Summary Speech at the Eleventh Party Conference [1]¶
Core Argument¶
In this summary speech to the Eleventh Party Conference in December 1921, Trotsky defends his analysis of a conjunctural shift in world capitalism against accusations of academic abstraction. He argues that the economic data — drawn from Pavlovsky’s article in the Communist International — demonstrate a genuine, if uneven and convulsive, revival in key industries since the autumn of 1921. The textile industry in particular shows nine-tenths of spindles operating by August–September, compared to only half in spring; similar upticks are visible in American blast furnaces and metallurgy. Trotsky insists that even a small net increase in employment — from 1,000 to 1,001 workers — carries enormous psychological and political weight, reversing the demoralisation of systematic layoffs. The fifteen-month decline from spring 1920 to mid-1921 is over; the economic waters have passed from “cataracts” to “narrows”.
Trotsky explicitly rejects the notion that this revival constitutes a stable capitalist equilibrium. He sketches the conditions under which a genuine equilibrium could be restored: the death of a million Europeans from cold and hunger, the colonisation of Germany, the fall of the Soviet republic, the reduction of Europe to a vassal of America and Japan, and fifty years of unremitting struggle. This is not a prediction but a polemical counterfactual, aimed at Sokolnikov, who had accused Trotsky of implying that capitalism was stabilising. Trotsky insists that the revival will soon run into “new trenches”: fantastically high prices, the violent disruption of equilibrium between Europe and America, the devastation of Central and Eastern Europe, and the state of siege. At the first sign of deterioration, capital will turn against the Soviet Union.
The speech is also a polemic against those who would reduce the discussion to abstract graphs and tables — Ryazanov’s interjection is brushed aside — or who would deny the political significance of economic shifts. Trotsky argues that the revival, however modest and precarious, gives an impulse to the labour movement, creating the possibility of revolutionary mass action. He defends the party’s policy of fighting for peace while maintaining a strong Red Army, warning that negotiations for recognition will culminate in ultimatums — the expulsion of the Comintern, the cession of oil fields and industry to English cartels, the dismantling of the Red Army — backed by the threat of intervention. The approach of negotiations does not weaken the necessity of military preparedness but intensifies it. Trotsky concludes by endorsing Zinoviev’s theses unanimously, arguing that the conference’s approval will help shift the European communist movement onto a correct track.