Leon
Trotsky: Letter to the International Secretariat
and the Leadership
of the Belgian Section
November
1, 1934
[Writings
of Leon Trotsky, Vol 7, 1934-1935, New York 1971, p. 101-104, title:
“Austria,
Spain, Belgium and the Turn”]
To
the International Secretariat and the Leadership of the Belgian
Section
Dear
Comrades:
I
have had an opportunity to peruse the minutes of the Viennese
Schutzbund conference at which Otto Bauer and Julius Deutsch
participated (June 1934). This document is full of lessons. It gives
an authentic picture not only of what Austro-Marxism was but also of
the unexpected and unhoped for gains of the Austrian Stalinists.
After breaking with the Social Democracy, the most militant workers
sought support in the Comintern. The minutes show that events have in
all seriousness vaccinated the advanced workers against reformism,
but have left them almost entirely defenseless against Stalinism.
This means that the best elements in the proletariat have as yet to
pass through other tragic experiences before they finally find their
way.
These
same minutes, ample enough and detailed though they are, do not make
any mention whatsoever of the various groupings of the Left
Opposition. It was in Austria that sectarianism, as exemplified by
Landau and by Frey, raged altogether unhampered. And the results? The
most formidable of crises came and passed entirely over the heads of
these grouplets, despite the fact that there had always been broad
sympathies for our ideas in Vienna. It is a very sad but,
nevertheless, invaluable lesson. It must be said now openly: ever
since the beginning of the crisis in the Austrian party, it was a
supreme duty of our friends to enter the Austro-Marxist party, to
prepare within it the revolutionary current. One cannot avow that on
that condition events would have taken a different path of
development But it is absolutely certain that no matter what
development events would have produced, our tendency would have come
out of it ten times, a hundred times stronger than it is now. The
objection may be raised that entry into a Social Democratic party a
year and a half ago would have been psychologically impossible, since
the evolution of the reformist and Stalinist parties was not then
advanced sufficiently to impose on us our new orientation. This
objection would be quite correct. But in this letter we are not
concerned with finding an explanation or a justification for the
shortcomings of this or that section at one moment or another. We are
concerned here with taking inventory of the fundamental tendencies
arising in the labor movement since the defeat in Germany, which
imposes upon us a much more daring turn towards the masses. Without
this, entirely fresh layers of the proletariat will be pushed into
the arms of Stalinism, and another whole period will be lost for the
revolution.
The
recent, as yet brief, experience of our French section already
enables us to adduce a positive confirmation of the negative lessons
of the Austrian experience. It is becoming self-evident that the
French section has made a great step forward, which may have some
genuinely salutary consequences … always on the condition, however,
that the Bolshevik-Leninist Group learns to rid itself of
propagandistic narrowness and, without losing sight for a moment of
its clear ideas and slogans, shows an ability to adapt itself to the
milieu of the masses in order to fuse our program with their
experiences and their struggles. It may be said now almost with
certainty that, if we had been able to bring about entry into the
SFIO right after the departure of the Neos and, in any case, before
the conclusion of the united front, we should already at the present
be able to show considerable successes to our credit All this is said
not in order to deplore things that are past but in order that we may
learn — and we must all learn without any exceptions — to
orient ourselves on a national scale more rapidly and more
courageously.
I
have not as yet received any documents on the recent events in Spain,
generally, and on the role played by our section. But the general
line of development suffices to draw the conclusion that our Spanish
comrades should have joined the Socialist Party there at the very
outset of the internal differentiation that began to prepare that
party for the armed struggle. Our position in the Spanish situation
would today be more favorable.
One
of our Belgian comrades who plays quite a part in the youth movement
has sent me some documents that describe the relationship existing
among the Young Socialist Guard [JGS], the Stalinists and ourselves,
and also a little about the internal life of the JGS. The conclusion
that I have drawn from these documents is that our young comrades
should immediately
join the JGS. With this declaration, I will perhaps run headlong up
against the impassioned objections of several dozen comrades. But I
firmly hope that the French experience will be convincing enough for
those of our friends who are more inclined to stress the dangers than
the advantages of the new orientation. In any case, the question
appears to me to be most urgent, a burning question even, and I pose
it before the international as well as the national leadership.
The
united front of the three youth organizations in Belgium was
naturally an important principled acquisition. The fact alone that
the question of so-called Trotskyism is posed before the Belgian
Young Socialists is itself a step forward. But I do not believe that
the triangular united front can last very long. Even if it does last,
I do not believe that it can bring us any additional important gains.
We are strong as a revolutionary tendency, but weak as an
organization. Accordingly, the united front, not only in the hands of
the opponents, but in those of the well-intentioned allies as well,
becomes an instrument to paralyze the development of our ideological
expansion through the very statutes of the united front The speeches
of our comrades at the negotiations between the three organizations
show the firm desire of our comrades to do their best and make the
most of it. But it is also apparent how they are hampered, if we wish
to avoid saying chained down, by the diplomacy
of
the united front. The disproportion between our forces and those of
the Socialists imposes upon our comrades, as a matter of fact, a very
modest attitude, and even too modest an attitude that corresponds to
the relationship of the numerical forces, but not at all to the
ideological role that we can and must play within the working-class
youth.
The
united front, as it is proceeding in France and elsewhere at present,
is poisoned by the diplomatic hypocrisy that is a means of
self-defense for the two bureaucracies. By placing ourselves on the
level of the united front as a weak organization, we are condemned in
the long run to play the part of a poor relation who must not raise
his voice too high so as not to incur the displeasure of his host. In
this manner, our organizational independence avenges itself upon our
political and ideological independence. We have witnessed the same
phenomenon in France after the events of February 6, and especially
after the realization of the united front. La
Vérité
today is much more independent in its criticism than it was before
the entry into the SFIO. That is not an accident The criticism that
was banished from the domain of inter-organizational relations can
only find its place in an intra-organizational form, not at all times
and not in every place, but in any case inside of the SFIO and, as
far as I am able to judge, inside of the JGS. In such a case,
organizational independence must give the right of way to political
independence. Inside the JGS, our comrades will be able to carry on
much more systematic work and much more fruitful work than from the
outside I have become definitely convinced of the necessity of entry
there, ever since I heard that the JGS members with whom our comrades
are in contact insisted that we come in and join them in their
organization.
To
postpone the decision would be a great mistake. The crisis in the
POB, and especially between the youth and the party leadership, may
become brusquely sharpened and lead to a split. In that case, the JGS
would unquestionably look to the Stalinists for attachment, in the
manner of the Austrian left. That would mean a whole series of
demoralizing experiences with the bureaucracy, an unfavorable
"purge," that is, a selection of docile camp followers and
careerists, the expulsion of the embattled and independent
characters. In order not to perish, the JGS requires an
anti-Stalinist vaccination. Only our comrades can provide it for
them. But in order to fill this sanitary requirement, our comrades
must be entirely free from the embarrassment imposed upon them by the
statutes of the united front It is necessary to go along with the
JGS, to partake of their experiences, to inculcate them with our
ideas and methods on the basis of these experiences.
I
have not yet received any documents on the last congress of the POB.
The question of the attitude of the left — including the Action
Socialiste
— is of extreme importance to the development of the proletarian
vanguard in Belgium. But it seems to me that entry into the JGS is
just as necessary, in case of an accentuation of the struggle inside
the party as well as in the case of a momentary lapse. I shall await
with the greatest impatience the opinions of the Belgian comrades.
Crux
[Leon Trotsky]
P.
S. The SFIO is, in a certain sense, a petty-bourgeois organization
not only because of its dominant tendency but also because of its
social composition: the liberal professions, municipal functionaries,
labor aristocracy, teachers, white-collar workers, etc. This fact
naturally limits the possibilities created by the entry itself. The
POB, on the other hand, embraces the working class, and the
composition of the JGS is proletarian in its overwhelming majority.
That means that adherence to the JGS would open up even more
favorable opportunities for us.