Mr. Tavenner. I noticed in some of the earlier documents introduced in evidence that reference was made to you when the Communist Party was critical of you as being a Trotskyite.
Mr. Dennett. That is true. Remarks were made about me on a number of occasions. And, as near as I can make out, the reason for it is I was asking embarrassing questions. It seems as though Trotsky did that against Mr. Stalin in the Soviet Union—when everyone especially was interested in a democratic procedure that went contrary to Stalin’s rule. His rule was that you had to accept his decision whether you liked it or not. And that is the rule of democratic centralism, a principle with which I am in total disagreement today. I thought for a long time that that was a wonderful principle. I had read Lenin’s writings on the subject. I thought that his explanations were quite good. But once I had had service in the military, once I knew what military organization was like, I recognized the principle of democratic centralism as the application of military rule to civilian life. And I am strictly opposed to it.
Mr. Tavenner. In light of your experience in the Communist Party, and from your study of the Socialist Workers Party, would you please state as briefly as you can the principal differences between these organizations as you understood them.
Mr. Dennett. One of the principal differences lies in the fact that the Socialist Workers Party people accused the Communist Party people, in particular Stalin and Stalinism, of having deserted the principle of socialism, of internationalism, accusing Stalin of degenerating into nationalism. That is when he developed the so-called theory of the possibility of developing socialism in one country alone.
Mr. Tavenner. That country being the Soviet Union.
Mr. Dennett. That country being the Soviet Union.
The Trotskyites maintained that Stalin was thereby deserting the cause of internationalism and that he would think first of the interests of the Soviet Union, and later, if at all, subordinate the interests of the world working class to building the Soviet Union at the cost of letting the working class in other countries go by the boards.
In other words, if a revolutionary situation developed in some other country Stalin would exert his power to prevent the success of the revolution in that country for fear that it would detract from the success of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Tavenner. Unless, of course, such a revolution would strengthen his power and his regime in the Soviet Union. Wouldn’t you make that qualification?
Mr. Dennett. That might be a consideration. But all history, all experience since the Second World War would indicate that Stalin at no time approved successful revolutions in any country. He opposed revolutionary effort of the Yugoslavs. He opposed the revolutionary effort of the Communists in Greece. He opposed the revolutionary effort of the Chinese Communists. He even made commitments, and part of the deal which people seemed to be so concerned about at Yalta and Potsdam and Cairo and Casablanca involved Stalin making commitments to Roosevelt and Churchill to the effect that the Soviet Union would use its influence to suppress the revolutionary effort of the workers in the various countries that were on the brink of revolution.