Leon Trotsky: Documents from Copenhagen

November 1932

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 13. Supplement (1929-1933), New York 1979, p. 175-180]

Internal Resolution

The Left Opposition has made the most of the given situation. Though taken unawares by the Danish visa question, the Bolshevik-Leninists have shown initiative and an ability to mobilize quickly.

The meeting and the discussions among more than 20 comrades from seven countries (Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia) have strengthened their mutual ties.

Radio broadcasts will help the national sections to refute the lies of the Stalinists. Talking films will serve the same end.

It should be added that the Oppositionist comrades who were present in Copenhagen went to the secretariat of the CP, and offered to have Comrade T. defend the views of the Opposition before the party members in whatever manner the party comrades wished. The leadership dodged the proposal, apparently without consulting the party, while continuing its slander campaign.

The Bolshevik-Leninists returned home after a casual and brief meeting, with a new reserve of strength and an unshakeable certainty of the correctness of their cause.

Report of the Commission on the IS

1. The Commission proposes that a preconference be held, made up of delegates from all the sections, which will meet in December 1932, at the call of the IS, and will have the following points on the agenda:

a) The composition of the plenum, which will meet as often as possible. The Commission proposes that the four or five most important sections establish its composition.

b) The appointment of the Administrative Secretariat, composed of three comrades who are capable of doing the work, chosen by the plenum rather than by the section delegates. These comrades are to be responsible to the plenum, which alone can recall them.

The Commission, except for Comrade Grylewicz, proposes that the Administrative Secretariat be based in Brussels.

c) Preparation for the international conference.

d) Decisions to be made so that the subsistence of the IS will he provided for by the sections.

2. For the preparation of the international conference the Commission proposes to follow through on the work that has been begun, and to involve all the sections in this work.

Proposal to Organize Defense for the International Opposition

Whereas:

1. In all parts of the world Oppositionists are undergoing repression — sometimes of the harshest kind, as in the countries of the Far East. Capitalist repression (imprisonment, beatings, arrests, provocations, etc.) combines with the repression and slander of the Stalinists, which goes to show that the enemies of the proletariat are also active in the ranks of the workers.

2. In recent months and years, this situation has been marked in particular by the following:

a) The frenzied attack of Stalin’s bureaucracy on the Bolshevik-Leninists in the USSR (the execution of Blumkin, deportations, exiles, imprisonment by the thousands, harassment of Oppositionist workers).

b) The offensive against the Oppositionist vanguards in China and Indochina (arrest and torture of militants, smashing of organizations), in Greece, where hundreds of comrades have been thrown into prison, in Bulgaria, Poland, etc. In the revolutionary struggles in Spain, Belgium, South America, etc., Opposition militants have undergone police repression side by side with all Communists. Nevertheless, Stalinist slander continues to dog the Oppositionists, even when they have fallen into the claws of the bourgeoisie. There are numerous cases in Greece and Bulgaria, and generally in all countries, where Oppositionists have been beaten up and harassed in prison by the Stalinists.

c) Lastly, the Stalinists are directly organizing a form of provocation and repression that objectively supports the bourgeoisie (united front with capitalist governments against Comrade Trotsky, provocations in the United States to implicate the Opposition in legal cases of murder, denouncing militants to the police by publishing their names in the press, as in Italy, and brutal acts organized against the Oppositionists of all countries).

3. After the establishment of the Communist International, the international proletariat created an organization for defense and aid to victims of the class struggle (International Red Aid). Under the leadership of the Stalinists the International Red Aid became the instrument of the Stalinist bureaucrats, who support the comrades that belong to or work for their faction but who practically and materially turn their backs on the Left Oppositionists. For this reason we must adopt a firm and uniform line of action on the question of the struggle against repression.

We propose the following:

1. The struggle against repression must be firmly linked to the work we are doing to win over layers of Communist workers to the platform of the Opposition. That is why always and on all occasions the sections or individual members of the Opposition who are attacked in one way or another by repression should campaign to be defended by the International Red Aid.

2. At the same time, every case of repression, harassment, provocation, etc., must be the object of an international campaign by the Opposition. That is why an International Oppositional Defense Committee must be created, under the direction of the IS, charged with centralizing information, giving impetus to campaigns, and organizing material support. For this work we can call upon comrades who are close to the Opposition but do not formally belong to our ranks.

3. Every time the International Red Aid or the organizations controlled by the Stalinist bureaucrats refuse to help the Opposition, the Oppositional Defense Committee should denounce the fact to the whole working class, while taking measures for the effective support of the comrades and organizations affected. In this way the International Oppositional Defense Committee must appear as the proletarian defense organization that compensates for the default of the organizations that are disabled and disoriented by centrism.

Report of the Spanish Commission

1. In a revolutionary situation that objectively favors its development, the Spanish Left Opposition is not only no longer developing, but it is passing through a serious crisis that puts into question its existence as an organization.

This crisis is marked by conflicts between the Spanish section and the International Opposition on one hand, and by conflicts within the section on the other which have just been illustrated by a change of leadership and by its transfer from Madrid to Barcelona.

2. The Spanish section is composed of a nucleus of leaders of long standing in the revolutionary movement, and a mass of young workers with insufficient communist training, who have come to communism in a revolutionary period, driven by the bureaucratic methods of the Stalinists to the side of the Opposition, but not on a serious political basis.

Such a composition places all the more importance and responsibility on the leadership, which must, through intense political life, assure the education of the workers who have come to the organization out of enthusiasm.

3. The present crisis of the Spanish section finds its most important immediate cause in the attitude of the section towards national and international political problems.

The leadership of the Spanish section has more often replaced political explanations with personal evaluations. That has been shown again in the recent changes that have just come about.

(Lacroix: “Gangrene has set in.” Nin: “Lacroix is a pathological case.”).

The gravity of the situation in the Spanish section finds its highest expression in the first letter that the new leadership sent to the IS on the subject of Mill. In this letter, the new leadership, instead of condemning Mill’s capitulation, defended him with an attack on the Left Opposition (Stalinist methods, etc.), going so far as to make the outrageous statement that the Opposition was responsible for Mill’s capitulation.

4. Out of the confusion in which the Spanish section operates, we can distinguish the following erroneous tendencies that hinder its development:

a) tendency towards a second party;

b) lack of perspectives on the Spanish revolution;

c) misunderstanding of the problems and development of the International Opposition;

d) lack of exact policies on questions of considerable immediate importance (trade union, agrarian).

5. Political clarification has been hindered by the characteristics of the two most capable members of the leadership. Comrade Lacroix, by his lack of personal discipline, by his violence of language in place of political explanation, isolated himself from many comrades while he held the most responsible position in the organization, one that required him to associate with many comrades. Comrade Nin, who has some personal prestige, and who has always remained equivocal on the political situation in Spain and also on the general policies of the Left Opposition, waited passively for the moment when Lacroix was completely isolated, and then took over the leadership without political debate.

On the political positions of these two comrades, it appears from the material (articles, letters) that we have at our disposal that Comrade Lacroix is much closer to the general positions of the Left Opposition than is Comrade Nin, whose customary reserve, moreover, has just been shattered by the Mill case.

6. The task of the International Opposition is to intervene to prevent the collapse of the section and to give a positive result to the present crisis.

The intervention of the International Opposition should aim to:

a) clarify the political differences among all the members of the Spanish organization;

b) form a leading nucleus selected from the whole organization;

c) prepare for a new conference for [ ]

7. Our proposal:

a) Open the political discussion with a letter to all the members of the Spanish Left Opposition (using the draft worked out in Prinkipo) and adding particularly the position of the new leadership on the Mill case.

b) Ensure the discussion by publishing an internal bulletin.

c) Send two comrades from the International Opposition [Lesoil and [ ] to contribute to the discussion from top to bottom and to help the International Opposition clarify the situation.

d) Close the discussion with an enlarged meeting of the IS, with the participation of representatives of the various currents that emerge in the Spanish section.