Leon Trotsky: Statement of the Pan-American Committee

April 5, 1939

[Writings of Leon Trotsky, Vol 11, 1938-1938, New York ²1974, p. 295-297]

Comrade Diego Rivera's rectification of March 20 concerning the creation of the Partido Revolucionario Obrero y Campesino [Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party] only serves to make even clearer the fundamental differences between us, concerning not only the question of the elections, but the fundamental principles of the proletarian class struggle.

It is not necessary to enter into a discussion of who took the initiative in the creation of the new party: the workers of the Casa del Pueblo or Diego Rivera himself. It is sufficient for us that he is the political secretary of the party and thus carries the whole responsibility for this body and its politics.

We consider a proletarian party as the main instrument in the liberation of' the working class. The base of such a party must include not empirical and conjunctural demands but a program of transitional slogans, and what is more important, the program of social revolution. The idea that one can create a party "ad hoc" for a concrete conjuncture is absolutely incredible and opportunistic in- its essence. A workers' party with a so-called minimum program is eo ipso a bourgeois party. It is a party which makes the workers support bourgeois politics or bourgeois politicians.

A revolutionary Marxist workers' party could discuss the question of whether or not it was advisable in this concrete situation to support one of the bourgeois candidates. We are of the opinion that under the given conditions it would be false. But the question placed before us by Diego Rivera's activity is incomparably more important. In reality, Comrade Rivera organized and is leading a new party on a petty- bourgeois, reformist program, without any international connections, with an anti-Marxist name (a party of workers and peasants), and opposes this party to the Fourth International as opportunist in its policy in the elections.

Imagine for a moment that our policy toward the elections is false; but it is an episodic question. Can one imagine that a Marxist puts the difference about this secondary or tertiary question above the program of the world revolution, breaks his international connections, and participates in a new party as a political secretary?

This fact alone shows that the divergences are incomparably deeper than Comrade Rivera, in his fantastic impulsiveness, believes.

We must add that before the absolutely unexpected creation of the new party, he elaborated another program for an alliance with the CGT, which called itself anarchistic. This program of Comrade Rivera's contained absolutely impermissible concessions to the anarchist doctrines. As we know, the alliance was not realized because the supposed allies, the heads of the CGT, abandoned their alleged anarchism for an open reactionary, bourgeois policy.

After this Comrade Rivera elaborated a document in which he accused the Third International of Lenin and the Fourth International of transforming the "anarchists" into bourgeois reactionaries. Of course we could not accept this apology for the anarchist bourgeois fakers and these accusations against the Marxist Internationals.

Now Comrade Rivera invokes letters of Comrade Trotsky. We cannot enter into this matter, which has nothing to do with our fundamental divergences. We simply mention that Comrade Trotsky's letters were written after Diego Rivera's resignation and thus could not have caused the resignation.

After his resignation Comrade Rivera declared that he would remain an active sympathizer. If there is any sense in human words, then an active sympathizer would mean a person who helps the party from the outside. But can we call anyone a sympathizer who creates a new party, opposing it to the Fourth International and its Mexican section? Is it possible to believe that the political secretary of a workers' and peasants' party with a petty-bourgeois, reformist program has no divergences with the Fourth International?

We all did everything in our power to restrain Diego Rivera from taking irreparable steps. We did not succeed. Driven by his own temperament and his fantastic mind, he committed a series of errors; and every error was a further reason for him to look for some sort of miracle which could show people that he was that he was right. In this way he tried to oppose the Casa del Pueblo to the Fourth International, to win the CGT, and now he is leading the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party. It is absolutely clear to every Marxist that the new enterprise will be an inevitable fiasco for which we cannot carry the slightest responsibility before the workers of Mexico and of the world. We must state openly that not only has Rivera resigned from the Fourth International, but that by his political activity he puts himself fundamentally outside the Fourth International. Where principles are involved we cannot permit any concessions, even toward such an important figure as Diego Rivera.

We cannot guess whether the new inevitable debacle will teach Comrade Rivera the road back to the Fourth International or whether he will be definitely absorbed by the current of intellectuals who are now breaking with Marxism in favor of a mixture of anarchism, liberalism, individualism, and so on. Needless to say, we hope that the first alternative will be realized.