14. The Year 1905¶
Core Argument¶
The year 1905 marked a decisive rupture in Trotsky’s political development, transforming him from a gifted émigré intellectual into a revolutionary leader tested by fire. The October general strike erupted accidentally among Moscow printers, spread along the railway lines, and paralysed the empire without immediately escalating into armed insurrection. Absolutism recoiled, issuing the Constitutional Manifesto on 17 October. Trotsky, arriving in St. Petersburg at the strike’s zenith, tore up the Tsar’s manifesto before a crowd the following day. The Mensheviks had already launched the slogan of an elected non-party organisation; the Bolshevik Central Committee opposed it until Lenin’s arrival in November. Trotsky worked on three newspapers, including Nachalo, which he compared to Marx’s Neue Rheinische Zeitung. The St. Petersburg Soviet existed for fifty-two days. On 3 December, troops surrounded it; delegates wrecked their arms, recognising that a more ruthless struggle was required.
For Trotsky, the October strike proved the proletariat’s revolutionary hegemony, confirming his theory of permanent revolution. Lenin took no active part in the Soviet but supported its policies; Trotsky shaped its decisions. Relations between Bolshevik and Menshevik papers remained friendly, and both factions pursued party unity. After the defeat, Trotsky defended the Soviet’s course in his book 1905, later attacked after Lenin’s death. He claims no serious errors in judging the overall political situation and revolutionary perspectives. Lunacharsky’s 1923 Silhouettes judged Trotsky the best-prepared Social Democratic leader of 1905, least marked by émigré outlook, and the one who emerged with greatest popularity. Trotsky argues that revolutionary intuition—a subconscious sense developed by theory and practice—proved indispensable, and that 1905 revealed this in him. He felt his apprenticeship was over; he learned thereafter as a master. The Soviet’s financial manifesto of 2 December 1905 warned that tsarist debts would not be recognised; on 10 February 1918, the Soviet of People’s Commissars annulled them. Thus 1905 was the dress rehearsal for 1917.