Leon Trotsky was mistaken concerning the present for having not known the full power of the totalitarian state (Hilferding saw much more clearly on this point). This power is such that the USSR is capable of dominating, channeling, and crushing the revolutionary movements of Western Europe, Asia, and to a certain extent Latin America. It can nip in the bud those that stand in its way and can effectively support, foment, and arm the others. L. T.’s thesis can become true again only if the totalitarian Russian state, internally exhausted by its prodigious efforts, weakens.
