Leon Trotsky et al: Statement to the Fifteenth Congress

December 10, 1927

[Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-1927), New York 1980, p. 486 f., title: “Two Statements to the Fifteenth Congress”]

The resolution of the Fifteenth Party Congress that adherence to the Opposition is incompatible with continued membership in the party prompts us to make the following statement:

Abiding by the decision of the congress, we hereby discontinue all factional work, dissolve all factional organizations, and call upon our co-thinkers to do likewise.

The road of a second party we reject categorically and we consider any attempt in this direction to be totally contradictory to the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat and for that reason bound to end in disaster.

It clearly follows from this that, in accordance with the decisions of the congress, we assume the obligation not to engage in the propagation of our views by factional methods.

At the same time we believe that each of us may, in relation to the party and within the framework of the party rules, defend our views as set forth in our Platform and theses. To renounce the defense of our views within the party would be the equivalent politically of renouncing those views themselves. Such a renunciation would be obligatory for us if we were convinced that they were incorrect, i.e,, did not correspond to the program of the AUCP(B) or were of little importance from the point of view of the fate of the party and the proletarian dictatorship. Otherwise, to renounce the defense of our views would in fact be to renounce the performance of our elementary duty toward the party and the working class.

We have no doubt that our co-thinkers, including those expelled from the party, will prove their loyalty to the party of Lenin and will not waver in their commitment to the cause of safeguarding its unity as a necessary condition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

We firmly believe that the party will find the road by which to restore to its ranks those who have been expelled and to release those arrested for Oppositional activity.