Understanding of Trotzky's attitude during the recent revolutionary and
counter-revolutionary struggles is made easier by understanding the
development of his thought in the First Revolution, 1905-06. He began as an
extremely orthodox Marxist, and believed that any attempt to establish a
Socialist order in Russia until a more or less protracted intensive
economic development, exhausting the possibilities of capitalism, made
change inevitable, must fail. He accepted the view that a powerful
capitalist class must be developed and perform its indispensable historical
role, to be challenged and overthrown in its turn by the proletariat. That
was the essence of his pure and unadulterated faith. To it he clung with
all the tenacity of his nature, deriding as "Utopians" and "dreamers" the
peasant Socialists who refused to accept the Marxian theory of Socialism as
the product of historic necessity as applicable to Russia.
The great upheaval of 1905 changed his viewpoint. The manner in which
revolutionary ideas spread among the masses created in Trotzky, as in many
others, almost unbounded confidence and enthusiasm. In an essay written
soon after the outbreak of the Revolution he wrote: "The Revolution has
come.
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