Leon Trotsky: Letter to the AUCP(B) Delegation

January 18, 1927

[Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-1927), New York 1980, p. 196-204, title: “Problems of the Comintern”]

To the AUCP(B) Delegation:

Bureaucratism as a Source of Opportunism

1. One of the main features of opportunism, especially its centrist-diplomatic variety, is its readiness to adopt radical resolutions in relation to other countries. In this way, opportunism to some extent gratifies the revolutionary moods of the working masses, without itself assuming any responsibilities. The entire history of the working class movement is filled with expressions of this kind of duplicity, especially in Great Britain. In Marx’s era the trade unionists used to adopt radical resolutions in regard to Poland, but put the question of Ireland and India quite differently. In our day, the Independent Labour Party raises the question of a merger between the Second and Third Internationals, while refusing to engage in joint action with the British Communist Party. The General Council of British Trades Unions concludes a bloc with the Soviet All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions with the aim of uniting the world trade union movement, but during the general strike in Great Britain refuses to accept financial aid from this same AUCCTU. Such examples, large and small, can be multiplied without end.

2. To the extent that opportunist tendencies make their appearance within the Comintern, they display the same characteristic, that is, a readiness to adopt radical decisions in regard to others, mercilessly denouncing “rightist deviations” in all countries, while being inclined at the same time to give way — especially at the critical moment — before bourgeois public opinion in their own country. It goes without saying that “radicalism” of this sort is the deadly enemy of Bolshevism. The job of the Comintern is to develop genuinely revolutionary parties, especially through uncompromising struggle against every manifestation of sham radicalism, political duplicity, etc. Everything depends upon the degree to which the Comintern regime encourages this struggle.

3. We absolutely must come to realize that one of the most important present sources of opportunism in the Comintern-hidden and disguised, but all the more virulent for that reason — is the bureaucratic apparatus regime in the Comintern itself and in the Comintern’s leading member party. There can be no doubt, after the experience of 1923-26, that in the Soviet Union, bureaucratism is both an expression of, and a vehicle for, the pressure of non-proletarian classes upon the proletariat. To the extent that the European Communist parties — or most of their leaderships — have organizationally paralleled the apparatus shifts and realignments in the AUCP, the bureaucratism within the foreign Communist parties has above all been a reflection and extension of the bureaucratism within the AUCP. It is precisely here that the roots of the duplicity mentioned above are to be found. The selection of leadership elements in the Communist parties proceeded and still proceeds for the most part on the basis of their readiness to accept and approve the latest alignments in the AUCP apparatus. The more independent and responsible elements in the leaderships of the foreign parties, who would not submit to reshufflings of a purely administrative sort, were either thrown out of the party altogether or were driven into the right wing (often only seemingly a right wing), or, last of all, found themselves in opposition from the left. Thus, the organic process of selection and consolidation of revolutionary cadres on the basis of the working class struggle was, under Comintern leadership, cut short, changed around, distorted, and sometimes openly replaced by bureaucratic administrative pressure from above, from Moscow. It was natural if it happened that those leading elements in the Communist parties who more willingly accepted ready-made decisions and endorsed any and all resolutions — if such elements often gained the advantage over more revolutionary elements, instilled with a full sense of revolutionary responsibility. Instead of a selection of tried and true revolutionaries, a selection of the bureaucratically adaptable resulted.

4. We have seen bureaucratic elements in the Communist movement (in Germany, France, England, America, Poland, etc.) carry out fantastically opportunist actions with total impunity, hiding behind the protective coloring of their positions on general questions in the Comintern and above all on the internal questions in the AUCP. On the other hand we have observed, and this to a growing extent, the phenomenon whereby political figures in the Comintern have publicly and officially taken one position, and secretly, under the table and behind the scenes, but the more strongly for that, held another position, directly opposed to the official one. The so-called “double bookkeeping” of the Maslow-Ruth Fischer group was emphatically condemned at the [December 1926] enlarged plenum of the ECCI. But it is quite obvious that a formal condemnation, however just it might be, not only does not resolve but does not even pose the fundamental problem: Why do the most responsible Communists, leaders of the largest parties, resort to this kind of double bookkeeping? The answer should be stated as follows: In the event of differences with the AUCP CC, even temporary ones, the regime of apparatus omnipotence confronts any of the foreign leaders with three possibilities: to be immediately driven into the arms of the right wing of the party or even expelled from the party; to immediately throw themselves into opposition from the left; or to practice double bookkeeping for a time while preserving their position in the party.

5. It by no means follows from what has been said, of course, that the right or left groupings in the Comintern are expressing a correct line — in contrast to the official center. There is no question that Social Democratic tendencies are strong in the right-wing groupings and there is more than a little of the “infantile disorder” in the left wing. It would also be incorrect to assume that the official leading cadres consist of unthinking bureaucrats. In fact a feeling of responsibility for the fate of the Soviet Union keeps many true revolutionists within the confines of the dominant regime despite the growing indignation against it. It follows from that, however, that radical regroupments are necessary within the Comintern with the aim of emancipating the Comintern from apolitical, mechanical apparatus coercion, which in turn is a task bound up in the most intimate way with that of changing the regime in the AUCP.

The sooner, and the more widely and emphatically, this task is posed by all viable elements in the Comintern — independently of the present groupings, which to a great extent are artificial — the fewer the shocks and convulsions when it is carried out.

The USSR and the Comintern

1. The theoretical untenability and practical danger of the theory of socialism in one country is quite obvious, or at least is becoming more and more obvious, to every revolutionist who has at all assimilated the Marxist view of the fundamental problems of historical development. Politically speaking, this theory is a completely uncritical camouflaging of what exists in the USSR and of everything that is coming into being, in all its contradictions and in an elemental and chaotic way. In this sense the theory of socialism in one country weakens and blunts" the vigilance and alertness of the party in regard to capitalist tendencies and forces in both domestic and world development. It nourishes a passive fatalistic optimism, beneath which bureaucratic indifference to the destinies of socialism and the international revolution is able to hide more successfully than otherwise.

2. No less fatal a role would be played by this theory, if it is legitimized, in relation to the Comintern, If Soviet socialist construction is viewed as an inseparable component of the world revolution, as a process inconceivable apart from the world revolution, then the relative importance of the Communist parties, their role, their independent responsibility, would increase and come more to the fore. If on the contrary the same old point of view is upheld that Soviet power, resting on the alliance of workers and peasants, will build socialism absolutely independently of what occurs in all the rest of the world — on the one condition that the Soviet Republic be protected from military intervention — then the role and significance of the Communist parties is immediately moved to the background.

The assurance that socialism will be fully victorious in our country regardless of the course of the revolution in other countries means that the chief task of the European Communist parties in the immediate historical period — a task that will be adequate for the victory of socialism — is not to win power but to oppose the interventionist attempts of imperialism. For it is quite obvious that it would be enough to secure the victory of socialism in our country to thereby assure its further spread to the whole world. The whole perspective in this way is turned around.

The problem of taking the fullest possible advantage of every genuinely revolutionary situation is pushed into the background. A false and consoling theory is constructed according to which time, in and of itself, “works in our favor.” However, we cannot forget that we are living in conditions where we have a chance to catch our breath and by no means in conditions where the victory of socialism “in one country” is automatically assured.

We must take advantage of the breathing spell as fully as possible. We must prolong it as long as possible. But to forget that what is involved is precisely a breathing spell — i.e., a more or less prolonged period between the 1917 revolution and the next revolution in one of the major capitalist countries — means to trample underfoot the worldwide laws of historical development; it means in fact to renounce communism.

3. The ultra-leftists charge that the united front policy means a retreat by foreign parties from independent revolutionary positions to the line of assisting the Soviet state by building an imposing “left” wing within the working class in each country. The theory of socialism in one country meets the ultra-lefts’ criticism half-way, nourishes it, and within certain limits justifies it. The left deviations, without ceasing to be manifestations of “infantile disorders,” receive new nourishment, for their leaders appear as defenders of the independent revolutionary role of the Communist parties and of the responsibility of those parties not only for the fate of their own country but also for that of the Soviet Union, against the bureaucratic optimism according to which the cause of socialism in the Soviet Union is assured in and of itself, if only nobody ’’interferes” with it. In this aspect, which will inevitably become a more and more prominent one, the struggle of the left groupings becomes a progressive factor and may accordingly transform the best elements among them.

On the Comintern Program

It follows from the above that we now have a new and decisive confirmation of the idea that a correct orientation, not only of the policies of the USSR and of those of each Communist Party separately but also of the Comintern as a whole, is only conceivable if it begins with the world economy, which, in spite of its contradictions and the barriers that divide it — in fact, to a significant extent, because of them — is a single worldwide unit.

The program of the Comintern cannot be designed on the model of an old socialist program giving an abstract analysis of the economic, social, and political development of individual capitalist countries. What is needed is a concrete analysis of the complex of world economic relations viewed as an internally coherent process, with an indication of the interrelated perspectives for Europe, America, Asia, etc. This is the only Marxist way to pose the question and would in passing strike a deathblow at the anti-Marxist theory of socialism in one country.

Problems of the French Working Class Movement

1. In France more than anywhere else the groupings in the party were formed not so much on the basis of the French working class movement as by way of reflection of the inner-party struggle in the AUCP. French political questions stemming from the struggle to win over the proletariat for the sake of taking power have been subordinated to questions flowing from the difficulties of socialist construction in the Soviet Republic.

2. In 1923, during the struggle against so-called “Trotskyism,” the struggle within the AUCP was openly placed at the center of the formation of groupings in France. Now the Russian question has been, as it were, removed from the agenda within the International. Nevertheless, the groupings in the foreign parties, especially the French, sure again following the line of the discussion within the Russian party, but this time anonymously, mutedly, without an open ideological struggle, thus fully revealing what it means to be dependent solely on the apparatus.

3. All this was inevitably bound to provoke a desire, by way of a reaction, for greater independence from “Moscow” on the part of the foreign Communist parties. This desire will be, and already has been, expressed in the form of contradictory tendencies: (1) an opportunist deviation, which everywhere leads to a weakening of international ties; and (2) a proletarian revolutionary current, which has arrived at the dear conclusion, on the basis of experience, that it is a danger to have a bureaucratic regime in which the leaders of the national parties are shuffled around from above like so many officials in a hierarchy. There is no need to say that the struggle against bureaucratic centralism cannot and should not make any concessions to opportunist federalism. The increased independence of the national parties in the Comintern, based on their establishing more profound ties with the working class in each of their countries, will inevitably mean the decline of the old groupings, which to a significant extent were artificial and bureaucratic, and the regroupment of their elements along new, more organic, vital, and relevant lines.

4. The objective political situation in France (the growth of contradictions and the prospect of major upheavals) provides the basic criterion for the regroupment within the party — based on the tasks brought to the fore by the political developments in France — in dose connection, of course, with the tasks of the Comintern as a whole. Each of the old groupings and each member of each old grouping that has not yet come to a realization of the necessity for, and inevitability of, a radical regroupment of forces in the party will inevitably be pushed aside by further developments.

5. The most elementary criterion for a progressive grouping in the party should be the desire for an honest recognition of what is, of the real strength of the party, its actual numerical size, the real ties of its members with the masses, the actual vitality of its factory cells (the basic units for the reorganization of the party), the real number of members of the unitary trade unions, their actual participation in strikes, the real circulation of the Communist press, etc. The fight against bureaucratism should begin with a concrete clarification of what really is. Only through the ruthless exposure of all fictions, all self-deception, can a serious, i.e., a Bolshevik attitude toward problems of organization and an understanding of the importance of organization as an instrument of revolution be taught to the leading elements of the French party. A chart of France showing the political parties and trade unions must be drawn up, including all the data delineating the actual state of the workers’ organizations and all branches of the working class movement. On the basis of this chart we must come to a clear realization of why we are strong in some regions and weak in others. Such a businesslike and critical approach will be one of the most important means for testing out our tactics, their revolutionary relevance, and their capacity for capturing the masses. Basing itself on such a chart, which must be regularly modified and supplemented with accurately gathered, up-to-date information, the party should set itself concrete tasks for winning leadership in the most important proletarian centers and districts by concentrating its best forces in those places and applying slogans and struggle methods to the concrete situation.

6. As important as it is for the party to attract the petty-bourgeois elements of town and country who are being ruined by the big bourgeoisie, it is quite obvious that if this task were undertaken by the party to the detriment of the basic struggle to win over the proletariat, that would, at a certain stage, create the threat of a degeneration in the class character of the party itself. It is more important for us to win over a hundred workers in the Département du Nord [one of France’s chief industrial areas] than a thousand civil servants or small shopkeepers in Paris or Marseilles. This should in no way be understood as a desire to weaken our effort in the struggle to influence the petty-bourgeois masses driven to desperation. But it is necessary that this struggle be an auxiliary process in relation to the basic work of strengthening and consolidating the proletarian backbone of the party. At any rate, unless we have the proletariat, which is capable of conquering power and transforming society, we will sooner or later lose the impatient petty-bourgeois auxiliaries, who will go rushing off toward fascism.

7. The party’s conservatism in the area of the trade union movement is of an absolutely ruinous kind. Bringing the trade unions closer to the party at the price of separating the unions from the working class can have no value whatsoever. The tendency toward making the unions into slightly enlarged editions of the party must be decisively rejected. The main criterion in evaluating the trade unions is their ties with the mass movement, with strikes that are actually under way, etc. Only on this basis can the strengthening of the party within the trade unions be important and valuable.

8. In Germany and England the reformist trade unions embrace millions of workers. In France the reformist unions are as weak as ours. A serious struggle for a united front in France therefore means first of all extending the influence of the trade unions to the unorganized masses: careful consideration of every strike, practical study of the conditions of its rise and development, working to establish connections with episodic organizations having the leadership of the strike, etc., etc. The work of the trade unions should be based on a painstaking inventory of all the expressions of economic struggle by the working class, on a businesslike study of these, and on working out methods for leading the day-to-day struggle of the masses.

9. The inner-party slogan is the slogan “concentration of forces" on the basis of the revolutionary tasks of the French proletariat. In particular, a radical differentiation needs to be carried out within the 1923 Opposition, based on the revolutionary way of posing the tasks of the movement, genuinely casting aside opportunist elements and building bridges to the revolutionary elements in the other groupings.

10. It is necessary to take a correct position in relation to the Monatte-Rosmer grouping. The criminal expulsion of Monatte and Rosmer from the party has led to a backward evolution on their part toward syndicalism and has resulted in a new grouping of revolutionary syndicalist elements around them. Pure-and-simple criticism of syndicalism, all alone, without any change in the party’s trade union work in practice, cannot accomplish anything. Regardless of the extent to which the return of Monatte and Rosmer (or Rosmer only) to the party in the near future is realizable or worthwhile, Monatte and his group should be made to understand that they will inevitably be on the same side of the barricades in the proletarian revolution as the Communist Party and that they should make their politics correspond to this fact. Only on the basis of such a general line can the precious worker-revolutionists who support Monatte be won over.

11. The rallying of the truly revolutionary elements must be supplemented by a process of selection among them based on living experience. A most important part in the formation of party cadres must be the testing and checking of how party members conduct themselves in strikes, in demonstrations, in conflicts with police, in clashes with the fascists, etc. In the past it was often true that serious faults in such matters were overlooked for the sake of apparatus reliability. The greatest vigilance and irreconcilability in the attitudes of party members on such questions must be developed.

12. In the French party Marxism still remains to a considerable degree an imported commodity. The party lives on echoes, often distorted ones, of the theoretical and other struggles in the AUCP. The leading elements of the French party must be helped to learn how to apply Marxism to the clarification of the basic questions of economic and political development in France in the present period. In particular, collective work is needed on a book on “where France is headed.”

13. It is necessary to win for the French party, as for every foreign party, the possibility and the right to arrive at its own completely free and independent judgment about the discussions in the AUCP. If the foreign Communist parties do not find it easy to arrive at their own correct opinion about the course and methods of the only proletarian party in power, one should by no means conclude from that, that the foreign Communist parties should not concern themselves with the Russian discussion. This would only lead to a situation in which, under a surface appearance of “neutrality,” a muted apparatus selection of personnel, as we have said, would go on.

It was absolutely correct to refuse to place the Russian question before the enlarged ECCI plenum: a decision passed without serious acquaintance with the question, without its having been predigested in the parties, would have had a purely formal character, and would have brought nothing to the AUCP or the International. All the more important is it, then, to have a serious, rounded, well-documented discussion of the present situation in the AUCP.