Leon
Trotsky: G. Mannoury and the Comintern
Published
May 1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 13. Supplement (1929-1933), New York 1979, p.
37-39]
The
Dutch Communist, Comrade G. Mannoury, was expelled several months ago
from the Comintern for “Trotskyism.” Mannoury vainly tried to get
a proper consideration of his views and objections through the party
hierarchy. His trial was conducted behind his back, in the manner of
a court-martial. G. Mannoury has published in a pamphlet a series of
documents dealing with his expulsion, and he does not deliver a
defensive speech.
All
the “Trotskyism” of Mannoury consisted of the fact that he did
not agree with the defamation of the Russian Opposition, its
expulsion from the Comintern, and the repressions that followed
against the Oppositionists. Mannoury’s own point of view on the
disputed questions is very vague. In one of the documents he even
claims that on the internal questions of the USSR he stands closer to
Stalin than to Trotsky. It is necessary in this connection to keep in
mind that this was written in the period when Stalin was allied with
Bukharin, that is, before the present left course.
In
whatever touches the theoretical realm, Mannoury appears an eclectic:
he combines dialectical materialism with psychoanalysis, turning it
into a philosophical system, and with idealist morality. There is no
need to point out that all this is very far from the theoretical
foundations on which the Marxist Opposition rests.
From
these same documents of Mannoury we find out that the official
representative of the Communist International proclaimed the most
outstanding representative of “Trotskyism” in Holland to be …
Wijnkoop, who always was only a left (now and then ultraleft) Social
Democrat and, evidently, has remained so even to this day.
It
is no wonder that Comrade Mannoury asks several times in the course
of his pamphlet, “Just what do you personally mean in the final
analysis by Trotskyism?”
In
order to give an idea of Mannoury’s mode of thought, we will cite
several quotations from his pamphlet.
“Trotskyism
is your invention. No one is always correct and no one is totally
correct, neither Trotsky, nor Lenin, nor Marx. But in the main
question Trotsky is correct, namely, that the revolution has hardly
begun, and that communism has barely been born…. I know nothing of
your ‘scissors,’ do you understand? Nothing, except what I have
read about them in your own slanderous articles against Trotsky from
November 1924 to the present day, and every line of your sophistical
and empty argumentation convinced me more of your wrongness, and
every word of the phrases, very scanty and tom out of context, that
you were forced to cite from the works of Trotsky made my conviction
more solid.”
In
another place Mannoury demands the demolition of the Lenin mausoleum
and the cremation of Lenin’s remains, in which we have to
sympathize with him, although, of course, this question is not the
most urgent.
We
discover from the pamphlet that the executive committee of the
[Dutch] party demanded of Comrade Mannoury that he discontinue
“political and organizational ties with Trotsky.” The fact that
such ties never existed made it all the easier for Mannoury to
repudiate them. In this same document Mannoury declared that “in
the majority of tactical and party-political disagreements between
the adherents of Trotsky and the supporters of Stalin he [Mannoury]
leans more toward the latter than toward the followers of Trotsky.”
But the leaders demanded of Mannoury that he acknowledge Trotsky an
enemy of communism and declare an irreconcilable struggle against
him. Mannoury refused to do this. In the end they expelled him. This
whole story is in the highest degree characteristic of the customs of
the Comintern and of its Dutch section.
Mannoury
enters this struggle as an unquestionably sincere and idealistic
person, having, however, nothing in common with the Communist Left
Opposition, either in theoretical premises or in political
conclusions. As we already know, this in no way prevented his being
expelled as a “Trotskyist.”