Soviet minister says Trotsky will be rehabilitated ing a clear notion of what they were attacking? Is this simply a residue of Sta- [Abridged article from the September 1988 Issue of Bulletin in Defense of linism? Undoubtedly, several factors are Marxism, USA.] involved. Trotsky is a touchy point in the history of Soviet communism. By attacking IGOR YAKOVLEV, Senior Counsellor on Legal Affairs to the USSR's Permahim you can attack, from a nationalist nent Mission to the UN Commission on Human Rights, along with two other Sostandpoint, a whole revolutionary period of viet diplomats, In a meeting on June 29 with a delegation from the [US] Moscow Bolshevism, describe it as foreign to Rus- Trials Campaign Committee, claimed that Leon Trotsky would soon be rehabilisian national history and the history of Bol- tated by the Soviet government and that his works would eventually be pub-
But obviously what is involved here is However, opinion was divided among the diplomats as to whether Trotsky not simply a resurrection of Russian na- would be posthumously re-admitted to the Communist Party of the Soviet Untionalism. The problem of Trotsky leads ion (CPSU). While Yakovlev, who claimed to have read Trotsky, favored admis back to a search for a link with today's re- sion, one of his colleagues, who never read a word of this great Russian form current. Bukharin is seen as the pre- revolutionary, opposed the move. Their differences reflect the depth of discuscursor of the present reform. In fact, Bukharin and Trotsky were at loggerheads in a two-and-a-half hour meeting in New York, requested by the US branch of at various times on various questions relat- the international campaign to rehabilitate the victims of the Moscow Trials, Yaing to building up the country. kovlev also discussed the political and economic reforms of Soviet leader Mik-
By attacking Trotsky, of course, many authors try to play up Bukharin's positions Yakovlev said the exoneration and rehabilitation of Trotsky would be a natural and merits. But Bukharin and Trotsky op- outcome of Gorbachev's policy of glasnost and perestroika and was surprised posed each other not only on social and ecthat an American group would even bother to make such a fuss over the issue, as he hardly saw it as the most pressing matter facing Soviet society today. The US delegates remained cautiously optimistic about Yakovlev's pro-
Moscow Trials campaign
Yakovlev vehemently defended Gorbachev's plans to allow market forces
THE CAMPAIGN to clear the names greater influence in the economy. He dismissed the revolutlonary Marxist alterof all the accused in the Moscow native for the Soviet Union ~ represented by Trotsky's thinking and the Fourth
Trials, launched over a year ago, International today — as he dismissed the Left Opposition's positions in the ec has been collecting signatures from onomic debates of the late 1920s as Irrelevant todav. Yet It has been Stalinist all over the world (for the full text of policies of the bureaucracy that have plunged the country into stagnation and the appeal, see IV 137). You can repression for decades, and the decentralizing market-oriented reforms envis.
contact the campaign c/o Michael aged by Gorbachev and his followers are bureaucratic alternatives to a demo.
Löwy, 34 rue des Lyonnais, 75005 cratically planned economy advocated by Trotsky and his followers.
Paris, France. Because Trotsky severely criticized the bureaucratization of the Russian rev-
Latest signatories: olution and provided a Marxist analysis and a program to combat it, it is obvious
Poland: Gregorz Ilka, secretary of that today's bureaucrats are yet wary of his works, Glasnost seems to have its the central executive committee of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and editor Bukharin, the leader of the Right Opposition to Stalin, who was legally vindi of Robotnik; Jerzy Kolarzowski, PPS cated in February, was poiltically rehabilitated on July 9. This Is significant for it spokesperson; Piotr Niemczyk, member Is his thinking that appears to provide a blueprint and the legitimacy for Gorba of the Freedom and Peace Movement chev's reforms. It was Bukharin as Stalin's ally against Trotsky who called upon (WiP); Malgorzata Ponulak, PPS cen- the peasants to "enrich themselves" through the New Economic Policy In 1925. tral exec. cttee; Tadeusz Rachowski, Likewise, Gorbachev wants Individual enterprises to accumulate capital and president PPS central exec. cttee; Hen- drive other firms out of business if need be. Trotsky's Ideas could provide a proryk Szlajfer, adviser to the National Self-Management Federation in 198026 81; Tomasz Truskawa, founder member of PPS. * lished in the USSR.
sions within the USSR today.
hail Gorbachev....
geois" idea. *