Leon
Trotsky: Suggestions for a French Program of Action
Spring
1934
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 14, New York 1979, p. 478-482]
The
national conference [of the Communist League] should not be a
gathering for receiving reports, analyzing past experience and
general perspectives, but rather a body for action and combat.
It
should work out a program of action made up of essential points for
directing all of our propaganda, agitation, and action.
Since
this document is not ready, the national conference can concern
itself with general discussion on the slogans to be introduced into
the program of action and with instructing the Executive Committee
(perhaps with the assistance of the IS) to come up with a definitive
version within ten days at most. The EC can form a somewhat larger
commission by bringing in some comrades from outside of the EC to
work out the program of action.
Here
are some suggestions for the program itself:
The
question of the “economy,” “the balanced budget”: This is a
question of reducing wages, pensions, unemployment compensation,
etc., and it is now the most burning issue. We are on the defensive
here, but we must conduct the fight in a concrete and vigorous
fashion.
The
ruling classes complain that they cannot afford new taxes. They heap
taxes on the peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie and they want
to starve the lower-ranking government employees, the disabled
veterans, etc. The question is posed in this form: “Are the ruling
classes going to become as poor as poor Chiappe?” The ruling
classes have a very good idea of the incomes, wages, and pensions of
the little people they starve and crush. But the people have no idea
of all the wealth and income of the ruling classes. They conceal
these by invoking “business secrets,” “professional secrets,”
etc. All of these are nothing but the secrets of the employers used
to promote their exploitation. Down with the secrets of the rich!
Open the books! Before consenting to, or better, before refusing new
sacrifices, we want to see what the real national income is and how
it is divided.
The
Stavisky affair showed us, in concentrated form, a tiny part of the
“national economy” and its secrets. We want to know about all the
Stavisky-type machinations of the ruling classes. After
“unprecedented efforts,” they lay before us a few of Stavisky’s
check stubs. The working class wants to see the bourgeoisie’s whole
checkbook with its own eyes. That is the essence of workers’ and
peasants’ control. The workers should have the opportunity to
familiarize themselves in depth with all the affairs of their
industry. With the help of honest bank employees, the peasants should
have a complete financial accounting from the banks that force them
into debt and ruin them.
Whatever
the plan for the reform of the country’s economic life might be,
the first condition is absolute clarity about the wealth of the
nation and its division. The veterans, whom they are once again
trying to influence with patriotic slogans, have the same interests
as the workers and peasants in knowing everything about the machinery
of the society which has led to crisis, confusion, and unprecedented
corruption. Our slogan is: Workers’ and peasants’ (including
veterans’) control of the banks, commerce and industry.
The
bourgeoisie will never consent to this willingly. If its secrets are
divulged, there will be nothing left for it to do but commit suicide,
like Stavisky. That is why it is financing fascist gangs. From now
on, the question of the division of the national income will be
settled with arms. That is the policy of the exploiters at bay.
The
exploited must defend themselves. To defend even their meager wages
and pensions, they have to organize and arm themselves against the
gangs of reactionary capitalism.
For
months, L'Humanité
has been calling for disarming and dissolving the fascist gangs. What
democratic illusions! We have just seen the parliamentary commission
of inquiry apply L'Humanité
&
slogan on “disarming.” They are beginning, it is true, with the
fascists, since they are the only ones armed. By doing this, they are
creating a democratic cover for not allowing the proletariat to have
the means to defend itself.
Our
slogan is not the disarming of finance capital’s gangs by finance
capital’s police, but rather a workers’ and peasants’ militia,
that is, the arming of the exploited people.
They
want to frighten us with the specter of civil war. If the real people
arm themselves, the exploiters won’t be able to launch a civil war.
On the other hand, if the people are unarmed, they can be made to bow
by successive bloodlettings.
Our
slogan is: For a workers’ and peasants’ militia! Arm the people!
With
the workers’ and peasants’ control and the militia we are still
at the level of defense. We don’t want to allow society to be
plunged into barbarism and decomposition. But that is not enough. It
is necessary to lead society out of the impasse it finds itself in,
and for that it is necessary to reorganize the national economy from
top to bottom by adapting it to the interests of the working people
and sacrificing the privileges of the usurers and Staviskys at the
top.
To
reorganize the economy, a government of the working people, a
workers’ and peasants’ government, is necessary. There is a lot
of talk about strong government, and this is not an accident. The
exploiters have bogged society down in the mud to such an extent that
ferocious energy and real revolutionary efforts will be required to
extricate it. The Jacobins gave us a fine example 140 years ago. It
was the poor, the little people, the exploited, who established the
government of the Mountain,
the
strongest government France has ever known. And it was that
government which saved France under the most tragic conditions. In
addition, the October Revolution has given us a more recent example
of what the working people can do when they take their destiny into
their own hands. The first condition for establishing a strong
government is for the workers to break all their political ties with
the bourgeoisie. The bloc of the working class should extend a
fraternal hand to the peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie so
that together they can vigorously oppose the bloc of the exploiters,
which is called “the government of national reconciliation,” “the
national union,” etc.
The
government issuing directly from the working people should liberate
the small peasants from the debts that are crushing them, to assure
them a place in the planned economy worthy of a civilized people.
The
bourgeoisie, the real expropriators of the land and of little people
in general, frighten the farmers with the specter of violent
expropriation by the proletariat. That is a lie! The example of
Soviet Russia, an example moreover that is distorted by the bourgeois
press, is not the rule. France has some great advantages: (a) its
population is far more cultured than the population of czarist
Russia; (b) the French proletariat can expect support from the USSR;
(c) it will be able to avoid not a few of the mistakes the Russian
proletariat made when it began transforming capitalist society.
What
crushes the peasant, the artisan, the small businessman, is
competition and taxes. By expropriating the wealth of the exploiters
for the benefit of the people, the government can ' considerably ease
the burden of taxes that falls on the peasants and the urban petty
bourgeoisie. By eliminating competition through a planned economy,
the workers’ and peasants’ government will be able to grant the
small producers (peasants, artisans, businessmen) full liberty to
dispose of their property and at the same time assure them of state
orders at a price that will considerably raise their standard of
living.
The
nationalization of the banks, the large landed property holdings, the
key industries, the railroads, does not mean the total
bureaucratization of economic life. The state economy can create the
necessary balance with the peasant and petty bourgeois economy, to
aid it, raise it up, and give it free choice to transform itself. The
proletariat can enter into an agreement with the peasants whereby the
final transformation of agriculture will take place only with the
consent of the peasants themselves. These honorable contracts between
two classes can be realized and at the same time guaranteed by a
workers’ and peasants’ government.
This
is the perspective we see for workers’ and peasants’ control. In
order to take the banks, transport, and key industries firmly in
hand, the working people should begin by extending their union
organizations — factory committees, bank committees, railroad
committees — throughout the whole capitalist system. Workers’ and
peasants’ control, in its first stages a defensive measure against
crushing taxes and wage cuts, becomes quite naturally the preparatory
stage for a planned, i.e., socialist, economy.
P.S.
These are only hastily written suggestions which make no claim beyond
serving as a point of departure for the discussion. The agrarian
question has to be formulated in precise terms. It is necessary
to try to give
an overall picture of the large estates and to indicate how the land
will be divided up (state farms, distribution to sharecroppers,
agricultural workers’ production cooperatives with state credits,
etc.). It would also be well to give an overall picture of peasants’
indebtedness and indicate the terms for liberating the small
peasants’ holdings from the mortgages that are crushing them.
For
the working class, it would perhaps be well to begin by stipulating
that a planned economy would allow an immediate transition to a
seven-hour day, and for mining and hazardous industries to a six-hour
day, and the establishment of a comprehensive system of real social
insurance.
Before
launching the program of action, it would be well to submit it for
analysis to the members and sympathizers of the League, impressing
upon them the necessity for a concerted campaign. The manifesto
containing the program of action should be concise and should be
widely distributed in the form of a leaflet. A special issue of La
Vérité
(possibly even with an enlarged format) and a special issue of
Octobre
Rouge
should be devoted to this campaign. Every comrade should participate
with full understanding of the great task the League is undertaking.
P.P.S.
The essential thing is that everything be done “quickly and
decisively”: no more than ten days for working out the final text.
The eleventh and twelfth days for preparatory meetings and speeches
throughout France. During this time the manifesto should be at the
printer’s. Within two weeks, the manifesto should more or less have
“covered” France. It should be presented everywhere through
speeches by adult and youth members.
Those
are my thoughts on the subject.