Other Communists on Trotsky & Trotskyism

CHE GUEVARA:
“I think that the fundamental stuff that Trotsky was based upon was erroneous and that his ulterior behaviour was wrong and his last years were even dark. The Trotskyites have not contributed anything whatsoever to the revolutionary movement”
(‘Annexes’, p. 402)

HO CHI MINH:
“In the past, in my eyes and those of a good number of comrades, Trotskyism seemed a matter of a struggle between tendencies within the Chinese Communist Party. That’s why we hardly paid it any attention. But a little before the outbreak of war, more exactly since the end of the year 1936 and notably during the war, the criminal propaganda of the Trotskyists opened our eyes.

“The Chinese Trotskyists (like the Trotskyists of other countries) do not represent a political group, much less a political party. They are nothing but a band of evil-doers, the running dogs of Japanese fascism (and of international fascism)”
–“Three Letters from Ho Chi Minh” (1939)

MAO TSE-TUNG:
“In the central districts of Hebei the Trotskyists organised a ‘Partisan-Company’ on the direct instructions of the Japanese headquarters and called it a ‘Second Section of the Eighth Army’. In March the two battalions of this company organised a mutiny but these bandits were surrounded by the Eighth Army and disarmed. In the Border Region such people are arrested by the peasant self-defence units which carry out a bitter struggle against traitors and spies.

‘Trotskyist agents are being sent to the Border Regions where they systematically apply all methods in their sabotage work against the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.”
–“On the Use of Trotskyists as Japanese Spies in China” (1939)

Leader of the Finnish Communists O. W. KUUSINEN:
“But the ruling circles of the imperialist countries didn’t limit themselves to ideological struggle against socialism. Alongside it they engaged in provocational attacks against the Soviet Union and organized treacherous sabotage and wrecking activity, which was carried out in the production facilities of the Soviet Union by bourgeois experts, trotskyites, zinovievites, bukharinites and nationalists.”
–”Missä on Stalin, siellä on voitto” (1949)

Old bolshevik & Lenin’s wife N. KRUPSKAYA:
“Lenin wrote about Trotsky’s position on this, that he had ‘got entangled into a number of mistakes … it is not a coincidence, that Trotsky, who never understood the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the role of the masses in building socialism …is now standing on the path of organising terrorist acts against Stalin, Voroshilov and other members of the Politburo, who are helping the masses to build socialism. It is not a matter of chance, therefore, that the unprincipled bloc of Kamenev and Zinoviev together with Trotsky have pushed them from one step to another into a deep abyss of an unheard betrayal of Lenin’s work, the work of the masses, the ideals of Socialism. Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their entire band of killers acted together with the German fascists, entered into a pact with the Gestapo.”
–“Why Is the Second International Defending Trotsky?” (1936)

LENIN:
”What a swine this Trotsky is—Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right…”
–”Letter to Alexandra Kollontai” (1917)

”It is Trotsky who is in “ideological confusion”… There you have an example of the real bureaucratic approach: Trotsky… Trotsky’s “theses” are politically harmful…”
–”The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes” (1920)

End notes:

The Kuusinen quote above was translated by myself. The original Finnish quote is:

“Mutta imperialististen maiden hallitsevat piirit eivät rajoittuneet pelkästään ideologiseen kamppailuun sosialismia vastaan. Sen rinnalla ne ryhtyivät provokatorisiin hyökkäyksiin Neuvostoliittoa vastaan ja järjestivät katalia tihutöitä ja tuholaistoimintaa, jota Neuvostoliiton tuotantolaitoksissa harjoittivat porvarilliset asiantuntijat trotskilaiset, zinovjevlaiset, buharinilaiset ja kansalliskiihkoilijat.”