Dear friend,

You are in great doubt regarding the Third International, in view of its political and party character. You are afraid that the French syndicalist movement may be taken in tow by a political party. Allow me to express my views on the subject.

First of all I must say that the French syndicalist movement, whose independence is causing you such anxiety, is already completely in the tow of a political party. Naturally, neither Jouhaux nor his nearest assistants Dumoulin, Merrheim, and others are members of parliament as yet, and formally are not members of any political party. But this is simply a division of labor. In fact Jouhaux is carrying on the same policy of coalition with the bourgeoisie, in the domain of the syndicalist movement, as the French Socialism of the Renaudel-Longuet type is carrying on in parliament. Should the executive committee of the present Socialist Party be requested to lay out a program for the General Confederation of Labor and appoint its leading personnel, there is no doubt that the party would approve the present program of Jouhaux-Dumoulin-Merrheim and allow these gentlemen to continue to occupy their posts. Should Jouhaux and company be elected as members of parliament, and Renaudel and Longuet placed at the head of the [General] Confederation of Labor, nothing whatever would be changed in the internal life of France or in the fate of the French working class. You certainly will not deny this.

The above-mentioned circumstances prove, however, that it is not a question of parliamentarism or anti-parliamentarism, or of formal party membership, All the old labels are worn out and do not correspond to the new contents. Jouhaux’s anti-parliamentarism resembles Renaudel’s parliamentary cretinism as much as one drop of water resembles another. Official syndicalism may repudiate the party — for the sake of tradition — as much as it likes, but the bourgeois parties of France, in the secret depths of their hearts, can wish for no better representative at the head of the French syndicalist movement than Jouhaux, as they cannot wish for any better “Socialist" parliamentarians than Renaudel-Longuet. Naturally the bourgeoisie criticizes and blames them, but only in order not to weaken their position in the labor movement.

1. The proletariat’s revolutionary goal

The heart of the matter lies not in parliamentarism or in syndicalism — these are only forms — but in the substance of the policy that the vanguard of the working class is carrying out through the unions, as well as in parliament. A bona fide communist policy — a policy directed toward the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and its state — will find its revolutionary expression in all branches of life of the working class, in all organizations, institutions, and organs that its representatives are able to penetrate: in unions, mass meetings, in the press, in Communist Party organizations, in secret revolutionary circles working in the army or preparing an uprising, and, lastly, from the parliamentary rostrum, if the advanced workers elect a bona fide revolutionary representative.

The task of the working class is to expel the bourgeoisie from power, annihilate its apparatus of violence and oppression, and create organs of its own labor dictatorship in order to crush resistance on the part of the bourgeoisie and reconstruct all social relations in the spirit of communism as soon as possible. Whoever, under the pretext of anarchism, does not acknowledge this task — the dictatorship of the proletariat — is not a revolutionary but a petty-bourgeois grumbler. There is no place for him in our midst. We will come back to this later.

Hence the task of the proletariat consists in suppressing the bourgeois order by means of a revolutionary dictatorship. But in the working class itself, as you know, there are different levels of class consciousness, The task of the communist revolution is clear in its totality only to the most advanced revolutionary minority of the proletariat. The strength of this minority lies in the fact that the more firmly, the more decisively and assuredly it acts, the more support it finds on the part of the numerous and more backward masses of workers. It is necessary, however, that the working class should be led in all aspects of life by its best, most class-conscious representatives, who always remain true to their colors and are always ready to give up their lives for the cause of the working class. In this way millions of workers mired in the prejudices of capitalism, the church, democracy, and so forth, will not lose their way but will find true expression of their desire for complete emancipation.

2. Need for a Communist party

You, the revolutionary French syndicalists, have approached the question correctly in stating that unions encompassing the broad masses of workers are not by themselves sufficient for the revolution, and that an active minority is necessary to educate the masses and give them a definite program of action in each concrete case.

What must such an active minority be? It is dear that it cannot be based on regional or trade union distinctions. The question is not one of advanced metalworkers, railwaymen, or joiners, but of the most advanced proletarians of the whole country. They must unite, draw up a definite program of action, strengthen their unity with firm internal discipline, and thus secure their leading influence over the whole struggle of the working class, all its organizations, and first and foremost, over the trade unions.

What, then, would you call this active minority of the proletariat, united by the communist program and prepared to lead the working class to storm the fortress of capital? We call it the Communist Party.

“But," you might say, “in such a case this party has nothing in common with the present French Socialist Party.” You are absolutely right. That is why, to make the difference stand out, we speak of a Communist party, not of a Socialist party.

“However, you are still speaking of a party?

Yes, I am speaking of a party. Certainly, one might most successfully prove that the word party has been greatly compromised by parliamentarians, professional chatterboxes, petty-bourgeois charlatans, and on and on. But this relates not only to the word party. We are already agreed that the labor unions (French syndicats, English trade unions, German Gewerkschaften) have been sufficiently compromised by the shameful role that they, in the person of their leaders, played during the war, and for the most part are playing now. That is not, however, a reason for repudiating the word union. You will agree that the question lies not in terminology but in the substance of the matter. Under the heading Communist Party we understand the proletarian vanguard united in the name of dictatorship of the proletariat and communist revolution.

Arguments directed against politics and the party very often conceal an anarchistic non-comprehension of the state’s role in the class struggle. Proudhon used to say the workshop (l'atelier) would make the state disappear. This is correct only in the sense that future society will become a gigantic workshop, liberated from all state elements, because the state is a coercive organization of class rule whereas under the communist order there will be no classes. The question now, however, is: By what path will we arrive at a communist social order? Proudhon thought that by uniting together, the workshops would gradually supplant capitalism and the state. This proved purely utopian: the workshop was supplanted by powerful factories, and over the latter rose the monopolizing trust.

The French syndicalists thought, and even now partly think, that the unions as such would suppress all capitalist property and abolish the bourgeois state. But this is not correct. Unions are a powerful weapon in a general strike because the means and methods of a general strike coincide with those of union organizations. But for a strike to actually become a general strike, an active minority is necessary to carry on revolutionary educational work day by day, hour by hour among the masses. Clearly this minority must be grouped not around craft or union characteristics but around a definite program of proletarian revolutionary action. This, as we have said, is the Communist Party.

It must be said, however, that history has known general strikes almost without unions, for example, the Russian October strike in 1905. On the other hand, the attempts of the French unions [in July 1919 and May 1920] to organize a general strike have failed up to now precisely because of the absence in France of a leading revolutionary organization, a Communist party, which day by day would have systematically prepared the uprising of the proletariat, and not simply attempted from time to time to improvise decorative mass demonstrations.

3. Inadequacy of trade union methods of struggle

But a general strike, which may be conducted best through the union apparatus, is not sufficient to overthrow bourgeois rule. A general strike is a means of defense, not a means of offense. We, on the other hand, have to bring down the bourgeoisie, wrench the state apparatus out of its hands. The bourgeoisie, through its state, is supported by the army. Only an open uprising, in which the proletariat collides face to face with the army, carrying the best part with it and dealing cruel blows to the counterrevolutionary elements — only such an open uprising of the proletariat can make it master of the situation in a country.

An uprising, however, requires energetic, intense preparatory work of an agitational, organizational, technical nature. Day in and day out the crimes and infamies of the bourgeoisie in all areas of public life must be denounced. International policies that perpetrate savage atrocities in the colonies, the internal despotism of the capitalist oligarchy, the baseness of the bourgeois press — all this must serve as material for a genuine revolutionary denunciation, with all the revolutionary conclusions that flow from it. These themes extend beyond the organizational framework and tasks of a union organization.

In addition, it is necessary to create organized support for the uprising of the proletariat. In each union local, at each factory, in every workshop there must be a group of workers bound closely together by common ideas and capable at the decisive moment, by stepping forward united, of carrying the masses with them, showing them the right path, guarding against mistakes, and guaranteeing victory.

It is necessary to penetrate the army. There must be a closely welded group of revolutionary soldiers in every regiment, ready and capable of going over to the side of the people at the moment of collision, rallying the whole regiment to follow them. These groups of revolutionary proletarians, organized and united by common ideas, can act with complete success only as nuclei of a single, centralized Communist party.

If we were able to have genuine friends, open and secret, in various governmental as well as military institutions — friends who would be informed of all events, all the plans and machinations of the ruling cliques, and would keep us informed — this would naturally be of great advantage to us. In the same way we would only strengthen our own position if we could send just a handful of workers into parliament, workers loyal and true to the cause of the communist revolution, working in close unity with the legal and illegal organizations of our party, absolutely subordinate to party discipline, playing the part of scouts of the revolutionary proletariat in parliament — one of the political general headquarters of the bourgeoisie — and ready at any moment to exchange the parliamentary rostrum for the barricades.

Certainly, dear friend, this is not a role for Renaudel, nor Sembat, nor Varenne. But we have Karl Liebknecht, do we not? He also was a member of parliament. The capitalists and social-patriotic rabble tried to drown his voice. But the few words of denunciation and appeal that he succeeded in throwing out over the heads of the German oppressors awakened the class consciousness and conscience of hundreds of thousands of German workers. Karl Liebknecht went from parliament to Potsdam Square, calling the proletarian masses to an open struggle. From Potsdam Square he was taken to prison; from there he went on to the barricades of the revolution. An ardent partisan of soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, he considered it necessary to take part in the elections to the German Constituent [National] Assembly, and at the same time he was organizing communist soldiers. He perished at his revolutionary post.

Who was Karl Liebknecht? A syndicalist? Parliamentarian? Journalist? No, he was a revolutionary Communist, someone who finds his way to the proletariat through all obstacles. Karl Liebknecht appealed to the unions, denouncing the German Jouhauxs and Merrheims. He conducted the work of the party among soldiers, preparing the insurrection. He published revolutionary newspapers and appeals, legal and illegal. He went into parliament to serve the same cause that at other hours he served in secret.

4. Organs of the proletarian dictatorship

As long as the best elements of the French proletariat have not created for themselves a centralized Communist party, they cannot take state power, they cannot suppress the bourgeois police, the bourgeois army, and private ownership of the means of production. Without all this, however, the workshop can never supplant the state. Whoever has not mastered this, after the Russian revolution, is altogether hopeless.

But even after the proletariat has conquered state power through a victorious insurrection, it will not be possible to liquidate the state immediately by transferring executive power to the unions. Unions are the organizers of the higher strata of workers by trade and by industry. The ruling power must voice the revolutionary interests and needs of the working class as a whole. That is why the organ of proletarian dictatorship must be soviets, not unions. Soviets will be elected by all the workers, including millions who never belonged to any union and have been awakened for the very first time by the revolution.

It is not enough, however, to merely create soviets. The soviets must carry out a definite revolutionary policy. They must be able to distinguish clearly between friends and foes. They must be capable of decisive, and, if need be, relentless measures. As the experience of the Russian as well as the Hungarian and Bavarian revolutions shows, the bourgeoisie does not lay down its arms after the first defeat. On the contrary, when it begins to see how much it has lost, despair doubles and triples its energy, The soviet regime is a regime of harsh struggle against counterrevolution, domestic and foreign. Who will be able to give the soviets, elected by workers at different levels of class consciousness, a clear and determined action program? Who will help them find their way in the confused and tangled international situation and choose the right road? Clearly, only the most class-conscious, most experienced, advanced proletarians, bound together by a homogeneous program. That is the Communist Party.

Some simpletons (or perhaps they are the sly ones) point out with horror that in Russia the party is “in command” of the soviets and unions. “The French unions,” say some syndicalists, “demand independence, and they will not allow any party to be in command.”

How then, dear friend, I repeat, do the French unions allow Jouhaux to be in command — a direct agent of French and American capital? The formal independence of the French unions does not save them from being under the command of the bourgeoisie. The Russian unions abandoned such independence. They overthrew the bourgeoisie, driving the Russian Jouhauxs, Merrheims, and Dumoulins from their midst and replacing them with loyal, experienced, and reliable fighters: Communists. Thus they guaranteed not only their independence but their victory over the bourgeoisie.

It is true that our party leads the unions and the soviets. Was it always so? No, our party won its leading position through unrelenting struggle against the petty-bourgeois parties, the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as non-party, that is, backward or unprincipled, elements. The Mensheviks, whom we have overthrown, say we assure our majorities by “force.” But how is it that the working masses — who overthrew the rule of the tsar and then of the bourgeoisie and the coalition government, although they all held the state apparatus of force — how is it that they now not only suffer the “enforced” power of the Communist Party, leading the soviets, but are even entering our ranks in ever greater numbers? This is to be explained solely by the fact that during the course of the last years the Russian working class has passed through a great experience, has had occasion to verify in practice the policy of the various parties, groups, cliques, and to compare their words and actions, and thus come to the final conclusion that the only party that has remained true to itself at all moments of the revolution, in adversity and success, was and remains the Communist Party. It is only natural that at every election meeting of working men and women, at every union conference, the masses elect Communists to the most responsible posts. This determines the leading role of the Communist Party.

5. Revolutionary unity

At the present moment, the revolutionary syndicalists — or, more precisely, communists — like Monatte, Rosmer, and others, constitute a minority within the trade unions. They are in the opposition, criticizing and denouncing the machinations of the ruling majority, which is carrying through reformist, that is to say, purely bourgeois, tendencies. The French communists occupy the same position within the Socialist Party, which supports the ideas of petty-bourgeois reformism.

Do Monatte and Jouhaux pursue the same syndicalist policy? No, they are enemies. One serves the proletariat, the other supports bourgeois tendencies in a masked form. Do Loriot and Renaudel-Longuet pursue the same policy? No, one is leading the proletariat to a revolutionary dictatorship, the other is subordinating the working masses to a national bourgeois democracy.

In what, then, does the policy of Monatte differ from that of Loriot? In one thing only: Monatte is operating in the trade union field, Loriot chiefly in political organizations. But it is only a simple division of labor. Bona fide revolutionary syndicalists, like bona fide revolutionary socialists, must unite in a Communist party. They must cease being an opposition within other organizations that are fundamentally alien to them. As an independent organization adhering to the banner of the Third International, they must stand face to face with the broader masses, giving clear and precise answers to all their questions, leading their entire struggle and steering it onto the road of communist revolution.

Trade union, cooperative, and political organizations, the press, illegal circles in the army, the parliamentary rostrum, municipal councilors, and so on — these are merely different forms of organization, practical methods, different points of support. The struggle remains the same as to its substance, whatever branch it may occupy. The bearer of this struggle is the working class. Its leading vanguard, however, is the Communist Party, in which the truly revolutionary syndicalists should occupy a place of honor.

Yours,

L. Trotsky