Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

=== Left Opposition (1923–1924) ===
{{Main|Left Opposition}}
[[File:Trotsky-Annenkov 1922 sketch.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|A 1922 [[Cubism|cubist]] portrait by [[Yury Annenkov]]. A version appeared on an early cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine.]]
From mid-1923, the Soviet economy faced significant difficulties, leading to widespread strikes. Two secret groups within the Communist Party, "[[Workers' Truth]]" and "[[Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party|Workers' Group]]", were suppressed by the secret police. On 8 October 1923, Trotsky wrote to the Central Committee and [[Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Control Commission]], attributing these problems to a lack of intra-Party democracy:
{{Blockquote|In the fiercest moment of War Communism, the system of appointment within the party did not have one tenth of the extent that it has now. Appointment of the secretaries of provincial committees is now the rule. That creates for the secretary a position essentially independent of the local organization. [...] The bureaucratization of the party apparatus has developed to unheard-of proportions by means of the method of secretarial selection. [...] There has been created a very broad stratum of party workers, entering into the apparatus of the government of the party, who completely renounce their own party opinion, at least the open expression of it, as though assuming that the secretarial hierarchy is the apparatus which creates party opinion and party decisions. Beneath this stratum, abstaining from their own opinions, there lies the broad mass of the party, before whom every decision stands in the form of a summons or a command.<ref>Leon Trotsky, "The First Letter to the Central Committee" contained in the ''Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'' (Pathfinder Press: New York, 1975) pp. 55–56.</ref>}}
Other senior communists with similar concerns sent ''[[The Declaration of 46]]'' to the Central Committee on 15 October, stating:
{{Blockquote|[...] we observe an ever progressing, barely disguised division of the party into a secretarial hierarchy and into "laymen", into professional party functionaries, chosen from above, and the other party masses, who take no part in social life. [...] free discussion within the party has virtually disappeared, party public opinion has been stifled. [...] it is the secretarial hierarchy, the party hierarchy which to an ever greater degree chooses the delegates to the conferences and congresses, which to an ever greater degree are becoming the executive conferences of this hierarchy.}}
Though secret at the time, these letters significantly impacted the Party leadership, prompting a partial retreat by the ''[[NKVD troika|troika]]'' and its supporters, notably in Zinoviev's ''Pravda'' article of 7 November. Throughout November, the ''troika'' sought a compromise to placate Trotsky and his supporters (made easier by Trotsky's illness in November–December). Trotsky rejected the first draft resolution, leading to a special group (Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev) to draft a mutually acceptable compromise. On 5 December, the Politburo and Central Control Commission unanimously adopted this final draft. On 8 December, Trotsky published an open letter expounding on the resolution's ideas. The ''troika'' used this letter to launch a campaign against Trotsky, accusing him of factionalism, setting "the youth against the fundamental generation of old revolutionary Bolsheviks,"<ref>Quoted in Max Shachtman. ''The Struggle for the New Course'', New York, New International Publishing Co., 1943. [http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1943/fnc/nc04.htm ''The Campaign Against "Trotskyism"''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209032511/http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1943/fnc/nc04.htm |date=9 February 2006}}</ref> and other "sins".

Trotsky defended his position in seven letters collected as ''The New Course'' in January 1924.<ref>Leon Trotsky, "The New Course" contained in ''The Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'', pp. 63–144.</ref> The illusion of a "monolithic Bolshevik leadership" shattered, and a lively intra-Party discussion ensued in local organizations and ''Pravda'' pages through December and January, until the XIIIth Party Conference (16–18 January 1924). Opponents of the Central Committee's position became known as the [[Left Opposition]].<ref name="lom">[https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-opposition Left Opposition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716012705/https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-opposition#left-opposition |date=16 July 2018}}; Glossary of organizations on [[Marxists.org]]</ref> In 1924, at Sverdlov University conferences, Stalin critically cited "the Permanentists" as Trotsky's followers of 'Permanent revolution'.
[[File:Soviet leaders write the letter of defiance to George Curzon.jpg|left|thumb|Leon Trotsky (centre, with pen) with Soviet leaders writing a letter of defiance to British [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]] [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon]] in 1923. Painting by an unknown artist, parodying [[Ilya Repin]]'s ''[[Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks]]''.]]

Since the ''troika'' controlled the Party apparatus via Stalin's Secretariat and ''Pravda'' via editor Bukharin, it directed the discussion and delegate selection. Though Trotsky's position prevailed within the Red Army, Moscow universities, and received about half the votes in the Moscow Party organization, it was defeated elsewhere. The Conference was packed with pro-''troika'' delegates. Only three delegates voted for Trotsky's position, and the Conference denounced "Trotskyism"{{efn|The term "Trotskyism" was first coined by Russian liberal politician [[Pavel Milyukov]], the first foreign minister in the Provisional Government, who in April 1917 demanded the British government release Trotsky.}} as a "petty bourgeois deviation".

Left Opposition members, representing many international elements, held high-ranking posts, with [[Christian Rakovsky]], [[Adolph Joffe]], and [[Nikolay Krestinsky]] serving as [[ambassador]]s in [[London]], [[Paris]], [[Tokyo]], and [[Berlin]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=735 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref> Internationally, Trotsky's opposition received support from several Central Committee members of foreign communist parties, including Rakovsky (Chairman of the [[Council of People's Commissars (Ukraine)|Ukrainian Sovnarkom]]), [[Boris Souvarine]] of the [[French Communist Party]], and the Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of Poland|Polish Communist Party]] (led by [[Maksymilian Horwitz]], [[Maria Koszutska]], and [[Adolf Warski]]).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |pages=139, 249, 268–269 |language=en}}</ref>