Leon
Trotsky: Greetings to La Vérité
August
25, 1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 2, 1930, New York 1975, p. 367-372]
The
Communist Left Opposition can, it seems to me, look with unconcealed
satisfaction on the past year, although its work was basically
preparatory in character. The first year has been a year of
ideological demarcation. First place in this work, that is, basically
in the regeneration of communist thinking, goes, undoubtedly, to
France, and in France — to La
Vérité.
In any case, no one today will succeed in covering with the banner of
the Communist Left that kind of ideological confusion that often
remained in opposition to official communism only because it was in
essence still inferior to it
Allow
me in this letter of greeting to bring up one question, the
internationalism of La
Vérité
and of the Communist League.
The
opportunists reproach the Left Opposition for building simultaneously
its international and national organizations, treating them both as
the two sides of one and the same work. The Brandlerites, who
represent in themselves the purest residue of prewar social
democracy, accuse the International and French Left Opposition of
owing their formation to the platform of the Russian Opposition.
Thereby they show — without speaking of the rest — they
absolutely don't understand the basis on which the Russian Opposition
was formed. It would not be amiss to recall it here.
The
internal discussion in the Soviet Communist Party did not lead to a
system of groups until the events in Germany in the fall of 1923. The
economic and political processes in the USSR were molecular in
character and had a comparatively slow tempo. The events of 1923 in
Germany gave the measure of the differences on the scale of that
gigantic class struggle. It was then and on that basis that the
Russian Opposition was formed.
The
struggle over the kulaks and inner-party democracy in 1925-26 was
serious. But here, too, the argument over the organic processes
proceeded at a comparatively slow tempo. However, 1926 brought the
general strike in Britain and posed squarely the fundamental tactical
problems of the Western European workers' movement. The year 1927 put
the whole Comintern strategy to the test in the catastrophe of the
Chinese revolution. Precisely these events gave final shape to the
Russian Left Opposition. Its development would not have been possible
without the close 'relations of the Russian Left with critical,
oppositionist elements and groups in different countries and, what is
more important, without the gigantic struggles of the world
proletariat and the problems they posed thereafter.
With
changes and variations here and there, that is the way all the other
sections of the International Left grew and developed.
The
idea imputed to the Communist Left, that for Communist parties in all
countries one and the same task and, apparently, one and the same
method are entailed, is really the reverse of our true position.
Proletarian internationalism, in thought and action, in our epoch
flows not from the similarity
or homogeneity
of conditions in different countries but from their inseverable
interconnections,
despite the profound differences between them. To be precise, it was
the old social democracy which thought that all countries developed
along the same high road, some in front and some in the rear, and so
it was sufficient to exchange their respective national experiences
from time to time at congresses. This conception, consciously or
unconsciously, led to socialism
in one country
and was completely reconciled with national
defense,
that is, social-patriotism.
We,
the International Left, consider world economy and world politics not
as the simple sum of national parts. On the contrary, we consider
national economy and national politics only as highly distinctive
parts of an organic world totality.
In
this sense we are irreconcilably opposed to the Right Opposition
groups, social democratic (Brandler, POPist) and syndicalist types
alike. The Monatte group is national-syndicalist and for that reason
alone reformist. In the epoch of imperialism it is no more possible
to pose revolutionary problems within the framework of nations than
it is to play chess on one square of the board.
The
deepest differences separate our internationalism from the official
internationalism of the Comintern, which is undermining its own
foundations by establishing for the USSR the special privilege of
"national socialism." This question has been sufficiently
elucidated already.
We
have to ask ourselves, however, whether the work of the Communist
League, like that of the Left Opposition in general, would have been
possible within the framework of a single party. Without the
slightest hesitation we answer: Certainly, it would have been
possible. If we look at the history of Russian Bolshevism, it
presents from a certain point of view the picture of constant —
sometimes very keen — struggle between groups and factions. Despite
the deep differences separating us from the ruling faction we were
fully prepared to struggle for our ideas inside a single party; we
had sufficient confidence in the strength of our ideas for that. On
another side, the then-dominant faction, for example in France, would
never have thought of expelling the Communist Left if it had not been
ordered to do so. Conditions in the French communist movement and the
development of communism never in any sense or in any way called for
or justified a split in the Communist Party. That was carried out on
Moscow's orders and was exclusively provoked by the struggle waged by
the Stalin faction for its own protection. The plebiscitary regime,
definitively confirmed by the Sixteenth Congress, could be maintained
only by fragmenting, pillorying, and crushing to dust all ideological
currents and all ideas in general. However absurd the argument that
the Communist International is nothing but a weapon for the defense
of Russia's national interests, it is nevertheless absolutely clear
that the ruling faction in the Comintern is only a bureaucratic
servant of Stalin's autocracy. None of the present sections of the
Comintern can become a genuine proletarian party without a radical
change in the course and regime of the Soviet Communist Party. This
problem, prerequisite for the solution of all the others, calls for
great centralization. The indissoluble international liaison of all
the Left Opposition groups is conditioned almost entirely by the need
to concentrate their forces to change the regime in the Communist
International.
It
is understood, there is another way: it consists of turning one's
back on the Comintern and setting about building another party,
elsewhere. But that would be liquidationism in the true sense of the
word. The Comintern is the product of titanic factors: the
imperialist war, the open betrayal of the Second International, the
October Revolution, and the Marxist-Leninist tradition of struggle
against opportunism. That explains why, despite the criminal policies
of the leadership, the masses, after pulling out many, many times,
return to the Comintern. It is possible to think, for example, that
the German workers will give the German Communist Party more votes in
the coming election than they gave in the past. If Thälmann,
Remmele, and Company do all they can to weaken communism, on the
other hand, the collapse of capitalism, the unprecedented
commercial-industrial crisis, the decomposition of the parliamentary
system, the baseness of the social democracy do everything they can
to strengthen communism. And, very fortunately, these factors are
more powerful than Thälmann and Remmele, together with their patron,
Stalin.
Breaking
with the Comintern means entering the field of adventurism, trying to
build new parties arbitrarily and artificially instead of freeing the
Communist parties, which have emerged from history, from the vise of
the Stalinist bureaucracy. Meanwhile, this single task, international
in nature, has already made the organization of the International
Left Opposition on a centralized basis indispensable.
However,
do we not risk ignoring national peculiarities and tasks, of
simplifying policies and bureaucratizing methods? Only those who have
no confidence in the ideological
content of
the Left Opposition can pose the question in these terms. To think
that each national group is capable, with its own forces, of posing
and resolving national problems from an international standpoint, and
at the same time to be afraid that an international organization —
which includes all these sections — is incapable of taking into
account the national peculiarities, is to make a mockery of Marxist
thinking.
The
Stalinist bureaucracy and Molotov's stupid commandership are not at
all the consequences of international
centralization but of the national-socialist
transformation of the Russian bureaucracy, which systematically
subjects all the other sections to its will. The struggle for
national "autonomy" (waged by Brandler, Lovestone, Louis
Sellier, and others) is basically of the same kind as the struggle
for trade-union "autonomy"; both reflect the tendency of
reformist elements to evade tight control — which can be exercised
only through definite ideas and a definite organization, necessarily
centralized and international. That is why it is not at all by chance
that Louis Sellier, who profits by the Phrygian cap, and Pierre
Monatte, who profits by the Amiens Charter, find themselves closely
united in the struggle against revolutionary communism.
The
mechanical centralization operating today in the Comintern has no
international content; on the other hand, it increasingly serves as
the most convenient way to sacrifice the interests of the vanguard of
the world proletariat to the demands of the plebiscitary Stalinist
faction which rests on the basis of "national socialism."
Reaction against this is inevitable. It has begun. It has only
just
begun. It will bring in its train not a few more blows, expulsions,
splits, and final separations.
The
right wing is retreating from the Comintern to prewar forms of the
workers' movement, whose instability was strikingly revealed by the
imperialist war and the October Revolution.
The
Left Opposition is also, as is well known, a reaction against the
national-socialist bureaucracy, but it does not look back; it looks
forward. It represents in itself not a retreat from Bolshevism but
the latest further development of Bolshevism in the course of the
struggle against its degenerate epigones.
The
apparatus will not prevail. Ideas will prevail — if they correctly
express the course of development. The apparatus is able to enjoy
independent power only to the extent that in the past it was based on
ideas that had conquered the masses. The inertia of the apparatus can
be very great, especially if it is armed with considerable financial
resources and means of repression. But despite all this, the
apparatus will not prevail; ideas will prevail — on condition that
they are correct.
During
the first year of La
Vérité's
existence, its guiding ideas passed the test in the Opposition camp.
The groups of parasites and dilettantes who disdainfully denied La
Vérité
the right to exist have disappeared from the political scene or are
in their death agonies. Stagnating, conservative groups are
compelled, under La
Vérité's
pressure, to reorganize themselves, to look for a new political
orientation, and to check their baggage. That is true not only for
France but also for Germany, Belgium, Italy, and other countries.
That has made La
Vérité — to
a well-known degree — an international organ of the Opposition. La
Vérité
has exerted an influence on advanced communist elements not only in
Europe but also in Asia and America. The little weekly organ around
which, at the beginning, was gathered a small group sharing the same
ideas has become a weapon for international activity. Ideas are
powerful when they reflect faithfully the objective course of
development. Today, La
Vérité
has sunk deep roots in the soil of France; the group that began it is
surrounded by a double circle of friends in the ranks of both the
party and the unions.
We
are celebrating the first anniversary of La
Vérité
but it would be incorrect not to say a word about La
Lutte de classes.
It has long been established that the more revolutionary a
proletarian faction the deeper is its interest in theory. It is not
by chance that the Communist Left in France has been able to build up
a Marxist theoretical organ which has already shown itself to be
necessary for the proletariat and which will prove to be of
invaluable service to the proletarian revolution in the future.
La
Vérité
is entering its second year. We have to look ahead. More remains to
be done than has been. La
Vérité
today is the organ of an ideological current; it has to become an
organ of mass action. The goal is not very near. The main tasks still
lie ahead of us. But now there can no longer be any doubt that the
seeds sown in the past twelve months will begin to yield the desired
shoots in the second year.