1. For Leon Trotsky’s views on the proletariat revolution and the importance of the European revolution for Russian success, see Our Revolution (1906): Extracts,in Marxism in Russia: Key Documents 1879–1906,ed. Neil Harding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 337–352. Also see Trotsky, Permanent Revolution (Calcutta: Atawar Rahman, 1947) and The History of the Russian Revolution,3 vols. (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1987[1932]), especially III: 351 ff.
2. I would also like to point out that in the preface to the second Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels wrote: “If the Russia Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting-point for a communist development.” See Marx and Engels, Selected Works,3 vols. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), I: 100–101.
3. Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution,III: 381.
4. See Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power (New York: Summit Books, 1986), 50-110. Heller and Nekrich argue: Lenin believed that the spark of the Russian revolution would ignite the fire of world revolution. In his view, conflict with Poland, a potential "Red bridge" to the West, was inevitable. None of the Bolsheviks doubted the necessity of "forcing the Polish bridge"
5. the only question was when and how to do it. Trotsky, who had said, "The road to London and Paris goes through Calcutta," declared at the end of 1919: "When we have finished off Denikin, we will throw all the strength of our reserves against the Polish front" (93). By such a continued assault Lenin became convinced he could bring communist independence to the world.