Leon
Trotsky: The Coming Congress Against War
June
13, 1932
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 113-117]
Dear
Comrades:
I
have before me the June 4 issue of the Paris journal Le
Monde
[The World]. Le
Monde
is published by Barbusse and serves at the present time as the
central organ for the convocation of the "great antiwar
congress." On the third page of this journal there is an excerpt
from an appeal by Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse. The character
and spirit of the appeal are sufficiently clear from the following
words: "We call upon all people, all groups, regardless of their
political affiliations, and all labor organizations — cultural,
social, and trade union — upon all forces and all mass
organizations! Let all join us in the International Congress of War
against War."
Then
follows a passage from a letter addressed by Rolland to Barbusse: "I
am wholly of the opinion that the congress should be open to all
parties and nonpartisans on a common basis of sincere and determined
struggle against war." Further on, Rolland expresses his
agreement with Barbusse that the first place in this struggle should
be occupied by the working class. Still further, we read the first
listing of those who have joined the congress. It consists of radical
and semi-radical French and German writers, pacifists, members of the
League of the Rights of Man, and so forth.
This
is followed by a maxim from the well-known Emile Vandervelde.
"Everywhere war gives birth to … explosions of revolutionary
dissatisfaction on the one hand and rabid reaction of fanatical
nationalism on the other. It is of the utmost necessity that the
Internationals closely unite their forces in order to prevent war."
Finally
after these words by Vandervelde quoted from the [Belgian] socialist
journal Le
Peuple
of May 29, 1932, we read a quotation from the central organ of the
French Communist Party, I'Humanité,
of May 31, 1932: "Reply 'Present!' to the call of Romain Rolland
and Henri Barbusse for participation in the international congress at
Geneva."
In
the last issue of La
Vie Ouvrière,
the central organ of the Unitary General Confederation of Labor
[CGTU], there is an article in which complete agreement is expressed
with the call made by Rolland and Barbusse.
The
picture is now perfectly clear. The French Communist Party and the
trade-union organization led by it stand behind the initiators of the
congress. Behind the Communist Party stands the Comintern.
What
is involved is the danger of a new world war. In the struggle against
this danger, it is necessary to also utilize fellow travelers who are
or who even may only appear to be the most honest and determined
among the petty-bourgeois pacifists. In any case, however, this is a
question of third-rate importance or less.
The
call for a struggle against war, you would think, should be brought
by the Comintern and Profintern before the eyes of the international
proletariat. The most important problem is to successfully win over
the working masses of the Second and the Amsterdam Internationals to
our side.
To
accomplish this, the policy of the united front can be of great
service. The last session of the Executive Committee of the Second
International pronounced itself against Japan and "for the
defense of the USSR." We know the extent and the value of this
defense insofar as the decision of the leaders is concerned. But the
very fact that this decision was adopted is an indication of the
force of the mass pressure (the crisis and the danger of war). The
Comintern was duty-bound in these circumstances to develop the policy
of the united front on an international scale, that is, to propose to
the Second and the Amsterdam Internationals openly before the world
proletariat a definite, carefully considered program of practical
measures against the war danger.
But
the Comintern is silent. The Profintern is silent. The initiative is
surrendered to two pacifist writers, one of whom — Romain Rolland
— is undoubtedly a great writer and a prominent person, but a man
who is not engaged in politics, and the other — Barbusse — is a
pacifist and a mystic, a Communist or one expelled from the Communist
Party, but at any rate an advocate of the complete fusion of the
Communist parties with the Social Democracy. "Join us," say
Rolland and Barbusse. Answer "Present!" I'Humanité
joins in the refrain. Is it possible to imagine anything more
monstrous, more capitulatory, and more criminal than this crawling of
official communism before petty-bourgeois pacifism?
In
Germany it is declared impermissible to apply the tactic of a united
front to the mass organizations of the workers, with the aim of
exposing their reformist leaders. At the same time on an
international scale a united front is being applied, with its first
steps turned into a booster campaign for the worst in the gallery of
reformist traitors. Vandervelde is surely "for peace." He
figures that it is more advantageous and convenient to serve in the
ministry of his king in time of peace than in time of war. And so the
insolent platitudes of this social patriot, whose signature if I am
not mistaken appears on the Versailles peace treaty, are made into a
program for the huge antiwar congress. And I'Humanité
gives its support to this treacherous and pernicious masquerade.
In
Germany it is a question of preventing a fascist counterrevolutionary
pogrom which immediately and directly threatens not only the working
class but also its reformist organizations and even its reformist
leaders. For the Social Democratic gentlemen, it is a question of
salaries, of government privileges, and even of their own hides. One
must be in a state of complete bureaucratic idiocy to refuse to
utilize correctly and thoroughly in the interests of the proletarian
revolution the great, acute contradictions between fascism and the
Social Democracy.
On
the question of war, however, it is an entirely different matter. War
does not at all constitute a direct threat to the reformist
organizations, particularly to their leaders. On the contrary,
experience has shown that war opens up heady careers for the
reformist leaders. Patriotism is precisely the thing which most
closely ties the Social Democracy to its national bourgeoisie. If it
is possible, even inevitable, that the Social Democracy will be
forced in some form or other, within certain bounds, to defend itself
against fascism when the latter will seize it by the throat — and
it will seize it — the possibility that the Social Democracy of any
country would conduct a struggle against its bourgeoisie when war is
declared, even if against the Soviet Union, is entirely excluded. The
revolutionary campaign against war has as its particular and specific
aim the exposure of the deceit and the decay of Social Democratic
pacifism.
But
what does the Comintern do? It prohibits the utilization of the
absolutely real and deep antagonism between the Social Democracy and
fascism on a national scale, while it attempts to grab hold of the
illusory, hypocritical antagonism between the Social Democracy and
its imperialist masters on an international scale.
While
in Germany the united front is altogether prohibited, on the
international arena the united front is from the very beginning given
the decorative cover of a deliberately deceptive and rotten
character. Exploiting the idealistic naivete of the entirely sincere
Romain Rolland, all the fakers and dirty careerists, retired Social
Democratic ministers and candidates for the post of minister, will
declare "Present!" For this gentry the congress will serve
as a sanatorium where they will improve their somewhat tarnished
reputations in order to sell themselves at a higher price. This was
the way the participants in the Anti-Imperialist League acted. We are
faced with a repetition of a Kuomintang and an Anglo-Russian
Committee on a world scale.
There
are pedants who doubt that we are correct in defining the
international Stalinist faction as centrist. Those who have been
poisoned by ill-digested texts are incapable of learning from living
facts. Here you have ideal, classic, universal centrism in full
bloom: its nose turned to the right, its tail still strongly inclined
toward the left Draw a line uniting its nose with its tail and you
will find the orbit of centrism.
History
is at a breaking point. The whole world today is at a breaking point.
And centrism is at a breaking point. In the USSR the Stalinists
continue to babble about the abolition of classes in five years as
they simultaneously restore the free market The ultraleft tail
doesn't know yet what the wise opportunist head has decided. In the
field of cultural matters, the policy has been given a sharp turn to
the right A silent turn, to be sure, without any commentary, but all
the more threatening for that reason. The same process occurs in the
policies of the Comintern. While the unlucky Pyatnitskys are still
chewing the remnants of the ultraleft cud, the Manuilskys have
already been ordered to turn their heads to the right, without regard
for their backbones. Never before in the nine years of its activities
has the epigone school revealed its lack of principle, its poverty of
ideology, and its trickery in practice in so naked and shameless a
manner as this.
Bolshevik-Leninists!
The symptoms of a great historical turning point are accumulating on
the world arena. This is bound to affect the destiny of our faction.
We are already charged with tasks of truly great historical
significance. The struggle against war means above all a struggle
against pacifist masquerades and centrist-bureaucratic fraud. We must
launch a merciless campaign to expose the contradictions of the
Stalinist apparatus, whose bankruptcy in the impending great events
is inevitable.
The
defense of the USSR is not a parlor phrase which the not always
disinterested friends of the Stalinist bureaucracy repeat. The
international defense of the USSR is becoming more and more dependent
on the international revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. When
the life and death of millions are at stake, the greatest clarity is
needed. Nobody today renders better service to the class enemy than
the Stalinist apparatus which, in the struggle for the remains of its
prestige, sows confusion and chaos everywhere.
Bolshevik-Leninists!
You will be charged with an enormous task. Weeks and months are
approaching when all revolutionists will have to show their worth.
Carry the ideas of Marxism and Leninism into the ranks of the
advanced workers. Help the international proletarian vanguard
extricate itself from the strait jacket of the Stalinist bureaucracy,
which has lost its head. What is involved is no small matter: it is
the fate of the USSR and the world proletarian revolution.
Leon
Trotsky