Leon Trotsky: The IS Reply to the British Majority

January 23, 1934

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 14, New York 1979, p. 440 f.]

The majority of the British section has expressed the desire to have its policy statement distributed to all sections. Since this statement contains a number of serious mistakes, we consider it necessary to provide the following critical remarks along with it.

The National Committee elaborates mainly on the theme that discipline in an organization should be based on subordination of the minority to the majority. This idea, stated generally in this way, is as indisputable as it is empty. Discipline does not fall from the sky. It has to be cultivated. Real discipline is possible only with an authoritative leadership which proves its ability, through several major phases of development, to evaluate situations and draw the necessary practical conclusions. The British section is one of the very newest. It does not yet have forty members. Its work amounts mostly to individual propaganda. Under these conditions, there can be no question of a strong, authoritative leadership having been built; that is still a very long way off.

In putting ahead of everything the question of formal discipline, which in itself is very important, the National Committee forgets that discipline is not confined to national limits. The International Secretariat, which represents all of our sections — now numbering several thousand members — has expressed itself unanimously in favor of the British section entering the ILP. The IS, supported by all of the sections on this question, could have approached it right from the start on the level of formal discipline. Why did it not do this? Because, having assessed the limited political experience of the British section in advance, it wanted to avoid anything that could provoke a sharp dispute and place the British section outside of our organization. On the contrary, the IS wanted to give the British section the chance to make a transition, with as little shock as possible, from a period simply of study groups and propaganda to one of much broader political activity. Unfortunately, the National Committee did not understand the British situation, displayed a sectarian conservatism, and forced a split over the issue. Political responsibility for the split lies squarely on the majority, which has disdained the unanimous recommendations of our international organization. To this we must add that the conduct of the National Committee makes it more difficult now for the minority — which stands in solidarity with the majority of our International — to carry out its tasks.

Particularly surprising and unpleasant is the tone in which the National Committee refers to the other sections and our international organization as a whole. Everywhere they see an alleged failure to understand the principles of Bolshevism, which is the cause of factional conflicts, etc., while, in contrast to that, the National Committee of the British section is the only one that carries out a correct organizational policy.

A failure to grasp the proportions of political reality, which is characteristic of every conservative group, poses an extreme threat to the further development of the majority. To avoid a faction fight by causing a split is a very simple technique, but it has nothing at all in common with Bolshevism or Marxism; instead it is a product of the caricature of Bolshevism created by the epigones. It was with just such methods that the Comintern has destroyed itself and all of its sections. The British Communist Party was always the weakest section of the Comintern, and our British comrades have had no other experience than that of the British Communist Party. They should therefore pay more attention than ever to the voice of the other sections, which are working in a wider arena and have acquired far more substantial experience.

In any event, the split is a fact. And the split means there will be no organizational connection at all between the two groups. There can be no question of the National Committee’s controlling the work of the minority, since control would make such work impossible. From now on both groups will have equal rights and be independent of each other in their affiliation with the International Left Opposition. The fate of each group will become clear in the course of its subsequent activity. The International Secretariat will carefully follow the work of each group in order to prepare, if that should prove possible, their reunification at another political stage.