Leon Trotsky: A Great Success

On the Preconference of the Left Opposition

March 1933

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 5, 1932-33, New York 1972, p. 129-132]

The international conference of the Left Opposition held in Paris at the beginning of February was modestly called a "preconference." In essence, however, it was a very authoritative conference. True, not all the organizations could take part in it, but all the major sections were represented. The very fact that in the conditions of severe unemployment today, which create considerable hardships for proletarian organizations, there was not a single "emigre" at the conference mandated through the mail sufficiently demonstrates the live character of the preconference. From different ends of Europe and from America too, genuine leaders of the Left Opposition met for a few days.* The decisions of the conference presented the international experiences of the Bolshevik-Leninists at first hand.

*At the party conference were representatives of Oppositionist organizations from twelve countries: the USSR, Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, the United States, Greece, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Switzerland.

The conference did not produce any new revelations out of an ink pot Neither was it engaged in the literary reconciliation of different points of view. In the area of the fundamental principles of revolutionary strategy, the conference noted, confirmed, and legitimized all the gains that had been solidly won by the sections and by the whole International Left Opposition in the course of the preceding year's critical work and political struggle.

The conference did not adopt a finished program. But it approved the principal theses which themselves offered the directives for a platform. The importance of this document does not require explanation. In the last years not a few documents have been written, including an official Comintern program which had one single aim: to gloss over ideological contradictions, reconcile irreconcilable opinions, justify total errors, and conceal the oscillations of the leadership, not to speak of its formulas. The programmatic theses offered at the conference were of quite a different kind. The purpose of the theses — which distinguishes the Left Opposition from all the other currents and groups in the Communist camp — was to show why it opposes them as particular organizations and, moreover, show it not in abstract, theoretical formulas which permit of differing interpretations, but with concrete references to revolutionary experiences in all countries of the world. In the eleven paragraphs of the theses there were not the slightest political "improvisations"; every line presented only the headings of the definite chapters of past fights in which the views of the Bolshevik-Leninists came implacably into collision with the views of bureaucratic centrism.

The deepest significance of the work of the conference is precisely that it was not engaged in repeating commonplaces of Marxism and strategic projects but that it summarized concisely the conclusions of the real workers' movement and the tasks of its Communist vanguard. Here precisely lay the difference between the Marxist faction (however small it is today) and all and every kind of sectarianism.

We do not consider ourselves summoned to give the workers new commandments drawn from the mind of a dozen saviors. We draw our "commandments" from the movement of the working class itself. We remain fully in the historical tradition of Marxism and by this pave the way for its future development.

The elaboration of a platform for the Bolshevik-Leninists remains a very great and responsible task. For it to be done, much will depend on collective work. But difficulties in this direction are mainly of a theoretical and literary-technical character. The political orientation of the platform is already determined. Before the elaboration and adoption of its final texts, the International Left Opposition is sufficiently equipped with documents which take the place of a platform for the most immediate problems of the proletarian revolution.

Till the adoption of its ill-fated program by the Sixth Congress, blinded by the light from the eyes of Bukharin and Stalin, the Comintern had based itself on the document worked out by Lenin, known as "the twenty-one points." In contrast to that program which is suitable only for the scrap heap, the Lenin document today preserves not only its historical but also its political significance, particularly where it deals with the delimitation of and struggle against all varieties of centrism of Social Democratic origin. The "eleven points" adopted by the preconference were based on Lenin's twenty-one points and supplement them in line with new experiences, arming the proletarian revolutionaries with criteria for delimiting and struggling against centrism of Communist origin. In that sense, the eleven points present "eleven commandments" for adoption by the ranks of the Left Opposition.

The theses approved by the conference must be thoroughly checked, corrected, and supplemented by the active participation of all the sections. This cannot and must not, however, limit itself to a once-for-all criticism of the text as a document. The theses must be continuously and daily checked in the light of political struggles. The editors of our papers, our speakers and propagandists must have the text of the theses always in their hands and consult it on each and every important occasion. Only in such a way will it be possible collectively to correct individual inaccuracies and fill in substantial omissions. Only in this way — and this is not less important — will it be possible to arrive at genuine organic unity of viewpoints on all fundamental problems of the struggle.

Uniform, literary, ostentatious "declarations" are not needed by the Left Opposition. Such declarations abound in the Comintern whose allegiance already sworn to "the general line" and the "leaders" ties its hands when it comes to unexpected vacillations and maneuvers. We do not counterpose the holy "general line" to its sinful "application" as the Christians counterpose the spirit to the flesh. Only through the flesh does the spirit become manifest. Only through the application does the real value of the general line become manifest. The conference very well and firmly recalled this to those groups and individuals in our own midst who attempted to bring to us a regime of double bookkeeping — the organic peculiarity of every kind of centrism. The Left Opposition uncompromisingly demands unity of thought and action.

The Paris conference carried out its work on the eve of a decisive turn in Germany, which was reflected inevitably in the entire world working class and in the first place in the fate of the Comintern. Thus, however future developments will go, though the way is both heavy and wearisome, the proletarian vanguard will grow stronger under blows and reach its full height for the fulfillment of its historical mission. But the Stalinist bureaucracy cannot be righted and will never rise up. It can still retain the strength of its material resources and its apparatus. But as a creative force in the workers' movement, it is dead. It is all too evident and beyond question that Stalin's policy supplements that of Wels because it ensures the success, though temporary, of Hitler's policy. The warnings from the Left Opposition were all too clear and persistent The maneuvers of the centrist bureaucracy were all too clumsy. The consequences of its crimes were all too tragic not only in the eyes of the whole world but in the very heart of Europe! No, it will not go unpunished. The death agony of bureaucratic centrism has already begun. The sooner it can be replaced by revolutionary Marxism the better the chances for securing the Comintern's survival and, what is more important, the nearer will be the moment when the October Revolution — not in potential but in fact — will spill over to permanent revolution in Europe and the whole world.

The Paris conference represents a modest but extremely important step along this road. The Bolshevik-Leninists of the whole world can congratulate themselves on a considerable success.