Leon Trotsky, The Lessons of October - Platypus

62 The Lessons of OctoberFebruary 1918, adopted on all fundamental questions an essentially socialdemocratic position. It required Lenin, and Lenin’s exceptional influencein the party, unprecedented even at that time, to safeguard the party andthe revolution against the supreme confusion following from such a situation.This must never be forgotten if we wish other Communist parties tolearn anything from us.The question of selecting the leading staff is of exceptional importance tothe parties of Western Europe. The experience of the abortive German Octoberis shocking proof of this. But this selection must proceed in the lightof revolutionary action. During these recent years, Germany has providedample opportunities for the testing of the leading party members in momentsof direct struggle. Failing this criterion, the rest is worthless. France,during these years, was much poorer in revolutionary upheavals — evenpartial ones. But even in the political life of France we have had flashesof civil war, times when the Central Committee of the party and the tradeunion leadership had to react in action to unpostponable and acute questions(such as the sanguinary meeting of January 11, 1924). A careful studyof such acute episodes provides irreplaceable material for the evaluationof a party leadership, the conduct of various party organs, and individualleading members. To ignore these lessons — not to draw the necessaryconclusions from them as to the choice of personalities — is to invite inevitabledefeats; for without a penetrating, resolute, and courageous partyleadership, the victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible.Each party, even the most revolutionary party, must inevitably produce itsown organizational conservatism; for otherwise it would lack the necessarystability. This is wholly a question of degree. In a revolutionary party thevitally necessary dose of conservatism must be combined with a completefreedom from routine, with initiative in orientation and daring in action.These qualities are put to the severest test during turning points in history.We have already quoted the words of Lenin to the effect that even themost revolutionary parties, when an abrupt change occurs in a situationand when new tasks arise as a consequence, frequently pursue the politicalline of yesterday and thereby become, or threaten to become, a brake uponthe revolutionary process. Both conservatism and revolutionary initiativefind their most concentrated expression in the leading organs of the party.In the meantime, the European Communist parties have still to face theirsharpest ”turning point” — the turn from preparatory work to the actualseizure of power. This turn is the most exacting, the most unpostponable,the most responsible, and the most formidable. To miss the moment for theturn is to incur the greatest defeat that a party can possibly suffer.The experience of the European struggles, and above all the struggles inGermany, when looked at in the light of our own experience, tells us that