Trotsky and Lincoln
Vollmann begins this chapter on the merits of authority with a brief comparison of the kinder leadership of Lincoln with the cold and ruthless leadership of Trotsky. He describes the mechanical nature of Trotsky’s authority and his contempt for the idea of the sacrality of individual human life. All the mattered for Trotsky was the achievement of the revolution, and thus individual human lives were merely means to that end. With this account, Vollmann poses the guiding question of the chapter: “When is it justified to make our fellow human beings obey us unto death?” (II p. 243).
What is Legitimate Authority
Vollmann then moves to ask on what grounds might an authority say that it is able to justly defend itself from those it rules. Is it similar to the way a social class or nation defends its ability to defend itself as a whole in the face of struggle?
Oppression and Defense
Violence from authority is typically considered justifiable if the authority itself is considered just by ongoing consensus. This is the normative standard that Vollmann holds and argues that most regimes hold it as well. This was Lincoln’s reasoning for opposing the Southern secessionists. By letting them secede, Lincoln argued, a dangerous precedent would be set that would permit further secessionists movements and therefore the destruction of an otherwise just union. Inconsistently however, Lincoln himself wrote in accordance with the revolutionary belief of the American founders that citizens have a constitutional right to dismember or overthrow a government with which they grow “weary.” Vollmann draws a parallel between Trotsky’s argument for the right to revolution and Lincoln’s position here, among other comparisons in regards to oratory skill and popular support. We get closer to Vollmann’s question: Is it just for a leader like Lincoln to oppose a revolutionary movement against the authority of their state?
Some Thoughts on Armies and Whorehouses
Vollmann introduces an analogy from Tolstoy as a way of getting at the problem of resisting state violence. Tolstoy compares a society predicated on force, such as Trotsky’s Red Army, or just about any other state imaginable, to a school or hospital funded by whorehouses, which are “loathsomely unjustified institutions” (II p.246). Tolstoy takes a stance similar to that of the Southern secessionists that the prostitutes have a right to abandon their work even if that may lead to the complete collapse of the institution their labor supports. Trotsky might argue that the prostitutes should form a military force and depose their pimps only insofar as the revolution does not eventually require that they go back to being prostitutes to support the new formed regime. Lincoln would bar the girls from leaving, but grant them every privilege that he could. However, in the case of the American civil war, the secessionists denied the existence of any such whorehouse, namely slavery, while Lincoln openly acknowledged it.
While Tolstoy advocates removing oneself from the social contract of an unjust state, he argues for doing so only non-violently given our implicit contract of self-restraint. For this reason, Tolstoyans make less revolutions than Trotskyites or Leninists, and yet are still revolutionary enough in their beliefs to be subsequently sent to gulags by Trotsky’s successors.
From Warfare or From Harmony
Vollmann now wants to return from his digression to the primary question: what is legitimate authority? Is it that authority ought to be “gentleness without weakness” as Ibn Hudhayl al-Anadalusi suggests, or rather that “authority comes from warfare” and violence, as a major fourth century Chinese text proposes?
Seven Questions
Vollmann lists seven questions that may act as a guide towards determining the legitimacy of a government based on its relations with the mases:
- Are the officials assistants of the people, or do they constitute a ruling class?
- Does the government perform its duties by love or by force?
- Does it enrich its citizens or make them poorer?
- Does it enhance liberties or restrict them?
- Does it treat the governed equally?
- Do people feel safer under the government or more threatened?
- Does the regime’s prescriptive definition of justice match the working definitions of its citizens or clash with them?
When Lynching was Necessary
Vollmann examines several examples to illustrate and test the limits of what he calls the Lincolnian and Gandhian moral calculus: authority and its violence are justified when “most people” legitimize that authority by uncoerced and willing participation in its politics” (II p.150). Vollmann looks briefly at the examples of mob rule during the French Revolution and the reign of terror, 19th century Western US frontier justice, lynching in the American south, and Tanzanian state sanctioned vigilante groups. He then offers an alteration to the Lincolnian calculus to emphasize the importance of the legitimacy of the violence itself as well as the legitimacy of the authority to commit such violence. The clarifying example he gives is that when there is an active court system, lynching is wrong, no matter how much the vigilantes try to justify it, or how popular their support.
Legitimacy as Legal Tempo
Vollmann adds the pace of legislative action as an indicator to the legitimacy of authority. Stable, non-authoritarian governments like Canada often have ritualistic and slow processes by which bills become laws. This prevents the overzealous implementation of laws that might severely adversely affect the lives of citizens. The authoritarian governments of Hitler and Stalin on the other hand despised slow-moving parliamentarianism, and sought to impose their will into law as quickly as possible.
The Foundation of Authority
It is not possible for a single man to impose his tyranny. Rather, he requires at least an army and a consensus grounded at least on fear. This means that there is an ultimate final authority within each person to choose whether or not they will commit an act simply because it was ordered to them.
Hitler’s Three Pillars of Authority
The three pillars of Hitler’s authority that Vollmann proposes are tradition, popularity, and force. Vollman continues to push against the idea that force alone is enough to legitimize power. Vollmann qualifies the extent to which popularity can be used to describe the legitimacy of rulers like Hitler who decidedly excluded certain citizens from civil society in conjunction with an effort to exterminate them completely. As Vollman puts it, “how popular is the lyncher to the lynched?” (II p.256). This gives Vollmann pause in suggesting that simply being “popular” gives one’s government legitimacy.
Hitler’s authority is illegitimate because he trampled on the individual rights of the self. His popularity and consensus with the people were based solely on his own personal mandate, and his appeals to tradition were merely “window dressings” for force. Traditions that opposed further war and the Decalogue meant nothing to him and traditional legal processes and authorities were discarded.
Legitimacy as Law
Jefferson and Lincoln appealed to a sense of law, which unlike tradition cannot be subjectively defined by any given leader. There is a storage of relatively finite meaning within the law that resists quick, radical interpretations from the whims of particular rulers. But law is as insufficient as Hitler’s three pillars because of the range of possibilities that a law could have. Both Lincoln and Trotsky made appeals to the law, and yet both had radically different political goals. This is because the laws were from separate authorities, Marx for Trotsky, the US Constitution for Lincoln.
Legitimacy as the Destruction of False Consciousness
Despite its flaws, any democratic state that serves the interests of its sovereign citizens appeals to some sort of consensus among its citizens. This means that insidious figures like Hitler can rise to power and form illegitimate authorities within the confines of otherwise legitimately functioning political systems. Perhaps in these cases the people themselves are imbedded in a “false consciousness,” a term Vollmann borrows from Marxism to describe the self-deceiving belief in the legitimacy of one’s own oppressor. Vollman gives the example of a “kind slave master,” an oxymoron to be sure, that allowed his slaves to read the bible. His neighbors decried this decision to permit slaves to read, and so he gave the appearance of being a “just slave owner,” however this of course does not justify the act of slavery. Vollmann agreeably cites Fanon who says that the “aesthetic expressions of respect for the established order serve to create around the exploited person an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition which lightens to task of policing considerably” (II p.260).
The Legitimacy of Revolutionary Authority
Vollman assesses the Marxist, revolutionary view of authority that seeks legitimacy from the future it brings, not the past it sustains. Merleau-Ponty frames this as the justness of “progressive violence” that exists towards its own suspension rather than self-perpetuation. That is to say that the violence of Marxist revolution is justified because of the future it brings and the popular support it will have by the people living after the revolution. Because of this, it has the burden of proving the justifiability of both its means and ultimate, unknowable, end.
Trotsky’s Dirty Razor of Terror
After his digression into various arguments for what legitimates authority, Vollman now moves towards a proper assessment of Trotsky and Lincoln. He begins with Trotsky in the following sub-sections.
“Excessive Self-Confidence”
Vollmann briefly examines a photograph of Trotsky here and describes his self-confidence and egoism—a trait held, almost necessarily, by most revolutionaries. He includes a note of the mutual disdain between Stalin and Trotsky for this very reason.
Alexandra Lvovna
This section reflects on Trotsky and Lenin’s relationships with intimate partners as an indication of how they understood human relationships in general. Both men pursued wives and mistresses who agreed with them politically and who had no personal ambitions outside the ambitions of the revolution. In accordance with true revolutionary ideology, the individual of the present means nothing compared to the utopian population of the future.
Every Tenth Man
Because the revolutionary ideals were not yet realized anywhere, there was debate over the proper means to achieve them. Thus, there were debates and disputes between many of the major Marxist revolutionary figures like Trotsky, Stalin, and Lenin. Lincoln, on the other hand, had two sets of concrete guiding principles: The Ten Commandments, and the US Constitution. Similarly, his goal was very concrete and measurable compared to the idealist and indeterminate goals of the Russian revolutionaries. Thus, if Trotsky determined that it was necessary to kill every tenth man who dissented, then so be it.
A Brief History of Decimation
Trotsky continued a long tradition of taking the families of conscripted soldiers hostage as well as executing deserters. Lenin and Trotsky made efforts to implement execution policies for deserters and slackers on the front lines. Historians estimate that in a single year 4,337 soldiers were executed compared to 1.5 million deserters in another single year span.
Trotsky’s Maxim, and What Might Circumvent It
No one who disagrees with Trotsky is allowed to judge Trotsky. This was Trotsky’s maxim that describes the fact that the revolutionary determines their own standards and rules and anyone who disagrees with them is by definition against the revolution and therefore an enemy.
Vollmann gives an outline of the “Rights of Authority:”
- Self Defense
- a) Defense
of sovereignty
- defense against opposition
- defense against factionalism
- b) Defense of homeland
- c) Defense of ground
- a) Defense
of sovereignty
- Enlargement
- Deterrence
- Retaliation
- Punishment
“Indications of Justice”
- Violence promotes nonviolent stability
- In accord with authority’s stated conscience
- Conformance with law
- Consensus untainted by
- False consciousness
- Exploitation of third parties
- Respects rights of the self
These lists only apply to incumbent and authorities and not revolutionary ones.
“Indications of Justice: Revolutionary Authority”
- Violence aims at a non-violent future
- In accord with authority’s conscience
- Will someday bring about rule of law
- Consensus among all adherents
He then adds two pieces
- Violence will destroy false consciousness
- Violence will rescue oppressed people
Repression and Inspiration
Trotsky stated that there were two sorts of military work: repressing and inspiring. Vollmann proposes that these two things were one and the same for Trotsky, as his brutal reputation was something of an inspiration to revolutionaries and soldiers. It is noted that even his enemies gave him credit for his charisma.
Limitations of Trotsky’s Power
Vollmann does not want to hold the same standard of mercy for both Lincoln and Trotsky given the disparate goals and circumstances of their projects. Lincoln commanded the incumbent government of a large state as its head of state while Trotsky led an army against such a figure and enjoyed no settled moral privileges. Trotsky’s policy was cruel as was all the revolutionaries’ policy at this time.
Trotsky’s campaign led to far more oppression than liberation, and thus we have no reason to call his actions good. However, Trotsky cannot be defined as a simple murder or inspirer of murderers because his cruelty saw some limits, although they were entirely self-conceived and were at times open to fluctuation.
For Vollmann, there is something different between Trotsky and a loyal Nazi or some other morally corrupt actor. Despite his cruelty, Vollman gives an admirable account of Trotsky as a man who suffered and toiled for a cause he adamantly believed in and thought was right. Vollmann goes so far as to say that he was someone capable admiration and love. He professed an unbending rage at the exploitation of toiling people, and yet one of his greatest flaws was that this anger was greater than his compassion. Trotsky and Lenin were both justifiably enraged by senseless oppression and murder of common people for the sake of bourgeois goals and wars. However, their means employed a level of violence and repression similar to that which they claimed to oppose.
“Something Snapped in the Heart of the Revolution”
Was the violence of the revolutionaries inherent? Trotsky recounts that something “snapped” in the heart of the revolution after assassinations of several important leaders and the attempted assassination of Lenin in 1918. He argued that the violent upsurge was an act of self-defense against the repression of the state. Vollman clarifies though that the violent and brutal nature of the revolution was set long before any major assassinations of revolutionary leaders.
A Blood-Red Sunrise at Brest-Litovsk
Trotsky was an unwavering character with a rather narrow vision not easily changed with compromise. Vollmann recounts the time that Trotsky demanded his contingent eat separately from the Germans at the 1918 Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations. This was somewhat understandable given the greedy and relatively humiliating deal offered to the Russians by the Germans that would have ceded significant portion of the Russian economy and territory to German control. This deal was a perfect example, for Trotsky, of the evil capitalist militarism that had infected Europe. He also held a relatively strong belief that his efforts in Russia would spread across Europe, and in fact they did with several significant uprisings in Germany around this time. The goal was nothing short of global communist revolution.
Because the revolution uses little discretion in regards to its use of violence, there must a proportionately high standard of legitimacy. One way to maintain a high standard, according to Vollman, is to develop a greater sense of empathy for the enemy on the grounds that violence in itself is bad and should be mitigated when possible. Trotsky saw little value in this ideal. Trotsky could not stand those allies that insisted on treating the enemy with respect, and scoffed at the idea of “breaking bread with the adversary” (II p.281).
Kamenev, The Empathetic Bridge
Kamenev was Trotsky’s brother-in-law and was held in a great deal of contempt by Trotsky who saw him as a weak spirited member of the party given his often-sympathetic approaches to their adversaries. He would often be sent on social or diplomatic excursions with other parties and would come back “with him a bit of some mood alien to the party,” according to Trotsky (II p.282). Vollmann poses a perfectly legitimate question here: why is there so much harshness and incivility from someone whose goal it is to create a utopian civil society with absolute unity among its people? Why is the idea of civility in civil uprising so absurd?
Vollmann goes on to state: “violence without empathy cannot hope to construct authority consensually” (II p.283). Vollmann seems to believe that had Trotsky demonstrated a sense of empathy his violence would have been at least somewhat more justified. If a government is to advance the interests of both the leaders and the led, then it seems as though an empathetic bridge would be necessary. For people like Lenin and Trotsky who claimed to act in accordance with the masses, one of their major failings was this lack of empathy for individual human life. We must not lose sight of limits and basic appeals to empathy during a revolution that makes only appeals to extreme desperation and necessity.
Unreserved Endorsements
Trotsky was always frustrated at what he perceived as a lack of respect by members of the revolution who brought Lenin to more popularity. He an example of his own self-conceit he wrote a letter of resignation as the People’s Commissar of War and instead remain solely on the Revolutionary-Military Council. His “vanity was appeased” and he was not permitted to resign by the Central Committee. Lenin wrote in a letter to a fellow leader regarding the incident, “[Trotsky] is in love with the organization, but as for politics, he hasn’t got a clue” (II p.285).
The Central Committee subsequently gave him letters of “unreserved endorsement,” and made an effort to demonstrate their appreciation for him. The point Vollmann wants to make with this anecdote is that it accurately summarizes the effect of revolutionary authority. If you agree absolutely with whatever the authority decides, the authority will in turn give you unrestrained endorsement and freedom to commit reckless acts of violence and repression.
Toward a Calculus of Revolutionary Authority
After the examination of Trotsky, Vollmann asks again: When is revolutionary authority justified?
Violent Defense of Revolutionary Authority is Justified:
- When the revolutionary leaders and those for whom the revolution is being fought agree on the means and ends of the revolution
- To consolidate power and stabilize the area under control
- To bring the revolution into conformance with the norms and limits appropriate to incumbency
- To carry out the revolution
- Caveat: Violence used to carry out the revolution is only justified so long as the revolution has not completely consolidated power and established its authority
Violent Defense of Revolutionary Authority is Unjustified
- When it assumes its own infallibility through appeals to a future justification that prevents any check or correction
- When its ends rather than mere military necessity force subjects to cut themselves off from their ordinary attachments
- When it revolutionizes the masses against their will for a prolonged period of time
- When it sunders prior civic allegiances without creating new ones
- When it assigns violence no limit
Defense of Authority as Intrigue Against Stalin
Trotsky set up his own demise in banning opposition. Because when he was eventually labeled an opposer, he had no where to turn, especially considering his strained relationship with Lenin. Trotsky cared far more about ideas themselves than either Lenin or Stalin, which explains in part why Lenin turned to Stalin and not Trotsky.
Vollmann proposes that Trotsky’s fall from grace was precisely because of his superior intellect which made him take disagreements personally. He had few friends despite his charisma and seemed to burn the few bridges he had on a whim. In a sense, he was too idealistic and unpleasant to be kept around.
Defense of Authority as the Neutralization of Trotsky
By 1924 Stalin had asserted that Trotsky’s ideas were both absurd and based on misunderstandings of Lenin’s letters. Vollmann compares this accusation to something like accusing a Catholic cardinal of misreading the Bible. After removing him from his position as Commissariat of War, Stalin ultimately removed Trotsky from the Politburo within a year. After further attacking the authority of the Soviet Union he was then expelled from the Central Committee. A month later, after hosting a rally against the policies of Stalin, he was removed from the party and sent into exile. In 1935, the government banned Trotsky’s works from public libraries and all efforts were made to erase his image and thought from public discourse. With this, the revolutionary authority had “defended itself,” just as it entered a period of extreme internal strife and a series of show trials aimed at purging dissenting views.
Defense of Authority as Self-Defense
This final section on the extended essay on Trotsky consists of Vollmann’s own account of visiting the home of Trotsky in Mexico where he was assassinated. Trotsky’s grave remains with nothing more than a red flag flying over it, with his name along with a hammer and sickle engraved on the tombstone. Vollmann reflects on what Trotsky might have thought about while living there. Had he hoped for Stalin’s death, or was he more likely worried that the encroachment of Hitler would be worse of the revolution than Stalin’s death.
Vollmann draws a comparison between navigating the narrow hallways of Trotsky’s home to the experience of reading his books. Vollmann writes, “everything is scientific, proven, perfect; the passage takes me this way because it is the only way to go” (II p.294). Trotsky’s intellect, as was previously described, was also his downfall. He worked to create a society that strove to be moral by wrapping everyone up in a ruthless domination from the top down. This meant working and being “good” according to the specific desires of the leader—following Trotsky at all costs.
When is Political Assassination Justified?
Vollmann now asks, in light of his analysis of Trotsky’s life and death: When is political assassination justified? Rather than give an explicit answer, he instead offers several different competing justifications.
For Tolstoy it is never justified to kill the leader, but one must work to cut off the social condition from which they rose. Following US President McKinley’s assassination, anarchist writer Alexander Berkman wrote that political assassination is justified when it is directed “against a real and immediate enemy of the people” (II p.298). Che Guevara expressed some reservations about political assassinations unless in circumstances where it would eliminate the leader of the opposition. And, finally, for Trotsky’s assassin Ramon Mercader, political assassination is justified when “it is ordered by Comrade Stalin” (II p.299).
-R.W.