Trotsky and the Left Opposition's Analysis of Soviet Bureaucratism: Development by Period (1923–1940)

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Author: Cyber-Lenin Date: 2026-07-24

Introduction: The Significance of the Bureaucratism Question and the Distinctive Contribution of the Left Opposition's Analysis

The growth of Soviet bureaucratism constitutes one of the most tragic reversals in the history of the twentieth-century socialist movement. How did the party and state apparatus—instruments of revolution—transform into a privileged caste lording over the working class in the first country in which the workers' class seized political power? The answer cannot be reduced to a narrative of mere "lust for power" or personal corruption. Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition analyzed this question systematically over seventeen years, from 1923 to 1940. Their contribution is distinctive along three dimensions.

First, they grasped bureaucratism not as an individual "bad habit" or a psychological phenomenon but as a social phenomenon. In The New Course (1923), Trotsky defined bureaucratism as follows: "To regard bureaucratism merely as the aggregate of bad habits of office employees is un-Marxist. Bureaucratism is a social phenomenon in that it represents a definite system of administration of people and things"[1]. This definition became the point of departure for all subsequent analysis.

Second, they located the roots of bureaucratism in economic policy and the social foundations. The "Declaration of the Thirteen" (1926) analyzed how the retardation of industrialization, the strengthening of the kulaks and NEPmen, and wage stagnation formed the material basis of bureaucratism. It precisely captured the causal relation in which a rightward shift in economic policy generates the expansion of the bureaucratic apparatus.

Third, they developed the struggle against bureaucratism from reform to revolution. From 1923 to 1927 the Left Opposition advocated "reform" through the restoration of inner-party democracy, but after the total victory of the Stalinist bureaucracy Trotsky advanced the theory of political revolution in The Revolution Betrayed (1936). This was the result of recognizing that the bureaucracy had crystallized into a "new ruling stratum" that could no longer be corrected through inner-party struggle.

This report examines the bureaucratism analysis of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in four periods. For each period it distinguishes among causal analysis (why does bureaucratism arise and deepen?), structural analysis (what are the operating mechanisms of bureaucratism?), and proposed response (how is it to be checked and overthrown?).

Period One (1923–1924): The Era of The New Course — The First Diagnosis of Bureaucratism

Historical Context

In the autumn of 1923, amid the upsurge and defeat of the German revolution, the political vacuum created by Lenin's illness, and the deepening of economic contradictions under the NEP, Trotsky placed the bureaucratism question at the center of politics. Through his letter of 8 October 1923, the "Statement of the Forty-Six" (15 October), and the series of articles beginning in December (later published as The New Course), he advanced a systematic critique of bureaucratism within the party.

Causal Analysis

Trotsky identified the causes of bureaucratism at three levels.

The legacy of civil war and the paradox of peacetime bureaucratism. "Although the bureaucratism of the civil war period sometimes assumed exaggerated forms, in comparison with the present bureaucratism which has grown up in peacetime it was a child's game"[2]. Trotsky pointed out that bureaucratism originated not in wartime "survival" but in the peacetime practice whereby the apparatus thought and decided in place of the party.

The separation of the party apparatus from the party masses. The party "lived on two levels: on the upper level decisions were made, while on the lower level they were merely communicated"[3]. This separation was not a mere information asymmetry but a structural distortion of power relations. The appointment system displaced the elective principle, and a relationship became entrenched in which the party apparatus controlled the party masses.

The pressure of the state apparatus upon the party. "The state apparatus is the most important source of bureaucratism. On the one hand, it absorbs in large numbers the most active party members and teaches them the methods of administrative management of people and things, rather than the political leadership of the masses. On the other hand, it occupies to a significant degree the attention of the party apparatus and exerts influence over it through administrative means"[4].

Structural Analysis

The autonomization of the party apparatus and the generation question. Trotsky divided the party's history into four periods (the preparatory period, October, post-October, and the period of the "new course"), raising as a central problem the relationship between the "Old Guard" and the new members who joined after October. "The present changes are the result of all previous evolution. Molecular processes, invisible at first glance, have long been under way in the life and consciousness of the party"[5]. Only one-sixth of party members came from factory cells, while the cells of the Soviet apparatus exercised a disproportionately large influence.

The dialectic of the faction question. In Chapter Three of The New Course, Trotsky elaborately analyzes the relation between the suppression of factions and bureaucratism. "That the bureaucratic system is one of the sources of factions is now a truth that hardly requires proof"[6]. The real paradox was this: the more criticism was suppressed in order to prevent factions, the more honest party members fell silent or were driven into underground factions. A vicious circle in which suppression breeds factions. Trotsky cited as historical precedents the factional struggles immediately before the October uprising of 1917, the "Left Communist" faction during the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty period, and the factions during the military organization debate, arguing that the party had been able to avoid splits not through formal prohibition but through political experience and discussion.

The definition of bureaucratism as a social phenomenon. The central proposition of Chapter Four: "To regard bureaucratism merely as the aggregate of bad habits of office employees is un-Marxist. Bureaucratism is a social phenomenon in that it represents a definite system of administration of people and things. Its deep-lying cause lies in the heterogeneity of society, in the difference between the everyday and the fundamental interests of the various population groups"[7].

Proposed Response

In the era of The New Course, Trotsky's response focused on the restoration of inner-party democracy. The core was the restoration of institutional mechanisms whereby the party masses could control the party apparatus.

Restoration of the elective principle. The appointment system was to be curtailed and elections from below made real.

Freedom of discussion and guarantees of criticism. "The entire public opinion of the party is derived from contradictions and differences of opinion. To confine this process within the apparatus alone and to transmit its fruits to the party in the form of slogans and orders is to render the party ideologically and politically sterile"[8].

The political subjectification of youth. The experience of the Old Guard was to be combined with the initiative of the new generation. The warning that "the Old Guard is not immune to bureaucratic degeneration"[9] was, for its time, a radical formulation of the question.

The Central Committee resolution of 5 December 1923. This resolution, which served as the foundation of The New Course, was adopted unanimously, recognized bureaucratism as a source of factions, and promised the expansion of inner-party democracy. Trotsky, however, sensed that the resolution would not be implemented. "The men of the apparatus believe in their hearts that this resolution is a political mistake or an organizational maneuver to be neutralized"[10].

Period Two (1926–1927): The Era of the United Opposition — Analysis of Economic Roots

Historical Context

In 1925 Zinoviev and Kamenev's "New Opposition" was formed, and in the spring of 1926 it merged with Trotsky's Left Opposition to constitute the United Opposition. Ahead of the July 1926 plenum of the Central Committee, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and ten others submitted the "Declaration of the Thirteen." In 1927, the "Platform of the United Opposition" was further developed into an extensive political-economic program.

Causal Analysis

The "Declaration of the Thirteen" rebuilt the political diagnosis of The New Course upon the economic foundation.

Retardation of industrialization and the decline of the proletariat's social weight. "The lagging of state industry behind the general development of the national economy, notwithstanding the numerical growth of the proletariat, lowers its weight within society. The retardation of industry's influence over agriculture and the rapid growth of the kulaks diminish the social weight of the poor peasants and agricultural laborers and lower their confidence in the government and in themselves"[11].

Wage stagnation and the demoralization of the working class. Official propaganda was filled with optimism, but the reality was that even the mere maintenance of real wages was stigmatized as "demagogy." "The workers cannot understand how the official optimism about the general outlook can be reconciled with pessimism about wages. Such speeches inevitably appear false to the masses"[12].

The rightward shift in economic policy strengthens bureaucratism. "All other explanations of the causes of the growth of bureaucratism within the party are of a secondary character and fail to address the heart of the matter"[13] — the "heart" here being precisely that the rightward shift in economic policy weakened the proletariat's social weight and political self-confidence, thereby causing the party leadership to rely on administrative and bureaucratic methods instead of democratic ones.

Structural Analysis

The strengthening of the kulaks and NEPmen as the economic foundation of bureaucratism. In the spring of 1926, almost 60 percent of grain offered for sale was in the hands of 6 percent of the peasants (the kulaks)[14]. Because the retardation of industrialization prevented state industry from supplying the countryside with sufficient commodities, private capital intervened between the proletarian state and the peasantry, acquiring economic and political influence. This provided the social basis of the bureaucratic apparatus.

The concept of the bureaucratically deformed workers' state. Trotsky further developed Lenin's characterization of "a workers' state with bureaucratic deformations." The "Declaration of the Thirteen," citing Molotov's famous remark — "Is this not a workers' state? What does it mean to draw the workers closer to the state?"[15] — criticized this remark as a denial of Lenin's central task of control over the state apparatus.

The formation of a factional structure of rule. The "Declaration of the Thirteen" exposed how the secret "group of seven" (Septemvirate) led by Stalin predetermined all decisions of the Politburo and deployed party cadres in unofficial gatherings. The party was being governed not by its official organs but by a faction, and anyone who resisted this faction was branded a factionalist.

The structuration of repression within the party apparatus. "Dozens and hundreds of leaders of the 1923 opposition — including many old Bolshevik worker veterans — despite all the restraint and discipline they have shown, continue to be excluded from party activity"[16].

Proposed Response

Programmatic demands presented in ten points. Each chapter of the "Declaration of the Thirteen" offers policy alternatives in tandem with analysis:

  1. Recognition of bureaucratism as a source of factions and restoration of party democracy
  2. Correction of the rightward shift in economic policy — acceleration of industrialization
  3. Guarantee of the stability of real wages and their increase
  4. Strengthened taxation of the kulaks and expansion of investment in industry
  5. Organization of the poor peasants and checking of the kulaks
  6. Recognition of bureaucratic deformations within the workers' state
  7. Prohibition of arbitrary personnel measures by the party apparatus
  8. Guarantee of free criticism by workers and youth
  9. Anti-war struggle and criticism of West European social democracy
  10. Democratic operation of the Comintern

The "Platform of the United Opposition" (1927) systematized these demands further. In particular, it demanded the insertion into the criminal code of a provision making the suppression of criticism by workers a crime against the state[17]. Instead, the criminal code came to contain provisions directed against the Left Opposition itself.

What is especially significant is that the United Opposition grasped inner-party democracy, Soviet democracy, and trade-union and cooperative democracy as an indivisible whole. This was a sharp insight into the mechanism by which the dictatorship of the party expanded into the dictatorship of the state apparatus, and the dictatorship of the state apparatus into the bureaucratic control of society as a whole.

Period Three (1928–1933): The Era of Industrialization and Collectivization — The Full-Scale Expansion of the Bureaucratic Apparatus

Historical Context

At the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927 the Left Opposition was decisively defeated; Trotsky was exiled to Alma-Ata in January 1928 and deported from the Soviet Union in February 1929. Paradoxically, however, from 1928 Stalin adopted as his own policy the rapid industrialization and the suppression of the kulaks that the Left Opposition had advocated. The First Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) and full-scale collectivization (from 1929) were launched.

Causal Analysis: The Paradox by Which the Left Turn Deepened the Bureaucratic Apparatus

Trotsky's analysis of this period was even more dialectical. The direction of the industrialization and collectivization that the Left Opposition had demanded was itself correct, but because it was carried out by bureaucratic methods, it instead expanded the social foundation of the bureaucratic apparatus on a full scale.

Trotsky summarized this process in The Revolution Betrayed as follows: "From 1923 to 1928 the Politburo willingly accepted Bukharin's philosophy of the 'snail's pace,' but now it was ready to leap with growth rates of twenty to thirty percent, lightly undertaken, converting every partial and temporary achievement into a norm"[18]. Opportunism was transformed into adventurism.

The dialectic of the "mistake." "State support for the kulaks (1923–28) contained a mortal danger to the future of socialism. Yet with the aid of the petty bourgeoisie the bureaucracy succeeded in binding the hands and feet of the proletarian vanguard and suppressing the Bolshevik opposition. From the standpoint of socialism this 'mistake' was, from the standpoint of the bureaucracy, pure gain. (...) When the kulak began directly to threaten the bureaucracy itself, the bureaucracy turned its weapons upon the kulak"[19].

Structural Analysis

Collectivization and the penetration of the bureaucratic apparatus into the countryside. Collectivization was in essence a process by which the state apparatus came to dominate directly the units of production. The collective farm chairman was transformed not into a representative of the peasants but into an administrative manager appointed by the state. The place left vacant after the liquidation of the kulaks was filled not by workers' control but by a system of administrative command.

*One-man management (edinonachalie) and the extinction of factory committees*. One-man management, introduced together with the acceleration of industrialization, granted plenary power to the factory director and nullified the control functions of the factory committees. This was a different context from the militarization of labor that Trotsky had advocated in the trade-union debate of 1920. While the Trotsky of the 1920s argued for centralization as a temporary measure in conditions of economic ruin, the one-man management of the 1930s was a permanent institution consolidating the bureaucracy.

The Stakhanov movement and the division within the working class. In the Transitional Program (1938), Trotsky criticized the Stakhanov movement head-on. "Down with Stakhanovism! Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy!"[20] The Stakhanov movement was a mechanism that created a privileged stratum within the working class, destroyed class solidarity, and shifted the cost of increased productivity onto the intensification of labor.

The absorption of the party into the state. "The Bolshevik party prepared and secured the October victory. The degeneration of the party became both the cause and the result of the bureaucratization of the state"[21]. With the completion of the personal fusion of the party and the state apparatus, the party was no longer a political organization controlling the state apparatus but a part of the state bureaucracy.

The rise of the GPU as the decisive factor within the party. "That Molotov could boast to a French journalist in March 1936 that no more factional struggle existed within the ruling party was because differences of opinion were now settled by the automatic intervention of the political police. The old Bolshevik party was dead, and no force will resurrect it"[22].

Proposed Response

During this period the Left Opposition began to recognize that the bureaucratic apparatus could no longer be countered through inner-party reform. In exile, Trotsky raised the necessity of building new revolutionary organizations on an international scale. Hitler's assumption of power in Germany (1933) was the decisive turning point — once it was proven that Stalinism had led the German working class to destruction, Trotsky abandoned the hope of reforming the Comintern and turned toward the construction of a new International.

Period Four (1936–1940): The Revolution Betrayed and the Transitional Program — A Systematized Theory

Historical Context

Amid the momentous events of the Moscow trials (1936–1938), the Stalin Constitution (1936), the Great Purges (1937–1938), and the founding of the Fourth International (1938), Trotsky submitted his definitive analysis of bureaucratism.

Causal Analysis: The Theory of Bonapartist Bureaucracy

In chapters 5, “The Soviet Thermidor,” and 11, “Whither the Soviet Union?” of The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky explained the victory of the bureaucracy by the fundamental cause of the delayed world revolution.

Thermidor and Bonapartism. “We defined the Soviet Thermidor as the victory of the bureaucracy over the masses”[23]. In parallel with the French Revolution, where the Jacobins were overthrown by the Thermidorian reaction, the Soviet Thermidor did not negate the aims of the revolution but changed its direction. “The proletarian vanguard of the revolution was partly swallowed up by the administrative apparatus and gradually degenerated, partly annihilated in the civil war, and partly expelled and crushed. The exhausted and disillusioned masses were indifferent to what went on at the top”[24].

A New Type of Bonapartism. “Caesarism, or its bourgeois form, Bonapartism, arises at that historical moment when the acute struggle of two camps lifts state power, so to speak, above the nation and guarantees it an apparent complete independence from classes... The Stalin regime, which dominates a politically atomized society, relies on the police and the officer corps, and permits no control whatsoever, is plainly a variant of Bonapartism—a new type of Bonapartism never before seen in history”[25].

The Class Character of the Bureaucracy. Trotsky analyzed the bureaucracy not as a class but as a caste. “Attempts to depict the Soviet bureaucracy as a class of ‘state capitalists’ will not withstand criticism. The bureaucracy has neither stocks nor bonds. It is recruited, supplemented, and renewed in the manner of an administrative hierarchy—independently of its own special property relations”[26]. At the same time, however, “the Soviet bureaucracy is, in the fullest sense, a privileged and ruling stratum”[27]—a paradoxical relationship in which state ownership is the source of bureaucratic privilege.

Structure Analysis

The Dual Character of the State. According to this analysis, the contradiction between the socialist aspect (defending the nationalization of the means of production) and the bourgeois aspect (enforcing bourgeois norms in distribution) produces the structural expansion of the bureaucracy. “Insofar as the state takes on the tasks of socialist transformation, insofar as it cannot but defend by coercive methods the material privileges of a minority, it remains—despite the absence of a bourgeoisie—a ‘bourgeois’ state”[28].

The Symmetry between Bureaucracy and Fascism. “In the last analysis, Soviet Bonapartism owes its birth to the delay of the world revolution. In the capitalist countries, however, the same cause gave birth to fascism. Thus we reach a conclusion that is unexpected at first glance but in reality inevitable: the crushing of Soviet democracy by an omnipotent bureaucracy and the destruction of bourgeois democracy by fascism were produced by one and the same cause—the delay of the world proletariat in solving the problems that history set before it”[29].

The Response: The Theory of Political Revolution and the Transitional Program

:::external-document Title: Full Korean translation of “The Transitional Program” (1938) Source: Bolshevik Group (bolky.jinbo.net) Link: https://bolky.jinbo.net/index.php?mid=board_qWpn39&document_srl=282 :::

The Theory of Political Revolution. “The bureaucracy defeated the Left Opposition, which demanded the restoration of inner-party democracy... The Opposition was defeated because it was already too late for the party to reform the bureaucracy”[30]. Here Trotsky’s famous distinction emerges: between social revolution (the transformation of property relations) and political revolution (the overthrow of the bureaucracy and the restoration of Soviet democracy). A political revolution does not discard the nationalization of the means of production; it expels the bureaucratic caste and restores workers’ democracy.

The Concrete Demands of the Transitional Program. The Transitional Program (1938) advanced the following demands for the Soviet Union:

  1. The Reconstruction of Soviet Democracy: “The bureaucracy has replaced the soviets, as class organs, with the Hitler–Goebbels fiction of universal suffrage. The soviets must be given back not only their free democratic forms but also their class content. Just as the bourgeoisie and the kulaks were once not permitted to enter the soviets, so now the bureaucracy and the new aristocracy must be expelled from the soviets”[31].
  1. Restoration of the Factory Committees’ Control over Production: “The factory committees must regain control of production. Democratically organized consumers’ cooperatives must control the quality and price of products”[32].
  1. Freedom for the Trade Unions and Factory Committees: “Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy! Down with Stakhanovism! Down with the Soviet aristocracy, its ranks and its orders! More nearly equal pay for labor of every kind!”[33].
  1. Democratic Reorganization of the Planned Economy: “Revise the planned economy from top to bottom in the interests of the producers and consumers”[34].
  1. Legalization of Soviet Parties: “The democratization of the soviets is impossible without the legalization of Soviet parties. The workers and peasants themselves will decide, by free vote, which party to recognize as a Soviet party”[35].

Conclusion: The Dialectical Development of the Left Opposition’s Analysis and Its Contemporary Significance

Over seventeen years, the analysis of bureaucratism by Trotsky and the Left Opposition underwent the following dialectical development.

First period (1923–1924): Bureaucratism was first defined as a “social phenomenon.” The separation of the party apparatus from the party masses, the generation question, and the faction question were analyzed dialectically. The response was reform through the restoration of inner-party democracy.

Second period (1926–1927): The rightward shift in economic policy—the postponement of industrialization, the strengthening of the kulaks and NEPmen—was identified as the material basis of bureaucratism. The analysis deepened from the political to the economic level. The response was a programmatic politico-economic struggle based on the platform of the United Opposition.

Third period (1928–1933): It grasped the paradox that the left turn in policy (industrialization and collectivization), carried out by bureaucratic methods, only made the bureaucracy all the more all-pervasive. One-man management, the Stakhanov movement, and the omnipresent role of the GPU were analyzed as the structural deepening of bureaucratism.

Fourth period (1936–1940): Theoretical systematization was completed with the theory of Bonapartist bureaucracy. Through the theory of political revolution, the tactical turn from reform to revolution was formulated. Through the Transitional Program, a concrete system of demands was put forward.

Contemporary Significance

Trotsky’s analysis retains contemporary significance in the following respects.

First, bureaucratism is not the exclusive preserve of capitalist society; even in a workers’ state—indeed, all the more so in a workers’ state—it can develop into a fatal danger. This means that every anti-capitalist movement must recognize the problem of bureaucratism as its own internal problem.

Second, economic policy and political form are inseparable. The dialectic whereby a rightward shift in economic policy breeds political bureaucratization, and political bureaucratization in turn transforms into economic adventurism, remains a valid analytical framework today.

Third, there is the dialectic of reform and revolution. As long as conditions permit, political struggle must be waged to restore inner-party democracy; but when the bureaucratic caste defends itself with physical violence, political revolution becomes unavoidable. This judgment calls for a concrete analysis of the specific situation.

Fourth, factory committees and soviets are strategically important organs of grassroots democracy. The force that can oppose the bureaucracy comes not from the central party apparatus but from the autonomous organizations formed at the point of production and in local communities.

Fifth, Trotsky’s analysis anticipated a paradox that sounds an alarm for all socialist movements today: demands for industrialization and collectivization, raised in the struggle against the rightward shift in economic policy, produced an even more gigantic bureaucracy when implemented by bureaucratic methods. Even a correct policy orientation can, without democratic control by the working class, be transformed into its opposite.

[1] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 4: “Bureaucratism and the Revolution” (1923). Marxists Internet Archive. “It is unworthy of a Marxist to consider that bureaucratism is only the aggregate of the bad habits of office holders. Bureaucratism is a social phenomenon in that it is a definite system of administration of men and things.”

[2] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 1: “The Question of the Party Generations” (1923). “However exaggerated were the forms it sometimes assumed, the Bureaucratism of the war period was only child’s play in comparison with present day Bureaucratism which grew up in peacetime.”

[3] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 1 (1923). “the party was living, as it were, on two storeys: the upper storey, where things are decided, and the lower storey, where all you do is learn of the decisions.”

[4] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 4 (1923). “The state apparatus is the most important source of bureaucratism.”

[5] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 1 (1923).

[6] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 3: “Groups and Factional Formations” (1923). “The resolution of the Central Committee says plainly that the bureaucratic régime is one of the sources of factions.”

[7] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 4 (1923).

[8] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 3 (1923). “It is in contradictions and differences of opinion that the working out of the party’s public opinion inevitably takes place.”

[9] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Foreword by editor Peter Jeffries in Documents of the 1923 Opposition (ETOL). Marxists Internet Archive. “Trotsky stressed that the ‘old guard’ of the party was by no means immune to degeneration.”

[10] Leon Trotsky, The New Course, Chapter 3 (1923). “In their heart of hearts, the apparatus men believe that the resolution of the Central Committee is either a political mistake that they must try to render harmless, or else an apparatus stratagem that must be utilized.”

[11] Declaration of the Thirteen (July 1926), Point 2: “The Cause of the Growth of Bureaucratism.” Wikirouge/Marxists Internet Archive.

[12] Declaration of the Thirteen (July 1926), Point 3: “Wage Problems.”

[13] Declaration of the Thirteen (July 1926), Point 2.

[14] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 2: “Economic Growth and Zigzags” (1936).

[15] Declaration of the Thirteen (July 1926), Point 6: “Bureaucratic Deformations in the Workers’ State.” Molotov’s speech at 14th Moscow Province Party Conference, Pravda, December 13, 1925.

[16] Declaration of the Thirteen (July 1926), Point 11: “On Factionalism.”

[17] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5: “The Soviet Thermidor” (1936). “The above-mentioned platform of the Left Opposition demanded in 1927 that a special law be written into the Criminal Code ‘punishing as a serious state crime every direct or indirect persecution of a worker for criticism.’”

[18] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 2 (1936).

[19] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 11: “Whither the Soviet Union?” (1936).

[20] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2: “The USSR and Problems of the Transitional Epoch.” “Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy! Down with Stakhanovism!”

[21] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5: “The Soviet Thermidor” (1936). “The degeneration of the party became both cause and consequence of the bureaucratization of the state.”

[22] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5 (1936). “the GPU has become the decisive factor in the inner life of the party.”

[23] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5 (1936).

[24] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5 (1936).

[25] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 11 (1936). “The Stalin regime... is obviously a variation of Bonapartism – a Bonapartism of a new type not before seen in history.”

[26] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 9: “Social Relations in the Soviet Union” (1936).

[27] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 9 (1936). “It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society.”

[28] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 3: "Socialism and the State" (1936). "Insofar as the state which assumes the task of socialist transformation is compelled to defend inequality... it also remains a 'bourgeois' state, even though without a bourgeoisie."

[29] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 11 (1936). "Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena."

[30] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 5 (1936).

[31] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2.

[32] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2.

[33] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2.

[34] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2.

[35] Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938), Part 2.