Some of [my friends] are vacillating, withdrawing, bowing before the enemy. Some are doing it bec... more

Some of [my friends] are vacillating, withdrawing, bowing before the enemy. Some are doing it because they are morally exhausted; others because they can ?nd no other way out of the maze of circumstances; and still others because of the pressure of material reprisals. I had already lived through two instances of such mass desertion... Thus I know well enough, from my own experience, the historical ebb and ?ow....Mere impatience will not expedite their change. I have grown accustomed to viewing the historical perspective not from the stand point of my personal fate.

 

To understand the causal sequence of events and to ?nd somewhere in the sequence one’s own place – that is the ?rst duty of a revolutionary. And at the same time, it is the greatest personal satisfaction possible for a man who does not limit his tasks to the present day.

 

L. Trotsky. 1929.

less