Leon Trotsky: Balance Sheet of the Spanish Section

From Letter to the National Sections

December 22, 1931

[The Spanish Revolution (1931-39). New York 1973, p. 170 f.]

7. The Spanish section has made certain advances, and established contacts that permit it to hope for new successes. But it is clear that measured on the scale of the magnificent revolutionary movement of the Spanish masses, the successes of the Spanish Opposition are pretty small. However, this is primarily because the Spanish Opposition did not exist before the revolution. It formed itself in the fire of the events, and in the process time was lost and wasted with experiments whose fruitlessness was clear in advance (for example, in Catalonia).

The extreme weakness of the Spanish Opposition at the beginning of the revolution expressed itself in that, regardless of the exceptionally favorable situation in the country, our Spanish comrades until recently did not create the opportunity to issue a weekly paper. Help from abroad did not suffice or did not arrive in time. .El Soviet of Barcelona was suspended. It cannot remain unsaid that the reasons the Spanish Opposition gives to explain the suspension of El Soviet are completely unacceptable. Instead of saying clearly and openly: "We have no means, we are weak, send help!" the Spanish comrades declare that they do not want to submit to the censor. When revolutionists are not in a position to shake off the censor, then they must on the one hand adapt themselves to it legally, and on the other hand say every bit of what is necessary in the illegal press. But they must not disappear from the scene by pointing to the censorship and to their own revolutionary pride, for that means to carry out a decorative but not a Bolshevik policy.

The Spanish revolution has now entered a period of slackening that separates the bourgeois stage from the proletarian. How long this stage will last cannot be foretold. In any event, the Spanish Opposition now has the opportunity to do more systematic and planful preparatory work. Cadres must be developed; there is no time to lose. The theoretical monthly organ Comunismo is one of the most important weapons in this connection. A serious bulletin for internal discussion must be created. The education of cadres is unthinkable on the basis only of national questions. If the Spanish comrades have devoted very little time to international questions in the course of the past year, this was easily attributable to the youthfulness of the Opposition and the furious pace of revolutionary events. This undoubtedly explains why the intervention of the Spanish Opposition in international questions was extremely infrequent and had an episodic character that was not always propitious.