Leon
Trotsky: Our Tone in the Discussion
November
2, 1927
[Leon
Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-1927), New York
1980, p. 452-454]
1.
The overriding importance of the Platform is that it reduces the
differences to their class foundations and views the party regime as
the consequence of a class shift in politics, that is, the result of
the party leadership’s backsliding from the proletarian line to the
petty-bourgeois line. The fight is being waged, consequently, over
the class character of the party and the class character of the
state.
2.
Only this kind of open, clear, and distinct presentation of the basic
questions can make clear to rank-and-file worker-members of the party
why the dispute is so sharp, and only this can justify the dispute in
their eyes. A purely formal presentation of questions of the
“inner-party regime,” “discipline,” etc., without any
connection to the revolutionary line, is fundamentally contradictory
to Bolshevism. The apparatus, which violates the party rules at every
turn, at the same time strives to place all questions on the plane of
formal discipline, or, more precisely, of respect for rank. The less
the mass of the party understands the meaning and depth of the
differences, the more the apparatus will succeed in this effort.
3.
That is why any speech which blurs over and avoids the most sharply
disputed differences can do the Opposition harm rather than help it.
“Is it worth upsetting the party over second-rate disagreements?”
party members will wonder, if they hear a speech whose tone and
character are more like a self-justification than an indictment.
4.
The apprehension voiced by some individual comrades to the\ effect
that a sharp presentation of the questions could drive
“buffer-minded” elements away from us is, in its way, a
"classical” error of a kind that arises in any serious
struggle within the party. This error is all the more unforgivable in
this instance because it has already been tested by experience. We
have several cases of “buffer” statements by party members who
enjoy well-deserved respect. These buffer positions have gathered a
minimal number of votes. On the other hand, the more openly,
decisively, and distinctly the Opposition speaks out, the more votes
it wins. Any toning down, any drawing toward the buffer group, would
unavoidably weaken us and encourage the enemy to redouble the
pressure of his onslaught.
5.
The Stalin-Molotov faction is trying to “intimidate” the
Opposition with the Fifteenth Congress, which is supposedly going to
declare that acceptance of the Opposition Platform is incompatible
with membership in the party.
Such
a resolution would mean an attempt by organizational pressure tactics
to bring about political self-denial, that is, renegacy. There is no
need to say that not one serious and honest party member would agree
to that. Even if we grant that the Stalinist party membership, in the
name of the Fifteenth Congress, would support a decision so
destructive to the party, it is not hard to foresee that the
implementation of that decision would encounter enormous and
constantly increasing difficulties, which — with a correct policy
on our part — could and should strengthen the Opposition in the
party.
6.
Approximately a month and a half remains until the congress. The
ranks of the Opposition — slowly, perhaps, but surely — are
growing and becoming stronger. With a firm, decisive, aggressive
political line on our part we will be strengthened significantly over
the next month and a half. Every group of Oppositionists in a party
cell is surrounded by the sympathy and semi-sympathy of a significant
section of party members. Under these conditions the attempt to expel
Oppositionists in whole batches from party cells, especially working
class cells, will inevitably provoke resistance and protest by a
significant sector in each cell. Party members will want to know what
the Oppositionists are being expelled for. The question of the
Platform will confront the party with renewed sharpness after the
Fifteenth Congress if the congress decides to take the road of
expelling the Opposition. The discussion, stifled in the period
before the Fifteenth Congress, could heat up after the congress.
Everything must be done to turn this possibility into a reality.
7.
Comrades expelled from the party, such as Mrachkovsky, Serebryakov,
Preobrazhensky, Sharov, Sarkis, Griunshtein, etc., will not allow
themselves to be torn away from the party. An attempt to expel
several thousand Oppositionists would be ineffective as far as
breaking our ties with the party is concerned, especially our ties
with the proletarian section of the party.
8.
Arrests of party members, again, cannot prevent those expelled from
the party from carrying out their party duty. The expulsion of
Oppositionists by the thousands would inevitably mean the arrests of
thousands. The policies of Stalin and Molotov will drive the party
down this road. The party will feel instinctively that this is the
road of ruin for the proletarian dictatorship. Stalin and Molotov
will try to reassure party members. They will say that things won’t
go that far, that the Opposition will "get frightened” and
will submit to the arbitrariness of the apparatus faction, which has
placed itself above the party. (It is precisely the arbitrariness of
the apparatus toward the party that is now called party discipline.)
It
is absolutely clear that every accidental toning down will be
interpreted by the apparatchiks as a retreat by (he Opposition and as
a confirmation of the correctness of the Stalinist policy of an
organizational onslaught.
Thus
the line of a political offensive by us is not only the surest means
of organizational self-defense and of promoting the growth of the
Opposition; it is also the only means of safeguarding the unity of
the party against the deliberate splitting line of Stalin.