Leon Trotsky: Letter to the International Secretariat

December 1934

[Writings of Leon Trotsky, Vol 7, 1934-1935, New York 1971, p. 108-111, title: “On the SAP's Proposals”]

To the International Secretariat

For All Sections

From the formal point of view, the SAP proposal can be considered a certain step forward. The most important gain is that the SAP for the first time characterizes Comintern policy not as ultraleft but as a continuous oscillation between ultraleft and right But even this concession to our criticism is not drawn out to the necessary consequences. What is the significance theoretically and politically of a tendency — or, to say it better, of a world organization — that oscillates between two extremes? These oscillations should have a social body and a political physiognomy. Long ago we defined it as bureaucratic centrism. The SAP leaders have fought against this definition. They propose no other for it The oscillations remain enigmatic. The necessity to liberate the world proletarian vanguard from the grip of the Soviet bureaucracy thus remains unmotivated. The first theoretical concession, stopping halfway, remains worthless. (See page 7 of the theses.)

Page 5 defines fascism and page 6 reformism tied to bourgeois democracy. But the theses do not breathe one word on the transitional stage between the reformist democratic epoch and the fascist epoch. The SAP omits completely the question of Bonapartism, which for a large number of countries is the most burning actuality. How can one orient oneself in the present political situation in France, Belgium, Holland, etc., without having given a definition and explanation of neo-Bonapartism?

In the theses on war, it is surprising to find nothing about the role of the national state in the present crisis of the capitalist system. The fundamental contradiction is between the productive forces of capitalism and the level of consumption of the masses. But this contradiction does not present itself in an arena of capitalism that is one and indivisible. The national state delimits the framework within which this contradiction comes to light. That is how the contradiction between the productive forces of capitalism and the national state becomes the immediate cause of wars. Without characterizing the economically reactionary role of the national state, one cannot refute the idea of national defense. That is why the theses are very weak on this major point.

But even more important than these theoretical and political mistakes and omissions (there are still more) is the main equivocation on which is based the whole organization of the LAG. This equivocation is inherent in a policy that substitutes the diplomacy of apparatuses for frank explanation and reciprocal Marxist criticism.

We read, "The IAG is not an International. Between its members there is as yet no such solidarity in theory and practice that it allows them to bear responsibility for the totality of the policy of each of the organizations." The equivocation is based on the words "die gesamte Politik" ("the totality of the policy"). The question is whether the SAP bears responsibility not for all the actions of the NAP but for its general orientation, its guiding line. The same question with respect to the ILP, etc. …

For us, the NAP policy is oriented in a direction diametrically opposed to our policy. In the sessions of the IAG, no trace can be found of an explanation of the general direction of the activity of the member parties. Under these conditions, the conference and theses of the IAG lose all revolutionary value. Worse than that, with suitably drawn-up theses they mask an activity that is directed in a contrary direction.

Sometimes we are answered with the objection, "But your French section has gone back into the Social Democratic party. The Belgian Leninist youth is preparing to adhere to the JGS. How can you, you Bolshevik-Leninists, under these conditions upbraid us bitterly for the lack of cohesion in the IAG?!”

This argument is absolutely false. Our French section is not keeping a double set of books. It does not separate its principles from its actions. It does not substitute diplomacy for revolutionary criticism. Sometimes it is compelled to limit the form in which it expresses its ideas. But it is never silent on the essentials, including the mistakes and crimes of the SFIO leaders. In contrast, the IAG is stubbornly silent on all questions that have real importance and, above all, on the policy of the NAP leadership that is preparing the ground for fascism in Norway.

It is true that page 8 of the theses on tasks "obliges” (verpflichtet) the member organizations to orient their policies toward the conquest of power, etc. … It obliges (verpflichtet) them to elaborate programs of action, etc. … These "obligations" should give the IAG the appearance of wishing to take a step forward toward theoretical and political cohesion. But in reality this is no more than a purely formal procedural matter. How can one "oblige" what-you-will organizations that never give any account of their activity and that cannot even tolerate any criticism by other organizations? To "oblige," it is necessary to be able to control. And to control, it is necessary to have the right to criticize.

De Man, Jouhaux and others want to "oblige" capitalist economy to be directed. But they reject the slogan of control of production, beginning with the abolition of commercial secrets — and for a reason! The plan of directed economy separated from real activity is nothing but a witticism to distract or to mock at the naive while the abolition of commercial secrets, a much more modest slogan, demands implacable struggle against the bourgeoisie. The SAP theses represent a directed political plan. But the commercial secrets of Tranmæl and Co. remain intact. The whole misfortune lies there. And this misfortune totally annihilates the little progress in the theoretical formulas.

The equivocation continues, naturally, in the question of the new International. The theses recognize that "the two great Internationals have increasingly become brakes on the proletarian struggle," but at the same time they abstain from advancing the slogan of the new International (the Fourth). Why? Because Tranmæl and people like him proclaim with that air of fictitious wisdom peculiar to them that there is already one International too many. Imagine for a moment an agitator who declares at workers' meetings that the Second and Third Internationals are putting the brakes on and handicapping the proletarian revolution. The audience can agree or not, but they expect the speaker to say to them, "We must create on such-and-such a base a new International." But the speaker from the SAP does not have the right to say it He is disarmed. His criticism of the two Internationals is only a blank shot. That is why the SAP like the IAG is marking time.

The final slogan of the theses is the calling of a congress of all proletarian organizations against war. This slogan is a fiction from every point of view. Even if the most important organizations, like the trade unions, were to be prepared to sit with the Russian Bolsheviks if they found themselves the government to authorize such a congress, this result for the struggle against war would be altogether unofficial. It could even encourage bourgeois imperialism by the sight of our impotence. If the trade union, Social Democratic and Stalinist bureaucracies found themselves forced to convene such a congress, we would have to participate in it in order to struggle for our ideas and methods. But to make this congress our slogan and to proclaim it in advance as an instrument of struggle against war means sowing one illusion more. The workers are being saturated today with abstractions of the united front, the common front and organic unity. The "world congress" belongs to the same category of comforting fictions.

To sum up:

If the IAG wishes to stop being a dead weight, it should place at the head of the agenda for its February conference the reports of the member organizations (beginning with the NAP as the most important) on their activities in their own countries. Discussion, frank and without reticence, on the basis of the report should end up in the elaboration of theses on the general policy of the proletariat and of each member organization in particular. These theses can only begin with a merciless condemnation of Tranmælism and of every policy that flirts with it.

In a word, we must say openly what is. That is the true beginning of wisdom.

Crux [Leon Trotsky]