Leon Trotsky: Letter to the International Secretariat

March 2, 1935

[Writings of Leon Trotsky, Vol 7, 1934-1935, New York 1971, p. 210-218, title: “The Belgian Dispute and the De Man Plan”]

To the International Secretariat

Dear Comrades,

I am absolutely in agreement with your appraisal of the dispute in our Belgian section. After studying the documents concerning the crisis, I would like to enlarge a little on my point of view.

On January 15, 1935, Brussels wrote to all the members of the Belgian section: "Our differences merely become intensified. … We cannot as revolutionary militants share, even partially, in the responsibilities.” This is the language of split If the attitude of the national and international organization is so bad that it no longer allows "revolutionary militants" to bear even a part of the responsibility, nothing remains but split.

On January 29, Vereecken wrote to the IS: "I am anxious to let you know quite frankly that the 'non-entrist' comrades and myself consider more and more that this radical step is most harmful and the IS must not maintain the slightest illusions regarding an eventual change in our political position. We consider it a political, historical error of the greatest dimensions, and we shall continue, in the interest of the revolutionary movement and the formation of the Fourth International, to fight this tendency with all our strength."

It is the same language. If the Brussels comrades persuade themselves "more and more" that our tactic is most harmful, if we must have no illusions as to an eventual change in the ideas of the Brussels comrades, this can only mean that Comrade Vereecken is busying himself conscientiously and systematically with preparation for a split.

"Our differences merely become intensified." The degeneration of the ICL becomes, for the critics of Brussels, "more and more" obvious. But since the differences have taken on an open and acute character particularly since the discussion on the entry of our French section into the SFIO, we must wait until Comrade Vereecken gives us an analysis of the experience in France since the entry. It is evidently in the light of this experience that he has had to convince himself "more and more" of our decadence. But this is where the enigma begins. In all the documents available to me, I find no analyses by Comrade Vereecken of the activity of our French section. This may appear surprising.

Comrade Vereecken predicted the absolute impossibility of the Bolshevik-Leninists developing their ideas within the Social Democratic party. He predicted the opportunist degeneration and the complete discrediting of our tendency. Does he make any attempt to analyze the real facts? Does he compare his predictions with the living reality? No, not in the least He was implacable when it was a question of predictions, of discussions, of preliminary questions, but since it has become a reality, Vereecken has lost all interest in the question. This fact characterizes perfectly the abstract manner in which Vereecken approaches ideas and problems.

But we Marxists are interested, above all, in facts. And on the basis of the five months that have passed since the entry, we say: each day and each new fact only give the lie to the purely negative and sterile attitude of Vereecken at the time of the French discussion. And if he is not capable of seeing it and admitting it openly, it is not surprising if he travels farther and farther from Marxism in the direction of Bordigism, that is, of nothing.

Vereecken complains: "The discussion of the youth [was] carried out at a racing speed" and also "the vote was taken in confusion," etc. … Vereecken's trouble is that he separates completely the question of the Belgian youth and the question of the French entry and the experience of the French League For him, political activity is only a series of discussions. The French question was long and bitterly discussed internationally and, above all, in Belgium. In the light of these discussions and, above all, of the experiences that followed them, the question of entry into the Belgian Young Socialist Guard hardly demanded discussion for all Marxists concerned with the facts of reality — but that, unfortunately, was not the case with Vereecken. In turning his back on the French experience, which pitilessly disowns him, he simply wishes to have a new "discussion" and, especially, that it should last, since activity is for him internal discussion.

"Our differences merely become intensified." But what is the most important point of these differences in Belgium? The question of the de Man plan, which on its side has reduced itself to the question of inflation. It is amazing to see the importance that Vereecken attributes to this question. His bulletins are full of demonstrations of the evil intentions of de Man, who aspires to inflation. Formalist minds frequently seize upon altogether secondary questions to inflate them out of all proportion. Are we, for example, knights of the Belgian franc? Is the saving of the existing currency our way of salvation? One cannot understand the anti-inflation fanaticism of Vereecken. In this period of social crisis, of economic shocks, inflation and deflation are two complementary instruments for throwing on to the people the cost of decaying capitalism. Bourgeois parties organize formidable discussions on the question: is it better to cut the workers' throats with the saw of inflation or with the simple knife of deflation? Our struggle is directed with the same energy against the saw and against the knife.

But Vereecken steels himself, above all, against inflation. To expose the plan of de Man, he has created a special aphorism: "nationalization by means of buying back is a kind of inflation." It is the buying back that must be countered without becoming embroiled in questions of financial technique. But no, Vereecken is intent on showing that de Man is an inflationist. He goes so far as to say that ”a campaign in the paper on this question would have been most significant for our tendency." But, if I am not mistaken, it is the Theunis government that today starves the people, brandishing, meanwhile, the fan of the inflationist plan of de Man. That helps in the best way the knife of deflation. But since all that takes place in reality and not in discussion, Vereecken remains indifferent. He demands from the journal a special campaign against not the deflation of Theunis but the problematic and, in any case, far distant inflation of de Man. All of Vereecken's mentality is revealed in this instructive episode.

Vereecken writes: "Since one knows, and one has agreed to write, that the plan is a deception for the workers, and one knows besides that shady negotiations are taking place in order to deliver a treacherous blow against the toiling masses, Charleroi continues to leave the workers to struggle in total darkness. One goes so far today as to confound the plan with socialism in La Voix. … The editors of La Voix can no longer distinguish between a deception, a delusion, a treason and socialism."

You can see, comrades, the case is serious. Vereecken accuses La Voix not only of identifying deception and treason with socialism but, moreover, of doing it with full knowledge of the fact. The editors of La Voix know that it is a deception, but instead of unmasking it, Lesoil and his friends cover it up, lead the workers into the trap, participate in the treason. And our international organization? Let us read about it in the letter of January 15: "We finish by accusing the IS and Comrade Vidal of covering up the position of Charleroi and we say: to each his responsibility."

You see, the case is serious. The leaders of the Belgian section consciously betray the proletariat, and the international leadership covers them in this work.

But do not hasten to become annoyed. It is not the bad faith of Vereecken that is at stake; it is his anti-Marxist journalist thought that flies from reality and concerns itself with phantoms.

To show that the plan of de Man is a deception, Vereecken builds up a complete Eiffel Tower of demonstrations of the inflationist danger that interests us. De Man is for buying back, and buying back can only be a terrific expense for the people. By what technical process the buying back is effected, that is a question of tenth-degree importance But, imitating Theunis, Vereecken brandishes the specter of inflation. That is the deception, that is the treason of which Lesoil is the accomplice and the IS the "fence." It would be funny if it were not so tragic, at least for Comrade Vereecken.

The criticism of the plan has been made many times; one can complete it If we had to present a plan to the Belgian proletariat, this plan would have had an altogether different aspect Unfortunately, the Belgian proletariat gave this mandate not to us but to the Belgian Labor Party [POB], and the plan reflects two facts: the pressure of the proletariat on the POB and the conservative character of this party.

In what consists the deception of the plan? In the fact that the leadership of the POB, de Man included, does not wish to lead the masses into struggle, and without struggle this plan, inadequate as it is, is completely unrealizable. Then, when we say to the masses that to realize this imperfect plan it is necessary to struggle to the end, we are far from covering up the deception; on the contrary, we are helping the masses to expose it by their own experience.

But you identify the plan with socialism, writes Vereecken. He merely forgets that in the mouth of de Man the word socialism means the same deception as the plan. And for the same reason, the leaders of the POB do not want a struggle. But they are caught in the wheels of the crisis of capitalism and of reformism. They were forced to proclaim the plan and even to make of it the platform of the Belgian proletariat It is a fact. What is our task? To help the workers to turn the wheels into which the opportunist leaders have been forced to thrust their hands.

Allow me, comrades, to recall a classic example. The Russian Social Revolutionary Party formulated in May 1917 its "plan," that is to say, its agrarian program, basing itself on hundreds of peasant demands. The program contained the expropriation of private landed property, the periodic redistribution of the land among the peasants, the abolition of wage-labor in agriculture, etc. … In all, the democratic-revolutionary slogan (expropriation of the landed gentry) was linked to utopian demands, to petty-bourgeois prejudices. The party of Kerensky-Chernov that had launched this "plan" remained in governmental coalition with the gentry and the capitalists.

What was the attitude of the Bolsheviks? They criticized the internal contradictions and inadequacies of the program. But, before all, they recognized that the realization of this program would mean an enormous advantage for the peasants, for the whole people. However, the program could not be realized in collaboration with the exploiters. The Bolsheviks did everything to draw the peasants into the struggle for their plan. They even finished by inscribing the plan into their program of action. They declared to the peasants the faults of your program — we will correct them together with you in the light of common experience, when we have gained power. However, your leaders, Kerensky, Chernov and the others do not want a struggle. Therein lies their deception. Try to draw them into the struggle, and if they are obstinate, drive them out!

This policy was neither trickery nor treason. It was the true policy of Marxist realism. Without this policy, the October Revolution would have been impossible.

The revolutionary task consists in demanding that the POB take power in order to put its own plan into effect. Vereecken replies to this: No! It is necessary to demand a workers' government and not simply a socialist government. We must not forget the Stalinist workers, and besides, the plan is no good — it threatens us with inflation. I, Vereecken, I will propose a better plan. Is this serious? No, it is ridiculous. Vereecken sets himself outside of reality. He constructs in his imagination a united front that does not exist in Belgium. For this imaginary united front he proposes an imaginary program, that is, Vandervelde and Jacquemotte ought to fight together for the perfect plan dreamed up by Vereecken. In this way matters will be splendidly arranged.

Vereecken tries to quote Gourov in favor of his point of view on the campaign around the plan. This is at least an unfortunate misunderstanding. Gourov's letter recognized the necessity of taking a position on the basis of the campaign, in favor of the socialist party [POB] taking power to carry out its own plan. That's all. Gourov insisted only on the necessity of a sharp criticism of the left socialists. At least nine-tenths of the Gourov letter coincided with the Charleroi position, whereas Vereecken previously was characterizing the de Man plan as an expression of social fascism.

Seizing upon some insufficiently precise formulations in La Voix, Vereecken accuses its editors of being subservient to the general staff of the POB and the unions and of renouncing Marxist criticism. This new betrayal is committed as the purchase price for the possibility of entering the POB. Take note of the heinousness of the accusation. The startling disproportion between the facts, that is, the quotations, and the accusation reaches the level of a slander. I take up the issue of La Voix that I have just received. I read there: "The victory won by the government on February 4 — and this with the aid of the leaders of the POB and the CS [union federation]." The same article says that the leaders of the POB have reaffirmed with all "the declared enemies of the working class their attachment to the bourgeois regime," and so on and so forth. Really, you do not use such language when you are trying to sell out to the bureaucracy of the POB and the CS. In the same issue there is a criticism of l'Action Syndicate [Union Action], which advises the government to bend under the "pressure^ of the demonstration. "Those who speak like this to the workers deceive them," says La Voix. No, La Voix is not vassalized to the union chiefs; it does not deceive the workers, whatever it otherwise does, or whatever errors it sometimes commits. But these mistakes of La Voix pale into insignificance alongside the mountains of errors, distortions, unwarranted accusations and complete misconceptions of reality on the part of Comrade Vereecken.

The gravest mistake for which La Voix can be reproached — here I am in complete accord with Comrade Martin — is that our Belgian friends identify the revolutionary struggle too much with the general strike. Just as a simple strike has need, above all in this epoch, of a picket line, so a general strike needs a workers' militia, which in the last analysis is nothing else but a generalized picket line. The general strike poses the problem of power, but does not resolve it What is always involved at bottom is the question of armed force. The fascists penetrate everywhere, in the barracks, through the officers on active duty as well as those in the reserves. The proletarian vanguard should step up their efforts to strengthen their moral ties with their brothers in the barracks. Thus the struggle for power requires not only preparation of the general strike but also education of the will of the vanguard to pass from the defensive to the offensive, to set about creating a workers' militia and to win over the workers in the army. But it is very significant that Vereecken doesn't breathe a word about this. He condemns La Voix only when it is perfectly correct.

Vereecken's general attitude resembles that of Bauer, but with a certain time lag. The conservatism of both is offended by the fact that we are passing from the stage of individual propaganda to systematic action among the masses. This transition, which was made inevitable by the logic of things and was foreseen by us a long time ago, seems to them an abnegation of principles, a surrender, a betrayal. If there really has been an abandonment of the most fundamental Marxist principles, it has been by Bauer, by Vereecken, by the unavowed Bordigists and Hennautists.

The stage of individual educational propaganda was inevitable. When the centrists accused us of sectarianism, we answered them: without a minimal Marxist cadre, principled action among the masses is impossible. But that is the only reason we form cadres. To one of the French opportunists who often spoke of our sectarianism, the Biulleten replied in June 1929: Yes, "among us there are elements who remain satisfied to sit at home and criticize the mistakes of the official party, without setting themselves any broader tasks, without assuming any practical revolutionary obligations, converting the revolutionary opposition into a title, something akin to an Order of the Legion of Honor. There are, in addition, sectarian tendencies that express themselves in splitting each hair into four parts. It is necessary to struggle against this. And I am personally ready to wage a struggle against it, and not to be deterred, if need be, by old friendships, personal ties, and so forth and so on." These lines were written, comrades, almost six years ago. It is therefore not at all a question of an unexpected turn, provoked by some exceptional circumstances. It is a case of the growth of our tasks and obligations determined by all of our preceding work. The exceptional circumstances only give an extraordinary sharpness to our new tasks.

In Engels's correspondence with Sorge, which went on for several decades, on almost every page we can find remarkable observations on the question that concerns us here. In England, as in the United States, Marxism remained for too long a time at the level of a propaganda society. Engels never tired of repeating that Marxism is not an academic doctrine or a sectarian profession of faith but an instrument for systematic work among the masses. In 1886, Engels said:

"If they succeed in the Socialist League in educating a nucleus of people who understand things theoretically, a great deal will have been gained for the launching of a real mass movement …"

You see that Engels well understood the importance of a nucleus of theoretically educated people. But this was not for him an end in itself. That same year he wrote about the German Marxists in the United States:

"The Germans have not understood how to use their theory as a lever which could set the American masses in motion; they do not understand the theory themselves for the most part and treat it in a doctrinaire and dogmatic way as something that has to be learned by heart, which then will satisfy all requirements forthwith. To them it is a credo and not a guide to action" (emphasis added).

I ask you, isn't this the case with Bauer and Vereecken, who have learned by heart the abstract definitions of reformism and of the Second International, etc., which serve them not to accelerate but, on the contrary, to check our revolutionary activity among the masses?

One month later Engels wrote again about the pseudo-Marxists who in the face of a real mass movement have tried to make of the "not always understood [Marxist] theory a kind of Salvationist dogma, and thereby to keep aloof from any movement that did not accept that dogma." Isn't this the case with Vereecken in the face of the mass movement favoring the plan?

In February 1887 Engels wrote: "That great national movement, no matter what its first form, is the real starting point of American working-class development If the Germans join it in order to help it or to hasten its development in the right direction, they may do a great deal of good and play a decisive part in it If they stand aloof, they will dwindle down into a dogmatic sect and be brushed aside as people who do not understand their own principles" (emphasis added). Isn't this a mirror created for the Bauers, Vereeckens and others?

Two years later, in April 1891, Engels cited an example in order to draw this conclusion from it "It demonstrates how very useless a platform that is largely theoretically correct can be, if it does not know how to link itself with the real needs of the masses." Finally, a year before his death, Engels castigated the English and American Marxists "that have managed to reduce the Marxian theory of development to a rigid orthodoxy which the workers … have to gulp down … as an article of faith." I could multiply these quotations endlessly. You will find without difficulty the same ideas adapted to different conditions by Lenin, whose revolutionary intransigence, we know, had nothing in common with sectarian sterility.

What are our conclusions? Vereecken now represents a reactionary tendency in our ranks. His acts of indiscipline may become very important in and of themselves, but they have in this situation for us only a secondary importance. We should unreservedly condemn his false and sterile conceptions, which, if they won over the leadership, could only reduce our tendency to the pitiful role of the Bordigists, Hennautists, etc. … It is necessary to declare openly that we cannot and will not accept the slightest responsibility for the Bauer-Vereecken tendency.

Does this exclude common work in the future, even tomorrow, even today? For my part, no. If Bauer, after his unfortunate experience, which has isolated him completely in Germany as well as in the emigration, should return to our ranks, he will be welcome. Nobody would impose humiliating conditions on him in the Stalinist manner. It is not possible to act without making mistakes. The crime begins when one refuses to correct mistakes proved by experience.

If Comrade Vereecken knew how to overcome his capricious and anarchistic individualism, if he will strive to orient himself not in accord with his own texts but in accord with the reality of the struggle, he has only to reenter the ranks that he deliberately broke away from. On our part he will find the most sincere wish to collaborate. Decisive are not the unfortunate episodes of internal struggle but the revolutionary conception and methods. Do we have these in common or not? That is the question Vereecken should answer if he is to regain his place in our ranks.

Crux [Leon Trotsky]