Leon
Trotsky: Questions for Communists
November
1932
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 326 f.]
Comrades:
You want my reply to the question of why I belong to the
Bolshevik-Leninist faction which is in sharp opposition to the
current policy of the Communist International and the Soviet
government. I will try to outline at least the most important points
of the question.
The
chief aim of the Communist Party is to construct the proletarian
vanguard, strongly class-conscious, fit for combat, resolute,
prepared for revolution. But revolutionary education requires a
regime of internal democracy. Revolutionary discipline has nothing to
do with blind obedience. Combativity cannot be prepared beforehand
nor can it be dictated by an order from above: it must always be
renewed and tempered. Revolutionary discipline poses the question to
every honest and conscious Communist worker: Do we have democracy in
the party — yes or no? To ask the question is to answer it. Even
the smallest vestiges of party democracy are vanishing with every
passing day.
In
the Soviet Union the Communist Party is in power. The economic
successes are incontestable. The number of workers in the country has
doubled and tripled. The cultural level of the masses has been
considerably raised in the last fifteen years. In these conditions,
party democracy ought to be expanding. But we see just the opposite.
Despite
all the achievements and successes, the proletariat as a whole and
the Communist vanguard in particular have been fettered by the steel
grip of the party and state bureaucracies. The unprecedented
deterioration of the party regime must have profound social and
political causes. We, the Left Opposition, have more than once
analyzed and revealed these causes during the post-Lenin period. Has
the official leadership of the party ever loyally submitted our
arguments to discussion by the party? Never!
The
less the functionary is controlled by the masses, the less consistent
he is, the more subject to outside influences he becomes, and the
more inevitably his political oscillations resemble the graph of a
delirious fever. That is centrism. I repeat: that is centrism. The
destruction of democracy clears an area for the development of
petty-bourgeois, opportunist, or ultraleft influences.
The
differences began in 1923 over the questions of the party regime,
industrialization, and relations with the kulaks. Moreover, are you
acquainted with the 1926 platform of the Russian Left Opposition?
Have you followed the later development of the struggle around the
five-year plan and collectivization? In all these questions, the
"crime" of the Opposition is that, armed with the Marxist
method, it could see clearly, anticipate some things, and give
warning in time against mistakes.
Have
you read the documents which were written in the factional struggle
over the questions of the Chinese revolution? Do you know about the
opposing conceptions over the Anglo-Russian Committee — the
application of the "united front” only from above and in fact
against the masses in struggle? Is the work of the Opposition in this
field known to you? If not, it is your duty to familiarize yourself
with these documents before taking a position against the Left
Opposition.
You
must certainly remember the senseless adventures of the "third
period" which have badly compromised communism in the eyes of
all conscious workers. Is there a single Communist who still can have
any doubts on this subject?
The
new development in Germany gives a striking example of the
fundamentally wrong policy of the leadership of the proletariat:
likening democracy to fascism, repudiating the policy of the united
front, and consequently renouncing the creation of soviets —
because soviets are not possible except as the achievement of a
united front of workers belonging to different organizations as well
as to different parties. Nothing has helped the German Social
Democracy to maintain itself as much as the policy of the
international Stalinist apparatus.
We,
the Left Opposition, remain faithfully devoted to the Soviet Union
and the Communist International, with a different devotion, a
different fidelity than that of the majority of the official
bureaucracy. The worker who considers himself a Communist but who
accepts hearsay, and does not study the documents or verify the
facts, is not worth very much. No, he is not worth very much. It was
about such people that Lenin invented his harsh but true saying: He
who takes anybody's word in politics is a hopeless idiot.
The
tenth year since the founding of the Left Opposition is drawing near.
Great events have verified and confirmed our attitude. Serious cadres
have been educated. We face the future with confidence. No force can
separate us from the international proletarian vanguard. The Soviet
Union — it is our fatherland! We will defend it to the very end!
The ideas and methods of Marx and Lenin will become the ideas and
methods of the Communist International!