up for the Red Army. About a hundred then ran over to the whites. The percentage of deserters among ordinary Red Army soldiers was higher.

"The Demon of the Revolution" was called Lev Davidovich Trotsky. Indeed, his role in the Russian revolutionary turmoil was largely demonic, sinister. We have to talk about this because in recent years it has become fashionable to present Trotsky as the good genius of the revolution, in every possible way opposing him not only to Stalin, but also to Lenin (or, on the contrary, uniting him with Lenin as a counterbalance to "Stalinism").
On this subject, I would like to cite the opinion of the ideological opponent of the Bolsheviks, the talented writer and insightful thinker Mark Aldanov. In a 1927 essay on Stalin published in Paris, he paid attention to Trotsky as well. He spoke of Stalin thus:

“This is an outstanding man, indisputably the most outstanding in the entire Leninist guard. Stalin is covered in blood as thickly as no other living person, with the exception of Trotsky and Zinoviev. But in all honesty, I cannot deny the properties of rare willpower and fearlessness in him. For Stalin, not only someone else's life is a penny, but also his own - in this he sharply differs from many other Bolsheviks.

And here is another feature:

“Trotsky never had any ideas and never will. In 1905 he borrowed his revelations from Parvus, and in 1917 from Lenin. His current oppositional criticism is a common place in the émigré press. With "ideas" Trotsky was especially unlucky in the revolution. He swore to defend the Constituent Assembly two months before it was dispersed. He wrote: “The elimination of the state soldering of the people entered the iron inventory of the gains of the revolution” - before the restoration in the owls. Russian state-owned sale of wine. But in great acting art, as in intelligence and cunning, Trotsky, of course, cannot be denied. A great artist - for an undemanding public. Ivanov-Kozelsky of the Russian Revolution.

Trotsky at the front (in front of the soldiers)

Aldanov confirmed such a biting conclusion with several convincing examples. According to him, Trotsky "played out the Brest performance, ending the performance with a knee, though not completely successful, but unprecedented since the creation of the world:" we stop the war, we do not conclude peace. With the outbreak of the civil war, the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army became the most beneficial role ... After the first break with Trotsky, the Bolsheviks (i.e., Stalin) published several documents, from which it seems to be irrefutable that this role was rather modest ... "
About the literary talent of Trotsky, Aldanov responded as follows: "Trotsky, in addition, is a "brilliant writer" - according to the firm conviction of people who have nothing to do with literature." He cited several "pearls" of this "brilliant" political writer. After the assassination attempt, Kaplan Trotsky exclaimed: “We knew before that Comrade Lenin had metal in his chest!” Or something super-revolutionary: “If the bourgeoisie wants to take all the place under the sun for itself, we will put out the sun!” Or an example of sarcasm: "the imperialist hoof of Mr. Milyukov."
Let us pay attention to some key periods of Trotsky's revolutionary activity: the October Revolution, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the leadership of the Red Army.
“The almost bloodless victory of the revolution on October 25 (November 7), 1917,” wrote the famous English Sovietologist E. Carr, “is the merit of the Petrograd Soviet and its Military Revolutionary Committee ... As Stalin later said, the Congress of Soviets “only took power from the hands of Petrograd Soviet. All eyewitnesses of those events pay tribute to the energy and organizational skills that Trotsky showed at that time ... But the supreme strategy of the revolution was carried out by Lenin with the help of an instrument he created - the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Although the victory was won under the slogan “All power to the Soviets!”, not only the Soviets, but also Lenin and the Bolsheviks won ... The triumph of the party was almost entirely, apparently, the result of the successful and consistent leadership of Lenin.
One can, of course, reproach Lenin for the fact that all power ultimately passed not to the Soviets (that would have been an essentially anarchist option), but to the Bolsheviks, which determined the authoritarian regime of government. But remember that Trotsky was one of the fierce supporters of a one-party dictatorship. When a proposal was made at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets to create a government representing all socialist and democratic parties, Trotsky replied: “We tell them: you are nothingness and have failed. Your role is over, and go where you are destined: to the dustbin of history.
Much later, in exile, Trotsky strongly "democratized", attacking the Soviet authoritarian system, Stalin and the dictatorship of the party with particular viciousness. But one should take into account how he behaved and what he said at the time when he himself was at the pinnacle of power.
The very knee of Trotsky during the period of the conclusion of the Brest peace, which Aldanov mentioned, could have cost dearly (and not cheaply) the Soviet government. Then (at the end of 1917) the Bolsheviks found themselves in a most difficult situation. They won in part because of the widespread popularity of their slogan "Peace to the peoples!" But the time has come to ensure this world, which was not at all easy.
The Germans agreed to peace, but with large territorial concessions from Russia. Lenin went for it. Bukharin advocated the continuation of the "revolutionary war". Trotsky proposed a compromise and hitherto unknown solution: no peace, no war. Here is how the French Sovietologist N. Werth describes further events:

“On January 26, Trotsky returned to Brest. A born orator, he launched into verbal maneuvers. The German military began to lose patience in the meantime. The delegations of the Central European powers signed a peace treaty with representatives of the Rada. They immediately asked Germany for military assistance in order to resist the Bolsheviks, whose troops had just entered Kyiv. This request gave rise to a new German invasion. From now on, time played against the Bolsheviks.
On February 10, Trotsky interrupted the negotiations... A few days later, Lenin's fears were confirmed and the Central European powers launched a broad offensive from the Baltic to Ukraine.

Lenin suggested urgently sending a telegram to Berlin agreeing to peace. Trotsky and especially Bukharin were against it, they believed that an imminent revolution in Germany should be expected. Their supporters were in the majority. However, the offensive from the West developed so quickly and inevitably that Lenin's proposal was soon adopted. This time, the conditions of the German side were tougher than at the negotiations in Brest. Once again, the majority of the Central Committee, including Trotsky, were against peace, so that Lenin was forced to threaten to resign if a peace agreement with Germany was not reached. Soviet Russia lost vast territories, where 26% of the total population was located. This was largely the result of Trotsky's failure, then People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, of the Brest (Brest-Litovsk) peace agreement.
But perhaps his vigorous activity during the Civil War was impeccable? No, it raises many doubts, not to mention the brutal cruelty with which, on the instructions of Trotsky, the Red Army soldiers retreating from the battlefield were dealt with (his protege Tukhachevsky was especially raging).
When at the beginning of 1918 passions boiled over the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Austro-German bloc, the events that played out on the northwestern outskirts in the Murmansk region were left without due attention. The Entente, under the pretext of helping Russia with military materials, brought its warships into the Murmansk Bay. And the Germans hoped to capture Murmansk with the hands of the White Finns (there was also a civil war in Finland). The threat to Murmansk increased after the breakdown of the Brest peace talks.
The Entente offered Soviet Russia military assistance against the Germans and their allies. Negotiations with its representatives were led by People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs L.D. Trotsky. The British representative, General Poole, telegraphed from Moscow to London on this occasion: “I believe that immediate military action is needed to ensure the capture of the port of Murmansk by the British. I believe it will be possible to get Trotsky's sincere support."
Indeed, there was such support. To a request from the Murmansk Soviet on how to respond to the Entente's offer to provide material and military assistance in connection with the threat of a German offensive, Trotsky replied: "You are obliged to accept all assistance from the allied missions and oppose all obstacles against predators." As a result, on March 6, a detachment of up to 200 British marines landed in Murmansk with two light guns. In April, British representative R. Lockhart sent a memorandum to London on the terms of military cooperation with Soviet Russia, worked out in the course of negotiations with Trotsky, who by that time had become People's Commissar for Military Affairs.
However, the events in Murmansk received a different assessment. The Olonets Provincial Executive Committee stated that the agreement with the Entente "will bring the Murmansk Territory under the economic and military influence of European governments, leading, in the final analysis, to the development of separatism in conditions favorable to the capitalist system." The Arkhangelsk Soviet of Deputies reacted just as sharply (Murmansk was part of the Arkhangelsk province).
At the 7th Emergency Congress of the RCP(b), Lenin warned: “An offensive is being prepared against us, perhaps from three sides; England or France will want to take away Arkhangelsk from us – it is quite possible.” But Trotsky was still a champion of active cooperation with the Entente. Lockhart wrote on May 5 to the US Representative in Russia, Colonel R. Robins, that Trotsky "presented every opportunity for Allied cooperation in Murmansk."
The Finnish Civil War ended in victory for the Whites. A German infantry division landed on the Finnish coast of the Baltic. Murmansk had to be defended both from the Germans and from the Entente. This was not done. A protege of Trotsky, A.M., came to the leadership of the Murmansk Soviet. Yuriev. (Before the Revolution, he lived and worked in the USA for several years, and after the dissolution of the Murmansk Council, he served as an interpreter for the local American consul and was engaged in the distribution of Western food that came to the city; after the defeat of the White Guards, he was put on trial for counter-revolutionary activities, received a death sentence, replaced by 10 years camps; his further fate is unknown.)
The Entente, with the full connivance of Yuriev, increased its troops in Murmansk, bringing them to 4 thousand people. At the end of June, disembark 1,500 British troops from the arriving transports. At the same time, Paris, London and Washington did not hide their anti-Bolshevik intentions.
In the direct wire talks, Lenin demanded that the Murmansk Soviet express protest against the increase in the military presence of Western countries and called for a rebuff. But these instructions were not taken into account. At the suggestion of Yuryev, the members of the Murmansk Council voted for cooperation with the Entente - to the hum of the engine of a low-flying British aircraft from the Nairana aircraft carrier that had arrived the day before.
This is how the Entente intervention in the Russian North unfolded. By supporting her, Trotsky violated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, according to which the ships of the Entente were to be removed from the ports of Russia. Why did he take this step? Is it not for the sake of disrupting the peace treaty with Germany? Or striving to realize their crazy idea of ​​a world revolution, in which the Russian people were destined for the role of a “fuse” to kindle a world fire? Or did he have other ideas?
Let's move on to another episode.
Despite all the efforts of the internal and external counter-revolution in late 1917 and early 1918, it was not possible to unleash a large-scale civil war in Russia. There were only local armed actions of the White Guards. In the spring of 1918, perhaps the only powder keg capable of blowing up the situation and starting general unrest was the Czechoslovak Corps. Formed back in tsarist times from Austro-Hungarian captive Czechs and Slovaks who wanted to fight for the independence of their homeland, this corps, after the conclusion of the Brest Peace, plunged into trains and moved to Vladivostok in order to go from there to Western Europe and take part in hostilities on the side of the Entente .
The Czechoslovak corps did not want to completely disarm. The Council of People's Commissars made concessions and passed it through I.V. Stalin: “The Czechoslovaks are advancing not as a fighting unit, but as a group of free citizens, carrying with them a certain amount of weapons to protect themselves from attempts by counter-revolutionaries.”
And suddenly, on May 21, many Councils of the territories through which the Czechoslovak echelons were moving, received a telegram from the head of the operational department of the People's Commissariat of Defense, S.I. Aral Corps ... "
However, even earlier, the Czechoslovak leadership proclaimed the corps "an integral part of the Czechoslovak army, which is under the jurisdiction of the French High Command," and its transition to the maintenance of the Western allies. Thus, Trotsky, among other things, aggravated relations between Russia and France, while in April the Japanese landed troops in Vladivostok.
Trotsky's secret orders somehow became known to the command of the Czechoslovak Corps, which decided not to surrender their weapons, but, if necessary, to fight their way to the east. And Trotsky on May 25 issued Order No. 377, according to which all Soviets were obliged to immediately disarm the Czechoslovaks under threat of execution. It was emphasized that if at least one armed person was in one of the echelons, everyone should be unloaded from the cars and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp. (And this secret order immediately became known to the Czechoslovaks.)
May 28 Aralova red from the south. A united anti-Soviet front was created. A large-scale civil war began.
In a telegram sent to the Council of People's Commissars on May 30, 1918, the Czechoslovaks rightly blamed the armed conflict on the Soviet government, which "... in the person of the military commissar Trotsky, negotiated with the Czechoslovaks in an insincere way, promising the Czechoslovak delegations one thing and giving the local Soviets secret orders of a completely different kind" .
Trotsky continued to insist on his point, emphasizing that "the order to shoot those caught with weapons in their hands remains in full force."
Why did he stubbornly contribute to the incitement of a large-scale civil war? An adventurer and ambitious man, seized with the frenzy of leaderism and intoxicated with power, he played a very big political game. He needed a huge arena for action, ideally the whole of Eurasia or even the entire globe. Let this arena be flooded with blood and tears, but he will show his oratorical, journalistic and organizational skills in all its splendor!
True, in this case, some other, hidden reasons are not excluded ...

TROTSKY AND MAKHNO

The train of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR Trotsky, equipped with everything that was possible, even a printing house and airplanes, constantly moved along the fronts of the Civil War. In the spring of 1919 he arrived in Ukraine. The situation here was difficult. Denikin intensified his blows, but in addition, there were nationalist Petliurists and internationalist anarchists, the most influential among whom were the Makhnovists. They were then allies of the Bolsheviks and were called the First Ukrainian Insurgent Division.
There were certain frictions between Lenin and the Trotskyist Kh.G. Rakovsky, Presovnarkom of the Ukrainian SSR. There was some tension in relations with Makhno. But in general, his rebels smashed the Whites, which certainly helped the Red Army. In the first half of 1918, Nestor Ivanovich Makhno was in Moscow, where he met Bukharin, Sverdlov and had a conversation with Lenin, who made a great impression on him. (In his memoirs, he repeatedly repeated: "wise Lenin".)
Makhno was a colorful and complex figure. The son of a coachman, orphaned early, he endured many hardships and hardships, was imbued with hatred for the oppressors, was a village teacher and turned into an anarchist militant and leader of the partisan freemen, from which he made a combat-ready military unit. If necessary, his army was quickly increased at the expense of the peasants.
Lenin instructed V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko to inspect Makhno's troops. Having completed the task, Antonov-Ovseenko sent a telegram to Moscow: “I stayed with Makhno all day. Makhno, his brigade and the entire region are a great fighting force. There is no conspiracy. Makhno himself would not have allowed ... punitive measures - madness. We must immediately stop the newspaper persecution of the Makhnovists that has begun.
Who, then, insisted on punitive measures against the Makhnovists and organized their persecution in the newspapers? Trotsky. As the son of the chief of staff Makhno A.V. Belash: “Revolutionarily honest, perfectly understanding the situation in Ukraine, patriotically inclined, the commander of the troops of Ukraine, Antonov-Ovseenko, interfered with Trotsky and was removed from command of the troops ...
This removal ... caused enormous moral and political damage in the fighting troops, but unleashed the hands of Trotsky.
Antonov-Ovseenko described the situation then as follows: “Astrakhan is under threat. Tsaritsyn in ticks. Soviet power throughout the south is in question.
During this tense time, Trotsky took up not the "punishing sword of the revolution", but the executioner's ax and brought it down on the Makhnovist movement. From the order of Trotsky dated June 18, 1919, No. 112, the city of Kharkov: “Our southern front has staggered. Who is to blame?.. The gates are open... by the anarcho-bandits, the Makhnovists... The Extraordinary Military Revolutionary Tribunal, chaired by Comrade Pyatakov, considered the case of the Makhnovist traitors... The Tribunal severely punished the traitors and traitors... The Makhnovist headquarters has been destroyed, but the poison of the Makhnovshchina has not yet been exterminated.
On June 12, the members of the Pyatakov Tribunal launched an active activity. Several dozen Makhnovists were arrested, mostly staff workers, who were in an armored train, where the headquarters of Makhno and the 14th Red Army under the command of K.E. Voroshilov (he later surrendered Kyiv, Yekaterinoslav to the Denikinites and went to the tribunal, which demoted him to divisional commanders). Soon, the Kharkov newspaper Kommunar published a message on the last page: “The execution of Makhno’s headquarters” (seven Makhnovist commanders were executed).
V. N. Volkovinsky, author of the book “Makhno and his collapse”, writes: “Trotsky’s accusation of Makhno that he allegedly deliberately opened the front to Denikin’s troops on a 100-kilometer stretch is unfounded. Having suffered a defeat in the 20th of May, the Makhnovists continued to fight with Denikin for almost a month. In addition, as you know, the father rejected the proposal of Shkuro to go over to the side of the whites.
From the report of the command of the Ukrainian Front:

“Makhno was still fighting when the neighboring 9th division fled, and then the entire 13th army ... The reasons for the defeat of the Southern Front were by no means the Ukrainian partisans (Makhnovshchina. - Auth.).”

On June 20, 1919, at the request of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin about the reasons for such a rapid retreat of the Red troops in Ukraine, Commissariat officer D. Gopner said: “One of the reasons for the retreat of the Red Army under the onslaught of Denikin is the adventure around Makhno and the untimely declaration of open war on the partisans.” And then he listed the merits of Makhno in the elimination of the Austro-German occupation in Ukraine and in the fight against the Hetmanate, mentioned the steadfastness of the Makhnovists in battles with Denikin.
Chief of Staff Makhno V.F. Belash recalled: “Trotsky’s actions, especially his treacherous order No. 96 / s (secret. - Auth.) of June 3, and especially the third paragraph of this order, where, under pain of the strictest responsibility, it was forbidden to supply us with military supplies and any military property, - destroyed Red front (after all, we were a division of the Red Army and fought in the same front line with it and submitted to the same command), disarmed us in favor of Denikin.
On June 6, a telegram was received from Trotsky to Voroshilov with a reminder: "Makhno is subject to arrest and trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and therefore the Revolutionary Military Council of the Second Army is ordered to immediately take all measures to prevent Makhno from avoiding the corresponding punishment."
What is this cara? From order No. 107 of June 6: “There can be only one punishment - execution. Long live the fight against the enemies of the people! L. Trotsky. Surprisingly, in this case, the bossy intellectual called representatives of the people who fought for their freedom “enemies of the people”. Terrible hypocrisy!
Former commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Red Army A.E. Skachko wrote in his memoirs: "Trotsky's order to outlaw Makhno played into the hands of the whites so much that they printed it in many copies and scattered it among Makhno's troops."
The situation is fantastic; it is unlikely that something like this has ever happened. It turns out that Trotsky acted as a provocateur and a real enemy of the people's army.
V.F. recalled how they reacted to such orders at the front and in the rear of the Red Army fighting in Ukraine. Belash: “Fighters and the civilian population gathered in crowds and discussed the situation of the front and rear, their prospects ... Spontaneous rallies arose, at which more and more speakers announced the mediocrity of the military and party leadership, about its treacherous role ... about the deliberate disorganization of the front in order to let Denikin through Ukraine for the destruction by his hands of the revolutionary forces that resisted the policies of Trotsky-Rakovsky-Pyatakov.
According to V.F. Belasha: “After the obvious betrayal of the front by Trotsky, after Makhno left for the rear, in the ongoing Red Terror in the rebel troops, the rebels, under the leadership of their commanders, did not succumb to Trotskyist provocations and did not betray the Revolutionary Front ... The rebels did not abandon the front, did not go over to Denikin, did not disperse go home, but continued to shed blood in the name of their ideals and a brighter future ... The 14th, 13th, 8th, 9th, 10th armies were already fleeing, the enemy occupied Sinelnikovo, Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Belgorod, Balashov, Tsaritsyn, Makhno was no longer at the front , but the attitude towards the rebels has not changed. At the moment when it was necessary to put aside political tensions and differences, to consolidate forces and come out as a united front against Denikin, Trotsky did not do this.
The Makhnovists not only continued to fight, but also helped the Red troops of I.F. Fedko to break out of the Crimea. Through the fault of Trotsky, Ukraine was lost, and the White Guards launched an offensive against Moscow. Although there was an opportunity to counterattack them and push them back to the south.
There is convincing evidence of A.E. Skachko: “On June 1, I personally suggested that the Southern Front go on the offensive against Yuzovka-Rostov in order to cut off the offensive of the volunteers on Kharkov ... To fulfill my plan, it was necessary:
1. get those few cavalry units that I asked;
2. Renew good-neighborly relations with Makhno, so that he would carry out my operational orders.
Tov. Voroshilov, who was sent to replace me (according to unofficial information received by me, Trotsky ordered me to be replaced "for supporting Makhno"), fully approved my plan. But neither I nor Comrade who replaced me will fulfill it. Voroshilov did not have the opportunity, because, firstly, the Southern Front did not send the requested cavalry, and, secondly, Trotsky outlawed Makhno.
After this "act of state", of course, any joint actions with Makhno became impossible. Makhno's brigade withdrew from the 2nd Ukrainian Red Army, and the latter actually ceased to exist.
In general, the policy of the Trotskyists in Ukraine turned the masses of peasants against the Soviet regime. The landlords' lands were not distributed to the peasants, state farms were created on them (obviously premature in that period). The population was subjected to requisitions, in particular, horses were taken from the peasants. But the main thing was that there was a fierce struggle against the Makhnovists, mainly peasant rebels, supporters of anarcho-communism.
“Trotsky could not put up,” V.F. Belash, - with the fact that the authority and glory of the commanders, who came from the people, grew incredibly ... Trotsky patiently nurtured the dream of getting rid of such people. (This was confirmed by the fate of F.K. Mironov, B.M. Dumenko, Mamontov, Shchetinkin, Kalandarishvili and many others. - Auth.)
We already guessed what Trotsky was driving towards ... the motives of desire to let him (the Ukrainian people. - Auth.) Once again through the meat grinder of the civil war. As a result of the policy pursued by the Trotskyists, the power of the communist statesmen in Ukraine has ceased to be attractive. The front was falling apart, desertion assumed a massive character and as early as April 1919 reached 100,000 soldiers in the armies.
On June 9, Makhno sent a telegram to 6 addresses at once, primarily to Lenin, explaining his departure from the Red Army:
“... Despite the deeply comradely meeting and farewell with me by responsible representatives of the Soviet Republic, first Comrade Antonov and then Comrade. Kamenev and Voroshilov, recently the official Soviet, as well as the party press of the Communist-Bolsheviks, spread false information about me, unworthy of a revolutionary, difficult for me ... The hostile, and recently offensive behavior of the central government towards the insurrection, which I have noted, is, in my deep conviction, with fatal inevitability they lead to bloody events within the working people, the creation among the working people of a special internal front, both warring sides of which will consist only of working people and revolutionaries. I consider this the greatest, never forgiven crime against the working people and their conscious revolution.
The events of 1921 - early 1922 confirmed the correctness of Makhno's assessment and forecast: the Kronstadt rebellion, the Antonov uprising in Western Siberia ...
Willingly or unwittingly (which is less likely), Trotsky, by his measures, contributed to the transition of the "conscious revolution" (Makhno's correct formulation) into revolutionary turmoil. Having surrendered Ukraine to Denikin, he prolonged the Civil War. Quarreled anarcho-communists with the Bolsheviks (communist statesmen). He retained the leading position of his supporters in the leadership of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Perhaps he not only tried to strengthen his leadership position, in particular, putting forward people devoted to himself to command posts (one of whom was Tukhachevsky, who is called the “bloody marshal” for his cruelest punitive operations against Russian peasants). But he apparently also had a distant goal: to contribute in every possible way to the accomplishment of the world revolution, the spread of civil strife and bloody class clashes to other states and peoples. As the propaganda of the time said:

We are on the mountain to all bourgeois
Let's fan the world fire.

In this sense, L.D. Trotsky with good reason can be considered precisely the demon of the revolution, for he brought bloody strife and confusion into it.
It may seem strange that it was Trotsky who became one of the most revered figures of the Soviet period at the time when the so-called "democratization" of the USSR began, and then its dismemberment. It would seem that such a zealous revolutionary globalist, the most severe punisher of the times of the Civil War, who brought confusion both to the actions of the Red Army and to the ranks of the Bolsheviks, who did nothing to strengthen and restore Russia, but actively participated in the October Revolution (which the newly-minted democrats from partocrats became amicably curse) ... What attracted the modern ideologists of the anti-Soviet path of Russia in the image of Trotsky?
The main thing, perhaps, is his opposition to Stalin. Anti-Soviet propaganda (and even Khrushchev's echoes) presents the latter as a terrible terrorist who carried out repressions in which tens of millions of people suffered and millions were killed. True, in recent years, even his fierce enemies sometimes agree that under their protege Yeltsin in Russia there were more prisoners (per capita) than under Stalin, and the Russian people began to die out, while under Stalin they grew in number and were physically and morally healthier.
Stalin cannot be forgiven for being the main organizer of the revived great Russia - the USSR; that under his leadership the German fascists were defeated. And Trotsky was loved because he was the opposite of Stalin and was a great troublemaker - just like his current admirers.

KHRUSHCHEV TROUBLES

After the end of the Civil War in the USSR, there were riots and uprisings, but they cannot be called turmoil on a national scale. There was collectivization with its victims (without delving into this complex problem, we emphasize that the creation of large farms was a forced and necessary measure to save cities and the Red Army from starvation). There were repressions (the scale of which the "democrats" at the suggestion of Khrushchev exaggerated by about 10 times); but they mainly reflected inter-party struggle. Terror was mainly in relation to the privileged strata of society, to party cadres and business executives, ideologists, administrators, but not to the people.
The Great Patriotic War became the most severe test of the strength of the Soviet Union. This test was passed with honor. And although there were many traitors among the Soviet people (mainly unwitting, who fell into occupation and captivity), there was no turmoil. The same can be said about the post-war period of restoration and development of the national economy. In the shortest possible time, the country again became a superpower not only as having the most combat-ready army in the world (and at the same time honestly pursuing a peaceful policy), but also in terms of socio-economic indicators and scientific and technical level.

I.V. Stalin

The immoderate praising and exaltation of Stalin, for all the ugliness of this phenomenon, was partly justified (it is impossible to secure for many years the trust and respect of not only the Soviet people, but also almost all the greatest thinkers and cultural figures of the world by force or cunning). But, of course, exaggerations were exorbitant. Although Stalin, in a conversation with Feuchtwanger in 1937, reasonably noted that among those who praise Stalin louder than others, there may be his worst enemies. (In relation to N.S. Khrushchev, this looks like an accurate prediction, although Stalin, who warmed him up, turned out to be deceived by this cunning "simpleton".)
No matter how we feel about the cult of Stalin, it should be recognized that he (the cult) firmly entered the state ideology, became its organic part, was an indirect confirmation of the people's complete confidence in their leadership. In this sense, Stalin acted not as a real concrete person, but as a kind of symbol of the greatness of the USSR and the Soviet people. It is no coincidence that the outbreak of the struggle against Stalin's personality cult fell on the periods of Gorbachev's "perestroika" and Yeltsin's "reforms", when neither Stalin nor his cult existed for several decades.
This amazing phenomenon of the struggle with a long-time dead person will seem like complete madness, if you do not take into account that in this case, too, Stalin acted as the personification of the great USSR, which must be destroyed (the image of the individual as the image of the people and the country).
And at first there was Khrushchevism. Some call this period the Khrushchev thaw, others call it slush; among the people, unkind memories and caustic anecdotes were preserved about him, and for hidden and open anti-Soviet and admirers of the West, Khrushchev's vile statements about art and religion turned out to be insignificant. He acted as a rebuttal of Stalin's personality cult. Although, to tell the truth, the cult was not at all a person, but a statesman - and this is the essence, which many still do not understand.
Khrushchev climbed to the top of power for a long time and stubbornly, sometimes over the corpses of enemies and competitors, along the steps of a party career. In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, the second most important speaker after G.M. Malenkov, who read the report of the Central Committee and was considered Stalin's unspoken successor, was N.S. Khrushchev. In his report on the new party charter, Khrushchev zealously defended Stalin's provisions on the fight against nepotism and fellow countrymen (isn't it true that now - after half a century! - the topic has not ceased to be relevant). Encroachments on socialist property were declared serious state crimes.
A little later, having come to power, Khrushchev canceled these clauses of the charter and laid the foundation for a petty-bourgeois, and then a bourgeois bacchanalia, which eventually corrupted the party and destroyed the socialist system.
By this time, it became clear to Stalin that the existing socio-economic and political system no longer corresponded to the radically changed situation. If before the war and during it the country was literally in a state of war, like a besieged fortress, now a powerful and dynamic socialist community has emerged from the Elbe to the Indus with a population of about 1 billion people.
At the 19th Congress of the CPSU, Stalin carried out organizational decisions that, in his opinion, were adequate to the new situation in the country and the world. Basically, they consisted of three provisions: 1) the creation of a body of collective leadership - the secretariat - instead of the post of "first secretary"; 2) the introduction to the enlarged Central Committee of the party that replaced the Politburo of a large number of young and promising figures who showed themselves well in the war and post-war construction; 3) the prohibition of party bodies to interfere in the activities of Soviet state structures, and even more so to replace them.
It is impossible not to note the perspicacity of Stalin, who realized the danger associated with the establishment of the dictatorship of the party in the country. This will have to be said separately, because to this day many historians, political scientists and sociologists have no clarity on this matter. They do not recognize the difference between the social system that Stalin created and the dictatorship of the party established by Khrushchev, and vaguely formulate the differences between the Soviet system and Western bourgeois democracies.
The fact is that Stalin managed to create, one might say, a real multi-party system, but not with numerous political parties with their more or less different ideological programs, but with “parties” that determine the constituent parts of the state. They are: the only political party; police, “internal affairs” bodies, primarily the KGB and the police; administrative and economic apparatus; military establishment; local self-government bodies - Councils.
Holding the reins of government and levers of influence in his hands, Stalin was able to regulate the activities of these "parties according to interests" or "parties according to functions" in such a way that none of them received complete superiority over the others. There was no autocracy of either the party, or the KGB, or the army ... Was there a system of Stalin's "many power"? Partly. But, of course, he was not a genius among geniuses, capable of leading all sectors of the national economy, the state and party apparatus, determining domestic and foreign policy, and sometimes writing works on economics, linguistics ... He was distinguished by a remarkable capacity for work, vast experience, common sense and great knowledge in various fields (he was perhaps the most educated head of state in the whole world, not because he was taught in prestigious universities, but due to persistent and consistent self-education, which is more significant and valuable). But the main thing is that he managed to create his own kind of "multi-party system" not of a political, but of a socio-economic nature. Such a system is most appropriate in extreme situations and with a worthy, and even better - an outstanding leader. This has been proven by the history of the USSR.

In the first post-revolutionary years, Soviet propaganda presented Leon Trotsky as a mythical hero, and later as an equally mythical villain. But even today, when information about the life and work of the "second leader" of the October Revolution is maximally available, the myths around him have not dissipated.

Myth one: Russophobe

The enemies of the revolution in Russia and abroad used the Jewish origin of Trotsky to the fullest. He was accused of hatred for everything Russian, of persecuting the Church, that he had subjugated the country to "world Zion." In the caricatures, a red-backed baboon with a beard and pince-nez sat in the middle of the Kremlin on a pyramid of skulls. The self-proclaimed "master of Russia" was caustically ridiculed by Kuprin and Averchenko. The inhabitants of the Jewish shtetls, whom the whites and other atamans massacred "for Trotsky," were not laughing at. Once a delegation of these unfortunates came to Moscow seeking protection, but Lev Davidovich told them: "Tell those who sent you that I am not a Jew."

He really was far from traditional Jewish life. Born in the expanses of the Kherson steppe, where his father David Bronstein bought 400 acres of land. The family spoke not Yiddish, but Russian-Ukrainian surzhik, the father did not observe Jewish rituals and called himself "Davyd Leontyevich", he gave Russian names to the children - Alexander, Lev, Olga.

In his memoirs My Life, Trotsky wrote: “By the time I was born, my parental family already knew prosperity. But it was a severe prosperity of people rising up from poverty ... All muscles were tense, all thoughts were directed to work and accumulation.” The children had neither toys nor books - Lev was taught to read and write by his uncle, the publisher Moses Shpentzer (father of the poetess Vera Inber). He was the first to notice the boy's abilities and insisted that he be sent to St. Paul's Odessa Gymnasium. There, Lev received an excellent education, learned four languages ​​and was infected with revolutionary ideas, because of which he left the first year of university and got a job at a shipyard in Nikolaev to agitate the workers. The midwife Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who later became Leo's wife and gave birth to his daughters Zinaida and Nina, did the same.

In 1898, the young agitator was arrested for the first time and spent two years in an Odessa prison. There, he was greatly impressed by the warden Nikolai Trotsky, who kept in obedience a thousand prisoners, other guards, and even the head of the prison. Throughout his subsequent life, Lev used his methods, and after escaping from exile, he entered the name "Trotsky" in his fake passport. He left his wife and children in Siberia, in Paris, intoxicated with freedom, he became interested in the young revolutionary Natalya Sedova. Becoming his civil wife (Sokolovskaya stubbornly did not give a divorce), she gave birth to two sons - Lev and Sergey.

The Russian wife, the Russian language and Russian literature did not make Trotsky Russian, but still less did they make him a Jew. Sacredly believing in Marx's postulate "workers have no fatherland", he did not have either love or hatred for any nation, perceiving them all as material for the world revolution, in which he firmly believed.

Myth two: a true Bolshevik

Glorifying Trotsky as the leader of the revolution, the propagandists concealed, and sometimes did not know, that he joined the Bolsheviks only in 1917. Upon learning of this, his friend Adolf Ioffe exclaimed: "Lev Davidovich! They are political bandits!" He replied: "Yes, I know, but the Bolsheviks are now the only real political force."

Prior to this, Trotsky's relationship with the Bolsheviks was, to put it mildly, difficult. At first, the young Marxist ardently supported Lenin against his opponents, earning the nickname "Lenin's club." But already at the II Party Congress in 1903 he went over to the Mensheviks. A war broke out between him and Lenin in the press: Trotsky called the enemy a "brisk statistician" and a "sleazy lawyer", that his Balalaikin in honor of the hero Saltykov-Shchedrin, and later even Judas - however, in a private letter, exposed only in Stalin's times. At the same time, in the film "Lenin in October", the epithet "political prostitute" was put into the leader's mouth, which firmly stuck to Trotsky. In fact, Lenin referred to Kautsky in this way, but he expressed himself even worse in regard to Lev Davidovich.

In 1904, Trotsky became close to the German-Russian socialist Alexander Parvus. This "elephant with the head of Socrates" captivated him with the talent of a publicist and the depth of theoretical thought, which Trotsky himself never distinguished. He, like Lenin, willingly borrowed ideas from the "elephant" - for example, "permanent revolution". In the revolutionary year of 1905, he and Parvus appeared in Petrograd and took control of the city Soviet of Workers' Deputies. They already imagined the capture of the capital, but at the end of the year the council was dispersed, and Trotsky was thrown into the "Crosses". After spending more than a year there, he was sentenced to eternal exile in Obdorsk (now Salekhard). Not reaching the place, he fled, driving 700 kilometers on reindeer with a drunken musher, who kept hitting his cheeks so that he would not fall asleep.

During the First World War, he was tossed all over Europe and even brought to America, where he admired New York - the "city of the future" - and was going to stay for a long time. The February Revolution changed plans: Trotsky rushed to Russia, but was detained in the port of Halifax as a German spy. To its misfortune, the Provisional Government asked to release the "honored revolutionary", and on May 4 - a month later than Lenin - Trotsky arrived in Petrograd.

In the capital's council, he created a small faction of Mezhrayontsy, which he soon "gave" to the Bolsheviks. And he did not lose: after sitting a little in the same "Crosses" after the July rebellion, he was released and became chairman of the council. Soon he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee to prepare the uprising and was able to throw out the energy that had been accumulated for a long time. Driving around military units in a car, incoherent but passionate speeches persuaded them to the side of the Bolsheviks: "You, bourgeois, have two fur coats - give one to the soldier. Do you have warm boots? Sit at home. The worker needs your boots!" From these speeches, the listeners went into ecstasy, and the speaker himself sometimes fainted.

He also fell on the night of October 25, when the Winter Palace was taken - before that, he had not slept for two nights and hardly ate. On the 26th, he spoke at the Second Congress of Soviets, suggesting that his former allies - the Mensheviks - "go to the wastebasket of history." On the 29th, straight from the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, he went to the Pulkovo Heights, which were approached by Krasnov's Cossacks. Another passionate speech - and the Cossacks retreated without a fight.

In the new government, Trotsky received the post of people's commissar (it was he who came up with this name) for foreign affairs. He also invented another expression - "red terror", which he promised to apply to all those who disagree: "Our enemies will be waited for by the guillotine, and not just prison." But so far the main thing was to make peace with Germany, which the People's Commissar approached in a peculiar way. At the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, he proposed "peace without any conditions," and when he was refused, he tried to agitate the Kaiser's soldiers. Having lost patience, the Germans went on the offensive in February 1918 and threatened Petrograd. Lenin had to twist his comrades' arms, persuading them to accept the most difficult peace conditions. The guilty Trotsky supported him, but was removed from foreign affairs. In March, he received a new key post of people's commissar for military affairs - everyone understood his indispensability.

Despite this, many Bolsheviks never accepted Trotsky. Remembering Lenin's denunciations, he was considered an upstart, a poseur, an adventurer, he was accused - quite rightly - of ignorance of people's life and indifference to it. They pointed to his "bourgeois" habits, his love for Havana cigars and French novels. Lenin himself, no longer scolding Trotsky in public, always remembered his "non-Bolshevism."

Others remembered this, too, when the pedestal of the leader, which Lev Davidovich considered his by right, staggered under him.

Myth three: the commander

His supporters considered the creation of the Red Army and the organization of victory in the Civil War to be the main merit of Trotsky. But the merit lay elsewhere: he was the first to understand that the Bolshevik slogan of a "people's army" with elected commanders was good for overthrowing power, and not for defending it. When in the summer of 1918 the rebellious Czechoslovaks, together with the Whites, overthrew Soviet power from Penza to Vladivostok, Trotsky demanded a "cruelest dictatorship." First by car, then by personal armored train, he moved from one front to another, restoring discipline with the most severe measures - up to the execution of every tenth according to the ancient Roman model. He insisted on a single uniform; himself, along with the highest command staff, dressed in a black leather jacket.

The People's Commissar for Military Affairs, who had not served in the army for a single day, took on the service of former tsarist officers. To prevent them from running away to the enemy, their families were threatened with being taken hostage. With a stick and a carrot, almost half of the officer corps was lured into the Red Army, which largely thanks to this won a victory.

Lenin supported the involvement of "military experts", but Stalin opposed, which led to his first clash with Trotsky. At first it seemed that the little-known Caucasian, who did not shine with oratory, had no chance in the fight against the world-famous "demon of the revolution." Lev Davidovich considered his leadership in the party to be a settled matter, not even allowing the thought that Stalin - this "outstanding mediocrity" - could get around him. But that one, an experienced chess player, played the game like clockwork. At first, he lured to his side most of the members of the Politburo, frightened by Trotsky's dictatorial habits. Then he surrounded the sick Lenin with attention, constantly visiting him in Gorki (Trotsky had never been there). When Ilyich died, Stalin did everything so that his rival did not get to the funeral, and appeared in the eyes of the people as the main heir to the leader. Then he quietly "pushed" Trotsky's supporters in the party apparatus and the army. Sensing something was wrong, he asked to be sent to Germany as a "simple soldier of the revolution." The Politburo refused, and in January 1925 removed him from the post of people's commissar, making him chairman of the unimportant Electrotechnical Committee.

Trotsky caught on in the fall of 1926 when he was expelled from the Politburo, but his attempts to protest were doomed. Trotsky was expelled from the party, exiled to Alma-Ata, and in 1929 he was completely expelled from the USSR; he had to be carried out of the apartment in his arms, as he refused to leave the country.

He lost the duel with Stalin outright, showing himself to be an even worse strategist than in military operations.

Myth four: conspirator

At open trials in Moscow, prominent Bolsheviks Pyatakov, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov repented that, on the orders of Trotsky, they were engaged in sabotage - they broke machine tools, poisoned food, and delayed the construction of industrial giants. Trotsky's worst enemy, Nikolai Bukharin, described secret negotiations with him, in which Lev Davidovich allegedly admitted that he had colluded with the German General Staff, offering the Germans to revolt simultaneously with their attack on the USSR, promising them Ukraine for help, and the Japanese - the Far East.

Not content with this, he was also credited with links to British intelligence; Vyshinsky, the chief accuser, declared: "The whole bloc headed by Trotsky consisted of nothing but foreign spies and tsarist guards." For all the absurdity of the accusations, Trotsky was very upset by them: he was not only afraid that the Soviet workers would believe them (and they really did), but he was also indignant that he was credited with conspiring with the Nazis. The commission assembled by him revealed a lot of inconsistencies in the materials of the Moscow trials, but no one in the Soviet Union knew about this. By that time, Article 58-1, "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activity," had become a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of people.

The turn came to Lev Davidovich himself. On August 20, 1940, 27-year-old Spaniard Ramon Mercader was sent to him under the guise of a fan. He brought his article to Trotsky and, while he was reading, pierced his skull with an ice pick. The failed leader of the world revolution died the next day.

Myth five: savior

When at home, after many years of silence, Trotsky was again remembered, the opinion became stronger: his coming to power would save Russia from many of the troubles it experienced under Stalin. But this is another myth. And mass terror, and forced collectivization, and the strictest control over the private lives of citizens - all this was first proposed by Lev Davidovich, and Iosif Vissarionovich only brought his ideas to life with that ruthlessness and methodicalness that the "demon of the revolution" was incapable of.