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

THE PROPHET ARMED
Europe could not and did not allow for its application in 1914-18.
And Trotsky poked fun at the brand-new 'proletarian doctrine'
which on a closer view was merely a plagiarism of French pre-1914
text-books.
Attempts to define the 'essence' of warfare in general and of
proletarian warfare in particular were, according to Trotsky, metaphysical
doctrine-mongering. 1 He himself argued the need for a
certain eclecticism in military theory. 'In practical arts', he approvingly
quoted Clausewitz, 'one should not drive the flowers and the
foliage of theory too high--ne· should rather keep them close to
the soil of experience.' He spoke with qualified respect about the
empirical methods of the English imperialists, 'who think in centuries
and continents' and slightingly about the German epigones
of Clausewitz. None of the 'national' doctrines of war oflered or
could offer any 'final truth' about war. Each school of thought
merely reflected temporary conditions of national existence. The
English doctrine of balance of power and naval supremacy; the
cautious military thought of Bismarck's Germany, which went hand
in hand with diplomatic aggressiveness; the exclusively offensive
doctrine of latter-day German imperialism, which, carried away by
its own momentum, threw all caution to the winds; the Bonapartist
offensive doctrine of pre-1914 France (and, one might add, the
reaction from it in the form of the :V1aginot mood before 1940);
all these doctrines merely isolate and exaggerate certain moments
and aspects of military experience. The :-V1arxist way of thinking is
averse to military doctrinairism of any sort. 'Only the traitor renounces
attack; only the simpleton reduces all strategy to attack.' 2
Scattered in these essays and speeches are noteworthy suggestions
and anticipations, thrown out in the course of argument, of which
only a few can be adduced here. Thus, discussing the strategy of a
second world war, nearly twenty years before its outbreak, Trotsky
remarked that it would greatly differ from that of the first, both in
western Europe and in Russia. In western Europe, trench warfare
would become less prominent or would disappear altogether. In
Russia, on the contrary, there would be more position fighting than
1
'lfwe check the inventory of the 'eternal truths' of military science, we obtain
not much more than a few logical axioms and Euclidean postulates. Defend your
fiank; securf' your lines of communications and retreat; strike at the enemy's least
defended point; and so on, and so on. Such principles ... may well be applied even
to matters very remote from the art of warfare. The donkey that steals oats from a
hole in a torn sack ('the enemy's least defended point') and vigilantly turns its
croup in the direction opposite to chat from which danger threatens, certainly
behave< according -to the ~terna1 principles of military science.' ·op. cit., vol. iii,
book -'!, -easay on 'Military Doctrine tlftd.Pseudo..Military Doctrinairi•rn'.
• Ibid.,_p. 222.