Leon Trotsky: The Faces Change, the System Remains

November 7, 1929

[Writings of Leon Trotsky. Vol 1, 1929, New York 1975, p. 379-382]

A year has passed since this pamphlet, devoted to the character of the Comintern leadership, was first written. During this relatively short period of time there have been considerable changes in the Comintern’s ruling apparatus. Nevertheless, this work is not outdated. There has been a sharp turn to the left in the political line. The faces have changed. But the system remains. Moreover, the most pernicious aspects of the system have now been manifested with even greater clarity than they were one year ago.

Bukharin was the formal leader of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern. On behalf of the Politburo of the CPSU a declaration that there were no disagreements within the" Russian Central Committee was issued to all the delegates at the congress. At the same time, under cover of the official congress, a second congress took place — a. unofficial, or what is called a “corridor,” congress — at which the preparatory work was completed for the overthrow of Bukharin and of the whole right wing in general. Even as the congress took place the apparatus majority needed for this operation had been fully secured. This in no way prevented accounts in the press noting the thunderous ovation that Bukharin received from the delegates after each of his innumerable speeches. The duplicity of the bureaucratic leadership was thus given its highest expression. The ideological struggle serves as merely the musical accompaniment for the organizational pantomime. At the congress they talk, but it is in the corridors that the business is transacted. Bukharin was eliminated shortly after the very congress where it was announced that Stalin and Bukharin were in full agreement. After Bukharin’s organizational liquidation, his “theoretical” funeral was begun. It was suddenly revealed that Bukharin, who for five years led the theoretical struggle against Trotskyism, had in reality done nothing but make mistakes throughout his whole life. Right now in Moscow the young “red professors,” who are not much better than white, black, or yellow professors, are writing hundreds of articles on this theme.

The new political coup in the Comintern produced a regroupment in the leadership of a number of Communist parties, and above all in the apparatus of the Comintern itself. Pepper, who only days ago decided the fate of several parties, today has been expelled from the Comintern, as have the American Lovestone and yesterday’s leaders in Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and a number of other countries. Who has emerged to replace them? Those who were Zinovievists when Zinoviev was in favor, Bukharinists when Bukharin was in favor, and who at an opportune time have become Molotovists.

Yes, the current leader of the Comintern is none other than Molotov. He delivered the programmatic speech at the Tenth Plenum of the ECCI. For those who know Molotov, the fact of his appointment alone (it is hard to describe it as anything but nightmarish) gives a full picture of the current leadership. And those who do not know Molotov have but to read his speech.

Molotov is unquestionably the most complete embodiment of the bureaucracy that rose on the wave of reaction in 1924-29 and is deeply convinced that all problems are to be resolved by financial or administrative measures. These gentlemen are blind to the fundamental questions of world development. However, they are masters of corridor skills. With the help of blind administrative might, they have already beheaded several parties and several revolutions.

After Bukharin’s dismissal, there remained in the Comintern not one person who had anything whatever to do with leadership of the International in the epoch of its creation and its first four congresses. The same applies to all the Comintern sections without exception. There has been a one hundred percent turnover in the leadership.

The official philosophy for replacing revolutionaries with functionaries is that, because the Soviet Union has entered into a period of construction, practical, businesslike people are needed — not those who live in the realm of “permanent” revolution but those who stand firmly on the ground of national socialism. This is the typical ideology of reaction following a turbulent movement forward. In their national narrow-mindedness the authors of this bureaucratic constructionist philosophy, without desiring to or even noticing it, are revealing their deep contempt for the Communist International. In fact, even if one admits that in the USSR the transition from the struggle for power to the practical work of construction calls for a new set of leaders, how can the same be true in the Comintern where not socialist construction but precisely the struggle for power is on the agenda? Moreover, in all countries without exception the leadership was selected during these years on the model of Stalin and even of Molotov. And this selection process was so successful that the delegates at the Tenth Plenum of the ECCI not only failed to dismiss Molotov with contempt after his smug, ignorant speech but, on the contrary, rewarded him with applause that the newspaper report only out of prudence did not call an ovation.

Individual characteristics do not, of course, eliminate the question of ideological orientation. On the contrary, it is only in light of ideological orientation that characteristics of individuals take on their full significance. Bureaucratic centrism, in order to protect its policy of abrupt zigzags from internal conflicts and opposition, must select its cadre from the obedient, accommodating, spineless, and unprincipled functionaries or cynical administrators. People who in a deferential and cowardly manner endure every shift of the leadership, occurring without their participation and without their knowledge — it is beyond such people, and this must be clearly understood, to ever find within themselves the capacity for leading the working masses in an assault on bourgeois society.

The problem of leadership is not an independent problem. It is closely linked with politics and with the regime. Nevertheless, it is extremely important. The argument that the working class must manage “without leaders” originates from an unconscious idealization of capitalism, since it presupposes that in a society based on wage slavery the most oppressed class of the population is capable of rising to such heights of political independence that it will not need leadership on the part of the most clear-sighted, experienced, courageous, and hardened elements. If bourgeois society were able to ensure such a level of political development of the proletarian masses, we would not be its mortal enemies. Besides, if the proletariat were on the whole capable of reaching such a conscious height under capitalism, it could carry out the transformation of society by totally peaceful means.

Reality is as far from these daydreams as the earth is from heaven. It is precisely to wrest the popular masses from backwardness and ignorance that the revolution is necessary. And for the revolution to be victorious the oppressed masses must link their hopes and their struggle with a party they have more than once tested in action and with a leadership that in the eyes of the masses has become the personification of their own struggle. Neither the party nor its leadership improvises to meet the needs of the revolution. Such people as the priest Gapon and the lawyers Khrustalev and Kerensky appear and disappear like foam on the waves. Real revolutionary leadership is turned out by means of a long process of selection and education. This is a problem of tremendous importance. Without its correct solution, the proletariat cannot win.

Thus the question of leadership cadre is inseparably linked with the question of the Comintern’s general political orientation and its ability to evaluate circumstances, foresee what tomorrow will bring, and extract from every situation the maximum possible for the cause of the liberation of the working class.

In order to reconstitute the leadership, the politics must be changed. Centrism must be replaced by Marxism. In this lies the task of the international Communist Left Opposition.