Leon Trotsky: Letter to the Presidium of the Executive Committee

of the Communist International

July 1927

[Leon Trotsky on China, New York 1976, p. 251, title “For a Special Session of the Presidium of the ECCI”. I tried to use the Pīnyīn spelling of Chinese names. I use the spelling from the original text in a hyperlink, if it differs significantly]

To the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International:

The recent news from China shows that placing our stakes on the Wǔhàn government as the “organizing center of the revolution” was a devastating mistake. Within the territory of the Wǔhàn government the counterrevolution organized with ease at the same time that the workers’ movement was suppressed. The situation is extremely serious for both the Chinese revolution and the USSR because a defeat for the Chinese revolution increases the danger of war tenfold.

In view of this, we consider it especially necessary to immediately convene the Presidium of the ECCI along with members and alternates of the EC who are in Moscow to discuss the situation and correct the mistaken line that is being carried out by the Comintern in China and that was approved by the last plenum of the ECCI.

Vujović

Zinoviev

Trotsky