Page 142 - The Chief Culprit

Spain y 103

did blame his spies and diplomats for not expanding the war in Spain to the rest of Europe.
at is why Berzin, Antonov-Ovseenko, and the rest were executed. After this failure, Stalin
drastically changed directions. By the end of 1938, when the war in Spain was clearly quiet-
ing down, when the defeat of the Communists became obvious, the exiled Trotsky in distant
Mexico sensed the change in Stalin’s politics. He warned the entire world about this. In
November 1938, Trotsky wrote: “Stalin finally untied Hitler’s hands, as well as [those of] his
enemies, and pushed all of Europe towards war.” is was written a month after the British
16
premier, Lord Chamberlain, upon return from Munich, joyfully waved around a piece of pa-
per and declared that he had brought peace. Trotsky wrote these words when Mussolini still
considered himself a peacemaker, and Hitler had not yet issued a directive about preparations
for the invasion of Poland or France.
In these sweet months, Europe drew a breath of relief and believed that there would
be no war, while Trotsky already knew that it would soon come, and knew who would be re-
sponsible for it. In order to fully believe Trotsky, let us listen to another one of his prophecies,
uttered on June 21, 1939. At that time intense talks between Britain, France, and the USSR
against Germany were under way. Nothing hinted at the possibility of any sort of unantici-
pated event or complication. Trotsky, however, warned: “ e USSR will move its entire mass
towards the borders of Germany precisely at the moment when the ird Reich will be drawn
into a fight for a new division of the world.” 17
Everything happened just as Trotsky had predicted. In the next year, 1940, Germany
fought against France, while Stalin “with all his masses” crushed the neutral countries on his
western borders, making his way toward Germany. Even now, over sixty years later, having
read Trotsky’s generalizations and predictions and appraised their accuracy, we have to ask:
how could he know all this? Trotsky did not keep any secrets. He was the organizer of the
Communist takeover of Petrograd in 1917, he was the creator of and a former commander of
the Red Army, the Soviet representative at Brest-Litovsk, the first leader of Soviet diplomacy,
a former leader of the USSR, and a former helmsman of the World Revolution. He knew
better than anyone the nature of Communism, of the Red Army, and of Stalin. Trotsky said
that all his predictions were based on open Soviet publications. Trotsky was the very first in
the world to understand Stalin’s game, which was not understood by the Western leaders, and
which at first was not understood by Hitler.
Stalin’s game, however, was very simple. Trotsky himself was the victim of such a game,
which is why he understood it. Stalin, in alliance with Zinovyev and Kamenev, removed
Trotsky from power in the Soviet Union. en, in alliance with Bukharin, he removed
Zinovyev and Kamenev. en he removed Bukharin as well. Stalin removed generations of
Dzerzhinsky’s secret police henchmen through the hands of Genrikh Yagoda. en Yagoda
and his generation were removed through the hands of Nikolai Ezhov. en Stalin removed
Ezhov and his generation through the hands of Lavrenti Beria, and on and on it went.
Stalin continued his game on the international arena as well, and Trotsky could see this.
German Nazism for Stalin was an instrument that could be used to crush the democratic
regimes in Europe through Hitler’s hands, and then finish Hitler off.
German Nazism could start a war, and the war could grow into a revolution. For
Stalin, Hitler was a purifying storm over Europe. Hitler could do that which was incon-
venient for Stalin to do himself. Stalin’s politics were extremely simple. In Spain, he was
unsuccessful in bringing Germany to a clash with Great Britain and France. But the hope