Leon Trotsky: Letter to the Soviet Union

Autumn 1932

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 13. Supplement (1929-1933), New York 1979, p. 172-174, title: “A Left Opposition Statement Should Be Prepared”]

Dear Friend:

In the present condition of the USSR, apart from the fundamental critical processes in the sphere of economic and class relations, there is a multitude of additional contradictions and complications created and being created by the apparatus in its struggle for self-preservation. Even if it were possible now purely in an abstract way to work out a finished system of measures for a way out of the crisis, that system, taken by itself, would be suspended in air. It would resemble the second five-year plan, which finds no immediate support in the results of the first five years. True, it is possible to say in advance that the whole economic machine of the USSR must for a certain time go into reverse — before it will be possible to again move forward. But the whole question is: Who will turn it backward? Where is the party? The question of the party is the key to all the remaining questions.

The Left Opposition is the key to the party. It is necessary for it to revive internal communication. It is necessary, no matter what, to travel around to all the places where reliable and experienced Oppositionists still exist.

It is necessary to prepare, and as soon as possible to release, a statement in the name of the Left Opposition. It might be either anonymous or (much better) signed, depending on the degree of weakness of the apparatus’s repression (in this one must expect large and sharp oscillations this way and that).

The statement, it seems to me, should not be given the task of immediately presenting a practical program. The urgent aim of the statement is to say to the party, “We are here! Having remained on the old principled positions, we are at the disposal of the party and the working class, and we are prepared with all our might to help the party to correct the mistakes, to defeat the difficulties, and to go forward again on the broad road.”

However great the confusion in the party and apparatus (tomorrow it will become still greater), the Left Opposition, its banner, and its “name” undoubtedly still appear frightening today, not only to the most “free-thinking” bureaucrats but also to a considerable extent to the working class members of the party.

The Opposition has to accustom the party to itself. It must show that the feeling of revenge, the desire to smash the apparatus, to punish opponents, etc., is alien to it. The more modest and restrained the manner in which the Opposition comes forward, the more correct (from the standpoint of the setting and today’s correlation of forces) and politically expedient. The Opposition has one immediate aim: to be admitted into common work in the present extremely difficult conditions. Such should be, in my view, the tone and spirit of the first statement. In other words, the Opposition should present itself as it is. The appearance of a statement such as this immediately will be accorded great political significance. People will reach out to the Left Opposition from various directions. Contacts will be restored, and work will be resumed. Only thus is it possible to set about collectively working out a practical program.

Over and above the system of purely economic measures stands, as previously mentioned, the question of the party. What kind of results would a fairly convoked party congress yield today? It is very difficult to answer this, especially from here. It will only be possible to take our bearings in this to the degree that the apparatus’s repression has weakened and the masses have awakened to political activity; the development, one must think, will come precisely in this direction. There can be no doubt that the party masses, to the degree of the thaw, will reveal much that is “unexpected,” in both a positive and a negative sense. To analyze the interplay of moods and currents, to separate the healthy from the unhealthy, and to consolidate all the progressive ones around the Left Opposition will be possible only on the condition that it itself established a firm central nucleus.

The question of party leadership will also extraordinarily agitate party circles in a purely personal sense. Here we should display the greatest tact, and should by no means indiscriminately proclaim the present leadership personnel “everywhere worthless.” The slogan “remove Stalin” is not our slogan. Down with the personal regime — that is correct. Not only Stalin and Molotov, but Zinoviev and Kamenev, Rykov and Tomsky, can still serve the party, if they will revive it. The Left Opposition does not exclude anyone in advance; it demands only that they do not exclude it.

In general the same applies to the Comintern. Here the strategic and tactical questions are much more concrete, because the sections of the Left Opposition in a majority of countries have their own periodical journals and conduct continuous work. The organizational side of the matter will lead to the preparation and . convocation in each country of a party congress, and then a congress of the Comintern. It stands to reason that there will be less of the “unexpected” in the West. The tempo of this work will depend in large degree on the pace of reform in the CPSU.

I have completely avoided touching on a program of economic measures in relation to the USSR in this letter. This question is briefly mentioned in the latest issue of the Biulleten (number 29-30). A detailed speech will be in the next issue But now, more than ever, politics is concentrated economics, and the party is concentrated politics.

P.S.: Concerning the Right Oppositionists: 1. The Rights now doubtless appear as an enormous, shapeless blob. All the discontented people, in the party and outside its boundaries, must be gravitating toward the Right, including potential supporters of the Left Opposition, who find it difficult by hearsay to understand the dialectical character of our tactics. The question of the differentiation of the Rights will become one of the most serious questions of our party politics. 2. During the first stage of the turn, practical disagreements with the Rights will hardly be revealed, as, by the way, will be the case also with a majority of yesterday’s centrists. The “backward movement” of the machine flows too imperatively out of the conditions. Actually the centrists have already set out on this road, but unsystematically, contradictorily, and therefore without results. 3. Disagreements with the Rights will inevitably be revealed at the second stage of the turn. Then will come the real differentiation. Just for that reason, even in the first stage — with complete honesty toward the Rights — it is intolerable to mix up the ranks and blunt the distinctions [between us and the Rights]. 4. In the context of a definite interrelationship not only with the Rights and centrists, but also with the various “left” groupings, we will proceed, of course, not only from the Russian but also from the international questions. This cannot be forgotten even for a minute.