Leon Trotsky: Letter to Max Shachtman

Excerpts, May 23, 1931

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 3, 1930-1931, New York 1973, p. 238 f., title: “Part of the Responsibility”]

Together with Comrade Frankel, we are very glad that you have halfway overcome your reservations regarding Landau. Your explanation, allow me to say, does not appear very convincing to me You write that you wanted to avoid a premature split. Do you feel that I did want to bring about or hasten this split? And if not, what practical steps did you propose to achieve this aim? I, for my part, have done everything that appeared possible and expedient to me. Aside from this, it seemed to me that if the leading comrades of the national sections had exercised proper pressure on Landau in time, he may — I say may — have been saved. Unfortunately that was not the case and you bear a small part of the responsibility for this. The lion's share, after Landau, is naturally borne by Naville, who encouraged Landau with false hopes, sent equivocal information, etc. Now Landau wants to have nothing to do with the International Secretariat and is energetically working to form a new International, with the Gourget people, with the Prometeo people, with Overstraeten, and, it is reported, with — Weisbord for America. More than that: while he has done everything to prevent unification in Austria, and to destroy it in Germany, he accuses me of having split all the national sections, particularly in America. So, my dear Shachtman, I bear the responsibility for your not being on good terms with Weisbord. I am afraid that Naville will have to take the same road. His closest friends have deserted him, and not by accident. Those whom he influences are hostile to us, and mean it earnestly. Naville, however, is playing with ideas and has never meant it seriously and honestly.

He remains in the League in order to sabotage it from within and in order to help Landau build his new International. The principle involved in this I have written about in a letter which my son will send you.

It is obvious that decisions must be arrived at according to the principled lines of the different tendencies, and I understand quite well the caution taken by your organization in this field. But this criterion must not be conceived pedantically and so formalistically. The Bordigists are a tendency and they must be judged according to their fundamental principles. Gourget is a tendency and Van Overstraeten is a tendency — naturally an unfortunate one. But what shall we say of the Mahnruf group that changes its "tendency" seven times in the interests of the self-preservation of the old clique and in doing this does not halt before the dirtiest methods? Judgment must be based on the fact that it is an altogether unprincipled clique, demoralized by the methods, splits, and intrigues of the Comintern, which does not take ideas seriously, and with whom we must watch not their theses but their fingers. What is important is not the theses that Landau will present tomorrow, but the fact that he approves everything on China, even on America and the other countries, insofar as it does not touch his position of power. What is characteristic of Landau is not to be found in his trade-union theses, but in the fact that he kept up a deadly silence on the trade-union question in France because Naville is his friend. The programs, the theses, the principles, are highly important when they represent a reality. However, when they are only an adornment and a mask for clique struggle, then they must be booted aside in order to uncover the gentlemen concerned and represent them in natura.

Yours,

L. Trotsky