Leon Trotsky: Letter to Aleksandr Y. Beloborodov

May 23, 1928

[Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928-1929), New York 1981, p. 87-100, title: “The Opposition's Errors—Real and Alleged”]

Dear Aleksandr Yegorovich:

Yesterday I received your letter of April 19 and it pleased me greatly. The letter contained much that was new to me. The voices talking about an overestimation of the backsliding absolutely have not reached my ears. The "letter" of which you speak is absolutely unknown to me. When I wrote my last letter (listing a number of points) I knew nothing about any voices referring to an overestimation of the backsliding. If there are such voices, we must give them the attention they deserve.

You write: "Most laughable of all is the woeful repentance that we overestimated the strength and speed of the backsliding. As though there exists in nature a yardstick by which one could measure the degree of backsliding and then, using the proper ratio, portion out the appropriate number of ounces of resistance to it. When and by whom was such a ratio ever established? As Bolsheviks, we were obliged to fight against the backsliding. And our estimation of it has been wholly confirmed in such areas as the grain collections, the goods famine, the sowing campaign, the Shakhty affair, China, the internal situation in the party, etc."

I subscribe completely to this general formulation of principle. But to supplement it I want to go back over the basic questions of the previous period very specifically to check on whether or not we did exaggerate the differences, go too far left, or overestimate the right deviation and the degree of backsliding.

1. The miners' strike. After the thwarting of the General Strike, it was completely clear that the miners' strike, as a protracted economic strike, had no prospects. Against the General Council, it was immediately necessary to take up the task of reviving the General Strike in as short a time as possible. In this spirit we wrote a short document predicting the inevitability of the defeat of a protracted, passively economic strike and the inevitability of the strengthening of the General Council by this. Pyatakov rebelled: "Is it conceivable to speak of the inevitability of defeat? … What will they say?" etc., etc. As if the question is decided by what they will say today, and not by what events will show tomorrow. But big concessions were made to Pyatakov along the lines of biological mimicry, that is, adapting to the coloration of the surroundings.

2. Closely connected with the first question was the slogan of dissolving the Anglo-Russian Committee. We raised this slogan a little late, overcoming resistance. As in the first case, here too there was an underestimation of the disagreement and of the threatening results.

As a result of mistakes a gigantic movement produced insignificant political and organizational results: the General Council sits in its place and the Communist Party has hardly grown.

3. China. We publicly raised the slogan of the Communist Party's leaving the Kuomintang about two years later than was dictated by the entire situation and by the most vital interests of the Chinese proletariat and revolution. Even worse, there was a demonstrative renunciation of the slogan of leaving the Kuomintang in the Declaration of the Eighty-four [see Challenge 1926-27, p. 224]. This was in spite of the resolute (alas, not sufficiently so, but nevertheless, resolute) resistance by some of the signers of the declaration, including you and me. Here too there was a fear of what would be said and not of what events would show. Now only a blockhead or a renegade could fail to understand or could deny that the subordination of the Communist Party to the Kuomintang stood the Chinese revolution on its head. This means that here too was a mistake to the right and not to the left.

It was in the analysis of the experience and tendencies of the 1905 revolution that Bolshevism, Menshevism, the left wing of the German Social Democracy, etc., were formed. The analysis of the experience of the Chinese revolution has not less but more significance for the international proletariat.

4. Last fall we did not explain aloud that the experience of 1925-27 had already liquidated the slogan of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry for the Chinese revolution, and that in the future this slogan would lead either to a regurgitation of Kuomintangism or to adventures. This was quite clearly and precisely predicted. But even here we made concessions (completely impermissible ones) to those who underestimated the depth of the backsliding on the Chinese question.

5. To this day we have not come out decisively enough against the propagation of so-called worker-and-peasant parties in India, Japan, etc. We underestimated the full depths of the backsliding, expressed as early as 1924-25, in the illiterate slogan of "two-class workers' and peasants' parties for the East."

6. We did not raise the question of the Comintern program soon enough. In response to the theses we formulated on this question, Pyatakov objected: "It is not worthwhile to raise this. They will say we have even more programmatic differences. …" Yet Bukharin's draft is, at best, a left Social Democratic caricature of a Communist program. Bukharin proceeds not from the world economy and its fundamental reciprocal relations (Europe-America-the East-the USSR) but from an abstract model of national capitalism. The adoption of this or a similar program now – after the experience of 1923 in Germany; after the events in Bulgaria and Estonia; after our discussions, in particular our discussions on America and Europe; after the experience of the English strikes; and especially after the Chinese revolution – would signify the ideological ruin of the Comintern, a precondition for its political and organizational ruin. We underestimated the importance of this question.

The allegation that Lenin "approved" Bukharin's program is a monstrous lie. Bukharin wanted his draft to be introduced in the name of the Politburo. At Lenin's initiative this was refused him, but he was allowed to introduce the draft in his own name as a starting point for discussion. Zinoviev told me that, after reading Bukharin's draft, V. I. said, "It could have been worse," or "I was afraid it would be worse," something of that sort. Bukharin was very interested in Lenin's opinion and kept asking Zinoviev about it. "I took a sin upon my soul then," Zinoviev told me, "by greatly softening Lenin's opinion."

7. To this day we haven't said even one-third of what we should have said on the basic questions of the policy of the Comintern and its regime. That is, again our sin was the exact opposite of an exaggeration of the differences or an overestimation of the backsliding.

8. But perhaps we overestimated the differences on domestic questions? Voices were heard to that effect (V. N. Yakovlev, Krestinsky, Antonov-Ovseenko, and others). They argued: "The domestic disagreements are not so great, but the party regime is intolerable." To this we answered: "(a) You are not inclined to evaluate the internal differences on the scale of world processes and world politics, but without that your evaluation becomes crudely empirical; you see little pieces but you don't see the way in which things are developing, (b) You doubly confuse things when you condemn the party regime, which you think has provided a correct political line [domestically]. For us the party regime has no independent significance – it only expresses everything else. That is why any experienced and serious politician must necessarily ask: 'If you think that a deep class shift in official policy has occurred, how do you explain the continuing "export" of people who are guilty only of having understood earlier and demanded a class shift earlier?'" The question here is not at all one of justice, still less of "personal injury" (adults generally don't speak in such terms). No, this is a faultless gauge of how serious, well thought out, and deep is the shift that has occurred. Needless to say, the readings from this gauge are extremely disturbing.

9. In order to check whether or not we exaggerated the dangers or overestimated the backsliding, let us take up again the recent question of the grain collections. All questions of domestic politics intersect in this one question more than in any other.

On December 9, 1926, Bukharin spoke at the seventh plenum of the ECCI, supporting the charge of our Social Democratic deviation for the first time: "What was the most powerful argument that our Opposition used against the Central Committee of the party (I have in mind the fall of 1925)? They said then: the contradictions are growing monstrously, and the CC of the party fails to understand this. They said: the kulaks, in whose hands almost the entire grain surplus is concentrated, have organized a 'grain strike' against us. That is why grain is coming in so poorly. We all heard this. … Subsequently the same comrades took the floor to state: the kulak has entrenched himself still further; the danger has grown even greater. Comrades, if both the first and the second allegations were correct, we would have an even stronger 'kulak strike' against the proletariat this year. In reality … the figure for grain collections has already increased by 35 percent compared with last year's figures, which is an unquestionable success in the economic field. But according to the Opposition, everything should be to the contrary. The Opposition slanders us by stating that we are contributing to the growth of the kulaks, that we are continually making concessions, that we are helping the kulaks organize a grain strike; the actual results are proof of just the contrary" (Stenographic report, vol. II, p. 118). That's exactly what he said: "the contrary." Missing the mark completely. Our ill-fated theoretician finds evidence "to the contrary" in all questions without exception. And that is not his fault, or rather, not only his fault. In general the politics of retrogression cannot tolerate theoretical generalizations. But since Bukharin cannot live without this potion, he is obliged to proclaim at all funerals: "Carry [the coffin], but don't carry it too far."

Under pressure from those who were afraid to "overestimate," "exaggerate," or carry things too far, we spoke in muted tones at the seventh plenum. In any case, we did not reply to Bukharin's philosophy of grain collections. That is, we did not explain to him that one cannot judge all the basic tendencies of economic growth by conjunctural episodes, but that one must evaluate the conjunctural episodes in the light of basic processes.

10. But perhaps on this question we ran too far ahead, whereas others took account of the "peculiarity" of the new situation in good time? On this score we have the irrefutable and valuable testimony of Rykov. At a session of the Moscow Soviet on March 9, 1928, Rykov declared: "This campaign indubitably bears all the distinctive traits of shock-brigade work. If I were asked whether it would not have been better to manage in a more normal way, that is to say, without resorting to such a shock-brigade campaign, in order to overcome the crisis in grain collections, I would give the candid reply that it would have been better. We must recognize that we have lost time, we were asleep at the beginning of the difficulties in grain collection, we failed to take a whole series of measures in time which were necessary for a successful development of the grain collections campaign" (Pravda, March 11, 1928).

This testimony requires no comment.

11. In the document "At a New Stage," if you remember, we said: "The Stalinist pseudo-struggle against two parties conceals the formation of dual power in the country and the formation of a bourgeois party on the right wing of the AUCP, using its banner for camouflage" [see Challenge 1926-27, pp. 502-03].

At the February plenum of the ECCI Bukharin gave the following interpretation to those words: "Trotsky says: It is not we who are a second party; the AUCP is a second party. The AUCP has been degraded; we preserve the traditions; hence, we are the first party and the AUCP is the second. By these very words he admits the existence of two parties" (Pravda, February 17, 1928).

Thus, even in February of this year, Bukharin identified the interweaving of the bureaucrats and the new proprietors with the AUCP. Where we spoke of the germ of a second party, of the semi-Ustryalovist headquarters covered with the banner of the AUCP – thanks to the struggle against the left – Bukharin, as late as February of this year, replied: But, you see, this semi-Ustryalovist headquarters is in fact the AUCP. Moreover, in the grain collections crisis it is suddenly revealed that there are numerous and influential elements among us who do not recognize classes, or who want to realize the Martynovist theory of the bloc of four classes. For about two days they made a lot of noise about these elements. But somehow I have failed to notice that these elements, who control the grain collections not only in the center but also in the provinces, have been named by name, condemned, or anything like that. I am not even talking about the fact that not one of these elements has ended up at Ust-Kulom.

In any case we exaggerated nothing and overestimated nothing in regard to the grain collections or in regard to the semi-Ustryalovist headquarters forming under the cover of the AUCP, at the juncture of its right flank with the new proprietors.

12. Thus, politically, we were never guilty of exaggeration, overestimation, excessive deviation, or ultra-leftism On the contrary we made the opposite mistakes, yielding to weakness of character, indecisiveness, left-centrism, and demands for protective coloration. All this is demonstrated above, if such proof were needed at all. There is another question, however: Didn't we, perhaps, draw some exaggerated organizational and tactical conclusions from our political evaluations? Not in the slightest The facts testify that we were not indulgent with those who tried, even in whispers, to declare the October Revolution liquidated, the party Thermidorian, the Soviet state bourgeois. We broke uncompromisingly with some excellent revolutionaries when they showed indications of taking a course toward a second party. (Incidentally, it is worth noting that Zinoviev himself opposed this break.) We accepted Zinoviev's "Lessons of the July Plenum" without closing our eyes to its wishy-washy character and the outright incorrectness of many formulations. We considered the basic idea of the theses – against two parties – indisputable, and that is precisely why we accepted them in spite of the isolated protests of comrades who, in this area, went too far to the "left." On the eve of and during the Fifteenth Congress, the urge for protective coloration totally overran us, on our right flank. This found expression in a number of declarations which were meaningless or actually wrong. We corrected this deviation with difficulty and with damage to the party.

13. In Europe also we carried out a resolute struggle against the line of two parties. In part, this was clearly expressed in the two letters published in Pravda, January 15, 1928. These were dedicated entirely to a concise substantiation of our course for the party and through the party. In connection with recent events I quote two paragraphs, the eighth and ninth, published without distortion:

"8. The considerations above, as well as the recent experience in Germany (Altona), argue against our presenting independent candidates. It is impermissible to break with the whole line over some problematic seats in parliament.

"9. The creation of a 'union of left Communists' is mistaken. The name of the Opposition is sufficiently popular and has an international character. The name 'union' adds nothing, but could become a pseudonym for a second party" [see "Problems of the International Opposition," January 1928, in this volume].

In connection with this it is necessary to explain the episode of Comrade Radek's recent telegram, published in Pravda with an editorial note on the fact that Trotsky refused to sign the telegram. In fact I answered Radek that sending the telegram seemed to me to be unnecessary and unsuitable, especially since our declaration on this very question had already been published both in Pravda and in Rote Fahne. Thus, if the official leadership wants to use our opinion in its interests against the advocates of parallel candidates, it has full opportunity to do so. It was especially incorrect to send a special telegram only about the German elections because, according to Pravda, Treint and others apparently ran parallel candidates in France as well. If the editors of Pravda had not played on Radek's opposition to me, they would have played on the fact that we are silent about the French elections, or about the very existence of the Leninbund, or a thousand and one other things. In a word, it was absolutely clear that if Pravda published our telegram, it would do so only in order to create further confusion. This was entirely confirmed. The conditions in which we are placed exclude the possibility of "episodic politics" for us. We don't even have enough information for isolated interventions. For example, to this day I don't really know whether Treint put forward his own candidacy. That is why, as I see it, Comrade Radek's telegram was a blunder – Lord knows exactly what kind, but a blunder nevertheless.

In connection with this, I recall a curious episode. Passing through Berlin [in 1927], Kamenev gave his blessing to the left for putting forward its own candidates. One of the Russian comrades wrote me an indignant letter about this, and, what's more, suggested that Kamenev was pushing the left down the road of parallel candidates so light-mindedly solely because he had decided beforehand to dissociate himself from them "with the maximum profit" at the first opportunity. At the time this hypothesis seemed unlikely and even cynical to me. But now …

14. Did we perhaps go too far tactically in the sense of the form in which we presented ideas? Krestinsky accused us of this. I answered him at that time in a detailed letter. (Krestinsky appears there as X.) Krestinsky had no understanding of the essence of the disagreement, nor did Antonov-Ovseenko, of whom I wrote that in his position "helplessness and narrow-minded confusion find their most finished expression. It will be impossible to hold onto this position even for three months. The near future will show what path Ovseenko, who has forgotten how to think like a Marxist, will take to escape from narrow-minded confusion" (November 29, 1927).

The period of three months turned out to be fatal for Antonov-Ovseenko. May this serve, as they say in the copybooks, as a lesson and a warning.

But let us return to the question of "tactical excesses." We have never had any aim other than to present our views to the party. We used whatever methods the situation left available to us. As experience shows, we reached too few members of the party with too few of our views. If we are to blame for this, if it is not only the objective conditions that are to blame, our failing was that at certain moments some of us underestimated the differences and their dangers, and by our conduct gave people reason to think that it was a matter of secondary and episodic differences. In such cases the greatest mistake and the greatest danger is to let your pace be set by those who underestimate the differences, who do not see the direction in which processes are developing and therefore feel the need for protective coloration. By and large we correctly upheld the correct line. But as I have shown above, we have had isolated, and not insignificant, failures. And these were always failures to the right and not to the left. Tactically, we were able to make our way successfully until we would run up against a trap set by the "Master" in such matters. All our statements had a propagandistic and only a propagandists character.

Sharpest was our action of November 7 [1927]. Sharpest was our slogan "turn the fire to the right, against the kulak, NEP-man, and bureaucrat," against the kulaks and NEPmen who are disrupting the grain collections and against the bureaucrats who have organized or slept through the Shakhty affair. On November 7 we encountered one more attempt by the "Master" to switch the inner-party struggle onto the track of civil war. We retreated in the face of this criminal scheme. Thus, the tactical zigzags followed from the entire situation, which was the result both of the conditions of the dictatorship in general and of its specific peculiarities in the period of retrogression.

The evening of November 7, after the demonstration, we called Zinoviev and urged him to return to Moscow so that we could raise the question of wrapping things up tactically. Zinoviev took the opportunity to answer by letter. A description of the events of November 7 in Leningrad was appended to the letter. And in the letter Zinoviev said: "The description is photographically exact. All information suggests that all these disgraceful things will bring great profit to our cause. We are worried about what happened to you. The smychki [clandestine meetings] are going well here. The change is big in our favor. We don't intend to leave here at present. …"

All this was written, I repeat, the evening or night of November 7. We repeated our demand for Zinoviev's immediate departure for Moscow. It is well known what happened on his arrival, twenty-four hours later.

* * *

But enough of the past. I have only touched upon it to the degree that it is necessary for us now and in the immediate future. Whoever says that we "overestimated"; whoever says this not rashly, accidentally, or from impulsiveness (this sort of thing can happen with anyone) but deliberately and with conviction – that person will not hold to such a position even for three months …

Several comrades have put the question differently, namely: We did everything basically correctly, we came forward in good time and achieved a certain turn at the cost of great sacrifices when our predictions were confirmed by events. Now we must not miss this turn; we must recognize it and we must use it as a chance for a more normal and healthy resolution of party conflicts. In its general form I accept such a formulation entirely. It is only necessary to insert into this algebraic fomula more precise arithmetic quantities. But the crucial problem is that so far these arithmetic quantities are either completely unknown or nearly infinitesimal.

What is going on: a class turn or a bureaucratic maneuver? In my view such a formulation simplifies the question too much. With regard to "self-criticism," party democracy, Chinese Soviets, etc., it is quite permissible to assume that there is a desire to escape from difficulties through maneuvers. But what about the grain collections, the waiting lines [in front of shops], the difficulties in foreign affairs, etc.? Of course it is clear to the authors of policy that a maneuver at the top will not bring in any grain. And yet it is necessary to get grain; generally speaking, this constitutes the precondition for all kinds of possible maneuvers in the future. It is here that the beginning of something far more significant than simply a maneuver at the top may emerge. The authors of policy are stuck in a situation where some deep-going, serious turn is necessary. But because of their entire position and all their ingrained habits they would like to carry out this unavoidable turn – which incidentally is not yet very clear to them in the concrete forms it would take – they would like to carry it out by the methods of bureaucratic maneuver.

There can be no doubt (only a blockhead could doubt this now) that if all our previous work had not existed – our analyses, predictions, criticism, exposes, and ever newer predictions – a sharp turn to the right would have occurred under the pressure of the grain collections crisis. Sokolnikov firmly expected that when he dropped his differences. We also considered it likely. Thus, "At a New Stage" speaks of a rather imminent economic shift to the right under the pressure of aggravated difficulties. It turned out that the next shift was to the left. This means that we ourselves underestimated the good, strong wedge we had driven in. Yes, it was precisely our wedge that has made it impossible for them, at this particular time, to seek a way out of the contradictions on the right path. By itself this is a very great achievement, if only a temporary one, for time is an important factor in politics. It is not enough that a number of steps have been taken which, while remaining within the limits of a bureaucratic maneuver for the present, indicate a turn to the left. In order to assess this turn, just basic arithmetic quantities are not enough, for after all, what is involved here are classes, the interaction of the party apparatus with the state apparatus, and of the state apparatus with the various classes. It would be too rash to say that the sea has been set on fire just because the titmouse has promised to do it. Khristian Rakovsky, from whom we received a letter yesterday, very appropriately applies to this situation the English expression "wait and see."

True, a number of generalizations have been made in the press which seem to be directly plagiarized from our documents. But here too it is still entirely possible for them to sound the retreat, and oh, how loudly they could sound it! To think that the right is weak is to understand nothing. Opportunists are always weak by themselves within the framework of a mass proletarian party. They get their strength from other classes. In itself the right wing in our party represents the link onto which the new proprietors are holding, and through them, also the world bourgeoisie. If you break this link from the chain, by itself it is worth half a kopek. But in the present situation, the most powerful pressure of classes hostile to the proletariat is transmitted through this link. The rights are silent; they yield and retreat without a fight. They understand that within the framework of the party the proletarian core, even in its present condition, could crush them to bits in two seconds. They still cannot show their heads too openly. Besides, they understand the necessity of the maneuver to the left. Even Ustryalov has written to the specialists: "Let us allow the leadership some credit as it makes its maneuver to the left; without that the leadership cannot deal with the true foe."

For these elements, it is only a matter of a maneuver. They firmly count on the fact that a turn will not happen, that the attempt to make a turn will shatter against the resistance of the economic material (that is, the propertied elements) and that then, after the bankruptcy of the attempted turn, will come their, the right's, turn. In a letter I just received from Comrade Valentinov, he correctly raises this aspect of the process.

But if, for the right and for their non-party bosses, the matter comes down simply to a maneuver as preparation for a turn to the right, then for the center and, following them, for wide circles of the party the matter is more complex. Here there are all shades – from bureaucratic tricksterism to a sincere desire to switch all policies onto the proletarian-revolutionary track. Here too it is necessary to wait and see how the component elements of the "turn" are defined as it takes its course. We have had a small example, but the clearest possible one, in the realm of "self-criticism." I have in mind the Bleskov-Zatonsky affair. Comrade Sosnovsky is widely popularizing this affair, seeing it as highly symptomatic. And this, it seems to me, is absolutely right. Is "self-criticism" just a maneuver? To be concerned with guesses on this account, that is, on the matter of intentions, is pointless. But the fact is that the machinist Bleskov took this matter seriously and even tempted the most innocent Zatonsky with the energy of his honest approach. Zatonsky went running off and used his influence to throw open wide the door of the [newspaper] Kharkov Proletarian. Moscow then gave the signal to close the door. Whether Zatonsky's nose or some other part of his venerable "worker-peasant" body will be hurt as a result of this affair, we cannot tell from here. But it is clear that a knot was coming untied, signifying the possibility that the maneuver would be changed into a turn – with very energetic help from below.

The same applies to the whole new "course" in its entirety. If we could use an analogy without fearing that the conjurers and swindlers would try to fabricate a Clemenceau thesis, we could say this: "Out of the 'spring' of Svyatopolk-Mirsky came the real spring of 1905. But it would be a worthless revolutionary who would try to grab the tail of the first bureaucratic swallow, thinking that it settled the problem of the spring." Of course, for us the question is not of revolution, but of reform in the party, and through it, in the state. But in the relationship between the elements indicated above [i.e., Bleskov and Zatonsky], there is an analogy. Taken all together, you see, there is material for a "Svyatopolk-Mirsky thesis."

What are the conclusions? Here I will quote from Comrade Valentinov's letter:

"Conclusion 1: More tenacity. Conclusion 2: As before, stick to long-range politics. Conclusion 3: Watch what is going on at the top, but even more attentively follow what is going on among the masses, for here is the source of strength for the defense of the revolution and for the resistance to Thermidor."

I drew the practical conclusions for the days immediately ahead in my previous letter, where I spoke of the appeal to the Sixth Congress of the Comintern.

However, it's time to close. My letter has already gone far beyond its originally intended limits.