isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

TROTSKY IN THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION 291
the Greek Calcnds, and thus the insurrection would never take
place as it would be forestalled by a successful counter-revolution.
But he, too, saw the Congress of the Soviets as the constitutional
source of power. Trotsky, on the other hand, took it
for granted that the Bolsheviks, constituting a majority in the
Soviets, would actually be the ruling party. Neither of them at
this stage saw any conflict between Soviet constitutionalism and
a Bolshevik dictatorship, just as, mutatis mutandis, no British
democrat sees any conflict between parliamentary rule and the
cabinet system based on the majority party.
The difference between Lenin and Trotsky centred on a much
narrower issue: namely, on whether the rising itself ought to be
conceived in terms of Soviet constitutionalism. The tactical risk
inherent in Trotsky's attitude was that it imposed certain delays
upon the whole plan of action. The political disadvantage of
Lenin's approach was that it was likely to narrow the popular
appeal of insurrection. Lenin concentrated exclusi\•ely on the
end to be attained. Trotsky paid more regard to its political
context, to the moods of the masses, and to the need to win over
the hesitant elements, who might respond to the Soviet's but
not to the party's call. The one in hiding had the bare and
changeable realities of power before his eyes. The other weighed,
in addition, the moral and political imponderables; and he did
so with the confidence that comes from being at the centre of
events and dominating them.
This difference was incidental to the main controversy
between the adherents and the opponents of insurrection.
Zinoviev and Kamenev held that Lenin and Trotsky were
plunging the party and the revolution into a suicidal adventure.
This was one of the greatest and most stirring arguments that
had ever rent a party, an argument the basic pros and cons of
which were to reappear, in different combinations, in innumerable
future controversies; an argument about which, regardless
of its immediate conclusion, history has perhaps not yet said
its last word. After the event, it is easy and natural to say that
the advocates of the insurrection were right, and its opponents
wrong. In truth, each side presented its case in such a way that
the rights were strangely blended with the wrongs and the
realistic assessment of historical prospects was offset by momentous
errors. Lenin and Trotsky assessed Russia's national