> At the same time Lenin is much more of an opportunist, in the profoundest
> sense of the word. This may again sound odd - was not Trotsky once
> associated with the Mensheviks, those notorious opportunists? But the
> Mensheviks' opportunism was simply the political flabbiness of a
> petty-bourgeois party. I am not referring to this sort of opportunism; I
> am
> referring to that sense of reality which leads one now and then to alter
> one's tactics, to that tremendous sensitivity to the demands of the time
> which prompts Lenin at one moment to sharpen both edges of his sword, at
> another to place it in its sheath.
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/silhouet/trotsky.htm
^^^^ CB: Lenin is more realistic than Trotsky. This is a misuse of "opportunist" by Lunarcharsky
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This is an excellent sketch. I read through it since it was short. In Trotsky's own works you can find something very close to or by implicaton what follows on the relationship between the two.
``It would be wrong to imagine, however, that the second great leader of the Russian revolution is inferior to his colleague in everything: there are, for instance, aspects in which Trotsky incontestably surpasses him - he is more brilliant, he is clearer, he is more active.
^^^^^ CB: I contest it, Comrade Lunarchesky (giggles).