Historical tasks and reaction

....It has happened more than once in history that when the revolution is not strong enough to solve in time a task that is mature historically, its solution is undertaken by reaction. Thus Bismarck unified Germany in his own manner after the failure of the 1848 revolution. Thus Stolypin tried to solve the agrarian question after the defeat of the 1905 revolution. Thus the Versailles victors solved in their own way the national question which all the previous bourgeois revolutions in Europe proved impotent to solve. The Germany of the Hohenzollerns tried to organize Europe in its own way, i.e., by uniting it under its helmet. It was then that victorious Clemenceau decided to utilize' the victory in order to slice up Europe into the greatest possible number of pieces. Today Briand, armed with needle and thread, is preparing to sew these pieces together again, even if he doesn't know where to begin....

Disarmament and the United States of Europe

Writings of Leon Trotsky 1929

by Leon Trotsky