Ted Stolze: Resources of Hope, Logics of Struggle

11/05/02: Trotsky on Barricades.

After the suppression of the 1905 revolution in Russia, Leon Trotsky went on trial for insurrection in 1906. Since Trotsky had served as the president of the St. Petersburg worker's council or "soviet," he was asked to answer the main charge brought against the workers by the czarist regime. On October 4 Trotsky gave a rousing speech in which he not only defended the St. Petersburg soviet's objectives but more generally explained what, in his view, the Marxist tradition meant by revolution. It is noteworthy that for Trotsky revolution was not simply a matter of brute force but had a distinctly ethical component. Consider the following words from Trotsky's speech:

"It has become customary to associate insurrections with barricades. If we leave aside the fact that the barricade colors far too strongly the prevailing concept of the insurrection, even in that case it should not be forgotten that the barricade which is so obviously and purely a mechanical element in the uprising plays essentially and primarily a moral role. For in all the revolutions the barricades did not at all have the meaning of physical barriers that fortifications have in war. The barricade served the cause of the uprising by forming a temporary physical obstacle to the movement of the army thus bringing the latter into close contact with the people. Here, at the barricade, the soldier heard, perhaps for the first time in his life, honest human language, a fraternal summons, the voice of national consciousness. And here as a result of this communion between soldiers and citizens in the atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm, discipline fell apart, dissolved, disappeared. This and this alone assured victory to the people's uprising. That is why we are of the opinion that a people's uprising is 'ready' not when the people are armed with machine guns and cannon--for in that case it never would be ready--but rather at a time when they are armed with a readiness to die in open street struggle."

(From "On Trial for Insurrection", in Leon Trotsky Speaks, [NY: Pathfinder Press, 1972], pp. 35-36.)

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