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

DEFEAT IN VICTORY 5 1 9
have bern preposterous to rstablish the rule of a single party and
then to allow that party to split into fragments. If Bolshevism.
were to break up into two or more hostile movements, as the
old Social Democratic party had done, would not one of them
-it was asked-- become the vehicle of counter-revolution?
In the temper of the party congress of 192 I there was indeed
something of that seemingly irrational tension which had
characterized the congress of 1903. A split similarly cast its
shadow ahead-only the real divisions were even more inchoate
and confused than in 1903. Now as then Trotsky was not on the
side of the controversy to which he would eventually belong.
And now as then he was anxious to prevent the split. He therefore
raised no objection when Lenin proposed that the congress
should prohibit organized groups or factions within the party;
and he himself disbanded the faction he had formed during the
recent controversy.' This was not yet strictly a ban on inner
party opposition. Lenin encouraged dissenters to express dissent.
He liberally invited them to state their views in the Bolshevik
newspapers, in special discussion pages and discussion sheets.
He asked the congress to elect the leaders of all shades of opposition
to the new Central Committee. But he insisted that
opposition should remain diffuse and that the dissenters should
not form themselves into solid leagues. He submitted a resolution,
one clause of which (kept secret) empowered the Central
Committee to