Writings of Leon Trotsky [Volume 04] (1932) - Léon Trotsky

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E|lN IRI|ISHUIs32]

Writings of Leon Tyotsky is a col_

lection, in twelve volumes, of pam_

phlets, articles, letters, and interviews

written during Trotsky,s third and

final exile ( 1929-1940). They include

many articles translated into English

for the first time. They do not include

the books and pamphlets from this

period that are permanenily in print,

nor most of the unpublished material

in the Trotsky Archives at Harvard

Universit5r Library.

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ffiOT5HUrurzl

PATHFINDER PRESs, INC.NEW YORK

Thls volume is dedlcated toEVELYN REED and GEORGE NOVACK

Copyright @ 1973 by Pathfinder press, Inc.Library of Congress Catalog Card Number ZB-g1624

Manufactured in the Untted States of Ameriea

Edited by George Breitman and Sarah Lovell

First Edttion, lg7g

PATHFINDER PRESS" INC.410 West Street

New York, N. Y. 10014

CONTENTS

PrefaceChronologyThe "Uprising' of November 7, 1927

(January 2, 1932)A Letter to the Politburo (January 4, 1932)The Left Opposition and the Right Opposition

(Pu.blished January 1932)Internal Polemics and the Party Press

(January 5, 1932)Reply to the Jewish Group in the Communist

League of France (January 15, 1932)No Deal with German Government

(January 23, 1932)Is Stalin Weakening or the Soviets?

(January 1932)For Collaboration Despite Differences

(February 10, 1932)Ans\ rers to Questions by the Neu York Times

(February 15, 1932)From a Letter to Simon and Schuster

(Febraary 26, 1932)Interview by the Associated Press

(Febnrary 26, 1932)Interview by the United Press

(February 29, 1932)On Being Deprived of Soviet Citizenship

(March 1, 1932)A Correction on Rakovsky (March 15' 1932)A Word of Welcome to Ostsobozhdenie

(March 29, 1932)

9t2

1518

2l

26

3r

32

44

45

51

52

57

6273

74

I See War with Germany (h"tblished Aprit 1982)The Left Social Democrats (.april 12, 1gg2)On a Political Novel (April 13, 1952)Answers to Questions by the Chicago Daity Nants

(April 23, 1932)"The Foundations of Socialism" (Mag 1g32)A Reply to May Day Greetings (May 4, 1992)"Blocs" and Absurdities (May 6, 1gg2)The Labor Party Question in the United States

(Mas 19, 1932)International and National Questions

(May 19, 1932)Who Should Attend the International Conference?

(Mas 22, 1932)To the Communist League of Struggle

(May 22, 1932)To a Bulgarian Worker in the U. S.

(May 24, 1932)Closer to the Proletarians of the "Colored"

Races! (June 13, 1932)The Coming Congress Against War

(June 13, 1932)Why I Signed Radek's Theses on Germany

(June 14, 1932)The Stalin Bureaucracy in Straits

(June 16, 1932)A Letter to the Workers of Zurich

(June 25, 1932)Hands Off Rosa Luxemburgl (June 29, 1gg2)An Appeal for the Biulletm (July 1g32)On Demyan Bedny (July 1gJ2)Declaration to the Antiwar Congress at

Amsterdam (July 25, 1932)Pilsudskism, Fascism, and the Character of Our

Epoch (August 4, 1932)Intensify the Offensive! (August 6, lgg2)Three Letters to Lazar Kling

(February 9-,&tgust 7, 1932)Perspectives of the Upturn (August 18, 1gB2)A Conversation with Trotsky

(Ausust 25, 1932)Greetings to the Polish Left Opposition

(August 31, 1932)

768384

85879192

94

98

99

LO4

110

111

113

118

t2t

127131143t44

148

156166

169

t73

L76

180

Fourteen Questions on Soviet Life andMorality (futernber 17, 1932)

Peasant War in China and the Proletariat(Sqternber 22, 1932)

"Do Not Ask So Longl (fuptember 22, 1932)From the Archives (fupternbr 1932)A Proposal to an American Editor

(hrblished Octobr 1932)For a Strategy of Action, Not Speculation

(October 3, 1932)Preface to the Polish Edition of Lenin's

Left-Win g C ommunisrn, an InfantileDisorder (October 6, 1932)

Zlgzags and Eclectic Nonsense(October 7, 1932)

Fifteen Years! (October 13, 1932)The Twelfth Plenum of the Comintern

(October 13, 1932)A Letter to Weisbord (Octobq 13, 1932)Mill as a Stalinist Agent (October 1932)The Lesson of Mill's Treachery

(Octobq 13, 1932)The Expulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenev

(October 19, 1932)On Field and Weisbord (Octobo 20, 1932)The Soviet Economy in Danger

(October 22, 1932)Leninism and Stalinism (October 1932)Greetings to The Militant (Nooember 1, 1932)Perspectives of American Marxism

(Nooernbr 4, 1932)To Friends in Frankfutt (Nooember 5, 1932)Field's Future Fuole (Nooembq 13, 1932)Stalin Again Testifies Against Stalin

(Autumn 1932)A Suppressed Speech of Lenin (Auturnn 1932)To Greek Friends En Route to Copenhagen

(Norsernbq 19, 1932)Press Statement at Marseilles

(Nooernbr 21, 1932)Press Statement on Leaving Dunkirk

(Nooernbq 22, 1932)Press Statement on Reaching Esbjerg

(Nooernbo 23, 1932)

182

192202203

2LO

212

22r

22823r

233236297

239

244255

258285291

293300301

302306

311

312

313

314

An Interview by Social-Demokraten(Nooernber 23, 1932)

An Interview by Potitika. (Norsenbr 23, 1932)Radio Message to the United States

(Nooember 27, 1932)Questions for Communists (Nooember 1932)To an Unknown Comrade (Noornbu 1932)Literary Proj ects and Political Consideration s

(Nooemba 1932)On Students and Intellectuals (Nooernbu 1932)A Bolshevik-Leninist Declaration on Comrade

Trotsky's Journey (Nooernber 1932)Answers to Journalists' Questions

(Decernba 3, 1932)An Open Letter to Vandervelde

(Decembr 5, 1932)A Telegram to Herriot (Duanbr 7, 1932)Press Statement at Brindisi (Decmtber 8, 1932)Press Statement at Istanbul (Decemba 11, 1932)

AppendixInterview on nProletarian Literature"bg Maurice Parijanine (April 1932)

Other Writings of 1932Notes and AcknowledgmentsIndex

315318

321326328

329331

335

338

340343344346

347356357409

PREFACE

Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, Leon Trotsky spent

the next four and a half years in T\rrkey, encept for a monthin 1932 when he went to Copenhagen to make a speech' Thepresent volume deals with his writings during the fourth yearof fri" stay in T\rrkey, including the Copenhagen month (No-verrrber-December), or, to be more precise, all of 1932 exceptits last half-month.

It was a year of acute ferment and instability' The Soviet

Union had not yet recovered from the severe economic dis-Iocations resulting from the bureaucratic collectivization of agri-culture, and its workers carried the full brunt of the sacrifices

d em anded by accelerated industrialization; political dissent wasbrutally repressed. Ttotsky's analysis of these developments-in "Th; Soviet Economy in Danger" and "The &pulsion ofZinoviev and Kamenev"-remains superior to that made byanyone else at that time. His own victimization in February,when the Kremlin deprived him of his Soviet citizenship' wasanswered in a stinging "Open Letter to the Central ErecutiveCommittee of the USS&" in which he called on the members ofthat body to carry out Lenin's last appeal and remove Stalinfrom the Soviet leadershiP.

In the major capitalist countries, staggering under the high-est level of unemployment in history, political shifts reflected

the radicalization of the masses and the polarization of society'In May, parliamentary elections in France led to the replacement of a conservative government by a liberal one; in No-vember, a similar result was obtained when Franklin D' Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. In Austria, onthe other hand., i right-wing coalition took over in May, andin Germany three different chancellors tried to rule as the Nazis

I

10 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1992)

gained strength at the ballot box and prepared for their take.over of the German government, which came early in 1938.Trotsky's major writings of 1932 on the German crisis arecollected in The Struggle Against Fascism in Gennang (path-finder Press, l97l), but important aspects of his views arerepresented here in such essays as "I See War with Germany,nwritten around a year before the Nazi victory.

In the Far East the Japanese militarists, who had invadedNortheast China in Septembeq 1931, consolidated their positionin Manchuria and established the puppet state of nlVlanchukuo";the League of Nations, sponsor of numerous disarmament andpeace conferences, did not take long to reveal its total impo-tence. Trotsky discussed these events and their relation to worldpolitics in his answers to journalists. In addition, he turnedhis attention to the Chinese Communist Part5r's latest activi-ties in letters to his Chinese comrades entitled "Peasant War inChina and the Proletariaf and "For a Strategy of Action,Not Speculation."

During the first haU of the year Trotsky was busy finish-ing his monumental History of the Russian Reuolution, butin the midst of that task, as well as after, his interests remainedvery broad. He wrote also about disarmament, pacifism, andthe ultraleftism then being practiced by the Comintern, an-swers to falsifications about the history of the Man<ist movement, on "proletarian literature," the perspectives of AmericanMarxism, the rwolutionary fufure of the oppressed coloredraces, morality and the family in the Soviet lJnion, problemsof representation at a coming international conference of theLeft Opposition, and a radio speech to the United States fromCopenhagen (his first speech in English). Included here areinterviews by the Associated Press, United Press, the Nao yorkTimes, the Chicago Daily Naos. journalists and students inDenmark, a German journal, and his French translator. Let-ters printed here went to Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China,France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Switzerland, the USA, andthe USSR

Trotsky's major aim in 1932 remained the building of theInternational Left Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists). The readershould bear in mind throughout this volume that while Tlotskyregarded the policies of the Stalinized Communist Internationalas criminally wrong, his strategy was not to replace the Comin-tern by the ILO but to "reformn it-to regenerate it alongLeninist lines and revive it as a force capable of leading theworld revolution. It was not until the middle of 1933, after

Preface

Stalinist theory and practice had helped Hitler seize powerin Germany, that the Left Opposition renounced its "reform"policy and set out to build the Fourth International (see

Writings 1932-33).Almost half of the selections in this volume are translated

into English for the first tirne or have appeared in Englishprwiously only in internal bulletins with restricted circulation;two of them, originally published incomplete, are in print herewithout deletions for the first time, thanks to the HarvardCollege Library. Several of the articles here were signed bypen names or were unsigned when first published' Leavingaside those that weire written during the trip to Denmark andback, all the articles in this volume were written at Prinkipo'except for those before the end of January, which were writtenat Kadikoy. Translations originally done in the 1930s havebeen revised to correct obvious errors and achieve uniformityin spelling of names, punctuation, etc. Acknowledgments aboutthe articles and translations, and e:<planatory material aboutthe persons and events mentioned in them, will be found inthe section entitled "Notes and Acknowledgments'"'Other Writ-ings of 1932" lists the books, pamphlets, and articles fromthat period which are not included in this volume becausethey are in print and available elsewhere.

The comprehensiveness of this volume could not have beenachieved without the help of Louis Sinclair's Leon Ttotskg:A Bibtiography (Hoover Institution Press, 1972), which willbe essential reading for all serious students of Trotsky's work'

The EditorsApril 1972

11

CHRONOLOGY

- 1932 -January I - The last year of the first "five-year" plan beginsin the Soviet Union and the capitalist world enters prob-ably the worst year of the Great Depression.

January 4 - In a secret letter to the Soviet Political BureauTrotsky warns that it will be held responsible for acts ofrepression that Stalin is preparing against the Left Oppo-sition.

January 27-Trotsky completes his short book, WhatVital Questions for the Gertnan Proletariat

January 3O-February 4-The Seventeenth ConferenceSoviet Communist Part5r is held in Moscow.

February 2 - A world disarmament conference sponsored bythe League of Nations opens in Geneva.

February 18-The Japanese imperialists set up a puppet re.gime in the Manchurian territory seized from China.

February 2o-Trotsky's Soviet citizenship is revoked by adecree of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.

March 1 - Trotsky answers the Central D<ecutive Committee.March-April-Hindenburg falls just short of a majority in

the German presidential election on March 13, even thoughhe is supported by the Social Democrats. In the April l0runoff election, he is reelected with 53 percent of the vote,while Hitler gets 36 percent and Thaelmann of the Com-munist Pargz gets 10 percent.

April 30 - The League of Nations calls on Japan to withdrawfrom Shanghai in the near future.

May 1 and 8-Parties of the French left gain around a hun-dred seats in parliamentary elections; a month later Her-riot of the Radical Socialists becomes premier, replacingthe right-winger Tardieu.

12

Nu&

of the

ChronotogE 13

May 2O-Dollfuss is chosen chancellor of Austria by a right-wing coalition led by the Christian Social Party.

May 3O-June 1 - Bruening, who has been ruling as Germanchancellor without a parliamentary majority, is removedby Hindenburg and replaced by Papen, who also lacks amajority in the Reichstag.

June l3-Trotsky writes on the role of the colored races anda Stalinist-pacifist congress against war soon to be heldin Amsterdam. He also finishes The History of the RussianReoolution in June.

June 28 - Trotsky writes nHands Off Rosa Luxemburg!"July 20-Papen uses a presidential decree to dismiss the So-

cial Democratic government of Prussia and to take overpolitical and police control of that key state.

July 31 - In the German Reichstag elections the Nazis get

37 percent of the vote, becoming the largest party in theparliament for the first time.

August 27-29-A congress against war is held in Amsterdam,solidly controlled by the Stalinists. The Left Oppositionistsare unable to wen get a vote on their proposals.

August 27-september l5-Ttre Tbelfth Plenum of the B<ecu-

tive Committee of the Communist International is held inMoscow.

September l4-Tlotsky completes another pamphlet on the

German crisis, Zhe OnlY Road.October 9- Zinoviev and Kamenev are again expelled from

the Soviet Communist PartY.November 6-Another Reichstag election is held, in which

the Nazis lose two million votes but remain the largestparty. Thirteen days later Papen and his cabinet resign'

-NbvernUer 8-Franklin D. Rooswelt is elected to his first

term as president of the U.S.November 14 - Trotsky leaves T\rrkey to give a speech in

Copenhagen.December 2 - Hindenburg appoints General Schleicher as

chancellor less than hro months before he appoints Hitler'December l1 - Trotsky returns to T\rrkey.

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THE " UPRISING''OF NOVEMBER 7, 1927I

January 2, lg32

In the campaign now being conducted with increased vigoragainst the Left Opposition,2 a considerable place is devotedto the question of the uprising of November 7,1927. In his"historical" article, Staling places this 'uprising' in the fore'most position as the main evidence in support of his policyof repression against the Bolshevik-Leninists.

When the best revolutionaries are subjected to the mostfrighful injuries and acts of violence at the isolation campin the Upper Urals;a when they are forced to resort to hun-ger strikes to defend their most elementary human rights; whenthey are shot at without warning; when Rakovskys and hun-dreds of others crowd the places of deportation; when theveritable flower of the party is smashed, incarcerated, anddestroyed; when Stalin had Butov hounded to death andBlumkin shot by Yagoda6-all this is explained not by thefact that the Left Opposition did not accept the theory of so-

cialism in one country,? that it did not agree to the bloc withChiang Kai-shek,8 and that it rejects today capitulation before Hifler! e No! the bloody repressions are er<plained bythe fact that the Left Opposition is supposed to have madean attempt at an armed uprising four years ago. All thepublications of the various sections of the Cominternro haveonce more reminded their unfortunate, systematically deceivedreaders of iL

What reallg happmed on Nooembq 7, 1927? The Oppo-sition, of coursg also participated in the demonsbation ofthe tenth anniversary. Its representatives marched togetherwith their shops, factories, schools, and Soviet offices. ManyOpposition groups carried their banners in the general parade.

15

16 Writings of Leon Trotskg (1952)

It was with these banners that they had left the shops andoffices. What sort of counterrevolutionary banners were they?Let us recall them once more:

1. "Carry out the testament of Lenin!"112. 'Direct the fire toward the rightagainst Nepman, 12 kulak

[rich peasant], and bureaucrat!"3. "For genuine workers' democracy!"4. "Against opportunism, against a split-for the unity of

the Leninist party!'5. "For a Leninist Central Committee!"Factory workers, government employees, Red Army sol-

diers, and students walked alongside of the Left Opposition-ists who were carrying their banners. There were no clashes.Not a single worker in his right mind could interpret thesebanners as banners directed against the Sooiet power and.the partg. Only after several individual factories had joinedthe general current of the demonstration did the GPUts sendout special detachments with instructions from the Stalinistsecretariat to assault the demonstrators, who were carryingtheir banners peacefully. After that, several clashes took piaceiconsisting entirely of attacks by the GPU detachments, whotore their banners away and beat them up. A special groupof Red Army commanders broke down the doors of Smilga's raquarters and forced their way in-on the balcony were hang-ing the banners of the Opposition and portraits of Lenin,Trotsky, and Zinoviev. 15 This, then, was the uprising ofNovember 7,1927.

The slogans-"For workers' democracy!," "Against Nepman,kulak, and bureaucrat!," "For the unit5z of the part5r!"-wereconsidered counterrevolutionary, naturally not by the work-ing masses, but by the Stalinist apparatus. Nevertheless, atthat time not one of the apparafus people dared as yet to speakof an armed uprising. Such an invention would have seemedaltogether too shameless and insolent in the eyes of the par-ticipants in the demonstration. When, more than a year afterTrotsky had been e<iled by Stalin, the GPU accused him ofpreparing an armed uprising, it was not with regard to thedemonstration of November 7 but to something quite new,which the GPU however could not specif.rz. After the exilingof Trotsky, the accusation was not repeated by anybody.Stalin did not dare to introduce it into the press. The veryidea went up like smoke and disappeared.

Only when the facts began to fade from memory did theStalin school of falsificaticin begin to spread the iegend of

The "(Jprising" of Noomtber 7, 1927 t7

the attempted uprising of November 7. The fact that thislegend has, to a certain degree, become the central point ofthe campaign is politically significant. It proves that the realactions of the Bolshevik-Leninists do not appear to be "crimes"in the eyes of the masses of workers and party members.Stalin is really complaining that despite the eight-year-longcampaign, Trotskgism is still regarded as a Communist ten-dency inside of the party! For his policy of repression, Stalinneeds some point of support that lies outside of the genuineactivity of the Left Opposition. This point of support he triesto find in the police myth of the uprising of November 7,1927. Even if we had no other indication, this fact alone wouldsuffice for us to say: The personal dictatorship of Stalin andhis plebiscitary regime are in a bad way, in a very bad way!

A LETTER TO THE POLITBUROIG

January 4,1932

ABSOLUTELY SECRETTo the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (B)17To the Presidium of the Central Control Commission

History has again arrived at one of its great turning points.In Germany the fate of the German proletariat of the Comin-tern, and of the USSR is being determined. The policies ofthe Comintern are steering the German revolution toward de.sfuction just as inevitably as they did the Chinese revolu-tion, although this time it is being done from the oppositedirection.rs Everything it was necessary to say in this regard,I have said elserwhere There is no point repeating it here.Perhaps two or three months-and that in the very best ofcases-remain in which to reverse a ruinous policy, the responsibility for which lies completely with Stalin.

I do not speak of the Central Committee because it has ineffect been dismissed. The Soviet papers, including those ofthe partSr, speak of "Stalin's leadership,n "Stalin's six condi-tions,"l9 "Stalin's forecasts," and "Stalin's general line," ignor-ing the Central Committee altogether. The party of the dic-tatorship2o has been brought to such a state of degradationthat the ignorance, organic opporfunism, and lack of loyaltyof a single individual can leave their mark on great histori-cal wents. Having blundered hopelessly in China, England,Germany, in wery country of the world, and first of all inthe USS& Stalin, struggling for the salvation of his inflatedpersonal prestigg supports a policy in Germany that auto-matically will lead to disaster on a scale as yet unknownin history.

In order not to create difficulties for Stalin, the "party" press,reduced to slave status, remains generally silent about Ger-many. Instead it talks a great deal about "Trotskyism." En-tire pages are again filled up with "Tlotskyism." The problemis to make people believe that "Trotskyismn is a ncounterrevo-

lutionary" tendency, the "vanguard of the world bourgeoisie."Under this sign the Seventeenth Party Conference has beencalled. It is quite clear that this crude "agitationn is not meantto pursue any ideological goals, but rather to promote very

18

A Letter to the Politburo

definite, practical-or more precisely, personal-aims. A con-cise formulation of these would be stated as follows: the timehas come for the Turkulization of policy toward representa-tives of the Left Opposition.

T?rrough the official Communist press in the West, Stalinhas allowed revelations to be made concerning the schemesand designs of a White Guard2l terrorist organization' hid-ing these facts all the while from the workers of the USSRStalin's aim in having these revelations published abroad isquite clear: to provide himself with an alibivr his joint laborswith General T\rrkul. The names of Gorky and Litvinov22 weteadded in all likelihood for purposes of camouflage.

The question of terrorist reprisals against the author of thisletter was posed by Stalin long before T\rrkul: in 1924-25at an intimate gathering Stalin weighed the pro's and con's.The pro's were obvious and clear. The chief considerationagainst was that there were too many selfless young Trotsky-ists who might reply with counterterrorist actions.

There came the time that I was informed about this byZinoviev and Kamenev,23 when they had come over to the Op-position; moreover, the circumstances were such and the de-tails provided were such as to dispel any doubts whatsoeverabout the veracity of the report. Zinoviev and Kamenev' asI hope you have not forgotten, belonged jointly with Stalinto the ruling ntriumvirate"24 which stood above the CentralCommittee: they were privy to things that were quite inacces-sible to rank-and-file members of the Central Committee. IfStalin should now force Zinoviev and Kamenev to renouncetheir testimony of that time, no one will be taken in.

The question was dropped in 1925; as the present eventsshow, it was merely held over for later consideration.

Stalin has come to the conclusion that it was a mistake tohave exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union. He had hoped, asis known from his statement in the Politburo at that time-which is on record - that Trotsky, deprived of a "secretariat,"and without resources, would become a helpless victim of theworldwide bureaucratic slander campaign. This apparatus manmiscalculated. Contrary to his e>rpectations it turned out thatideas have a power of their own, even without an apparahrsand without resources. The Comintern is a grandiose structure,that has been left a hollow shell both theoretically and polit-ically. The future of revolutionary Marxism' which is to sayof Leninism as well, is inseparably bound up from now onwith the international cadres of the Left Opposition. No amount

19


of falsification can change that. The basic works of the Oppo-sition have been, are being, or will be published in wery lan-guage. Opposition cadres, as yet not very numerous but nonetheless indomitable, are to be found in every country. Stalinunderstands perfectly well what a grave danger the ideologi-cal irreconcilability and persistent growth of the InternationalLeft Opposition represent to him personallg, to his fake "au-thority," to his Bonapardst2s almightiness.

It is Stalin's calculation that the mistake needs rectification.His plan runs along three channels: first, information obtainedby the GPU is made public concerning a terrorist plot againstTrotsky being prepared by General T\rrkul (under maximumfavorable conditions, created for him by Stalin); second, aninternational "ideologicaln campaign is opened up which willsurely culminate in a resolution by the party conference andone by the Comintern-such a resolution being necessary forStalin as a kind of political mandate for collaboration withTurkul; third, through the services of the GPU Stalin singlesout and purges with truly brute ferocity werything that is sus-pect, unreliable, or questionable, in order to assure himselfagainst counterblows.

I of course have not been let in on the technical details ofthe undertaking-whether Turkul will try to attributetheworkof his hands to Stalin or whether Stalin will hide behind T\u-kul. This I do not know, but some Yagoda, playing the roleof middleman, with the undoubted assistance of the celebrated"lVrangel officer,"26 surely knows quite well.

Needless to say, Stalin's schemes and designs cannot affectthe politics of the Left Opposition or mine individually, not inany way or from any angle. The political fate of Stalin, cor-rupter of the party, gravedigger of the Chinese revolution,desboyer of the Comintern, candidate for gravedigger of theGerman revolution, is foreordained. His political crash willbe one of the most terrible in history. It is not a question ofStalin but of saving the Comintern, the proletarian dictatorship,the heritage of the October Revolution, of bringing the partyof Lenin back to life. The majority of officeholding bureau-crats on whom Stalin bases himself both in the USSR andin all the Comintern sections will flee at the first roll of thunder.The Left Opposition will remain true to the banner of Marx2?and Lenin to the end!

The present document will be preserved in a limited but fullysufficient number of copies by reliable hands in several coun-tries. Thus you have been notified in advance!

THE LEFT OPPOSITIONAND THE RIGHT OPPOSITION2s

Published Januarv 1932

Dear Comrade:I will try to ercpress my views as briefly as possible on the

questions raised by you. From the first, I had consideredthe disintegration of the Brandlerite faction2e absolutely in-evitable. A revolutionary faction which has no ideology, nogeneral conception of the world situation, no elaborated stra-tegical principles, is doomed, as a tendency between communismand the Social Democracy,s0 to a hand-to'mouth existence andcannot withstand the convul6ions of the present epoch.

Brandler and Thalheimer,sl the "leaders" of the internationalright-wing opposition, called us "sectarians." Now, when we

do have a certain number of cadres and slowly begin to grow,these alleged representatives of mass action find themselvesin a state of complete disintegration. Half of the leaders wantto join Stalin, the other half Seydewitz.s2 When Messrs.

Brandler and Thalheimer play the part of yes-men with regardto everything that goes on in the Soviet Union, that does notat all prove that they are blind by nature or that they havebeen dazzled by the wisdom of the Stalinists, but much ratherthat they simply don't care what happens in the country ofthe October Revolution.

Up to February 15, 1928,33 Brandler and Thalheimer re'peatedly said: The Opposition's program of industrializationand collectivization is utopian. On February 16, they immedi-ately approved the new program of Stalin, which was onlya caricature of our own. One can readily understand why theStalinists, under the dtect pressure of difficulties and contra-dictions which they are incapable either of overcoming oreven of understanding, are mgaged in changing their posi-tion sharply and in taking refuge behind lies. But it is reallydisgusting to hear these two Berlin half-wits constantly repeat-ing yes, without taking any part at all in the matter outsideof their fervent desire to be appointed to high posts. In my

2l


eyes, the fact that the Right Opposition tolerates the likes ofthem in its midst, no, at its head, is very much in character.

We of the Left Opposition are weak. We are growing slowly,but we are patienl The cadres of the Comintern consist eitherof completely spent, formerly revolutionary elements or ofneutral hirelings. The Man<ist tradition has been broken. Whatis parading now under the banner of Leninism is only ahodgepodge of the most heterogeneous elements, held togetherby plain Stalinist ignorance. The authority of the October Revo-lution has become an obstacle to revolutionary development.That is the dialectic of history: reason becomes nonsense, theOctober Revolution, Kaganovich.3a Under such conditions,how can the Man<ist tendency be expected to advance rapidly?In order to grasp the international sifuation, its turns, itschanges, etc., a certain theoretical level is required, or at leasta certain amount of political e><perience. The masses can ap-prove of us only to the er<tent that our views withstand thetest of events and are confirmed by them. For example, oursmall German organization is taking a serious step forwardprecisely because it is holding its own in the rush of events,while the Brandlerites are forced into bankruptcy.

Comrade St. believes, according to what 5zou s&1r, that amongus there are unreliable and confused people, and even Canton-ists3s who are a discredit, especially in Austria. It's true thatin Austria there exist, not four, but-insofar as I have beeninformed-two groups which count themselves as part of theLeft Opposition. For the time being, however, we are allow-ing both of them to take their course outside the frameworkof our organization, because right now we place more im-portance on quality than on numbers. We will become a massforce only when our cadres are sustained by their quality,that is, by their ideas and methods.

When will great successes come? That I cannot tell you. TheLeft Radicals36 remained a small minority in the German So-cial Democracy for years. The Zimmerwald Left consisted ofsingle comrades from various countries, and they were not-as Comrade St. knows very well-among the best a youngNorwegian poet, the confused Hoglund from Sweden, JulianBorchardt, etc.37 But the doctrine was solid, the orientation firm,the methods correct, that is, appropriate for the epoch. And outof this small group the Third International arose-to be sure,with the October Revolution as catalysl

Great revolutions always consume whole generations, andthat is just what is happening now. In part, but only in part,

The Left Opposition ond. the Right Opposition

it is necessary to begin anew. The most important task is topreserve the continuity of the revolutionary Marxist-in ourepoch the Bolshwik-methodology and to transmit it to theyounger generation. The confused Cantonists, who ndiscredit"

us, will be thrust aside. One should choose one's path accord-ing to fundamental and decisive objective factors and not ac-cording to subjective impressions of one or another group offollowers of the revolutionary tendency. Engels once wrote toBernstein3S somewhat along these lines: 'We (that is, of course,Marx and Engels) remained in the minority all our lives andwere quite comfortable at that " I do not mean to say by thisthat we should make this our aim. In my life it also happenedthat I was with the majority. But all those who constantly cryabout winning the nmassesn and the "majorit5/ never actuallyattain it, at least not for revolutionary ends. The masses arenot won over by a special mass technique, as Brandler andThalheimer conceive of it-in this field the Eadeunion fakersare vastly superior to them. The masses are won over in ourepoch, filled with events and crises, only by a clear revolu-tionary-socialist conception.

The future development of the German situation will be de.cisive for the international labor movement and, in the firstinstance, for the Comintern. Should the German proletariatbe victorious - this can only happen by the greatest er<ertionof all the creative forces latent in it-then the dictatorship ofthe vapid and brutal Stalinist bureaucracy will immediatelyfall, great ideological struggles will be resolved, the Left Op-position will have a fruidul effect on the rwival of the labormovement in Germany and the entire world. Should the Ger-man proletariat be defeated by the fascists, then all will belost for the Comintern and possibly also for the Soviet Union.For the world proletariat that would be a setback for manyyears to come. Under such tragic conditions, the Left Opposi-tion will take over the task of continuing to develop the Marx-ist program, but certainly no longer within the formal frame-work of the Third International.3e We have a long-termperspective. Events can accelerate our development, wen giveit a feverish pace. All the better! We are, however, also preparedto carry on propagandistic and educational work for manyyears as "sectarians," in order to prepare the yeast forthe future.

With best communist regards,L. Trotskv

23

INTERNAL POLEMICSAND THE PARTY PRESS4O

January 5, 1932

To the National Committee of the Communist League ofAmerica

Dear Comrades:In number 36 of The Militanl which has just arrived here

I find an article from France on the CGTU congress,4l signedby Felix. It is quite possible that the article found a placein the paper purely by accident without the editorial boardhaving had the possibility to distinguish the fine points andthe insinuations from far off. I fear however-I must saythis quite openly-that the article appeared through meansof Comrade Shachtman.a2 If I am mistaken, so much thebetter. If not, then it complicated the matter to the highestdegree. The article is directed against the leading group ofthe French Leagug not openly and clearly, but through in-sinuations and pinpricks. This fits in completely with the spiritof the author. Insofar as I was able to observe Comrade Felix,at first with Paz,a3 for whom he acted as a hatchet managainst us, then in the League, where he changed positionsbut not the manner of his struggle, which unforfunately is notthe best, it appears to me that he represents a type like Weis-bord,++ above all in the complete steriligz of his criticism,its spuriousness, its constant personal emphasis, etc.

Comrade Felix has his own views on the trade-union ques-tion in France, which run counter to the official policy of theLeague. Naturally The Militand like every paper, has theright to allow the views of the minority to be e><pressed too.But this must take place quite openly and clearly. Felix shouldthen have said quite openly, in the name of a definite minor-ity, against which tendency in the League he is polemicizing.

24

Intqnal Polernics and the Party Press 25

I doubt that this was indicated. It would perhaps be betterto conduct this polemic in the International Bulletin; but ifit were, then, as we said, in a thoroughly clear, open, andunambiguous form. In that way, the polemic might contrib-ute something to the education of our cadres. In this spu-rious, I might almost say underhanded, form the polemic onlyserves ttre ends of international intrigue.

I will be very glad if the whole matter is of a purely acci-dental nature and has no connection with Comrade Shacht-man, for in the contrary case it would only accentuate thegreat dissatisfaction which Comrade Shachtman evoked againsthimself among those Opposition elements in France, Germany'also here in Kadikoy,4s whom I hold to be the best. My con-cern becomes still more heightened by the fact that ComradeShachhnan has not replied to the letters and warnings onmy part and on the part of my closest friends, and that Com-rade Glotzer46 too, who promised me to call Comrade Shacht-man to order a litfle did not say a single word on this matter.I had the impression that both of them, Shachtnran and Glot-zer, were under the influmce of the small Jewish groupaT inParis and completely overlooked the perspectives of the Op-position movement in Europe.

In a word, clarification of the situation on your part is ab-solutely necessary!

With best communist greetings'L. Trotskv

REPLY TO THE JEWISH GROUPIN THE

COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF FRANCE48

Januar5r 15, 1932

Your declaration is an anti-Communist document and showsto what a fatal path the present leaders of your organizationhave led the group of Jewish workers.

1. You have recalled Comrades Felix and Foucs from theExecutive Committee of the League in order to withdraw your"responsibility' for the direction of the League; this constitutesan act of sabotage. The conference elected a definite leadership.You are placing yourselves above the conference, above theLeague, and you are sabotaging the leading body of theLeague.

Basically this is an action of splitting the organization. Forthe leaders of your group, this is a demonstration, a "voteof no confidence,n in a word, a parliamentary game. Thisis not the way proletarian revolutionists ac! it is the wayof petty-bourgeois anarchists, who scoff at parliamentarismin words but imitate it in deeds.

2. What reason have you given for leaving the ExecutiveCommittee? My circular letter. But is the Executive Commit-tee responsible for that? There is absolutely no relation what-soever between your action and its motive I can't even fora minute assume that all the members of the Jewish groupcould have approved of such a disruptive act. I don't knowComrade Foucs and I cannot judge his motives. But Com-rade Felix, in this case, has remained true to his past.

3. The situation becomes even more complicated by the factthat you recall Felix and Foucs not in the name of any fac-tion, or any local organization, but in the name of a nationalgroup. You thereby transform the League into a federationof national groups. This is the strucfure the Bundae attemptedto introduce into the Russian party. As far back as 1903,not only the Bolsheviks but even the Mensheviksso considered

26

ReplU to the Jeutish Ccoup 27

such an arrangement incompatible with the fundamentals ofrevolutionary-proletarian organization. You are introducingBundism into the ranks of the Left Opposition. The Left Op-position would only be preparing its own destruction if it wereto tolerate such a state of affairs for even a day.

4. By creating such a Jewish factional organization, by sep-arating it in this way from the League, by opposing it tothe League, Comrades Millst and Felix are attempting todictate to the League. At the same time Comrade Felix hasmisled the Jewish group by greafly enaggerating the differences,by seeking artificial pretexts for differences, by making a cari-cature of the differences. Because of their sterile and scholasticcharacter, these discussions have not been able to contributeanything to the League in an ideological sense. In a politicalsense, they paralyzed the League by repelling the French work-ers. In this manner the Jewish group, instead of being aninstrument to attract Jewish workers, has become, thanks toits present leaders, an instrument for the repulsion of Frenchworkers.

5. You state that my evaluation of the leaders of the Jewishgroup (Mill and Felix), that they sabotage the League andlead the Jewish group to its destruction, is based on onesidedand false information given by Comrade Molinier.s2 Thisagain shows how light-mindedly your leaders make unfoundedaccusations. To waluate information, to understand what in-formation should or should not be believed, to show prudenceabout information furnished in the course of internal conflicts -all these rules and essentials are elementary, the ABC of healthypolitical thinking. To accuse anyone of forming an opinionon the basis of one.sided and false information actuallyamounts to a charge of political bankruptcy. We understandthings differently, you and I, as to what the Left Oppositionis, as to what a revolutionary organization should be, etc.But why mix into this the question of false information byanyone? It is not so long ago that Comrade Mill orplainedthe utter impermissibility of this argument to Naville.s3 Mycircular letter condemning the policy of the present leader-ship of the Jewish group was written before I had any dis-cussion at all with Comrade Molinier.

6. What finally determined my evaluation of the present lead-ership of the Jewish group? It was your letter to Rosmer.s4I consider this document perfectly scandalous; and, throughthe mistakes of the leadership, it seriously compromises thegroup.


The sbuggle against Landau, Naville, and Rosmers5 hasup to now been the most important and significant event inthe internal life of the International Left Opposition, whichin this manner purged itself of alien elements. This shugglehas led to splits, amputations, and desertions. In the processof your struggle against the new leadership of the League,you suddenly declared your solidarity with Rosmer. That showsthat the leaders of your group have understood nothing atall of the preceding struggle, or, what is worsg that they ingeneral are incapable of really taking principled differencesseriously. From the point of vierv of ideological loyalty andrevolutionary discipline, the letter to Rosmer was a direct actof treachery. It's understandable that serzeral Jewish workersmight be led into error; but the leaders of this affair knerwwhat they were doing. For my part, I withhold any confi-dence in people who impose such a perfidious act on the Jewishgroup as an attempt of a bloc with deserters against the lnter-national Left Opposition.

7. You accuse me of not having taken a position on yourdifferences with Comrade Treints6 and others on the questionof the "faction," "party,n57 etc. I have arrived at my opinionnot through isolated incidents in the constant internal struggle,but on the o<perience of the last two to three years as a whole.Of what political importance can the views of Comrades Felixand Mill be on the question of a faction, if within the factionto which I belong they, without giving it a second thoughtare furning somersaults into the Rosmer-Landau faction? Whatif Felix and Mill do subscribe even today to the very bestdefinition of a faction? All this in my eyes is only empty talk.By attempting to transform the League into a federation ofindependent national groups, Mill and Felix are rejecting themeaning of a revolutionary faction. What importance therefore can their er<ercises around the word nfaction" have in myestimation? Our ideological struggle does not have a char-acter all of its own but is an instrument of action and of con-trol by means of action. I keep in mind the activity of Felixand Mill as a whole and the new episode in the discussioncannot change my judgmenl

8. Paz, as is well known, subscribed 100 percent to all theformulas which he considered to be Bolshevik-Leninist. Whensome futile differences arose between himself and Delfosse,sshe demanded that I pronounce myself immediately on thosedifferences. And I demanded that the Paz group go over frombombast to serious work and refused to occupy myself with

Reply to the Jewish Ctroup

the differences, which had no actual relationship to genuinework. The Paz group condemned me for this, probably believing that I did not sufficiently understand the depth andimportance of the differences that arose within it

In that discussion Comrade Felix was with Paz against meAs soon as it became clear to Paz that I would not supporthim, he immediately discovered principled differences betweenhimself and the Russian Opposition; it seems that Rakovskydid not quite reach the revolutionary magnitude of Paz. Felixand Mill are only imitating Paz by demanding of me that Ioccupy myself with their verbal rubbish instead of judgingtheir activity as a whole.

9. If you are interested in the real source of my informa-tion, I will not conceal it from you. My principal informerall this time has been Comrade MiIl. I have orchanged dozensupon dozens of letters with him. My conclusion regardingthe policy of Mill I have drawn especially on the basis ofhis own letters. In these letters not a little has been said aboutComrade Felix. But in this case I would not for the worldhave trusted to the impartiality of Comrade MifL I attemptedto judge Comrade Felix by his own actions; his support ofPaz against Za Verite, his discussion articles in Vqitg }risrole in the attempt of a bloc with Rosmer, his letter to theGreek Opposition-all this sufficed for me Add to this theminutes of the Executive Committee and the internal bulletinsof the League The present departure of Comrade Felix fromthe B<ecutive Committee as a sort of parliamentary gameonly completes the picture.

10. You propose the creation of an international controlcommission to e><amine my "accusations." In this regard Ican only er(press my astonishment. On my part it is a ques-tion of a political waluation of the methods and measuresby Comrades Mill and Felix. My waluation may be corrector incorrect, but what can a control commission do about it?

When certain former and present members of the Leaguemade use of personal insinuations against their opponentsin the course of their political sbuggles, I proposed that acontrol commission be created. But nevertheless none of theaccusers dared to make a formal accusation. In this way theaccusers definitively disqualified themselves, showing that theywere directed not by revolutionary zeal butby lack of scruples,typical of the impotent petty bourgeoisie. In such a case, acontrol commission is entirely in place in order to clear theahnosphere. But in our case it is not a matter of accusations

29


of a moral character. Nor can a commission make a judg-ment on the correctness or incorrectness of a political wal-uation; the entire membership of the organization, not a specialcontrol commission, must declare itself.

11. Your declaration says that I condemn the activity ofthe Jewish group as a whole. That's not true. Insofar as themembers of your group under the leadership of the Leagueare conducting propaganda work among the Jewish workers,are spreading the ideas of Bolshevism among them, I cer-tainly can only salute their work and aid them as I haveaided them in the past, according to my resources, from thefirst period of the group's e<istence to the time it was drawnonto the unprincipled path of petty-bourgeois politics by Felixand Mill. Precisely now, when the crisis strikes the foreignworkers in France above all others, when the Socialist Partybetrays them completely and the Communist Party in part(see the vote of the parliapentary fraction), the Left Oppo-sition can and must develop energetic work among the foreignworkers, including the Jewish workers. But for that the Jewishgroup must cease to be a national Jewish faction within theLeague and become the organ of the League for propagandain the Jewish language. What must be done for this? The Jewishgroup must be freed from the leadership of Felix and Mill,who can bring it nothing but harm.

With communist greetings,L. Tlotskv

NO DEAL WITHGERMAN GOVERNMENT 59

January 23, lg32

Istanbul, T\rrkey, Jan 23 (AP)-Leon Tlotsky, er<iled bythe Soviet Russian government, said today there was no truthin reports that he would be admitted to Germany in exchangefor a promise to throw the support of his followers to Chan-cellor Bruening6o s*.inst AdoU Hitler.

"That report is an invmtion from top to bottom," he added."f have not asked the German government for a visa andconsequently there has been no reason for that governmentto suggest any conditions under which I might enter Germany.

"The idea that I would suggest support for the Brueninggovernment is such nonsense that a denial is unnecessary.I consider the German policy a matter for the German peopleThe Mueller6r government refused me a visa to Germanythree years ago upon the insistence of Joseph Stalin, and thereis no reason to hope that the Bruening government woulddo othenrise."

31

IS STALIN WEAKENINGOR THE SOVIETS?6'

Januarv 1932

The writer of this article is being plied on all sides withthe question- now gleefully ironical, now genuinely per-plexed: Why is the ruling group in the Soviet Union at thistime wholly engrossed in historical research? While Japan mas-ters Manchuria and Hi0er makes ready to master Germany,Stalin is composing e).tensive dissertations on the policies ofTrotsky in the year 19O5 and other quesdons equally up-to-date. Ttrree years have passed since Stalin and Molotov63announced that "Trotskyism" was dead and buried, and nowa new campaign-a fifth or sixth campaign-against thissame "Trotskyism" has sprung up in the pages of the Sovietpress. The une<pectedness of this-for what is the sense offighting corpses?-and the unusual viciousness of the attackhave caused something of a sensation in the European press.Both English and French papers have published disclosuresof a mighty conspiracy of "Trotskyists" in the USSR. Ttreyare receiving 60,000 rubles monthly from abroad; they havecaptured the most important positions in the industrial, admin-istrative, and educational fields, etc., etc. Most captivating isthe accuracy with which the amount of the foreign subsidyis reported.

With all its absurdity this report rests upon an authoritysufficiently precise in its own way-the authority of Stalinhimself. Stalin quite recently announced that "Trotskyismn isnot a movement within the Communist Part5r, as the partymembers in spite of everything still continue to believe, butis "the vanguard of the bourgeois counterrevolution." If thisstatement be taken seriously, a number of inferences follow.The goal of the counterrevolution is to reestablish capitalismin the Soviet Union, a goal which can be achieved only byoverthrowing the Bolshwik power. If the 'Trotskyists" arethe vanguard of the countenwolution, that can only meanthat they are preparing the destruction of the Soviet regime.From this it is but a step to the conclusion that the interestedcapitalist circles of Europe must be generously financing their

32

Is Statin Weakening or the Sooiets? 33

work. To speak plainly, it is just this interpretation of hiswords that Stalin is counting on. Just as in 1917 Miliukovand Kerenskye felt obliged to assert that Lenin and Trotskywere agents of German militarism, so now Stalin is tryingto get it on record that Trotsky and the Opposition are agentsof counterrevolution.

Some months ago a widely circulated Polish newspaperprinted over my signafure a forged article- not the first of itskind - about the complete breakdown of the five'year plan65

and the inevitable fall of the Soviets. Although the crudenessof the forgery was obvious even to an inorperienced eye, Yaro'slavsky,66 the official historiographer of the Stalin faction,published a facsimile of the article in the Moscow Praoda"67giving it out as an authentic document and drawing thecorresponding inferences in regard to "Trotskyism." A formaldeclaration from me that the article was a falsification frombeginning to end was refused publication in Praoda The

Stalin faction considered it more expedient to support the talethat a powerful group among the Bolsheviks, a group led bythe closest associates of Lenin, considers inevitable the down-fall of the Soviet power and is working to that end.

The same game has been played before. Government circlesmust have been surprised four years ago when they read thatRakovsky, who so forcefully and brilliantly defended the in-terests of the Soviet Union during the Franco-Soviet nego-tiations, is in reality a most vicious enemy of the Soviet power.Ttrey doubtless said to themselves at that time: "Things muslbe going badly with the Soviet republic, if even Rakovskyhas furned up among the counterrevolutionaries." If the Frenchgovernment has hesitated of late years to develop economicrelations with the Soviets, Qr, on the other hand, to break offdiplomatic relations, the banishment of Rakovsky has con-tributed to this hesitation.

The present campaign against the Opposition, arming it-self with cruder o<aggeration even than the preceding ones,is again placing a weapon in the hands of the most implacableenemies of the Soviet Union in all countries. "Evidently,n theyare saying, "the situation in the country is getting extremelybad if the inner struggle has again become so bitter." It isthis fact that the struggle against "Trotskyism" is being wagedwith methods deeply injuring the interests of the Soviet Unionwhich impels me to take up a subject which otherwise I wouldprefer to let alone.


If the "Trotskyists" are in reality "the vanguard of the bour-geois counterrwolution"- so the man in the street mustreason-then how explain the fact that the European govern-ments, including even the government of the brand-new Spanishrepublic,Gs have one after the other refused asylum to Trotsky?Such an inhospitable attitude toward one's own "vanguardnis difficult to explain. The European bourgeoisie has hadenough o<perience to be able by this time to distinguish itsfriends from its enemies.

The so-called 'Trotskyists," the older generation at least,took part in the rwolutionary struggle against czarism, inthe October Revolution of 1917, in the building of the Sovietrepublic, in the creation of the Red Army, in the defense ofthe land of the Soviets against innumerable enemies duringthree years of civil war, and they played an intimate andfrequently a leading part in the economic revival of the coun-try. During these recent years, under the blows of the repres-sion, they have remained completely loyal to those tasks whichthey set themselves long before 1917. It is needless to saythat at a moment of danger to the Soviets the "Ttotskyists"would be found in the first line of defense, a position familiarto them in the experience of the past years.

The Stalin faction knows and understands this better thananybody else. If it puts into circulation accusations whichare obviously damaging to the Soviet Union, and thus atthe same time compromising to itself, the orplanation lies inthe political situation in which the course of events and itsown preceding policies have placed the Stalin faction.

Stalinism, the Policy of a Conservative BureaucracyThe first campaign against "Trotskyism" was opened in 1923,

while Lenin was on his deathbed and during a protracted ill-ness of Trotsky. The second and more violent attack developedin'L924, shortly after the death of Lenin. These dates speakfor themselves. The members of the old Politburo, the bodywhich actually governed the Soviet republic, were: Lenin,Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, Rykov, and Tomsky(or Bukharin).6s In the present Politburo only Stalin is leftof the old staff, although all its members, o<cept Lenin, areliving. The selection of leaders of a great historic part5r is noaccidental process. How can it happen that the leaders of theparty during the heavy years preceding the revolution, andduring the years when the foundations of the Soviets were laidand the building in construction was being defended with the

Is Stalin Weakening or the Sooiets?

sword, have suddenly turned out to be "inner enemies," at atime when the daily Soviet work has become to a certain degree a matter of bureaucratic routine?

These shifts and replacements which stand out at a glancein the Politburo or the Council of People's Commissars havealso been taking place during the recent period in all levelsof the party building, right down to the village councils' Thepresent staff of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets,the personnel of the provincial party secretariats, of the in-dustrial, military, and diplomatic bodies-all of them withbut few exceptions are men of the new crowd. A majority ofthem took no part in the October Revolution. A very consider-able number were in the camp of its open enemies' To be sure,a small minority of the new ruling layer did belong to theBolshevik Party before October; but these were all revolution-ary figures of second or third magnitude. Such a combina-tion is wholly according to the laws of history. A new bureau-cratic stratum requires an "authoritative" covering. Thiscovering has been created by those among the Old Bolshevikswho in the period of storm and assault were pushed to oneside, those who felt a little out of place, who found themselvesin silent semiopposition to the actual leaders of the insurrection,and became able to enjoy theh authority as "Old Bolsheviks"only in the second stage of the revolution.

It has never yet happened in history that a stratum whichachieved a revolution and guided and defended it in the mostdifficult circumstances, suddenly, when the work of its handswas assured, turned out to be a "counterrevolutionary" stratum,and that a few years after the revolution a new genuinelyrevolutionary stratum arrived to take its place. Indeed, theopposite fact is to be observed in the history of all great revo-lutions: when the victory is assured and has brought forth anew ruling stratum with its own interests and pretensions,and when this more moderate stratum, reflecting the demandfor "law and order," has pushed aside the revolutionists of thefirst draf! it always accuses its predecessors of a lack of revo-lutionary spiril The most conservative bureaucracy whichmight issue from a revolution could not otherwise defend itsright to power orcept by declaring its opponents moderate,halfhearted, and even counterrevolutionary. The methods ofStalin present nothing new whatever. We must not think, how-wer, that Stalin is consciously plagiarizing anybody' He doesnot know enough history for that. He is simply obeying thelogic of his own situation.

35

36 Writings of Leon Ttotsky (1932)

Economic DisagreementsIn order to get the sense of Stalin's present political diffi-

culties, it is necessary to recall briefly the essence of thosedisagreements which lay at the bottom of the dispute betweenus and the Stalin faction. The Opposition demonstrated thatthe bureaucracy was underestimating the possibilities of in-dustrialization and collectivization, that the economic workwas being carried on empirically in a hand-to-mouflr manner,that it was necessary to adopt a broader scale and a fastertempo. The Opposition demanded the abandonment of theone-year for the five.year plan, and asserted that a yearly20 percent growth of industrial production presented nothingunattainable with a centralized leadership. The Stalin bureau-cracy accused the Opposition at that time of superindustrial-ization and utopianism. Kowtowing to the individual peasantproprietor, preparation to abandon the nationalization of theland, defense of a tortoise tempo in industry, and mockery ofthe planning principle-such was the pladorm of the Stalinfaction from 1923 to 1928. All the present members of thePolitburo without a single exception answered our demandfor an increased tempo of industrialization with the stereo-typed question: Where shall we get the means? The first draftof the five-year plan, upon which the government institutionsgot to work in 1927 under pressure from the persecuted "Trot-skyists," was constructed on the principle of the descendingcurve: the growth of production was charted to fall from 9 to 4percent. This draft was subjected to a withering criticism bythe Opposition. The second variant of the five-year plan, theone officially ratified by that Fifteenth Party Congress whichcondemned the industrial nromanticism" of the Opposition,called for an average growth of 9 percent.

How far Stalin himself fell short of the scale of the presentfiveyear plan before its ratification may be seen in the merefact that in April 1926, answering Trotsky-who was thenpresident of the Dnieprostroy Commission-he declared at ameeting of the Central Executive Committee: "For us to buildthe Dnieprostroy [the mighty electrical power plant on theDnieper] would be just the same as to buy the peasant aphonograph instead of a cow." In the stenographic report ofthe Central Committee those words are inscribed as the mostauthentic opinion of Stalin. Subsequent attempts to explain hisstruggle against industrialization with references to the "prematureness" of the proposals of the Opposition are meaning-

Is Salin Weakening or the Sooiets?

less, since it was not a question of a particular task of themoment but of the general prospects of industry and the fiveyear program. The trial of the engineer-conspirators, publiclystaged a year or so ago, showed that the actual leadershipwas in the hands of the irreconcilable enemies of the socialist€conomy.70 In defending his plans for a "tortoise tempo" Stalinemployed methods of repression against the Opposition.

With its usual shortsighted empiricism the Stalin bureaucracy,under the influence of successes, began in 1928 to increaseuncritically the tempo of industrialization and collectivization.Here the roles were exchanged. The Left Opposition came outwith a warning: with a too swift pace, not tested out by pre'vious experience, disproportions may arise between the citiesand the country, and between the different branches of industry,creating dangerous crises. Moreover-and this was the chiefargument of the Opposition-a too rapid investment of capitalin industry will cut off q<cessively the share allotted to cur-rent consumption, and fail to guarantee the necessary riseof the standard of living of the people. Although cut off fromthe whole world in his er<ile in Barnaul, Christian G. Rakovskysounded the alarm. It is necessary, he said, even at the costof a lowered tempo, to better the material condition of thelaboring masses. Here too the Stalin bureaucracy has beenultimately compelled to listen to the voice of the Opposition.Quite recently a separate Commissariat of Manufacfuring In-dustries was formed out of the staff of the Supreme Councilof National Economy. Its task is to take care of the currentneeds of the population. At the present stage this reform has apurely bureaucratic character, but its goal is clear: to createin the government mechanism certain guarantees that the dailyneeds of the masses will not be too much sacrificed to theinterest of the heavy industries. Here too the Stalin faction,lacking perspective and creative force, is compelled to blesstoday what it was cursing yesterday.

"Peppery Dishes"

Early in 1928 mass raids against the Opposition were carriedout-e><pulsions, arrests, banishments. During that same yeara new five-year plan was put into force, following upon allessential questions the pladorm of the Left Opposition. Thisabout-face was so sharp that the bureaucracy directly con-tradicted everything that it had defended during the first fouryears after Lenin's death. Ttre accusation of superindustrializa-

37


tion lost all meaning, and active repressions against the LeftOpposition still more so.

But here the interest of the new ruling stratum in its ownself-preservation stepped to the front. If the Opposition wasright in its judgments and proposals, so much the worse forthe Opposition. If yesterday's arguments against it are worth-less, we must have new ones-and in order to justify repres-sions we must have e><traordinarily bitter ones. It is just inthis sphere, however, that Stalin is especially gifted. In L922,when Stalin was first elected general secretary of the party,Lenin remarked warningly to a small circle: "This cook willgive us only peppery dishes." In his deathbed letter to theparty, commonly called his "testament," where he insisted onthe removal of Stalin from his position as general secretary,Lenin pointed to the crudeness of his methods, his disloyaltyand inclination to misuse of power. All these personal traitsof Stalin, subsequently developed to a high degree, have beenespecially well manifested in his struggle againstthe Opposition.

It was not enough, however, to bring forward fantastic accu-sations; it was necessary that people should believe them, or atleast be afraid to objecL In its struggle for self-preservation,the Stalin bureaucracy was, therefore, compelled to begin bysuppressing all criticism. Along this line, accordingly, the Op-position opened its most fervent struggle- a struggle for a dem-ocratic regime in the party, in the trade unions, in the Soviets.We were defending one of the basic traditions of Bolshevism.

In the very heaviest years of the past-in the period of theunderground struggle under czarism, in 1917 when the coun-try passed through two revolutions, during the following threeyears when twenty armies were fighting on a front seven thou-sand miles long-the party lived a seething inner life. Allquestions were freely discussed from the top of the party tothe bottom; the freedom of judgment within the party was un-qualified. The Stalin apparatus directed its chief efforts to thedestruction of this embarrassing party democracy. Tens ofthousands of so-called "Trotskyists" were e><cluded from theparty. More than ten thousand were subjected to various formsof criminal repression. Several were shot. Many tens of thou-sands of fighting revolutionists of the first draft were retainedin the party only because they turned away and kept theirmouths shul Ttrus, in the course of these years, not onlythe membership of the ruling stratum has completely changed,but also the inner regime of the Bolshevik Party.

Whereas Lenin, to say nothing of his closest comrades-in-

Is &alin Weakming or the Sooiets? 39

arms, was subjected hundreds of times to the most furiousblows of inner-party criticism, at the present time any Com-munist who ventures to doubt the absolute correctness ofStalin upon every question whatever, and, moreover, whodoes not express a conviction as to his innate sinlessness, isexpelled from the party and suffers all the consequences whichflow from thaL The shattering of the Opposition has becomeat the same time a shattering of the party of Lenin.

This shattering has been promoted by deep, although tran-sitory, causes, Ttre years of the revolutionary earthquake andthe civil war left the masses in a desperate need of rest. Theworkers, oppressed with need and hunger, wanted a revivalof economic life at any price In the presence of considerableunemployment the removal of a worker from a factory forOppositional views was a fearful weapon in the hands of theStalin faction. Political interests fell away. The workers wereready to give the bureaucracy the broadest powers, if onlyit would restore order, offer an opportunity to revive the fac-tories, and furnish provisions and raw material from the coun-try. In this reaction of weariness, quite inevitable after everygreat revolutionary tension, lies the chief cause of the con-solidation of the bureaucratic regime and the growth of thatpersonal power of Stalin, in whom the new bureaucracy hasfound its personification.

Trotskyist ContrabandWhen living voices had been finally suppressed it turned

out that in the libraries, in the clubs, in the Soviet bookstores,on the shelves of sfudents and workers. old books were stand-ing which continued to talk the same language they had talkedin the days when the names of Lenin and Trotsky were in-separable. It is this barricade of hostile books that the Stalinbureaucracy has now come up against.

After nine years of uninterrupted struggle against the Oppo-sition, the leaders have suddenly discovered that the funda-mental scientific works and textbooks on questions ofeconomics, sociology, history-and above all the history ofthe October Revolution and the Communist International-are chock-full of "Trotskyist contraband," and that the mostimportant chairs of social science in many institutions oflearning are occupied by "Trotskyists" or "semi-Trotskyists.'Worst of all, those have been found guilty of Trotskyism whoup to now had been its chief prosecutors.

In order to show how far this thing has gone it is sufficient


to adduce an ocample touching the history of Bolshevism.Immediately after the death of Lenin a history of the partyhastily written by Zinoviev was put into circulation, its solepurpose being to portray the whole past as a struggle betweentwo principles, the good and the evil, in the persons of Leninand Trotsky. But since this history accorded to Zinoviev him-self a place in the camp of the good and, what is still morehorrible, said nothing whatever about the providential roleof Stalin, Zinoviev's history was placed on the inder< as earlyas 1926, the date of the open conflict between Zinovievand Stalin.

Ttre man designated to write an authentic history of theparty was now Yaroslavsky. In the order of the party hier-archy it fell to Yaroslavsky, a member of the presidium ofthe Central Control Commission, to captain the whole strug-gle against the Left Opposition. All the indictrnents leading toarrests and expulsions, and also a majority of the artrcleslighting up the repressions against "Trotskyists" in the Sovietpress, came from the pen of Yaroslavsky. It was he, indeed,who reprinted. in Praodo the forged articie from a Polish news-paper. To be sure, the scientific-literary standing of Yaroslavskywas not wholly adequate, but he made up for this with hiscomplete willingness to rewrite all history, including that ofancient Egypt, according to the demands of the bureaucraticstratum led by Stalin. A more reliable historiographer theStalin bureaucracy could not possibly desire.

The result, however, was a completely unexpected one, InNovember of last year Stalin found himself compelled to comedown on the fourth volume of Yaroslavsky history with asevere article. This too, it seems, was filled with "Trotskyistcontraband." If Stanley Baldwin in one of his speeches shouldaccuse Winston ChurchillTl of a sympathy for Bolshevism,this would hardly cause a greater sensation in England thandid Stalin's accusing Yaroslavsky of abetting "TYotskyism"in the Soviet Union. Ttrat accusatory article of Stalin servedas an introduction to this last campaign. Obeying the signal,hundreds and thousands of functionaries, professors, journal-ists, distinguished in nothing but their zeal, rushed out to rum-mage through all the Soviet publications. Horrors! "Trotskyism"at every step! There is no escape from "contraband'!

But, after all, how could such a thing happen? Every newstratum as it rises to power shows an inclination to embellishits own past Since the Stalin bureaucracy cannot, like otherruling classes, find reinforcement among the high places of

Is Stalin Wwkening or the Sooiets? 4t

religion, it is compelled to create its own historic mythology'It paints in dark colors the past of all those who resisted it'while brushing up its own. past with the brightest tints ofthe spectrum. The biographies of the leading actors of therevolution are made over from year to year in accordancewith the changes in the staff of the ruling stratum and the

growth of its pretensions. But the historical material puts upiome resistance No matter how great is the zeal of the of-

ficial historians, they are held in leash by the archives, the

periodical press of past years, and by the old articles-amongthem the articles of Stalin himself. That is the root of the evil!

Under the leadership of Yaroslavsky a number of younghistorians have been working over the history of the party'Ttrey have done all they could. But running into certain un-

submissive facts and documents, they found themselves unablgin spite of their zeal, either to crowd Tlotsky out of the OctoberRevolution or provide Stalin with a sufficiently imposing rolein it. It was just along this line that Yaroslavsky fell underindictrnent for circulating 'Trotskyist contraband": he did notcarry the remaking of history clear through to the end' Woe

to him who leaves his job half-done!In many cases the accusation of harboring contraband has

another source Thousands of the less resolute partisans ofthe Opposition formally renounced their views during the lastyears, and were refurned to the party and set to work' It soonbecame evident, however, that the Opposition school had been

for them an invaluable school for scientific thinking. Former"Trotskyists" have occupied prominent positions in the sphere

of economics, sciencg literature, and educational activities'They are submissive, as frightened functionaries know howto be, but they also know the facts. In their brain convolutionsa number of critical habits have got stuck. Ttre agents of Stalin,spying upon them from all sides, have had no difficulty indlicovering in their books and lectures the poison of "Trotsky-ist contraband."

There is also a third source of this poison, no less dangerous'Serious young investigators, not at all bound up in the pastwith the Opposition, to a considerable extent nonpolitical butalso free from careerist motives, frequently become victimsof the scientific material they are working on and their ownconscientiousness. Upon a whole series of questions, withoutever suspecting it, they fall into the tracks laid down by theLeft Opposition. Ttre system of opinions which the Stalin bu-reaucracy imposes has come into more and more serious con-


flict, not only with the traditions of the party, but also withany somewhat serious independent investigations in the variousspheres of historical and social science, thus giving rise toOpposition moods. As a result it has suddenly been discovered,that highly important branches of the social work in the SovietUnion are in the hands of the nvanguard of the bourgeoiscounterrevolution"!

The Strengthening of the Soviet EconomyWeakens Stalin

The bitter character of the present campaign against"Trotskyists" has inspired the Russian emigrant press to newprophecies of the coming downfall of the Soviet power. Andthese voices, in spite of the discouraging experience of thelast fourteen years, have found an echo even in the greatEuropean and American newspapers. This is not, after all,surprising: not only does the Stalin bureaucracy stubbornlyidentify itself with the Soviet regime, but its enemies also,in search for comforting illusions, become victims of the samepolitical aberration.

As a matter of fact, there is not the slightest foundation forthis talk of the approaching long-awaited "end." The devel-opment of the productive forces of the Soviet Union is themost colossal phenomenon of contemporary history. The gi-gantic advantage of a planned leadership has been demon-strated with a force which nothing can ever refute.The nearsightedness and zigzagging of the Stalin bureaucracyonly the more clearly emphasize the power of the methodsthemselves. Only the maniacs of the restoration can imaginethat the toiling masses of Russia want to hrrn back to theconditions of backward Russian capitalism.

But it is no less an error to imagine that the economic suc-cesses in strengthening the new industrial regime have alsoautomatically reinforced the political position of Stalin andhis faction. Up to a certain moment it was so. But at presenta process of oractly the opposite kind is developing. A peoplewho have achieved a mighty revolution may temporarily, indifficult circumstances, hand over the guidance of their des-tinies to a bureaucracy. But they are not able to renouncepolitics for long. It would be blindness not to see that the verystrengthening of the economic situation of the country setsthe toiling masses in more and more hostile opposition tothe omnipotence of a bureaucracy. The workers, not withoutjustification, attribute to themselves the achieved successes, andfollow the bureaucracy with more and more critical eyes. For

Is Stalin Weakming or the Sooiets? 43

the masses see from below not only the successes and the pos-sibilities flowing from them, but also the crude mistakes ofthe leaders and their continuous tendency to shift the responsi-bility for these mistakes from themselves to their agents. Inraising the pride of the workers, the successes have also raisedtheir political demands.

The lessons of the economic zigzags, especially the as-tounding exposures of the trials of the saboteurs, have takendeep root in the consciousness of the population and greatlyundermined even the prestige of Stalin. The inference comesof itself: "It seems as though the Opposition was righd" Theideas of the Opposition, although not showing themselves onthe surface, have long been laying down hidden roots. Acritical period is now opening. The workers desire not onlyto obey but to decide. They intend to change many things'It is more than ever demanded of them, however, that theymerely ratify decisions adopted without them' The workersare discontented-not with the Soviet regime but with the factthat a bureaucracy is replacing the Soviets. In various workers'councils the "Trotskyists" are lifting their heads, sometimesvery courageously. They are being expelled. This has openeda new chapter in the life of the ruling party. Critical voicescan no longer be silenced.

Whereas the former part5r crises reflected directly the difficulties and contradictions of the development of the Sovietrepublic under bureaucratic leadership, what comes to viewin the present period is the contradiction in the position ofthe Stalin faction and, above all, of Stalin himself'

When these lines see the light the Seventeenth Party Confer-ence will already be ending in Moscow, a conference whichis nothing but a meeting of the apparatus, that is, the cen-tralized Stalinist faction. Without a doubt the conference willpass off sufficiently well for the present leadership. But nomatter how strong the Stalin faction is, it will not decide.The decision will be made in the last analysis by industrialprocesses on the one side, and, on the other, by deep politicalprocesses taking place in the consciousness of the masses.

The campaign against "Trotskyism" now developing signal-izes the twilight of the omnipotence of the Stalin bureaucracy.But therewith it foretells, not the fall of the Bolshevik power'but on the contrary a new rise of the Soviet regime-not onlyits industry, but its politics and culture. That movement towhich 0re author belongs is firmly confident of finding itsplace in the gigantic work to come.

FOR COLLABORATIONDESPITE DIFFERENCES 72

February 10, 1932

Dear Comrade Shachtman:Although you have not yet answered my last letter I nev-

ertheless feel duty-bound to write you once more. I notice fromthe documents received that you propose to give up the postas editor of The MilitanL I hope that before these lines reachyou this matter has already been straightened ouL How couldit be otherwise? Your resignation would mean a blow notonly for the American League but also for the InternationalOpposition. The National Committee by vote has once moreexpressed its confidence in you. As far as I am concernedI certainly hope that despite the important differences of opin-ion our collaboration in struggle and friendship in the futurewill remain unshakable. In every respect it is absolutelynecessary that you remain at your posl

L. Trotsky

44

ANSWERS TO QUESTTONS BY THENEW YORK TIMEST3

February 15' lg32

Question: Will you give your appraisal of the fiveyear planand the economic perspectives confronting Russia?

Answer: The question of industrialization, and particularlyof the five-year plan, was one of the chief points of conflictbetween the Stalin faction and the Left Opposition, to whichI belong. Up to February 1928, the Stalin faction consideredit necessary to rest its power on the rich peasant and refusedto compel the peasant to make sacrifices in the interest ofindustrialization. The very principle of planning was laughedat by the bureaucracy. "We depend upon rain, not plans,"they said. In 1925 I published a book, Toward Capitalivnor Socialism?,14 in which I iroved that with proper leadershipindustry could show a 20 percent yearly increase or more.Stalin and Molotov considered these figures fantastic andaccused the Left Opposition of nsuperindustrialization." These

cursory comments on the history of the thing are sufficientto demonstrate my attitude to the five-year plan: I considerit a gigantic step forward in the development not only of theSoviet Union but of humanity.

Q.' Do you believe that the development of the five-year planhas strengthened or weakened the possibility of buildingsocialism in Soviet Russia alone without cooperation alongsimilar lines in the rest of Europe?

.* This raises the question about socialism in a singlecountry. The inevitability of socialism flows historically fromthe fact that the present productive forces of humanity havebecome incompatible not only with private property in themeans of production but also with present national bound-aries, especially in Europe. Just as medieval particularismhindered the development of capitalism in its youth, so now

45


at the peak of its development capitalism is strangling in thelimits set by the national states. Socialism cannot confine pro-ductive forces in the procrustean bed of national states. Thesocialist economy will develop on the basis of an internationaldivision of labor, the mighty foundations of which have beenlaid down by capitalism. The Soviet indushial constructionis, in my view, a part of a future European, Asiatic, andworldwide socialist strucfure, and not an independent nationalwhole.

Q.' Will Soviet Russia be compelled to come to some sortof a compromise with Western capitalism, assuming that shemay not be able to pursue a socialist policy single'handedly?What form would such a compromise assume?

A' The "compromise" between the Soviet and the capitalistsystems is not a question of the future but of the present Itis already a fact today, although not a very stable one. Howwill the interrelations between the isolated Soviet Union andworld capitalism develop? Here a concrete prophecy is noteasy to make, but in general I should cast the followinghoroscope: European capitalism is far nearer to a socialistrevolution than the Soviet Union is to a national socialistsociety.

Q; What are the prospects of Soviet Russia's relations withother countries in the political field if such a compromiseproves feasible?

A' The Soviet government is interested in maintaining peace.ful relations. It has demonstrated its will to peace, and is stilldemonstrating it by every means at the disposal of a govern-ment. It is true that in Paris they consider the Soviet proposalof universal disarmament a proof of the belligerent intentionsof Moscow, and on the other hand the refusal of France totake steps toward disarmament they regard as an expressionof her peaceful intentions. Following the same logic theFrench official press considers the Japanese invasion of Chinaan act of civilization, the Chinese resistance a barbarous actBurglars, according to this logic, are not those who breakinto other people's houses, but those who.defend their own.It is difficult to concur in this.

Q: What is your attitude toward the Stalin regime todayand why?

.* To answer this question I distinguish sharply two dif-ferent conceptions: the Soviet regime as the regime of proletarian dictatorship and the Stalin regime, which is abureaucratic perversion of the Soviet regime. It is with the

Ansuqs to Questions by the New York Times 47

aim of strengthening and developing the Soviet system thatI wage a struggle against the Stalin regime.

O Do you still regard the present phase of the Bolshevikrevolution as "Ttrermidorean,"T5 and has your view as ex-pressed in your autobiography been borne out by events sinceyour deparfure from Russia?

k I have never said that the present stage of the revolu-tion was "Thermidorean." The historic conception of Thermidorhas a very definite content: it means a completion of the firststage of a victorious counterrevolution. Thermidor in the USSRcould mean nothing else than the coming into power, althoughat first in a semidisguised form, of the bourgeoisie, and con-sequently a breakdown of the October Revolution. I havenever, at any time or anywhere, said that the October Revo-lution has broken down. This opinion is persistently attributedto me by the Stalinist press for purposes which have nothingwhatever to do with the interests of truth. What I have assertedand do assert is that there has grown up on the basis of theOctober Revolution a powerful bureaucratic stratum in whichboth active and passive Thermidorean tendencies are verystrong. However, their victory is still far off. The oppositionto these tendencies consists of a struggle for the independenceof the Communist Part5r, the trade unions, and the Soviets andfor their vigilant control over the bureaucracy. This opinionwas not formed by me after my e><ile from the Soviet Union;on the contrary, it was the cause of my e:<ile. A bureaucracydoes not tolerate any attacks on its commanding role. Thedanger inherent in the Thermidorean tendencies of a bureau-cracy was perfecfly clear to Lenin. He warned against thisdanger in his last speech at the Elwenth Party Congress inL922. My last conversation with Lenin was devoted to thisquestion. Lenin proposed that I form a bloc with him againstthat bureaucratism, the focal point of which he considered,and I also, to be the secretarial apparatus of the party ledby Stalin. Lenin's second illness prevented the carrying outof this plan.

Q.' Is there need of modifying the Communist dictatorshipin Russia and how should it be modified?

A' This question is closely bound up with the first two. Theeconomic successes, it is needless to say, have greatly strength-ened the Soviet Union. At the same time they have greatlyweakened the position of Stalin's official apparatus. In thisthere is no contradiction. In the first place, it is perfectly clearto all conscious elements of the population of the Soviet Union


that the successes in the sphere of industrialization and col-lectivization became possible only because the Stalinist bu-reaucracy came up against the resistance of its protege, thekulak, who refused to surrender his grain to the state, andthus the bureaucracy was compelled to take over and carryout the program of the Left Opposition. Stalin has dealt withour program in much the same way that the freetraderMacDonald has dealt with the protectionist program of JosephChamberlain,T6 who also in his time was cruelly beaten atthe polls. Today Chamberlain- I mean the father, not theson - is in any case more popular in England than MacDonald.To be sure, Chamberlain died long ago. But the principalleaders of the Russian Opposition are alive. Rakovsky in Bar-naul is attentively following all the processes of industry andpolitics in the Soviet Union.

A second and still more important cause of the weakeningof the Soviet bureaucracy lies in the fact that the economicsuccesses have greatly elevated not only the number of Rus-sian workers, but also their cultural level, their confidencein their own powers, and their feeling of independence. Allthese traits are hard to reconcile with bureaucratic guardian-ship. Nevertheless, the Stalin apparatus in its struggle for dom-inance has carried the bureaucratic regime to its utmostextremes. I want especially to emphasize this fact the economicsuccesses, as frequently happens in history, have not strength-ened but, on the contrary, undermined the position of the rul-ing stratum. I consider important changes in the methods ofthe Soviet regime absolutely inevitable, and that, too, in therather near future. Ttrese changes will involve a blow at thedictatorship of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and will indubitablyclear the road for a flourishing of Soviet democracy on thefoundations laid down by the.October Revolution.

Q; Do you look forward to your return to Soviet Russia?Under what conditions would that be possible and what wouldbe your program?

4' I think that the above'mentioned changes will make pos-sible and inevitable a return of the Left Opposition to activework in the Soviet Union.

Q.' You have been reported as urging the Communists inGermany to support the Bruening government as a meansof staving off the victory of Hitlerism. Is that true? Why doyou consider the present policy of German commu-nism erroneous?

Ans-u)qs to Questions by the New York Times 49

A' Dispatches to the effect that I have urged the GermanCommunists to support the government of Bruening are, of

coursq false. The Stalinist press has attributed this plan to me,

and the idea has been taken up by journalists who do not

understand the situation. I proposed to the German Commu-nists to carry out the policy of a united front'7? The

Communists ought to propose to the Social Democrats and

to the trade unions led by them a program of cooperative,practical struggle against the attack of the fascists. The Social

Democratic masses quite sincerely desire to wage such a strug-gle. If the leaders refuse, they will compromise themselvesin the eyes of their own supporters. If the leaders agree, the

masses, in practical action, will go beyond their leaders and

support the Communists. One must learn to make use of dis-

agleements in the camp of opponents and enemies' Only witha policy as fle:<ible as this is it possible to rise step by step

to the iop. Strategy involves maneuver as well as assault Ihave not the slightest doubt that the German Communist Party,

in spite of the resistance of the Stalinist bureaucracy, willlearn this strategy, through which alone Bolshevism was able

to win power in Russia.

Q.' What is your view of the present world economic crisis

and itt implications for the prevailing social order? Do youstill look for world revolution as a likely consequence of the

crisis or do you believe that capitalism may surmount the

crisis and enter upon a period of stabilization? What wouldbe the situation of soviet Russia in event of stabilization? Has

not the world economic crisis placed before Soviet Russia the

need of revising her own economic policies?A' The present economic crisis is an indubitable o<pression

of the fact that world capitalism has ou0ived itself as a system'

The question of the historic date when it will be replaced byanother system will be decided, of course, in different ways

for different countries, and especially for different parts ofthe world. Even though the automatic working of the laws

of the market may lead to a softening of the crisis in Europe

after a year or two, the crisis will return again in a com-

paratively short time with redoubled force. The productiveior"". ate beiog strangled in the national cells of Europe' The

dilettante plan of M. Briand?8 for a union of Europe has notemerged and never will emerge from the laboratory of the

chancelleries and editorial offices. The ruling classes will cure

the crisis with a further economic decimation of Europe and

a strengthening of protectionism and militarism' Under these


circumstances I see no prospect of aEuropean capitalism.

Q: How do you view the positionthe present world sihration?

general stabilization of

of the United States in

.4' I think, as a result of the present crisis, the predominanceof American over European capitalism will grow still morepronounced. In the same way, as a result of every crisis, yousee a growth in the predominance of the big enterprise overthe small, the trust over the isolated undertaking. However,this inevitable growth of the world hegemony of the UnitedStates will entail further deep contradictions both in the econ-omy and in the politics of the great American republic. Inasserting the dictatorship of the dollar over the whole world,the ruling class of the United States will introduce the con-tradictions of the whole world into the very basis of its owndominance. The economy and the politics of the United Stateswill depend more and more directly upon crises, wars, andrevolutions in all parts of the world. The position of "observ-er" cannot long be maintained formally. I think that Americawill create the most colossal system of land, sea, and air mil-itarism that can be imagined. The conclusive emergence ofAmerica from its old provincialism, the struggle for markets,the growth of armaments, an active world policy, the experience of the present crisis - all these things will inevitably intro-duce deep changes into the inner life of the United States. Theemergence of a labor party is inevitable.?e It may begin togrow with an "American tempo," leading to the liquidationof one of the two old parties, just as the Liberals have dis-appeared in England. To sum it up, you must say the SovietUnion will be Americanized technically, Europe will eitherbe sovietized or descend to barbarism, the United States willbe Europeanized politically.

FROM A LETTERTO SIMON AND SCHUSTER 8N

February 26,1932

. . . The young scholars who helped me with the preparationof the books [Collected Works in the Russian] are now, likemy other closest coworkers, in prisons and other places ofexile in Siberia and Central Asia.

. . The second volume lof The Historg of the Russian Reoo-lution], devoted to the October Revolution, is almost finished.slIt has taken me considerably more time than the first-notonly because it considerably exceeds the first volume in size

but chiefly because in the sphere of the October Revolutionthe official Stalin sehool of history has succeeded in carryingout a colossal work of "stylization" (not to say falsification),and here the verification of facts and documents has demandedspecial care.

. In 1919 Wilson and Lloyd George82 proposed to callan international conference at Prinkipo with the participation

" of the Soviets. Lenin insisted that I represent Soviet Russiaat that conference. The conference did not take place owingto inner conflicts in the Entente.8s But I arrived in Prinkipojust the same-not for negotiations with European diplomatsbut for work on the history of the Russian Revolution. I mustconfess that this work is far more agreeable to me than theother.

51

INTERVIEW BY THEASSOCIATED PRESS 84

Observations, Political and Pensonal

February 26, 1932

I have neither the te><t of the decree of which you speak norofficial confirmation that such a decision has been made, butsupposing the information is correct, which I beliwe highlyprobable, I can give the following explanation:

The list of names in the decree is wholly artificial. It is thefamous "amalgamn system.85 They have combined a list ofopponents and enemies of the Soviet regime, expelled fromSoviet Russia since 1921, as a specific entourage around myname. Stalin's need for resorting to such methods is due tothe fact that his personal situation is thoroughly shaken andcompromised.

Indisputable economic successes have been made along thelines advocated by the Opposition, while difficulties have resulted from Stalin's purely bureaucratic method. The work-ing classes of Russia are clearly aware of this. After declaringus dead four years ago, Stalin found himself forced somemonths ago to launch a desperate international campaignagainst 'Trotskyism" and me personally. The present decreeis merely the crown of this campaign, which indicates thestrength of our tendency in the Soviets.

We have come again to Prinkipo where, with my family,I spent the first two years of my e><ile until fire destroyed ourdwelling and everyfhing it contained, including my library.Here we are even m?ore isolated from the outside world thanat Moda. At present during stormy days in February the postdoes not arrive for a day or two days at a time. All housesare tightly closed. You can see there are ideal conditions herefor abstaining from politics. However, the world press does

52

Interttiew by the Associated Press 53

not allow me a political holiday. Not long ago news appearedin the papers of several countries that I was planning to leavefor Germany to take upon myself the defense of the Brueninggovernment. The Spanish press, basing its opinions partlyon the theory of permanent revolution,86 which I uphold'and partly on police communications, accuses me of organiz-ing recent movements against Civi-l Guards there.

At the same time at Moscow the Stalin faction decided duringits last conference that I was directing "the vanguard of bour-geois counterrevolution." Again it must be remembered thata few months ago there appeared in the world press an an-nouncement of my plot, together with the former emir ofAfghanistan, to free India.

Which of these communications is true and exact? I have todisappoint you. They are all false.

If you ask me which of them pleases me most' my choicewill fall on the plot with the emir of Afghanistan. In this storythere is at least the most creative fantasy. I am only sorry wearen't accorded as a third ally Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. Itis true that, without officially taking part in a plot he doesall in his power for the quickest possible liberation of Indiafrom England.8? To have introduced him officially into theconspiracy would have been tantamount to compromising himunnecessarily.

When I was arrested in Madrid during the war the directorof police thus answered my questions as to the reasons forthe arrest: "Your ideas are too advanced for Spain." There-upon I was incarcerated in a "model" prison at Madrid, whichI confess did not appear especially model to me.

Since that time monarchy has given place in Spain to a

republic, which even in its constitution is called a republicof labor. I do not know to what er<tent the police of Madridhave been renovated, but apparently they have the same con-viction that my ideas are too advanced for Spain.

Nevertheless they consider this very brief formula sufficientto motivate a refusal of a visa. Thence arises this version ofmy long-distance direction of the recent popular movementin Spain.

How should the Stalin faction's new campaign against mebe explained? There are two causes, one general, the otherpersonal.

In spite of everything that many newspapers write, the per-sonal position of Stalin and his limited group is tottering pre


cariously. The economic and cultural successes of the SovietUnion have considerably aroused the self-confidence of theworking class and, at the same time, its criticism of the bu-reaucratic regime which Stalin personifies.

There is nothing anti-Soviet in this movement; on the con-trary, it is entirely impregnated with the traditions of Octoberand the Bolshevik Party. But it is dhected against the dic-tatorship of the Stalin faction. This is the explanation for hun-dreds and hundreds of articles and annotations in Sovietnewspapers, which disclose everywhere "Trotskyist contraband."

That is the title which simply leads one to understand theincreasing independence of the workers and their animosityagainst the bureaucracy.

There is a second and more personal cause for the cam-paign against us. It goes back to the past, but is connectedwith the present. Unkind tongues say there exist in Americanot a few estimable men who, despite their modest birth, try,as soon as their "price" begins to er<press itself in numbersof seven figures, to seek out their ancestors among the Englisharistocracy or even the Scottish dynasty.

The bureaucratic faction of Stalin cannot take this road,but the members of this faction try to prove their specialrights by their roles in the fight against the czar and in theOctober Revolution. Thus are created apocryphal biographiesand thus apocryphal history is written. During my years ofexile I have edited a series of historical documents in theRussian language. I have devoted my time on this islandprincipally to historical works. TWo of the latter, My Lifeand the history of the revolution of February, have ap-peared in America, England, and other countries. The third,the revolution of October, should appear shortly. I am atpresent working on its last chapter.

All these books are absolutely forbidden to be importedinto the Soviet Union. But many Soviet citizens, and someCommunists among them, leave for abroad for economic,diplomatic, scientific, and other reasons. They read my booksand carry back in their heads to the Soviet Union the so-called "Trotskyist conhaband."

The veritable picture of the revolution of 1917 which I havemade on the basis of positive and indisputable documentsis in complete disaccord with the official legend of the Stalinbureaucracy. Stalin and his creatures have discovered withhorror that Trotskyist contraband has pierced its way intohistorical research, historical journals, and even into school-

Intqoiao by the Associated Press

books. In November of last year Stalin gave the alarm signalto begin the recent campaign against the Ttotskyists.

Not long ago a young historian named Keen was accusedof irrational contraband and repented with the following wordsbefore the Society of Marxist Historians: "Our fault was thatwe wanted to be too objective, whereas the history of the revo-lution should not be objective but conformable to our goal."In other words, it should respond to the exigencies of the Stalinbureaucracy just as genealogical researches should to the ex-igencies of canning-factory millionaires in Chicago.

The words of the young historian I have named are notironical-that is, not ironical for himself. He is merely ex-pressing with too much frankness what is at the bottom ofthe affair: one must not write the history of the Russian Revo-lution too objectively or one will get Trotskyist contraband.Not one of my fervent friends could give a more favorablereport of my historical work.

If living on the island of Prinkipo doesn't facilitate the direc-tion of the movement at Seville, on the other hand one canin this tranquility ponder quietly and thoroughly the logicalsuccession of great historic events and in that light the rolesof parties and men. TWo-thirds of my time is consecrated tothis and the other third - one.fourth, let us say - of all mytime is devoted to articles and pamphlets on current politi-cal events.

Ttrere remains a twelfth, youin arithmetic. This little timeing and hunting.

CD

say? I see that you are strongpermit me to reserye for fish-

:

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Trotsky, Natalia Sedova, and the fisherman Charolambosat Prinkipo.

INTERVIEW BY THEUNITED PRESSss

.trapan, China, and the USSR

February 29, 1932

The activities of the Japanese troops in China are develop-ing in a spiral whose radius is increasing from month tomonth. Such a method has political and diplomatic advan-tages: it gradually draws into war both one o own nationand the enemy's, while the rest of the world is confronted witha series of faits accomplis. This method is evidence that themilitary clique has to overcome at this preliminary stage notonly external but also internal opposition. From the purelymilitary point of view the mode of action of "small doses"carries within itself certain disadvantages. Eviden0y the Japan-ese rulers are of the opinion that given the military weaknessof China and the insoluble contradictions in the camp of itsenemies and rivals, it is possible to allow themselves initiallya certain loss of tirne which is connected with a spiral advancs

But after the first stage-with or without a delay-the secondstage must inevitably follow, Le., the stage of real war. Whatis its political objective? The leading Paris press, which zeal-ously translates the ideas and slogans of the Japanese generalstaff into French, has continually given assurance that thisis a matter not of war but of police measures. This interpretation goes with nthe method of small doses." It will fall apartof itself as soon as the inevitable er<tension into militaryactiens takes place, and when the attacking forces are inposition before the desired targets.

Japan's aim is to colonize China, a grandiose plan. Butone can say immediately that this is beyond Japan's powers.Japan has come too late on the scene: at a time when Britainis facing the loss of India, Japan will not succeed in turningChina into a new India.

c,


Could not the aim of the Tokyo oligarchy be to strikeagainst the USSR? It would be light-minded to consider sucha plan excluded. But this cannot be in the foreground. Onlyafter it has seized Manchuria and consolidated itself therecould Japan pose for itself the question of striking to thenorthwest But while the Soviet government does not and can-not want war, Japan on its side can hardly decide on directaggressive measures against the Soviet Union without firstensuring and equipping its Sino-Manchurian position.

There is still one more important consideration in this con-text. The Japanese oligarchy considers-however basically isanother question-it is possible to wage war against Chinapiecemeal, by installments; such a course of action mustappear more acceptable even to the Japanese finance minister,whom this matter touches rather closely.

A war against the Soviet Union would require completelydifferent methods. Without powerful allies capable of gener-ously financing the war, Japan will hardly dare step outsidethe Manchurian border. How much Tokyo today or tomorrowcan count on billions in war loans can be established moreeasily in Paris and New York than in Prinkipo.

Every attempt to ascribe to the Soviet government aggressiveintentions in the Far East founders because of internal con-tradictions. A war would be a crr.el blow to the industrialplan with which the whole future of the country is closelybound up. A factory which is incomplete by one percent isnot yet a factory. And in the Soviet Union there are hundredsand thousands of factories still . in the process of being built.A war would turn them for a long time into dead capital.All this is too obvious to need emphasizing.

Even if it is assumed that a military collision in the FarEast is nevertheless inevitable-and many politicians not onlyin Japan, but elsewhere too, are convinced of this-then evenin this event the Soviet government cannot have any reasonto force a conflict. Japan is involved in China in an enormousenterprise with unforeseeable consequences. She may and willhave individual military and diplomatic successes but theywill be transitory whereas the difficulties will be permanentand increasing. In Korea Japan has her Ireland. In Chinashe is trying to create her own India. Only completely dull,feudal-type generals can regard the nationalist movement inChina with nonchalance. It is impossible to contain the awak-ening of a great nation of 450 million people by means ofaircraft. Japan is up to her knees if not up to her waist in

Interoiew bg the United Press 59

the soft soil of Manchuria. And since in Japan herseU economicdevelopment has come into irreconcilable contradiction withthe feudal strucfure of society, an internal crisis must be regarded as quite inevitable. For a start the Seiyukai Partywill give place to the Minseito Partyse which will move tothe left; then a revolutionary party will raise its head. . . 'France lost not a little through financing czarism. She ismistaken if she thinks that this has insured her against a lossin financing the mikado.e0 It is clear that in the Far Eastthe Soviet government can have no grounds for being pre-cipitate or nervous.

Consequently, a war between the USSR and Japan couldbreak out only in the event of the conflict being consciouslyand deliberately provoked by Japan in agreement with morepowerful allies. At stake in this war would be of course farmore than the Chinese Eastern Railroadel or Manchuria as

a whole. Certain French newspapeis have been rather hastyin predicting that "Bolshevism will perish in the Siberiansteppes." The steppes and forests of Siberia are very extensiveand much could perish in them. But can one be sure that itwill be Bolshevism that will perish?

The idea of a war between the Soviet Union and Japanand the parallel idea of a war between Japan and the USAat once raises the problem of space; an ocean of dry landand an ocean of water are the possible arenas for the mili-tary operations At first sight the strategic problem goes

straight to the problem of space. Hence many rush to drawunpleasant conclusions for the Soviet Union; the sparsenessof population in the Asiatic parts of the Soviet IJnion, its in-dustrial backwardness, the insufficient rail communications-all these are negative factors on the Soviet Union's side. Toa certain extent that is so, but only to a certain extent. Evenlimiting the problem to the military-technical sphere, it is im-possible not to see that these same spaces will also be alliesfor the Soviet Union. If one admits military successes for Japangoing from East to West, then it is easy to foresee that dif-ficulties would arise proportionate at least to the square of thedistances traversed by the Japanese troops. The successes woulddevour themselves, and Japan would be forced to leave behind her back her own Ireland and her own India.

However one cannot pose the problem so narrowly. Thewar would be conducted not only by military means. TheSoviet Union would not be alone. China has awakened. She

60 Writings of Leon Tlotskg (1932)

wants to and is able to struggle for her existence. Whoeverignores this factor risks running into a stone wall.

To convey millions of soldiers across the Siberian main-land and supply them with the necessary war material is nosmall task. However, due to the present e><ceptional growthof indushial potential in the Soviet lJnion, if necessary trans-port by rail could be considerably increased. Of course, thiswould take time. But a war over great distances would in-evitably be a war over a great period of time. Perhaps itwould brr necessary to work out a military "five.year plan"or refastLion the economic five-year plan in accordance withits requirements. Of course, this would deliver the cruelest blowto the economy and culture of the counhies participating inthe war. But I reject the hypothesis that there is any otherway. Once war is inevitable it must be waged totally and allmeans and resources mobilized.

The participation of the Soviet Union in the war would opennew perspectives for the Chinese nation and engender a greatnational upsurge in it. Whoever understands the logic of thesituation and the psychology of the popular masses cannothave any doubt about this. In China there is no shortageof human reserves. Millions of Chinese have learned how tohandle a rifle. What is lacking is not the will to struggle butproper military training, organization, system, and skilledcommand. Here the Red Army could offer very effective help.The best units of Chiang Kai-shek's army were in their timecreatd, as is known, under the leadership of Soviet instructors.The o<perience of the Whampoa Military Academy, built ondifferent political foundations (I am not going to touch onthis question here), could be extended on a large scale. Inaddition to the necessary military supplies, the Trans-SiberianRailroad could transport not an army, but the essential cadresof one. How to improvise troops from awakened and arousedhuman beings has been learned well by the Bolsheviks andthey cannot have forgotten it. I do not doubt that in the courseof twelve to eighteen months it would be possible to mobilize,equip, arm, train, and transport to the battlefront the firstmillion troops whose training would not be inferior to thatof the Japanese and whose military morale would e:<cel theirs.The second million would not need even six months. I amspeaking about China. And in addition there stands the So-viet Union, the Red Army, its great reserves. No, theleading French press - the most reactionary in the wholeworld - is too much in a huny to bury the Soviets in the

Intercieut by the Llnited hess 61

Siberian steppes; naked hatred is always a bad counselor,particularly when dealing with a historical prognosis.

But il the prospects are so favorable, you will ask, whydoes the Soviet government avoid a war with all its might?I really have already answered this question: in the Far Eastthe time factor is working against imperialist Japan whichhas passed its peak and is now coming to its decline Besides,

and no less important, the world does not consist solely ofthe Far East. The key to the world situation is today notin Mukden but in Berlin. U Hitler came to power that wouldsignify for the Soviet Union an incomparably more immediatedanger than the intentions of the military oligarchy in Tokyo.

But we decided from the beginning to limit ourselves to theproblem of the Far East. Let us therefore do as we said.

ON BEING DEPRIVED OF SOVIETCITIZENSHIPg2

Open Letter to the Presidium of theCentral Executive Committee of the USSR

March 1. 1932

With inevitable delay I learn f.rom Praoda of your decisionof February 2O, 1932, depriving me and the members of myfamily sharing my orpulsion, exile, and work, of the rightsof Soviet citizenship and forbidding our entry into the USSRWherein my "counterrevolutionary" activity lies, the decisiondoes not say. If we discount the polemical rituals against"Trotskyism," the Soviet press cited only two instances of myalleged activity which could have been characterized as coun-terrevolutionary - had they actually occumed.

Praoda of July 2, I93L, carried with corresponding com-mentaries a photostatic reproduction of the first page of thePolish newspaper l{urier Codzienng [Daily Courier] contain-ing an article supposedly by me directed against the SovietUnion. It is taken for granted that none of you doubted fora moment that this article was a forgery by a filthy sheelwell known for its falsifications. The same newspaper shortlythereafter forged documents against Galician (Ukrainian)revolutionaries. Even the bourgeois press such as the Man-chester Guardian at that time characterized the Kurier Cod-zienny as a newspaper which had already distinguished it-self by the forgery of an article by Tlotsky. I demanded arepudiation f.rom Praoda^ It did not appear. Praoda inten-tionally deceived millions of workers, Red soldiers, sailors,and peasants, lending support in its name to the forgery ofthe Polish fascists. One cannot but recall that the author ofthese ndisclosures" in Praoda was none other than Yaroslavsky,in those days one of the supreme guardians of party morality.If since then he has suffered somewhat, it was at any ratenot due to the forgery, but rather to its incompleteness.

62

On Being Dqrioed of Sooiet Citizenship

The second e<ample of my "counterrevolutionary" activitypreceded your decision only by a few weeks. On January 16,1932, the Central &ecutive Committee's Izoestiass carrieda dispatch from Berlin to the effect that I call for the supportof the Bruening government, acting in agreement with theGerman Social Democracy and in particular with KarlKautsky and Alfred Adler (?),sa and that in return for thisa visa for entry into Germany is promised me. All this in-formation, in which, of course, it is clear to you there isn'ta single word of truth, is taken from a reactionary, anti-Semit-ic Berlin sheet which one can hardly look at, let alone quote.Not one newspaper in Germany attributed any significanceto these inventive labors of the German Purishkeviches.es OnlyIzoestia, a newspaper formally under your, the presidium'scontrol, published this acknowledgedly false information, con-sciously deceiving millions of citizens of the Soviet Union.

Thus you did not consider it possible to adopt your deci-sion until two of the most responsible papers of the SovietUnion-the central publication of the party and the officialpublication of the government-had deceived the people withthe aid of forgeries fabricated by Polish and German fascists.This is a fact which can neither be erased nor obliterated.

But even after such preparations you found it necessary-or it was suggested to you-that you carefully disguise yourdecision. This er<haordinary measure against me, preparedin advance by the latest anti-Trotskyist campaign-I do notremember which one it is numerically out of a long series-you were forced to transform into a decree, directed supposedlyagainst thirty-swen persons, including, outside of the mem-bers of my family, over thirty people who were dragged inexclusively for the purpose of a political cover. You includedleaders of Menshevism o<pelled from the Soviet Union withmy direct participation over ten years ago. Apparently itseemed to Stalin that this was a masterly move. Actually,the thread stitching it together is all too obvious. Pretendingthat the nature of Dan's and Abramovich's96 activity becameclear to you only in 1932, you place the presidium of the CECin a very uncomfortable position. You yourself can't helprealizing this, but in this matter also you are forced to sub-mit to the Stalinist bureaucracy, which operates in an increas-ingly crude fashion, not troubling about the dignity of thehighest bodies of the Soviet power.

It is too distasteful to dwell on the other characteristics ofStalin's manufactured list; in the intentional intermingling of

63

U Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

names for the purposes of additional "effect," it represents adocument on the same moral level as the two abovementionedforgeries which served as preparations for it.

Only a police mentaligr can link the Left Opposition withMenshevism. In the field of politics, your centrismeT standsbetween the Left Opposition and Menshevism. No trickery willchange thal The decision of February 20 represents a consum-mate amalgam in the Thermidorean style. Centrism, oscillat-ing between Marxism and national reformism, is forced-itcannot do otherwise-to combine and connect its petty-bour-geois enemies from the right with its revolutionary opponentsfrom the left in order to cover up its own void by means ofsuch an amalgam. I wish to remind you that the first pieceof advice concerning the expulsion of the Left Oppositionistsfrom the country was given in writing to Stalin by none otherthan Ustrialov.es Your decision will go down in history withthe stigma of Thermidor.

Stalin will tell you that it is not a question of "isolated" factsbut that the decision is based on all the countenevolutionaryactivity of myself and my family, in general, which needsno proof. If this is so, why was it necessary to resort to falsedocuments and to introduce elements of an unworthy mas-querade into the decision itself? He cannot squirm out of this.The very fact that after nine years of uninterrupted attack -remember that the beginning of the struggle against nTrotsky-

ism" coincided with the death of Lenin-you had to resortto the filthy sheets of Polish and German chauvinisrn andhide under an amalgam in order to pass this exceptional lawagainst me and my family discloses and o<poses the impo-tence of all the campaigns against "Trotskyismn and com-promises your latest invention beyond repair.

From the point of view of personal revenge-and this ele.ment, as you well know, enters into all of Stalin's fabrications-the decree completely failed to accomplish its aim. This timeStalin thrust himself out too far from behind stage and carelessly revealed his true political and moral stature. If heforced you to issue-not without timid resistance, I know-this unworthy decree of exclusion, it was only because theprofound correctness of the Left Opposition has been demon-strated on all questions without el<ception, national and in-ternational, on which we waged a struggle all these years.Ttre seemingly aggressive gesture of Stalin is helpless andeven pitiable self-defense.

On Being Dqritsed of Sooiet Citizmship 65

The Opposition fought against the Stalinist faction for indus-trialization, for planning, for higher tempos of the economy,and for collectivization instead of dependence upon the kulak.Beginning in 1923, the Opposition demanded the preparationof a five-year plan and indicated its basic elements. All the

economic successes of the Soviet Union were prepared theo'retically and in part organizationally by the Left Opposition.Your president, Kalinin, who supported Stalin from the rightagainst the Left Opposition, knows more about this than any-one else. As late as April 1926, Stalin, in the struggle againstme, with the support of Molotov, Kalinin, Voroshilov,ee andothers, declared that "we need the Dnieprostroys as a peasantneeds a phonograph." In this formula is contained a wholephilosophy of history. For the struggle against it and for itsdefeat, Rakovsky is confined at Barnaul, hundreds and thou-sands of unyielding revolutionaries fill the places of detentionand o<ile, and some Bolshevik-Leninists- are shot.

On the international arena, the situation was not much dif-ferent. The Opposition fought against the 1923 capitulationistpolicies of Brandler, 100 who was supported on the rightby Stalin; against the Stalinist theory of worker-peasant par-ties, the confinement of Chinese communism within the ironcage of the Kuomintang, the bloc of the Politburo with the

clique of British strikebreakers;10r against the whole oppor-tunistic, ruinous, shameful, thoroughly treacherous policy ofStalin, who for several years held the stirrup for ChiangKai-shek and exchanged portraits with him on the very eve

of the day Chiang Kai-shek carried out the bloodbath inShanghai. You yourselves are well acquainted with the factsand know that there is no o<aggeration at all in my words.It is not for nothing that the history of the Chinese revolu-tion became a prohibited book in the Soviet Union: each page

of it burns the fingers of the Stalinist clique.In what does our "counterrevolutionary'' activity lie? Among

the hundreds of the current Stalinist theoreticians (hired bythe day or by the piece) who crawl like worms in the woundsof the world proletariat, there are not a few volunteers wiilingto change white into black, or into any color of the rainbow.They will not change historic facts, however' nor weaken the

foundations of Marxism. The Left Opposition has the rightto be proud of its struggle against the Stalinist faction in the

USSR and in Germany, in China, in England, in all partsof the world touched by the hand of the opportunisticapparatus.


Hit over the head by the kulaks, deceived in its calculationsby friend Chiang Kai-shek, kicked instead of thanked by theBritish trade'unionists they had rescued, the Stalinist bureau-cracy in 1928 made a whirlwind turn of 180 degrees overour heads, then to plunge into monstrous economic and polit-ical adventurism, the accounts for which are still to be settled.

The Left Oppositionists-the only true Bolshevik-Leninistsin the ranks of the international proletariat!-again quicklyand decisively came out against this bureaucratic adventurismthat is armed with the resources of the workers' state. Ourwarning against the irresponsible conversion of the five,yearplan into a four-year plan has been fully confirmed. The arti-ficial acceleration, prepared neither theoretically nor practi-cally, not only made it impossible to solve what had becomemore of an o<ercise in sport than an economic problem, butdeepened a series of disproportions which are now being in-corporated into the framework of the second five.year plan.The Opposition warned against the dangerous game of ncom-

plete collectivization" and the notion of nthe liquidation ofclasses" within the period of the first fiveyear plan. Today"complete collectivization" is halted, and "the liquidation ofclasses" through two or three stages is projected in the newfiveyear plan. This too is a bureaucratic utopian idea. Asa result of forced collectivization and the violation of basiceconomic proportions, the extremely unsatisfactory food andgeneral living conditions of the working class remain, unfor-tunately, a reality.

The working class of Russia has the right to be proud ofthe truly great technical achievements accomplished within thelast few years. These achievements became possible only whenthe pressure of events forced the bureaucracy to make useof the pladorm of the Left Opposition, although after a delayand in distorted and twisted form. The political consciousnessof the workers has risen to new heights. No historic forcecan compel them to renounce the foundations laid by theOctober Revolution and the methods of planned economy veri-fied in actual work. They will crush anyone who tries to dragthem back toward bourgeois democracy and capitalism.

But the workers also realize more and more clearly whichone of the political groups was the real initiator of plannedsocialist construction and which one introduced into the eco-nomic construction first bureaucratic obstruction, then-theadvenfurist race in the dark. lhe workers want to direct theeconomy themselves and not merely er<ecute plans which

On Being Dqrioed of Sooiet Citizenship

the Stalinist bureaucracy makes behind their backs in collab-oration with incompetents from the right or from the left. Theanxiety of the workers, their dissatisfaction, their as yet muteprotests- all this substantiates the criticism of the LeftOpposition.

The strengthening of the economic foundation of the dicta-torship and the growth in numbers and self-confidence of theproletariat lead not to the strengthening but to the weakeningof the political position of the bureaucracy. Its ranks are begin-ning to scatter. A small minorifir holds on even more tightlyto Stalin as an anchor of safety. The others look about insearch of reassurance. The Bessedovskys, Agabekovs,Dmitrievskys,l02 corrupted careerists, clever scoundrels, 100percent swindlers-how many of them are there in the ap-paratus?-try to find the nearest fence to jump over into thecamp of the class enemy.

The honest elements of the apparatus-forfunately they area majority-listen to the voices from below, compare the paststages and the discarded slogans of the years 1923-26-28-30-32, all those zigzags of bureaucratic blindness, and realizewith horror that the Stalinist "general line" is a myth, an il-lusion, a hazy reflection of the vacillations of the apparatusitself. Thus begins the chapter of reckoning for the revisionof the basis of scientific socialism, for the brazen violationof the party.

The mistakes and crimes of the bureaucracy for these nineyears have not gone unpunished. The Stalinist regime is ap-proaching a decisive crisis. The episode with the "semi-Trotsky-isf' Yaroslavsky would have seemed absolutely impossible ayear or a year and a half ago, when I wrote of the first"squeak in the apparafus."l03 Today this episode does notastonish anyone; on the contrary, it is accepted as an unmis-takable symptom of a deeper process. The Stalinist apparatushas ceased to be the Stalinist apparatus. It has becomea system of contradictions and cracks. As the workers becomemore impatient with the orders of the bureaucracy, the ap-paratus becomes more distrusfful of the leadership of Stalin;the two processes are interconnected. All the more fiercely,therefore, is the pressured Stalinist faction forced to fight forthe retention of its leading positions.

You started the struggle against "Tlotskyism" under the ban-ner of the "Old Bolshevik Guard." To Tlotsky's imaginaryambitions of personal leadership, ambitions which you your-

67


selves had invented, you opposed the "collective leadershipof the Leninist Central Committee." What remains of that col-lective leadership and what is left of the Leninist Central Com-mittee? The apparatus, independmt of the working class andof the party, has set the stage for Stalin's dictatorship whichis independent of the' apparatus. Now to pledge loyalty tothe nl,eninist Central Committee" is almost the same as to callopenly for insurrection. Only an oath of loyalty to Stalin maybe taken-this is the only formula permitted. The publicspeaker, the propagandist, the journalist, the theoretician, theeducator, the sportsman-each must include in his speech,article, or lecture the phrase about the infallibility of the policyof the Central Committee "under Stalin's leadership," whichmeans the infallibilrty of Stalin who rides on the back of theCentral Committee. Every party member and Soviet official,from the president of the Council of People's Commissars toa humble provincial clerk, must take openly, before the wholecountry, an oath that in case of disagreement between theCentral Committee and Stalin, he, the undersigned, will supportStalin against the CC. To this level are the bylaws of the partyand the Soviet constitution now reduced in practice

This sort of thing is going further and further. The officialanniversary article on the Red Army (February 23) statesthat the "Communist Party" with its Leninist Central Commit-tee headed by Comrade Stalin is the leader of all the armedforces of the Soviet Union. The Red Army is called upon tobe loyal to the Soviets of the working masses, to the proletariat and its vanguard as long as Stalin will remain "at thehead" of the party. This means that on the day when the partywill no longer desire his costly leadership, the Red Army willhave to support Stalin against the party. There can be noother meaning in the oath to the name of Stalin. This is anew stage in the systematic, planned, persistent preparationof Bonapartism. Reread history!

When you started the struggle in the party in the name ofthe struggle against "Trotskyism," you formed within the of-ficial Politburo a secret Politburo, or "the seven," against me.You had your secret meetings, your secret discipling yoursecret code for communication with agents of the conspiracyin the provinces. The baiting of Trotsky and of "Tlotskyismnwent parallel with the stifling of the pargr's independence; oneand the other were equally necessary for the triumph of thebureaucracv.

On Being Dqrioed, of Sooiet Citizenship 69

Now the same thing, although as a caricature in Bonapart-ist form, is being performed on a new historic stage. Withoutdoubt Stalin's narrow faction has its own secret staff, its slo-gans and passwords, its agents and codes; the conspiracyagainst the apparatus is pushed full speed ahead, while theapparatus is still in conspiracy against the party. The despo-tism of Stalin, threatened from below, hastens to assume evermore finished form.

The party threatens to intervene in the conflict which hasstarted between Stalin and the apparatus. It must interveneor the class enemy will. To help the party intervene power-fully is the aim of the Left Opposition. Stalin is in mortalfear of this. He wants to shangle the party completely beforehe settles accounts with the apparatus. That is why the Sev-

enteenth Party Conference was treated to a new campaignagainst "Trotskyism.n Ttrat is why the conference was hans-formed into a rollcall of those loyal to Stalin. And that iswhy it was necessary to complete the conference by your de-cision of February 20. Ttre meaning of this policy is thateach new blow against the party is inseparable from a blowagainst "Trotskyism." In this lies the strength of the Oppo-sition. In this lies the doom of Stalin.

You long ago substituted "self-criticism" for inner-party de'mocracy. In the beginning this meant that one may criticizeanyone outside of the Central Committee- Later it meant thatone may criticLe only those whom the CC orders to be crit-icized. Now it means that one may criticize anyone but Stalinand must persecute any member of the CC who does notswear by the name of Stalin. Above the party, above the ap-paratus, above criticism-stands Stalin. The law of his in-fallibility takes on a retroactive character. The history of theparty is rebuilt around Stalin's infallibility as around a newaxis. Anyone who has not succeeded in reeducating himselfinevitably falls under the gun.

It became necessary to hansform a revolutionary party,which based itself on a scientific doctrine and a great tradi-tion, into a temple where Kaganovich, in the role of highpriest, burns incense to the idol of eternal perfection. All thatis lacking to complete the system is that the dogma of im-maculate conception be added to the dogma of infallibility.

Can there be anything more malignant, more degenerate,and more shameful than the introduction of supermonarchicalauthority into the party of the proletariat? Perhaps you don'tknow where it leads to: reread history. The dogma of lifetime


infallibility is the most unquestionable, the most shameful ex-pression of the fact that Stalin's leadership is in irreconcilablecontradiction to the economic, political, and cultural develop-ment of Soviet democracy, and, what is no less importanlto the historical problems of the world proletarian vanguard.

Just think of it. Only one and a half decades after theOctober Revolution there stands at the head of the Comintern

-Manuilsky.l0a You know this person no less than I do.None of us ever took him seriously. At all critical momentshe vacillated, was confused, and retreated; always and everhe sought a master. In 1918 he declared in writing thatTrotsky saved Bolshevism from national limitedness. In 1923,once more in writing, he called Lenin and Trotsky the orig-inators of the theory and practice of the Communist Inter-national. You will say that he was motivated by personalreasons? I will not dispute it. But in that case he miscal-culated. The "triumvirate" gave Manuilsky an ultimatum: eitherstart a campaign against Rakovsky, who was universallyrespected, or be crushed. You know Manuilsky. He chose thefirst. And now, frighdul to think: Manuilsky is the leader ofthe Comintern!

The strategy of Marx and Lenin, the historical er<perienceof Bolshevism, the great lessons of 19l7-everything is dis-torted, maimed, slandered. Yesterday's mistakes of the bureau-cracy, not disclosed nor refuted, are transformed into an oblig-atory tradition and on each turn of the road serve as trapsand pitfalls. The leadership of the Comintern has become theorganized sabotage of the international proletarian revolution.Its crimes are countless. And now before your very eyes isbeing prepared the most terrible of them all.

The theory of social fascism,los in which the ignorance ofStalin is coupled with the irresponsibiligr of Manuilsky, hasbecome a noose around the neck of the German proletariat.Under the whip of the Stalinist clique the miserablg confused,frightened, terrified Central Committee of the German Com-munist Party helps with all its might, cannot but help, theleaders of the German Social Democracy to send the Germanworking class into crucifixion by Hitler.

Do you think that with this false scrap of paper of February20 you will stop the growth of Bolshevik criticism? Preventus from doing our duty? Frighten our cothinkers?

Already in not less than twenty countries there are cadresof Bolsheviks who righ$ully consider themselves to be the

On Being Dqrioed of Sooiet Citizenship 7l

continuators of the Marxist tradition, of the Leninist school,of the commandments of the October Revolution. You willnot silence them!

Of course, Stalin has not said his last word. The arsenalof his methods is known: Lenin weighed them and charac-terized them. But these methods can now serve only for per-sonal revenge. The blows at the old intransigent fighterRakovsky, the shooting of the "traitorn Blumkin and his replacement by the authentic Stalinist Agabekov, the shootingat Bolsheviks interned in isolation, the small, modest, andconcealed aid to class enemies against a revolutionary oppo-nent-for this the Stalinist arsenal will yet suffice. But notfor more than this!

You know Stalin as well as I know him. Many of you, inconversations with me or with people close to me, have morethan once given your own estimate of Stalin, and given itwithout illusions. Stalin's strength has always lain in theapparafus, not in himself; or in himseU only insofar as heremained the complete incorporation of bureaucratic automa-tism. Severed from the apparatus, opposed to the apparatus,Stalin represents nothing. The man who was yesterday thesymbol of bureaucratic power tomorrow will be in the eyesof all the symbol of bureaucratic bankruptcy. It is time todo away with the Stalinist myth. It is necessary to place yourtrust in the working class and its genuine, not its counterfeit,party.

Read again the resolutions of the plenums of the CentralCommittee for the years 1926 and, 1927, read again the statements of the Opposition; you have a fuller set of documentsthan I have. And you will be convinced again that the wholeevolution of the party, of the apparatus, of the Stalinist clique,

. was predicted by us, all the milestones were indicated in ad-vance. The Stalinist system is disintegrating exactly in themanner indicated by the Opposition. Do you want to followthe Stalinist road any further? But there is no road further.Stalin has brought you to an impasse You cannot proceedwithout liquidating Stalinism. You must rely on the workingclass and give the proletarian vanguard the possibility,through free criticism from top to bottom, to review the wholeSoviet system and cleanse it ruthlessly from all the accumu-lated filth. It is time to carry out at last Lenin's final andinsistent advice: remove Stalin!

In the work of regenerating the party and Soviet democracythe Left Opposition is ready at all times to take a direct part.

72 Writings of Leon TrotskE (1932)

It can be trusted. It represents a selection of rwolutionistswho are wholeheartedly devoted to the dictatorship of theproletariat. It is a priceless leaven for the crushed, torn part5z,undermined from the top by careerism and servility.

Great problems are again being placed on the order of theday by history: in the Far East and especially in the centerof Europe, in Gerrnany. At this time when great political mea-sures are needed, Stalin schemes with petty police measures.The Opposition will step over the decree of February 20 asa worker on the way to work steps over a dirty puddle.

Bolshevik- Leninists, forward!

A CORRECTION ON RAI(OVSKY1O6

March 15, 1932

To the Editors of the International Bulletin

Dear Comrades:An inaccuracy has crept into your notice on C. G. Rakovsky

in number 14 of the Bulletin, which I should like to correctwith these lines. You write that Rakovsky's health was brokenby thirty years of service to the revolutionary cause. Youthereby reduce the length of his service by a whole third:Christian Georgevich has been in the revolutionary ranks forforty-five years!

I first met Rakovsky in 1902, that is, thirty years ago. Before that meeting I had been in the revolutionary ranks aboutfive years, Rakovsky for about fifteen. The first appearanceof Rakovsky as a revolutionary belongs to his school days.As a fifteen-year-old high-school student, he made a socialistspeech against the priests in the church in his hometown ofKotel, in the heart of Bulgaria. He was er<pelled from highschool for this, and, if I am not mistaken, arrested for thefirst time. From then on Rakovsky's revolutionary work wasuninterrupted, in Bulgaria, Rumania, France, Russia, againin Bulgaria and Rumania, and finally in the Soviet Union-such is the truly international arena of his vigorous revolu-tionary activity.

Communist greetings'L. Trotsky

73

A WORD OF WELCOME TOOSVOBOZHDENIElO?

March 29, lg32

Dear Comrades:The news that you are proceeding to bring out a weekly

greatly delights me. In the conditions of the present dreadfulcrisis and its unforeseeable political consequences, a veryheavy responsibility falls on the Left Opposition. The tragicer<perience of Germany shows where the leadership of theComintern has fallen to. Under the burden of uncorrectedand uncondemned past errors, that leadership is no longercapable of taking a single correct step. The interest of world-wide liberation is sacrificed at the altar of the compromisedprestige of the bureaucratic clique. The Bolshevik-Leninistsare called upon to show the proletarian vanguard the cor-rect path. The education and reeducation of Man<ist cadres ispossible only on the basis of living o<perience on a nationaland international scale The weekly journal will give you thecapacity to enlighten the advanced workers in Bulgaria aboutthe most important steps of the proletarian struggle in thewhole world. Forfunately in most countries with an advancedworkers' movement there is already an organization of theLeft Opposition. The closer the links are between them andthe more energetically their experience is exchanged, the quickerwill the Left Opposition free the world proletarian vanguardfrom the blind and fatal leadership of the bureaucracy.

The ideological and organizational growth of the Left Op-position is pushing the Stalinist bureaucracy, in its strugglefor self-preservation, onto the path not only of increased cru-elty of repression, but also of ever baser deception of the work-ers. It is sufficient to mention the fact that the French organof the International Red Aid,lo8 Defensg contains in one of

74

A Word of Welcorne fo Osvobozhdenie

its latest issues an article explaining in detail how Tlotskyallegedly gave advice to vote for Hindenburg at the time ofthe presidential elections.loe How much further can they sinkafter that? Revolutionary Marxism was always proud of thefact that it told the truth to the workers. But the Stalinist bu-reaucracy can no longer take a step without a lie, and thoselies are getting more crude, more sfupid, and more monstrous.Only a clique which is condemned by history and which isusing up the last crumbs of its political capital can have re'course to such measures,

The appearance of your weekly will meet with the warmsympathy of all the sections and groups of the InternationalLeft Opposition. You can firmly rely on the comradely supportof the Bolshevik-Leninists of all countries.

Yours,L. Trotsky

to

I SEE WAR WITH GERMANY1IO

Published April 1932

World politics has at present two focal points unusuallyremote from each other: one on the Mukden-Peking line, theother on the Berlin-Munich. Either one of these points of in-fection is enough to destroy the "normal" course of events onour planet for years, for decades. Ilowever, the day-by-daywork of the diplomats and official politicians looks as thoughnothing unusual were happening. It looked the same alongin l9l2 during the Balkan War which was the over-ture to 1914.

For some reason-grossly slandering an intelligent bi-rd-people call this an ostrich policy. Ttre ornamental decisionadopted by the League of Nationslll on the Manchurian ques-tion is a document of impotence without equal even in thehistory of European diplomacy: no self-respecting ostrich couldpossibly sign his name to iL This blindness-in some cases,of course, quite voluntary-to what is brewing in the FarEast has at least this mitigating circumstance: that wents therewill develop at a comparatively slow pace The East, althoughawakening to a new life, is still far from the "American,n andeven the European, tempo.

Germany is a different matter. The blind alley into whichEurope, BalkanLed at Versailles,ll2 has now run finds a con-centrated a(pression in Germany, where it has taken the polit-ical form of nNational Socialism." In the language of socialpsychology this political tendency might be described as anepidemic hysteria of despair among the intermediate classes:the ruined small trader, craftsman, and peasant; in part, too,the unemployed proletarian; the officer and noncommissionedofficer of the Great War, still wearing the syrnbols of distinc-tion but without rations; the clerk of the closed-up office; the

76

f See War with Gutttany 77

bookkeeper of the bankrupt bank; the engineer without oc-cupation; the journalist without salary or prospect; the phy-sician whose clients are still sick but have forgotten how to pay.

Hitler has refused to answer questions about his domesticprogram on the ground that it is a military secret. He is notobliged, he says, to give away his secret methods of salva-tion to his political enemies. This is not very patriotic' butit is clever. In reality Hitler has no secrets at all. Howeverwe are not here concerned with domestic policies. In the mat-ter of international politics his position seems at first glancea little more definite In his speeches and articles Hitler declareswar on the Versailles Trea$2, whose creahrre he himself is.

He specializes in terms of abuse directed against France' Butas a matter of fact if he came into power, he would becomeone of the chief pillars of Versailles and would turn out to bea mainstay of French imperialism.

Ttrese assertions may seem paradoxical. Yet they flow in-o<orably from the logic of the European and internationalsituation when correctly analyzed, that is, when the analysisstarts from the basic factors of politics, and not from phrases,gestures, and the other trash of the demagogue.

Hitler Will Need Allies

The German fascists declare that they have two enemies:

Marxism and Versailles. By "Marxismn they mean two Germanparties, the Communists and the Social Democrats, and one

state, the Soviet Union. By Versailles they mean France andPoland. In order to understand what will be the actual inter-national role of a National Socialist Germany, it is necessaryto weigh briefly these elements of the problem.

The relation between fascism and "Marxism" is sufficientlyclear from the o<perience of Italy. Mussolini's program,ll3 upto the day of the operetta march on Rome, was no less radi-cal and no less mystical than that of Hitler. The reality turneiout to be merely a struggle against revolutionary and oppo-sitional forces. Like its Italian prototype, German NationalSocialism can come to power only after breaking up the work-ers' organizations. lhis, howwer, is no simple task. Civilwar lies on the road between the National Socialists and thepower they seek. Even if Hitler should get a parliamentarymajority by peaceful methods-which may safely be q<cluded

from things possible-he would find itnecessary just the same'in order to inaugurate a fascist regime, to break the bacl<-

bone of the Communist Part5r, the Social Democracy, and


the trade unions. And this is a very painful and prolongedsurgical operation. Hitler himself, of course, understands this.That is why he is not at all disposed to accommodate his polit-ical plans to the uncertain destinies of German par-liamentarism.

While covering himself with phrases about legalit5r, Hitleris awaiting the opportune moment to strike a short and sharpblow. Will he succeed in this? It is no easy task. But it wouldbe unpardonably light-minded to consider his success impo+sible. And by whatever roads Hitler might come to power,whether through open doors or by breaking in, the fascisti.zation of Germany would mean in any case a severe domesticconflicL This would inevitably paralyze the forces of the coun-try for a considerable period of time and compel Hifler to seekin surrounding Europe, not revenge, but allies and protectors.From this fundamental consideration our analysis must begin.

In their struggle against fascism the German workers willnaturally seek support in the Soviet lJnion, and they will findit. Can you imagine for a moment that in these circumstancesHitler's government will risk getting into an armed conflictwith France or Poland? Between the proletariat of a fascistGermany and the Soviet Union stands Pilsudski. 114 Pilsud-ski's help, or at least his friendly neutrality, will be infinitelymore important to Hitler, absorbed in the fascistization ofGermany, than the liquidation of the Polish gorri6q1.r15 IIev/insignificant this question will seem to Hitler-and indeed thewhole question of the boundaries of Germany-in the midstof his bitter struggle to get the power and to keep it!

For Hitler, Pilsudski would be a bridge toward friendshipwith France, if indeed there were not other bridges closer by.Even now there are voices heard in the French press-asyet only in its secondary organs-"It is time to steer ourcourse by Hitler!" To be sure the official press, led byLe Temps,rl6 takes a hostile attitude to the National Social-ists. But this is not because the masters of fate in contemporaryFrance take Hitler's martial gesfures seriously. No, whatfrightens them is the path by which Hitler can alone come topower, the path of civil war, a thing whose outcome cannotbe predicted by anybody. May not his policy of a state over-turn from the right unleash a revolution on the left? That iswhat the ruling circles in France are worrying about, andquite justifiably too.

But one thing is clear: if Hitler did overcome all obstaclesand arrive in power, he would be compelled, in order to get

I &e War with Gatnany 79

a free hand within his own country, to begin with an oathof loyalty to Versailles. Nobody on the Quai D'Orsay[French Foreign Office] has any doubt of that Moreover, itis well understood there that a military dictatorship of Hitler,once it was firmly established in Germany, might become aconsiderably more reliable element in the French hegemonyover Europe than the present German governrnental system,whose mathematical formula consists almost entirely of un-known quantities.

War Would Be InevitableTo imagine that the ruling circles in France would be nem-

barrassedn to act as patrons of a fascist Germany would bequite childishly naive. France is now relying upon Poland,Rumania, and Yugoslavia, three countries ruled by a mili-tary dictatorship! Is this accidental? Not in the least. The pres-ent French hegemony over Europe is a result of the fact thatFrance still remains the sole inheritor of the victory of theUnited States, Great Britain, Italy, and herself. ( I do not nameRussia here since she did not participate in the victory, al-though she paid for it with the greatest number of humanlives.) From the hands of the most powerful combination ofworld forces which history has known, France has receivedan inheritance which she will not let go of, but which is tooheavy for her narrow shoulders. The territory of France, herpopulation, her productive forces, her national income-allthese are obviously inadequate to support her lordly position.The Balkanization of Europe, the stirring up of antagonisms,the struggle against disarmament, the support to military dic-tatorships-these are the methods necessary to prolong thehegemony of France.

The forcible splitting-up of the German nation enters intothe system as a link quite as necessary as the fantastic bound-ary lines of Poland with its famous Corridor. In the languageof Versailles, "Corridor" is the name given to an operationwhich other people call removing a rib from a living orga-nism. When France, while supporting Japan in Manchuria,swears to God that she seeks peace, this only means that shestands for the inviolability of her own hegemony, that is,her right to dismember Europe and reduce it to chaos. Im-moderate conquerors, as history testifies, are always inclinedto npacifism," because they dread the revenge of the conquered.

A fascist regime, which could be realized only at the priceof bloody convulsions and a new srhaustion of Germany,


would be for that very reason an invaluable element in Frenchhegemony. From the side of the National Socialists, Franceand her Versailles system have nothing at all to fear.

Would Hitler in power, then, mean peace? No, Hitler inpower would mean a reinforcement of French hegemony. Butexactly for this reason Hitler in power would mean war, notagainst Poland, not against France, but against the SovietUnion.

The Moscow press has spoken more than once in recentyears about an approaching military intervention in the So-viet Union. The author of these lines has more than once ob-jected to this kind of snap prognosis, not because he thoughtthat there was in Europe, or on the rest of the planet, anylack of the evil will to war against the Soviet lJnion. No,there was no lack of thaL But for such a risky undertakingthe disagreements and resistances were too great, not onlybetween the different European states, but still more withineach of them.

There is hardly a politician worth mentioning who nowimagines that the Soviet republic could be settled with bymeans of armies improvised along the border or simple land-ing operations. Even Winston Churchill no longer believesthat, notwithstanding the very wide gamut of his political vocalexercises. An experiment of this kind was more than well madeduring the years 1918-20 when Churchill, according to hisown proud boast, mobilized "fourteen nations" against theSoviet Union. How happy the British exchequer would benow to have back those hundreds of millions of pounds spenton intervention in Russia!

But we mustn't cry over spilt milk. Besides a good lessonwas paid for with that money. If at that time, in the first yearsof the Soviet republic when the Red Army was still walkingin its baby shoes - alas, in those years it often had nothingon its feet at all! - the troops of "fourteen nations" could notwin victory, how much less hope there is now, when the RedArmy is a mighty force, with a victorious tradition, with youngand yet er<perienced officers, with inexhaustible reserves raisedup by the revolution, and with sufficiently opulent mili-tary stores!

The united forces of the encircling nations, even if they couldbe dragged into the adventure, would be small for the task ofintervention in the Soviet Union. Japan is too far off for anindependent military role against the Soviet Union, and moreover the mikado's government will have troubles enough

I See War with Germang

nearby in the coming years. To make intervention possible,a great, highly industrialized, and moreover continental Euro-pean empire would be needed, one which would desire, andbe able, to take upon itself the principal weight of a holypilgrimage against the Soviets. To be more accurate' a countrywould be needed which had nothing to lose. A glance at thepolitical map of Europe will convince you that such a missioncould be undertaken only by a fascist Germany. More thanthat, a fascist Germany would have no other road left to go.Having come to power at the price of innumerable victims,having revealed its bankruptcy in all domestic problems, hav-ing capitulated to France and consequently to such semivassalstates as Poland, the fascist regime would be inexorably com-pelled to seek some sort of gamble out of its own bankruptcyand out of the contradictions of the international situation.A war against the Soviet Union would grow out of these cir-cumstances with fatal necessity.

To this pessimistic prognosis you might reply by citing theo<ample of Italy, with whom the Soviet Union has establisheda modus vivendi But that objection is superficial. Italy isseparated from the Soviet Union by a series of interveningcountries. Italian fascism rose with the yeast of a purelydomestic crisis, the national claims of Italy having been satis-fied liberally enough at Versailles. Italian fascism came topower shortly after the Great War, at which time there couldbe no talk of a new war. And finally fascist Italy remainedlonely, and nobody in Europe knew how stable the fascistregime would prove, on the one hand, or the Soviet regimeon the other.

In all these respects, the position of Hitler's Germany wouldbe fatally different. An external success would be necessaryto iL The Soviet Union would be an intolerable neighbor.We remember how long Pilsudski hesitated before signing thepact of nonaggression with Russia. Hitler side by side withPilsudski-that alone almost answers our question. On theother hand France cannot help understanding that she is notin a position to keep Germany permanently disarmed. TheFrench policy will be to turn fascist Germany against the East.That will offer an escape valve for the national indignationagainst the Versailles regime, and-who knows?-maybe wewill have the good luck to find along this road new sourcesfor the solution of that most sacred of all world problems,the problem of reparations.

81


Russia Must Be PreparedIf you take on faith the assertion of the fascist prophets

that they will come to power during the first half of 1932 -though we are far from believing these people on their mereword-it is possible to lay out in advance a sort of politicalcalendar. A couple of years must be set aside for the fascis-tization of Germany: for crushing the German working class,creating a fascist militia, and restoring the cadres of the army.Along about 1933-34, then, the conditions for a military in-tervention in the Soviet Union would be adequately ripe.

This "calendar" of course assumes that the government ofthe Soviet Union will be meanwhile patiently waiting. My relations with the present Moscow government are not such thatI have any right to speak in its name or refer to its intentions,about which I, like every other reader and man of politics,can judge only on the basis of all the information accessible.But I am all the more free to say how in my opinion theSoviet government ought to act in case of a fascist state victoryin Germany. Upon receiving the telegraphic communicationof this event I would sign an order for the mobilization ofthe reserves. When you have a mortal enemy before you, andwhen war flows with necessity from the logic of the objectivesituation, it would be unpardonable light-mindedness to givethat enemy time to establish and fortify himself, conclude thenecessary alliances, receive the necessary help, work out aplan of concentric military actions, not only from the Westbut from the East, and thus grow up to the dimensions of acolossal danger.lrz

Hitler's shock troops are already singing all over Germanya marching song against the Soviets, composed by a certainDoctor Hans Buchner. It would be imprudent to let the fascistsdrawl this martial air. If they are destined to sing it, let themsing it staccato.

Whichever of the two might happen to take the formal ini-tiative, a war between a government of Hitler and the Sovietgovernment would be inevitable, and that too at a very earlydate. The consequences of this war would be incalculable.But whatever illusions they might cherish in Paris, one thingcould be confidently asserted: in the flames of a Bolshevik-fascist war, one of the first things to burn up would be theVersailles Treatv.

THE LEFT SOCIAL DEMOCRATS11s

April 12, 1932

(From a letter)The second presidential election in Germany means in the

full sense of the word a catastrophe for the German CommunistParty. rts Our criticism will meet with an already favorableaudience there. I do not doubt that in the coming months theLeft Opposition in Germany will enjoy very great success.

A few days ago I received a packet of the Bulgarian journal,I{lasotse Borba [Class Struggle], with some articles of minereprinted. As far as I understand, that journal is issued bythe left wing of the Social Democracy. Like other organs ofthe latter, this journal reprints articles directed against theofficial course of the Comintern while saying nothing of ourcriticism directed against the Social Democracy. These nleff

Social Democrats lead a purely parasitic ideological existenceThey do not understand, or pretend not to understand, thatwe stand much further from them than does the Stalinist bu-reaucracy, regardless of its phraseology about "social fascism."

83

ON A POLITICAL NOVEL12O

April 13, 1932

Dear Comrade M. Neumann:I gave your novel to two younger friends to read. They

found reading it very interesting, and when they were finishedboth had the same unshakable impression-emotionally for theOppositionists, politically against the Opposition. That coin-cides completely with my impression too. You yourseU makeno attempt to hide this attitude. On the contrary, you a<pressthe moral of the book in the title: I Can't Go On. This refersnot only to the Opposition, but to the Soviet Union as a whole:I can't stand it any more. You develop this trend by tracingthe root of the problem to the dictatorship of the proletariaLBut this question is the dividing line between communism andreformism-here dictatorship, there democracy. In this sensetoo your book has been written completely in favor of theSocial Democracy and against communism. I do not doubtfor a moment that this was not your goal, but you reachedit all the same. You will understand when I say that in nocase and by no means can I solidarize myself with this book.It is unfair not so much to me as to the cause I defend forthe publisher to want to put my picture on the jackeL But ofcourse I can't prevent that.

Let me add that your book contains factual errors. The FifthWorld Congress [1924) was not concerned with a "lost revo-lution." On the contrary, it still saw the revolutionary situationahead of it. No one wanted to censor my speech. And I wasnot against but in favor of the November demonstration of1927.

My sincere thanks for the friendly feelings you hold for me.You have won me over so much through your letters that Ideeply regret the fact that our paths are leading in such irrec-oncilable directions.

With warmest greetings.Yours,L. Trotsky

84

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY THECHICAGO DAILY NEWS 12'

April 23, 1932

1. The fundamental cause of the crisis may be defined bya single word: capitalism. The specific character of this crisisis explained by another term: imperialism, that is to say,monopoly capitalism, which is beginning to putrefy within itsown insoluble contradictions. The rise and fall of IvarKreugerl22 symbolizes all of capitalism today. The officialmoralists are hurling their thunder against the match kingafter the event. But he could have replied to them: Why haveyou given me free rein to dispose of productive forces which,under the direction of a humane society, ought to serve societ5ritself?

Will the capitalist world order survive the present crisis?The reply depends upon what is understood by the term crisis.Conjuncfural variations accompany the entire history of cap-italism. In past periods the curve of capitalism rose throughoutall the conjunctural variations. Today it is declining. Thisdoes not exclude conjunctural variations in the future; on thecontrary, these are inevitable. But the present acute crisis canonly be attenuated in such a way that it will culminate in ahigher paroxysm in the next immediate stage. This wholetragic process can end only by the transformation of the wholesocial system.

2. Have I any hope of success of the disarmament con-ference? Not the least. But in this I am not an exception. TheFrench project is sufficiently characterized by the fact it hasbeen presented by the Tardieu government.r2s At the sametime that France supports the bloody work of Japan in theFar East, Japan gratefully supports the pacifist initiative ofFrance at Geneva. An incomparable lesson for everyone! Theproject of France provides for the creation, under the mantle

85


of the League of Nations, of a new entente with the one.aimof stabilizing the hegemony of French finance capital with theaid of an ninternational' army.

But the American project also does not open up any per-spective. Wars today are not conducted with the arms whichthe warring nation possesses on the eve of war, but with thosewhich are manufacfured in the course of the war itself. TheUnited States has, from this point of view, given a lesson tothe entire world and to Germany in particular. The outcomeof the future war will be determined by the technical capacityof the belligerent countries. The more advanced the industrialdevelopment of a country, the more interested is the countryin a provisional "limitation" of armaments, for in such a caseit will really be easier for it to provide its army with thenecessities.

At best, the conference will be terminated with hollow phrases.The failure of the Geneva conference will constitute a new im-pulsion for the course toward armaments and will amplifythe war danger.

The FrancoJapanese policy, its bellicose as well as its"pacifisf' side, is being oriented more and more openly notonly against China but also against the Soviet Union. ThatLitvinov at the Geneva conference o(presses the honest desireof the USSR not to enter the war cannot be doubted by anyattentive observer. But I wish the Soviet delegation had devoteda moment to pass over from the technical peace proposals,which even from an educational point of view do not bearany great importance, to a more active policy, that is, to saywhat is openly before the conference, and in this manner towarn the people of the danger facing them. For if there is anyforce on our planet capable of "limiting" armaments on landand sea, it is the desire of the masses of the people.

3. The rumors in the press about my return to the USSRin the near future do not rest upon any serious informationwhatsoever. It is rather more a matter of inventions causedby the highly charged general situation. Needless to say thefaction to which I belong will put itself entkely and completelyat the disposal of the Soviet government. As a precedent wecan point out that in the period of the civil war of 1918-20,Stalin, Voroshilov, and others were in sharp opposition to themethods of conducting the war that I, in full agreement withLenin, pursued. This did not at all prevent the oppositionistsof that time from taking an active part in the struggles.

..THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIALISM'' 124

A Foolish Man on a Serious Subject

May 1932

The German liberal newspaper, Das Berliner Tageblatt,dedicated a special issue in May to economic construction inthe USSR. The political article was written by Radek.t2s Tothe question in which direction the Soviet Union is developingRadek answers as follows: "In the fourteen years which sep-arate us from the October Revolution, the foundations ofsocialism have been created in Russia. By gigantic struggles,by unceasing labor, a new society is being born," In such ageneral form, of course, these words can evoke no objections,particularly since they are published in the columns of abourgeois paper. But Radek does not confine himself to this.Spurred on by an insatiable need to prove the sincerity ofhis repentance, he goes on to write: "This is denied not onlyby outright enemies of the Soviet lJnion, but it is also im-pugned by Leon Trotsky; as he puts it, at a time when thereis a scarcity of milk in Russia he who talks about the creationof the foundations of socialism compromises socialism. Thisremark shows only," continues Radek, "that the author haslost those scales which he was formerly capable of applyingto evaluate historical events." Radek, who renounced his ownprogram, is accusing others of losing their historical scales!What, however, should these consist of? We quote the answerverbatim: "IVIilk is a product of cows and not of socialism,and you would actually have to confuse socialism with theimage of a country where flow rivers of milk in order not tounderstand that a country can rise for a time to a higher levelof development without any considerable rise in the materialcondition of the masses."

87


For the moment let us put aside the clownish tone of the

discussion, and let us try to extract its serious kernel. Thereis, first of all, in Radek's answer the same theoretical subter-fuge which Stalin has resorted to more than once when pressed

to the wall. The matter concerns the little word "foundations"of socialism. The current leaders of the Soviet Union haveofficially proclaimed that the country "has entered into social-ism." We have called and continue to call this assertion criminalbureaucratic charlatanism. Radek keeps mum on the entry intosocialism. Instead he advises us that in the Soviet Union therehave been created the foundations of socialism. One can agreeor disagree with this, depending upon what one understandsby "foundations."

Radek does not leave us without an answer on this point."If we are convinced," he says, nthat the foundations of social-ism have already been laid in Russia, it is because our judg-ment rests, in the first place, on the fact that the possessingclasses have disappeared and that the means of productionare concentrated in the hands of the proletarian state." In thissense, the foundations indubitably have been laid. But in sucha formulation the subject of the dispute disappears altogether.Radek reduces his proof to the fact that Russia has passed

through the proletarian revolution. There is no harm in reminding the honored readers of Das Berliner Tageblatt aboutit. Unfortunately, however, the proletarian revolution and theexpropriation of the possessing classes took place as early as1917-18, while the amival of socialism was announced in1930-31. We were advised of it not on the basis of the expro-priation of the expropriators (we knew about this even before),but on the basis of 10O percent collectioization and' the elim-ination of the kulaks as a class. Then why does Radek sur-render without a blow the fLst line of battlg "the Stalin line"?Why, while so bravely assuming military activities againstTrotsky, does he immediately retreat far, far to the rear, andentrench himself in the line of 1918 that is threatened bynobody?

There is no denying that in the first years after the Octoberoverturn all of us said tens and hundreds of times, "!Ve arelaying the foundations of socialist construction.' And that wascorrecL But this meant only that the political and legal prop-erty prerequisites for socialist transformation were created.And that is all!

If it were in any way possible to speak seriously on serioussubjects with Radek, we would make an attempt to explain

"The Foundations of Socialism"

to him that it is impossible, in 1932, to answer the questionof the direction in which the Soviet Union is developing byreferring to the political "foundationsn of socialist construc-tion. The insufficiency of this reference by itself was exposedfor the first time on a major scale in 1921, when the ques-tion of the reciprocal relations with the peasantry was posedpoint-blank. The creation of the economic link betwem thecity and the oillage uas then proclaimed to be the genuinefoundation of socialist construction This was the basic taskof the New Economic Policy. The theoretical formula of thelink was very simple: nationalized industry must provide thepeasantry with products indispensable to it, in such quantity,of such quality, and at such prices as would entirely elimi-nate or reduce to a minimum, in the relations between the stateand the peasant masses, the factor of o<tra-economic force,that is, seizure of peasant labor by decree. (This of coursedoes not refer to the kulaks, in relation to whom a specialtask is posed: to limit their e:<ploiting activities and to prevent their becoming the dominant power in the village. ) Theestablishment of a reciprocal relationship of voluntary "o-ar-ter" between industry and agriculfure, between the city and thevillage, would impart an immutable firmness to the politicallink between the proletariat and the peasantry. There wouldstill remain, of course, a long and difficult road to socialism.But on this foundation-on the foundation of a link betweenthe city and the village acceptable to the peasant-economicconstruction could be advanced with confidence, without rush-ing ahead or falling behind, by maneuvering on the worldmarket and in accordance with the tempo of the developmentof revolution in the West and in the EasL This was not pro-jected as a road to socialism on a national scale-that couldnot be useful to anyone. It would suffice if the still-isolatedeconomy of the Soviet Union became one of the preparatoryelements of the future international socialist society.

He who talks about "the foundations of socialism" in 1932has no right to retreat to the line of 1918, without even anattempt to hold to the line of 192 1, that is, without givingan answer to the question: Did we succeed in the twelve yearsthat have elapsed since the introduction of the NEP in achiev-ing the link, in the Leninist sense of the word? Did the 100percent collectivization assure such reciprocal relations betweenthe city and the village as to reduce er(tra-economic force,if not to zero then at least approaching it? This is the nubof the question. And to this fundamental question one is still

89


compelled to give a negative answer. The 100 percent col-lectivization has come about not as the crowning and fruitionof an accomplished link but as an administrative cover ofits absence. To keep mum on this question, to circumventit, to beat around the bush with words, is to call the great-est dangers upon the dictatorship of the proletariat. Butof course it is not from Radek that one should e>rpect an anal-ysis of the problems of the reladons between worker andpeasant.

From Radek one can expect only fancy journalistic turns.In conclusion let me say that it is irnpossible to observe '.vith-out dismay Radek's performance on the pages of a liberalpaper on the question of the essence of socialism. Socialismis not the land of rivers of milk. Do not demand milk fromsocialism. "Milk is a product of cows.n If one takes into ac-count that right now a battle is occurring in the Soviet lJnionprecisely around the question of cows, which takes on at timestragic forms, then Radek's antics become intolerable. One can'thelp recalling the merciless evaluation, reserved as it was, thatLenin made of Radek at the Swenth Party Congress duringthe controversy over the Brest-Litovsk peace. Referring toRadek's remark-"Lenin yields space to gain time"-Leninsaid, "I return to what Comrade Radek said, and take thisopportunity to emphasize that he has accidentally succeededin uttering a serious thoughL" And further on, "this time it hashappened that Comrade Radek has delivered himself of athoroughly serious statement."126

Lenin meant to make unequivocally clear that serious statements could come from Radek only by accident and as raree:<ceptions. Matters on this score have in no way improvedwith the years. There is less hair outside and more foolish-ness inside. Stalin proclaimed: "!Ve have entered into socialism.nDon't boast prematurely, objected the Opposition, for babiesstill lack milk. A jester takes the spotlight and, jingling hisbells, announces that milk is the product of cows and not ofsocialism. In Radek's vein, one might answer with the Russianproverb: "Bide a day, bide till you're gray, you can't get mi-lkfrom a billy goat." Even a billy goat grown bald is capableonly of prancing, not more. That is why we prefer to returnto serious questions on more serious occasions.

A REPLY TO MAY DAY GREETINGS 127

May 4, 1932

To Osoobozhdenie

Dear Comrades:I have received your May Day greetings telegram. Thank

you! By chance a telegram from the Soviet lJnion, from theexiles in Siberia, also reached me.

I receive Osoobozhdenie rcgularly. I have number 5 in myhands right now. The journal produces a lively impression,and I fully understand that this will be the feeling of all think-ing and independent elements of the proletarian vanguard.

The Prussian elections have given a cruel check to the policyof the Stalinist bureaucracy. The results of the French electionswill evidenfly go in the same direction. 128 A hard blow! Butas has not seldom been the case in history, the defeats willstimulate critical thought. It is this that explains the fury ofthe Stalinist bureaucracy. Yesterday I received a letter fromthe comrades in Danzig, where Stalinist apparatus function-aries, at the head of an attacking BanB, burst into a hallwhere a public meeting of the Opposition was to open andcaried out a pogrom, fully in the spirit of the fascist para-military units. The meeting was broken up. But on the verynext day the secretary of the local organization of youngworkers, along with ten others, came over to the ranks ofour Danzig organization. A very important and promisingsymptom!

The more furious the Stalinist bureaucracy becomes, ttre moretenacity and self-control will be required of the Left Opposition.We shall show and prove to the conscious workers that weare not to be dispersed by threats or overcome by violence.We shall win the confidence of the rank and file of the move-ment with the clarity and consistency of our class politics.

I do not doubt that the responses to the work and successesof the International Left Opposition will reach even the Rus-sian Bolshevik-Leninists, including those imprisoned and exiled.I take courage from their names, and above all from the nameof C. G. Rakovsky, and I pass on to Osuobozhdenie and toall Bulgarian comrades warm fraternal greetings.

Yours,L. Trotsky

9r

..BLOCS'' AND ABSURDITIESl29

May 6, 1932

Dear Comrades:For your information I am sending along the enclosed two

letters which were sent to meby the L. group.r3o The first oneasks that my reference.s to Die Permanente fta)sluti6n73r lscut out of my German pamphlets. On this condition the L.group would very generously undertake to circulate them.These people-just listen to this-say they cannot unite withthe Permanente Revolution group because of its opporfunism:"Lenin taught us to be uncompromising," etc., etc. Their propo-sition was so absurd that of course I left it unanswered.

Some time later, I received a second letter from this group.By this time a "bloc" of organizations belonging to the LeftOpposition was being proposed. For the formation of this'bloc" a conference in Berlin was suggested: we should sendtwo representatives to this conference; the L. group woulddesignate two representatives of their own.

Familiar though we are after two years of q(perience withthis worthless group of schemers, we have to marvel at theirproposals: first they explain to us that our organization isopportunist, and therefore they cannot work with us; whenthey receive no answer from us, they propose a 'bloc" withthis same opportunist organization.

They are obviously not clear on what they mean by a "bloc."A bloc can be formed around some particular concrete action.They, however, have in mind not a temporary bloc but a per-manent federation. To base our work on the federation prin-ciple-wen when it is a question of a serious group-goesagainst the ABC of democratrc centralism. We would first haveto sit down with the L. group and come to an understandingwith them on every single question, as though they were a

92

"Blocs" and. Absurdities 93

significant force! When &rere are common grounds for work-ing together, then we have to talk about unification. But thevery experience of working with them has proved that thereare no such common grounds. In spite of our all too indul-gent attitude toward these politically and morally decadentelements, they have grasped the fact-and this in itself mustconvince them - that our organization is growing while theystand impotent on the sidelines; and so these gentlemen pro-pose a "bloc," a federation of the International Left, on thebasis of their line. In other words, they want us to join ourorganization to an instrument for demoralization and betrayal.

Nafurally I have not answered them, and have no intentionof doing so. The Left Opposition would not be worth con-sideration if it had not learned to weigh people and groupingson the strength of the actual work they do, rather than onwholesale formulas. I have no doubt that we wouldn't finda serious revolutionary among the ranks of the InternationalOpposition who would vote to enter into discussions of anykind with bankrupt little schemers. However, since we havenew sections which are not too familiar with what has hap-pened, it would probably be worth sending copies of theirletters and mine to all sections for their information.

L. Trotsky

THE LABOR PARTY QUESTION INTHE UNITED STATES132

May 19, 1932

I have reread the theses of the Second Conference of theAmerican League concerning the question of the labor party.l33I find it excellent in every part, and I subscribe to it withboth hands.

I find it necessary to emphasize my full agreement withthose theses all the more as my interview to the Neto YorkTimes lprinted in] March 1932 gave rise to misunderstandingand misinterpretation, especially on the part of the Lovestonegroup.134

1. What was my idea on the labor party in that statement?I stated that American politics will be Europeanized in thesense that the inevitable and imminent development of a partyof the working class will totally change the political face of theUnited States. This is a commonplace for a Maryist. The ques-tion was not of a labor party in the specific British sense ofthat word but in the general European sense, without desig-nating what form such a party would take or what phasesit would go through. Ttrere was not the slightest necessityin that interview to enter into the internal tactical differenceswithin the Communist ranks. The translation of my inter-view from the Russian te:<t, which employs the words ra-bochaya partia, into the English was defective in that it per-mitted one to make a concrete and specific interpretation ofwhat should have been a general one.

2. One can declare that even the general term "party of theworking class" does not exclude a labor party in the Britishsense. Be that as it may. However, such an eventuality hasnothing to do with a precise tactical question. We can admithypothetically that the American tradeunion bureaucracy willbe forced, under certain historical conditions, to imitate the

94

The Labor Party Question in the United States

British trade-union bureaucracy in creating a kind of partybased upon the trade unions. But that wentuality, which ap-pears to me to be very problematical, does not constifute anaim for which the Communists must strive and on which onemust concentrate the attention of the proletarian vanguard.

3. A long period of confusion in the Comintern led manypeople to forget a very simple but absolutely irrevocable prin-ciple: that a Man<ist, a proletarian revolutionist, cannot presenthimself before the working class with two banners. He can-not say at a workers' meeting: "I have a ticket for a first-class part5r and another, cheaper ticket for the backward work-ers." If I am a Communisl I must fight for the Communistparty.

4. One can say that under the American conditions a laborparty in the British sense would be a progressive step, andby recognizing this and stating so, we ourselves, even thoughindirectly, help to establish such a party. But that is preciselythe reason I will never assume the responsibility to affirmabshactly and dogmatically that the creation of a labor partywould be a "progressive step" even in the United States, because I do not know under what circumstances, under whatguidance, and for what purposes that party would be created.It seems to me more probable that especially in America, whichdoes not possess any important traditions of independent po-litical action by the working class (like Chartism in England,l3sfor example) and where the trade-union bureaucracy is morereactionary and corrupted than it was at the height of theBritish empire, the creation of a labor party could be pro-voked only by mighty revolutionary pressure from the work-ing masses and by the growing threat of communism. It isabsolutely clear that under these conditions the labor partywould signify not a progressive step but a hindrance to theprogressive evolution of the working class.

5. In what form the party of the working class will becomea genuine mass party in the United States in the immediatefuture we cannot prophesy, because the socialist and laborparties differ greatly in the various countries, even in Europe.In Belgium, for example, we see an intermediate sort of partyarise. Certainly the phases of development of the proletarianparty in America will be sui generis. We can only affirm withthe greatest assurance: Especially since the United States, inthe period from 192 1 to L924, has already had an impor-tant rehearsal in the creation of a labor or farmer-laborparty,r36 a resurrection of a similar movement cannot be a

95


simple repetition of that experience, but a far more pregnantand more crystalized movement, either under the guidanceof a revolutionary Communist party or under the guidanceof reformistl3T elements against a growing Communist party.And if even rn L921-24 the Communist Party did not findgreat possibilities for independent action inside the organiza-tion of an inchoate labor party, it would have less possibilityin the new phase of an analogous movement

6. One can imagine that the trade-union bureaucracy andits socialist and left-democratic advisers may show themselvesto be more perspicacious and begin the formation of a laborparty before the revolutionary movement becomes too threaten-ing. In view of the groping empiricism and provincial nar-rowness of the American labor bureaucracy and the aristocracyof labor, such perspicacit5r seems very improbable. The failureof such an attempt in the past shows us that the bureaucracy,so tenacious in its immediate aims, is absolutely incapableof systematic political action on a great scale even in the in-terests of capitalist society. Ttre bureaucracy must receive ablow on the skull before taking such a "radical" initiative.I{owever, if the creation of a labor party would prevent, ina certain period, great successes of communism, our elemen-tary duty must be, not to proclaim the progressiveness ofthe labor party, but its insufficiency, ambiguity, and limited-ness, and its historical role as a hindrance to the proletarianrevolution.

7. Must we join that labor party or remain outside? Thisis not a question of principle but of circumstances and pos-sibilities. The question itself has arisen from the experienceof the British Communists with the Labour Party, and thater<perience has served far more the Labour Party than theCommunists. It is evident that the possibility of participatingin a labor-par$z movement and of utilizing it would be greaterin the period of its inception, that is, in the period when theparty is not a party but an amorphous political mass movemenL That we must participate in it at that time and withthe greatest energy is without question; not to help form alabor party which will exclude us and fight against us, butto push the progressive elements of the movement more andmore to the left by our activity and propaganda. I know thisseems too simple for the great new school which searcheseverywhere for some method to jump over its feeble head.

8. To consider a labor party as an integrated series of unitedfronts signifies a misunderstanding of the notions both of the

The Labor Party Question in the (fnited States 97

united front and of the party. The united front is determined

by concrete circumstances, for concrete aims' The party is

plrmanent. In a united front we leave our hands free to break*ith on. temporary allies. In a common party with these al-

lies we are bound by discipline and even by the fact of the

party itself. The experience of the Kuomintang and of the

Angio-Russian Committee must be well understood' The strate'gic line dictated by the lack of a spirit of independence of the

Communist party and'by the desire to enter into the "big"party (Kuomintang, Labour Party) inevitably produced allih"

"ottr"q,re.tces of the opportunistic adaptation to the will

of the allies and, through them' to that of the enemy' We must

educate our cadres to believe in the invincibility of the Com-

munist idea and in the future of the Communist party' The

parallel struggle for another party inevitably produces in their

minds a duality and turns them onto the road of opportunism'9. The policy of the united front has not only its great ad-

vantages -Uut its limits and its dangers as well' The united

front,-wen in the form of temporary blocs, often impels one

to opportunist deviations which are frequently fatal, as, for

"*.-p1", with Brandler in 1923' That danger becomes ab-

solutely predominant in a situation in which the so-called

Communist party becomes a part of a labor party createc

by the grace of the propaganda and action of the Commu-nist party itself.

f 0. Ttrat the labor par$r can become an arena of success-

ful struggle fot us, and that the labor Party, created as abarrier to communism, can under certain circumstancesstrengthen the Communist party, is true, but only under the

condition that we consider the labor party not as "our" part5z

but as an arena in which we are acting as an absolutely in-dependent Communist Party.

i f . al the resolutions about the British Labour Party must

be evaluated not as they were written before the experiences

of the Comintern and the British Communist Party in thatregard, but in the light of that o<perience. The attempt to applythem mechanically now, in 1932, to American conditions, is

characteristic of the mind of the epigone5l38 a1d has noth-

ing to do with Marxism and Leninism.12. It is not necessary to say that the idea of a farmer-

labor party is a treacherous mockery of Marxism'

INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONALQUESTIONS 13e

May 19, 1932

To the National Committee, Communist League of America( Excerpts from a letter)

I am very glad you have taken a firm position on the in-ternational question. .

On the internal dispute in the American League I do notas yet take a position because I have not had an opportunityto study the question with sufficient attentiveness. When I takea position I will try not to let myself be inJluenced in advanceby the false and damaging position of Comrade Shachhnanon all the international questions, almost without exception.On the other hand, howwer, it is not easy to assume that onecan be correct on the most important national questions whenone is always wrong on the most important internationalquestions.

98

WHO SHOULD ATTEND THEINTERNATIONAL CONFERENQBT INO

l0f,ay 22, 1932

To the Administrative Secretariat

Dear Comrades:Some sections are once again raising the question of the

international conference. There is no doubt that the convoca-tion of the conference has suffered er<traordinary delay in com-parison with our original general intentions. Ttre causes forthis are of two types: general causes, arising from the con-ditions of the world labor movement, and specific causes,arising from the conditions of the development of the Inter-national Left Opposition itseU.

Despite exceptionally favorable objective conditions, com-munism is o<periencing defeats and is retreating all over theworld. This fact of necessity also grips the Left Opposition toa certain extent, since the working masses see it only as apart of communism. This process will inevitably reach a crit-ical turning point in the direction of the Left Opposition. Butthis point has not yet been reached.

Insofar as the Left Opposition itself is concerned, its rankshave from the very beginning been interspersed with elementsthat are completely alien to our ideas and methods. No onehas caused and no one causes the Opposition more damagethan characters of the type of. Paz, Gorkin,rar Landau, etc'

Unfortunately they have not yet been altogether eliminatedfrom our ranks. Cleansing our ranks of them is itself an in-dispensable prerequisite for the possibility of convoking aninternational conference.

We must clearly take into account in advance what can bedemanded of the international conference and what it is capableof offering to us. The dead or half-dead groups and individ-ually demoralized elements of the Landau type conceive of theinternational conference as an arena in which they will be ableto preoccupy themselves with personal combinations and in-trigues, in general, and to imitate a sort of political activity.It would be suicidal stupidity to offer them such a possibility.

99


Nevertheless, there are honest followdrs of the Left Oppositionwho dream of such an international conference, to which ac-cess will be gained without exception by all the groups whobelieve or declare that they stand on the ground of the LeftOpposition's ideas. We must offer determined resistance to thiserroneous conception.

Only political infants can believe that the international con-ference by itself can create anything new in principle or,conversely, that it can undo what has been done. In reality,the conference will only be able to register and to confirmwhat has been alreadg ach.r.allg testd and, gained bg uperi-errce. Therein and only therein lies the significance of the con-ference. To demand more than this means to sow organiza-tional fetishism.

No serious section, no serious revolutionary, will agree toa conference constructed according to the model of Noah'sark, for that would mean to throw the development of theOpposition back by at least two years. The political characterof the various organizations and individual persons is rec-ognized and tested not at conferences, but in daily work, inthe course of months and years. The conference will not offeranything to those for whom the past of the Landau group,the Austrian Mahnruf group, the Greek Spartakos group, 142

the Parisian Rosmer group, etc., is unknown. And those groupswhich have broken with the above'mentioned on the basis oflengthy and dearly paid for experience will naturally not agreeto a common conference with them.

We need a conference of genuine cothinkers, that is, a con-ference of such sections whose solidarity on all the basic ques-tions has been tested by the experiences of common struggle.A conference must take as its point of departure the delineationand cleansing of the ranks of the Left Opposition which havealready been achieved, and not begin the whole story all overagain.

Someone might object But there are groups which did notparticipate in the preceding ideological struggles, which didnot follow them and have formed no opinion on them-whatabout them? Quite correcL Such groups do exisl And it is inmost cases precisely they who nurture the thought of callinga "universal" conference which is to analyze and bring every-thing into order. To such groups we can give only one pieceof advice: study the old questions of dispute already decidedin the Left Opposition, on the basis of the documents, andform your collective opinions on the question. Ttrere is no

Who Should Attend the International Confrmcd 101

other way. The international conference will, as a matter offact, have meaning only when the delegates express not justtheir personal opinions but represent the opinions of theirorganizations. However if these questions of dispute are notdiscussed within the International Left Opposition, what sig-nilicance can the accidental vote of a delegate at a conferencehave?

Every organization and group that wants to belong to theInternational Opposition is not only duty-bound to follow theinternal struggle in the other sections, but also to make achoice openly between the most important sections of the Inter-national Left Opposition and those groups which have beenforced to break with the Bolshevik-Leninists or which havebeen eliminated from their midsl

The Austrian Opposition (Frey group)143 left the ranks ofthe International Opposition about a year and a half agounder the pretext of the incorrect organizational methods ofthe International Left In reality, the Frey group would nottolerate critical attitudes towards its own often erroneousmethods. After a rather prolonged e><istence outside of theInternational Opposition, the Frey group has applied to theSecretariat for readmission. Does this mean that the AustrianOpposition has renounced its erroneous methods? Let's hopethat this is so. In any casq we have no right to refuse theattempt of renewed collaboration with the Austrian Opposition,with the earnest intention of achieving complete unity.

In an analogous manner we must proceed with regard toall of the other groups, which, although they declare theirsolidarity with the Left Opposition, in practice very !igh-t-mindedly come into conflict with its principles and methods

and basically do not give sufficient weight to their adherence

to our international organization. It is a hundred times better

to leave such a group to itself for the time being than to permitit to o<ercise its influence over the decisions of the Left Oppo-

sition and to obstruct its development. For a group whichrises and develops to the stage of solidarity with our factionwe always leave the door oPen.

In France the struggle was carried on around three ques-

tions: (a) one or two parties (the second party very often ap-

peared under the pseudonym of an "independenf faction);(U) tft" relation between the party and the trade unions; (c) the

relationship between the national sections and the internationalorganization. On the basis of these questions and by no means

oui of personal motives, the split with the Rosmer-Naville

r02 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

group took place. Naville himself has, to be sure, preferredto remain inside the League, but that does not at all changethe character of his group as one alien in principle to theLeft Opposition.

In the Belgian section the internal struggle revolved aroundthe questions of the relationship to the party, the Comintern,the Soviet Union on the one hand and the mass organizationson the other. Remaining for a long tirne without internationalsupporl the workers' organization of Charleroi showed re.markable endurance and energy in its struggle against theOverstraeten group, which compromised the cause of the LeftOpposition. 144 Will anyone propose to turn back to Over-straeten? Nevertheless the Naville-Rosmer tendency only rep-resents in slightly adulterated form the ideas and methodsof Overstraeten.

The Landau group consists of the degenerated refuse of thefactional struggle, without any principled ground under itsfeet In Austria the Mahnruf group changed in principle itsvarious pladorms several times. The Berlin Landau groupis in a bloc with the semisyndicalist Rosmer group in Parisalthough it itseU has nothing to do with syndicalism what-soever. To those within the ranks of the Left Opposition whoare not familiar with the history of the Landau-Mahnruf group,the leadership of each national section must at least furnishthe most important documents on this question. Every seriousworker will understand without any difficulty ftrat we can havenothing in common with such elements as Landau and Co.

According to all information we have on hand, the GreekSpartakos group belongs in the same category as the Landaugroup. The development of the Opposition in Greece is carriedon by the faction.of the Archio-Maffiis1s.14s

The Italian Prometeo groupr46 was and still is an alienbody inside the Left Opposition. The Prometeo group is boundby its own internal discipline with regard to the InternationalLeft and does not permit the propagation within its ranksof our fundamental views. In the period of the struggle of theLeft Opposition with the right-center bloc, when the main ques-tion of the struggle was that of the independence of the partyin the policy of communism (Kuomintang, Anglo-RussianCommittee, worker-peasant parties, etc.), there was much thatbrought the Bordigists close to us; ultralefts very often proveto be on the side of Man<ism in the struggle against the re.formists. In the period when bureaucratic centrism began itsultraleft zigzag, the Bordigists actually proved to be far closerto the Stalinists than to us. In the bulletin of the New Italian

Who Should Attend the International Confrence? 103

Opposition, in the organ of the French section La Lutte desClasses (the article of Comrade Souze), in the InternationalBulletin, and finally in the publicatiorrs of the Bordigists them-selves there are enough documents and articles to prove con-clusively and completely that the Bordigists have forgottennothing and learned nothing and that according to their basicviews they do not belong to the International Left Opposition.Their participation at the international conference would onlymean the reopening of endless debates on the themes of whetherwe should or should not apply the united-front policy to theSocial Democracy and on political questions in general: whetherin fascist Italy, not to speak of China and hrdia, we shouldor should not mobilize the masses with democratic slogans.Debates on these questions would mean a return for the Oppo-sition to its kindergarten stage and would transform the inter-national conference into a caricature that would onlycompromise us.

On the basis of what has been presented above I takeoccasion to submit the following proposals to all sections fora vote:

1. The International Left Opposition stands on the groundof the first four congresses of the Comintern. It considers es-

pecially and particularly that the policy of the united frontis unconditionally correct as it was formulated by the Thirdand Fourth Congresses of the Comintern and categoricallyrejects the basically false views of the Prometeo group on thisquestion as well as on the question of the struggle for demo-cratic slogans under definite historical conditions.

2. Only those sections can participate in the internationalconference which have participated in the life and work of theInternational Left Opposition not less than one year and whosesolidarity with the Opposition has been tested by common work.

3. On all questions that concern the preparation of the inter-national conference, decisions not only by the leadership(central committee), but without exception by all members ofthe organization are necessary. To this end the most importantdocuments must be translated in time into the national lan-guages and be discussed by all units of every national section'The figures in the votes must be brought to the attention ofthe International Secretariat in time.

Consequently there can be no question of participation atthe conference of competitive or expelled groups side by sidewith the regular sections'

G. Gourov [L. Trotsky]

TO THE COMMUNISTLEAGUE OF STRUGGLE14T

May 22, 1932

Comrade Weisbord:On its own initiative your organization has delegated you

to get an e<change of views on questions which separate youfrom the American League, which is the section of the Inter-national Left Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists). In the courseof several talks you have explained the opinions of your or-ganization on the fundamental questions in dispute. You haveproposed that I put down in writing my conclusions from thetalks we had. In the following lines I shall try to do this,without pretending to o<haust the questions you have raised.

1. I am inclined to consider thequestion of the "labor party"the most important. Involved in this is the question of theessential instrument of the proletarian revolution. Any lackof clarity or any ambiguity on this question is pernicious.I have criticized the ideas developed by you in defense of theslogan of the "labor party" in a special document which Ihave given you. Here I think it necessary to add only a fewwords.

On the question of the labor party your organization isvery close to Lovestone's, which is notoriously opportunistic.The Lovestone group is consistent in its denial of the independent historic role of the Communist party. This grouptill today approves of the policy of the Comintern in regardto the Kuomintang and the British trade unions, that is, ofthe capifulation of communism, in principle, in the one casebefore the bourgeoisie and in the other case before the lieu-tenants of the bourgeoisie within the working class.

Your group as far as I know condemns the policies of theStalinists in China and in Great Britain but at the same timeaccepts the slogan of the labor party. That is, while taking

104

To the Cornmunist League of &ruggle 105

or trying to take a Mamist position toward past events inother countries you take an opportunist position toward futureevents in your own country. I believe that without a radicalrevision of your position on the central question of the Parta,an effective rapprochement between your organization andthe International Left Opposition cannot be realized.

2. Up to now your group has rejected our definition of the

international Stalinist faction as bureaucratic centrism. Youbegin with the view that one can characterize as 'tentrisf' onlythose groupings which stand between the official camp of reformism (the Social Democracy) and the official camp of com-munism. Under this purely formalistic, schematic, undialec-tical conception of centrism is hidden in fact a lack of clarityof the political position of your own group. You wish to erasethe differences between the official Party, the right-wing faction(the Lovestone group), and even the American League. Thismakes it easy for you to maintain an eclectic position anddefend your right of a bloc with the Lovestone group.

That the Lovestone group does not represent a purely re'forrnist organization is incontestable, but it is a question ofits tendency and political orbit. The Lovestone group represents a variety of right-wing centrism which is evolving fromcommunism to the Social Democracy. The German SocialistWorkers Party (SAP)'148 which broke from the Social Democ-racy, contains a more progressive tendency than the Brand-lerites, although according to theoretical formulas the latterare apparently nearer to us. Staticatly, the Lovestone group'the German Brandlerites, and the SAP represent varieties ofright-wing centrism. B:ut dynamicallg one is different fromthe other and it is the dynamics that decides.

Certainly on a number of subordinate questions the Love-stone group has taken a more correct position than the of-ficial party, but to form a bloc with the Lovestone group wouldbe to augment its general authority and by that to help itperform its reactionary historic mission.

I shall not stop here to go into more details on the ques-

tion of centrism; I permit myself to refer you to my latestpamphlet (What Nu&), which will soon appear in America.

Without clarity on this most essential question, in my opiniona rapprochement between your faction and the InternationalLeft Opposition cannot be achieved.

3. To a considerable degree your criticism of the AmericanLeague starts from wrong premises (the most important aregiven above). At the same time you give your criticism a


character so immoderate, exaggerated, and embittered thatwe are forced to view you as an ideological hend not in thecamp of the International Opposition but of its adversaries,if not of its open enemies.

On the basis of criteria which are partly false, parfly in-sufficient and arbitrary, you deny, as I have said, the exis-tence of differences in principle between the American League,the Lovestone group, and the official party. By this you de.clare not only that the leadership of the League is classedas opportunist but also that the International Left Opposi-tion as a whole is absolutely incapable of distinguishing between Marxism and opporfunism on a most basic question.Are you astonished then that the Bolshevik-Leninists wantto know what holds you to the International Left Opposition?

4. You especially emphasize the necessity of active partici-pation by the Left Opposition in the mass movement and thestruggles of the workers in general. Although the Left Oppo-sition in a majority of countries is today a propagandist or-ganization, it propagandizes not in a sectarian form but in aMarxist manner, that is, on the basis of participation in allaspects of the life of the proletarial I cannot agree that anyleader or member of the American League denies this in prin-ciple. To a great extent the question reduces itseU to the realpossibilities, to which also pertain the natural capacity, er<-

perience, and initiative of the party.Let us admit for a minute that the American League lacks

this or that possibility for mass work. I agree that your groupwould be able to complement the work of the American Leaguein that respect But mass work must be carried out on thebasis of definite principles and methods. Until the necessaryunanimity on a number of fundamental questions is attained,disputes on "mass work" will inevitably remain fruitless.

5. I have called the position of your group eclectic. By thisI certainly don't intend to a(press a sweeping condemnationwhich bars the way to a future rapprochement. This is a ques-tion that is also decided dynamically. You must openly, clearly,and carefully revise your premises in order to uncover notonly obvious political mistakes, but also the historical andprincipled roots of these mistakes. I have warmly praisedthe theses of the Second Conference of the American Leaguebecause in the theses not only was a correct position takenon the essence of the question but also an open and cou-rageous criticism of its own past was made. Only in this waycan a revolutionary tendency seriously assure itself againstbacksliding.

To the Cornmunist League of Sraggle t07

6. Your group has raised the slogan of an internationalconference with the participation of all the organLations andgroups which count themselves in the Left Opposition. Thisappears to me to be false to the core. This is not the firstday in the life of the Left Opposition. In the sbuggle for itsideas and methods, it has cleansed its ranks of alien elements.The international conference can and must start from thd ideo-logical work already accomplished and strengthen and sys-

tematize its results. To follow the road proposed by yourgroup would mean to cross out the past and return to theoriginal state of chaos. We cannot even speak of that.

The Left Opposition is not a mathematical sum of vacil-lating groups but an international faction constructed on thegranite foundation of the principles of Man<ism. A rapproche-ment and a fusion with the International Left Opposition can-not be obtained through organizational manipulations orthrough adventuristic combinations a la Landau. I was gladto hear from you that your group has nothing in commonwith Landau and his methods. Precisely for this reason itis necessary to renounce once and for all the thought of trans-forming the International Left Opposition into a Noah's ark.It is necessary to choose another road, less precipitate butmore serious and certain.

Before all you must keep clearly in mind that the road tothe International Left Opposition leads through the AmericanLeague; a second road does not exist Unification with theAmerican League is possible only on the basis of the unityof principles and methods, which must be formulated theo-retically and verified by er<perience

The best thing, in my opinion, would be for you to devoteone of the no<t issues of your publication to a critical revisionof your ideological assumptions, especially in regard to thedisputed questions. Only the character of this revision (firstof all, naturally, its content but in part also its form) candemonstrate to just what degree the practical steps towardunification are really riPe.

The most important excerpts from your articles could beprinted in the Intemational Bulletin as informational material.Naturally the question will be decided by the American League.But all our sections will want to be informed. Not one of themwill demand any concessions in principle from the AmericanLeague All of them, however, will cooperate completely inthe cause of rapprochement and fusion if the qristence of acommon basis of principle will be confirmed.


Needless to say I shall be very glad if your hip here andour discussions will contribute to the entry of your groupinto the camp of the Bolshevik-Leninists.

L. TrotskyPostscript May 24, L932

For the sake of greater clarit5r I wish to add some remarks:l. If I speak about the inadmissibility of direct or indirect

support of the Lovestone group or the Brandlerites in general,I by no means want to say that these elements could not, underany circumstances, find a place for themselves in the Commu-nist ranks. On the contrary, under a healthy regime of theComintern, the majority of the Brandlerites would undoubtedlyhave accomplished some useful work. One of the perniciousconsequences of the Stalinist bureaucracy is that it is com-pelled by each new empirical zigzag, for fear of its own col-lapse, to push out of the part5r its allies of yesterday.

Zinoviev and Kamenev represent highly qualified elements.Under Lenin's regime they accomplished very responsiblework in spite of their insufficiency, which was well understoodby Lenin. The regime of Stalin condemned Zinoviev andKamenev to political death. The same thing can be said ofBukharin and many others. The ideological and moral de.generation of Radek is witness not only to the fact that Radekis not made of first-class material but also to the fact thatthe Stalinist regime can rely only on impersonal bureaucratsor morally corrupted individuals.

It is necessary, however, to take facts as they are. TheBrandlerites, chased out of the Comintern, and their worstcohorts (the Lovestone group) have condemned themselves topolitical degeneration. Their ideological resources are nil. Theydon't have a mass following, and can't have. As an indepen-dent group they are capable only of causing confusion anddisintegration. The sooner they dissolve the better. Who willbe hansformed into petty Stalinist officials and who into SocialDemocrats is a matter of indifference

2. The remark made before that the SAP contains moreprogressive elements than the Brandlerites must in no case besubmitted to a broad interpretation. One can't even speakof a political bloc between the Left Opposition and the SAPwith its current obvious centrist leadership. The progressivetendencies within the SAP can be uncovered only by our im-placable criticism of the SAP leadership, and also of the oldBrandlerites who are behind them and who play a manifestlyreactionary role within the organization.

To the Cornmunist League of &ruggle 109

We cannot put your American left socialists even on the sameplane as the centrist leaders of the SAP, who at least havebroken with the Social Democracy. By a correct policy on thepart of the Communist part5r, the SAP could become, beforeits disintegration, a valuable auxiliary instrument for the de'struction of the Social Democracy. As for the American leftsocialists, we do not have the least reason to distinguish themfrom Hillquit, 149 that is, to see them as anything else thanagents of the bourgeoisie within the working class.

3. On the question of the labor party you refer to the decision of the Fourth Congress. The Left Opposition standsentirely on the ground of the decisions of the first four con-gresses, but distinguishes decisions of principle and programfrom tactical and episodic decisions. The decision of the FourthCongress on that question could only be a tactical hypothesis.Later the hypothesis was submitted to an enormous test. TheLeft Opposition in a certain sense grew from that test The

mistake of your group consists precisely in that you ig-nore the work of the Left Opposition on this fundamentalquestion.

4. The same thing applies to the question of centrism. Yourefer to Lenin But the task does not consist in referring toone or another quotation from Lenin, which relates to othertimes and conditions, but in using the method of Lenin cor-rectly. Nahrrally in Lenin you don't find anything about bu-reaucratic centrism, because the Stalinist faction was formedpolitically after the death of Lenin. The International LeftOpposition grew in the struggle against this faction. On thisquestion, also, you ignore its critical activity.

5. I don't at all mean to imply that in the past your groupdefended the unworthy methods of the Landau group. Youare wrong, however, in thinking that this is an intental ques-

tion of the Left Opposition. The Left Opposition does not haveand cannot have anything in common with the Landau groupor with those who support that group.

L. Trotsky

TO A BULGARIAN WORKERIN THE U.. 5.150

May 24, 1932

Dear Comrade:I have received your letter of May 9. As far as I can judge

from your letter, you are a Bulgarian. You tell me that youhave been in the United States for a long time and that thereare many Bulgarian workers in your town. Do you belongto any organization? Do you maintain links with Bulgaria?

In any casg I am sending you some issues of the Bulgarianpaper Osuobozhdenie. I collaborate with thispaper. Youprob-ably know the name of the great Bulgarian retsolutionargRakoosky. Osvobozhdenle carries on in the spirit of his ideas.

If you are interested in the paper, you should get it sentdirectly from Sofia.

If you have close comrades who read English, they canget the American paper, The Militand which follows the samepolicy as Osoobozhdenia Yot are perfectly correct in sayingthat this is an o<ceptionally critical time, especially in the FarEast. For precisely this reason not a single conscious workershould stand aside from the great struggle to achieve socialismthrough the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Comradely greetings,L. Trotsky

110

CLOSER TO THE PROLETARIANSOF THE ..COLORED'' RACI$IISI

June 13, 1932

To the International Secretariat(Copy to the National Committee of the American League)

I have received a copy of the letter dated April 26' 1932'sent by an organization of Negro comrades from Johannes-burg. This letter, it seems to me, is of great symptomatic sig-nificance. The Left Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists) can andmust become the banner for the most oppressed sections ofthe world proletariat, and consequently first and foremost forthe Negro workers. Upon what do I base this proposition?

The Left Opposition represents at present the most consis-tent and most revolutionary tendency in the world. Its sharplycritical attitude to any and all varieties of bureaucratic ar-rogance in the labor movement makes it possible for it topay particular attention to the voice of the most oppressedsections of the working class and the toilers as a whole.

The Left Opposition is the target for the blows not onlyof the Stalinist apparatus but also of all the bourgeois govern-ments of the world. This fact, which despite all the slandersis entering gradually into the consciousness of the masses'is bound to increasingly attract towards the Left Oppositionthe warm sympathies of the most oppressed sections of theinternational working class. From this point of vierr, the com-munication addressed to us by the South African comradesseems to me not at all accidental, but profoundly symptomatic.

In their letter, to which twenty-four signatures are appended(with the notation "and others"), the South African comradese><pressed particular interest in the questions of the Chineserevolution. This interest, it ought to be acknowledged, is whollyjustified. The working masses of the oppressed peoples, whohave to carry on the shuggle for elementary national rightsand for human dignity, are precisely those who incur the great-est risk of suffering the penalties for the muddled teachingsof the Stalinist bureaucracy on the subject of the ndemocratic

dictatorship." t52 gn4s1 this false banner, the policy a la Kuo-mintang, that is, the vile deception and the unpunished crush-

111

tL2 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

ing of the toiling masses by their own "national" bourgeoisie,may still do the greatest harm to the cause of the liberationof the toilers. The program of the permanent revolution, basedon the incontestable historic experience of a number of coun-tries, can and must assume primary significance for the libera-tion movement of the Negro proletarial

The Johannesburg comrades may not as yet have had theopporfunity to acquaint themselves more closely with the viewsof the Left Opposition on all the most important questions.But this cannot be an obstacle to our getting together withthem as closely as possible at this very moment, and helpingthem in a comradely way to come into the orbit of our pro'gram and our tactics,

When ten intellectuals, whether in Paris, Berlin, or New York,who have already been members of various organizations,address themselves to us with a request to be taken into ourmidst, I would offer the following advice: put them through aseries of tests on all the programmatic questions; wet themin the rain, dry them in the sun, and then after a new andcareful o<amination accept maybe one or two.

The case is radically altered when ten workers connectedwith the masses furn to us. The difference in our attitude toa petty-bourgeois group and to the proletarian group doesnot require any explanation. But if a proletarian group func-tions in an area where there are workers of different racesand, in spite of this, remains composed solely of workers ofa privileged nationalit5r, then I am inclined to view them withsuspicion. Are we not dealing perhaps with the labor aris-tocracy? Isn't the group infected with slaveholding prejudices,active or passive?

It is an entirely different matter when we are approached bya group of Negro workers. Here I am prepared to take it forgranted in advance that we shall achieve agreement with them,even if such an agreement is not yet wident, because the Negroworkers, by virfue of their whole position, do not and cannotstrive to degrade anybody, oppress anybody, or deprive any-body of his rights. They do not seel< privileges and cannotrise to the top o<cept on the road of the international revo-lution.

We can and we must find a way to the consciousness of theNegro workers, the Chinese workers, the Indian workers, andall the oppressed in the human ocean of the colored racesto whom belongs the decisive word in the development ofmankind.

L. Trotsky

THE COMINGCONGRESS AGAINST \[[R,ISA

June 13, 1932

Dear Comrades:I have before me the June 4 issue of the Paris journal Ze

Monde [The World]. Le Monde is published by Barbusse 154

and serves at the present time as the central organ for theconvocation of the "great antiwar congress.n On the third pageof this journal there is an er<cerpt from an appeal by RomainRolland 155 and Henri Barbusse. The character and spirit ofthe appeal are sufficiently clear from the following words:\ile call upon all people, all groups, regardless of theA po'litical affiliations, and all labor organizations - cultural, social,and trade union-upon all forces and all mass organizations!Let all join us in the International Congress of War againstWar.n

Then follows a passage from a letter addressed by Rollandto Barbusse: nI am wholly of the opinion that the congressshould be open to all parties and nonpardsans on a commonbasis of sincere and determined struggle against war." Furtheron, Rolland expresses his agreement with Barbusse that thefirst place in this sbuggle should be occupied by the workingclass. Still further, we read the first listing of those who havejoined the congress. It consists of radical and semiradicalFrench and German writers, pacifists, members of the Leagueof the Rights of Man, and so forth.

This is followed by a maxim from the well-known EmileVandervelds. 156 nBvslywhere war gives birth to . . . enplosionsof revolutionary dissatisfaction on the one hand and rabidreaction of fanatical nationalism on the other. It is of theutmost necessity that the Internationals closely unite their forcesin order to prevent war."

113

tL4 Writings of Leon T?otsky (1932)

Finally after these words by Vandervelde quoted from the

[Belgian] socialist journal Le Petqle of May 29, 1932, weread a quotation from the central organ of the French Com-munist Part5r, l'Humanitq of May 31, 19321 "Reply 'PresentJ'to the call of Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse for par-ticipation in the international congress at Geneva.n

In the last issue of I-a Vie Ouoriere, the central organ of theUnitary General Confederation of Labor [CGTU]' there is anarticle in which complete agreement is expressed with the callmade by Rolland and Barbusse.

The picture is now perfec0y clear. The French CommunistParty and the trade'union organization led by it stand behindthe initiators of the congress. Behind the Communist Partystands the Comintern.

What is involved is the danger of a new world war. In thestruggle against this danger, it is necessary to also utilizefellow havelers who are or who even may only appear to bethe most honest and determined among the petty-bourgeoispacifists. In any case, however, this is a question of third-rateimportance or less.

The call for a struggle against war, you would think, shouldbe brought by the Comintern and Profin1s1n157 before theeyes of the internationai proletariat. The most importantproblem is to successfully win over the working masses of theSecond and the Amsterdam Internationals to our sids.158

To accomplish this, the policy of the united front can beof great service The last session of the Executive Committeeof the Second International pronounced itseU against Japanand "for the defense of the USSR." We know the extent andthe value of this defense insofar as the decision of the leadersis concerned. But the very fact that this decision was adoptedis an indication of the force of the mass pressure (the crisisand the danger of war). The Comintern was duty-bound inthese circumstances to develop the policy of the united fronton an international scale, that is, to propose to the Secondand the Amsterdam Internationals openly before the worldproletariat a definitg carefully considered program of prac-tical measures against the war danger.

But the Comintern is silent. The Profintern is silent. Theinitiative is surrendered to two pacifist writers, one ofwhom-Romain Rolland-is undoubtedly a great writer anda prominent person, but a man who is not engaged in politics,and the other-Barbusse-is a pacifist and a mystic, a Com-munist or one expelled from the Communist Party, but at any

The Corning Congress Against War 115

rate an advocate of the complete fusion of the Communistparties with the Social Democracy. "Join us," say Rolland andBarbusse. Answer nPresentln l'Humanite joins in the refrain.Is it possible to imagine anything more monstrous, morecapitulatory, and more criminal than this crawling of officialcommunism before petty-bourgeois pacifism?

In Germany it is declared impermissible to apply the tacticof a united front to the mass organizations of the workers,with the aim of o<posing their reformist leaders. At the sametime on an international scale a united front is being applied,with its first steps turned into a booster campaign for the worstin the gallery of reformist traitors. Vandervelde is surely "forpeace." He figures that it is more advantageous and convenientto serve in the ministry of his king in time of peace than intime of war. And so the insolent platitudes of this social patriot,whose signature if I am not mistaken appears on the Versaillespeace trea$2, are made into a program for the huge antiwarcongress. And l'Hurnanite gives its support to this treacherousand pernicious masquerade.

Lr Germany it is a question of preventing a fascist counter-revolutionary pogrom which immediately and directly threatensnot only the working class but also its reformist organizationsand even its reformist leaders. For the Social Democraticgentlemen, it is a question of salaries, of government privileges,and even of their own hides. One must be in a state of completebureaucratic idiocy to refuse to utilize correctly and thoroughlyin the interests of the proletarian revolution the greal acutecontradictions between fascism and the Social Democracy.

On the question of war, however, it is an entirely differentmatter. War does not at all eonstitute a direct threat to thereformist organizations, particularly to their leaders, On thecontrary, experience has shown that war opens up headycareers for the reformist leaders. Patriotism is precisely thething which most closely ties the Social Democracy to its na-tional bourgeoisie U it is possible, even inevitablg that theSocial Democracy will be forced in some form or other, withincertain bounds, to defend itself against fascism when the latterwill seize it by the throat-and it will seize it-the possibilitythat the Social Democracy of any country would conduct astruggle against its bourgeoisie when war is declared, even ifagainst the Soviet Union, is entirely excluded. The revolu-tionary campaign against war has as its particular and spe.cific aim the o<posure of the deceit and the decay of SocialDemocratic pacifism.


But what does the Cominterh do? It prohibits the utilizationof the absolutely real and deep antagonism between the So-cial Democracy and fascism on a national scale, while it at-tempts to grab hold of the illusory, hypocritical antagonismbetween the Social Democracy and its imperialist masters onan international scale.

While in Germany the united front is altogether prohibited,on the international arena the united front is from the verybeginning given the decorative cover of a deliberately deceptive and rotten character. &ploiting the idealistic naivete ofthe entirely sincere Romain Rolland, all the fakers and dirtycareerists, retired Social Democratic ministers and candidatesfor the post of minister, will declare Tresend" For this gentrythe congress will serve as a sanatorium where they will irn-prove their somewhat tarnished reputations in order to sellthemselves at a higher price. This was the way the participantsin the Anti-Imperialist Leaguelse acted. We are faced witha repetition of a Kuomintang and an Anglo-Russian Com-mittee on a world scale.

There are pedants who doubt that we are correct in defin-ing the international Stalinist faction as centrisL Those whohave been poisoned by ill-digested texts are incapable oflearning from .l.iving facts. Here you have ideal, classic, uni-versal centrism in full bloom: its nose turned to the right'its tail sflll strongly inclined toward the lefl Draw a line unitingits nose with its tail and you will find the orbit of centrism.

History is at a breaking poinL The whole world today isat a breaking point. And centrism is at a breaking point.In the USSR the Stalinists continue to babble about the abo-lition of classes in five years as they simultaneously restorethe free markeL The ultraleft tail doesn't know yet what thewise opportunist head has decided. In the field of culturalmatters, the policy has been given a sharp turn to the rightA silent turn, to be sure, without any commentary, but allthe more threatening for that reason. The same process oc-curs in the policies of the Comintern. While the unlucky Piat-nitskys 16o are still chewing the remnants of the ultraleft cud,the Manuilskys have already been ordered to turn their headsto the right, without regard for their backbones. Never beforein the nine years of its activities has the epigone school revealed its lack of principle, its poverty of ideology, and itstrickery in practice in so naked and shameless a manneras this.

Bolshevik-Leninists! The symptoms of a great historical turn-ing point are accumulating on the world arena. This is bound

The Coming Congress Against War t17

to affect the destiny of our faction. We are already chargedwith tasks of truly great historical significance. Ttre struggleagainst war means above all a struggle against pacifist mas-querades and centrist-bureaucratic fraud. We must launch amerciless campaign to er<pose the contradictions of the Stalin-ist apparafus, whose bankruptcy in the impending great eventsis inevitable.

The defense of the USSR is not a parlor phrase which thenot always disinterested friends of the Stalinist bureaucracyrepeat. The international defense of the USSR is becomingmore and more dependent on the international revolutionarystruggle of the proletariat When the life and death of millionsare at stake, the greatest clarity is needed. Nobody todayrenders better service to the class enemy than the Stalinistapparatus which, in the struggle for the remains of its pres-tige, sows confusion and chaos everywhere,

Bolshevik-Leninists! You will be charged with an enormoustask. Weeks and months are approaching when all revolu-tionists will have to show their worth. Carry the ideas ofMan<ism and Leninism into the ranks of the advanced workers.Help the international proletarian vanguard er<tricate itselffrom the shai[iacket of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which haslost its head. What is involved is no small matter: it is thefate of the USSR and the world proletarian revolution.

Leon Tlotsky

WHY I SIGNED RADEK'S THESESON GERMAI\Y161

June 14, 1932

Dear Comrads \Jsussth3162Now to Brandler's letter. He is correct that my sig-

nature stands below the theses of Radek and Pyatakov,l63which do not rightly reflect my vimrs on the events and which,in many parts, are perhaps opposite to them. (UnfortunatelyI do not have the text. ) How did this become possible?

The plenum of the ECCI was convoked towards the endof 1923, when the revolutionary situation in Germany hadalready been hopelessly mi,ssed. I was ill in the country, about40 kilometers from Moscow. The German delegates (I remem-ber Rernmelerl64 6o"tt"n-but there were five or six of them)came to see me in the country in order to learn my opinionon the situation. All of them, like Brandler for that matter,were of the opinion that the revolutionary situation wouldgrow continuously sharper and break out in the immediatefuture. I considered this position catastrophic for the fate ofthe party and put this question above all the others. Zinov-iev, like the Russian Politburo as a whole, confirmed thecourse towards the armed uprising in Germany. I could onlyregard this as disastrous. Radek telephoned me from Moscowat the last hour to ask if I would be prepared to support histheses with my name. The telephone conversation took placehaU an hour before Radek's appearance at the plenum. I replied to him: 'If your theses openly assert that the Germansituation is in a state of ebb and not of flow and that it isnecessary to make a corresponding strategical turn, then Iam ready to support your theses without having read them."There was no longer any other practical possibility. UponRadek's assurance that this opinion was very clearly e><pressed

in the theses, I gave my name over the telephone At the same

118

Why I Signed Radek's Theses on Guntang 119

time, however, I insured myself by the fact that I had veryprecisely formulated my conceptions of the German situation,its phases of development and its perspectives, in a series ofarticles and reports. My attitude towards the Radek theses maybe deemed correct or false. An outsider, who neither knowsthe circumstances nor had read my writings of the period,can of course be led into confusion by my signafure to thetheses of Radek (who had to defend himseU, too, and therebyalso Brandler). But Brandler knows the circumstances verywell and when he refers to Radek's theses, it is deliberatelymisleading on his parl

I must however add that in the Russian Central CommitteeI personally protected Brandler, because I was always againstthe policy of scapegoats. But that this goat has the inclina-tion to leap to the right-on that score I had no illusionseven then. What completely disqualifies Brandler politicallyin my eyes is his attitude towards the Chinese revolution andthe Anglo-Russian Committee.

While Brandler is formally in the right with regard to theRadek theses, J ca,nnot, however, at all understand what hemeans when he says that in 1926 I offered him, Brandler,a testimonial from Zinoviev on his, Brandler's, strategical flaw-lessness. I learn of this story now for the first time Was itin writing? Was it oral? As I recall, I had neither written norverbal contact with Brandler in 1926. I scarcely got to seehim at all in that period. Radek, to be sure, oscillated betweenthe Left Opposition and Brandler. He had doubts concerningthe economic questions and referred constantly to the authorityof Brandler as an official of the Supreme Council of NationalEconomy. Brandler asserted that an accelerated industrializa-tion was impossible. During the working out of the platform,l65Zinoviev demanded that Radek abandon his ambiguous at-titude towards Brandlerian opportunism. I supported this pro-posal with the greatest readiness and we gave Radek a friendlyultimatum. He begged for twenty-four to forty-eight hours tothink it over. It occurs to me now that he may have utilizedthis time to win Brandler for our pladorm. This is a belatedhypothesis of mine, but it is also the only er<planation ofBrandler's muddled contention. That our bloc with Zinovievwas unprincipled, I cannot concede for a single instant. Theprincipled basis of the bloc was our plafform, which I regardto this day as the most important programmatic documentof post-Leninist Bolshevism.

L20 Writings of Leon IYotsky (1932)

How the Brandlerites regarded Trotskyism in 1923 is shownby the enclosed review in Die Rote Fahne [The Red Flag].A German comrade recently sent me the interesting document.Die Rote Fahne was at that time in the hands of the Brandler-ites (Boettcherl66 and Thalheimer). I assume that Thalheimerwrote the rwiew. Brandler, at the very least, tolerated it. Idon't want to dwell upon the inaccuracies in the revie{v. Idid not stand at the left wing of the Mensheviks. From 1904to 1917 I was organizationally outside of both factions andnever called myself a Menshwik. But that's neither here northere at the moment. You know, moreover' what proposalthe Brandlerite Central Committee unanimously made to meas late as September 1923. 167 rlhe most fateful matters wereinvolved, and the proposal was motivated accordingly. Butthat's enough on the matter for the moment.

Leon Trotsky

THE STALIN BUREAUCRACYIN STRAITSI6s

June 16, 1932

We are approaching a turn on a major scale in the devel-opment of the Comintern and consequently of the Left Oppo-sition as well. Once again big events reveal that false pol-icies, imposed on the proletarian vanguard b, force, mustbe heavily paid for in the end. There is not a single prob-lem, literally not one, which does not e><pose with devastatingclarity the insufficiency of the "general line." When a largeconcern is in straits, creditors from all sides swarm aroundand act the more mercilessly the longer the settlement hasbeen delayed.

The war danger in the East is a direct and immediate re-sult of Stalin's ruinous policy in relation to the Chinese rev-olution. The militarists of Japan ttrreaten the Soviet Unionbecause Stalin helped his ally, Chiang Kai-shek, to shanglethe revolution. After that the Stalinists proclaimed the notionthat a Soviet China could be built on the basis of peasantguerrilla warfare, without accompanying revolutionary insur-rections in the cities. These years of adventurism further weak-ened the Chinese proletariat. T'he responsibility for the currentweakness of revolutionary China lies on the shoulders of thepoliticians of the "third period."169

During the last two or three years the Opposition has tire-lessly warned that the galloping tempos of industrializationin the USSR brought the threat of a rupture with the village;that the "all-embracing" collectivization, unprepared technicallyand culturally, held the threat of a crisis in staple goods. Nowthis warning has become fact. Here, too, the Stalinist bureau-cracy is caught in inentricable difficulties. Under the yoke ofpressing necessit5z, it is now performing an economic turnof exceptional historical importance. But it is disorienting and

L21


disarming the working class of the Soviet Union, in part be'cause it does not itself understand what it is doing and inpart because it is consciously deceiving the party in orderto preserve its prestige.

What additional conditions are required to assure the Ger-man working class revolutionary hegemony of the nation andthe Communist Party revolutionary hegemony of the workingclass? But the Stalinist bureaucracy has contrived to doomthe Communist Party to fraudulent passivity and degradinghelplessness. Since 1914, the policy of the German Social De-mocracy has worked unceasingly in the interests of fascism.Since 1923, the policy of the German Communist Party hasworked unceasingly in the interests of the Social Democracy.Ignoring our warnings and the lessons of tragic e><periences,

the Stalinist bureaucracy is now driving the German workingclass straight to the abyss.

The unprecedented economic crisis of capitalism has resultedin a total social collapse; the capitalists are bemoaning theirimpending demise. But official communism in all countriessuffers defeat after defeat- Why? For answer we get: "The gen-eral line is correct, but the people who carry it out are worth-less.n As if these people drop from the sky! As if the natureof the general line itself does not consist precisely in shapingpeople in its own image! As if the leaders are not responsiblefor those whom they select! This senseless and dishonest theoryof the infallibility of the leadership is dispersing the Communistranks, by causing aversion in some and destroying the willof others.

We are now confronting a reckoning for the accumulatederrors and crimes of the epigones. The centrist bureaucracy,doomed by history, is reaching for tested methods with re'doubled efforts. In a vise between its class enemies and theresults of its own treachery, it doubles and triples its blowsagainst the Left Opposition.

It would seem that everything has been tried already: vil-ification, arresl enile, firing squad. But no. New dishes fromthe decoctions and dregs of hatred and perfidy are being prepared in the Stalinist kitchen. Recently haoda reproducedphotographic facsimiles of articles by Polish fascists, publish-ing these falsifications as the sacred truth. More recently Za-

oestia reprinted with glee the canards of a German fascistsheet about a conspiracy of the Left Opposition with the So-

cial Democracy. This is not the end of it. On instructions fromthe Stalinist bureau, a certain luqshns1170 is writing a book

The Stalin Bureaucracy in Straits 123

in German in which he attempts to link the Left Oppositionwith the police. Everything that was written and said in 1917by the Mensheviks, the Social Revolutionaries, and the Ca-dsfs171 is being surpassed not only in stupidity but also invileness.

In their campaign to demonstrate the inner depravity ofBolshevism, the Mensheviks at least tried to relate it to cer-tain facts: they referred to Malinovsky, who was a police agenton the [Bolshevik] Central Committee and had been electedto the Duma with the help of the police 1?2 They said that thepolice had assigned its secret agents to push for the coursewhich was directed toward a split between the Bolshwiks andthe Mensheviks. And furthermore, they added, Ludendorff wasLenin's npatron" because he had arranged for Lenin's returnto Russia in a sealed train.173 The Bolshwiks replied withcontempt to these scoundrels who attempted to turn the policeplots against the most revolutionary party into a polemicalweapon against this same party. Today Stalin repeats thetactics of Miliukov, Kerensky, Tseretelli,lT4 and Dan, withthe sole difference that Stalin, lacking even an iota of facts,manufactures them. The shady character who writes under thename of Buechner relates that Trotsky's autobiography isbeing published in Warsaw by the political police. And thisslander is circulated in all languages: this is the way theyeducate the Communist youth.

A certain Hungarian fascist'dedicates" his book to Trotskyand o<presses his ironical "thanks," in which hatred masquer-ades as wit. What conclusions can be drawn from this epi-sode? Didn't revolutionists apply that same method, only withgreater success, against their class enemies? Didn't Lenin givethanks in print to the English Tirnes for one article or another,which he used in his oton way? Btot there is a scoundrel tobe found in the columns of. haoda who speaks about this asa union between Ttotsky and the fascists.

Irr an article I o<pressed the opinion that Japanese impe.rialism would hardly dare to openly challenge the Soviet Unionbefore it had entrenched itself in Manchuria. In connectionwith this, the central paper of the American Communist (!!!)Party writes that Trotsky acts in the interests of Japan. Too<plain this away as stupidity would be too superficial: afterall, stupidity has its limits. Here we are dealing with a cor-rupt functionary who will stop at nothing to earn his salary.The intent of my article was to show that a struggle with theRed Army is too hard a nut to crack for Japanese militarism.

t24 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

The general staff in Tokyo has reason to believe that Iam able to evaluate the strength of the Red Army better thanthe New York barkers who are under orders to snap at mylegs. It is obvious, of coursq that great world problems arenot solved by isolated articles. But if one were to weigh theinfluence of articles, then my evaluation of the Red Army andthe perspectives of a SovietJapanese war could serve only thoseelements in Japan who desire to hinder a war. But is it pos-sible to answer barking and howling with arguments?

These gentlemen depict Rakovsky as an enemy of the SovietUnion. For the Soviet IJnion, they seek a champion in Bar-busse, who in turn wants to lean on Vandervelde With hatin hand, the Stalinist bureaucracy is now begging alms frompetty-bourgeois pacifists. And staunch warriors like Sosnov-sky, heroes of the civil war like Muralovl?5 and Gruenstein,like hundreds and thousands of Bolshevik-Leninists, are inexile and confinement, bound hand and foot.

While handing us over to the bourgeois police, the Stalinistsshout about our united front with the bourgeois counterrev-olution. But before the eyes of the working class the capital-ist governments of the world are helping Stalin to surroundthe Oppositionists with a circle of barbed wire No matterhow much Stalin's agents lie, this single fact completely re-veals the hue grouping of forces.

They want to connect us with the Japanese military and thePolish police. Kerensky long ago tried to connect the Bolshe-viks with the German general staff and czarist police. Thehotter the ground under his feet became, the less restraint heused.

Today he has imitators. And what kind are they? These arethe people who shot down the Blumkins and sent out theAgabekovs in their place. We brand the name Agabekov onyour forehead, a brand which you can never obliterate.

What does Stalin want? He wants to use the war dangerfor a new, and if possible physical, annihilation of the Bolshevik-Leninists. Letters from the Soviet Union that have reachedus recently report that the Left Opposition is now achieoinga second enrollmmt throughout the mtire counhy. In the in-dustrial centers, in plants, factories, and mines, a new gen-eration of Bolshevik-Leninists has appeared. Creative ideasdo not die; political facts instruct. The Left Opposition hasdemonstrated that it is unconquerable

Stalin on the contrary has compromised himseU on all prob-lems. During the Seventeenth Conference he shamefully kept

The Stalin Bureaucracg in &raits 125

silent Not a word about the problems of the Soviet economy!Not a word about the situation in Germany! "The chief," whoin the most crucial situations himself admits that it's best tokeep quiet is politically bankrupL The functionaries in thecircles closest to Stalin are ironically whispering - we are writtenfrom Moscow-"Hadn't we better ask for instructions fromRakovsky or Tlotsky?" Out of this bureaucratic impotencehas been born the most recent international campaign againstthe Left Opposition.

The work done by the Bolshevik-Leninists has not beenin vain. The fundamental documents and works of the LeftOpposition have been issued in all but the most isolated areasof the world. In tens of countries there are Oppositionist cadreswho are convinced to the marrow of their bones of their cor-recbress and historic right to victory. A great and ineradicableachievement!

Unable to answer our criticisms, enmeshed in contradictions,condemned by events, forced to keep quiet on the basic po-litical problems, the Stalinist clique is making a final attemptto isolate us from the official Communist parties by a crim-inological-political fiction, the ineptitude of which in no waymitigates its vileness.

The Stalinists by their persecutions would like to push uson the road of a second party and a fourth international. Theyunderstand that a fatal error of this type on the part of theOpposition would slow up its growth for years, if not nullifyall its successes altogether. To counterpose oneself inimicallyto the Communist parties would be to fulfill the program of thecentrist bureaucracy. No, that is not our road! The intriguesof Stalin, his Buechners and his Agabekovs, o<posed and un-o<posed, will not force us to change our course. We stand onthe ground of the first four congresses of the Comintern, andthe ideas and traditions of Bolshevism. We and only we areapplying the lessons of the October Rwolution to all the tasksof the world proletariaL The banner of the Third Internationalis ours. We lay full claim to its historical inheritance.

Proletarian politics knows neither the feeling of despair northe feeling of revenge It is guided by revolutionary efficacy.Before the working masses of the USSR and of the entire worldthe Bolshevik-Leninists repeat: Today, as on the day whenwe first raised our voice of warning against the epigonic bu-reaucracy, u)e are read.g to the last one to place oursehtes atthe disposal of the Comintern and the Sooiet state for the most


ordinary, the most onerou,s, and the most dangerous work.We commit ourselves to loyally observe discipline in action-We have only one condition: within the framework of the Com-intern we must have the right to defend. our id.eas, that is, theideas of Mattism, in confortnity with the elernentary principlesof party detnocracy.

We know that the Stalinists will not accept our proposal:they are incapable of doing so. In order to agree to it theymust not fear us. But it is preci:sely their fear of the Left Op-position that now motivates important activities of the utterlycompromised apparatus.

We seek not friendship with the bureaucracy but collabora-tion in struggle with the proletarian vanguard. In answerto the provocations and abject plots of the Stalinists, the Bol-shevik-Leninists will move closer to the Communist rank andfile. Now as before our adherents will not limit themselves toexposing the political mistakes and crimes of the leaders. Handin hand with the members of the party they will fight for thebanner of communism-in strikes, in street demonstrations,in election campaigns, and in more decisive battles when theirhour strikes.

Stalin may be able to do away with individual Bolsheviks,but he will never strangle Bolshwism. The victory of Bol-shevism is assured by history.

A LETTER TOTHE WORKERS OF ZURICH176

June 25, 1932

On the night of June 15 violent encounters took place inZurich between the workers and the police I learned of theseevents from the cables of the bourgeois press agencies, whichconsequently were very tendentious and hostile to the workers.But even without knowing the details, it is not very difficultto get a general idea of the character of these events. Con-frontations between workers, especially workers on strike orunernployed, and the police are abundant in the whole his-tory of capitalism. The present terrible crisis, which revealsall the rottenness of the capitalist system, is making the bour-geoisie er(tremely tense and is driving them to make use of thepolice and the army at the slightest alarm. On the other side,the very just indignation of the workers against the bourgeoisieis growing and seeking expression. No matter what the po'litical tendency at the head of the strike and the demonstra-tion in Zurich is, it does not alter the character of the bloodyencounter. Capitalism has reduced the workers to starvation,to misery, to despair. Capitalism is throwing them into thestreets. Capitalism is beating them down with armed force.ff the bullets of the capitalists do not get the workers beforehand, the lackeys of the capitalist press malign them and thecapitalist judges put the leaders" in jail.

This was the simple and obvious er<planation I gavg farfrom the scene, of the events of June 15 and 16. Today, onJune 25, I have received from friends a leaflet issued by thenSocialist Part5r of Zurichn entitled "Settling Accounts with theCommunists." In its statement the Social Democracy, whichruns the city of Zrtrich, attempts to absolve itself of all re.sponsibility for the repression used against the strikers anddemonstrators. According to the lea-flet, the responsibility for

L27

r28 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

the conflict rests not on capitalism but on communism. Ire

defense of their actions against the Zurich workers the SocialDemocracy writes: "Lenin and Trotsky, in similar situations'were severe against all the ultraleft syndicalists of the anar-chist tendency. They pitilessly crushed in blood all the putsch-

ists."This leaflet has prornpted me to address a letter to the work-

ers of Zurich, with the aim of exposing this slander. Leninand I have more than once been the object of slander. Youundoubtedly know that we were even accused of being in the

service of the German general staff. Nevertheless I have neverknown a more dishonest and contemptible slander than thatthrown at us by the leaflet of the Zurich Social Democracy.

Lenin's whole life was dedicated to the overthrow of bour-geois society, of its state, its privileges, its laws, its justice'its prisons, its police, its army. How can anyone employ the

name of Lenin to justify bourgeois attacks against the work-ers? I also protest against the use of my name because duringthe thirty-five years of my conscious life I have served and con-tinue to serve, insofar as I am able, the cause of the emanci-pation of the working class.

But, the Messrs. Social Democratic journalists will reply,didn't the Soviet power use repressive measures against the

anarchists of the Left Social Revolutionaries who attempted toorganize an insurrection? To be sure! But the difference liesprecisely in this-an insignificant difference isn't it, comradeworkers?-that for us it was a question of defending a pro-letarian state, not a bourgeois state. Before this the Bolshe'viks had organized the October insurrection by means of whichthe proletariat overthrew the bourgeoisie, took possession ofits banks and factories, confiscated the land of the rural gen-

try and turned it over to the peasants, chased out the para-sites from their palaces and housed the workers' children inthem, deprived the exploiters of their voting rights, concen-trated the power and the weapons in the hands of the workersand thus guarded the first proletarian state against its enemies.This precisely is what the regime of. the proletarian dictatorshipconsists of. Yes, we created the Red Army for its defense andeffectively defended it with guns in hand' The Social Democ-racy of the entire world condemned us and hurled curses onour heads. The German Social Democracy supported theHohenzollerns, 1?? who tried to strangle the Soviet republic.But the Bolsheviks did not let themselves be strangled; withiron fist they defended the workers' state. The domestic enemies

A Letter to the Workqs of Zurich L29

of the proletarian dictatorship were the bourgeoisie stripped ofits rights, the bourgeois officers and cadets, genflemen of thetype of Conradi who assassinated my friend Vorovsky. 174 15uRussian Social Democrats (the Mensheviks and Social Rev-olutionaries) directly and indirectly supported their struggleagainst the workers' state. Irn all instances in which they tookup arms against it, we treated them without mercy.

But the Zurich Social Democracy is deceiving you when itrefers to Lenin and Trotsky to justify its bloody measuresagainst workers rebelling against the capitalist state. Forcewas used, to be sure, in both cases. Whenever classes are en-gaged in an implacable struggle, force always must be resortedto finally. This will be the case as long as classes continueto er<isl But the whole question is determined by which classer<ercises forcs

At one of the sessions of the Brest-Litovsk conference, onJanuary 14, 1918, General Hoffmann,lTg the one really incharge of the German general staff on the eastern front, pro-tested against the force employed by the Soviet government. Itake the occasion to quote verbatim from the minutes the fol-lowing orhact from my reply:

"General Hoffmann has remarked that our government basedits position on power and made use of force against all thosewhose opinions differed from its own, stigmatizing them ascounterrevolutionaries. The general is absolutely correct whenhe says that our government based itself on force. Throughoutall of history, no other kind of government has been known.As long as society is composed of classes engaged in struggle,the state will inevitably be an arm of compulsion and willmake use of a compulsive apparatus. . . . What in our actionsastonishes and outrages the governments of other countries isthe fact that we arrest not the workers who go out on strikebut the capitalists who lock out the workers, that we do notshoot down the peasants who demand land but arrest thelandlords and the officers who hy to shoot the peasants."

The leaders of the Zurich Social Democracy are no differ-ent than General Hoffmann when they speak of violence with-out defining the class which employs this violence. And forgood reason: the Social Democracy cannot pose this questionopenly and honestly because its leaders themselves serve thecapitalist regirne. On petty local questions, on secondary mu-nicipal ones, the Social Democracy attempts to bargain withcapitalism on behalf of the workers in order to maintain its


authority among them. But when it is a question of the funda-mental interests of the capitalist order and private propergz,the very foundations of the o<ploitation of man by man, thenthe Social Democracy, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Austria,in Francg and in the entire world, invariably takes the sideof the erploiters. It has once more demonstrated this in un-mistakable fashion by the June wents in Zurich.

Since the gentlemen of the Social Democratic leadership havetaken the liberty of referring to Lenin and me in their attemptto er<onerate themselves, I will say in conclusion: Although Icannot judge the events in Zurich orcept through the accountsin the bourgeois journals, to which I give hardly more than tenpercent credence, I nwertheless can safely say, since the work-ers' movement is involved, that all my sympathies are un-reservedly on the side of those who participated in the strike,who protested against the brutality of the police, and who havefallen victim to the new attacks. No matter what the tacticalviews of the Zurich Communists arg I will always be foundon the same side of the barricades with them. Even if thevhave committed one error or another - I do not know of any -these are the errors of our class, these are the errors of theproletarian revolution which is raising its head against thecapitalist yoke. In spite of all the ndemocratic" peacock feattrerswith which the Social Democracy covers itself, it has acted andis acting in the Zurich events as the direct agent of the classenemy. The Social Democracy is concealing its treachery withslanders against the proletarian rwolution. It is underminingthe authorit;r of the workers' state to the great advantage of theauthority of the bourgeois state by equating the violence ofrevolution with the violence of reaction.

I hope that every Zurich worker, the Social Democratic work-ers included, will thoroughly think over the events and therole which the Social Democratic leaders have played in themin order to draw the necessary political conclusions. Onlythen will we be able to say that the June victims have notbeen sacrificed in vain'

Leon Ttotskv

HANDS OFF ROSA LUXEMBURG!I8O

June 28, 1932

Stalin's article, nSome Questions Conerning the History ofBolshwism," reached me after much delay. After receivingit for a long time I could not force myself to read it, for suchliterature sticks in one's throat like sawdust or mashed bristles.But still, having finally read it, I came to the conclusion thatone cannot ignore this performancg if only because there isincluded in it a vile and barefaced calumny about Rosa Lux-emburg. 18r 'Ihis great revolutionist is enrolled by Stalin intothe camp of cenEism! He proves-not proves, of course, butasserts-that Bolshevism from the day of its inception heldto the line of a split with the Kautsky center, while Rosa Lux-emburg during that time sustained Kautsky from the left Iquote his own words: ". . long before the war, approximatelysince 1903-(X, when the Bolshevik group in Russia took shapeand when the Lefts in the German Social Democracy first raisedtheir voice, Lenin pursued a line toward a rupture, towarda split with the opportunists both here, in the Russian SocialDemocratic Labor Part5r, and over there, in the Second Inter-national" particularly in the German Social Democratic Party."That this, howaner, could not be achieved was due entirelyto the fact that "the Left Social Democrats in the Second brter-national, and above all in the German Social Democratic Part5r,were a weak and powerless group . . and afraid even topronounce the word 'rupturg' 'split.'"

To put forward such an assertion, one must be absolutelyignorant of the history of one's own partSr, and first of all,of Lenin's ideological course. There is not a single word ofhuth in Stalin's point of departure. In 1903-04, Lenin was,indeed, an irreconcilable foe of opportunism in the GermanSocial Democracy. But he considered as opportunism only

131

L32 Writings of Leon Trotskg (1932)

the reoisiomsl tendency which was led theoretically by Bernstein.Kautsky at the time was to be found fighting against Bern-

stein. Lenin constdered l{autsky as his teacher and stressedthis everywhere he could. In Lenin's work of that period andfor a number of years following, one does not find even abace of criticism in principle directed against the Bebel-Kautskytendency. 182 Instead one finds a series of declarations to theeffect that Bolshevism is not some sort of an independent ten-dency but is only a translation into the language of Russianconditions of the tendency of Bebel-Kautsky. Here is whatLenin wrote in his famous pamphlet, Too Tactics, in the mid-dle of 1905: "When and where did I ever call the revolution-ism of Bebel and Kautsky 'opportunism'? . . . When and wherehave there been brought to light differences between me, onthe one hand, and Bebel and Kautsky on the other? . . . Thecomplete unanimity of international revolutionary Social De.mocracy on all major questions of program and tactics isa most incontrovertible facf [Collectcd Works, volume 9, July1905]. 183 lsnin's words are so clear, precise, and categoricalas to entirely o<haust the question.

A year and a haU later, on December 7, 1906, Lenin wrotein the article "The Crisis of Menshevism": n. from the beginning we declared (see One Stq Fonoard, Tloo Stqs Back):We are not creating a special 'Bolshevik' tendency; alwaysand werywhere we merely uphold the point of view of. reo-olutionary Social Democracy. And right up to the social rev-olution there will inwitably always be an opportunist wingand a revolutionary wing of Social Democracy" [ibid., volume11, December 7, 19061.

Speaking of Menshevism as the opportunistic wing of theSocial Democracy, Lenin compared the Mensheviks not withKautskyism but with revisionism. Moreover he looked uponBolshevism as the Russian form of Kautskyism, which in hiseyes was in that period identical with Marxism. The passagewe have just quoted shows, incidentally, that Lenin did notat all stand absolutely for a split with the opportunists; henot only admitted but also considered "inevitable" the enistenceof the revisionists in the Social Democracy right up to thesocial revolution.

T\vo weel<s later, on December 20, 1906, Lenin greeted en-thusiastically Kautsky's answer to Plekhansvrsls4 question-naire on the character of the Russian revolution: "He has fullyconfirmed our contention that we are defending the positionof revolutionary Social Democracy against opportunism, and

Ifands Off Rosa Luremburg! 133

not creating any 'peculiar' Bolshevik tendency . ." f'Ttre Pro-letariat and Its Ally in the Russian Revolution," ibid., volume11, December 10, 19061.

Within these limits, I trust the question is absolutely clear.According to Stalin, Lenin, even from 1903, had demandeda break in Germany with the opportunists, not only of theright wing (Bernstein) but also of the left (Kautsky). Whereasin December 1906, Lenin as we see was proudly pointingout to Plekhanov and the Mensheviks that the tendency ofKautsky in Germany and the tendency of Bolshevism in Rus-sia were-identical. Such is part one of Stalin's excursioninto the ideological history of Bolshevism. Our investigator'sscrupulousness and his knowledge rest on the same plane!

Directly after his assertion regarding 1903-04, Stalin makesa leap to 1916 and refers to Lenin's sharp criticism of thewar pamphlet by Junius, i e, Rosa Luxemburg. To be sure,in that period Lenin had already declared war to the finishagainst Kautskyism, having drawn from his criticism all thenecessary organizational conclusions. It is not to be deniedthat Rosa Luxemburg did not pose the question of the sbuggleagainst centrism with the requisite completeness-in this Lenin'sposition was entirely superior. But between October 1916, whenLenin wrote about Junius's pamphlel and 1903, when Bol-shevism had its inception, there is a lapse of thirteen years;in the course of the major part of this period Rosa Luxem-burg was to be found in opposition to the Kautsky and BebelCentral Committee, and her fight against the formal, pedantic,and rotten-at-thecore nradicalism" of Kautsky took on an everincreasingly sharp character.

Lenin did not participate in this fight and did not supportRosa Luxemburg up to 1914. Passionately absorbed in Rus-sian affairs, he preserved er<treme caution in international mat-ters. In Lenin's eyes Bebel and Kautsky stood immeasurablyhigher as revolutionists than in the eyes of Rosa Luxemburg,who observed them at closer range, in agtion, and who wasmuch more directly subjected to the atmosphere of Germanpolitics.

The capitulation of German Social Democracy on August4185 was entirely unexpected by Lenin. It is well known thatthe issue of the Vorvarts with the patriotic declaration ofthe Social Democratic faction was taken by Lenin to be aforgery by the German general staff. Only after he was ab-solutely convinced of the awful huth did he subject to revisionhis waluation of the basic tendencies of the German Social


Democracy, and while so doing he performed that task inthe Leninist manner, i. e, he finished it off once for all.

On October 27, 1914, Lenin wrote to A Shlyapnikov:r86nI hate and despise Kautsky nou) rnore than anyone, withhis vile, dirty, self-satisfied hypocrisy. Rosa Luxemburgwas right when ehe wrote, long ago, that Kautsky has the'subsenrience of a theoretician'-servilitSr, in plainer language,servility to the majority of the party, to opportunism" (Lenin-ist Anthology, volume 2, p. 2OO, my emphasis) [ibid., vol-ume 35, October 27, I9l4l.

Were there no other documents-and there are hundreds-these fen' lines alone could unmistakably clarify the historyof the question. Lenin deemed it necessary at the end of 1914to inform one of his colleagues closest to him at the time thatonow,' at the present moment, today, in contradistrnction tothe pasl he "hates and despises" Kautsky. The sharpness ofthe phrase ls an unmistakable indication of the er<tent to whichKautsky betrayed Lenin's hopes and expectations. No lessvivid is the second phrasg nRosa Luxemburg was right whenshe wrotg long ago, that Kautsky has the 'subservience ofa theoretician.' . . .n Lenin hastens here to recognize that "ver-ity" which he did not see formerly, or which, at least, he didnot recognize fully on Rosa Luxemburg's side

Such are the chief chronological guideposts of the questions,which are at the same time important guideposts of Lenin'spolitical biography. The fact is indubitable that his ideologicalorbit is represented by a continually rising curve. But thisonly means that Lenin was not born Lenin full-fledged, ashe is pictured by the slobbering daubers of the "divine,' butthat he made himself Lenin. Lenin ever o<tended his horizons,he learned from others and daily drew himself to a higherplane than was his own yesterday. In this perseverance, inthis stubborn resolution of a continual spiritual growth overhis own self did his heroic spirit find its erpression. If Leninin 1903 had understood and formulated everything that wasrequired for the coming times, then the remainder of his lifewould have consisted only of reiterations. In reality this wasnot at all the case Stalin simply stamps the Stalinist imprinton Lenin and coins him into the petty small change of num-bered adages.

In Rosa Luxemburg's struggle against Kautsky, especiallyin 1910-14, an important place was occupied by the ques-tions of war, militarism, and pacifism. Kautsky defended thereformist program: limitations of armaments, international

Hands Off Rosa Luremburg! r35

court etc. Rosa Luxemburg fought decisively against this pro-gram as illusory. On this question Lenin was in some doubt,but at a certain period he stood closer to Kautsky than toRosa Lr-rxemburg. From conversations at the time with LeninI recall that the following argument of Kautsky made a greatimpression upon him: just as in domestic questions, reformsare products of the rwolutionary class struggle, so in inter-national relationships it is possible to fight for and to gaincertain guarantees ("reforms") by means of the internationalclass struggle. Lenin considered it entirely possible to supportthis position of Kautsky, provided that he, after the polemicwith Rosa Luxemburg, turned upon the right-wingers (Noskeand Co. ). 187 I do not undertake now to say from memoryto what errtent this circle of ideas found its expression in Lenin'sarticles; the question would require a particularly careful anal-ysis. Neither can I take upon myself to assert from memoryhow soon Lenin's doubts on this question were settled. Inany case they found their expression not only in conversationsbut also in correspondence. One of these letters is in the pos-session of Karl Radek.

I deem it necessary to supply on this question widence as awibress in order to attempt in this manner to save an excep-tionally valuable document for the theoretical biography ofLenin. In the autumn of 1926, at the time of our collectivework over the pladorm of the Left Opposition, Radet< showedKamenw, Zinovist, and me-probably also other comradesas well-a letter of Lenin to him (1911?) which consisted ofa defense of Kautsky's position against the critieism of theGerman Lefts. In accordance with the regulation passed by theCentral Committee, Radek, like all othets, should have de-livered this letter to the Lenin Institute. But fearful lest it behidden, if not desfoyd, in the Stalinist factory of fabrications,Radek decided to preserve the letter till some more opportunetime One cannot deny that there was some foundation to Ra-dek's attitude. At present, however, Radek himself has-thoughnot very responsible-still quite an active part in the work ofproducing political forgeries. Suffice it to recall that Radek,who in distinction to Stalin is acquainted with the history ofMarxism, and who, at any rate, knows this letter of Lenin,found it possible to make a public statement of his solidaritywith the insolent evaluation placed by Stalin on Rosa Luxem-burg. The circumstance that Radek acted thereupon under Yaro-slavsky's rod does not mitigate his guilt, for only despicable


slaves can renounce the principles of Marxism in the name ofthe principles of the'rod.

However the matter we are concerned with relates not to thepersonal characterization of Radek but to the fate of Lenin'sletter. What happened to it? Is Radek hiding it even now fromthe Lenin Institute? Hardly. Most probably, he entrusted it,where it should be entrusted, as a tangible proof of an intan-gible devotion. And what lay in store for the letter thereafter?Is it preserved in Stalin's personal archives alongside with thedocuments that compromise his closest colleagues? Or is itdestroyed as many other most precious documents of the par-t5r's past have been destroyed?

In any case there cannot be even the shadow of a politicalreason for the concealment of a letter written two decades agoon a question that holds now only a historical interest. But itis precisely the historical value of the letter that is er<ception-ally great. It shows Lenin as he really was, and not as he isbeing re-created in their own semblance and image by thebureaucratic dunderheads, who pretend to infallibility. We ask,where is Lenin's letter to Radek? Lenin's letter must be whereit belongs! Put it on the table of the party and of the Com-intern!

If one were to take the disagreements between Lenin andRosa Luxemburg in their entirety, then historical correch:essis unconditionally on Lenin's side. But this does not er<clude

the fact that on certain questiohs and during definite periodsRosa Luxemburg was correct as against Lenin. In any case,

the disagreements, despite their importance and at times theirextreme sharpness, developed on the bases of revolutionaryproletarian policies common to them both.

When Lenin, going back into the past, wrote in October 1919('Greetings to ltalian, French, and German Communists") that". at the moment of taking power and establishing the Sovietrepublic, Bolshevism was united; it drew to itself all that wasbest in the tendencies of socialist thought akin to it . . ." [ibid.'volume 30, October 10, 19191, I repeat, when Lenin wrote thishe unquestionably had in mind also the tendency of RosaLuxemburg, whose closest adherents, e.g., Markhlewsky, Dzer-zhinsky, 188 and others were working in the ranks of the Bol-sheviks.

Lenin understood Rosa Luxemburg's mistakes more pro-foundly than Stalin; but it was not accidental that Lenin oncequoted the old couplet in relation to Luxemburg: Although theeagles do swoop down and beneath the chickens fly, chickens

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f38 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

with outspread wings never will soar amid clouds in the sky.Precisely the case! Precisely the point! For this very reasonStalin should proceed with caution before employing his viciousmediocrity when the matter touches figures of such stature asRosa Luxemburg.

In his article "A Contribution to the History of the Questionof the Dictatorship" (October 1920), Lenin, touching uponquestions of the Soviet state and the dictatorship of the pro-letariat already posed by the 1905 rwolution, wrote: "Whilesuch outstanding representatives of the revolutionary proletariat and of unfalsified Manrism as Rosa Luxemburg im-mediately realized the significance of this practical eu<perienceand made a critical analysis of it at meetings and in the press,"on the contrary, n. . . people of the type of the future 'Kautsky-iteq' . . . proved absolutely incapable of grasping the signif-icance of this experienci . . .' [ibid., volume 31, October 20,f 9201. In a few lines, Lenin fully pays the tribute of recog-nition to the historical significance of Rosa Luxemburg's strug-gle against Kautsky-a shuggle which Lenin himself hadbeen far from immediately waluating at its true worth. Ifto Stalin, the ally of Chiang Kai-shek, and the comrade-in-arms of Purcell, 189 &s theoretician of "the worker-peasant par-ty,n of "the democratic dictatorship," of nnonantagonizing thebourgeoisie,n etc. - if to him Rosa Luxemburg is the representative of centrism, to Lenin she is the representative of "un-falsified Manrism." What this designation meant coming asit does from Lenin's pen is clear to anyone who is even slightlyacquainted with Lenin.

I take the occasion to point out here that in the notes toLenin's works there is among others the following said aboutRosa Luxemburg: "During the florescence of Bernsteinian revisionism and later of ministerialism (Millerand), leo Luxem-burg carried on against this tendency a decisive fight, takingher position in the leftwingof theGerman part5z. . . . In 1907she participated as a delegate of the SD of Poland and Lithu-ania in the London congress of the RSDLB supporting theBolshevik faction on all basic questions of the Russian rev-olution. From 1907, Luxemburg gave herself over entirelyto work in Germany, taking a left-radical position and carry-ing on a fight against the center and the right wing. Herparticipation in the January 1919 insurrection has made hername the bannq of the proletarian reoolution."

Of course the author of these notes will in all probabilitytomorrow confess his sins and announce that in Lenin's epoch

Hards Off Rosa Lurernburg!

he wrote in a benighted condition, and that he reached com-plete enlightenment only in the epoch of Stalin. At the presentmoment announcements of this sort-combinations of syco-phancy, idiocy, and buffoonery- are made daily in the Moscowpress. But they do not change the nature of things: What'sonce set down in black and white, no ax will hack nor allyour might. Yes, Rosa Luxemburg has become the bannerof the proletarian revolution!

How and wherefore, however, did Stalin suddenly busy him-self-at so belated a time-with the revision of the old Bol-shwik evaluation of Rosa Luxemburg? As was the case withall his preceding theoretical abortions so with this latest one,and the most scandalous, the origin lies in the logic of hisstruggle against the theory of permanent rwolution. In this'bistorical" article, Stalin once again allots the chief place tothis theory. There is not a single new word in what he says.I have long ago answered all his arguments in my book ThePerrnanmt Rasolution. From the historical viewpoint the ques-tion will be sufficiently clarified, I trust, in the second volumeoI 7he History of the Russian Reoolution (the October Rev-olution), now on the press. In the present case the questionof the permanent revolution concerns us only insofar as Stalinlinks it up with Rosa Luxemburg's name. We shall presentlysee how the hapless theoretician has contrived to set up amurderous trap for himself.

After recapihrlating the controversy between the Mensheviksand the Bolsheviks on the question of the motive forces ofthe Russian revolution and after masterfully compressing aseries of mistakes into a few lines, which I am compelled toleave without an examination, Stalin writes: "lVhat was theattitude of the German Left social Democrats' sf parvugrerand Rosa Luxemburg, to this controversy? They inventeda. utopian and semi-Menshevik scheme of permanent revolu-tion. . . . Subsequently, this semi-Menshevik scheme of per-manent revolution was seized upon by Trotsky (in part byMartov)rsz and turned into a weapon of struggle against Lenin-ism." Such is the unexpected history of the origin of the theoryof the permanent rwolution, in accordance with the latest his-torical researches of Stalin. But, alas, the investigator forgotto consult his own previous learned works. In 1925 this sameStalin had already e><pressed himself on this question in hispolemic against Radek. Here is what he wrote then: nIt is notlrue that the theory of the permanmt reoolution . . was putforward in 19O5 by Rosa Lurernburg and Trotsky. As a

139

140 Writings of Leon Tlotsky (1932)

matter of fact this theory was put forward by Parvus andTrotsky.' This assertion may be consulted on page L85, hob-lerns of Leninism, Russian edition, 1926. Let us hope thatit obtains in all foreign editions.

So, in 1925, Stalin pronounced Rosa Luxemburg not guiltyin the commission of such a cardinal sin as participating inthe creation of the theory of the permanent revolution. "Asa matter of fact, this theory was put forward by Parvus andTrotsky." In 1931, we are informed by the identical Stalinthat it was precisely "Parvus and Rosa Luxemburg . whoinvmted a utopian and serni-Menshevik scheme of permanentrevolution." As for Trotsky he was innocent of creating thetheory, it was only nseized uponn by him, and at the sametime by . . . Martov! Once again Stalin is caught with thegoods. Perhaps he writes on questions of which he can makeneither head nor tail Or is he consciously shuffling markedcards in playing with the basic questions of Man<ism? It isincorrect to pose this question as an alternative As a matterof fact, both the one and the other are true. The Stalinist falsi-fications are conscious insofar as they are dictated at eachgiven moment by entirely concrete personal interests. At thesame time they are semiconscious, insofar as his congenitalignorance places no impediments whatsoever to his theoreticalpropensities.

But facts remain facts. In his war against "the Trotskyistcontraband," Stalin has fallen foul of a new personal €n€mf,Rosa Luxemburg! He did not pause for a moment beforelying about her and vilifying her; and moreover, before pro-ceeding to put into circulation his giant doses of vulgarityand disloyalty, he did not wen take the trouble of verifyingwhat he himself had said on the same subject six years before.

The new variant of the history of the ideas of the permanentrevolution was indicated first of all by an urge to providea dish more spicy than all those preceding. It is needless toexplain that Martov was dragged in by the hair for the sakeof the greater piquancy of theoretical and historical cookery.Martov's attitude to the theory and practice of the permanentrevolution was one of unalterable antagonism, and in theold days he stressed more than once that Trotsky's viewson revolution were rejected equally by the Bolsheviks andthe Mensheviks. But it is not worthwhile to pause over this.

What is truly fatal is that there is not a single major ques-tion of the international proletarian revolution on which Stalin

Hand.s Off Rosa Lurernburg! t4I

has failed to express two directly contradictory opinions. We

all know that in April 1924, he conclusively demonstratedin hoblems of Lminism the impossibility of building socialismin one country. In autumn, in a new edition of the book, he

substituted in its place a proof-Le, a bald proclamation-that the proletariat "can and musf build socialism in one coun-

hy. The entire remainder of the te:<t was left unchanged. On

the question of the worker-peasant party, of the Brest-Litovsknegotiations, the leadership of the October Revolution, on the

national question, etc., etc., Stalin contrived to put forward,for a period of a few years' sometimes of a few months' opin-ions that were mutually exclusive. It would be incorrect toplace the blame in werything on a poor memory. The matterreaches deeper here. Stalin completely lacks any method ofscientific thinking, he has no criteria of principles. He approach-es every question as if that question were born only todayand stood apart from all other questions. Stalin contributeshis judgments entirely depending upon whatever personal in-terest of his is uppermost and most urgent today. The contra-dictions that convict him are the direct vengeance for his vulgarempiricism. Rosa Luxemburg does not appear to him in the

perspective of the German, Polish, and international workers'movement of the last haU-century. No, she is to him each

time a new, and, besides, an isolated figure, regarding whomhe is compelled in every new situation to ask himseU anew,

"Who goes there, friend or foe?n Unerring instinct has thistime whispered to the theoretician of socialism in one countrythat the shade of Rosa Luxemburg is irreconcilably inimicalto him. But this does not hinder the great shade from remain-ing the banner of the international proletarian rwolution.

Rosa Luxemburg criticized very swerely and fundamentallyincorrectly the policies of the Bolsheviks in 1918 from herprison cell. But even in this, her most erroneous work, hereagle's wings are to be seen. Here is her general evaluationof the October insurrection: 'Everything that a party couldoffer of courage, revolutionary farsightedness, and consistencyin a historic hour, Lenin, Tlotsky, and the other comradeshave given in good measure All the revolutionary honorand capacity which the Social Democracy of the West lackedwere reprqsented by the Bolsheviks. Their October uprisingwas not only the actual salvation of the Russian Revolution;it was also the salvation of the honor of international social-ism." Can this be the voice of centrism?


In the succeeding pages, Luxemburg subjects to severe crit-icism the policies of the Bolshwiks in the agrarian sphergtheir slogan of national self-determination, and their rejectionof formal democracy. In this criticism we might add, directedequally against Lenin and Tlotsky, she makes no distinctionwhatever between their views; and Rosa Luxemburg knemhow to read, understand, and seize upon shadings. It didnot even fall into her head, for instance, to accuse me of thefact that by being in solidarity with Lenin on the agrarianquestion, I had changed my views on the peasantry. Andmoreover she kne\p these views very well since I had developedthem in detail in 1909 in her Polish journal. Rosa Luxem-burg ends her criticism with the dernand, "in the policy ofthe Bolsheviks the essential must be distinguished from theunessential, the fundamental from the accidental." The funda-mental she considers to be the force of the action of the masses,the will to socialism. "In this," she writes, "Lenin and Tlotskyand their friends were the /z'rs{, those who went ahead as anorample to the proletariat of the world; they are s6ll the onlyozes up to now who can cry with Hutten,r9s 'I have dared!'"

Yes, Stalin has eufficient cause to hate Rosa Luxemburg.But all the more imperious therefore becomes our duty toshield Rosa's memory from Stalin's calumny that has beencaught by the hired functionaries of both heurispheres, andto pass on this truly beautiful, heroic, and tragic image tothe young generations of the proletariat in all its grandeurand inspirational force.

AN APPEAL FOR THE BIULLETEN194

July 1932

The present number of the Biulleten has been delayed forreasons other than the wishes of the editor. The next numberwill appear no later than a month ftom now, and will bedevoted to economic and political problems of the USSR

We hope to issue the Biulleten regularly in the future Eventsdemand iL One can say without the slightest er<aggerationthat it was really only in 1917 that the Bolsheviks were con-fronted with tasks of such historic dimension as today's. Butthe difference is that in 1917 at the head of the party wasa leadership which met all the demands the great tasks im-posed on iL Now flrere is not even a trace of one Such aconglomeration of criminal errors which the Stalinist bureau-cracy is now committing all over the globe could not be wishedon the proletarian revolution wen by its worst enemy. Theworld crisis of the whole capitalist social system is supplementedby a deep crisis in official communism. This fact is history'sverdict on the epigonic leadership of the Comintern. Stalinismis irrevocably condemned. There is no appeal against thatverdict

The development of new world Bolshevik cadres goes onmore slowly than the decline of the old ones. No wonder;using up accumulated capital is immeasurably easier thanbuilding it up again. Ilowwer, new cadres of Bolshevik-Lenin-ists are growing up throughout the whole world. No forcewill now stop its growth.

Ow Biulleten occupies a definite place in developing newrevolutionary cadres. This is proved by the o(perience of threeyears. The Biulleten is indispensable. It will come out. Theeditorial board requests and awaits the help and cooperationof friends, cothinkers, and sympathizers.

Whoever wants to can find a way to us without difficulty.Through the official editor named at the head of the Biulletenit is possible to be in touch with someone who is in directcontact with the editorial board and enjoys its absolute con-fidence. Correspondence can be sent unsigned. On money or-ders indicate foreign-sender. All these technical problems areeasily solved. All that is needed is the revolutionary will!

t43

ON DEMYAN BEDI\Y195(Obituary Reflations)

July 1932

Demyan Bedny190 is in disgrace. The immediate reasonsgiven are somewhat vague. They say he antagonized all theyoung literary people as well as the old; they say he madehimself impossible because of some personal trick or other;they also say he tried to set a mine for Gorky and was him-self blown to pieces by iL Probably there is a little of eachinvolved. The three different o<planations don't contradict oneanother but derive in equal measure from the nature of thecircumstances and the man

The man, it must be said right off, does not inspire anysympathy, but neither are the attendant circumstances attrac-tive. Nevertheless, in the persecution that is at present beingconducted against a gifted writer, we consider it our duty tocome to the defense of Demyan Bedny. Certainly not becauseof the persecution itself: that kind of sentimentalism is foreignto us. What is decisive in our eyes are the questions: Whois doing the persecuting and why? Although our views mightappear at first sight paradoxical we are not afraid to for-mulate them with all possible clarity: the malevolent criticismof Demyan Bedny is part of the bureaucracy's general workof liquidating the political, ideological, and artistic traditionsof the October uprising.

Demyan Bedny had long been honored as a proletarianpoet. One of the AverbachleT people even declared he dem-yanized Soviet literature. This must be taken to mean thathe gave it a completely proletarian character. "Bolshevik poel"ndialectician," "Lenfurist in poetry"-how unseemly that looks! -in his own field, Demyan Bedny incarnated the whole OctoberRevolution together with its proletarian current. Only the mis-

144

On DernEan Bed.ny 145

erable, shortsighted schematism of the terror-stricken epigonicperiod can explain the startling fact that Demyan Bedny isto be found enrolled among the poets of the proletariat. No,he was a fellow traveler, the first of the many literary fellowtravelers of the October uprising. He spoke not for the metalworkers but for the insurgent peasant and the urban pet$zbourgeois who had taken the bit between his teeth. We don'tsay this in order to attack Demyan Bedny. Petty-bourgeoispoetry formed a part of the grandiose background of October.Without the red cock of the peasant, without the mutiny ofthe soldiers, the workers would never have gained the vic-tory. Maxim Gorky represented in literature the mishmashof "culture" which was frightened by the unrestrained poetrywhereas, on the contrary, Demyan swam in it like a fish inwater or like a dolphin of solid build.

Demyan is not a poel not an artist but a versifier, an agi-tator who rhymed but in very powerful fashion. The basicforms of his verse were fables and couplets, both er(tremelyarchaic forms, deliberately peasant and to that er<tent, notproletarian. Appearing on the revolutionary arena right inthe very depths of the masses of the people, primarily of thepeasantry, his old forms of popular literary works could notbut rise to the surface of the shallow stream. This made Dem-yan one of the firsi . . .

The October uprising stirred to life a whole peasant-singingliterature which, struggling to come to birth with the revo-lution, at the same time ostentatiously displayed archaisms.This dressed-up, decorative (Klyuev!)le8 111"..*re was ob-viously painted by the kulaks. Yes, and how could it be other-wise? Only the prosperous peasantry had leisure, play of fancy,and clinking money for the ornamentation of the wing of thehouse. The kulak put his imprint on popular literature inbygone days.

Peasant-singing literafure was conservative since the powerfulpeasant was conservative though already drawn into the vorto<of October. Of all the peasant-singers, Demyan Bedny wasclosest to the proletariat boldest in welcoming the revolutionalready showing clearly its proletarian features, which essen-tially sickened him inside. But for all that he remained onlya fellow traveler. The times favored him - the years of thecivil war, the struggles of the peasants against the monarchy,the nobility, ttre priests, yes, and the bankers too. In thoseyears Demyan was not a poet, in any case not a proletarianpoet, but a revolutionary rhymer of historical stature. Perhaps


Demyan Bedny did not move literature forward by as muchas an inch; but with the help of literature he helped movethe rwolution forward. And this covered him with meril Storiesthat Lenin rated Demyan Bedny's artistic talents orbaordinarilyhighly are the purest legend. Lenin valued the first-class agi-tator in rhyme, the remarkable master of popular speech.But this did not prevent Lenin saying openly of Demyan:nHe's a vulgarian, alas, what a vulgarian, and possibly notwithout pornographt." And vulgarity and pornography col-ored Demyan with a kulakish medley of color.

Basically, Demyan was finished when the civil war was.Peasant-singing verse fdl by the wayside. To the forefrontcame problems of industrialization, tempos, world revolution -areas not teeming with fables or couplets. In the first periodDemyan tried, and not without some success, to enliven mostof the organized reaction against the Left Opposition. Theessence of the reaction consisted in the nonproletarian fellowtravelers of October-the educated kulaks, the Nepmen, theldt intellectuals, the specialist turncoats, the petty bureaucrate-rising against the proletarian leadership and solemnly gather-ing together to send 'permanenf revolution, that is, the inter-national proletarian rwolution, to the devil. To this moodDemyan gave highly natural, clear, gut orpression. Therewas no need for a political microphone to make out in theart of Demyan Bedny of the yearc 1924-27 the truly Russianmelody of Thermidor. His pieces on marriage and divorcestuck in the memory as disgusting images of weryday in-sensitive reaction. His nationalist onomatopoeia smelled ofthe Black Hundreds, belching straight from l(ianlyanin.rseBut thig too-rwealing reaction widently embarrassed and scan-dalized the Staliniet bureaucracy, although in the most acuteperiod of struggle against the Left Opposition it had not beenaltogether ashamed of fully consciously using these Black Hun-dred sentiments which at first it had tried to keep aloof from.This fellow traveler of October turned out to be a fellow hav-der of pre-Thermidor officialdom. After that Demyan finallybecame outdated.

Through inertia, he continued to be one of the influentialfigures. Insinuating and sly people from RAPP did not wastetime in praising him to the skies. Demyan himself did notwaste time" He counted himseU an aristocrat of the revolu-tion and although he did not spare his back before those inpower, he was not unwilling on occasion to put his feet onthe table. Having contemplated the impressive soles and heels

On Demyan Bedny 147

of the honored writer, the Averbachs declared in chorus: Itis necessary, oh, how it is necessary to demyanize proletarianliterature.

"!Vhy?" rose the voice of a bureaucrat of refined taste."Why, Demyan is the clearest soundfilm we have while Gor-

ky's away at Capri playing host to Bernard Shaw."Demyan isn't suitable for a clean public. Besides, he has

obvious dwiations: in the latest piece, three columns long,twelve lines from the end, on the question of the collectives'hens. He also doesn't highlight Stalin as a theoretician. He,Demyan, belongs to the pasd "

It is not difficult to imagine how agitated the poet becamewhen, familiar with the ways of the bureaucracy, he felt thathe was being pushed ouL On this occasion he was capableof going so far as to be rude: "Is this why we fought?' It'sknown that Gorky was on the other side of the barricades butwhen the fighting was over he sat on top of the barricades,shed a few tears, and proposed a general peace, with no an-nexations and no indemnity. But Demyan was there, on thenight of October 25, and on other days and nights, tirelesswith songs in the camp of the Red soldiers.

Tbue, all too true: but it altered nothing. Ambitious, stubbornDemyan both in his near-October personality and his somewhat Blae.k Hundred substance was needed no more. It istrue he was ready to dance attendance, so to speak, on a grandscale; to fish up eome circulars and little zigzags to coverup yesterday's tracks; sweetly to trill at Kaganovich's elo-quence-but he was no longer able to dothis: for such thingsthere are the Bezymenskys,2oo seniors and juniors. And.theAverbachs suddenly obtained full "apologies for his wit'; notonly was it not necessary to demyanize literature, it was nec-essary to undemyanize Demyan himself, to the last stitch. Sothe wheel turned and crushed a not very s5rmpathetic but never-theless an outstanding figure There was Demyan Bedny-then there vras no Demyan Bedny. And if we dwell here onhis sad fate it is because the liquidation of Demyan Bednyis part although indirectly, of the bureaucratic liquidationof the feelings and moods of October.

DECLARATION TO THE ANTIWARCONGRESS AT AMSTERDAM2O1

July 25, 1932

The danger of a new world war is becoming more apparentwery day. The causes of this danger have been er<posed inirrefutable fashion by Marxism.

The productive forces of humanity have long since outgrownthe limits of private property and the boundaries of the nation-state. The salvation of humanity lies in a socialist economybased on an international division of labor. Under the influenceof a conservative leadership, the proletariat failed to carryout its revolutionary task. The world war of 1914-18 wasits retribution. The democratic champions of "peaceful devel-opmen!" the opponents of rwolutionary methods, bear directresponsibility for the tens of millions killed and wounded inthe imperialist slaughter.

The imperialist world has learned nothing and forgottennothing in the fifteen years that have elapsed since then. Itsinternal contradictions have grown more acute. The currentcrisis reveals a frighdul picture of the social disintegrationof capitalist civilization, with clear signs of advancing gangrene.The salvation of humanity is possible only through the surgicalaction of proletarian revolution.

The ruling classes are floundering in this hopeless situation.Their financial difficulties and their fear of the people forcethem to seek a solution in arms-limitation agreements. On theother hand, by raising tariff walls still higher and increasingthe restrictions on imports, the rulers are further constrictingthe world markel deepening the crisis, sharpening nationalantagonisms, and preparing new wars. The reformist parties,today as yesterday opposed to a revolutionary solution alongthe road of socialism, are once more taking on themselvesthe full weight of the responsibility for the misery of the crisisand the impending horror of a new war.

148

Declnration to the Antiwar Congress 149

The contradiction between the productrve forces and theboundaries of the nation-state has taken on its sharpest andmost unbearable form in the old home territory of cap-italism- Europe. With its labyrinth of borders and tariffwalls,its swollen armies and monstrous national debts, the Europeof Versailles is a constant source of military dangers andwar provocations. And it cannot now be united by the bour-geoisie-the class that has bled it dry and Balkanized iL Forthat, other means and other forces are required.

Only in czarist Russia was power wrested from the handsof the bourgeoisie. Thanks to its revolutionary leadership,the young Russian proletariat was able, for the first time inworld history, to show concretely what inexhaustible pos-sibilities are contained in a system of proletarian dictatorshipand planned economy. The gigantic economic and culturalachievements of a backward country, which had been trans-formed into a country of the workers and peasants, point outthe road to a solution for all of humanity.

We are now awaiting from the Soviet government the com-plementing of its second fiveyear plan by an extensive planfor economic collaboration with the advanced capitalist coun-tries, which will open up a gigantic perspective of humanpossibilities to the masses, suffering under the burden of thecrisis and unemployment. Whatever the immediate practicalresults of such a plan, its power of attracting millions andmillions of workers to socialism will be immense

The social system in the Soviet Union today is, to be sure,still a long way from socialism. But its inestimable importancelies in the fact that it has started on the road to socialism.It will the more surely and quickly proceed to socialism thesooner the proletariat of the advanced countries seizes powerfrom the hands of its bourgeoisie and creates the definitivepremises of a new societ5r, one that can be achiwed only on aninternational basis.

The danger of a world war is a danger to the very existenceof the first workers' state. No matter what the cause of thewar may be, no matter where it may erupt, in its final stageit will inwitably turn against the USSR The European andworld bourgeoisie will not leave the scene without attemptinga transfusion of blood from the arteries of the young workers'state into those of imperialism in its death agony.

In the last year alone, the flames of war threatened thefrontiers of the Soviet Union both from the Far East andfrom the WesL At the same time that it is shangling the in-


dependence of China, Japan is constructing forhesses inManchuria from which to strike at the Soviets. The antagonismbetween Japan and the United States cannot deter the militaristsin Tokyo, for in a war against the Soviet Union in the futurethey will consider themselves to be in the vanguard of worldimperialism. On the other hand, the coup d'etat carried outby Hindenburg on Hitler's q1ds1s202 not only clears the roadfor a fascist regime in Germany but also opens up the per-spective of a lifeand-death struggle between a fascist Germanyand the Soviet Union. Enormous events are apptoaching inEurope and the entire world.

Under these conditions the struggle against war is a struggleto save the lives of tens of millions of workers and peasantsof the nenr generation which has grown up since the greatslaughter, to preserve all the conquests of labor and thoughlto save the first workers' state and the fufure of humanity.

All the greater is the task, therefore, and all the more nec-essary is clarity on the method of itg solution. To condemnwar is easy; to overcome it is difficull The struggle againstwar is a shuggle against the classes which rule societ5r andwhich hold in their hands both its productive forces and itsdesbuctive weapons. It is not possible to prwent war by moralindignation, by meetings, by resolutions, by newspaper articles,and by congresses. As long as the bourgeoisie has at its com-mand the banks, the factories, the land, the press, and the stateapparatus, it will always be able to drive the people to warwhen its interests demand iL But the propertied classes nevercede power without a struggle. Look at Germany. When thefundamental interests of the propertied classes are threatened,democracy gives way to violence. The overthrow of the bour-geoisie is possible only with guns in hand.t imperialist warcan be stopped only by cioil war.

We Bolshevik-Leninists absolutely reject and denounce thedeceptive differentiation between a ndefensive" and an "offensive"war. In a war between the capitalist Btates such a differentiationrepresents only a diplomatic cover to deceive the people Capitalist brigands always conduct a ndefeneive" war, even whenJapan is marching against Shanghai and France against Syriaor Morocco. The revolutionary proletariat distinguishes onlybetween u)ers of oppression and wars of liberation- Thecharacter of a war is defined, not by diplomatic falsifications,but by the class which conducts the war and the objectiveaims it pursues in that war. The wars of the imperialist states,apart from the pretexts and political rhetoric, are of an op-

Declaration to the Antiwar Congress 151

pressive character, reactionary and inimical to the peopleOnly the wars of the proletariat and of the oppressed nationscan be characterized as wars of liberation. After its victorythe armed insurrection of the proletariat against its oppressorsis inevitably transformed into a revolutionary war of theproletarian state for the consolidation and extension of itsvictory. The policy of socialism does not and cannot havea purely ndefensive" character. It is the task of socialism toconquer the world.

It is from this that we derive our position with regard toall forms of. pacifisnt' purely imperialist pacifism (Kellogg-Briand-Herriot, etc. ), 2o3 and petty-bourgeois pacifism ( Rolland-Barbusse, and their partisans all over the world). TTre essenceof pacifism is a condemnation, whether hypocritical or sincere,of the use of f.orce in generaL By weakening the willpowerof the oppressed, it serves the cause of the oppressors. Idealistic pacifism confronts war with moral indignation the waythe lamb confronts the butcher's knife with plaintive bleatings.But the task consists of confronting the knife of the bourgeoisiewiftr the knife of the proletarial

The most influential pacifist force is the Social Democracy.In a period of peace it's not stingy with cheap tirades againstwar. But it remains tied to nnational defense" This is decisiveEvery war, however it may begin, menaces each of the warringnations. The imperialists know in advance that the pacifismof the Social Democracy at the first roar of cannon will betransformed into the most servile patriotism and become themost important reserve for militarism. That is why a mostintransigent struggle against pacifism, unmasking its treach-erous character, is the very first step on the road toward arevolutionary struggle against war.

The League of Nations is the citadel of imperialist pacifism.It represents a transitory historical combination of capitaliststates in which the stronger command and buy out the weaker,then crawl on their bellies before America or try to resisf; inwhich all equally are enemies of the Soviet lJnion, but areprepared to cover up each and wery crime of the most power-ful and rapacious among them. Only the politically blind, onlythose who are altogether helpless or who deliberately corruptthe conscience of the people, can consider the League of Na-tions, directly or indirectly, today or tomorrow, an instrumentof peace.

The pretense of "disarmamenf has and can have nothingin common with the prwention of war. The program of 'dis-


armamentn only signifies an attempt-up to now only on pa-per-to reduce in peacetime the o<pense of this or that kindof armaments. It is above all a question of military techniqueand the imperialist coffers. The arsenals, the munition factories,the laboratories, and finally, what is most important capitalistindustry as a whole preserve all their force in all the ndisarma-

ment programs.n But states do not fight becausethey are armed.On the contrary, they forge arms when they have to fight.In case of war, all the peace limitations will fall aside likeso much chaff. As far back as 1914-18, states no longer foughtwith the armaments which they had provided for themselvesin peacetime, but with those they manufactured during thewar. It is not the arsenals but the productive capacity of thecountry which is decisive. For the United States a limitationof armaments in Europe in time of peace is very much toits advantage because it allows it to demonstrate its indushialdomination all the more decisively in time of war. The Germanbourgeoisie inclines toward a reduction of armaments in orderto equalize the handicap in case of a new bloody conflict.General ndisarmamentn has the same meaning for Germanyas naval parity with France has for Italy. The worth theseplans will have depends on the combination of the imperialistforces, the state of their budgets, the international financialsettlements, etc.. The question of disarmament is one of thelevers on the irena of imperialism in which the new warsare being prepared. It is pure charlatanism to attempt to dis-tinguish between defensive and offensive machine guns, tanks,airplanes. American policy is dictated in this also by the par-ticular interests of American militarism, the most terrible ofall. War is not a game which is conducted according to con-ventional rules. War demands and creates all the weaponswhich can most successfully annihilate the enemy. Petty-bour-geois pacifism, which sees in a 10 percent, or 33 petcent, or50 percent disarmament proposal the Tirst step" towards prevention of war, is more dangerous than all the explosivesand asphyxiating gases. Melinite and yperite can do theirwork only because the masses of people are poisond in peace-time by the fumes of pacifism.

Without the slightest confidence in the capitalist programsfor disarmament or arms limitation, the rwolutionary pro'letariat asks one single question: In whose hand.s are theweapons? Any weapon in the hands of the imperialists is aweapon directed against the working class, against the weaknations, against socialism, against humanity. Weapons in the

Declaration to the Antiwar Congress 153

hands of the proletariat and of the oppressed nations are theonly means of ridding our planet of oppression and war.

The struggle for the self-determination of nations, for allpeople, for all those who are oppressed and who strive forindependence, is one of the most important aspects of thestruggle against war. Vflhoever directly or indirectly supportsthe system of colonization and protectorates, the dominationof British capital in India, the domination of Japan in Koreaor in Manchuria, of France in Indochina or in Africa, whoeverdoes not fight against colonial enslavement, whower doesnot support the uprisings of the oppressed nations and theirindependence, whoever defends or idealizes Gandhism,2oa thatis, the policy of passive resistance on questions which can besolved only by force of arms, is, despite good intentions orbad, a lackey, an apologist, an agent of the imperialists, ofthe slaveholders, of the militarists, and helps them to preparenerv wars in pursuit of their old aims or ne\ r.

The principal force against war is the proletariat. It is onlythrough its el<ample and under its leadership that the peasantsand other popular layers of the nation can rise up againstwar. Within the proletariat two parties are stuggling for in-fluence: the Communist Party and the Social Democracy. Theintermediate groups (the SAP in Germany, the PUP in France,the ILP in England,2os etc.) cannot expect to play an independent historical role. On the question of war, which is theother side of the question of &e proletarian rwolution, theirreconcilable opposition betwem communism and social pa-triotism will reach its most acute expression.

Whoever attempts to put all the programs, all the parties,all the flags into one package in the name of pacifism, thatis, of a superficial struggle against war in words, performsthe greatest service for imperialism. On the question of war,no less than on all other questions, the Communist Party mustseel< to free the masses of working people from the disintegrat-ing and demoralizing influence of reformism.

Le Mond.e, the journal of Barbusse, Gorky, and the otherorganizers of the antiwar congress, is conducting a sustainedagitation for the fusion of the Communist and Second Inter-nationals. For a struggle against war, Barbusse addresseshimself in the same voice to Lenin and to Vandervelde. Thisseryes only to falsify Lenin and rehabilitate Vandervelde. Wereject the policy of Barbusse and his followers and we condemnit as the most dangerous political poison. We beliwe that theCommunist International and the Red International of Labor


Unions committed a serious error by leaving the initiativefor the call of the conference to the unprincipled and impotentpacifists.

We consider the fact that the USSR did not enter the Leagueof Nations altogether correcf in tactics and in principle. Itis all the more regrettablg thereforg that the Soviet Unionhas lent its authority to the Kellogg Pact which is a completefraud whose purpose is to Justify" only suchwars as correspondto American interests.

We also consider incorrect the tendency of Soviet diplomacyto embdlish the policy of American imperialism and partic-ularly its initiative on the question of disarrnamenl We fullyrecirgnize the importance for the USSR of normal economicand diplomatic relations with the USA. But this aim cannotbe achieved by verbal capihrlations to the maneuvers of Amer-ican imperialism, the strongest and most rapacious of all. Weawait from Soviet diplomacy a clear and public statemmton the danger of war and the shuggle against iL It is nec-essary to loudly sound an alert to the people The less Sovietdiplomacy adapts itself to the maneuvers of the imperialistson this burning question, the more courageously it raises itsown voicg the more ardently will the laboring masses of thewhole world respond, the more closely will they align them-selves with the USS& and the more surely will they defendit against the rising danger.

At the same time we consider it our task to declare hereopenly: Now, in the face of the terrible danger that is drawingclose, it is necessary at last to repair the crimes of the Stalinistbureaucracy against the revolution and communism; it is nec-essary to free the thousands of Bolshevik-Leninists, the orga-nizers of the October Revolution, the creators of the Red fu-y,the participants in the civil war, the infls<ible revolutionaryfighters, from the prisons and srile. For the dictatorship of theproletariat and the world revolution, against imperialist war,they want to fight and they will fight with an energ'y incom-parably greater than that of the parlor pacifists and the in-numerable Stalinist bureaucrats.

The policy of the united front in the struggle against wardemands special attention and revolutionary perseverance. TheCommunist Party can and must propose openly, withoutdubious intermediaries, that all the working-class organizationscoordinate their efforts in the struggle against war. For ourpart the Bolshevik-Leninists propose the following points asa basis on which agreement for a sbuggle is possible, at the

Delaration to the Antiwar Congress 155

sarne time maintaining a complete guarantee of theindependenceof the organizations and their banners.

1. Renunciation of all hopes in the League of Nations andother pacifist illusions,

2. Denunciation of the capitalist "diearmamenf programs,which serve to dupe the people

3. Refusal of all votes to the capitalist governments formilitary budgets and conscription-not a man, not a cent

4. E:<posure of the fraud of "national defense,n because thecapitalist naUon defends itself by oppressing and dividing theweaker nations.

5. A campaign for economic collaboration with the USSRon the basis of a broadly formulated program, with the massorganizations of the working class drawn into its elaborationand execution.

6. Continual and systematic exposure of the imperialist in-trigues against the first and only workers' state.

7. Agitation against war in the war factories, among thesoldiers and sailors. Preparation of revolutionary points ofsupport in the war indusEies, in the army and navy.

8. The training of the Red Army not only in the spirit ofa courageous defense of the socialist fatherland but also inthe spirit of constant readiness to come to the aid of the pro-letarian rwolution and of the uprisings of the oppressed peoplein other countrieg.

9. Systematic education of the laboring masses of the entireworld in the spirit of the greatest devotion to the first pro-letarian state Despite the unquestionable mistakes in the policyof the present ruling faction, the USSR remains the genuinefatherland of the international proletariaL Its defense is theunflinching duty of wery honest worker.

10. Indefatigable explanation to the workers of the wholeworld that a socialist society can be established only on aninternational scale, and that the real support of the USSRlies in the extension of the proletarian world revolution.

PILSUDSKISM FASCISM, AND THECHARACTER OF OUR EPOCH2O6

August 4,1932

IntroductionIn May 1926 Pilsudski carried out his coup in Poland. The

nature of this rescue operation seemed so enigmatic to theleadership of the Communist Party that, in the person ofWarski2oT and others, it called the proletariat out into thestreets to support the marshal's uprising. Today this factseerns quite incredible. But it went to the very root of Com-intern policy at that time The struggle for the peasantryhad been converted by the epigones into the policy of dis-solving the proletariat into the petty bourgeoisie. In Chinathe Communist Party entered the Kuomintang and humblysubmitted to its discipline For all the countries of the EaslStalin put up the slogan 'the worker-peasant party." In theSoviet Union the struggle against the nsuperindustrializers"(the Left Opposition) was being waged in the name of pre-senring good relations with the kulak. hn the leading circlesof the Ruesian party, there was rather open discussion on thequestion whether the time had not come to return from theproletarian dictatorship to the formula of 1905: "the demo-cratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.n Con-demned by the whole course of dazelopment and discardedonce for all by Lenin in 1917, this formula was converted bythe epigones into the highest criterion. From the angle ofthe'democratic dictatorship,n Kosbzerya208 reevaluated thelegacy of Rosa Luxemburg. Warski after a certain periodof vacillation, began to step to the tune of Manuilsky's com-mandg with redoubled diligence It was in such circumstancesthat Pileudski's coup broke oul The Central Committee of the

156

Pilsudskisn 157

Polish party had a deadly fear of showing any nunderestima-

tion of the peasantry." They had learned the lessons of thestruggle against'Trotskyism" well, Lord knows! The Marxistsof the Central Committee summoned the workers to supportthe almost "democratic dictatorship" of the reactionary mar-tineL

Pilsudski's practice very quickly brought corrections into thetheory of the epigones. As early as the beginning of Julythe Comintern had to concern itself, in Moscow, with a rwiewof the nmistake" of the Polish party. Warski gave the reportin the special commission, under the point on informationand "self-criticism": he had already been promised completeexoneration - on condition that he voluntarily assume the fullresponsibility for what had been done, thus shielding theMoscow chiefs! Warski did what he could. Howwer, whileconfessing his "error" and promising to correct himself, heproved completely incapable of bringing out the matters ofprinciple at the root of his misfortunes. The debate as a wholehad an extremely chaotic, confused, and to a certain degree,dishonest character. The whole purpose after all was to washthe coat without getting the cloth wel

Within the limits of the ten minutes allowed me, I tried togive an evaluation of the Pilsudski coup in connection withthe historical function of fascism, and thereby rweal theroots of the nerror" of the Polish parfir leadership. The pro-ceedings of the commission were not published. This did not,of course, prevent a polemic being developed in all lan-guages against my unpublished speech. The reverberations ofthis polemic have not died down to this day. Having found thestenogram of my speech in the archives, I came to the con-clusion that its publication-especially in the light of the cur-rent events in Germany-might prove to be of some politicalinterest wen today. Political tendencies should be tested atvarious stages of historical dwelopment-only in that waycan their real content and the degree of their internal consis-tency be properly evaluated.

Nahrrally, in the case of a speech given six years ago ina special commission, within a ten-minute time limil youcannot expect of it more than it contains. If these lines reachthe Polish comrades, for whom they are indeed intended,ft"y, as more fully informed readers, will be able them-selves to fill out whatever I have stated incompletely andto correct whatever is not accurate.

Writings of Leon T?otsky (1932)

Pilsudski's coup is appraised in my speech as a npreventive"

(precautionary) one This characterization may be supportedin a certain sense even today. Precisely becauee the revo-lutionary situation in Poland did not reach the same maturit5ras those in Italy in 1920 and, later, in Germany in 1923and 19.31-32, faecist reaction in Poland did not attain suchdepth and intensity. This explains why Pilsudski, over a periodof six years, has still not carried his work to completion.

In connection with the "preventive" character of the coup,the speech orpressed the hope that Pilgudski's reign wouldnot be as protracted as that of Mussolini's. Unfortunately,both have been more protracted than any of us hoped in1926. the cause of this lies not only in the objective circum-stances but also in the policies of the Comintern. The basicdefects in those policies, as the reader will see, are indicatedin the speech-to be sure, in a very cautious manner: it mustbe recalled that I had to speak, as a member of the CentralCommittee of the Russian Communist Party, under discipline.

One cannot deny that the initial role of the PPSzoe in regard to Pilsudskism rendered rather spectacular support tothe theory of nsoeial fascism." Later years, however, broughtthe necessary corrections here' too, bringing out the contra-diction between the democratic and the fascist agencies of thebourgeoisie. Whoever regards this contradiction as absolutewill inevitably turn onto the path of opportunism. Whoeverignores this confadiction will be doomed to ulhaleftcapriciousness and rwolutionary impotencs Whoever stillrequires proof of this, need only cast his gaze toward Ger-many.

On the Polish Question (July 1926)I wish to take up just two questions of general significance

which have beeu raised repeatedly in the discussion, bothat yesterday's gession and today's.

The first question is, What is Pilsudskism and how is it con-nected with fasciem?

The second question is, What are the roots of the mietakemade by the Central Committee of the Polish CommunistParty? By nroots" I have in mind not matters relating to in-dividuals or groups, but objective ones, built into the con-ditions of the epoch; but I do not thereby minimize the responsibility of individuals in any way.

the first question: Pilsudskism and fascism.lbese two currentg undoubtedly have features in common:

Pilsudskisfli, 159

their shock hoops are recruited, above all, among the pettybourgeoisie; both Pilsudski and Mussolini operated by ortra-parli:amentary, nakedly violent means, by the methods ofcivil war; both of them aimed not at overthrowing bourgeoissociet5l, but at saving it. Having raised the petty-bourgeoismasses to their feet, they both clashed openly with the bigbourgeoisie after coming to power. Here a historical general-ization involuntarily comes to mind: one is forced to recallManr's definition of Jacobinism2lo sg a plebeian means ofdealing with the feudal enemies of the bourgeoisie That wasin the epoch of the nbe of the bourgeoisie It must be saidthat now, in the epoch of the d.eline of bourgeois societlr,the bourgeoisie once again has need of a nplebeian" meansof solving its problems-which are no longer progressivebut,rather, thoroughly reactionary. In this sensq then, fascismcontains a reactionary caricafure of Jacobinism.

Whm it was on the risg the bourgeoisie could not establisha basis for its growth and predominance within the confinesof the feudal-bureaucratic state There wag need for the Jaco-bin way of dealing with the old society in order to engurethe flowering of the nem bourgeois society. The bourgeoisiein decline is incapable of maintaining itself in power withthe methods and means of its own creation-the parliamen-tary state. It needs fascism as a weapon of selfd€fense, atleast at the most critical mommts. The bourgeoisie does notlike the "plebeian" means of solving its problems. It had anextremely hostile attitude toward Jacobinism, which cleareda path in blood for the dwelopment of bourgeois society.The fasciste are immeasurably closer to the bourgeoisie indecline than the Jacobins were to the bourgeoisie on therise But the established bourgeoisie does not like the fascistmeans of solving its problems either, for the shocke and dis-turbances, although in the interests of bourgeois societ5r,involve dangers for it as well. This is the source of the an-tagonism between fascism and the traditional parties of thebourgeoisie

It is beyond dispute that Pilsudskism, in its roots, in itsimpuLses, and in the slogang it raises, is a petty-bourgeoismovement. That Pilsudski knew beforetrand what path he'wouldfollow may well be doubted. It is not as though he were partic-ularly brainy. His actions bear the stamp of mediocrity.(Walecki:zrr You're mistaken!) But my aim is not to char-acterize Pilsudski in any way; I don't know, perhaps he did see

somewhat farther ahead than others. At any rate, wen if he


did not know what he wanted to do, he certainly-to all ap-pearances-knew rather well what he wanted to avoid, whichwas, above all, a revolutionary movement of the workingmasses. Whatever he did not understand, others thoughtthrough for him, perhaps wen the English ambassador. At anyrate, Pilsudski quickly found common ground with big capital,despite the fact that in its roots, impulses, and slogans themovement he headed was petty bourgeois, a 'plebeian" meansof solving the pressing problems of capitalist society in processof decline and destruction. Here there is a direct parallel withItalian fascism.

It was said here (by Warski) that parliamentary democracyis the arena upon which the petty bourgeoisie performs mostbrilliantly. Not always, however, and not under all conditions.It may also lose its brilliance, fade, and show its weaknessmore and more And since the big bourgeoisie itself is at adead end, the parliamentary arena becomes a mirror of the sit-uation of impasse and decline of bourgeois socie[y as a whole.The petty bourgeoisie, which attributed such importance to par-liamentarism, itself begins to feel it as a burden and to seeka way out upon o<traparliamentary paths. In its basic impulsePilsudskism is an attempt at an o<traparliamentary solutionof the problems of the petty bourgeoisie. But in this very factlies the inevitability of capitulation to the big bourgeoisie. Forif in parliament the petty bourgeoisie shows its impotence beforelandlord, capitalist, and banker in one instance after another,on a "retail" basis, then, in the attempt at an er<traparliamentarysolution of its problems, at the moment when it snatches uppower, its social impotence is revealed wholesale and altogether.At first one gets the impression that the petty bourgeoisie withsword in hand is turning upon the bourgeois regime, but itsrevolt ends with it handing over to the big bourgeoisie, throughits own chiefs, the power it had seized by traveling the roadof bloodshed. That is precisely what happened in Poland. Andthat the Central Committee did not understand.

The big bourgeoisie dislikes this method, much as a manwith a swollen jaw dislikes having his teeth pulled. The respect-able circles of bourgeois society viewed with hatred the servicesof the dentist Pilsudski, but in the end they gave in to the inev-itable, to be sure, with threats of resistance and much hagglingand wrangling over the price And lo, the petty bourgeoisie'sidol of yesterday has been transformed into the gendarme ofcapital! The cinematic tempo of the course of events is sur-prising, the appallingly rapid transition from outwardly "revo-

Hlsudskism 161

lutionary" slogans and techniques to a counterrevolutionarypolicy of protecting the propert5z holders from the onslaught ofthe workers and peasants. But the evolution of Pilsudskism iswholly according to law. As for the tempo, that is the resultof a civil war that has skipped stages and thus reduced the timerequirements.

Is Pilsudskism "left fascism" or is it "nonleff? I do not thinkthis distinction has anything to offer. The "leftism" in fascismflows from the necessity to arouse and nourish the illusions ofthe enraged petty proprietor. In various countries, undervarious conditions, this is done in different ways, with the useof different doses of "leftism." But in essence Pilsudskism, likefascism in general, performs a counterrevolutionary role. Thisis an antiparliamentary and, above all, antiproletarian coun-terrevolution, with whose help the declining bourgeoisie at-tempts-and not without success, at least for a time-to pro-tect and preserve its fundamental positions.

I have called fascism a caricature of Jacobinism. Fascismis related to Jacobinism in the same way that modern cap-italism, which is destroying the productive forces and loweringthe cultural level of societ5r, relates to youthful capitalism, whichincreased the power of mankind in all spheres. Of course, thecomparison of fascism and Jacobinism, like any broad his-torical analogy in general, is legitimate only within certainlimits and from a certain point of view. The attempt to stretchthis analogy beyond its justified limits would carry the dangerof false conclusions. But within limits it does explain something. The summits of bourgeois society were not able to clearsociety of feudalism. For this it was necessary to mobilizethe interests, passions, and illusions of the petty bourgeoisie.The latter carried out this work in sbuggle against the summitsof bourgeois societ5r, although in the last analysis it served noneother than them. Likewise, the fascists mobilize petty-bourgeoispublic opinion and their own armed units in struggle or partialsbuggle with the ruling circles and the official state apparatus.The more threatening the immediate revolutionary danger isto bourgeois societSr, or the sharper the disillusionment of thepetty bourgeoisie, temporarily hoping for revolution, the easierit is for fascism to carry out its mobilization.

In Poland the conditions for this mobilization were uniqueand complex; they were created by the economic and politicalimpasse, the dim prospects for revolution, and the "lVluscovite"danger connectd with this. One of the Polish comrades here-


I think it was Leszczynski2l2 -651p1sssed himself to the effectthat the reol fascists were hiding not in the camp of Pilsudskibut in the camp of the National Democrats, L e, the big cap-italist party, which has at its disposal chauvinist bands thathave carried out pogroms more than once. Is this the case?The auxiliary bands of the National Democrats would sufficgso to speak, only for weryday affairs. But to arouse the broadmasses of the nation to sbike a blow against parliamentarism,democracy, and above all the proletariat-and to weld thestate power into a military fist-for that theparty of the capi-talists and landlords would not suffice- In order to mobilizethe pett5r bourgeoisie of the city and countryside, as wellas the backward section of the workers, it is necessary tohave in one's hands such political resources as the traditionsof petty-bourgeois socialism and the revolutionary national-liberation struggle. The National Democrats had not even atrace of this. That is why the mobilization of the petty bour-geoisie of Poland could only have been accomplished byMarshal Pilsudski-with the PPS in tow for a certain period.But having won power, the petty bourgeoisie is incapable ofwielding it independently. It is forced either to let go of it underthe pressure of the proletariat or, if ttre latter does not havethe strength to seize it, to hand power over to the big bour-geoisig no longer in the prwious dispersed but in the nervconcentrated form.

The deeper had been the illusions of petty-bourgeois socialismand patriotism in Poland and the more impetuously they hadbeen mobilized in conditions of economic and parliamentaryimpasse, the more brazenly, cynically, and "suddenly" wouldthe victorious chief of this movernent fall down on his kneesbefore the big bourgeoisie with the request that they ncrown"

him. This is the key to the cinematic tempo of the Polish events.Ttre big and lasting success of Mussolini turned out to be

possible only because the revolution of September 1920' havingshaken loose all the buttresses and braces of bourgeois societ5r,was not carried through to the end. On the basis of the ebbof the rwolution, the disappoinhnent of the petty bourgeoisigand the exhaustion of the workers, Mussolini dremr up, andput into practicg his plan.

In Poland matters did not get that far. The impasse of theregime was at hand, but a direct revolutionary situation,in the gense of the readiness of the masses to go into combatdid not yet exist A revolutionary situation was only on theway. Pilsudski's coup, like all of his Yascism," appears then

Hlfldskistn 163

as a preventive, Le., precautionary, counterrevolution. Thatis why it seems to me that Pilsudski's regime has less chanceof a lengthy e:<istence than does Italian fascism. Mussolinitook advantage of a revolution already broken from within,with the inevitable decline in activity among the proletariatthereafter. Pilsudski, on the other hand, intercepted an on-coming revolution, raised himself to a certain degree withits fresh yeast, and cynically deceived the masses followinghim. This provides ground for hope that Pilsudskism will bean episode on the wave of revolutionary upsurge, not decline.

The second question that I would like to take up has to dowith the objective roots of the error committed by the leadersof the Polish party. Undoubtedly the pressure of the pettybourgeoisie, with its hopes and illusions, was very strongin the days of the May coup. This o<plains why the partyat that stage was unable to win the masses and guide thewhole movement onto a huly rwolutionary path. But thisin no way er.cuses the leadership of the party, which meeklysubmitted to the pet$z-bourgeois chaos, floating upon it withoutrudder or sails. As for the basic causes of the mistake, theyare rooted in the character of our epoch, which we call revo'lutionary but which we have not gotten to know by a longshot in all its sharp twists and turns - and without this knowl-edge it is impossible to master each particular concrete situa-tion Our period differs from the prewar period the waya crisis-filled, o<plosive period differs from one that is organic,developing in comparative regularity. In the prewar period,we had in Europe the growth of the productive forces, asharpening class differentiation, the growth of imperialismat one pole and the growth of the Social Democracy at theother. The conquest of power by the proletariat was picturedas the inevitable but distant crowning of this process. Moreprecisely, for the opportunists and centrists of the SocialDemocracy the social revolution was a phrase without content;for the left wing of the European Social Democracy it was adistant goal for which it was necessary to prepare graduallyand systematically. The war cut short this epoch, thoroughlyrorealing its contradictions; and with the war began a newepoch. One can no longer speak of the regular growth of theproductive forces, the steady growth in numbers of theindushial proletariat, and so on. In the economy there iseither stagnation or decline Unemployment has becomechronic. If we take the fluctuations in the economic cycle ofthe European countries, or the changes in the political situa-

tu Writings of Leon Ttotsky (1932)

tion, and put them on paper in the form of a graph, we getnot a regularly rising curve with periodic fluctuations but afeverish curve with frantic ztg,zags up and down. The economiccycle changes abruptly within the framework of an essentiallyconstant fixed capital. The political cycle changes abruptly inthe grip of the economic impasse. The petty-bourgeois masses,involving wide circles of workers ag well, charge now to theright, now to the lefl

Here we can no longer speak of the organic process ofdevelopment unceasingly strengthening the proletariat as aproductive class and, thereby, lts revolutionary party. Theintenelations between party and class are subject undercurrent conditions, to much sharper fluctuations than before.The tactics of the party, while preserving their principledbasis, are endowed-and should be endowed!-with a farmere tnaneurserable and creatioe character, foreign to anyroutinism whatsoever. In these tactics sharp and daring turnsare inevitable, depending above all on whether we are enter-ing a zone of revolutionary upsurge or, on the contrary, arapid downfurn. The whole of our epoch consists of suchdistinctly marked-off secEons of the curve, some rising, somefalling. These steep, sometimes sudden, changes must becaught in time The difference between the role of the CentralCommittee of a Social Democratic party in prewar conditionsand that of the Central Committee of a Communist party incurrent conditions is to a certain degree like the differencebetween a general staff, which organizes and trains militaryforces, and a field headquarters, which is called upon to leadthose forces under battle conditions (although there may in-deed be long pauses between battles).

The struggle for the masses remains, of course, the basictask, but the conditions of this struggle are different now.Any turn in the domestic or international situation may, atthe very next step, transform the struggle for the massesinto a direct shuggle for power. Today you cannot measurestrategy by decades. In the course of a year, or two, orthree, the whole situation in a country changes radically.This we have seen esperially clearly in the case of Germany.After the attempt to summon up a revolution in the absenceof the necessary preconditions (March 1921), we observe inthe German party a strong rightward deviation (Brandlerism),and this deviation is subsequently wrecked on the sharp left-ward shift in the whole situation (1923). In place of the op-portunist deviation comes an ultraleft ong whose ascendancy

Pilwdskisn r65

coincides, however, with the ebb of the revolution; out of thiscontradiction between conditions and policies grow mistakesthat weaken the revolutionary movement still further. Theresult is a kind of division of labor between rightist and ultra-leftist groupings according to which each one, at a sharpupward or downward turn of the political curve, suffers de.feat and gives way to the rival grouping. At the same time,the method now in practice-of changing the leadership withevery shift in the situation-gives the leading cadreno chanceto acquire a broader experience that would include both riseand fall, both ebb and flow. And without this generalizing,synthesized understanding of the character of our epoch ofrapid shifts and abrupt turns, a truly Bolshevik leadershipcannot be educated. That is why, in spite of the profoundlyrevolutionary character of the epoch, the party and its leader-ship have not succeeded in rising to the heights of thedemands that the situation has placed before them.

Pilsudski's regime in Poland will be a regime of fasciststruggle for stabilization, which means an er<treme sharpeningof the class struggle. Stabilization is not a condition grantedto society from without, but a problem for bourgeois politics.This problem is no sooner partly settled than it erupts again.The fascist struggle for stabilization will arouse the resistanceof the proletariat On the soil of mass disillusionment in Pil-sudski's coup a favorable situation for our party will becreated, on the condition, of course, that the leadership is notone.sidedly adapted to a temporary rise or temporary declinein the political curve, but embraces the basic line of develop-ment as a whole. To the fascist struggle for stabilization mustbe counterposed, above all, the internal stabilization of theCommunist Party. Then victory will be assurd!

INTENSIFY THE OFFENSIIEIZIA

August 6, 1932

The physical attack of the Stalinists on the Bolshevik-Len-inists at the Salle Bullier in Paris arouses not only profoundindignation but also a feeling of burning shame for the presentIeadership of the Comintern. This is not the work of rank-and-file Communists, of workers- they would never lower them-selves to such abominations! - but of a centralized bureaucracywhich is carrying out the orders of the higher echelons. Theiraim: to create such an embittered ahnosphere within the Com-munist ranks that all arguments of reason lose their force.Only in this way can the Stalinist bureaucracy still save itselffrom the criticism of the Left Opposition. What terrible degen-eration!

The history of the Russian revolutionary movement is par-ticularly rich in bitter factional struggles. For thirty-five yearsI have observed very closely and participated in this strug-gle. I can't recall a single instance in which differences of opin-ion, not only among the Mamists but between the Mar:<ists,the Narodniks,2l4 and the anarchists, were settled by the orga-nized rule of the fisL Pehograd in 1917 seethed with continualmeetings. First as an insignificant minority, then as a strongpartV, finally as the overwhelming majori$r, the Bolsheviksconducted an annihilating campaign against the Social Rev-olutionaries and the Mensheviks. I can't recall a single meetingwhere physical fights replaced political struggle. Although forthe last two years I have been making a thorough study ofthe history of the February and October revolutions, I havenot been able to find a single indication of such an occurrencein the press of that time What the proletarian masses wantedto do was to listen and to understand. What the Bolsheviks

166

Intmsify the Offensioe! L67

wanted to do was to convince them. Only in this way can aparty be educated and the revolutionary class be drawn to it.

In 1923 at the height of the dispute in the Caucasus betweenthe Stalinists and the Leninists, Ordzhonikidze2ls struck oneof his opponents in the face. Lenin, seriously ill and confinedto the Kremlin, was literally shaken by the report of Ordzhon-ikidze's conduct. In Lenin's eyes, the fact that Ordzhonikidzestood at the head of the party apparatus in the Caucasusonly magnified his guilt. Lenin sent his secretaries Glasserand Fotieva to me a number of times urging the o<pulsionof Ordzhonikidze. He saw in Ordzhonikidze's hooliganism in-dications and symptoms of a whole school and an entire sys-tem: the school and system of Stalin. That same day Leninwrote his last letter to Stalin declaring that he was sweringall ncomradely relations" with him. Since then a whole seriesof historical factors has led to the triumph of this school of"rudeness" and "disloyalt5r," not only in the Communist Part5zof the Soviet Union but also in the Comintern. The abomina-tion at Bullier is its unquestionable and unadulterated expres-sion.

Ninetenths of the people in the apparatus regard the Stalin-ist system with growing alarm, if not with complete disguslBut they cannot tear themselves out of its clutches. Each ofthe decisive links in the chain has its Semards and its Yaro-slavskys, as well as its Bessedovskys and Agabekovs. Fromslander and falsification these gentlemen have now proceededto organized physical attack. The command begins with Stalinand is then transmitted to all sections of the Comintern. Willthis help them? No, it will not. Their need to employ contrnu-ally sbonger methods proves the ineffectiveness of their previousattacks against the Bolshevik-Leninists.

Tremendous events are taking place in Germany. The leadersof the Comintern maintain silence; they act as if their mouthswere filled with water. Don't the German wents demand animmediate convocation of a world congress of the Comintern?Of course they do. But answers will have to be given at a con-gress, and the Stalinists have nothing to say. Their mistakes,their zigzags, their crimes have completely overwhelmed them.To remain silent, to go into hiding, to passively await theoutcome is the sum and substance of the policy of the Stalinistfaction.

But the Bolshevik-Leninists will not be silent and they willnot allow others to remain silenl Despite their small numbers,our French comrades are showing magnificent perswerance

r68 Writings of Leon Tlotsky (1932)

in raising the burning questions of the proletarian world rwo-lution before the workers. By assaulting them like hooligans,the Stalinists merely pay tribute to their revolutionary energy.

No sooner did the Bolshevik-Leninists inMoscowgivewarn-ing against Chiang Kai-sheh than the Stalinist bureaucracybaited, persecuted, and smashed them. No sooner do the Bol-shwik-Leninists in Paris sound the alarm against fascism thanthe Stalinist clique prepares to smash them. These facts willnot go unpunished. From big facts the party learns and theclass learns.

We do not hold the rank-and-file Communists responsiblefor the crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The Bolshevik-Leninists wilI not change their course towards the French Com-munist Pargr or the Comintern. The attempt werywhere tobuild walls of hate between us and the millions of Commu-nists will not succeed. It is clear that right is on our side andthe workers are listening more attentively to our words.

The more the Stalinists lose their heads, the more the Lenin-ists will persevere in their activity. The bureaucracy is twistingand turning under our criticism, under the sweep of our argu-ments. All the more apparent, therefore, is our correcbress andour effectiveness. Let us intensify our offensive twofold, three-fold, tenfold!

THREE LETTERSTO LAZAR KLING2I6

February 9-August 7, lg32

February 9, 1932Dear Comrade Kling

Thank you for the books you sent, one of which I am return-ing to you because I already have a copy.

It is very difficult for me to judge from here whether theLeague is devoting enough attention to work among "adul-terated American" workers, including the Jews. Everything de'pends on the forces and the means available and on theirsound allocation. From the sidelines and from far away it isdifficult to form an opinion on this.

The importance of foreign workers in the American revolu-tion will be enormous - in a sense decisive. Certainly the Oppo-sition must, no matter what, make its way into the Jewishworkers' surroundings.

You ask what my attitude is toward the Jewish language.It is the same as toward any other language. If I did indeeduse the term "jargon" in my autobiography, it is because inthe years of my youth in Odessa the Jewish language wasnot called "Yiddish," as it is now, but njargon.n Jews themselvesused this expression, at least in Odessa, and absolutely nothingscornful was meant by it. The word "Yiddish' has come intogeneral use-this applies even in France, for example-onlyin the last fifteen or twenty years.

You say that I am called an "assimilator." I have no ideawhat this word can mean. I am, of -course, an opponent ofZionism and all other forms of self-isolation of the Jewishworkers. I call upon the Jewish workers in France to familiarizethemselves as much as possible with the conditions of Frenchlife and of the French working class, since without this it willbe difficult for them to participate in the workers' movement

169


of that country where they are being exploited. Because theJervish proletariat has been gcattered among different countries,the Jeryish worker must strive to know, besides the Jewiehlanguage, the languages of other countries as a weapon in theclass struggle. Is that "assimilation"?

My attitude towarC proletarian culture is set forth in mybook Litqature and, Rasolution. It is wrong, or not totallycorrect, to contrast proletarian culture to bourgeois culture.The bourgeois regime and, consequently, bourgeois culturedweloped over many centuries. The proletarian regime is onlya short-term regime, transitional to socialism. During thistransitional regime (the dictatorship of the proletariat), theproletariat cannot create any finished class culture. It can onlyprepare elements of socialist culture. The task, then, of theproletariat is to create, not a proletarian culture, but a socialistculture on the basis of a classless society.

Such, in brief, is my opinion on the question of proletarianculture. It would not be difficult to demonstrate that Marx,Engels, Lenin, Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg, and others helda similar view on this question.

Once again, thank you for the book.radely greetings.

With affectionate com-

Yours,L. Trotsky

May 23, 1932Dear Comrade Kling:

I have proven to be negligent this time with respect to you.I apologize. I have had a great deal of urgent work to do inrecent weeks, and I was forced to greatly neglect correspon-dence.

Nevertheless I was able to send Unzer Kamf a short greeting.I hope that it was received.

I have forwarded to Palestine to the Poale Zion group onecopy of all the issues of the novspaper that have reached me.One of the members of their central committee, who signs hisname as Nathan, has begun corresponding with me. He is aserious comrade, gravitating strongly toward the Left Opposi-tion. There is sympathy for the Left Opposition among them.It is poosible that a good correspondent f.or Uraq l{amf could,be found in their midst.

You ask whether it would be proper to present to the tradeunions and other mass organizations resolutions protesting

Three Lettqs to La.zar Kling t7I

against the persecution of the Left Opposition. In my opinionthis depends on the concrete situation. In a reactionary union,of course, it is impossible to put such resolutions to a vote.But if a given organization is sympathetic toward the USS&it is fully possible to try to secure the passage of a resolutionwhich pledges full support to the USSR and at the same timeexpresses the demand: End the repression of the Left Opposi-tion.

I must give a similar answer to your second question, aboutthe struggle against the demoralized and unscrupulous figuresof the Communist Party. To build a campaign on this basis,of course, is inadmissible since it would create the atmosphereof a terrible squabble and facilitate the application of pogrom-like methods by the Stalinist bureaucracy. But in those cases

where the soil has been sufficiently prepared politically it ispossible to deal an extra blow by exposing what kind of peopleare for the defense of the "general line." But in blows of thiskind, of a personal nature, the greatest preciseness, substantia-tion, and honesty is demanded. To be guided by rumors andunverified information is inadmissible under any circumstances.

Thank you for the booklet.With my greetings,L. Trotsky

August 7, 1932Dear Comrade Kling:

I was very pleased to hear about the growing influence ofthe newspapet (Jnzer l{arnf. We hope that in the near futurethe nonrspaper can be converted into a weekly.

You send word of the plan to publish a number of the LeftOpposition's works, in particular my own, in the Jerrish lan-guage in pamphlet and book form. I, of course, can onlywelcome this.

Comarde Nathan is not a member of the Left Opposition;he is only a sympathizer and is trying to clarify a numberof questions through correspondence. I find these letters veryinteresting because they give me an idea of the Palestine situa-tion. As regards Comrade Stein, he is quite definitely an activemember of the Left Opposition.

As far as I can judge from Comrade Nathan's letters theLeft Opposition could win considerable influence in the leftPoale Zion. It would be good if the American comrades wouldmake the necessary effort toward this end.

172 Writings of Leon IYotsky (1932)

You are interested in my opinion concerning the organiza-tion in New York of an international bureau of Jewish workers.It seems to me that it may be premature to start this. At thepresent stagg it is enough to energetically distribute UnzqKamf to all countries where there are Jewish workers, to estab-lish contacts, to carry on correspondence, etc. All this work willnaturally become very much expanded and will take on amore systematic character when the newspaper becomes aweekly. Only on the basis of experience will we then be ableto judge how expedient it would be to create a special bureau.

On the question about the events in Palesting I am right nowonly gathering materi'al. In particular, I am awaiting thearrival of an American, a Marxist, from Palestine. ComradeNathan is also sending me valuable material. This will giveme the opportunity to express a more concrete opinion on the1929 movement and to make out to what degree and in whatproportions the Arab national liberation (anti-imperialist)movement was connected with reactionary Mohammedans andanti-Semitic pogromists. I think that all these elements werepresent.

I am hoping to write a book about America but not righta$/ay. I have been gathering material for it for quite sometime.

With comradely greetings,L. Trotskv

PERSPECTIVES OF THE UPTURN2I?

August 18, 1932

Business cycles in the postwar period have ceased to con-stifute the normal mechanism of capitalist dwelopment insofaras capitalism, as a whole, is in a period of decay. But thisdoes not mean that economic fluctuations belong to the past.Immediately after the war, it's bue, they lost their cyclicaland, as for recovery at least, their universal character. Boththese characteristics, however, are being revived today, at leastup to a certain point.

The current crisis has a worldwide character. This meansthat the world economy, whose functioning was interrupted bythe war years, has made its way in spite of all tariff wallsand in a painful form has proved its powerful reality' Thereis wery reason to beliwe that the approaching reversal ofthe trend in the direction of a business rwival - not everJrwhereand not with equal strength-will also assume a worldwidecharacter. In other words, the cyclical movement of capitalismis restored in the present crisis.

Naturally we cannot expect full-blown cycles in the future.In the decades preceding the war, crises had the character ofshort and not too profound interruptions, while each new up-swing left the peak of the prwious one far below. But nowwe must o<pect the opposite: profound, long, and painful crises,while the upward movements are weak and short-lived. If theold cycles were the mechanism of a broad upward movementthe new ones can only be the mechanism of capitalist decay.

But the influence of cyclical changes on the life of massesof people remains enormous. In a certain sense it is now morefar-reaching than wer before.

The preeent stage of capitalism more than fulfills the pre'requisites for the proletarian revolution. What lags behind

L73


is the consciousness of the proletariat, its organization, itsleadership. Because of the general instability of soeial equilibri-um, the conjunctural fluctuations lead to tremendous shifts ofpolitical power, to revolutionary and counterrevolutionary dis-turbances.

The bourgeois world, and with it the Social Democracy,awaits the new upturn in commerce and industry as its salva-tion. The theoreticians of the Comintern are afraid of such aperspective and deny the possibility of an upward turn in thebusiness-cycle curve. To us Marxists it is perfectly clear that arevival of business activit5r will not open a broad avenue outof the crisis, but will lead to a new, strll sharper, and morepainful crisis. On the other hand, the inwitability of an ap-proaching change in the business cycle is perfectly evident tous. We must equip ourselves theoretically for the no<t "post-crisis period" and take a correct point of departure

The years of crisis have thrown and are throwing the interna-tional proletariat back for a whole historical period. Discontenfthe wish to escape poverty, hate for the orploiters and theirsystem, all these emotions which are now suppressed and driveninward by frightrul unemployment and governmental repression,will force their way out with redoubled energy at the first realsigns of an indushial revival.

Because of the general situation of capital today, even in theevent of a substantial rwival, the employers will not be in aposition to make the kinds of concessions to the workers whichwould keep the struggle within the confines of the trade unions.We can predict with certainty that the industrial revival will notallow even for a return to those conditions of labor whichprwailed before the crisis. The economic conflicts will not onlytake on a wide scope but also inevitably expand into politicalmovements of a revolutionary character.

The Comintern must strip off the last remnants of the theoryof the 'third period," must begin to investigate concretely theeconomic and social terrain of the struggle, and must stopissuing dictatorial commands to the proletarian vanguard butthrough the latter guide the real development of the classstruggle.

In very first place is- work in the trade unions. Lozovsky's"third period' as well as Manuilsky's third period2l8 must bediscarded, and an end put to the policy of self-isolation. Thequestion of restoring the unity of the German hade.union move.ment through the integration of all RGO2le members into themass of the "free hade unions" must be posed with the greatest

Pnspecthses of the Upturn 175

sharpness. Every party member who can must be obligated tojoin a trade union.

The development of the economic struggle will place enormoustasks before the reformist bureaucracy' The er<ploitation of theirdifficulties can best be accomplished by a flenible and energeticunited-front policy.

That the Left Opposition, despite its small numbers, canoccupy an honorable place in the mass struggle is shown bythe experience of the Belgian comrades.22o In any case, it isthe task of the Left Opposition to unfold the questions clearlybefore the part5r, to outline the general perspectives, to formulateslogans of struggle. Now, less than ever' can the Left Op-position permit itseU to remain a closed propaganda circlgstanding aside from the real development of the class struggle.

Every Bolshevik-Leninist must be a member of one or anothermass organization, above all of a trade union. Only in thisway will our organization keep its hand on the pulse of theproletariat and fulfill its role as the vanguard of the vanguard.

PostscriptTtre American comrade, Field,22r who is familiar with the

problems of the world economy, has prepared at my requestthe first draft of an evaluation of the immediate cyclical ten-dencies of the world market. The conclusions of ComradeField are very carefully stated. Everyone who takes accountof the compler<ity of the factors which determine changes inthe business cycle will understand and approve the cautionof the prognosis. The task is not to make guesses but to putthe question correctly, follow the development of the facts,and draw the conclusions in time.

I request the International Secretariat to forward these linestogether with the statement of Comrade Field to all the sectionsas discussion material. It is perfectly clear that our internationalconference will have to express itself on this most importantquestion.

Comrade Field had a eonflict with the American Leaguewhich led to his removal from our American section. My col-laboration with Comrade Field is of a completely personalcharacter and has no connection with the inner life of theAmerican League.

A CONVERSATION WITH TROTSKY222

August 25, lg32

Tlotsky: You come from Germany? What party are you in?Bergmann: I'm in the SAP.?.' That's bad!8..' I came here with the Walcher-Froelich group.223T.: That's worse! A party should be waluated from two

standpoints: national and internationaMnternationally the SAPlinks up with all the doubdul elements in the whole world.In Germany it makes the wrong decisions on every importantquestion. Take the presidential elections. It was correct to putup Thaelmann. A joint candidacy of Loebe is impossibls.22aI cannot ask workers to vote for Loebe, ie, for the SocialDemocratic program. Certainly I have many differences withThaelmann, but he does rqresent a prograrn, a Communistprogratn. But the Social Democracy is a capitalist party.

B.r And if Hitler had been elected like Hindenburg in 1925,Le., with a margin smaller than Thaelmann's total vote? Youhave to take that into account, and then the Communists wouldhave been responsible before the whole working class for thedirect results of Hitler's election.

Z.' You can't please werybody. It's enough for me if I cantake on the responsibility for my o$rn party. The Seydewitzshrff about putting the interest of the class before the interestof the party is nonsense. That comes from wanting to be abig party all at once, and not having the patience to buildup slowly and systematically. A reoolutionary rnust haoepatience. Impatience is the mother of opportunism.

8..' Do you think that a party which is led by such leadershipcan carry through the proletarian revolution in a countrylike Germany, with such a strong bourgeoisie?

Z.' In some situations, yes! Circumstances may provestrongerthan human incapacity. The German Communist Part5z contains

176

A Conoersation uith Trotsky 177

many revolutionary elements, including ones who more orless know what the October Revolution was and what the dic-tatorship of the proletariat is. Of course not every Communistbureauciat will turn out to be a hero, not every reformistbigwig will be a topnotcher. But in the fight with the

fascists in the working-class districts it will be the Communistswho will be in the front line. The situation in Germany leavesmany possibilities open. It may be that the Communist Partywill take over the leadership.

8..' What do you think, Comrade Trotsky, about the slogan"self-determination" up to separation? Is there not a dangerthat in the event of a revolution the bourgeoisie of a provincewill hide behind this slogan and carry on propaganda forindependence or union with a neighboring reactionarycountry?

Z'.' The danger exists, but it becomes greater with weryambiguity on the question. We say to the masses of thatprovince: If you want to leave, go ahead, we won't restrainyou by force; but what will you do with the big estates? andwhat about the factories? That's all that interests us-whenby our generosity in respect to nqtionalifgr we put the socialquestion into the foreground, then we will drive a wedge between

the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; otherwise we would weldthem together. Look, the Russian Bolsheviks said: 'Right ofself-determination including separation.' And Russia has become a block despite its forty languages and nations. TheAustrian Social Democrats, like a true copy of their bourgeoisie,tried to solve the question by a compromise, and Austria-Hungary has fallen apart That is history's biggest lessonin this field..

.B..' Another question: Is it conceivable for a socialist state

to wage war along with a capitalist state against anothercapitalist state? For e><ample, Russia with America againstJapan? What would the attitude of the American CommunistParty have to be then?

Z.' The concrete case of a war of Russia plus Americaagainst Japan is extremely improbable. The American bour-geoisie is the legitimist one among the bourgeoisie, I wouldsay. The above case is conceivable, however, though not fora long time" Since in consequence of a defeat of the third powerrevolutionary movements will break out in it, an alliance ofthe two states which had just been fighting each other againstthe revolutionary proletariat would immediately be formed.

B.; And the tactics of the CP of the country concerned upto that point?


Z.' Extreme mistrust of the government; for examplg noapproval of the budget, but no strikes in the munitions industry,etc. This attitude to continue, of coursq only as long as theCP is not shong enough to undertake serious actions to over-throw the bourgeoisie

B.: lt I can put it this way: mistrust and propaganda againstthe government, gathering of forces for a decisive blow, butno direct sabotage of the war.

Z.' Yes, something like thad But I emphasize that this cannotpossibly be a prolonged state of affairs. It would come to anend after a short time because of the rupture of the alliancebetween the socialist and the capitalist state

Il..' What do you think about the possibility of a JapaneseAmerican war, Comrade Tlotsky?

Z.' It has moved some years off. America cannot wage waragainst Japan without a base on the East Asian mainland-and arming the Chinese people with the perspective of creatinga colonial war as in India would be an enperiment with un-foreseeable consequences for America and the world. Chinais a nation, lrdia was a collection of provinces. Now it isbecoming a nation, and therefore English rule in India iscoming to an end. The arming of the Chinese people by theUSSR for a fight against foreign rule, that opens a big rw-olutionary perspective in the Far EasL

.B..' How do you evaluate China's internal development?Z.' That depends on the ability of the Chinese Communist

Pargr to link up the peasant struggles with the fight of the ur-ban proletariat The main failing of the Chinese CP consistsin its excessive weakness. You will find more details on thisin our latest literature.

I|..' Now the last question. To what do you attribute thefaults of the Comintern, bureaucratization, etc., to internalRussian or to exEa-Russian causes?

?.' In the first place to internal Russian ones.Il..' Does that mean that the cure mustalso come from Russia?A.' That is not necessary! Itcan also come from outside8..' That meang-for some time at least-the destruction

of the Comintern in the presmt sense.?..' Not necessarily. You must not forget that a nerp fourth

international is only possible after a great historic event.The Third International arose from the Great War and theOctober Revolution. The worker thinks slowly, he must mulleverything over in his mind, I would say. He knows thatthe party has enlightened him and trained him as a conscious

A Conoqsation with Trotsky 179

worker, and therefore he does not change as easily as the intel-lectual. He learns not from discussions but from historicalevents. Such an event would be the victory of fascism in Ger-many. But the victory of fascism in Germany does not onlymean in all probability the collapse of the Comintern, butalso includes the defeat of the Soviet Union. Only if that takesplace-it need not necessarily take place, it can still be prevented, and every effort must of course be made to preventit-only then will we have the right to talk about a new party,about a fourth international.

[At his requesl the conoqsation was smt to Tlotsky beforepublication. Ife sent it back with the following accompanyingnote:l

October 24. 1932Dear Comrade:

There has been some delay in my reply, since my time wasvery taken up with other things.

Your note gives our conversation broadly correcfly. I shouldjust like to add a few things. Insofar as your manuscript con-cerns my evaluation of the SAP, the impression may arisethat I condemn the SAP so sharply mainly because of its inter-national connections with hopeless splinter organizations. Thatimpression would be false, since it would be onesided. Theconnection with the ILP, etc., is only the international o<tensionof the internal "line." The SAP has decided fully in favor ofthe Ledebout Policy.z21

You ask whether the centristic bureaucratization of theComintern is to be attributed to internal Russian or to extra-Russian causes. Immediately to the Russian ones, as the answerrecorded by you states. But one should not forget here thatinternal Russian development was shaped by the isolationof the Soviet union, i.e., by er<tra-Russian causes.

Such additions require many answers. However, I believethat your reader (if you publish the ninterview") will be clwerenough to draw out from it for himself what is necessary.

Friendly greetings,L. Tlotsky

GREETINGS TO THEPOLISH LEFT OPPOSITION226

August 31, 1932

In the ranks of the International Left Opposition in recentyears the question has been raised more than once: Whataccounts for the fact that the Bolshevik-Leninist faction hasnot yet encountered any significant response from the ranksof the Polish Communist Party? Polish communism has long-standing, serious theoretical baditions, going back to RosaLuxemburg. Only four organizations formed before the worldwar-quite a while before it, in fact-entered the CommunistInternational as complete units: Russian Bolshevism, the PolishSocial Democracy, the Bulgarian Tesniaki,2z1 and the DutchLeft (We do not include the Latvian Social Democracy, whichhad developed in direct connection with the Russian, whereasthe Polish Social Democracy had its own special origin andindependent position. ) All other sections of the Cominternfirst took shape as nuclei either during the war or even afterit.

But between the Polish Man<ists on the one hand and theBulgarians and Dutch on the other, there existed an enor-mous difference. The Tesniaki and the Dutch Left were propa-gandi organizations. They preached rather radical formulas,but they never went beyond the framework of preaching.The Polish Social Democracy, like Bolshevism, participatedfor one and a haU to two decades before the war in directrevolutionary struggle against czarism and capital. Whilethe party of the Tesniaki was creating at its top two types:the narrow and lifeless dogmatist of the Kabakchiev typeand the accomplished bureaucrat of the Kolarov-Dimitrovtype,228 the old Polish Social Democracy developed the typeof the genuine revolutionary. The left wing of the PPS, it istrue, brought with it a series of thoroughly formed and in-corrigible Mensheviks (Walecki' Lapinski,22e to a large extentKostrzewa, and others) into the ranks of the united Commu-nist Party. However the best of the left-wing workers, havinggone through the school of struggle against czarism, quicklyevolved in the direction of Bolshevism.

180

Gretings to the Polish Left Opposition 181

Here too a turning point came with the year 1923: yearof inglorious defeat for the revolution in Germany, and ofinglorious victory for the centrist Moscow bureaucracy, whichhad found support in the Thermidorean wave. To measurehow far the Polish epigones have fallen from Luxemburgism,it is enough to recall that Warski, once a close sfudent ofRosa's, n 1924-27 supported the policy of the Stalinists inChina and in England, in f926 welcomed Pilsudski's coupin Poland, and now, by way of Barbusse, fraternizes with theFrench Freemasons under the banner of pacifism.

It is all the more alarming then that the pernicious andunworthy course of the epigones has not produced a de'cisive rejeetion from the Polish Communist ranks, in the formof new Bolshwik-Leninists. The explanation for this fact hasits roots to a large e:<tent in the o<tremely difficult conditionsin which the Polish Communist Party has been placed, fight-ing under illegal conditions and at the same time under thedirect observation of the Stalinist general staff. Thus PolishBolshevik-Leninists must operate in an ahnosphere of doubleillegality: one flows from Pilsudski, the other . . . from Stalin.In underground conditions orpulsion from the party, whichis accompanied by vicious hounding and slander, representsa double and even a triple blow for any rwolutionary de'voted to the cause of communism. Such are the conditionsthat enplain to a certain degree the slowness with whichthe Polish Left Opposition was formed and the e:<heme cautionof its first steps.

Now these first steps have been taken. In the Polish partya hopeful nucleus has been formed of Opposition workers withcombat enperience and serious records in the party. Theyare actively engaged in banslating (into Polish and Yiddish)and distributing the literature of the International Left Opposition. They have managed to pass several pamphlets throughthe needle's eye of the Polish censorship. The first numberof the Opposition paper holetariat put out in Brussels,contains er<tensive facfual material Number 2, we heat,is being prepared for the printer. Opposition publications inRussian, German, French, and other foreign languages arealso circulating among party members in Poland. We haveno doubt that once the ideas of the Left Opposition penetratethe qualified revolutionary milieu of Polish communism, theywill meet with a broad and active response.

Warm greetings to our cothinkers in Poland!L. T.

FOURTEEN QUESTTONSON SOVIET LIFE AND MORALITIY28O

Sqrtenber 17, 1932

The question of recognizing the Soviet Union is now beingwidely discussed in the United States. Diplomatic recognition,naturally, does not mean that each side approves the politicsof the other. Ttre nonrecognition of the Soviet republic upto now has chielly been based on reasons of a moral nafursThe questions put to me by the editor of Librty cover thesegrounds.

1. Does the Sorsiet state turn rnm into robotsgWhy? I ask. The ideologists of the patriarchal system, like

Tolstoy or Ruskin, object that machine civilization turns thefree peasant and craftsman into joyless automatons. In thelast decades this charge has mostly been leveled against the in-dustrial system of America (Taylorism, Fordism).

Shall we now, perhaps, hear from Chicago and Deboit theoutcry against the soul-destroying machine? Why not returnto stone hatchets and mud dwellings, why not go back to sheep-skin coverings? No; we refuse to do thal In the field of mech-anization the Soviet republic is so far only a disciple of theUnited States- and has no intention of stopping halfway.

But perhaps the question is aimed not at mechanical op-eration but at the distinctive features of the social order. Arenot men becomi.g robots in the Soviet state because themachines are state property and not privately owned? It is'enough to ask the question clearly to show that it has nofoundation.

There remains, finally, the question of the political regime,the hard dictatorship, the highest tension of all forces, thelow standard of living of the population. There would be nosense in denying these facts. But they are the enpression not

182

Fourteen Questions on fuoid Life and Morolity 183

so much of the new regime as of the fearful inheritance ofbackwardness.

The dictatorship will have to become softer and milder asthe economic welfare of the counby is raised. The presentmethod of. cornmanding human beings will give way to oneof d.isposing ooer things. Ttre road leads not to the robotbut to man of a higher order.

2. Is the Sooiet state completely d,ominatd bg a srnall groupin the Krernlin who uercise oligarchical powers under theguise of a dictatorship of the proletariat?

No, that is not so. The same class can rule with the helpof different political systems and methods according to cir-cumstances. So the bourgeoisie on its historical road carriedthrough its rule under absolute monarchy, Bonapartism, par-liamentary republic, and fascist dictatorship. All these formsof rule retain a capitalist character insofar as the most im-portant riches of the nation, the adminishation of the meansof production, of the schools, and of the press, remain unitedin the hands of the bourgeoisig and insofar as the laws firstof all protect bourgeois property.

The Soviet regime means the rule of the proletariat irrespective of how broad the shatum in whose hands the poweris imrnediately c onc entrated.

3. Haoe the Sooiets robbed childhood of joy and turnedducation into a systern of Bolshanist propagand.a?

The education of children has always and werywhere beenconnected with propaganda. The propaganda begins by in-stilling the advantages of a handkerchief over the fingers,and rises to the advantages of the Republican plaform overthe Democratic, or vice versa. &lucation in the spirit of re.ligion is propaganda; you will surely not refuse to admit thatSt. Paul was one of the greatest of propagandists.

The worldly education supplied by the French republic issoaked with propaganda to the marrow. Its main idea is thatall virtue is inheregt in the French nation or, more accurately,in the ruling class of the French nation.

No one can possibly deny that the education of Soviet chil-dren, too, is propaganda. The only difference is that in bour-geois countries it is a question of injecting into the child respectf.or old institutions and ideas which are taken for granted.In the USSR it is a question of new ideas, and therefore thepropaganda leaps to the eye. "Propaganda," in the evil senseof the word, is the name that people usually give to the defenseand spread of such ideas as do not please them.


In times of conservatism and stability, the daily propagandais not noticeable. In times of rwolution, propaganda necessarilytakes on a belligerent and aggressive character. When I returned to Moscow from Canada with my family early in May1917, my two boys studied at a'gymnasiumn [roughly' highschool] which was attended by the children of many politicians'including some ministers of the Provisional Government. hrthe whole gymnasium there were only two Bolsheviks-mysons-and a third sympathizer. In spite of the official rule,nthe school must be free of politics," my son, barely twelveyears old, was unmercifully beaten up as a Bolshevik. AfterI was elected president of the Pebograd Soviet, my son wasnever calld anything but "presidenf and receivd a doublebeating. That was propaganda against Bolshevism.

Those parents and teachers who are devoted to the oldsociety cry out against npropaganda." If a state is to builda new societ5z, can it do otherwise than begin with the school?

"Does the Soviet propaganda rob childhood of joy?" Forwhat reason and in what manner? Soviet children play, sing,dance, and cry like all other children. The unusual care ofthe Soviet regime for the child is admitted even by malwolentobservers. Compared with the old regime' infant mortalit5zhas declined by half.

It is true, Soviet children are told nothing about originalsin and paradise In this sense one may say that the childrenare being robbed of the joys of life after death. Being no o<-pert in these matters, I dare not judge the extent of the loss.Still, the pains of this life take a certain precedence over thejoys of the life to come If children absorb the necessary quan-tity of calories, the abundance of their living forces will findreasons enough for joy.

T\vo years ago my five-year-old grandson came to me fromMoscow. Although he knew nothing whatever about God, Icould find no particularly sinful inclinations in him, enceptfor the time when with the help of some lewspapers, he suc-ceeded in hermetically sealing up the washbasin drainpipe.In order to have him mingle with other children on Prinkipo,we had to send him to a kindergarten conducted by Catholicnuns. The worthy sisters have nothing but praise for the moralsof my now nearly seven-year-old atheisL

Thanks to this same grandchild, I have been able in thepast year to make fairly close acquaintance with Russianchildren's books, those of the Soviets as wdl as of the emigres.There is propaganda in both. Yet the Soviet books are in-

Fourteen Questions on Sooiet Lifu and Morality

comparably fresher, more active, more full of life. The littleman reads and listens to these books with the greatest pleasure.No, Soviet propaganda does not rob childhood ofjoy.

4. Is Bolsheoisn d,elibqately destroying the family?5. Is Bolsheoistn suboersioe of all m.oral stand.ards in su?6 Is it true that bigamy and polygaTny are not punishable

undq the Sooiet system?If one understands by "family" a compulsory union based

on the marriage contract, the blessing of the church, propertyrights, and the single passport, then Bolshevism has destroyedthis policed family from the roots up.

If one understands by "family' the unbounded dominationof parents over children, and absence of legal rights for thewife, then Bolshevism has, unfortunately, not yet completelydestroyed this carryover of society's old barbarism.

If one understands by nfamilyn ideal monogamy-not inthe legal but in the actual sense-then the Bolsheviks couldnot destroy what never was nor is on earth, barring fortunateexceptions.

There is absolutely no foundation for the statement thatthe Soviet law on marriage has been an incentive to polygamyand polyandry. Statistics of marriage relations-actual ones-are not available, and cannot be. But even without columns offigures one can be sure that the Moscow index numbers of adul-teries and shipwrecked marriages are not much different fromthe corresponding data for New York, London, or Paris, and-who knows?- are perhaps even lower.

Against prostitution there has been a strenuous and fairlysuccessful struggle. This proves that the Soviets have no in-tention of tolerating that unbridled promiscuity which findsits most degtructive and poisonous enpression in prostitution.

A long and permanent marriage, based on mutual loveand cooperation-that is the ideal standard. The influencesof the school, of literahrre, and of public opinion in the Sovietstend toward this. Freed from the chains of police and clergy,later also from hrose of economic necessit5r, the tie betweenman and woman will find its own way, determined by phys-iology, psychology, and care for the welfare of the humanrace. The Soviet regime is still far from the solution of this,among other problems, but it has created serious prerequisitesfor a solution. In any case, the problem of marriage has ceasedto be a matter of uncritical tradition and the blind force ofcircumstance; it has been posed as a task of collective reason.

Every year live and a haU million children are born in the

185

186 Writings of Leon T?otsky (1932)

Soviet Union. The encess of births over deaths amounts tomore than three million. Czarist Russia knenr no such growthin population. This fact alone makeg it impossible to speakof moral disintegration or of a lowering of the vital forcesof the population of Russia.

7. Is it true that incest is not regard,ed. as a crirninal offense?I must admit that I have never taken an interest in this

question from the standpoint of criminal prosecution, so thatI could not answer without obtaining information as to whatthe Soviet law says about incest, if it says anything at all.Sdll, I think the whole question belongs rather to the domainof pathology on the one hand, and education on the other,rather than that of criminolory. Incest lessens the desirablequalities and the ability to survive of the human race. Forthat very reason it is regarded by the great majority of healthyhuman beings as a violation of normal gtandards.

The aim of socialism is to bring reason not only into eco'nomic relations but also as much as possible into the biologicalfunctions of man. Already today the Soviet schools are makingmany efforts to enlighten the children as to the real needs ofthe human body and the human spirit I have no reason tobelieve that the pathological cases of incest are more numerousin Russia than in other countries. At the same time, I aminclined to hold that precisely in thie field juridical interventioncan do more harm than good. I question, for o<amplg thathumanity would have been the gainer if British justice hadsent Byron to jail.

8. Is it true that a d,ioorce may be had for the asking?Of course it is true It would have been more in place to

ask another question: 'Is it true that there are stil counFieswhere divorce cannot be obtained for the asking by eitherparty to a marriage?

9. Is it trtre that the Sooiets haoe no respect for chastityin men and, uornen?

I think that in Oris field it is not respect but h5ryocrisy thathas declined.

Is there any doubt for examplg that Ivar Kreuger, thematch king, described as a dour ascetic in his lifetime andas an irreconcilable enemy of the Soviets, more than oncedenounced the irnmoral$ of the Russian boys and girls inthe Young Communist League who did not seek the blessingof the church on their embraces? Had it not besr for thefinancial wreck, Kreuger would have gone to his grave notonly as a just man on tlie stock orchange but also as a pillar

Fourteen Questions on Sooid Life and, Morality 187

of morality. But now the press reports that the number ofwomeu kept by Kreuger in various continents was severaltimes the number of the chimneys of his match factories.

French, English, and American novels describe double andtriple families not as an orception but as the ruls A verywell informed young German observer, Klaus Mehnerl whorecently had a book published on the Soviet youth, writes,nlt is true the young Russians are no paragons of virtue .

but morally they are certainly no lower than Germans of thesame age." I believe that this is bue.

In Nen' York, in February 1917, I observed one weningin a subway car about two dozen studente and their girlfriends. Although there were a number of people in the carwho were not in their party, the conduct of these most vivaciouscouples was such that one could say at once: even if theseyoung people believe in monogamy in principle in practicethey come to it by devious paths.

The aboli[on of the American dry law would by no meanssrgnify that the new admiuistration was striving to encouragedrunkenuess. In the same way, the Soviet government's ab-olition of a number of laws which were supposed to protectthe domestic hearth, chastity, etc., has nothing to do with anyeffort to destroy the permanence of the family or encouragepromiscuity. It is simply a question of attaining, by raisingthe material and cultural level, something that cannot be at-tained by formal prohibition or lifeless preaching.

10. Is the ultimate objet of Bolshasism to rqroduce thebeehioe or the ant stage in hurnan life?

11. In what respet does the id.eal of Bolsheoism d.iffr frornthe state of cioilization that woul.d, prasail on earth if insectss*urd, controQ

Both questions are unfair to the insects as well as to man.Neither ants nor bees have to answer for such monstrositiesas fill human history. On the other hand, no matter how badhuman beings may be, they have possibilities which no insectcan reach. It would not be difficult to prove that the task ofthe Soviets is precisely this-to destroy the ant characteristicsof human socie$r.

The fact is, bees as well as ants have classes: some workor fight, others specialize in reproduction. Can one see in sucha specialization of social functions the ideal of Bolshevism?These are rather the characteristics of our present-day civili-zation carried to the limiL Certain species of ants make slavesof brother ants of different color.


The Soviet system does not reeemble this at all. The antshave not yet wen produced their John Brown or AbrahamLincoln.

Benjamin Franklin described man as nthe tool-making an-imal.n This notable characterization is at the bottom of theMarxist interpretation of history. The artificial tool has releasedman from the animal kingdom and has given impetus to thework of the human intellect; it has caused the changes fromslavery to feudalism, capitalism, and the Soviet system.

The meaning of the question is clearly that a universal all-embracing control must kill individuality. The evil of the Sovietsystem would then consist in its orcessive control, would itnot? Yet a series of other questions, as we have seen, accusesthe Soviets of refr.rsal to bring under state control the mostintimate fidds of personal life-love, family, sex relations.The contradiction is perfectly wident

The Soviets by no means make it their task to put undercontrol the intellectual and the moral powers of man. On thecontrary, through control of economic life they want to freewery human personality from the control of the market andits blind forces.

Ford organized automobile production on the conveyorsystem and thereby obtained an enormous output. The taskof socialism, when one gets down to the principle of productivetechnique, is to organize the entire national and internationaleconomy on the conveyor system, on the basis of a plan andof an accurate proportionment of its parts. The conveyor prin-ciple, transferred from single factories to all factories and farms,must result in such an output performance thal comparedwith it Ford's achievement will look like a miserable handi-craft shop alongside of Detroit. Once man hasconquered nature,he will no longer have to earn his daily bread by the sweatof his brow. That is the prerequisite for the liberation of per-sonalit5r.

As soon as three or four hours, let us say, of daily laborsuffice to satisfy liberally all material wants, wery man andwoman will have twen$ hours left over, free of all ncontrol"

Queetions of education, of perfecting the bodily and spiritualstrucfure of man, will occupy the center of general attention.The philosophical and scientific schools, the opposing tendenciesin literature, architecturq and art in general will for the firgttime be of vital concern not merely to a top layer but to thewhole mass of the population. Freed from the pressure of blindeconomic forces, the struggle of groups, tendencies, and schools

Fourteen Questions on Sooiet Life and. Morality 189

will take on a profoundly ideal and unselfish character. Inthis atmosphere human personality will not dry up, but onthe conbary for the first time will come to full bloom.

12. Is it true that Sooietism teaches child.rm not to respecttheir parents?

No; in such a general form this assertion is a mere cari-cature. Sdll, it is true that rapid progress in the realms oftechnique, ideas, or manners generally diminishes the authorityof the older generation, including that of parents. When pro-fessors lecture on the Darwinian theory, the authority of thoseparents who believe that Eve was made from Adam's rib canonly decline.

In the Soviet Union all conflicts are incomparably sharperand more painful. The mores of the Young Communists mustinwitably collide with the authority of the parents who wouldstill like to use their own good judgment in marrying off theirsons and daughters. The Red Army man who has learnedhow to handle tractors and combines cannot acknowledgethe technical authority of his father who works with awooden plow.

To maintain his dignity, the father can no longer merelypoint with his hand to the icon and reinforce this gesture witha slap on the face. The parents resort to spirifual weapons.The children who base themselves on the official authorityof the school show themselves, howwer, to be the better armed.The injured arnour propre of the parents often turns againstthe state. This usually happens in those families which arehostile to the new regime in its fundamental tasks. The ma-jority of proletarian parents reconcile themselves to the lossof part of their parental authority more readily as the statetakes over the greater part of their parental cares. Still, thereare conllicts of the generations even in these circles. Amongthe peasants they take on special sharpness. Is this good orbad? I think it is good. Otherwise there would be no goingforward.

Permit me to point to my own experience At seventeen Ihad to break away from home. My father had attempted todetermine the course of my lile. He told me, "Even in threehundred years the things you are aiming for will not cometo pass.n And, at that, it was only a question of the over-throwing of the monarchy. Later my father understood thelimits of his influence and my relations with my family wererestored. After the October Rwolution he saw his mi:stake"Your truth was stronger," he said. Such oramples were counted


by the thousand; later on, by hundreds of thousands and mil-lions. They characterize the critical upheaval of a period when"the bond of ages" goes to pieces.

13. Is it true that BolsheDism pmalizes religion and out-lano s relig ious worship?

This deliberately deceptive assertion has been refuted a thou-sand times by completely indisputable facts, proofs, and tes-timony of witresses. Why does it always come up anew?Because the church considers itself persecuted when it is notsupported by the budget and the police force and when itsopponents are not subject to the reprisals of persecution.

In many states the scientific criticism of religious faiths isconsidered a crime; in others it is merely tolerated. The Sovietstate acts otherwise. Far from considering religious worshipa crime, it tolerates the existence of various religions, but atthe same time openly supports materialist propaganda againstreligious belief. It is precisely this situation which the churchinterprets as religious persecution.

14. Is it true that the Bolsheoist stste, while hostile toreligion, neosrtheless capita,lizes on the prejudices of the ig-norant masses? For instarrce, the Russians d.o not considqang saint truly acceptable to heaom unless his bod.y defiesdecomposition. Is that the reason why the Bolsheoists arti-ficially presense the rnummA of Lenin?

No; this is a wholly incorrect interpretation, dictated byprejudice and hostility. I can make this statement all the morefreely because from the very beginning I have been a deter-mined opponent of the embalming, mausoleum, and the rest,as was also Lenin's widow, N. K. Krupskaya.23l Jhsls igno doubt whatever that if Lenin on his sickbed had thoughtfor a moment that they would treat his corpse like that of apharaoh, he would have appealed in advance, with indignation,to the party. I brought this objection forward as my mainargument. The body of Lenin must not be used against thespirit of Lenin.

I also pointed to the fact that the nincorruptibility" of theembalmed corpse of Lenin might nourish religious superstitions.Krasin,232 who defended and apparently initiated the ideaof the embalming, objected: "On the contrary, what was amatter of miracle with the priests will become a matter oftechnology in our hands. Millions of people will have an ideaof how the man looked who brought such great changes intothe life of our country. With the help of science, we will satisfy

Fourtem Questions on Sooid Life and' Morolity 191

this justifiable interest of the masses and at the same timeer<plain to them the mystery of incorruptibility'"

Undeniably the erection of the mausoleum had a politicalaim: to shengthen the authorit;z of the disciples eternallythrough the authority of the teacher. Still, there is no groundto see in this a capitalization of religious superstition. Themausoleum visitors are told that the credit for the preservationof the body from decomposition is due to chemistry.

Our answers absolutely do not attempt to gloss over thepresent situation in the Soviet IJnion, to underestimate theeconomic and cultural achievements, nor still less to representsocialism as a stage which has already been reached. TheSoviet regime is and will remain for a long time a transitionalregimg full of conhadiction and extreme difficulties. Still, wemust take the facts in the light of their development. The SovietUnion took over the inheritance of the Romanov empire233For fifteen years it has lived surrounded by a hostile world.

The situation of a besieged forEess has given the dictatorshipparticularly crude forms. The policies of Japan are least ofall calculated to dwelop in Russia a feeling of security; butalso the fact that the United States, which carried on waragainst the Soviets on Soviet territory, has not taken up dip-lomadc relations with Moscow to this very day has had anenormous and, naturally, negative inlluence on the internalregime of the country.

PEASANT WAR IN CHINA AND THEPROLETARIAT2s4

Sqrtember 22, lg32

Dear Comrades:After a long delay, we received your letter of June 15. Need-

less to say we were overjoyed by the revival and the renascenceof the Chinese Left Opposition, despite the most ferocious policepersecutions it had endured.

Our irreconcilable attitude toward the vulgar democraticStalinist position on the peasant movement has, of coursqnothing in common with a careless or passive attitude towardthe peasant movement itself. The manifesto of the InternationalLeft Opposifiep2ss that was issued two years ago and thatwaluated the peasant movement in the southern provincesof China declared: 'The Chinese revolution, behayed, defeated,o<hausted, shows that it is stiil alive. Let us hope that thetime when it will again lift its proletarian head is not far off.nFurther on it says: "Ttre vast flood of peasant revolts canunquestionably provide the impulse for the revival of politicalstruggle in the indushial centers. We firmly count on it.n

Your letter testifies that under the influence of the crisis andthe Japanese intervention, against the background of thepeasant war, the struggle of the city workers is burgeoningonce again. In the manifesto we wrote about this possibilitywith necessary caution: "Nobody can foretell now whether thehearths of the peasant revolt can keep a fire burning throughthe whole long period of time which the proletarian vanguardwill need to gather its own strength, bring the working classinto the fight, and coordinate its struggle for power with thegeneral offensive of the peasants against their most immediateenemieg."

r92

Peasant War in China and the Proletariat 193

At the present time it is evident that there are substantialgrounds for expressing the hope that, through a correct policy'it will be possible to unite the workers' movement, and theurban movement in general, with the peasant war; and thiswould constitute the beginning of the third Chinese revolution.But in the meantime this still remains only a hope, not a cer-tainty. The most important work lies ahead.

In this letter I want to pose only one question which seems

to me, at least from afar, to be the most important and acute.Once again I must remind you that the information at mydisposal is altogether insufficient, accidental, and disjointed.I would indeed welcome any amplification and correction.

The peasant movement has created its own armies, hasseized great territories, and has installed its own institutions.In the event of further successes-and all of us, of course,passionately desire such successes-the movement will becomelinked up with the urban and industrial centers and, throughthat very fac! it will come face to face with the working class.What will be the nature of this encounter? Is it certain thatits character will be peaceful and friendly?

At first glance the question might appear to be superfluous.T'he peasant movement is headed by Communists or sympa-thizers. Isn't it self-evident that in the event of their comingtogether the workers and the peasants must unanimously uniteunder the Communist banner?

Unfortunately the question is not at all so simple Let merefer to the experience of Russia. During the years of the civilwar the peasanhy in various parts of the counhy created itsown guerrilla detachments, which sometimes grew into full-fledged armies. Some of these detachments considered them-selves Bolshevik, and were often led by workers. Othersremained nonparty and most often were led by former non-commissioned officers from among the peasantry. There wasalso an "anarchisf army under the command of Makhno.236

So long as the guerrilla armies operated in the rear of theWhite Guards, they served the cause of the revolution. Someof them were distinguished by erceptional heroism and for-titude. But within the cities these armies often came into conflictwith the workers and with the local party organizations. Con-flicts also arose during encounters of the partisans with theregular Red Army, and in some instances they took an en-

tremely painful and sharp character.The grim orperience of the civil war demonstrated to us

the necessity of disarming peasant detachments immediately

194 Writings of Leon TrotskE (1932)

after the Red Army occupied provinces which had been clearedof the White Guards. In these cases the best, the most class-conscious and disciplined elements were absorbed into the ranksof the Red Army. But a considerable portion of the partisansstrived to maintain an independent s<istence and often cameinto direct armed conflict with the Soviet power. Such was thecase with the anarchist army of Makhno, entirely kulak inspiriL But that was not the sole instance; many peasant de-tachments, which fought splendidly enough against the res-toration of the landlords, became transformed after victoryinto instruments of counterrevolution.

Regardless of their origin in each isolated instance-whethercaused by conscious provocaton of the White Guards, or bytactlessness of the Communists, or by an unfavorable com-bination of circumstances- the conflicts between armed peasantsand workers were rooted in one and the same social soil:the difference between the class position and training of theworkers and of the peasants. The worker approaches questionsfrom the socialist standpoint; the peasant's viewpoint is pettybourgeois. The worker strives to socialize the property thatis taken away from the exploiters; the peasant seeks to divideit up. The worker desires to put palaces and parks to commonuse; the peasant, insofar as he cannot divide them, inclinesto burning the palaces and cutting down the parks. The workerstrives to solve problems on a national scale and in accordancewith a plan; the peasanL on the other hand, approaches allproblems on a local scale and takes a hostile attitude to cen-tralized planning, etc.

It is understood that a peasant also is capable of raisinghimself to the socialist viewpoint. Under a proletarian regimemore and more masses of peasants become reeducated in thesocialist spirit. But this requires time, years, even decades.It should be borne in mind that in the initial stages of rev-olution, contradictions between proletarian socialism andpeasant individualism often take on an exhemely acutecharacter.

But after all aren't there Communists at the head of theChinese Red armies? Doesn't this by itself exclude the pos-sibility of conflicts between the peasant detachments and theworkers' organizations? No, that does not srclude iL Thefact that individual Communists are in the leadership of thepresent armies does not at all transform the social characterof these armies, even if their Communist leaders bear a def-inite proletarian stamp. And how do matters stand in China?

Peasant War in China and the Proletariat 195

Among the Communist leaders of Red detachments thereindubitably are many declassed intellectuals and semi-intel-lectuals who have not gone through the school of proletarianstruggle. For two or three years they live the lives of partisancommanders and commissars; they wage battles, seize ter-ritories, etc. They absorb the spirit of their environment. Mean-while the majority of the rank-and-file Communists in the Reddetachments unquestionably consists of peasants, who assumethe name Communist in all honesty and sincerity but whoin actuality remain revolutionary paupers or revolutionarypetty proprietors. In politics he who judges by denominationsand labels and not by social facts is lost. All the more sowhen the politics concerned is carried out arms in hand.

The true Communist party is the organization of the pro-letarian vanguard. But we must not forget that the workingclass of China has been kept in an oppressed and amorphouscondition during the last four years, and only recently hasit evinced signs of rwival. It is one thing when a Communistparty, firmly resting on the flower of the urban proletariat,strives through the workers to lead a peasant war. It is analtogether different thing when a few thousand or even tensof thousands of revolutionists, who are truly Communists oronly take the name, assume the leadership of a peasant warwithout having serious support from the proletariaL This isprecisely the situation in China. This acts to augment to anextreme the danger of conflicts between the workers and thearmed peasants. In any event, one may rest assured therewill be no dearth of bourgeois provocateurs.

In Russia, in the period of civil war, the proletariat wasalready in power in the greater part of the country, the leader-ship of the struggle was in the hands of a strong and temperedparty, the entire commanding apparatus of the centralizedRed Army was in the hands of the workers. Notwithstandingall this, the peasant detachments, incomparably weaker thanthe Red Army, often came into conflict with it after it victori-ously moved into peasant guerrilla sectors.

In China the situation is radically different and moreovercompletely to the disadvantage of the workers. In the mostimportant regions of China the power is in the hands ofbourgeois militarists; in other regions, in the hands of leadersof armed peasants. Nowhere is there any proletarian poweras yet. The trade unions are weak. The influence of the partyamong the workers is insignificant. The peasant detachments,flushed with victories they have achieved, stand under the wing


of the Comintern. They call themselves "the Red Army,n i.e.,they identify themselves with the armed forces of the Soviets.What results consequently is that the revolutionary peasantryof China, in the person of its ruling sbatum, seems to haveappropriated to itself beforehand the political and moral capitalwhich should by the nature of things belong to the Chineseworkers. Isn't it possible that things may turn out so thatall this capital will be directed at a certain moment againstthe workers?

Naturally the peasant poor, and in China they constitutethe overwhelttring majority, to the extent they think politically,and these comprise a small minority, sincerely and passionatelydesire alliance and friendship with the workers. But thepeasantry, even when armed, is incapable of conducting anindependent policy.

Occupying in daily life an intermediate, indeterminate, andvacillating position, the peasantry at decisive moments canfollow either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. The peasantrydoes not find the road to the proletariat easily but only aftera series of mistakes and defeats. The bridge between the peas-antry and the bourgeoisie is provided by the urban pettybourgeoisie, chiefly by the intellectuals, who commonly comeforward under the banner of socialism and even communism.

Ttre commanding stratum of the Chinese "Red Army" hasno doubt succeeded in inculcating itself with the habit of is-suing commands. The absence of a strong revolutionary partyand of mass organizations of the proletariat renders controlover the commanding stratum virtually impossible. The com-manders and commissars appear in the guise of absolutemasters of the situation and upon occupying cities will berather apt to look down from above upon the workers. Thedemands of the workers might often appear to them eitherinopportune or ill-advised.

Nor should one forget such "trifles" as the fact that withincities the staffs and offices of the victorious armies are estab-lishd not in the proletarian huts but in the finest city buildings,in the houses and aparhnents of the bourgeoisie; and all thisfacilitates the inclination of the upper stratum of the peasantarmies to feel itself part of the "cultured" and "educated" classes,in no way part of the proletariat.

Thus in China the causes and grounds for conflicts betweenthe army, which is peasant in composition and petty bourgeoisin leadership, and the workers not only are not eliminatedbut on the contrary, all the circumstances are such as to

Pmsant War in China and the Proletariat L97

greatly increase the possibility and even the inevitability ofsuch conflicts; and in addition the chances of the proletariatare far less favorable to begin with than was the case inRussia.

From the theoretical and political side the danger is increasedmany times because the Stalinist bureaucracy covers up thecontradictory situation by its slogan of "democratic dictatorship"of workers and peasants. Is it possible to conceive of a snaremore attractive in appearance and more perfidious in essence?The epigones do their thinking not by means of social concepts,but by means of stereotyped phrases; formalism is the basictrait of bureaucracy.

The Russian Narodniks used to accuse the Russian Marxistsof "ignoring' the peasantry, of not carrying on work in thevillages, etc. To this the Marxists replied: 'We will arouse andorganize the advanced workers and through the workers weshall arouse the peasants." Such in general is the only con-ceivable road for the proletarian party.

The Chinese Stalinists have acted otherwise. During therevolution of 1925-27 they subordinated directly and immedi-ately the interests of the workers and the peasants to theinterests of the national bourgeoisie. In the years of the counter-revolution they passed over from the proletariat to the peas-antry, ie., they undertook that role which was fulfilled in ourcountry by the SRs when they were still a revolutionary party.Had the Chinese Communist Part5r concentrated its efforts forthe last few years in the cities, in industry, on the railroads;had it sustained the trade unions, the educational clubs andcircles; had it, without breaking off from the workers, taughtthem to understand what was occurring in the villages-theshare of the proletariat in the general correlation of forceswould have been incomparably more favorable today.

The party actually tore itself away from its class. Therebyin the last analysis it can cause injury to the peasantry aswell. For should the proletariat continue to remain on thesidelines, without organLation, without leadership, then thepeasant war even if fully victorious will inwitably arrive ina blind alley.

In old China every victorious peasant revolution was con-cluded by the creation of a new dynasty, and subsequentlyalso by a new group of large proprietors; the movement wascaught in a vicious circle Under present conditions the peasantwar by itse[ without the direct leadership of the proletarianvanguard, can only pass on the power to a new bourgeois


clique, some "left" Kuomintang or other, a "third party," etc.,

etc., which in practice will differ very little from the Kuomintangof Chiang Kai-shel<. And this would signify in turn a newmassacre of the workers with the weapons of ndemocratic

dictatorship."What then are the conclusions that follow from all this? The

first conclusion is that one must boldly and openly face thefacts as they are. The peasant movement is a mighty revolu-f,onary factor insofar as it is directed against the large land-owners, militarists, feudalists, and usurers. But in the peasantmovement itself are very powerful proprietary and reactionarytenderrcies, and at a certain stage it can become hostile to theworkers and sustain that hostility already equipped with arms.He who forgets about the dual nature of the peasantry is nota Marxist. The advanced workers must be taught to distinguishfrom among "communisf labels and banners the actual socialprocesses.

The activities of the "Red armies" must be attentively followed,and the workers must be given a detailed explanation of thecourse, significance, and perspectives of the peasant war; andthe immediate demands and the tasks of the proletariat mustbe tied up with the slogans for the liberation of the peasantry.

On the bases of our own observations, reports, and otherdocuments we must painstakingly study the life processes ofthe peasant armies and the regime established in the regionsoccupied by them; we must discover in living facts the con-tradictory class tendencies and clearly point out to the workersthe tendencies we support and those we oppose.

We must follow the interrelations between the Red armiesand the local workers with special care, without overlookingeven the minor misunderstandings between them. Within theframework of isolated cities and regions, conllicts, wen if acute,might appear to be insignificant local episodes. But with thedwelopment of events, class conflicts may take on a nationalscope and lead the revolution to a catastrophe, ie., to a newmassacre of the workers by the peasants, hoodwinked by thebourgeoisie. The history of revolutions is full of suchexamples.

The more clearly the advanced workers understand the livingdialectic of the class interrelations of the proletariat, the peas-antry, and the bourgeoisie, the more confidently will they seehunity with the peasant strata closest to them, and the moresuccessfully will they counteract the counterrevolutionary pro-vocateurs within the peasant armies themselves as well aswithin the cities.

Peasant War in China and the holetariat 199

The tradeunion and the party units must be built up; theadvanced workers must be educated, the proletarian vanguardmust be brought together and drawn into the battle.

We must turn to all the members of the official CommunistParty with words of explanation and challenge. It is quiteprobable that the rank-and-file Communists who have beenled astray by the Stalinist faction will not understand us atonce. The bureaucrats will set up a howl about our "under-estimation" of the peasanhy, perhaps even about our Trostility'to the peasantry. (Chernov23? always accused Lenin of beinghostile to the peasantry.) Naturally such howling will notconfuse the Bolshevik-Leninists. When prior to April 1927we warned against the inevitable coup d'etat of Chiang Kai-shek, the Stalinists accused us of hostility to the Chinesenational revoludon. Events have demonstrated who was right.Events will provide a confirmation this time as well.

The Left Opposition may turn out to be too weak to directev€nts in the interests of the proletariat at the present stageBut we are sufficiently shong right now to point out to theworkers the correct road and, in the dwelopment of the classstruggle, to demonstrate to the workers our correchress andpolitical insight. Only in this way can a revolutionary partygain the confidence of the workets, only in this way will itgrow, become strong, and take its place at the head of thepopular masses.

Postscript, September 26, 1932In order to express my ideas as clearly as possible, let me

sketch the following variant which is theoretically quitepossible.

Let us assume that the Chinese Left Opposition carries onin the near future widespread and successful work amongthe industrial proletariat and attains the preponderant influenceover it. The official party, in the meantime, continues to con-centrate all its forces on the "Red atmies" and in the peasantregions. The moment arrives when the peasant troops occupythe industrial centers and are brought face to face with theworkers. In such a situation, in what manner will the ChineseStalinists act?

It is not difficult to foresee that they will counterpose thepeasant army to the "counterrwolutionary Trotskyists" in ahostile manner. In other words, they will incite the armedpeasants against the advanced workers. This is what theRussian SRs and the Mensheviks did in 1917; having lostthe workers, they fought might and main for support among


the soldiers, inciting the barracks against the factory, the armedpeasant against the worker Bolshevik. Kerensky, Tseretelli,and Dan, if they did not label the Bolsheviks outright ascountemevolutionists, called them either nunconscious aides"or "involuntary agents" of counterrevolution. The Stalinistsare less choice in their application of political terminology.But the tendency is the same: malicious incitement of the peas-ant, and generally petty-bourgeois, elements against the van-guard of the working class.

Bureaucratic centrism, as centrism, cannot have an inde.pendent class supporl But in its struggle against the Bolshevik-Leninists it is compelled to seek support from the right, ie,from the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie, counterposingthem to the proletariat The struggle between the two Com-munist factions, the Stalinists and the Bolshevik-Leninists, thusbears in itself an inner tendmcA toward bansformation intoa class struggle The revolutionary dwelopment of events inChina may draw this tendency to its conclusion, i.e, to acivil war between the peasant army led by the Stalinists andthe proletarian vanguard led by the Leninists.

Were such a tragic conflict to arise, due entirely to the ChineseStalinists, it would signify that the Left Opposition andthe Stalinists ceased to be Communist factions and had becomehostile political parties, each having a different class base

However is such a perspective inevitable? No, I don't thinkso at all. Within the Stalinist faction (the official ChineseCommunist Party) there are not only peasant, ie., pett5r-bour-geois tendencies but also proletarian tendencies. It is o<tremelyimportant for the Left Opposition to seek to establish connec-tions with the proletarian wing of the Stalinists by presentingto them the Mamist evaluation of "Red armies" and the inter-relations between the proletariat and the peasantry in general.

While maintaining its political independence, the proletarianvanguard must be ready always to assure united action withrevolutionary democracy. While we refuse to identify the armedpeasant detachment with the Red army as ttre armed powerof the proletariat and have no inclination to shut our eyesto the fact that the Communist banner hides the petty-bour-geois content of the peasant movement, wq on the other hand,take an absolutely clear view of the tremendous revolutionary-democratic significance of the peasant war. We teach theworkers to appreciate its significance and we are ready to doall in our power in order to achieve the necessary militaryalliance with the peasant organizations.

Peasant War in China and the holetariat 20t

Consequently our task consists not only in preventing thepolitical-military command over the proletariat by the petty-bourgeois democracy that leans upon the armed peasant, butin preparing and ensuring the proletarian leadership of thepeasant movement, its "Red armies" in particular.

Ttre more clearly the Chinese Bolshevik-Leninists compretrendthe political events and the tasks that spring from them, themore successfully will they er<tend their base within the pro-Ietariat Ttre more persistently they carry out the policy ofthe united front in relation to the official party and the peasantmovement led by it, the more surely will they succeed notonly in shielding the revolution from a terribly da.ngerousconflict between the proletariat and the peasantry and inensuring the necessary united action between the two revolution-ary classes, but also in bansforming their united front intothe historical step toward the dictatorship of the proletariat

..DO NOT ASK SO LONG''238

. Sqrtember 22, 1932

To Osoobozhdmie

Dear Comrades:I continue to receive Osoobozhdeme regularly, and atten-

tively follow the work of your publication.The Czechoslovak government dragged out the question of

my visa for several months. First they offered me conditions:to live in a definite place and for not more than eight weeks,only to get medical heabnent, not to meet anyone, not to receive journalists, etc., etc. I accepted all these conditions. Afterall this the visa was refused; in my opinion, for not a singlewell-founded reason. AU this contradicts the words of theRussian poet: nDo not ask so long for a decisive refusal." Buthere the question is not about a visa. .

Our Chinese comrades have recovered following the cruelpolice repressions. I am sending you a letter to them and theanSwer.

On reading it you will see how far our Belgian section isadvancing. We are also having considerable success inGermany. Inside the SAP a considerable faction of ours is beingcreated, which is on the eve of splitting and coming over to us.

Ttre economic situation in the USSR is exhemely strained.It is impossible to follow without extreme unease the contra-dictions between the fiery trumpeting of the official Stalinistpress and the advancing crisis of the Soviet economy. Youwill find material on this in the Biulleten which has just ap-peared, and in the no<t issue there will be a special long articleon this question'

A warm handshake.Your L. Tiotsky

202

FROM THE ARCHIVES2s9

September 1932

Tomsky on the Endurance of Indian Elephants

On January 20, 1926, in the days of the greatest sharpeningof the struggle between the right-centrist bloc and the Zinovievistopposition, Tomsky said at the Putilov factory:

"The par$r understands Madimir Ilyich's teaching, under-stands that the main danger lies in a split. Vladimir tryichsaw this danger too; it was his last thought, when he calledthe workers of the Central Committee and the Central ControlCommission to see to it, irrespective of persons, that differencesof opinion and splits not be permitted. If anyone erred, hewas to be condemned. There was no need to crucify him, tochop him off, as they wanted to do with Trotsky. Do perhapsa quarter of what was done to Trotsky. But what was doneto Trotsky not even an Indian elephant could bear!"

Tomsky, who was at that time carrying out Stalin's com-mands, was trying to insure himseU by setting a limit beyondwhich one cannot go in persecution: as a standard the en-durance of the Indian elephant was indicated. Tomsky's cri-terion was too primitive. br revolutionary politics enduranceis determined above all by the significance and correcblessof the ideas represented by a given person or a given group.Historical e:<perience shows that real revolutionaries, supportedby a scientific doctrine, are capable in struggle with enemiesand with hostile tendencies of leaving far behind all endurancerecords set up by the thickest-skinned Indian elephants.

Stalin in the Epoch of the "Triumvirate"At the time of the Tbelfth Party Congress [1923], when the

"triumvirate" (Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenw) appeared openlyon the arena for the first time as a nucleus of the "Leninistold guard' in the struggle against Trotsky, Stalin defendedthe indissolubility of the Leninist core in the following heart-felt words:

203


"I cannot, comrades, ignore the attack of Comrade Osinskyzaoagainst Comrade Zinoviev. He praised Comrade Stalin,praised Comrade Kamenev, and struck out at ComradeZinoviev, thinking that at first it is enough to eliminate one,and that then will come the others' turn. He has taken thecourse of destroying the nucleus which has been formed insidethe Central Committee during years of work, in order to destroy everything later, step by step. If Comrade Osinskyseriously intends to undertake such attacks against one oranother member of our Central Committee, I must warn himthat he will bump into a stone wall on which, I fear, he willsmash his head."

The subsequent course of events has shown that the nstone

wall" of the Leninist old guard proved to consist of semi-SocialDemocrats, semi-Mensheviks, bourgeois liberals, and the like.

Molotov as a Trotskyist Contrabandist"This must be said straight out: the party did not have the

clarity and decisiveness which the revolutionary moment demanded. It did not have them because it did not have a suf-ficiently definite orientation toward socialist revolution.Agitation and the revolutionary work of the partlr as a wholedid not have a lirm foundation, for thought had not yetreached bold conclusions about the necessity of direct strugglefor socialism and socialist revolution."

Thus Molotov describes the policy of the part5z until thearrival of Lenin in Russia in April 1917, in the Germanedition of Rabochaya Litraturo [Workers' Literature] numberl-2, p.36. In the same article Molotov says:

"From the time of Lenin's arrival in Russia in April 1917our party felt firm soil under its feet . . . Up to this momentthe party merely felt its way weakly and without confi-dsnss'241 (p.BS).

We have given the quotations in translation back from theGerman, since we do not have the Russian edition of the articleon hand. We shall be very grateful if any of our friends canget us Molotov's Trotskyist contraband in the original.

"Tales of Differences Between Lenin and Trotsky"In the notes to the sixteenth volume of Lenin's Collectud

Works, published during the author's lifetime we read:"Tales of differences betwem Lenin and Trotsky during the

civil war were widespread among the bourgeoisie and petty

From the Archioes 205

bourgeoisie, and sometimes reached the counhysidg stronglyinllated by kulak elements" ( Collected Works, volume 16,p. 505).

The bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and kulak elements thenfound themselves successors and continuators in the form ofthe Stalinist bureaucracy.

Lenin on Slanders Against TrotskYOn March 1, 1920, Lenin said at the All-Russian Congress

of Working Cossacks:'British writers have written that the armies all over the

world are disintegrating, and that if there is any country inthe world whose army is gaining strength, that country isSoviet Russia. They hied to slander Comrade Trotsky andsaid that this was so because the Russian army is being keptunder iron discipline, which is enforced by ruthless mea-sures . ." (Collected Works, volume 17, p. 32) [CollectedWorks, volume 30, "speech Delivered at the First All-RussianCorigress of Working Cossacks,"March 1, 1920].

The British writers of Churchill's school did not, as is known,remain without successors and imitators.

"Democratic DictatorshiP"and "Dictatorship of the Democracy"

The well-known Left Menshevik Sukhanov2a2 writes abouthis political position at the end of May 1917:

". I personally fully supported those who were demandingthe complete removal of the bourgeoisie from power; and Ibegan to use the term 'dictatorship of the democracy' a loln

On March 23, 1919, Lenin wrote on the same topic:"Attempts are sornetimes made to lend these words what is

consider-ed to be grealer force by speaking of the 'dictatorshipof democracy.' That is sheer nonsense We know perfectlywell from history that the dictatorship of the democratic bour-geoisie meant nothing but the suppression of the insurgentworkers" (Colluted Works, volume 16, p. 141) [ibid.' volume29, nReport on Work in the Countryside," March 23, 1919].

All this did not prevent the "democratic dictatorship" fromgetting into the program of the Comintern, as a state aboveclasses.

Lenin on Party l)emocracy, Discipline' and UnityThe Bolshevik-Leninlsts stand for democracy in all prole

tarian organizations. But it is fully apparent that the amount


of democracy and its methods will differ not only as a resultof the general objective conditions, but also, above all, inview of the nature of the proletarian organizations themselves.The democracy of a trade union must have an immeasurablywider base than party democracy, which is limited in advanceby definite program, tactics, and political tradition. In turn,party democracy is necessarily broader than the democracyof a faction.

On July 3, 1909, Lenin wrote:"In our part5r Bolshevism is represented by the Bolshevik

seetion- But a section is not a party. A party can containa whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinion, the e:rhemesof which may be sharply contradictory. In the German party,side by side with the pronouncedly revolutionary wing ofKautsky,* we see the ultrarevisionist wing of Bernstein. Thatis not the case within a section. A section in a party is a groupof likeminded pusons formed for the purpose primarily ofinfluencing the party in a definite direction, for the purposeof securing acceptance for their principles in the party in thepurest possible form' (Collected Works, volume 11, part ip. 282) [ibid., volume 15, "Report on the Conference of theExtended &litorial Board of. holetary,nJuly 3, 19091.

This important thought, which we find in Lenin more thanonce, must be very seriously thought through and carefullyassimilated by the Left Opposition.

How Lenin conceived of the normal relations between theCentral Committee and the local party organizations is wellshown by Lenin's letter of June 6, 1917, to the Petrogradcommittee:

"If you, comrades, have weighty and serious reasons fornot trusting the Central Committee, then say so openly. It isthe duty of wery member of our democratically organizedparty to do so, and then it would be the duty of our part5z'sCentral Committee to give special consideration to this distrustof yours, report it to the par$r congress and enter into specialnegotiations with a view to overcoming this deplorable lackof confidence in the Central Committee on the part of the localorganization" (first legal PC, minutes, p. 129) [ibid., volume

*Notg by the way: in his article on history ("historiC' for igno-rance), Stalin asserted that from 1903 Lenin was demanding a splitwith the Kautskians. In fact, in July 1909 he writes of the "clearlyrevolutionary wing of Kautsky." Rosa Luxemburg was alreadyat that time engaged in sharp struggle with Kautsky.

From the Archioes 207

24, "Lehter to the District Committees of the Petrograd Organi-zation of the RSDLP (Bolshevik)," May 31, 19171.

On January 23, 192t, Lenin wrote:"There being deep and basic disagreements on principle-

we may well be asked-do they not serve as a vindicationfor the sharpest and most factional pronouncements? Is itpossible to vindicate such a thing as a splil provided thereis need to drive home some entirely new idea?nI believe it is, provided of course the disagreements aretruly very deep and there is no other way to rectify a wrongEend in the policy of the party or of the working class"(Collqted Works, volume 18, part \ p. 47) [ibid., volume32, nOnce Again on the Trade IJnions," January 25, l92ll.

The theory and practice of Lenin have, as we see, nothingin common with the disciplinary crednism which has beenimplanted in the Communist Part5r and the Comintern by theStalinist apparatus.

Christian G. BakovskyIn the notes to Lenin's Collutd,Works, involume 17, which

came out in the author's lifetime, the following brief charactersketch of Rakovsky is given:

"Rakovsky, Ch.-active in the Rumanian SD movement,participant at Zimmenrald and KientJral,z4s member of the'Zimmerwald Leff,' Imprisoned during the war by theRumanian government for internationalist propaganda. R wasfreed in 1917 by the revolutionary Russian troops and sincethen has worked in Russia, occupying the post of presidentof the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SovietSocialist Republic. Member of the CC of the Communist Partyof the Ukraine and the CC RCP. One of the founders andprominent figures of the Third Internationaln (Collected Works,volume 17, p. 448).

Lenin on Sverdlov and StalinIn his funeral speech on Sverdlov,244 aveiding exaggerated

praise even in respect to the dead, Lenin said, on March 18,1 919:

". the fact that the leading groups of the part5r could sofirmly, quickly, and unanimously decide the most difficult prob-lems is due entirely to the prominent place among themoccupied by such an enceptionally talented organizer as YakovSverdlov," who combined a knowledge of the personal com-position of the party, a flair for practicg and incontestable


authority. "The work he performed as an organizer . willbe performed in the future only if we appoint whole groupsof men . and if these men, following in his footsteps, comenear to doing what this one man did alone [ibid., volume29, "Speech in Memory of Y. M. Sverdlov at a Special Sessionof the All-Russian Central &ecutive Committee," March 18,19191.

Lenin saw in Sverdlov an organizer, as also in Stalin. Itis therefore instructive to compare this description of Sverdlovwith later descriptions of Stalin.

From Lenin's opinion of Sverdlov-and this opinion wasrepeated more than once by him-it is fully apparent thatthe work of leading party organizer was in the prwious periodin the hands of Sverdlov, not of Stalin. As far as the futurewas concerned, Lenin considered Sverdlov could not be replaced by an individual, but only by a collective, in the formof the organizational bureau. Tlue to his evaluation of peopleand circumstances, Lenin in March 1922 spoke out decisivelyagainst the appoinbnent of Stalin as general secretary ("thatcook will make only peppery dishes"), and in January 1923,in his so-called "testament," he recommended that Stalin beremoved from the post of general secretary.

Once Again on Dnieprostroy and the PhonographWe have already quoted tn the Biulleten the penitential dec-

laration of the former Oppositionist S. Gorsky, who rebo-actively accused Trotsky of equating Dnieprostroy with . . .

a phonograph. We then o<plained the error of the strayedpenitent: he had ascribed to Trotsky the words of Stalin. Innumber 19 of the Biutletm we had to cite that interesting po-litical episode from memory. Not long ago we found accuratedocumentation in our files. Here verbatim is what Stalin saidat the plenum of the Central Committee in April 1926:

"There is talk . . . of our constructing Dnieprostroy throughour own means. But the sums here are large, several hundredmillion. How can we avoid falling into the position of thepeasant who had saved up some money, but instead of repairing his plough and renewing his equipment, bought aphonograph and went bankrupt? (laughtq) . . . How canwe not take into account the congress resolution that our in-dustrial plans must correspond to our resources? But ComradeTrotsky clearly does not take this congress decision into ac-count" (stenographic report of the plenum, p. 110).

Since Dnieprostroy is now, and with full justification, an

From the Archioes

object of socialist construction, we consider it completely ap-propriate to put this episode right in accordance with thedocuments,

Lenin on the Alliance Between Worker and Peasant

In his well-known work on "Ihe Tax in Kind," finished onApril 21, 192 1, Lenin wrote:

"The correct policy of the proletariat er<ercising its dictator-ship in a small-peasant country is to obtain grain in exchangefor the manufactured goods the peasant needs. That is theonly kind of food policy that corresponds to the tasks of theproletariat and can strengthen the foundations of socialismand lead to its complete victory'' (Collected Works, volume18, part i, p. 214) [ibid., volume 32, "The Tax in Kind," April21, t92ll

Until such time as this problem is solved it is not only im-possible to assert that we have entered socialism, but it mustbe admitted that we have not yet set up the very nfoundations

of socialism."

On the Freedom of Individual Commodity CirculationAt the Tenth Congress, which sanctioned the first steps of

the New Economic Policy (NEP), Lenin said at the March15,1921, session:

"I must say a few words about the individual er<change ofcommodities. When we speak of free er<changg we mean in-dividual exchange of commodities, which in turn meansencouraging the kulaks. What are we to do? We must notclose our eyes to the fact that the switch from the appropri-ation of surpluses to the tax will mean more kulaks underthe new system. They will appear where they could not appearbefore. This must not be combated by prohibitive measuresbut by association under state auspices and by governmentmeasures from above" (Collected Works, volume 18, part i,pp. 144-5) [ibid., volume 32, "Report on the Substitution ofa Tax in Kind for the Surplus-Grain Appropriation System,nMarch 15, l92ll.

We think that this quotg like many others, should be postedup in the premises of the Council of People's Commissars.

209

-a

A PROPOSALTO AN AMERICAN EDITOR24s

Published October 1'932

To the Editors of. The Symposium

Sirs:Irn the July issue of your magazine in an article on the first

volume of my Histary of the Russian Ranoh.ttioz" in a foobroteon page 379, I read:

"The truth of statements of fact, of dates, quotations, etc.,is another matter, but for the most part of these I have nomeans of verification. Tlotsky is of course in q<ile, a too activemember of the Opposition. I am told that he has deliberatelymisdated sweral important quotations and omitted relevantmaterial to support himself against Stalin. And there is nodoubt that in this volume, whether or not justifiably, he showsStalin and Kamenev a good distance from Lenin, and farmore conciliatory with the Compromisers than they are likelyto admiL"

Your article as a whole is written with o<traordinarily sym-pathetic consideration. This makes it the lesg poesible to ignoreyour footnote I am far from pretending to an ideal impartialityin relation to political friends and enemies-still farther fromdemanding that anybody should take my evaluations on faith.But in your footnote something more ls asserted, or at leastconceded, than the inevitable partiality of a political fighter.Your informers have told you that the author of the history'deliberately misdated sweral important quotations and omittedrelevant material to support himseU against Stalin.' I ventureto assert that your informers have gone too far. I will notinsist that the character of my llistory-to which a majorityof the critics have not denied either responsibility or meticulouscarefulness-should make that kind of suspicion impossible

2to

A Proposal to an Arnqican Editor 2Ll

General conclusions of a psychological character are not sim-ilarly convincing to all. But I make the following proposal:Can you not, Mr. &litor, invite your informers to name cleadyand eractly what "important quotations" f erroneously datedand what f consciously okitted?

For my part I promise to supply all the necessary expla-nations. If this is not done- and I make bold to assert inadvance that it will not and cannot be done-you will be ina position to convince yourself, and also your readers, thatyou have been consciously misled by prejudiced informers.

Yours sincerely,Leon Tlotsky

FOR A STRATEGY OF ACTIONNOT SPECULATJON246

A Letter to Friends in Peking

October 3, 1932

What are at present the chief elements of the political situationin China?

The hro most important revolutionary problems, the nationalproblem and the agrarian problem, have again become ag-gravated. The pace of the peasant war, slow and crawling butgenerally victorious, is evidence that the Kuomintang dictator-ship has proved incapable of satisfying the countryside or ofintimidating it further. The Japanese intervention in Shanghaiand their effective annoration of Manchuria have placed inrelief the military bankruptcy of the Kuomintang dictatorship.The crisis of power, which at bottom has not stopped for asingle moment during these last years, had to grow fatallyworse The struggle between the militarist cliques is destroyingwhat remains of the unity of the country.

If the peasant war has radicalized the intellectuals who haveconnections with the countryside, the Japanese intervention,on the other hand, has politically stimulated the petty bour-geoisie of the cities. This again has only aggravated the crisisof power. There is not a single section of the bourgeoisie called"nationalisfl which does not tend to arrive at the conclusionthat the Kuomintang regime devours much and gives little.To demand an end to the period of "education" by the Kuomin-tang is to demand that the military dictatorship give wayto parliamentarism.

The Left Opposition press has sometimes labeled the regimeof Chiang Kai-shek as fascisl This definition was derivedfrom the fact that in China, as in Italy, the military-police pow-er is concentrated in the hands of a single bourgeois party tothe exclusion of all other parties and, notably, of the workers'organizations. But after the e:<perience of the last years, an

212

For a Strategy of Action 2L3

e><perience complicated by the confusion the Stalinists broughtto the question of fascism, it would not be correct to identifythe dictatorship of the Kuomintang with fascism. Hifler, likeMussolini before him, supports himself above all on the counter-revolutionary petty bourgeoisie: this is the essence of fascism.The Kuomintang does not have this point of support. InGermany the peasants march behind Hitler and by this factindirectly support von Papen;247 tr China the peasants carryon a raging struggle against Chiang Kai-shek.

The regime of the Kuomintang contains more of Bonapartisttraits than of fascist; not possessing a social base, not eventhe smallest, the Kuomintang stands between the pressure ofthe imperialists and compradors on the one hand and of therevolutionary movement on the other. But Bonapartism canmake a pretense of stability only when the land hunger ofthe peasants is satisfied. This is not true in the case of China.Hence the impotence of the military dictatorship which canonly maintain itself thanks to the dispersion of its enemies.But under their growing attack even this begins to fall apart.

In the revolution of 1925-27, it was the proletariat whichmorally and physically suffered the most. That is why theworkers are now in the rear of the other classes, not onlyof the petty bourgeoisie, starting with the students, but alsoin a certain sense of the peasants. It is precisely this whichproves that the third Chinese revolution cannot win, cannotwen develop, as long as the working class has not againentered into the struggle.

The slogans of revolutionary democracy correspond bestto the prerevolutionary political situation in China today.

It is elementary for a Marxist that the peasants, whatevertheir banner, fight for the aims of agrarian petty-bourgeoisdeftrocracy. The slogan of the independence of China, raisedanew to a white heat by the Japanese intervention, is a sloganof national democracy. The impotence of the military dictator-ship and the division of the country among the militaristcliques put on the agenda the slogan of political democracy.

The students cry: "Down with the Kuomintang governmendnGroups of the workers' vanguard support this slogan. The"nationaln bourgeoisie demands a constitutional regime. Thepeasants revolt against the dearth of land, the yoke of themilitarists, government officials, usurious loans. Under thesecircumstances, the part5r of the proletariat must support asthe central political slogan the call for a constituent assembly.

2t4 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

Does this mean-it will be asked-that we demand the gov-ernment convoke the constituent assembly or that we attemptto organize it ourselves? This way of posing the question,at least at this stage, is too formalistic. For a number of yearsthe Russian Revolution coordinated two slogans: "Down withAbsolutism" and "Long Live the Constituent Assembly." Tothe question who would convoke the constituent assembly weanswered: the future will tell, that is, the relation of forces,as they establish themselves in the process of the revolutionitself. This approach to the question is equally correct forChina. If the Kuomintang government at the moment of itscollapse tries to convoke some kind of a representative as-sembly, what shall our attitude be towards it, that is, howshall we best utilize it in the interests of the revolution, byboycotting the elections or participating in them? Will therevolutionary masses succeed in forming an independent gov-ernmental body which takes on itself the convocation of aconstituent assembly? Will the proletariat succeed, in the courseof the struggle for democratic demands, in creating soviets?WiIl the o<istence of soviets make the convocation of a con-stifuent assembly superfluous? These questions cannot be an-swered in advance- But our task consists not in makingpredictions on a calendar but in mobilizing the workers aroundthe slogans that flow from the political situation. Our strategyis a strategy of revolutionary action, not abstract speculation.

Today, by the force of events, revolutionary agitation isdirected above all against the Kuomintang government. Weexplain to the masses that the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek is the main obstacle which stands in the way of theconstituent assembly and that we can rid China of the militaristcliques only by means of an armed insurrection. Agitation,spoken and written, strikes, meetings, demonstrations, boycotts,whatever concrete goals they aim at must have as a corollarythe slogans: Down with the Kuomintang!" "Long Live theConstituent Assembly!'

In order to achieve real national liberation it is necessaryto overthrow the Kuomintang. But this does not mean wepostpone the struggle until such time as the Kuomintang isoverthrown. The more the struggle against foreign oppressionspreads, the more difficulties the Kuomintang will have. Themore we mobilize the masses against the Kuomintang, themore the struggle against imperialism will develop.

At the critical moment of Japanese intervention the workersand the students called for arms. From whom? From the

For a &rategy of Action 2t5

Kuomintang. It would be a sectarian absurdity to abandonthis demand on the plea that we want to overthrow the Kuo-mintang. We want to overthrow it, but we haven't yet reachedthat point The more energetically we demand the armingof the workers, the sooner we shall reach it.

The official Communist Party, despite its ultraleftism, favors"tJre resumption of Russian-Chinese diplomatic relations.n Thisis a slogan which is directed against the Kuomintang. Toadvance it does not at all mean that one has "confidencen inthe Kuomintang. On the contrary, the effect of this sloganis to make the government's sifuation more difficult beforethe masses. Certain Kuomintang leaders already have hadto take up the slogan for the reestablishment of relations withthe USSR We know that with these gentlemen there is a biggap between words and deeds, but here, as in all otherquestions, mass pressure will decide.

If under the whip of the revolution the Kuomintang govern-ment begins to make pett5r concessions on the agrarian ques-tion, tries to call a semblance of a constituent assembly, isforced to give arms to the workers or to reestablish relationswith the USS& it goes without saying that we will at oncetake advantage of these concessions. We will firmly cling tothem at the same time that we correctly show their insufficiencyand in this way use these concessions by the Kuomintangas a weapon to overthrow it. Such in general is the reciprocalrelation of reforms and rwolution in Marxist politics.

But doesn't the scope the peasant war is reaching mean thatthere is no longer time or place for the slogans and problemsof parliamentary democracy in China? Let us go back tothis question.

If .today the revolutionary Chinese peasants call their fightingorganizations "soviets," we have no reason to give up thatname. We must simply not get intoxicated with words. Tobelieve that soviet power in essentially rural regions can bean important stable revolutionary power is proof of greatfrivolity. It is impossible to be ignorant of the er<perienceoffered by the only country where soviet power has beeneffectively established. Although in Petrograd, Moscow, andother industrial centers and regions of Russia soviet powerhas been firm and constant since November 1917, in all theimmense peripheral areas ( Ukraine, Northern Caucasus,Transcaucasia, Urals, Siberia, Central Asia, Archangel,Murmansk) this power has appeared and disappeared sweraltimes, not only because of foreign intervention but also thanks


to internal revolts. The Chinese soviet power has an essentiallyrural, peripheral character, and to this day entirely lacks apoint of support in the industrial proletariat. The less stableand sure this power is, the less it can be described as sovietpower.

Ko-Lin's article, which appeared in the German paper DerRote Aufbau [Red Reconstruction], claims that in the Red armiesthe workers represent 36 percent, the peasants 57 percent,and the intellectuals 7 percent. I confess that these figuresarouse serious doubts. If the figures apply to all the insur-rectionary armed forces, which according to the author number350 thousand, the army includes about 125 thousand workers.If the 36 percent applies only to the Red armies, of 150 thou-sand soldiers there are more than 5O thousand workers. Isthis really so? Did they prwiously belong to the unions, tothe part5r? Did they take part in the revolutionary struggle?But even that does not settle the question. Because of theabsence of strong, independent proletarian organizations in theindustrial centers, the revolutionary workers, inexperienced ortoo little experienced, become totally lost in the peasant' petty-bourgeois environment.

Wang Ming's248 article, which appeared at the beginningof the year in the Comintern press, singularly exaggerates,as far as I can judge, the scope of the movement in the cities,the degree of independence of the workers in the movement,and the importance of the inlluence of the Communist Party.The trouble with the present official press is that it mercilesslydistorts facts for its factional interests. Thus it is not hard torealize, even by Wang Ming's article, that the leading placein the movement which began in the autumn of last year belonged to the students and to the school youth in general.The university strikes had an appreciable importance, greaterthan the factory strikes.

To arouse the workers, to organize them, to give them thepossibility of relating to the national and agrarian movementsin order to take the leadership of both: such is the task thatfalls to us. The immediate demands of the proletariat as such(length of the workday, wages, right to organize, etc.) mustform the basis of our agitation. But that alone is not enough.Only these three slogans can raise the proletariat to the roleof the head of the nation: the independence of China, landto the poor peasants, the constituent assembly.

The Stalinists imagine that the minute the insurgent peas-

ants call their organizations soviets, the stage of revolution-

For a Strategg of Action 217

ary parliamentarism is already over. This is a serious mis-take. The rebel peasants can serve as a point of support tosoviets only if the proletariat shows in practice its ability tolead. Without the leadership of the proletariat, the peasantmovement can only serve to advance one bourgeois cliqueagainst another, finally to break up into provincial factions.The constituent assembly, thanks to its importance as a cen-tralizing force, would mark a serious stage in the develop-ment of the agrarian revolution. The existence of rural "soviets"and "Red armies" would help the peasants to elect revolution-ary representatives. At the present stage this is the only wayto link up the peasant movement politically with the nationaland proletarian movements.

The official Chinese Communist Party declares that its cur-rent "principal slogan" is that of the national revolutionarywar against Japanese imperialism (see Wang Ming's articlein the Communist Intemational, number L, L932). This isa onesided and even adventurist way to pose the question.It is true that the struggle against imperialism, which is theessential task of the Chinese proletariat cannot be carriedthrough to the end except by insurrection and revolutionarywar. But it does not follow in the least that the struggle againstJapanese imperialism constitutes the central slogan at thepresent moment The question must be solved in an inter-national conte:<t

At the beginning of the year, they thought in Cominterncircles that Japan had launched its military action againstChina in order to immediately push things to a war againstthe Soviet Union. I wrote then that the Tokyo governmentwould have to be completely out of its mind to run the riskof a war with the Soviet Union before it had at least to someq<tent consolidated the military base which Manchuria repre-sents for iL In reply to this evaluation of the situation, theAmerican Stalinists, the most vulgar and stupid of all, de.clared that I was working in the interests of the Japanese gen-eral staff. Yet what have the events of these last months shown?The fear of the consequences of a military adventure in Japan'sleading circles was so great that the military clique had toliquidate a certain number of Japanese statesmen in orderto arousg the mikado's government tocomplete the annexationof Manchuria. There is no doubt that even today a war againstthe Soviet Union remains a very real perspective, but in poli-tics time is very important.

If the Soviet government considered war with Japan right

2t8 Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

now inevitable, it would have neither the right nor the pos-sibility of carrying out a peace policy, that is, an ostrich pol-icy. In fact, in the course of the year, the Soviet governmenthas concluded an agreement with Japan to furnish Sovietnaphtha to the Japanese war fleel If war is inevitable rightnow, furnishing naphtha to Japan is equivalent to committingbeason towards the proletarian revolution. We won't discusshere the question of knowing to what srtent this or that dec-laration or step of the Soviet government is correct One thingis clear: contrary to the American Stalinists, whose zeal is be-yond measure, the Moscow Stalinists have been oriented to-wards peace with Japan, not wat.

Praoda of September 24 writes: "lVith vast impatience theworld bourgeoisie was er<pecting a JapaneseSoviet war. Butthe fact that the USSR has rigorously abstained from inter-vening in the Sino-Japanese conflict and the firm peace policyshe is following has forestalled war. ." An admission thatif the attitude of the American and other windbags had anypolitical meaning at all, it was this: to push the Soviet poweron the same road the world bourgeoisie was pushing it. We

don't mean that they were consciously serving the Japanesegeneral staff. Suffice it to say they are incapable of consciouslysewing the proletarian revolution.

The Chinese proletariat inscribes on its banner not onlythe resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Unionbut also the conclusion of a close offensive and defensive al-liance with it. This indicates that the policy of the Chinese pro-letariat must be in conformity with the whole of the interna-tional situation and above all with the policy of the SovietUnion. If Japan were to thrust war upon the Soviet Uniontoday, drawing China into that war would be a lifeand-deathquestion for the Chinese proletariat and its party. The warwould open up boundless horizons for the Chinese revolution.But to the extent that the international situation and internalconditions oblige the Soviet Union to make serious concessionsin the Far East in order to avoid war' or to defer it as longas possible, to the extent that Japan does not feel itself strongenough to begin hostilities, the war against Japanese imperial-ism cannot constitutg at least at the present time, the cenhalfighting slogan of the Chinese Communist Party.24s

Wang Ming quotes the following slogans of the Left Opposi-tion in China: "Reconstitution of the mass movement," "Con-vocation of the constituent assembly," and "Resumption of dip-lomatic relations between China and the Soviet lJnion." Simply

For a Strategg of Action 219

because these slogans seem to be poorly motivated in an articleappearing in the legal organ of the Opposition, Wang Mingcalls the Left Opposition in China a "counterrevolutionaryTrotskyist-Ch'en T\r-hsiu group."250

Even if we were to admit that the revolutionary slogans werepoorly motivated, this does not make the slogans or the or-ganization which formulated them counterrevolutionary. ButWang Ming and his like have to speak about the counterrevo-lutionary spirit of the "Trotskyists" if they want to keep theirjobs and their pay.

While they o(press themselves so sharply against the Bolshe-vik-Leninists, who have been proved right in the course ofevents in China from 1924 to 1932, the Stalinists are extremely indulgent towards themselves, towards their uninterruptedchain of errors.

When Japan attacked Shanghai, the Kuomintang proposed"the united front of the workers, peasants, soldiers, merchants,and sfudents to combat imperialism." But this is the famous'bloc of four classes' of Stalin-l\d61finqv! 251 Since the secondrevolution ft925-271, foreign oppression has not weakened,but on the contrary has grown. The antagonism between theneeds of the country's development on the one side and the regime and imperialism on the other has also sharpened. Therationale of the old Stalinist arguments in favor of the blocof four classes has acquired double strength. But now theStalinists have interpreted the Kuomintang's proposal as anew attempt to deceive the masses. Very well! But they haveforgotten to o<plain why the Comintern leadership helped theChinese bourgeoisie's fatal deception, and why the philosophywhich consisted in being at the beck and call of the Kuomin-tang found expression in the program of the Comintern.

It is clear that we can and must support the slogan of dem-ocratic self-government: of the election of representatives bythe people, etc. The democratic program represents a greatstep forward in relation to'the regime of military dictatorship.We must tie in the isolated, partial democratic slogans withthe principal slogans and connect them to the problems of therevolutionary organization and arming of the workers.

The question of "patriotism" and "nationalism," like someother questions contained in your letter, is of a terminologicalrather than fundamental character. The Bolsheviks, in favorof the national liberation of oppressed people by revolutionarymeans, support the movement of the masses of the people fornational liberation by any means, not only against the foreign


imperialists, but also against the bourgeois o<ploiters of theKuomintang type inside the national movement.

Must we introduce the term "patriotism,n which has beenthoroughly discredited and corrupted? I doubt it. Isn't thisa tendency to adapt to petty-bourgeois ideology and termi-nology? If such a tendency were really to appear in our ranks,we would have to fight it mercilessly.

Many questions of a tactical and strategic character will ap-pear insoluble if approached formalistically. But they will fallinto place if we pose them dialectically, that is, in the conter<tof the living struggle of classes and parties. The revolutionarydialectic is best assimilated in action. I have no doubt that ourChinese friends and comrades in ideas, the Bolshevik-Leninists,not only passionately discuss the complex problems of the Chi-nese revolution, but also no less passionately participate in thedeveloping struggle We are for a strategy of action, not specu-lation.

L. Trotsky

PREFACE TO THE POLISH EDITION OFLENIN'S LEFT-WING COMMUNISM,

AN INFANTILE DISORDER'52

October 6, 1932

This work of Lenin which we submit to Polish readers waswritten in April 1920. At that time the international commu-nist movement had not passed out of its childhood; its illswere indeed those of infancy.

Lenin, while condemning formal "leftism"-the radicalismof gesture and empty talk-defended no less passionately thereal revolutionary intransigence of class policy. In so doing,he had not insured himself-alas, far from it-againstmisuseby the opportunists of various breeds, who, since the publica-tion of this work twelve years ago, have quoted it hundredsand thousands of times with the aim of defending unprincipledconciliation.

At this time, in the conditions of world crisis, left wings inmany countries are detaching themselves from the Social De-mocracy. These groups, on falling into the ditch that separatescommunism from reformism, usually declbre that their mainhistoric task is the creation of a "united fronf or-still moreo<pansively-"the unity of the workers' movemenL" In fact,nothing but such features as these conciliatory slogans makeup the whole physiognomy of the Socialist Workers Party ofGermany, which is led by Seydewitz, K. Rosenfeld,253 oldLedebour, and others. Very little distinguished from the So-cialist Workers Party of Germany, as far as I can judge fromhere, is the small Polish political group formed around Dr.Joseph l(1qft.254 Theoreticians of these groups, the best ofthem, appeal to Lenin's Left-Wing Communisrn Only they sim-ply forget to errplain why they have always viewed Lenin asan incorrigible splitter.

221


Ttre essence of the Leninist united-front policy consists ingiving the proletariat the opportunity -while maintaining afighting, intransigent organization and program -of achieving,in closed ranks, even a small practical step forward; on thebasis of such practical steps by the masses, Lenin strove notto conceal or soften the political contradictions between Marx-ism and reformism, but, quite the contrary, to lay them bare,to o<plain them to the masses, and thus to reinforce the revolu-tionary wing.

The problems of the united front constitute the substance ofthe problems of tactics. We know that tactics are subordinate tostrateg'y. The lines of our strategy define the historic interests ofthe proletariat in the light of Marxism. We do not wish, by this,to minimize the significance of tactical problems. Strategy with-out its corresponding tactic is doomed to remain a lifeless ab-straction of the sfudy. But it is no less useless to exalt specifictactics, whatever their importance at a given moment, into apanacea, a universal remedy, an article of faith. The first rulein the employment of the united-front policy is a complete andirreconcilable break with unprincipled conciliation.

Lenin's book seemed to deal the deathblow to sham radical-ism. The Third and Fourth Corrgresses of the Communist In-ternational, in their resolutions, almost unanimously endorsedthe conclusions of the book. But during the subsequent period,the beginning of which coincided with the illness and death ofLenin, we observe that which astonishes at first sight: ultralefttendencies again come to the fore, acquire strength, lead to aseries of defeats, disappear, only to reappear in a more acuteand malignant form.

Formal, point-blank protests against an agreement of anykind with reformism, against any united front with the SocialDemocracy, againslthe unity of the trade.union movement, andsuperficial arguments for the creation of our own "pure" tradeunions, as Lenin termed them - all these ultraleft considerationsare neither more serious nor more intelligent than the ones o(-pounded these days, not by the feeble pipings of infants, butby the bass bellowings of bureaucrats. What is the reason forthis amazing relapse?

We know that political tendencies do not e:<ist "in the air":deviations and mistakes, if persistent and prolonged, must berooted in a class basis. To speak of ultraleftism without de'fining its social roots is to replace Marxist analysis by "brightideas." The right wing, the opportunist critics of Stalinism,for example the Brandlerites, going further, actually reduce all

heface to the Polish Edition 223

the mistakes of the Comintern to a simple, ideological mis-understanding. On a supersocial, superhistorical, almost mysti-cal basis, ultraleftism is transformed into some form of malevo-lent spirit such as devours the most pious Christians.

The problem must be approached quite differently. Eventsconclusively demonstrate that these mistakes, which before wereonly the orpression of individual personalities or of groups,and due solely to their practical infancy, are now e:<alted intoa system and have become the deliberate method of controlby an o<isting political current: bureaucratic centrism. It isnot really a question of the inconsistencies of ulhaleft think-ing, since the political clique that today controls the Comin-tern alternates its ultraleft mistakes with opportunist practice.And sometimes the Stalinist faction, instead of alternating between radicalism and opportunism, uses both simultaneouslyin different matters, in direct relation to the needs of its faction-al struggle.

Ttrus, at this moment, we see on the one hand a refusal onprinciple to carry through any policy of agreements, whateverthey may be, with the German Social Democracy and on theother hand we witness the antiwar congress, called togetherthrough agreements with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois paci-fists, French Radicals, Freemasons, or with pretentious in-dividuals of the Barbusse type who consider it their particularmission to nunite the Second and Third Internationals.n

Those simple and, as always, s<haustive arguments thatLenin advanced in favor of "agreements," of "compromises,"of inevitable concessions, all unsurpassably serve to demon-strate the limits which these methods must not transgress with-out most certainly transforming them into their opposite.

The tactic of a united front is not a universal panacea. Itis subjected to a higher tesfi does it effect the unification of theproletarian vanguard on the basis of an intransigent Marristpolicy? The art of leadership consists in defining, in each case,on the basis of a concrete class relationship, with whom, towhat end, and to what limits the united front is acceptable, andat what moment it must be broken.

If one were to seek the perfect model of the way in whichthe united front should not and cannot be formed, one couldnot find a better-or rather, a worse-example than the Am-sterdam congress of nall classes and all parties" against war,This example deserves €xramination point by poini

1. The Communist Party in each and every agreement, tem-porary or prolonged, must stand openly under its own flag.


Yet at Amsterdam, parties, as such, were ignored! As thoughthe struggle against war were not a political task, and conse'quently a task of political parties! As though that struggle didnot demand the most complete clarity and the most strict pre'cision of thought! As though any organization other than theparty were capable of formulating as completely and as clearlyas the party the question of the struggle against war! Andyet the real organizer of this congress, that ignored part5z, wasnone other than the Communist International itselfl

2. The Communist Party must seek a united front, not withindividual lawyers or journalists, not with sympathetic ac-quaintances, but with the mass organizations of the workers,and consequently, in the first place, with the Social Democrats.But a united front with the Social Democrats was excludedfrom the very outset. Even a united-front offer to the SocialDemocrats-to test openly the influence of the pressure of theSocial Democratic masses upon their leaders-was declaredinadmissible!

3. Precisely because the policy of the united front carrieswithin itself opportunist dangers, it is the duty of the Commu-nist Party to avoid wery kind of dubious mediation and secret diplomacy behind the backs of the workers. Yet the Com-munist International judged it necessary to put forward-asformal banner-bearer and organizer, as behind-the-scenes ne-gotiator-the French writer Barbusse, who supported himself onthe worst €lements of both reformism and communism. With-out giving notice to the masses, but obviously with the backingof the presidium of the Comintern, Barbusse had "talksn on thesubject of the congress with-Frederick Adler!255 The unitedfront from above is banned, is it not? Yet as we see from this,through the mediation of Barbusse, it is acceptable! It is un-necessary to mention that the wirepullers of the Second Inter-national are miles ahead of Barbusse in the field of politicalmaneuvering. Barbusse's behind-the'scenes diplomacy presentedthe Second International with highly advantageous er<cuses forshirking participation in the congress.

4. The Communist Party has the right, and wen the duty, towin for its cause even the weakest of allies-if they are realallies! But in so doing it must not repel the working masses,who are its essential ally. Yet the participation in the congressof individual bourgeois politicians, members of the leadingparty of imperialist France, cannot but repel the French so-cialist workers from communism. Nor will it be easy to ex-plain to the German proletariat why one may march side

heface to the Polish Ed.ition 225

by side with the vicepresident of Herriot's party, or with thepacifist General Schoenaich,256 while at the same time it is de.clared inadmissible to make proposals for common actionagainst war to the reformist workers' organizations.

5. It is most dangerous in applying the policy of the unitedfront to have a false estimate of one's allies-when false alliesare presented as true, the workers are deceived at the outset.Yet this is the crime that the organLers of the Amsterdam con-gress have committed and are committing.

The French bourgeoisie is now, as a whole, "pacifisf -that isnot at all surprising: every victor endeavors to prevent thedefeated from preparing its war of revenge. The French bour-geoisie seeks, always and werywhere, guarantees of peace inorder that the fruits of their pillage shall be held sacrosanctand inviolable.

The left wing of petty-bourgeois pacifism is prepared, in seek-ing these guarantees, even to ally itself with the Comintern. Anepisodic alliance! On the day war is declared, such pacifists willside with their own governments. The French workers will betoldl nln our fight for peace, we went to the uhnost o<Eemes,even to the Amsterdam congress. But war has been forcedon us-we stand for the defenseof thefatherland." The partici-pation of French pacifists in the congress binds them to noth-ing, and at the moment of the declaration of war will entirelybenefit French imperialism. On the other hand, in the event ofwar for equal rights in the field of international brigandage,General Schoenaich and his like will be entirely on the side oftheir German fatherland and will er<ploit to the full their newlyacquired Amsterdam authority in its service.

The Indian bourgeois nationalist Patel,2sz participated inthe Amsterdam congress for the same reason that Chiang Kai-shek participated with "a consulting voicen in the Comintern.Such participation will, without doubt, increase the authority ofthe "nationalist leaders" in the eyes of the masses of the people.To any Indian Communist who at a meeting calls Patel and hisfriends traitors, Patel will reply: "Were I a traitor, I would nothave been an ally of the Bolsheviks at Amsterdam." So theStalinists have armed the Indian bourgeoisie against the In-dian workers.

6. Agreement in the name of a practical objective must inno case be at the cost of concessions in principle, of silenceon essential differences, of ambiguous formulations that per-mit each participant to interpret them in his own way. Yetthe manifesto of the Amsterdam congress is drawn up entirely

226 Writings of Leon Tfotskg (1932)

on the basi.s of subterfuge and double meaning, of play uponwords, of hiding contradictions, of flamboyant meaninglessspeeches, of solenn declarations whieh lead 1e sefting. Mem-bers of bourgeois parties.and liars of Freemasonry"condemn"capitalism! Pacifists "condemn" pacifism! Then on the verynort day after the congress General Schoenaich, in an articleprinted in Muenzenberg's papsr,258 declares himself a pacifist!And the French bourgeois who has condemned capitalism returns to the ranks of his capitalist party and gives his voteof confidence to Herriot. Isn't this a scandalous masquerade,a shameful charlataniem?

Marxist intransigence, obligatory when realizing the unitedfront in general, becomes doubly or trebly so when it is aquestion of a problem as acute as war. The resolute voiceof that one man Liebknecht,2ss during the war, had a sig-nificance incomparably greater for the development of the Ger-man revolution than the sentimmtal semiprotests of the wholeIndependent Social Democratic Party [USPD].zeo In Francethere was no Liebknecht. One of the principal reasons is thatin France Freemason-Radical, socialist-trade'union pacifismbuilds up a sphere cunningly snared with lies and humbug.

Lenin insisted that in any kind of "antiwar" congress oneshould not attempt to seeh agreement on commonplaces, buton the conhary to put the questions so clearly, so brutally,so precisely as to push the pacifists into burning their fingersand drawing back-thus providing an object lesson to allworkers. Lenin wrote, in the instructions to the Soviet delega-tion to the antiwar congress at The Hague in 1922: "I thinkthat if we have several people at The Hague Conference whoare capable of delivering speeches against war in variouslanguages, the most important thing would be to refute theopinion that the delegates at the conference are opponentsof war, that they understand how war may and will comeupon them at the most unexpected moment, that they to anyortent understand what methods should be adopted to com-bat war, that they are to any e:rtent in a position to adoptreasonable and effective measures to combat war" [CollrctedWorks, volume 33, "Notes on the Tasks of Our Delegationat The Hugn"," December 4, 19221.

Just picture for a moment Lenin voting at Amsterdam on theempty and grandiloquent manifesto, hand in hand with theFrench Radical G. Bergery,26r with the German generalSchoenaich, with the nationalist liberal Patell One could not

hefoce to the Polish Edition

better measure the depths to which the epigones have fallenthan by the monshous character of this picture.

In this book by Lenin there is not a single formula whichwe do not adhere to today. Today, twelve years after thisbook was written, there has constituted itsef-based on asystematic alteration of Leninist policy and misuse of quo-tations from Lenin-a definite tendency, bureaucratic centrism,a tendency that did not orist when Lenin wrote his book.

It is not hard to explain why the Stalinist tendency enists.It has social support: the millions of bureaucrats, bred bya revolution, victorious but isolated in a single country. Theseparate caste interests of the bureaucracy create in it oppor-tunist and nationalist tendencies. But, nevertheless, it is thebureaucracy of. a workers' state, encircled by a bourgeoisworld. At wery moment it collides with the Social Democraticbureaucracy of capitalist countries. The Soviet bureaucracy,dictating the direction of the Comintern, imposes on it thecontradictions of its own situation. The whole policy of theepigones' leadership oscillates between opportunism and ad-venturism.

Ultraleftism has ceased to be an infantile sickness. It is nowone of the methods of seU-preservation of a faction pulledmore and more by the developments of the world proletarianvanguard. The struggle against centrist bureaucracy is nowthe first duty of wery Man<isL Were there no other reasons,for this reason alone we should greet warmly this Polish edi-tion of Lenin's admirable work.

227

ZTGZAGS ANDECLECTIC NONSENSE262

October 7,1932

To the Editors of Oktobq Briefe

Dear Comrades:My Berlin friends inform me of your wish to receive an

article from me for your publication. Since you are conductinga shuggle to turn the SAP from its present centrist course tothe path of communism, I am of course ready to cooperatewith you in wery way.

Now I should like, in a few words, to direct the attentionof your readers to the exhemely instructive piece in SAZ lSo-cialist Workers News] of September 28, under the heading"The Revolt of the Party Members in the KPD" [German Com-munist Party]. Not only does the piece convey a very interestingfact about the internal life of the KPD; it also throws a clearlight on the leadership of the SAP itself. I choose three pointsfrom this piece, each of which has great programmatic signifi-cancg

1. The subheading reads: "Against the Ultraleft ZigzagCourse of the Leadership." What sense do these words have?Perhaps there is an ultraleft course; but there cannot be acourse of 'ultraleft zigzags." In actual fact, the Stalinists arezigzagging between ultraleftism and, opporhtnism: it is pre.cisely in this that is expressed the centrist character of theStalinist faction, but Seydewitz-like Brandler and Thal-heimer-sees only "ultraleftism' in Stalinist policy, eyes closedto its no less impressive opporhrnist turns and exploits. How-ever, the SAZ at the same time borrows from the Left Opposi-tion the term "zigzags" to define the Stalinist course. The result is eclectic nonsense.

228

Zigzags ond fuletic Nonsense 229

The Brandlerites speak only of the ulhaleftism of the Stalin-ists because they, the Brandlerites, along with the Stalinists,have zigzagged in the direction of opportunism and still do.As for Seydewitz and Co., they have completely failed to thinkout all the stages in the path of the proletarian revolutionsince the world war. They, of course, consider criticigm by theLeft Opposition sectarian. Still less critically they chew on thewisdom of Thalheimer.

2. The piece in the SAZ gives an account of article number6 of the newspaper of the Inner-Part5r Opposition. Unfortunate'ly, I have not seen this article ('A Critical Par$r Voice"). Ttreaccount in the SAZ arouses the most lively interest The oppo-sitionist magazine subjects to sharp criticism the policy of theofficial leadership and the party regime. The SAZ tells, lateron, of "a letter from an Amsterdam antiwar congress delegatewhich reveals all the emptiness and theatricality of the under-taking.'An extremely clear and important symptom!

What, howwer, is the attitude of the SAZ itself. to the voiceof the Inner-Party Communist Opposition? We read: "What iscriticized here and what is demanded fully correspond to whatthe SAP has been saying since its inception on relations withthe KPD. This is the most genuine affirmation of the correct-ness of our policy,n

It isn't possible for me to check this assertion of the SAP onall questions since, as has been said, I don't have "A CriticalParty Voice' at my disposal. But perhdps one question aboutAmsterdam will suffice. Where and when did the SAZ chatac-terize the Amsterdam congress as an empty, theatrical under-taking? Dr. K. Rosenfeld represented the SAP at the antiwarcongress. Did he er(pose there the lack of principle of the blocof Stalinists and bourgeois Radicals, Freemasong pacifist gen-

erals, and Hindu nationalists? Did he speak against the pom-pous and perfidious manifesto which erases all the boundariesbetween Marxism and pacifism? Did he support the objectionof the six representatives of the International Left Opposition?Did he append his signature to our manifesto? Apparently not.The representative of the SAP took his place at the Amsterdamtheatrical production in the role of a submissive actor.

On what basis does the SAZ write about "the afrirmation ofthe correctress of our polic/?

3. The piece finishes with the words: "Only a complete changeof course, reform of the KPD and of the Comintern from topto bottom, can help here" Reform? Ie reform still possible? TheKPD and the Comintern are not yet consigned to the scrapheap of history? Then by what right does the SAP declare


itseU the third party and prepare to receive the inheritanceof the SPD and KPD? An independent party can have only onepath: the path of the liquidation of the KPD. The path of reform is, on the contrary, the path of the resurrection of theKPD. It is necessary to choose between theee two opposingpaths. The very word "reform'-as regards the party and theComintern-is borrowed by the SAZ from the plaform of theLeft Opposition. How and why? Because inside the CommunistPart5r a cold wind hasblown. T\e SAZwants to prove its kin-ship with the Inner-Party Opposition. In itself, shiving to winover a new group is completely legitimate for wery politicalorganization. But a principled basis is necessary. Ttre SAPleadership does not have this basis. It purports to be an independent party, yet at the same time it talks of the "reformn ofthe KPD. It unites on the international arena with wery hopelessly cenfist organization and, at the same time, talks aboutreform of the Comintern.

Such a leadership is capable of leading any organizationto destruction. I wanted to tell you this with all the necessaryfrankness.

L. Trotsky

FIFTEEN YnlASSlzoa

October 13, 1932

The October Revolution is completing its lifteenth year! Thissimple figure demonetrates to the entire world the giganticforce which o<ists in the proletarian state No one, not eventhe most optimistic among us, foresaw such vitality. And thatis not surprising; such a prediction would have indicated pes-simism with regard to the international revolution.

The leaders and the masses saw in the October upheavalonly the first stage of the world revolution. The thought ofan independent development of socialism in isolated Russiawas, in the year 1917, neither defended nor supported norformulated by anybody. Irr the following years as well thewhole party without exception vien'ed the economic constructionas the substructure of the material base for the dictatorshipof the proletariat, as the preservation of the economic alliancebetween city and counhy, and finally as the creation of pointsof zupport for the future socialist societ5r which could be devel-oped only on an international basis.

The road to the world revolution has proved to be muchlonger and more tortuous than we had hoped and expectedfifteen years ago. To the o(ternal difficulties, of which thehistoric role of reformism showed itself to be the most impor-tant, were added the internal ones, above all, the policies ofthe epigones of Bolshevism, false to their core and fatal intheir consequence The bureaucracy of thefirstworkerg' state-unconsciously, but that ig no o(cuse-does werything decisiveto prwent the birth of a second workers' state. The knotstied by the bureaucracy must be untied or cut in order toproceed on the road to the rwolution.

23L


If delay in the development of the revolution has stretchedbeyond the perspective we had sketched, we have neverthelessaccurately analyzed the fundamental motive forces and theirlaws. This also completely applies to the problems of theeconomic development of the Soviet Union. Modern productiveforces cannot be confined within national limits by a resolutionor an ororcism. Autarchy is the ideal of Hitler, not of Marxnor Lenin; socialism and national states are mutually exclusive.Today as fifteen years ago the program of a socialist societyin a single country is utopian and reactionary.

The economic succegses of the Soviet Union are very greatbut, as we celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, its contradictionsand difficulties have taken on threatening proportions. Lags,interruptions, and disproportions bear witness in the first placeto wrong leadership. But that is not the whole of iL Theyreveal that the construction of a harmonious society is possibleonly through an uninterrupted experience extending overdecades and only on an international basis. The technicaland cultural obstacles-the gulf between city and country,the difficulties of import and export trade-prove that theOctober Revolution demands continuation on an internationaiscale. Internationalism is not a convention ritual but a matterof life and death.

There will be no lack of jubilee speeches and articleg. Themajority of them will come from those who, in October, werethe intransigent adversaries of the proletarian insurrection.We Bolshevik-Leninists will be called "counterrevolutionists"by these gentlemen. It is not the first time that history permitsitself such jokes and we have nothing againstit on that account.Even if with confusion and delay, history does its work.

And we, too, we will do ours!

THE TWELFTH PLENUM OF THECOMINTERN264

Some Brief Observations

October 13, 1932

1. The report on revolutionary strategy was read byKuusinen.265 His role in the Finnish revolution of 19 18 showshe is just the right man to be the strategist of the internationalproletariat.

2. The principal theses declare again: nT?re relative stabili-zation of capitalism has come to an end.n In 1932? But didn'tthe Sixth World Congress [f 928] already speak of the endof the stabilization? The Tenth Plenum of the E:<ecutive Com-mittee of the Communist International (ECCI) [1929] pro-claimed the "third peniod," that is, the period which leadsdirectly to the proletarian insurrection. Now we are told-with-out any comment-that the stabilization of capitalism hasagain come to an end. That makes how many times?

3. On China it says: "The soviet revolution has triumphedover a large part of its territory." A revolution can be bour-geois or proletarian. Which of the two are we to understandin the present instance? Why does the Comintern cover theclass content of the revolution with its soviet form?

4. nThe new world imperialist war has become an im.mediatedanger.n The Sixth World Congress already had declaredthe danger of war to be immediate. For over four years theECCI has been repeating the same formula. In any case' itis closer to a realit5r now than in 1928. But oractly what doesthe word "immediate" mean in the language of the Comintern?

5. The Communist parties are under the obligation "tocounterpose real struggles against the war preparations tothe abstract and hypocritically pacifi:st declarations of theSocial Democracy." Tbat is right. But in that case how aboutthe no less abstract and no less hypocritical declarations ofthe congress of Amsterdam? It is remarkable: not a word on

233


the Amsterdam masquerade in the resolution. Are they alreadyashamed of their own child?

6. The theses give learned definitions of the different formsof fascism. They say: "The social-fascists prefer the moderateand 'legal' application of bourgeois violence . . .; they defendits democratic facade and try to keep as much as possibleof its parliamentary forms." Now we understand. A squareis a triangle whose four sides intersect at right angles.

7. As to France, they say that while the Communist Partyand the re\rolutionary hade unions have been weakened, astrong revolutionary movement against war has been developedto rnake up for ,t But a movement against war, when theproletarian vanguard has been weakened, necessarily becomesa petty-bourgeois movement and becomes transformed to thebenefit of reformi,st pacifism.

8. Ttre German Communist Party is advised to strengthenits struggle "against nationalism and chauvinism for proletarian internationalism." That is righl But how about theprogram of "national liberation?266

9. The duty is placed before the Polish Communist Party'of destroying the inlluence of the Socialist Party on the masses,"and of novercoming its weaknesses in the big plants, amongthe railroad workers, in the army." No advice could be simpler:destroy the enemy and become all-powerful. Kuusinen forgetsonly to show ftoar to do it.

10. For Spain the advice is to strive toward "the dictatorshipof the proletariat and the peasantry under the form of soviets."How this regime is different from the dictatorship of the proletariat is, as usual, not explained.

11. For England as, incidentally, for all the other countries,the advice is to realize the united fuont frdm below. In otherwords, the plenum of the ECCI has again approved the re-nunciation of the policy of the united fronl

12. In Manchuria it is proposed to create, on the basis ofguerrilla war, 'an elected popular governmenln A democraticslogan? Why is it given so vaguely? Why only for Manchuria?Why isn't it applicable to all of China?

13. The Indian Communist Party is assigned the task of"liberating the masses from the inlluence of the National Con-gress.'267 But at the same time the ECCI fraternizes with Patelthrough the Amsterdam congress and artilicially increases theauthorigz of the National Congress.

14. In the organizational field the plenum recommends "theresolute liquidation of excessive cenEalism, the system of pureand-simple command," etc. This advice does not eound bad

The Tloelfth Plenum of the Comintern 235

from the mouth of the ECCI, which for the fifth year has failedto call an international congress and commands by usurpingthe name of the International.

15. The ECCI insists (!) that the "Communist youth be trans-formed into a genuine mass organization." Magnificent advice.But why do the youth organizations vegetate and decay inspite of all the advice of Kuusinm? Just because they havenot been freed from his advice.

16. In conclusion the theses advise one and all to strugglefor the purity of doctrine on the basis of "Stalin's letter." Poorpurity! Poor doctrind Poor Comintern!

17. Soviets are mentioned in the theses in passing, in con-nection with China and Spain. For the other countries, inspite of the revolutionary perspectives set up in the theses,soviets in general are not mentioned; in particular the sloganof soviets is not raised before the German proletariat. It isnot difficult to find the orplanation. In Germany, as in themajority of advanced countries, real soviets can only be createdon the basis of a broad and audacious united-front policy.Ultimatism and the slogan of soviets cannot be reconciled witheach other. By renouncing the united front the Stalinists renounce soviets.

A LETTER TOWEISBORD2Gs

October 13, 1932

Dear Comrade Weisbord:This is in answer to your letter, and through your mediation

to the letter of your group. My delay in answering was dueto my certaintSr that The Militant contrary to your prematureassumption, would answer your requesL And, in point of factI find that in its last issues my letter to you and your answerare published in full and even without any criticism.

This procedure is very accommodating, perhaps a little toomuch so. If you still remember our discussion about the pos-sibilides and methods of fusion, you will understand withoutany comment from me that I cannot find your steps veryhappily chosen for the purpose, if the purpose remains thatof fusion.

It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of your letter,but I feel obliged to emphasize the fact that your treahnentof the question of centrism appears to me absolutely unsat-isfactory. It is not a question of the terms, but of the politicalcontent of the Stalinist faction.

It is superfluous to repeat that I would be glad to observea real rapprochement between your group and our Americansection, but it is evident that in the present stage this processcannot be seriously influenced from abroad. It is a task betweenyourself and the League'

with communist greetings,L. Trotsky.

236

MILL AS A STALINIST AGENT269

October 1932

The Left Opposition is placed in extremely difficult condi-tions from the organizational point of view; no revolutionaryparty in the past has worked under such persecution. In ad-dition to repression by the capitalist police of all countries,the Opposition is er<posed to the blows of the Stalinist bureau-cracy, which stops at nothing. We repeat: at nothing.

It is of course the Russian secUon that is having the hardesttime All will remember how Blumkin, trying to establish aconnecdon between Trotsky and his cothinkers in the USS&was shot to death. To find a Russian Bolshevik-Leninistabroad, even for purely technical functions, is an er<tremelydifficult task.

This and only this er<plains the fact that Mill was able fora time to get into the Administrative Secretariat of the LeftOpposition: there was a need for a person who knew Russianand was able to carry out secretarial duties. Mill had at onetime been a member of the official party and in this sensecould claim a certain personal confidence.

His work in the Secretariat, however, very quickly showedhis complete practical incompetency, not to speak of the ab-sence of any political education whatsoever. In this last re-spect, by the way, Mill is a typical representative of both thegreater and lesser bureaucrats with Stalinist training.

To this s/ere soon added negative haits of a personal, orrather moral character. Having, for want of choicg landedin a responsible, even if purely technical, job, Mill startedto feel himseU occupying the role of something of a 'leader.nIn relation to a number of French comrades, who are headand shoulders above him, he began to display completely

237


ridiculous pretensions. From behind the mask of the insultedStalinist passing himself off as an "Oppositionisf there appearedthe face of a little petty bourgeois from some wretched littletownship of old czarist Russia. Mill very quickly got into op-position to the Paris comrades, who in his opinion were notbehaving with sufficient respect towards him and - this toomust be said-were not taking sufficient trouble about hiswelfare These insults were enough for the little petty bour-geois to try to form a bloc with Rosmer and others, againstwhom he had literally only the day before been waging abitter shuggle of "principle." This unworthy political about-face, produced by purely personal motives, led to Mill's re.moval from the Administrative Secretariat The sections, es-pecially the Russian ong corrected the error they had made,which was to a considerable extent forced on them, as statedabove, by the difficulties of the objective circumstances. Inthe course of the next nine months Mill was completely out-side of the ranks of the Left Opposition.

But this was not the end of his career. Just as pique at in-sufficient houble over him had sent him to Rosmer, so hisremoval from the Administrative Secretariat sent him on thepath of talks with the Stalinists; he made an official applica-tion for a job in Kharkov, where his relatives are living.

In the process of these deceidul talks Mill offered his ger-vices to the Left Opposition, evidently already serving in hisnew political function. Now Mill intends to "unmask' the Op-position; this is essentially what his work in Kharkov or Mos-cow will be.

There is no need to fear that a little petty bourgeois, or-pelled from the ranks of the Bolshevik-Leninists as an un-couth scoundrel, can play any role whatsoever in the strugglewith the Left Opposition. We do not fear the truth. And asfar as lies go, the Stalinists even before Mill have broken allrecords.

In one respect you might say the situation is according tostandard: a Stalinist annoyed for some reason at the Stalin-ists temporarily consoles himself with the Opposition, is ejectedfrom their ranks, and goes back to his own. There he willbe completely in place.

THE LESSONOF MILL'S TREACHERY2TO

October 13, 1932

The case of Mill represents one of those episodes which,generally speaking, are quite inwitable in the process of selecting and educating our cadres. The Left Opposition is underterrific pressure But not all are up to it. There will still benot a few cases of regrouping and of personal desertion. Inthis letter I would like to draw out of the Mill episode certainlessons which it seems to me are simple and not open todispute.

Lenin spoke of ultraleftism as an infantile malady. But wemust remember that ultraleftism is not the only political infan-tile malady; there are others too. As everyone knows, childrenfind it hard to realize the nature of their illness or even itslocation. There is something of this sort in politics too. Itrequires a fairly high degree of maturity for two groups, atthe very moment of their birth, to be able to define more orless clearly the cardinal points of their differences. More oftenyoung groups, like sick children, complain of pains in thearm or leg, while the pain in realigz is in the belly. Individuals,or little groups, insufficiently hardened for a tenacious andlong-range task of organization and education, disillusionedby the fact that success does not fall from the sky, ordinarilydo not take account of the fact that the source of their failureslies in themselves, in their inconsistency, in their softness, intheir petty-bourgeois sentimentalism. They seek the blame fortheir shortcomings outside of themselves and generally findit in the bad character of X or Y. Often enough they end bymaking a bloc with Z, with whom they do not agree on any-thing, against Y, with whom, as they say, they are in agrecment on werything. When serious revolutionists are thenastonished or indignant at their attitude, they begin to protestthat an nintrigue" ls being woven against them. This pernicious

239


road, observed more than once in various sections, has beenfollowed to the end in the Mill episode and that is why it isparticularly instructive.

How did Mill become a member of the Administrative Sec-

retariat? I have spoken of this in my note for the press. Ob-jective conditions demanded the presence at the Secretariatof a person who was closely connected with the center of theRussian Opposition, able to hanslate Russian documents, carryon correspondence, etc. Mill appeared as the only possiblecandidate, practically speaking. He declared his complete sol-idarity with the Russian Opposition, and took part in thestruggle against Landau, Rosmer, etc. All our comrades willremember how Mill then, in the course of absolutely unprin-cipled conflicts with the leading group of the French League,suddenly tried to conclude a bloc with Rosmer, who hadalready abandoned the ranks of the League.

What did this fact mean? How was it possible for a respon-sible member, in the course of twenty-four hours, to changehis position on a highly important question for the sake ofpersonal considerations? Mill himself continued to declare thathe had no kind of political differences with the Russian Op-positiory only that such and such French comrades "displeasedhim." In other words, Mill had recourse to the same argumentswhich only the day before he had condemned in Rosmer.Rosmer has even built on the basis of the opposition betweenideas and people a purely anecdotal theory which shows beyond any doubt that Rosmer broke with the Comintern notbecause he had raised himself to a higher historical pointof view, but because at bottom he had not grown to an under-standing of revolutionary policy and the revolutionary party.

The only conclusion which could be drawn from the unworthyconduct of Mill was this: for Mill, principles are in generalclearly of no importance; personal considerations, s5rmpathies,and antipathies determine his political conduct to a greaterdegree than principles and ideas. The fact that Mill could pro-pose a bloc with a man whom he had defined as non-Marxist,against comrades whom he had held to be Marxists, showedclearly that Mill was politically and morally unreliable andthat he was incapable of keeping his loyalty to the cause.If on that day he behayed on a small scale, he was capableof betraying tomorrow on a larger scale. That was the con-clusion which every revolutionary should have drawn.

The Russian Opposition, which more than all the other sec-tions was responsible for having brought Mill into the Sec-

The Lesson of Mill's Trwchetg 241

retariat, immediately proposed his removal from that body.But what happened? This proposal, natural, urgent, corre-sponding to the entire situation, met with resistance amongcertain comrades. In the first rank were the comrades of theSpanish section, who even considered it possible to proposeMill as the representative of the Spanish section in the Inter-national Secretariat At the same time they declared that theyhad no political differences with the leadership of the Inter-national Left Opposition.

This most une:<pected step made a shocking impression onmany of us at the time. But we asked, by what do the Spanishcomrades let themselves be guided when they take up Mill asa cause? It is clear. They see in Mill a comrade who has been"crossed," and they hasten to take up his defense. In otherwords, on a political question of exceptional importance theylet themselves be guided by considerations which are notpolitical, not revolutionary, but personal and sentimental.

If Mill tried to conclude a bloc with the deserter Rosmeragainst the French League, the leading Spanish comradesconcluded a bloc with Mill against the Russian, French, anda number of other sections, although in their own words theyhad no differences with them. We see in what a maze one canbe lost by being guided, on important questions, not bypolitical revolutionary considerations, but by impressions,sentimentalism, and personal sympathies and antipathies!

The fact that Mill "in search of work" entered into negotiationswith the Stalinists and finally undertakes to "unmask" the LeftOpposition in the press shows definitely that Mill is a corruptpetty bourgeois. Surely no one in our ranks will deny this.But this alone is not enough: we must understand that thesudden turn of Mill toward Rosmer was in its time only thedress rehearsal for his present turn toward the Stalinists. Thebasis for both acts of treason was the same inadequacy ofthe petty bourgeois who had fallen into the sphere of revo-lutionary politics.

I pause on this question with so much detail not on accountof Mill, but on account of the question of the selection andeducation of the cadres of the Left Opposition. This processis far from finished, although it is precisely in this field thatwe have important successes to our credit.

The Spanish Opposition at present is going through an er(-tremely difficult crisis. The leadership elected at the last con-ference has fallen apart although no principled basis for thisdecomposition can be found; for each member of the Central

242 Writings of Leon Tlotskg (1932)

Committee, we are referred to some particular prsonal reason.Still, for anyone who in the past had seriously gone into theposition of the Central Committee of the Spanish Oppositiontoward the Mill episodq it was even then clear that the SpanishOpposition was on its way toward a crisis.

In fact, if the leaders of the Spanish Opposition did not under-stand the principled importance of the struggle which we werecarrying on against Rosmer,. Landau, etc., if they thoughtit possible to ally themselves with Mill against the fundamentalcadres of the Imternational Opposition, if at the same timethey repeated that they had no differences with us and thusremoved any justification for their manner of acting, for allthese reasons we could not fail to say to ourselves with alarm,"The leaders of the Spanish Opposition will scarcely give acorrect orientation to their section; but where a well-groundedorientation is lacking, there inevitably appear personal motivesand feelings." To weld into a whole people of different training'character, temperament, and education can be done only bymeans of clear revolutionary principles. Otherwise the disin-tegration of the organization is inevitable. On personal sym-pathies, on friendships and clique spirit nothing can be builtbut a lifeless debating club of the Souvarinez?l type or a homefor political invalids of the Rosmer type, and not even thatfor long.

Disagreeable as the task is, I must again touch on a "delicate"point because the interest of the cause demands it; no soundpolitical relations can be built on suppressions and conven-tionalities.

When in our letters we asked the leading Spanish comradesby what principled motives, by what political and organiza-tional considerations they let themselves be guided in takingup the defense of Mill against the Russian, German, French,Belgian sections, etc., we received the following type of reply,"We have the right to have our own opinion," "Ill/e refuse tobe ordered aboul" etc. This unexpected reply seemed to usa highly alarming symptom.

Let us admit that someone among us really has a tendencyto order people about Such a tendency should be resisted,and the shonger the tendency the more the resistance. Butthe necessity for the most resolute struggle against any suchhabits of simple command would not free the Spanish com-rades of the necessity of establishing a political foundation fortheir factional intervention in favor of Mill and against tbeoverwhelming majority of the sections. In the request for prin-

The Lesson of Mill's Treachery 243

cipled motives for this or that action there is in no way atendency to simple command. Every member of the Left Op-position has the right to ask the responsible institutions ofthe Left Opposition the question: Why? To get rid of the bur-den of a concrete answer by mere affirmation of the rightto have one's own opinion is to replace mutual revolutionaryobligations by half-liberal, half-sentimental commonplaces. AJ-ter such an answer, one could not fail to say to oneself again,'Certain leading Spanish comrades have not, unforfunately,a sufficiently solid common ground with the International LeftOpposition. From this proceeds their inattention to the historyof the Left Opposition, to the struggles through which it hasgone, to the selection of cadres which it has carried through;from this proceeds also the tendency to be guided by personalimpressions, by psychological estimations, by individual cri-teria; from this also, the affirmation of 'libert5r' of opinioninstead of a Matuist foundation for the opinion."

It is unnecessary for us to say how far removed we arefrom the thought of comparing any of the Spanish comradesto Mill. But it remains a fact that the leading Spanish com-rades have not understood in time why we attacked Mill inan inhansigent manner and why we demanded that the othersdo the same. Let us hope ttrat now, at leasl this serious lessonmay lead to our coming tolether and not to additional dis-cussion.

THE EXPULSION OFZINOVIEV AND KAMENBV2T2

October 19, 1932

Radio and telegraph have flashed news to the entire worldof the expulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party,and along with them of more than a score of Bolsheviks.According to the official communication, those who are en-pelled allegedly were striving to reestablish capitalism in theSoviet Union. The political import of this new repression isimposing in itself. Its symptomatic significance is tremendous.

For many years Zinoviev and Kamenev were Lenin's closestpupils and collaborators. Better than anyone else, Lenin knewtheir weak traits; but he was also able to utilize their strongsides. In his "testament,n so cautious in tone, in which bothpraise and censure are equally modulated in order not tostrengthen some and weaken others too much, Lenin deemedit urgent to remind the party that the behavior of Zinovievand Kamenev in October was "not accidental.a 273 Subsequentevents conlirmed these words all too well. But no more ac-cidental was the role which Zinoviev and Kamenev playedin the Leninist party. And their present expulsion brings tomind their old and nonaccidental role.

Zinoviev and Kamenev were members of the Politburo, whichin Lenin's time was directly in charge of the fate of the partyand the revolution. Zinoviev was president of the CommunistInternational. Together with Rykov and Tsiurupa,2l4 Kame-nev was Lenin's assistant, during the final period of Lenin'slife in the presiding office of the Council of People's Com-missars. After Lenin's death Kamenev presided over the Polit-buro and the Council of Labor and Defense, the highest eco-nomic organ of the republic.

In 1923 Zinoviev and Kamenev launched a campaignagainst Trotsky. At the beginning of the struggle, they took

244

The furyulsion of Zinooia: and Kamqteo 245

very poor account of its consequences, which of course doesnot testify to their political foresighL Zinoviev was primarilyan agitator, exceptionally talented, but almost o<clusively anagitator; Kamenev, a "wise politician" in Lenin's estimation,but lacking great willpower and too easily inclined to adapthimself to the intellectual, culturally middleclass, bureaucraticmilieu.

Stalin's role in the sEuggle bore a much more organic char-acter. The spirit of petty-bourgeois provincialism, narrownessof vision-that is what characterizes Stalin, notwithstandinghis Bolshevism. His enmity toward nTrotskyism" had rootsmuch deeper than that of Zinoviev and Kamenev, and fora long time prwiously it had sought political o<pression. [r-capable himsef of theoretical generalizations, Stalin urged onin turn Zinoviev, Kamenw, and Bukharin, and picked outfrom their speeches and articles whatever seemed to him mostappropriate for his own aims.

The struggle of the majority of the Politburo against Trotsky,which began to a considerable degree as a personal conspiracy,disclosed all too quickly its political contenL It was neithersimple nor homogeneous.

The Left Opposition included within itself, around its author-itative Bolshevik kernel, many of the organizers of the Oc-tober Revolution, militant participants in the civil war, anda considerable number of Marxists from the student youth.But behind this vanguard, during the first stages, there draggedalong the tail end all sorts of dissatisfied, ill+quipped, andeven chagrined careerists. Only the arduous dwelopment ofthe zubsequent struggles liberated the Opposition from its ac-cidental and uninvited fellow travelers.

Under the banner of the "triumvirate"- Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin-were united many "Old Bolsheviks," particularly thosewho, as Lenin recommended as early as April 1917, shouldhave been relegated to the archives; but there also were manyserious members who had participated in the unlergroundmovement, eEong party organizers, who sincerely beliwedthat there nras an impending danger of Leninism being replacedby Trotskyism. Tbe further matters progressed, however, themore the bureaucracy grenr and entrenched itself, the moresolidly and cohesively it rebelled against the "permanent rev-olution-" And it was this that subsequently guaranteed Stalin'spreponderance over Zinoviev and Kamenev.

The fight within the "biumvirate," beginning to a consider-able degree also as a personal fight-politics develops by


and through people, and nothing that is human is foreignto politics- soon disclosed its own principled content. Zinoviev,as president of the Petrograd Soviet, and Kamenev, as pres-ident of the Moscow Soviet sought the support of the workersof the two capitals. Stalin's chief support was in the provincesand in the apparatus; in the backward provinces the apparatusbecame all-powerful sooner than in the capitals. Zinoviw,president of the Comintern, cherished his international posi-tion S1ntin looked down with contempt on the Communistparties of the West He found the formula for his nationalisticlimitations in 19242 socialism in one country. Against him,Zinoviev and Kamenev counterposed their doubts and refu-tations. But it was sufficient for Stalin to enlist those forceswhich had been mobilized by the ntriumviraten against Tlotsky-ism to automatically overwhelm Zinoviev and Kamenw.

Zinoviev's and Kamenev's pasto the years of their joint workwith Lenin and the international school of emigration, musthave made them hostile to the wave of isolation that threat-€nd, in the last analysis, to sweep away the October Rev-

olution. The result of the new fight on the top seemed to manyabsolutely astounding: two of the most vigorous instigatorsof the uproar against "Trotskyism" ended up in the camp ofthe "Trotskyists.'

In order to facilitate a bloc, the Left Opposition - againstthe objections and warnings of the author of these lines-toned down certain formulations of its pladorm, and tem-porarily refrained from making official replies to the mostacute theoretical questions. This was hardly correct But theLeft Opposition of 1923 did not make any essential conces-sions. We remained true to ourselves; Zinoviev and Kame'nev came to us. There is no need to recapitulate the degreeto which the coming over to the side of the 1923 Oppositionby the sworn enemies of yesterday strengthened the assuranceof our ranks and our conviction in our historical correchress.

Zinoviev and Kamenev, howwer, on this occasion as well,did not foresee all the political consequences of their step. In1923 they had hoped, by means of a few agitational cam-paigns and organizational maneuvers' pushing all other ques-tions aeide, to free the party from the "tregemony of Trotsky';now it seemed to them that, allied with the 1923 Opposition,they would quickly cope with the apparatus and reestablishboth their own personal positions and the Leninist coursein the party.

The Erpulsion of Zinooias and l{ameneo 247

Once again they were mistaken. Personal antagonisms andgroupings within the party had already completely becomethe tools of anonymous social forces, strata, and classes. Thereaction against the October overturn had its own inner lawful-ness, and it was impossible to skip over its ponderous rhythmby means of combinations and maneuvers.

Sharpening from day to day, the struggle between the Op-position bloc and the bureaucracy reached its final limits.The matter now no longer concerned discussion, even if underthe whip, but a break with the official Soviet apparatus, thatis, the perspective of an arduous struggle for a number ofyears-a struggle surrounded by great dangers, the outcomeof which could not be foretold.

Zinoviev and Kamenev recoiled. As in 1917, on the eveof October, they had become frightened of a break with thepetty-bourgeois democracy, so ten years later they becamefrightened of a break with the Soviet bureaucracy. And thiswas all the more "not accidental," since threequarters of theSoviet bureaucracy was made up of those same elements whichin 1917 tried to scare the Bolsheviks with the inevitable fiascoof the October "adventure."

The capitulation of Zinoviev and Kamenev, before the Fif-teenth Congress lin 1927], at the moment of the organizedcrackdown on the Bolshevik-Leninists, was received by theLeft Opposition as an act of monstrous perfidy. In essenceit was. But even this capitulation had its measure of lawful-nesg not only psychological but political. On a series of funda-mental questions of Marxism (the proletariat and the peasantry,"democratic dictatorship,n permanent revolution), Zinoviev andKamenw stood between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the LeftOpposition. Theoretical amcirphousness avenged itself iner(-orably, ae it always does, in practice.

For all his agitational radicalism, Zinoviw always steppedback from the actual inferences of political formulas. Fight-ing against Stalinist policies in China, Zinoviev opposed thebreak of the Communist Party with the Kuomintang. EnposingStalin's alliance with Purcell and Cihine,27' Zftrcviw hesitatedirresolutely before the split with the Anglo-Russian Committee.Joining the struggle against the Thermidorean tendencies, hevowed beforehand in no case to bring matters to the pointof expulsion from the party. In this spirit of going halfwaywas contained his inwitable downfall. 'Everything except eK-pulsion from the party' signified a struggle against Stalin-ism within the limits permitted by Stalin.


After their capitulation, Zinoviev and Kamenev did abso-lutely everything they could to restore the confidence of theruling clique in them and to be assimilated into the officialmilieu. Zinoviev made his peace with the theory of socialismin one country, and once again enposed "Tlotskyism," andeven made attempts to burn incense to Stalin personally. Noth-ing helped. The capitulators suffered, shut up, and waited.And with all that they still did not succed in hanging onto celebrate the fifth anniversary of their own capitulation;it seems that they were involved in a "conspiracy," and there-fore were enpelled from the party, perhaps to be deportedor oriled.

What is astounding is that Zinoviev and Kamenev werebooted out not for their own cause nor under their own ban-ner. The bulk of the list of those orpelled, according to thedecision of October 9, consists of outright right-wingers, thatis, the followers of Rykov-Bukharin-Tomsky. Does this meanthat left centrism has united with right centrism against thebureaucratic core? Let's not rush to conclusions.

The most prominent names on the list, after Zinoviw andKamenev, are those of Uglanov and Riutin,2Tti two formermembers of the Central E>recutive Committee. Uglanov, asthe general secretary of the Moscow committee, and Riutin,as the head of the Agitprop, were in charge in_ the capitalof the struggle against the Left Opposition, clearing werynook and corner of Trotskyism in 192&27. They raised aparticularly venomous hullabaloo against Zinoviev and Ka-menev as "traitors" to the ruling faction. When Uglanov andRiutin, as a result of the Stalinist turn to the left, became thechief practical organizers of the Right Opposition, all the of-ficial articles and speeches harped on one and the same note:"No man can deny the great service rendered by Uglanovand Riutin in the struggle against Trotskyism, but their plat-form nevertheless represents that of the kulaks and bourgeoisliberals." The Stalinists pretend that they are not aware thatit was precisely around these issues that the struggle had takenplace Then, as now, only the right and the left had principledpositions; the Stalinists thrived on the sops from each.

As early as 1928 Uglanov and Riutin began to assert thatthe Left Opposition had been correct in its stand on the ques-tion of the party regime-the acknowledgment is all the moreinstructive since no one could boast of success in entrenchingthe Stalinist regime more than Uglanov and Riutin. "Solidarity'on the question of party democracy, howwer, cannot cause

The Erpulsion of Zinooias and Karneneo 249

a change of heart of the Left Opposition in relation to theRight Opposition. Party democracy is not an abstract ideal;least of all is it designed to serve as a screen for Thermidoreantendencies. Moreover, Uglanov and Riutin, at least in the past,represented the most thoroughgoing Thermidorean wing inthe camp of the Right.

Among the participants in the conspiracy the CEC lists otherleading right-wingers like Slepkov and Maretsky,277 Red pro-fessors of the Bukharin school, directors of the Young Com-munist League and, haoda, instigators of many programmaticresolutions of the CEC and authors of countless articles andpamphlets against "Trotskyism."

On the proscribed list are found Ptashny and Gorelov, witha notation of their former adherence to the 'Trotskyist Op-position." We have no way of judging whether this concernstwo scarcely known capitulators from the Left who subsequentlythrew in their lot with the Right or whether this is a falsifi-cation to deceive the party. The former is by no means e:(-cluded, but neither is the latter.

In the resume of the participants, the chief leaders of theRight Opposition are conspicuously absent Cables to the bour-geois papers report that Bukharin'has completely reestablishedhis party position" and is apparently slated for a post in thePeople's Commissariat of &lucation in place of Bubnov,2Tuwho is being transferred to the GPU; Rykov, once again infavor, makes radio speeches, etc. The fact that neither Bu-kharin nor Tomsky are on the list of "conspirators" does makeplausible some temporary bureaucratic indulgence toward theformer leaders of the Right Opposition. But it is out of thequestion that they are being reestablished in their old positionsin the party.

The group as a whole is accused of an attempt to create"a bourgeois-kulak organization in order to restore capitalismin the USSR and the kulak, in particular.n An amazing for-mulation! An organization to restore "capitalism and the kulak,in particular." (!) This "particularity" gives the show away,or at least parts of it. There is no denying that some of thoseexpelled, like Slepkov and Maretsky, itt the period of the strug-gle against'Trotskyism," developed, like their teacher Bukharin,the idea of "the kulak's growing over into socialism.n We don'tknow what stand they have taken since then. But it is quitepossible that their guilt consists not so much in their desireto "restore" the kulak as their failure to recognize Stalin's vic-tories in the sphere of "the liquidation of the kulaks as a class."


What is the relation of Zinoviev and Kamenev, however, tothe program of nrestoring capitalism"? The Soviet press informsus of the following in regard to their participation in the crime."Knowing of the counterrevolutionary documents that werebeing circulated, instead of immediately o<posing the agentsof the kulaks, they preferred to deliberate over this document[?] and by this act alone, they became the direct accomplicesof the antiparty, counterrevolutionary group." So Zinovievand Kamenev "preferred to deliberate over the documenf in-stead of "immdiatelg aposing" it. The accusers do not dareto claim that Zinoviw and Kamenev were entirely beyondconsidering its "er<posure" Where, how, and with whom didthey deliberate? Had this occurred during a secret sessionof the Right group, ft1s accusers would not have failed to in-form us of it. Apparently Zinoviev and Kamenev "preferredto deliberaten with their own four eyes within their own fourwalls. As a result of their deliberation' did they enpress theirsympathy for the pladorm of the right-wingers? If there wereeven the slightest hint of such sympathy, we would have beentold about it in the decision. Silence on this matter testifiesto the contrary: Zinoviev and Kamenev, obviously, subjectedthe plafform to criticism instead of immediately ringing upYagoda. But in view of the fact that they did not telephone,haod.a feels justified in applying to them the concept nThe

enemy of my enemy is my friend."This crude accusation against Zinoviev-Kamenev makes it

possible for us to conclude with assurance that the blow wasdirected against them, and primarily them. Not because theycarried on political activity during the last period. We knownothing of that, and what is more important the CEC knowsnothing of that either, as is evident from the decree. But theobjective political situation has so deteriorated that Stalin canno longer tolerate legal candidates for leadership of one oranother opposition group.

The Stalinist bureaucracy, of course, has long been awarethat Zinoviev and Kamenev whom it has spurned were verymuch ninterested" in the oppositionist trends within the partyand were reading all sorts of documents that were not des-tined for Yagoda. In 1928 Kamenev even carried on secretnegotiations with Bukharin regarding the possibility of a bloc.Reports of these negotiations were published at the time by theLeft Opposition. The Stalinists, however, could not decide toexpel Zinoviw and Kamenev. They did not want to com-promise themselves by new scandals of repression unless there

The Expulsion of Zinooian and Kammeo 25L

was an urgent necessity for it. The period of economic suc-cesses, in part actual, in part fictitious, was then being inau-gurated. Zinoviev and Kamenw did not appear to be im-mediately dangerous.

Now the situation has changed radically. Trug the news-paper articles er<plaining the o<pulsion proclaim that becausewe have grown extremely strong economically and because theparty has become absolutely monolithic, we therefore cannottolerate "the slightest conciliatory spiril" But in this explana-tion the white threads that baste it together are all too muchin view. The necessity for the expulsion of Zinoviev and Ka-menev, for an obviously fictitious reason, testifies on the con-trary to the extreme weakening of Stalin and his faction. Zino-viev and Kamenev had to be removed post haste not becauseof a change in their behavior but because of a change in thecircumstances. Riutin's group, apart from any actual activity,is dragged along in order to garnish the service. Knowingin advance that they may soon be brought to account theStalinists are "taking measures."

One cannot deny the fact that this juridical combination ofthe right-wingers, who inspired Stalin's policies from 1923-28,of the two actual or supposed former "Trotskyists," and ofZinoviev and Kamenev, guil[r of knowing but of not inform-ing, is a product entirely worthy of the political creativity ofStalin, Yaroslavsky, and Yagoda. A classical amalgam ofthe Thermidorean typd Ttre aim of this amalgam is to mixup the cards, to disorient the party, to increase the ideologicalconfusion, and in this way to hinder the workers from under-standing what is happening and finding a way out. The sup-plementary task consists in politically demoting Zinoviw andKamenev, former leaders of the Left Opposition, now expelledfor "amit5r" toward the Right Opposition.

Inevitably the question arises: How could Old Bolsheviks,knowledgeable and er<perienced in politics, give their oppo-nents the opportunity to deal them such a blow? How couldthey, who renounced their own plaform for the sake of re-maining in the party, in the end be flung out of the partybecause of a fictitious connection with a platform foreign tothem? One must reply that this result also did not come aboutaccidentally. Zinoviev and Kamenev tried to play hicks withhistory. Of course they were motivated, first of all, by concernfor the Soviet lJnion, for the unity of the party, and not at allfor their personal welfare. But they set their tasks not on the

252 Writings of Leon Ttotaky (1932)

plane of the Russian and world revolution but on the muchlower plane of the Soviet bureaucracy.

In their most difficult hours, on the eve of their capitulation,they entreated us, then their allies, "to meet the party halhray."We replied that we were prepared to meet the party all theway, but in another and a higher sense than was requiredby Stalin and Yaroslavsky. But did that not mean a split?Was that not a threat of civil war and of the downfall of theSoviet power? We replied that Stalin's policies, if not opposedby us, would inwitably doom the Soviet power to ruin. Andthis was the idea er<pressed in our pladorm. Principles con-quer. Capitulation can never be victorious. We shall do wery-thing in our power to insure that the struggle for principles willbe led in consonance with and in consideration of the wholesituation, both domestic and foreign. But it is impossible toforesee all the variations of dwelopment. Nevertheless it isabsurd and criminal to play hide and seeh with revolution,to use trickery in dealing with classes and diplomacy in deal-ing with history. In such compler< and responsible situationsone must be guided by a rule e:<cellently expressed by theFrench in the proverb: Fais ce que doit a.doienne que pouna!Perform your duty, come what may!

Zinoviev and Kamenev have fallen victilns because theydid not keep to this rule.

If one leaves aside the absolutely demoralized capitulatorsof the Radek and Pyatakov t5rpe, who as journalists or func-tionaries will continue to serve any victorious faction (underthe preter<t of serving socialism), then the capitulators takenas a political group represent moderate party "liberals" who,at a given momen! rushed too far to the left or to the rightand who subsequently took to the road of coming to termswith the ruling bureaucracy. But the situation today is char-acterized by the fact that this conciliation, which appeared sofinal, has begun to crack and to explode, and in an enhemelyacute form at that. The tremendous symptomatic significanceof the e><pulsion of Zinoviev, Kamenev, IJglanov, and theothers originates in the fact that in the nerv clashes at the "top"are rellected profound currents among the masses.

What were the political premises for the capitulations in the1929-30 period? They were the bureaucratic turn in directionto the left the successes of industrialization, the quick growthof collectivization. The fiveyear plan absorbed the attentionof the working masses. A great perspective was opened up.

The Erpulsion of Zinooieo and l{annena 253

The workers were reconciled to the loss of political indepen-dence in expectadon of near and decisive socialist successes.The peasant poor awaited a change in their future from thecollectives. The standard of living of the lowest layers of thepeasantry rose higher, although, it is true, to a considerableextent at the expense of the basic capital of agriculture Suchwere the economic prerequisites and the political ahnosphereproducing the epidemic of capitulation.

The growth of economic disproportions, the worsening of theconditions of the masses, the growth of dissatisfaction amongthe workers and the peasants, the confusion in the apparatusitself-these are the prerequisites for the revival of each andwery kind of opposition. The sharpness of the contradictionsand the intensity of the alarm in the party more and moredrive the moderate, cautious, and always-ready-for-compromiseparty "liberals" onto the road of protest. Ttre bureaucracy,caught in a blind alley, immediately replies with repression, ina large measure as a preventive

We do not as yet hear the voice of the Left Opposition in theopen. Little wonder: the bourgeois papers that tell of the re'wards presumably in store for Rykov and Bukharin at thesame time report nnew mass arrests among the Trotskyists."The Left Opposition in the USSR has been subjected in thecourse of a number of years to such fearful police persecution,its cadres have been placed in such o(cepdonal conditions, thatit is infinitely more difficult for it than for the legal 'liberals"to openly formulate its opposition and to intervene organiza-tionally in the developing events. In connectlon with this, thehistory of bourgeois revolutions informs us that the ltberalsin their struggle against autocracy, taking advantage of theirlegal prerogatives, were the first ones out in the name of the"people"; only the struggle between the liberal bourgeoisie andthe bureaucracy cleared the way for the petty-bourgeois democracy and the proletariat. This of course is only a historicalanalogy but we think that it does elucidate the problem.

The resolution of the September CEC plenum suddenly out ofthe blue boasts that "traving crushd counterrevolutionaryTrotskyism, having exposed the anti-Leninist kulak essenceof the Right opportunists, the party . . . has attained at thepresent time decisive successes. . ." It can be o<pected that inthe very near future it will be clear that the Left and Right Op-position are neither crushed nor annihilated but, on the con-trary, are the only actual political currents in oristence It was


precisely the official policies of the last three or four years thatprepared the conditions for the nernr upsurge of the Right-Ther-midoreah tendencies. The attempt of the Stalinists to dump theLeft and the Right into a single pile is facilitated to some

extent by the fact that today both the Left and the Right speakof a retreal This is unavoidable: the urgent need for a regu-lated retreat from the line of adventuristic leaps has becomethe overriding task of the proletarian state. The centrist bureau-crats themselves dream of nothing else but the possibility of anorderly retreat, without losing face completely, yet they cannothelp but realize that a retrenchment in the face of the shortageof food and all other goods may be their undoing. For thisreason they retreat by stealth while they accuse the oppositionof tendencies toward reheal

The real political danger comes from the fact that the right-wingers are a faction for permanent retreat and that they havenow been given the opportunity to claim: nlile have always de'manded this.' The oppressive ahnosphere in which the partylives does not allow the workers to understand at once the

dialectics of the economic processes, and to correctly evaluatethe limited, temporary, and conjunchrral "correctness" on the

one hand and the fundamental falsity on the other of the posi-tion of the Right.

All the more important, therefore, is the clear, independentfarseeing policy of the Bolshevik-Leninists. Follow carefully allthe processes in the country and within the party! Evaluate cor-rectly the different groupings according to their ideas and theirsocial ties! Do not become frightened by isolated tactical coin-cidence with the Right! Do not forget, because of tactical co-

incidencg the antagonism of the strategic lines!Political dilferentiation in the Soviet proletariat will occur on

the following questions: How to retreat? What are the limitsof the retreat? When and how to proceed to a new offensive?What should be the tempos of the offensive? All these questions'very important in themselves, on their own do not suffice. We

are not building policies for one country. The fate of the SovietUnion will be resolvd in indissoluble connection with worlddwelopment. It is necessary to place again before the Russianworkers the problems of world communism in their full scope-

OnIy the independent emergence of the Left Opposition and the

unification of the basic proletarian kernel under its banner canresurrect the par$r, the workers' state, and the Communist In-ternational.

ON FIELD AND WEISBOIUD2Tg

October 20, lg32

To the National Committeg Communist League of America

Dear Comrades:I am replying herewith to your letter of October 7 concern-

ing the question of Field.l. It appears that you give the Field question a certain con-

nection with the Weisbord question. I will therefore begin withthe latter.

The Weisbord group addressed itself formally to the Inter-national Secretariat with the request for its intervention. Weis-bord, on his own initiative, came to me. The InternationalSecretariat asked for my opinion in regard to this questionand I had no formal possibility of withholding such an ex-pression of opinion and could see no political reason for doingso. Naturally I held it to be my duty, in this especially deli-cate case, to do werything possible to strengthen the positionand the authority of the League as against the Weisbord group.Since then I see no grounds to regret anything that was donein Prinkipo. The Weisbord group had to recognize the erro-neousness of its own position on the most important questionsas against the League. This is a considerable political gain.Moreover, your reply to the Weisbord statement can onlystrengthen your position and authority. I noticed that already,for example, with Comrade Field; he recognized that yourreply was tacdul and correct Over what can you then complainin this case?

2. The case of Field is an entirely different one-simpler andmole complicated. Simpler because this is a case of a singlecomrade; more complicated because our practical objectivesappear not to harmonize entirely.

After conversations with Comrade Glotzer, after articles bear-ing upon this in The Militanl and after personal conversa-tions with Comrade Field, I have received the following specilicimpression: the collaboration of Comrade Field in the Leagueis not made more difficult or impossible because you lookupon him as a somenrhat politically or morally unworthyperson or as an alien type, but rather because Field, who

255


during his past has not yet developed the capacit5r for a lead-ing role in a revolutionary organization, nevertheless is pushedonto that road because of his intellectual qualities' This con-tradiction, which in general does not happen so seldom, canbe overcome in a big organization. But as the League remainsyet a small pioneer organization, it thereby feels itself com-pelled to take sharper measures to protect its own er<istenceThis is about the way the case appears to me.

On the other hand, it seems to me that Comrade Field canbe of considerable service to the Left Opposition as a wholebecause of his o<pertise in economic and statistical data. We

need someone who follows the facts of the world economythoroughly from day to day and who is in a position to ren-der an account of these facts to himself and to others. I havealready for some period of time looked around for such aneconomic expert in the Left Opposition. But without result.I hardly believe we can find another with the qualificationsof Field.

I have of course taken into account the importance of thefact that Comrade Field is e:rpelled from the New York branch.But such a formal act as the expulsion not only must be judgedformally but also politically. One can o<pel someone becausehe is a spy, another because he is totally corrupted, a thirdbecause he represents a principled enemy tendency. But some'one can also be expelled even though he is honest and fullyworthy, because under the e><isting conditions he disturbs theunity of the organization and threatens its ability to act. Inthis latter case (and that is the case of Field) it would per-haps have been better from the very beginning to call uponthe assistance of the international organization in order toneutralize such a comrade as far as the national organizationis concerned and nevertheless to not lose him. This is not acomplaint but rather a proposal for the future.

These are the general considerations from which I haveproceeded. The case of Landau, Gorkin, etc., which you citeand utilize with great polemical skill (which I personally en-joyed), is not comparable to this case Landau was not e:<-

pelled; he attempted to expel the majority of his own orga-nization. When this was objected to, he constituted his ownfaction. TVvo rival "Left Oppositions" shuggled for the affiliatedmembership. In this case, to accept Landau would mean tobebay our German organization.

Gorkin left the Left Opposition in order to engage in an ag-gressive collaboration with the most suspicious political orga-

On Field. and Weisbord. 257

nizations; also with the Right Opposition. According to thecharges of the Spanish comrades, Gorkin also engaged inpersonal dirty deals (money questions).

The Weisbord group can in a certain sense be considereda rival organization. Comrade Field is not at all a rival.Also Comrade Field did not establish connections with theMusteites 28o e1 the Lovestoneites against the League. Thisreally is a big difference. That he went over the heads of theLeague leadership is, from an organizational standpoint, notcorrect That he went to Europe, seeking the way to the LeftOpposition, does not speak against Field but for him. Thisproved that he meant it seriously.

All this induced me, after quite serious consideration, to sendthe contributions by Field on America to the sections as ma-terial for discussion. His contributions contain importantthoughts and proposals and deserve to be read and discussed.And even if it should come to an irrternational decision in thecase of Field, these contributions could nevertheless serve asimportant material for the information of the sections.

The fact that the article of Comrade Field appeared in theOpposition press without a previous agreement with you wasreally not correct. For this I will assume the major respon-sibility and I am ready, if you consider it useful, to submita corresponding apology to all of the sections.

I maintain however that the question of Field must be de.cided individually, not only from the standpoint of the orga-nizational conflict in New York, but also from the standpointof the international organization.

I will be very thankful if you will hanslate this letter intoEnglish and make it available for all the members of yourleadership.

With the best and most friendly greetings and wishes.

Yours,L. Trotsky

lErcerpt from a letter to the National Cornmittee, CLA Octo-ber 22, 19321

It appears that you were not sent a copy of my reply toComrade Weisbord [October 13]. I wrote this reply before Ihad the opportunity to become acquainted with your com-prehensive reply to the Weisbord group. You will notice, how-ever, that our parallel actions quite well supplement each other.I am sure that we can also find a good basis of agreement inthe case of Field.

THE SOVIET ECONOMY IN DANGER281

October 22, 1932

Ttre successes of the first two years of the fiveyear plandemonstrated to the bourgeoisie of the entire world that theproletarian revolution was a much more serious business thanwas apparent in the beginning. The interest in the Soviet "er<-

periment" grew apace. Conspicuous groups of eminent bour-geois publications in many countries began printing com-par atively obj ective economic information.

At the same time the international Communist press playedup the most optimistic estimates of the Soviet press, er<aggerat-ing them crudely, presumably in the interests of propaganda,and hansforming them into an economic legend.

Petty-bourgeois democrats, who were not at all in a hurryto form an opinion about so compler< a fact as the OctoberRevolution, welcomed with glee the possibility of discoveringsupport for their belated sympathies in the statistics of thefive.year plan. Magnanimously, at last, they "recognized" theSoviet republic in reward for its economic and cultural attain-ments. This act of moral heroism provided many of them withan opportunity to take an interesting trip at reduced rates.

It is infinitely more deserving, indeed, to defend the socialistconsbuction of the first workers' state than to sustain the pretensions of Wall Street or of the City. But one can take as littlestock in the lukewarm sympathies of this gentry toward theSoviet government as in the antipathies of the Amsterdamcongress toward militarism.

People after the type of the Webbs282 (and they are not theworst of this lot) are, naturally, not at all inclined to breaktheir heads over the contradictions of the Soviet economy.Without in any manner committing themselves, they strivechiefly to utilize the conquests of the Soviets in order thusto shame or arouse the ruling circles of their country. A for-eign revolution serves them as a subordinate weapon for theirreformism. For this purpose' as well as for their personalpeace of mind, nthe friends of the USSR'" together with the

international Communist bureaucracy, require a picfure ofsuccesses in the USSR as simple, as harmonious, and as com-forting as possible. Whoever disturbs this picture is nothingbut an enemy and a counterrwolutionisL

258

The fuoid fuonomy in Dangu 259

A crude and detrimental idealization of the transitional re-gime has particularly entrenched itself in the international Com-munist press during the last two years, that is, during thatperiod in which the conhadictions and disproportions of theSoviet economy have already found their way into the pagesof the official Soviet press.

There is nothing so precarious as sympathies that are basedon legends and fiction. There is no depending on people whorequire fabrications for their sympathies. The impending crisisof the Soviet economy will inwitably, and within the rathernear future, dissolve the sugary legend, and, we have no rea-son to doubt, will scatter many philistine friends into the by-paths of indifference, if not enmity.

What is much worse and much more serious is that the So-viet crisis will catch the European workers, and chiefly theCommunists, utterly unprepared, and leave them receptive toSocial Democratic criticism, which is absolutely inimical tothe Soviets and to socialism.

In this question, as in all others, the proletarian revolutionrequires the truth, and only the truth. Within the scope of thisbrief pamphlet, I have deemed it necessary to present in alltheir acuteness the contradictions of the Soviet economy, theincompleteness and the precariousness of many of its con-quests, the gross errors of the leadership, and the dangersthat stand in the path of socialism. Let our petgr-bourgeoisfriends lavishly apply their pink and baby-blue colorations.We deem it more correct to mark with a heavy black linethe weak and indefensible points where the enemy threatens tobreak through. The clamor about our enmity to the SovietUnion is so absurd as to bear within itself its own antidoteThe very near future will bring with it a new confirmation ofour correcbress. lhe Left Opposition teaches the workers toforesee dangers and not to lose themselves when they impend.

One who accepts the proletarian revolution only when itis accompanied by all conveniences and lifelong guaranteescannot continue on the road with us. We accept the workers'state as it is and we asserl "lfris is our state." Despite its heri-tage of backwardness, despite starvation and sluggishness,despite the bureaucratic mistakes and wen abominations, theworkers of the entire world must defend tooth and nail theirfuture socialist fatherland which this state represents.

First and foremost we serve the Soviet republic in that wetell the workers the truth about it and therebv teach them tolay the road for a better future


The Art of Planning

The prerequisites for socialist planning were Iirst providedby the October overturn and by the fundamental laws of theSoviet state. In the course of a number of years state institu-tions for centralized management of the economy were createdand put into operation. Great creative work was performed.What was desboyed by the imperialist war and the civil warhas been reestablished. Grandiose enterprises have been created,new industries, entire branches of industry' The capacity of theproletariat organized into a state to direct the economy by newmethods and to create material values in tempos prwiouslyunheard-of has been demonstrated in life. All this has beenachieved against the background of decaying world capitalism.Socialism, as a system, for the first time demonstrated its titleto historic victory, not on the pages of Capital but by thepraxis of hydroelectric plants and blast furnaces' Marx, itgoes without saying, would have preferred this method ofdemonstration.

However, light-minded assertions to the effect that the USSRhas already entered into socialism are criminal. Ttre achieve'ments are greal But there still remains a very long and ar-duous road to actual victory over economic anarchy, to the

surmounting of disproportions, to the guarantee of the har-monious character of economic life.

Even though the first fiveyear plan took into considerationall possible aspects, by the very nature of things it could notbe anything but a first and rough hypothesis, destined beforehand to fundamental reconshuction in the process of the work.It is impossible to create a priori a complete system of eco-nomic harmony. The planning hypothesis could not but in-clude old disproportions and the inwitability of the develop-ment of new ones. Centralized management implies not onlygreat advantages but also the danger of centralizing mistakes,that is, of elwating them to an excessively high degree. Onlycontinuous regulation of the plan in the process of its fulfill-ment, its reconstruction in part and as a whole, can guaranteeits economic effectiveness.

The art of socialist planning does not drop from heavennor is it presented full-blown into one's hands with the con-quest of power. This art may be mastered only by struggle,step by step, not by a few but by millions, as a componentpart of the new economy and culture There is nothing eitherastonishing or disheartening in the fact that at the fifteenth

The Sooiet honomy in Dangr 261

anniversary of the October Revolution the art of economicmanagement still remains on a very low plane. Ttre news-paper Za Industrializatsiiu (ZI) [For the Industrialization]deemed it possible to announce: "Our operative planning hasneither hands nor feet" (September 12, L932). And right nowthe crux of the matter is precisely in operative planning.

We have stressed more than once that "under incorrect plan-ning or, what is more importanl under incorrect regulationof the plan in the process of its fulfillment, a crisis may de-velop toward the very end of the fiveyear plan and may createinsurmountable difficulties for the utilization and developmentof its indubitable successes" (nNew Zigzags and New Dangers,"July 15, 1931, Biulleten Oppozitsir, number 23). It is preciselyfor this reason that we considered that the hastily and purelyforfuitous "transformation of the fiveyear plan into a four-year plan was an act of the most light-minded adventurism"(ibid.). Both our fears and our warnings have been unfor-tunately fully confirmed.

The Preliminary Totals of the FiveYear PlanAt the present moment there cannot even be a discussion

about the actual completion of the fiveyear plan in four years(or more exactly, four years and three months). The mostfrantic lashing and spurring ahead in the course of the finaltwo months will no longer have any effect on the general to-tals. It is as yet impossible to determine the actual percentage-that is, measured in terms of the economy-of the fulfillmentof the preliminary program. The character of the data pub-lished in the press is more statistically formal than econom-ically exact. Should the consbuction of a new plant be accom-plished up to 90 percent of its completion and then the workbe stopped because of the obvious lack of raw material, froma formal statistical viewpoint one may describe the plan asfulfilled 90 percent. But from the point of view of the economythe expenses accrued must simply be entered under the losscolumn. The balance sheet of the actual effectiveness (the useful functioning) of plants constructed or in the process of con-struction, from the viewpoint of the national economic balance,still belongs entirely to the future. But the results obtained, nomatter how imposing if taken by themselves-even if consid-ered from the bare quantitative viewpoint-are far short ofthose sketched in the plan.

The output of coal is maintained at present on the level ofIast year; therefore it has far from reached the plan figures


set for the third year of the fiveyear plan. "The Donbas lagsbehind at the tail end of the most backward branches of So-

viet industry," complains haoda- "The tension in the fuel bal-ance is on the increase," echoes ZI (Octobet 8' 1932 ).

In 1931 there were produced 4.9 million tons of cast ironinstead of.7.9 million set by the plan;5.3 million tons of steel

instead of 8.8 million; and finally 4 million tons of rolledsteel instead of 6.7 million. In comparison with 1930 this

signifies a falling off in cast iron of 2 percent; in steel of 6percent; in rolled steel of 10 percent.

For nine months of 1932 there were produced 4.5 milliontons of cast iron, 4.1 million tons of steel,3.5 million tons

of rolled stock. Alongside of the considerable rise in the out-put of iron (new blast furnaces!) the production of steel androlled steel in the current year remains approximately on the

level of last year. From the viewpoint of the general tasks ofthe industrialization what decides, of coursq is not the rawiron but the rolled stock and steel.

Quantity and QualitySide by side with these quantitative results, which Ekonomi-

cheskaya Zhizn (EZ) lhonomic Life] characterizes as nshock-

ing lapses," there is to be placed an e:<tremely unfavorableand, because of its consequences, much more dangerous decline in quality. Following the special economic press, haodaopenly confesses that in heavy metallurgy "the sifuation asregards the indices of quality is impermissible." nThe defectiveproducts eat up the steel that is up to quality." "T'he technicalcoefficients in the use of the equipment are taking a sharp hrrnfor the worse." "The cost of production of commodities is risingsharply." Tlvo figures will suffice: in 1931 a ton of iron cost35 rubles; in the first half of the current year the cost came to60 rubles.

In 1929-30, 47 thousand tons of copper were smelted; in1931, 48 thousand tons, onethird of the amount set by theplan. For the current year the plan has been lowered to 90thousand tons but for the first eight months less than 30 thou-sand tons have been smelted. What this means in the manu-facture of machines in general, and of electro-technical equip-ment in particular, requires no commentaries.

In the sphere of electrification, with all its successes, thereis considerable lagging behind; the power plants in August de-livered 71 percent of the energy they were supposed to devel-op. ZI writes about "the inept, illiterate and uncultured

The Sooiet Economy in Dango 263

exploitation of the constructed power stations." Great difficultiesare being threatened in the winter in the sphere of power pro-duction. They have already begun in the Moscow and Lenin-grad regions.

Light industry, which lagged excessively behind the planlast year, showed a rise in the first half of the current year of16 percent, but in the third quarter it fell below the figuresof last year. The industry providing foodshrffs occupies lastplace. The supplementary production of products by the plantsof heavy indushies compose for the eight months only 35percent of the yearly goal. It is not possible at present to es-timate what part of this mass of commodities that are hurried-ly improvised really meets the requirements of the market.

The factories are supplied with coal and raw material bymeans of bursts of telegram lightning. Industry, as EZ putsit, "sits on lightning." But even bolts of lightning cannot de-liver what does not exist

Coal, hastily mined and poorly sorted, hampers the opera-tion of coke-producing enterprises. Excessively high contentsof moisture and cinders in the coke not only reduce the quan-tity of produced metal by millions of tons but also lower itsquality. Machines of poor metal produce inferior products,result in breakdowns, force inactivity upon the workers, anddeteriorate rapidly.

In the Urals, the paper informs us, "the blast furnaces arein trouble; because of inadequate supply of fuel they are al-lowed to cool down from three to twenty days. Here is a factilluminating to the highest degree: the metallurgical plantsin the Urals had their own horse convoys for the transpor-tation of fuel; in February of this year the horses numbered27 thousand, the number fell in July to 14 thousand, andin September to 4 thousand. The reason for this is lack offodder.

haoda characterizes in the following manner the conditionof the Stalingrad tractor factory in which the quantity of an-nual castings fell from 25O to 140 thousand tons. "The equip-ment, because of the absence of rudimentary and conqtanttechnical supervision has orcessively deteriorated." nDe-

fective products have become as high as 35 percent.n nThe

entire mechanism of the plant is wallowing in dirt." "In thefoundries there is never a thought of the next day."'Methodsof handicraft are swamping continuous-belt production."

Why is production lowered in light metallurgy in the faceof colossal investments? Because, replies Praoda, "the separate


branches of a single combine are not coordinated with one

another according to their capacity." Yet the task of coordi-nating branches has been solved by capitalist technology. Andhow much more complex and difficult is the question of the

intercoordination of independent enterprises and entire branchesof industry!

"The cement factory in Podolsk is in dangerous straits," writesZI. "In the first half-year the production program was ful-filled approximately 60 percent, in the last months the ful-fillment dropped to 40 percent. The basic costs are twiceas high as those set by the plan." The characteristics cited

above apply in various degrees to all of present industry.The administrative hue and cry for quantity leads to a fright

ful lowering of quali$r; low quality undermines at the nextstage the struggle for quantity; the ultimate cost of economical-ly irrational "successes" surpasses as a rule many times the

value of these same successes. Every advanced worker is ac-

quainted with this dialectic, not through the books of the Com-munist academy (alas! more inferior goods)' but in practice'through experience in their own mines, factories, railroads,fuel stations, etc.

The consequences of this frenzied chase have entirely per-meated the sphere of education. Praoda is compelled to admitthat "by lowering the quality of preparation, by skipping sci-

entific subjects, or by passing over them at 'cavalry trot,' the

VTUZI [highest technological educational institutions] that tookthis path instead of aiding industry, injured it." But who isresponsible for the "cavalry trot" in the highest educationalinstitutions?

If we were to introduce a corrective coefficient for qualityinto the official data, then the indices of the fulfillment of theplan would immediately suffer substantial drops. Even Kui-byshev283 was forced to admit this more than a year ago."The figures relating to the tremendous growth of industrybecome relative," he announced cautiously at a session of the

Supreme Council of National Economy, "when one takes intoaccount the variations in quality." Rakovsky expressed himselfmuch more lucidly: "If one does not take into account thequality of production then the quantitative indices representin themselves a statistical fiction."

Capital ConstructionMore than two years ago Rakovsky warned that the scope

of the plan was beyond the available resources. "Neither the

scale of the growth of production specified by the plan," he

The Sooiet Economy in Danger 265

wrote, "nor the specified plan of capital construction were pre-pared for. . . . The entire preceding policy in the sphere of in-dustry reduced itself in reality to the forced exploitation of oldfixed capital . . without the slightest concern for the future."The attempt to compensate for lags by a single leap ahead isleast realistic in the sphere of capital construction. The resourcesnecessary for the fulfillment of the plan 'do nct obtain in thecountry and will not obtain in the nearest future." Hence thewarning: "The plan of capital construction will break down toa considerable degree."

And this prediction also has been completely substantiated.In the sphere of construction the lag was o<tremely great asearly as 1931. It has grown still more in the current year.The transport construction program for nine months was ful-filled 38 percent according to the estimates of the departunentitself. In other branches the matters relating to constructionare as a general rule even less favorable; and worst of allis the sphere of housing construction. The material and mon-etary resources are divided behveen altogether too many con-structions, which leads to the low effectiveness of the invest-ment.

Sixty-five million rubles were expended on the Balkhashskycopper factory. The e><penses continue to grow from day today-in effect, for nothing; in order to continue work it wasnecessary to transport in the course of a year 300 thousandtons of freight, whereas available transportation can carryall told only 20 thousand tons. &amples of a similar kind,though not so obvious, are too many.

The poor quality of materials and of equipment react mostcruelly on capital construction. "Iron for roofing is of suchrotten qualit5/," writes haoda, "that it cracks when oncehandled.'

The shocking backlog in the sphere of capital undertakingsautomatically undermines the foundations of the second fiveyear plan.

Domestic Disproportions and the World Market

The problem of the proportionality of the elements of pro-duction and the branches of the economy constitutes the veryheart of socialist economy. The tortuous roads that lead tothe solution of this problem are not charted on any map. Todiscover them, or more correctly to lay them, is the work ofa lengthy and arduous futurs

All of industry groans from the lack of spare parts. Weavers'


looms remain inactive because a bolt is not to be had. "Theassorbnent of articles produced," writes EZ, "in the line ofcommodities of widespread consumption is haphazard and doesnot correspond to . . . the demand."

"One billion rubles have been immobilized, 'frozed by [heavy]industry, in the course of only the first half of 1932, in theform of stocks of materials, unfinished products, and evenfinished goods in factory warehouses" (Z-I, September 12,1932).Such are the er<pressions in terms of money of certain dis-proportions and discordances according to the official estimate.

Major and minor disproportions make it necessary to furnto the international market. Imported goods to the value ofone chervonets [gold monetary unit] can bring domestic pro-duction out of its moribund state to the value of hundredsand thousands of chervontsi. The general growth of theeconomy, on the one hand, and the sprouting up of new de-mands and new disproportions, on the other, invariably in-crease the need to link up with the world economy. Theprogram of "independence," that is, of the self-sufficient characterof the Soviet economy, discloses more and more its reactionaryand utopian character. Autarchy is the ideal of Hitler, notof Marx and Lenin.

Thus the import of ore from the inception of the five-yearplan multiplied five times in volume and four times in value.If within the current year this article of import fell off, it waser<clusively on account of foreign exchange. But on this accountthe import of factory machinery grew excessively.

Kaganovich in a speech on October 8 asserted that the Op-position, Left as well as Right, 'proposes to us that we strength-en our dependence upon the capitalist world." As if the matterconcerned some artificial and arbitrary step, and not the auto-matic logic of economic growth!

At the same time the Soviet press cites with praise the inter-view given by Sokolnikov2s4 on the eve of his departure fromLondon. "In England there is increasingly spreading the rec-

ognition of the fact that the adoanoed position of the Sovietstate in industry and technology will present in itself a muchwider rnarket for the products of British industry." As a signof the economic progress of the Soviet lJnion, Sokolnikovconsiders not the weakening but the strengthening of ties withthe foreign market, and consequently the strengthening of dependence upon world economy. Is it possible that the formerOppositionist Sokolnikov is trading in "Trotskyist contraband"?But if so, why is he being featured by the official press?


Stalin's speech with its salutary "six conditionsn was directedagainst the low quality of production, the high basic cost, themigration of the labor force, the high percentage of waste,etc. From that time on there has not appeared one articlewithout reference to "the historic speech." And in the meantirneall these ills which were to be cured by the six conditions havebecome aggravated and have assumed a more malignantcharacter.

The Position of the WorkersFrom day to day the official press bears witness to the down-

fall of Stalin's prescription. In explanation of the falling-offin production Praoda points to nthe decrease in labor powerat factories, the growing migration, the weakening of labordiscipline" (September 23). In the category of reasons for thee:<tremely low productivity of the Red Ural combine ZI, along-side of "the shocking disproportions between the different partsof the combine," lists the following: (1) "the enormous migra-tion of the labor force"; (2 ) "the muddleheaded policy of theworkers' wage"; (3) 'Tailure to provide [the millworkers] withsome manner of livable quarters"; (4) "indescribable food forthe millworkers"; (5) nthe catasbophic falling-off of labor dis-cipline." We have quoted word for word. As regards the mi-gration, which "has grown beyond all bounds," this paperwrites, "the living conditions [of the workers] are ghastly inall the enterprises of nonferrous metallurgy without er<ception."

In the locomotive factories, which failed to provide the coun-try with about 250 locomotives for the first three.quarters ofthe year, "there is to be observed an acute shortage of qual-ified workers. More than two thousand workers in the courseof the summer left from the single Kolomensk factory." Ttrereasons? "Bad living conditions," In the Sormovsk factory,"the factory kitchen is a dive of the worst sorf (Z{ Septem-ber 28). In the privileged bactor factory in Stalingrad, "thefactory kitchen has fallen sharply in its work" (Praoda, Sep-tember 21). To what a pitch the dissatisfaction of the workersmust have risen in order to force these facts in the columnsof the Stalinist press!

In the textile industry, naturally, conditions are not better."In the Ivanovsk district alone," EZ inf.orms us, "about thirty-five thousand qualified weavers left the shops." According tothe words of this same paper, there are to be found shops inthe country in which more than 60 percent of the total forcechanges wery month. "The factory is turning into a thorough-fare.n


In explanation of the cruel flop of nthe six conditions" therewas a tendency for a long time to confine the observationsto bald accusations against the management and the workersthemselves: "incapacit5/," "lack of willingness," "resting on theirlaurels," etc. However, for the last few months the papers moreand more often point out, mostly on the sly, the actual coreof the evil, the unbearable living conditions of the workers.

Rakovsky pointed out this reason of reasons more thantwo years ago. "T'he reason for the increase in breakdowns,the reason for the fall in labor discipline, the reason for theneed to increase the number of workers," he wrote, "lies inthe fact that the worker is physically incapable of bearingup under a load that overtaxes his strength."

But why are the living conditions bad? In explanation thepapers refer to "the contemptuous [!] attitude to the questionsrelating to the living conditions of the workers and to pro'viding them with the necessities of life" (ZI, September 24).With this single phrase the Stalinist press has said more thanit had intended. A 'contemptuous attitude" to the needs of theworkers in the workers' state is possible only on the part ofan arrogant and uncontrolled burearrcracy.

This risky o<planation was made necessary, no doubt, inorder to hide the basic facf the lack of material goods tosupply the workers. The national income is incorrectly dis-tributed. Economic tasks are being set without any accountbeing taken of the actual means. An increasingly inhumanload is being dumped on the shoulders of the workers.

References to nbreaks" in the supply of foodsfuffs are nowto be met with in wery issue of the Soviet press. Malnutritionplus forced o<ertions-thi combination of these two conditionsis enough to do away with the equipment and to enhaust theworkers themselves. In consolation, haoda prints a photo-graph of a working woman in the act of feeding "trer ownprivate" pig. That is precisely the way out "Private domesticeconomy," lectures the paper (October 3), '?ritherto tied theworker to capitalism, but now it attaches him to the Sovietsystem." One cannot believe one's eyes! Once upon a time welearned that private domestic economy depends upon the en-slavement of the woman, the most abominable element of socialslavery in general. But now it appears that its nown private"pig attaches the proletariat to socialism. Thus the hypocriticalfunctionaries turn cruel necessity into virtuq

Poor nutrition and neryous fatigue engender an apathy tothe surrounding environment. As a result, not only the old

The Sooiet honomy in Dangr

factories, but also the new ones that have been built accordingto the last word in technology fall quickly into a moribundstate. Praudo itself issues the following challenge: nTry andfind at least one blast furnace that is not wallowing in rubbish! "

As touches on the conditions of morale, they are no betterthan the physical conditions. "The management of the factoryhas cut itself away from the masses" (Praoda). Instead of asensitive approach to the workers, "barefaced bulldozing anddomineering prevail." In every individual instance the mattertouches isolated factories. Praoda cannot guess that the sumof the individual cases constitutes the Stalinist regime.

In the entire nonferrous metal indushy "there is not a singlefactory committee that functions more or less satisfactorily"(ZI, September 13). Howwer, how and why is it that in aworkers' state the factory committees-of the entire industryand not only in the branch of nonferrous metals-functionunsatisfactorily? Is it not, perhaps, because they are strangledby the party bureaucracy?

At the Djerzhinsky locomotive plant, during a single sessionof the central bureau of the blacksmiths, there were taken upsimultaneously eighteen cases of expulsions from the party;in the wheelwrights-nine cases; in the boilermakers-twelvecases. The matter is not restricted to an isolated factory. Com-mandeering reigns werywhere. And the sole answer of thebureaucracy to the initiative and criticism from below is-repression.

The draft pladorm [April 1931] of the International LeftOpposition proclaims: "The living standards of the workersand their role in the state are the highest criteria of socialistsuccesses." "If the Stalinist bureaucracy would approach thetasks of planning and of a living regulation of the economyfrom this standpoint,n we wrote more than a year ago, "itwould not misfire so wildly wery timg it would not be com-pelled to conduct a policy of wasteful zigzags, and it wouldnot be confronted by political dangers" ("New Zigzags and,New Dangersn).

The Agricultural Economy

"The agricultural economy of the Soviet lJnion," wrote P:an:.daon September 28, aras become absolutely enEenched on theroad to socialism." Such phrases, bolstered as a rule by barecitations of the number of collectivized homesteads and acres,represent in themselves a hollow mockery of the actual condi-tion of agriculture and of the interrelations between the cityand the village.

269

21O Writings ol Leon Trotsky (1992)

The headlong race to break records in collectivization, with-out taking into account the economic and cultural potentialitiesof agriculhrre, has led in fact to ruinous consequences. It destroyed the incentive of the small commodity producer longbefore it was able to replace it by other and much highereconomic incentives. Adminishative pressure' which exhaustsitself quickly in industry, is absolutely powerless in the sphereof agriculture

"The village of Caucasus," we are informed by this samehapda, "was awarded the prize for its spring sowing cam-paign. At the same time, the tillage turned out to be so poorthat the fields were entirdy overgrown by weeds.n The villageof Caucasus is a symbol of the adminisbative hullabaloofor quantity in the domain of agriculture One hundred per-

cent collectivization has resulted in 100 percent overgrowthof weeds on the fields.

The collective farms were allotted more than 10O thousandtractors. A gigantic victory! But as innumerable local news-paper reports show, the effectiveness of the tractors far fromcorresponds to their number. At the Poltava machine-buildingstation, one of the newest, nout of twent5r-swen tractors recent-

ly delivered, nineteen are already seriously damaged." These

figures do not apply only to o<ceptional cases. The station onthe Volga Ukraine has fifty-two tractors; of these, two havebeen out of operation since spring, fourteen were being com-pletely overhauled, and of the remaining thirty-six, less thanhalf are being utilized in sowing, "and even these remain al-ternately idle.' The coefficient of the useful functioning of the100 thousand tractors has not been determined as yet!

During the dizziest moment of 100 percent collectivization,Rakovsky made a stern diagnosis: "In the sum total of theresults which have been prepared for by the entire precedingpolicies and which have been aggravated by the period ofulhaleft adventurism, the chief result will be the lowering of theproductive forces of the rural economy, indubitably evidentin the sphere of stoek-raising and in part of the cultivationdevoted to raising technical raw material, and becoming in-creasingly evident in the sphere of grain cultwation."

Was Rakovsky mistaken? Unfortunately, no. Nothing canproduce so shocking an impression as the small, quite imper-ceptible decree issued by the CEC on September 11' 1932,which met with no comments in the Soviet press. Under the

signature of Kalinin and Molotov, the individual peasant pro-prietors are compelled to relinquish, for the needs of the col-

The fuoid honomy in Dangu 271

lective farms and at their request all horses at a set priceThe collective farms are in furn obliged to return the horsesto their owners in'good condition.n

Such is the interrelation between the socialist and petty-bour-geois sections of the rural economy! The collective farms, whichcultivate 8O-9O percent of the arable lands and which should,in theory, attract the individualists by their achievements, areactually compelled to resort to the legal intervention of thestate in order to obtain from individual owners by compul-sion the horses for their own needs. Everything here is topsy-furvy. This single decree of September l l represents a con-demnation of the policies of Stalin-Molotov.

The Problem of Establishing the LinkCould the interrelations between the cit5r and the village be

improved on a material productive basis?Let us recall once again: The economic foundation of the

dictatorship of the proletariat can be considered fully assuredonly from that moment when the state is not forced to resortto administrative measures of compulsion against the majorityof the peasantry in order to obtain agricultural products; thatis, when in return for machines, tools, and objects for per-sonal use, the peasants voluntarily supply the state with thenecessary quantity of grain and raw material. Only on thisbasis-along with other necessary conditions, nationally andinternationally-can collectivization acquire a hue socialistcharacter.

The correlation between the prices for industrial productsand agricultural products has undoubtedly changed in favorof the peasant. Actually it is an impossible task to performan accounting in this sphere that corresponds to reality. Forinstance, haoda writes that "the cost of a quintal of milkranges in the collective farms from 43 to 206 rubles." Thevariation is even greater between state prices and the priceon the legalized markets. No less heterogeneous are the pricesfor industrial products, which all depend on the channel throughwhich they reach the peasant. But without in any way pretending to be er<act, it is possible to assert that the pricescis-sors, in the narrow meaning of the term, have been closedby the peasants. For its own products, the village has begunto obtain such a quantity of monetary equivalents as wouldassure it industrial goods at fixed state prices-if such goodsexisted.

But one of the most important disproportions arises from

272 Writings of Leon TYotsky (1932)

the fact that the availability of commodities does not correspond to the availability of money. In the language of mon-etary circulation, that is what is called inflation. In the lan-guage of planned economy this means exaggerated plans,incorrect division of forces and means, in particular betweenthe production of objects for consumption and the productionof means of production.

At the time that the correlation of pricesbegan to turn againstthe city, the latter safeguarded itseU by "freezing' the goods,that is, they were simply not put into circulation, but kepton hand to be dishibuted bureaucratically. This signified thatonly the pecuniary shadow of the scissors had closed its blades,while its material disproportion sfill remained. But the peasantis little interested in shadows. The absence of commodities haspushed him and continues to push him in the direction ofa strike: he doc not want to part with his grain for money.

Not having become a matter of simple and profltable ex-change for both sides, the provision of foodstuffs and agri-cultural raw material has remained as before "a political cam-paign,n na militant drive,n requiring each time the mobilizationof the state and party apparatus. nMany collective farms,"haoda cautiously reports (September 26), "resist the collectionof grain, hiding their stocks." We know what the word "manynsignifies in such a conto<L If the exchange between the villageand the city were advantageous, then the peasants would haveno cause whatever to 'hide their stocks"; but if the o<changeis not advantageous, that is, if it takes the form of compulsorytransfer, then o/l the collective farmers and not just nmany,"

and the individual farmers as well, will strive to hide theirgrain. The obligation of the peasants to supply meat productsis now officially given the character of a natural tax in kind'with all the repressive consequences that flow from iL Theeconomic results of the 100 percent collectivization are expressedmuch more correcfly by these facts than by the bare statisticsof collectivized acres.

The fact that severe laws were passed against stealing so-cialist property sufficiently characterizes the extent of the wil'the gist of which, in the village, consists in the fact that thepeasant strives to direct his grain not into socialist but intocapitalist channels. The prices on the speculative market arehigh enough to justily the use of capital punishment. Whatpart of the foodstuffs is diverted into the channels of specu-lation?

In the Volga-Caspian fish trust, it is reckoned that 20 per-cent of the catch goes to the private market "And how much

The fuoiet fuonomy in Dango 273

really does go?" asks haoda skeptically. Ir agriculture thepercentage of the drain must be considerably higher. But even20 percent means hundreds of millions of pounds of bread.Repression may become an lnevitable method of self-preser-vation. But it does not replace the establishment of the link,it does not create the economic foundation for the dictator-ship of the proletariat, and it does not even guarantee theprovlsion of food.

The authorities, therefore, could not stop merely at repres-sion alone. In the struggle for grain and raw materials theyfound themselves compelled to order the city to release indus-trial products, while in the cities, particularly in the provinces,the state and cooperative stores have become empty.

The balance sheet of "the link' with the village during thisyear has not as yet been taken. But the trading channels ofthe cities are exhausted. "We gave more goods to the village,nsaid Kaganovich in Moscow on October 8, "and, if I may usethe expression, we have offended the cit5r." Ttre o<pression isabsolutely permissible; the cities and industrial districts, thatis the workers, have been offended.*

Conditions and Methods of Planned EconomyWhat are the organs of consbucting and applying the plan

like? What are the methods of checking and regulating it?What are the conditions for its success?

In this connection three systems must be subjected to a briefanalysis: (1) special state departunents, that is, the hierarchicalsystem of. pLan cornrnissions, in the center and locally; (2)tra.dq as a system of market regulation; (3) Sooiet dmtocracy,as a system for the living regulation by the masses of thestructure of the economy.

If a universal mind o<isted, of the kind that projected itselfinto the scientific fancy of Laplace-a mindthatcould registersimultaneously all the processes of nature and society, thatcould measure the dynamics of their motion, that could fore.cast the results of their interreactions-such a mind, of course,

r In 1929 Preobrazhensky,2Ss justifying his capihilation, prophesiedthat with the aid of the state farms and the collective farms the partywould force the kulak to his knees within two years. Four yearshave elapsed. And what have we? If not the kulak-he has been"put out of commission"-then the strong middleman has forcedSoviet trade to its knees, compelling it to offend the workers. Aswe see it, Preobrazhensky himself, in any event, was much too hastyin getting down on his knees before the Stalinist bureaucracy.


could a priori draw up a faultless and exhaustive economicplan, beginning with the number of acreg of wheat down tothe last button for a vesL The bureaucracy often imaginesthat just such a mind is at its disposal that is why it so easilyfrees itself from the control of the market and of Soviet democ-racy. But, in reality, the bureaucracy errs frighffully in itsestimate of its spiritual resources. In its proJections it is nec-essarily obliged, in ictual performancg to depend upon theproportions (and with equal juatice one may say the dispro-portions) it has inherited from capitalist Russia, upon the dataof the economic structure of contemporary capitalist nations,and finally upon the eKperience of successeg and mistakes ofthe Soviet economy itself. But erzen the most correct combina-tion of all these elements will allow only a most irnperfect framework of a plan, not more-

The innumerable living participants in &e economy' stateand privatg collective and individual, must serve notice oftheir needs and of their relative strength not only through thestatistical determinations of plan commissions but by the di-rect pressure of supply and demand. The plan is checked and'to a considerable degree, realized through the markeL Theregulation of the market itself must depend upon the tendenciesthat are brought out through its mechanism. The blueprintsproduced by the departnents must demonstrate their economicefficacy through commercial calculation. The systern of thetransitional economy is unthinkable without the control of theruble. This presupposes, in its turn, that the ruble is at par.Without a firm monetary unit commercial accounting can onlyincrease the chaos.

The processes of economic construction are not yet takingplace within a classless society. The questions relating to theallohnent of the national income compose the central focusof the plan. It shifts with the direct development of the classstruggle and that of social groups, and among them, the var-ious strata of the proletariat itself. Theee are the most impor-tant social and economic questions: the link between the cityand the village, that is, the balance between that which indus-try obtains from agriculhrre and that which it supplies to it;the interrelation between accumulation and consumption, be-tween the fund for capital conshuction and the fund for wages;the regulation of wages for various categories of labor (skilledand unskilled workers, government employees, specialists, themanaging bureaucracy); and finally the allotnent of that shareof national income which falls to the village, between the varl-

The fuoid fuonomy in Dango 275

ous strata of the peasantry. All these questions by their verynature do not allow for a priori decisions by the bureaucracy,which has fenced itself off from intervention by concerned mil-lions.

The shuggle between living interests, as the fundamentalfactor of planning, leads us into the domain of. politics, whichis concentrated economics. The instruments of the social groupsof Soviet sociegr are-should be: the Soviets, thetrade unions,the cooperatives, and in first place the ruling party. Onlythrough the interreaction of these three elements, state planning,the market, and Soviet democracy, can the correct direction ofthe economy of the transitional epoch be attained. Only thuscan be assured, not the complete surmounting of contradic-tions and disproportions within a few years (this is utopian!),but their mitigation, and through that the strengthening ofthe material bases of the dictatorship of the proletariat untilthe moment when a neqr and victorious revolution will widenthe arena of socialist planning and will reconstruct the system.

Suppression of the NEP, Monetar5r Inflation, andLiquidation of Soviet l)emocracy

The need to introduce the NEP, to restore market relation-ships, was determined first of all by the o<istence of 25 millionindependent peasant proprietors. This does not mean, however,that collectivization even in its first stage leads to the liquidationof the market Collectivization becomes a viable factor onlyto the extent to which it involves the personal interest of themerrbers of the collective farms, by shaping their mutual rela-[ons, and the relations between the collective farms and theoutside world, on the basis of commercial calculation. Thismeans that correct and economically sound collectivizationat this stage should lead not to the elimination of the NEPbut to a gradual reorganization of its methods.

The bureaucracy, howwer, went the whole way. At firstit might have thought that it was taking the road of least re-sistance The genuine and unquestionable successes of the cen-balized efforts of the proletariat were identified by the bureau-cracy with the successes of ib a priori planning. Or to putit differently: it identified the socialist revolution with itself. Byadministrative collectivization it masked the unsolved problemof establishing a link with the village. Confrondng the dis-proportions of the NEB it liquidated the NEP. br place of mar-ket methods, it enlarged the methods of compulsion.

The stable currency unit, in the form of the chervonets, consti-tuted the most important weapon of the NEP. While in its state


of dizziness, the bureaucracy decided that it was already stand-ing firmly with both feet on the soil of economic harmony,that the successes of today automatically guaranteed the pro-gression of subsequent successes, that the chervonets was not abridle that checked the scope of the plan but on the contraryprovided an independent source of capital funds. Instead ofregulating the material elements of the economic process thebureaucracy began to plug up the holes by means of printingpresses. In other words, it took to the road of 'optimistic" in-flation

After the administrative suppression of the NEP, the celebratednsix conditions of Stalin"- economic accounting, piecelworkwages, etc.-became transformed into an empty collection ofwords. Economic accounting is unthinkable without marketrelations. The chervonets is the yardstick of the link. Of whatpossible use for the worker can a fery exha rubles a monthbe if he is compelled to purchase the necessities of life in theopen market at ten times their former price?

The restoration of open markets came as an admission ofthe inopportune liquidation of the NEP' but an admission thatwas empirical, partial, thoughtless, and contradictory. To labelthe open markets as a form of 'Sovief (socialist?) tradg incontrast to private trade and speculation, is to practice self-deception. Open-market trading even on the part of the collec-tive farm as a whole ends up as speculation on the necessitiesrequired in the nearest city, and as a result leads to social dif-ferentiation, that is, to the enrichmentoftheminority of the morefortunately situated collective farms. But the chief place in theopen market is occupied not by the collectives but by individu-al members of the collectives and by the indepmdent peasants.The trading of the members of the collective fatms, who selltheir surplus at speculative prices, leads to differentiation withinthe collectives. Thus the open market dwelops cenEifugal forceswithin the "socialisf village.

By eliminating the market and by installing Asiatic bazaarsin its place the bureaucracy has creatd, to consummate every-thing, the conditions for the wildest gyration of prices, andconsequently has placed a mine both under the plan and undercommercial calculation. As a result, economic chaos has beenredoubled.

Parallel to this the ossification of the trade unions, the Soviets,and the partV, which didn't start yesterday, continues. Comingup against the friction between the city and the village, againstthe demands from various sections within the peasantry, fromthe peasantry as a whole, and from the proletariat, the bureau-

The hoiet honomy in Dangr 277

cracy more and more resolutely ruled out any demands, pro-tests, and criticism whatsoever. The only prerogative which itultimately left to the workers was the right to exced produc-tion limits. Any attempt to influence economic managementfrom below is immediately described as a right or a left devia-tion, that is, practically made a capital offense. Ilee bureau-cratic upper crust, in the last analysis, has pronounced itselfinfallible in the sphere of socialist planning (disregarding thefact that its collaborators and inspirers have turned out oftento be criminal plotters and saboteurs). Thus the basic mech-anism of socialist conshuction-the adaptable and elastic sys-tem of Sooiet d,mtocracy-was liquidated. Face to face withthe economic reality and its difficulties, the bureaucracy turnedout to be armed only with the twisted and collapsed carcassof the plan, with its own administrative will also considerablydeflated.

The Crisis of the Soviet EconomyHad the general economic level set by the first five.year plan

been realized only 50 percent, this in itself could have givenno cause as yet for alarm. The danger lies not in the slow-down of growth, but in the growing disparity between thevarious branches of the economy. Even if all the integral elements of the plan had been fully coordinated a priori, thelowering of the coefficient of growth by 50 percent would havein itself engendered great difficulties because of the consequences:it is one thing to produce one million pairs of shoes insteadof two million, but it is quite another thing to finish buildingone.half of a shoe factory. But reality is much more comple:<and contradictory than our hypothetical example. Dispropor-tions are inherited from the past Targets which are set byplan include in themselves inevitable mistakes and miscalcu-lations. The nonfulfillment of the plan does not occur pro-portionately, due to the particular causes in each individual in-stance. The average growth of 50 percent in the economy maymean that in sphere A the plan is filled 90 percenl whereasin sphere B, only 10 percent; if A depends on B, then in thesubsequent cycle of production, branch A may be reduced below 10 percenl

Consequently the misforfune does not lie in the fact that theimpossibility of adventuristic tempos has been revealed. Thewhole trouble is that the wild leaps in industrialization havebrought the various elements of the plan into dire contradic-tion with each other. The trouble is that the economy func-tions without material reserves and without calculation. Thetrouble is that the social and political inshuments for the de


termination of the effectiveness of the plan have been brokenor mangled. The trouble is that the accruetl disproportionsthreaten more and greater surprises. The trouble is that theuncontrolled bureaucracy has tied up its prestige with the sub-sequent accumulation of errors. The trouble is that a crisis isimpending with a chain of consequencqs such as the enforcedshutting down of factories and unemployment.

The difference between socialist and capitalist tempos of in-dustrial development-even if one takes for comparison cap-italism in its progressive stage-astonishes one by its sweep'But it would be a mistake to consider the Soviet tempos of thelast few years as final. The average coefficient of capitalistgrowth results not only from periods of e:<pansion but alsoof crisis. This has not been the case with the Soviet economy.In the course of the last eight to nine years it has experienceda period of uninterrupted growth; it has not yet succeededin working out its average indices.

Of course we shall be told in refutation that we are hans-ferring the laws of capitalism to the socialist economy, that aplanned economy does not require regulation by means ofcrises or even by means of predetermined lowering of tempos.The repertory of proofs at the disposal ofthe Stalinist bureau-cracy and its theoreticians is so restricted that it is always pos-sible to forecast beforehand the particular generalization theywill resort to. In this casq a pure tautology: we have enteredsocialism and therefore we must always act nsocialistically,'

that is, we must regulate the economy so as to obtain ever-increasing planned er<pansion. But the gist of the matter isthat we have not entered into socialism. We have far from at-tained mastery of the methods of planned regulation. We arefulfilling only the first rough hypothesis, fulfilling it poorly'and with our headlights not yet on. Crises are not only pos-sible, they are inevitable. And an impending crisis has alreadybeen prepared by the bureaucracy.

The laws that govern the transitional society are quite dif-ferent from those that govern capitalism. But no less do theydiffer from the future laws of socialism, that is, of a harmo-nious economy growing on the basis of tried, proven, andguaranteed dynamic equilibrium. The productive advantagesof socialism, centralization, concentration, the unified spirit ofmanagement are incalculable. But under faulty application,particularly under bureaucratic misuse, they may turn intotheir opposites. And in part they have already become trans-formed, for the crisis now impends. Any attempt to force theeconomy by further lashing and spurring ahead is an attemptto redouble the misfortunes in the future.


It is impossible to foretell the extent that the crisis will as-sume. The advantages of planned economy remain during cri-ses as well, and one may say they show themselves with spe-cial clarity precisely in a crisis. Capitalist governments arecompelled to wait passively until the crisis spends itself onthe backs of the people, or to resort to financial hocus-pocusin the manner of von Papen. Ttre workers' state meets thecrisis with all its resources. All the dominant levers-the bud-get, credit, industry, trade-are concentrated in a singlehand.The crisis may be mitigated and afterwards overcome not bystrident command but by measuree of economic regulation.After the adventuristic offensive, it is necessary to execute aplanned retreat, thought-out as fully as possible. This is thetask of the coming year, the sixteenth year of the proletariandictatorship. Il faut reculer pour mieur sauter: Let us retreatin order the better to advance.

The Soviet Economy in DangerThe official press now prints from issue to issue an endless

list of accusations against the workers, the directors, the tech-nicians, the managers, the cooperative personnel, and the tradeunionists: all guilty of not fulfilling the plans, the instructions,and nthe six conditions." But what are the causes for this?Objective causes do not exist. To blame for it all is the illwill of those entrusted with the fulfilling. And that is just whathaoda writes: "Do there exist any objective causes whateverfor this deterioration in the work? None whatever!'(October 2,1932). People simply do not want to work as they should-and that's all there is to it. The October plenum of the CEChas ascertained that "there is unsatisfactory management inwery link down the line.' &cept of course that link whichis called the Central &ecutive Committee

But are there really no objective causes for the poor qualitSrof the workmanship? A specified amount of time is requirednot only for the ripening of wheat but also for the familiariza-tion with complo< technological processes. Psychological pro-cesses, it is true, are more pliable than those of vegetation,but this pliability has its limits. One cannot skip over them.And in addition-and this is no less important-one cannotdemand a maximum of intensity and supply a minimum ofnutrition.

The resolution of the October plenum of the CEC accusesthe workers and the administrators of their inabilit5r "to clinch"their highest achievements, and of their continual falling behindthe targets they had set. In reality the breakdowns were in-herent in the character of the achievements themselves. Bv


virtue of an exceptional effort a man can lift a weight thatis far above his "average" strength. But he cannot long sustainsuch a load over his head. It is absurd to accuse him of hisinability "to clinch" his efforl

The Soviet economy is in danger! It is not difficult to determine its ailment It springs from the nature of the successesthemselves. The economy has suffered a ruphtre from excessiveand poorly calculated e><ertion. One must proceed to cure it,painstakingly and persweringly. Rakovsky warned us as earlyas 1930: "!Ve are entering an entire epoch, one which willpass under the heading of payment in full for the entire past"

The Second FiveYear PlanThe second fiveyear plan was fashioned on the scale of

"gigantism."* It is difficult, to be more correct, it is impossibleto judge "on sighf' the q<tent to which the final indices of thesecond five-year plan are o<aggerated. But the question nowconcerns not the balance of the second fiveyear plan, but itspoints of departure, the line of its connection with the first fiveyear plan. The first year of the second fiveyear plan has received an onerous inheritance from the last year of the firstfiveyear plan.

The second plan, according to the design, is the spiral con-tinuation of the first plan. But the first plan has not beenbrought to completion. The second plan from the very be'ginning ls left suspended in midair. If one allows things tocontinue as they have, then the second fiveyear plan will be-gin by plugging up the holes of the first, under the admin-istrative whip. This means that the crisis will be aggravated.In this way one heads for catastrophe.

There is only one way out: the inauguration of the secondfioe-year plan must be put off for one Aear. Nineteen thirty-three must be made a buffer between the first five-year planand the second. In the course of this period it is necessary,on the one hand, to verify the legacy left by the first five-yearplan, to fill in the most yawning gaps, to mitigate the unbear-able disproportions, and to straighten out the economic front;and, on the other hand, to reconstruct the second fiveyear

*The hostility, an outright hatred, toward "gigantism' is rapidlygrowing in Soviet circles, as a natural and inevitable reaction againstthe adventurism of the last period. There is no need, however, toexplain to what extent this reaction, from which the petty-bourgeoisskinflint spirit derives satisfaction, may in the future become dan-gerous to the socialist construction.

The Sooiet honomy in Danger 281

plan, so designing it as to make its points of departure meshrvith the actual and not imaginary results of the first five-yearplan.

Doesn't this simply mean that the period for the completionof the first plan will be prolonged another year? No, unfor-tunately that is not the case. Ttre material consequences of thefour years' uproar cannot be shicken out from reality byone stroke of a pen. A careful rechecking is necessary, a reg-ulation, and a determination of the coefficients of growth ac-tually achieved. The present condition of the economy excludesin general any possibility of planned work. Nineteen thirty-three cannot be a supplementary year of the first five'yearplan, nor the first year of the second. It must occupy an in-dependent position between the two, in order to assure themitigation of the consequences of adventurism and the prepa-ration of the material and moral prerequisites for plannedo<pansion.

The Left Opposition was the first to demand the inaugu-ration of the five-year plan. Now it is duty-bound to say:It is necessary to put off the second five-year plan. Away withshrill enthusiasm! Away with speculation! They cannot be rec-onciled with planned activity. Then you are for rebeat? Yes,for a temporary retreat. And what about the prestige of theinfallible leadership? The fate of the dictatorship of the pro-letariat is more important than inflated prestige.

The Year of Capital Reconstruction

Having been knocked off balance, the Soviet economy isin need of serious reconstruction. Under capitalism the dis-rupted equilibrium is restored by the blind forces of the crisis.The socialist republic allows the application of conscious andrational cures.

It is impossible, of course, to halt production in the wholecountry as it is halted during repairs in a factory or in anenterprise. But there is also no need to do that It is enoughto lower the tempos. Ttre current productive labor for 1933cannot be camied on without a plan, but this plan must beone for a single year, worked out on the basis of moderate,quality quotas.

Improvements in quality must be given first place. Inoppor-tune construction should be eliminatd; all forces and resourcesmust be concentrated upon construction of the first rank; theinterrelations between the various branches of industry mustbe balanced on the basis of o<perience; factories must be putin order; equipment must be restored.


Let there be an end to driving and spurring and establishingrecords; let the productivity of each enterprise be subject toits own technological rhythm. Return to the laboratories what-ever has too soon been taken away. Finish building whateverstrll remains unfinished. Straighten out whatever has been bent.Repair that which has been damaged. Prepare the factoryfor a transition to a higher stage. Quality quotas must begiven a character both supple and conditional in order thatthey may not interfere with achievements in quantity.

Nineteen thirty-three must gain complete mastery over thelabor turnover, by bettering the conditions of the workers;that's where the beginning must be made, for herein is to befound the key to werything else. Workers and their familiesmust be assured of food, shelter, and clothing. No matterat what cost!

The management and the proletarian cadres of factoriesshould be freed of supplementary burdens, such as the plantingof potatoes, breeding rabbits, etc. All questions relating tosupplying factories with necessities must be regulated as in-dependent and not supplement€rry tasks.

Order must be brought into the production of consumergoods. Commodities must be adapted to human needs andnot to the raw by-products of heavy industry.

The process of in-flation must be stopped with an iron handand the stable monetary unit must be restored. This difficultand painful operation cannot be undertaken without boldlycurtailing capital invesEnents, without sacrificing the hundredsof millions that have been inefficiently or inopportunely sunkinto new construction, in order to forestall losses in the bil-lions in the future.

A temporary retreat is urgent both in industry and in agri-culture. The er<tent of the refeat cannot be determined beforehand. It will be revealed only by the experience of the capitalreconshuction.

The managing organs must control, assist, and pick outeverything that is viable and functioning, but they should stopdriving enterprises to the limit, as is the case now. The econ-omy and the people need a breathing spell from administra-tive violence and adventurism.

Many managers, as is shown by the papers' have arrivedindependently at the opinion that 1933 must differ in someessential way from this year. But they do not draw their ideasto the conclusion, in order not to expose themselves to danger.

In regard to rail transport, EZ writes: nOne of the mostimportant tasks of 1933 must be the task of a full and final

The Sooiet konomy in Dangr

liquidation of each and wery imperfection, noncompletion,poor tie-up, and disproportion in the functioning of the dif-ferent integral parts of the transport mechanism.' Well spoken!This formula should be accepted in full, and be o<pandedto apply to the economy as a whole.

In regard to the tractor plant in Stalingrad, Pratsda writes:nlile must decisively dispense with defective methods of work-manship, we must put an end to fever along the conveyorin order to guarantee a regulated output of production." Thatis absolutely correct! Planned economy, taken as a whole,represmts in its class a conveyor on a state scale. The methodof plugging up holes is incompatible with planned production.Nineteen thirty-three must nput an end to fever along the con-veyor,tr or at least we must considerably lower the temperature

The Soviet government itself has proclaimed a "furn" fromquantity to quality in agriculture That is correct, but the ques-tion must be approached on a much wider scale. The matterconcerns not only the. quality of the cultivation of the soil,but the entire collective and state'farm policy and practice.The turn from quantity to quality must be carried over intothe functioning of the administration itself.

First of all, a retreat is inevitable in the sphere of collec-tivization. Here more than anywhere else the administrationis the captive of its own mistakes. While on the surface con-tinuing to autocratically command, to specify under the sig-nature of Stalin and Molotov the precise number of acres forgrain tillage, the bureaucracy in reality is now being carriedalong by the stream of events.

In the villages, in the meantime, a new stratum of the so-called "retired," that is, former collective farmers, has appeared.Their number is growing. It is utter insanity to forcibly keepwithin the collectives peasants who piUer the crops, who sellthe seed in bazaars and then demand it from the governmentfor sowing. It is no less criminal, howwer, to let the processof disintegration take its own course. The tendency to down-grade the collectivization movement is evidently now raisingits head even within the party ranks. To allow this wouldbe to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Nineteen thirty-three must serve to bring the collectivizedagriculture into line with the technical, economic, and culfuralresources. This means the selection of the most viable collec-tives and their reorganization in correspondence with the ex-perience and wishes of the peasant masses, first of all the peas-ant poor. And, at the same time, conditions for leaving thecollective farms must be formulated so as to reduce to a min-

283


imum the disruption of the rural economy, not to speak ofthe danger of civil war.

The policy of mechanically "liquidating the kulak" is nowin effect discarded. A cross should be placed over it officially.And simultaneously it is necessary to establish the policy ofswerely restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak. Withthis goal in mind, the lowest strata of the villages must bewelded together into a union of the peasant poor.

In 1933 the farmers will till theland, the textile workers willproduce cloth, the blast furnaces will smelt metal, and the rail-roads will transport people and the products of labor. Butthe highest criterion of this year will lie not in producing asmuch as possible as fast as possible but in putting the econ-omy in order; in checking over the inventories, separating thehealthy from the sick and the good from the bad; in clearingaway the rubbish and the mud; in building the needed housesand dining rooms, finishing the roofs, installing sanitary ven-tilation. For in order to work well, people must first of alllive like human beings and satisfy their human needs.

To set aside a special year of capital reconshuction is ameasure which of course solves nothing whatever by itself.It can attain its major significance only by a change in thevery approach to the economy, and, first of all, to its livingprotagonists, the workers and peasants. The approach to theeconomy belongs to the domain of politics. The weapon ofpolitics is the party.

Our task of tasks is to resurrect the party. Here as well wemust take an inventory of the onerous inheritance of the post-Lenin period. We must separate the healthy from the sick,the good from the bad; we must clear away the rubbish andthe mud; we must air and disinfect all the offices of the bu-reaucracy. After the party come the Soviets and the tradeunions. Capital reconstruction of all Soviet organizations isthe most important and most urgent task of 1933.

LENINISM AND STALINISM286Answers to Views of Louis Fischer

October 1932

Question: "Lenin and all his followers were convinced at thattime [in 1917] that only a revolution abroad could save themfrom certain doom. . . . They did not hope to survive unlessrevolutions in Europe and Asia weakened external hostilityand gave Red Russia a breathing space for domestic entrench-ment,n says Mr. Fischer.28? VVas Lenin speaking only in animmediate military and political sense of saving Russia fromdefeat and subjugation, or did he have in mind the wholeperspective of Russia's developing on its own soil throughthe dictatorship of the proletariat to the ultimate Communistgoal?

Answq: That aflirmation of Mr. Fischer's, like a series ofothers, proves his lack of familiarity with the theory and thehistory of Bolshevism. In 1917 there was not a single Bol-shevik who considered possible the realization of a socialistsociety in a single country, and least of all in Russia. In theappendix to my History of the Russian Reoolution I givea detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshe.vik Party on the October Revolution. This study, I hope, willmake it impossible in the future to ascribe to Lenin the theoryof socialism in a single country. Here I will limit myself toa single quotation, which in my opinion has a decisive char-acter. Lenin died in January 1924; three months later Stalino<pounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarianrevolution. I quote word for word: ". . . to overthrow the powerof the bourgeoisie and to establish the power of the proletariatin one country still does not signify the full victory of socialism.The main task of socialism - the organLation of socialist pro-duction-remains still in the future Is it possible to fulfill thistask, is it possible to achiae the definite oictory of socialismin one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians

285

286 Writinga ol Leon T?otsky (1932)

of several advanced countries? No, it is itttpossible. For theoverthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one counhy aresuflicient-for this we have the testimony of the history ofour rwolution. For the definitive victory of socialism, for theorganization of socialist production, the efforts of one country,especially of a peasant countrE like Russia, are insufficient-for that are required the efforts of the proletarians of severaladvanced countries. . . ." Stalin closes the exposition of theseideas with the words: "Such are in general the characteristic fea-tures of Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution" (Prob-Iems of Lutinism, emphasis mine).

Only in the fall of. L924 did Stalin discover that it is espe.cially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, whichcan by its own forces build up a socialist society. ". . Afterhaving established its power and assumed the leadership ofthe peasantry," he wrote in a new edition of the same work,"the victorious proletariat can and must build up socialistsociety." Can and musd The proclamation of this new con-ception is closed by the same words: "Such are in generalthe characteristic features of Lenin's conception of the pro-letarian revolution.n In the course of a single year Stalin as-cribed to Lenin two directly opposed conceptions of the fun-damental question of socialism. The first version representsthe real tradition of the party; the second took shape in Sta-lin's mind only after the death of Lenin, in the course of thestruggle against nTrotskyism. n

Q.' Is there reason to believe that the world rwolution, ora series of social upheavals on the Eurasian continent, "ceasedto be an immediate possibility" by 1921?

A'What shall we call an 'immediate possibility"? In 1923the situation in Germany was profoundly rwolutionary, butwhat was lacking for a victorious revolution was a correctstrategy. At that time I wrote a study about this question'Lessons of Octobr, which served as a pretext for my elim-ination from the government In 1925-27 the revolution inChina was destroyed by the false revolutionary strategy ofthe Stalinist faction. To this last question I consecrate mybook, Problerns of the Chinese Rasolution. It is quite clearthat the German and Chinese revolutions in case of victorywould have changed the face of Europe and Asia, and per-haps of the whole world. Once again, he who ignores the prob-lems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talkabout revolutions at all.

Q; Is it true that "a rwolution germinates only in nationalsoil, that it does not result from imported money or pamphlets

Leninism and, &alinism 287

or agitators, and that the capitalists will do more than theCommunists to undermine capitalism"? Is it true that "by itsvery existence a buly Soviet, near-socialist system . mustfurther the cause of revolution in other countries,n and that"a strong socialist Soviet Union is the most effective stimulusto world revolution"?

.* \\e statements quoted in this question contradict eachother. That the existence of the Soviet Urrion has an inter-national revolutionary significance is a cornmonplace equallyrecognized by friends and foes. In spite of the existence ofthe Soviet Union, however, the proletarian rwolution duringthe past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.In Russia itself the proletariat conquerd in spite of the factthat there was no Soviet state in s<istence at the time elseryhere.For the victory are necessary, not only certain objective con-ditions, internal as well as external, but also certain subjectivefactors - the par$, the leadership, the strategy. Our differenceswith Stalin are entirely of a strategical character. Suffice itto say that if we had carried through, in 1917, the policyof Stalin, the Soviet state would not be in existence today.It is therefore not true that the mere s.istence of the SovietUnion is capable of assuring the victory of the revolutionin other countries. But it is also false that the revolution ripensand comes to development only on national soil. Otherwisewhat purpose is served by the Communist International?

Q; Granting that a capitalist economy, the more highly itis developed, becomes the more dependent on other countries,is it less true of the Soviet Union because it is dwelopingtoward a socialist economy?

A' National self-sufficiency or nautarchy" is the ideal of Hit-ler, not of Marx and Lenin. Socialist economy cannot rejectthe huge advantages of the world division of labor; on theconbary, it will carry it to the highest dwelopment. But inpractice, it is not a question of the future socialist society,with an established internal equilibrium, but of the given tech-nically and culturally backward country which in the interestsof industrialization and collectivization is forced to export asmuch as possible in order to import as much as possible.

Q; Is it true that the theory of the permanent revolution,which is the pladorm on which you have fought Stalin since1924, was "born in a time of Bolshevist mental depressionncaused by "a series of failures both at home and abroad,"or does this theory represent a consistent line found in allyour "political writings and actions after 1903"? Mr. Fischermakes both statements.


A' The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradictionto the theory of socialism in one counhy, was recognized bythe entire Bolshevik Party during the period from 1917 to1923. Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory ofnational socialism. The downward curve of the revolutiongave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanentrwolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. Thistheory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionaryevents; it only reveals the worldwide interdependence of therwolutionary process.

Q.' The statement is made that "Trotsky would not haveneglected Soviet home industry any more than Stalin wouldignore the usefulness of the Third International." Do you agreewith the conclusion that "There are no whites and blacks inthis picture. It is a matter of proportion and shade'?

A' Such an affirmation is possible only because of lack offamiliarity with the history of the struggle between the Stalinistfaction and the Left Opposition. The initiative for the fiveyearplan and the accelerated collectivization belongs entirely tothe Left Opposition, in uninterrupted and sharp sbuggles withthe Stalinists. Not having the possibilit;r of occupying myselfhere with long historical research, I will limit myself to a singleillustration. The Dnieprostroy is rightly considered the highestachievement of Soviet industrialization. Yet Stalin and his fol-lowers (Voroshilov, Molotov, and others), a few months beforethe beginning of the work, were decided opponents of theDnieprostroy plan. I quote from the stenographic report thewords spoken by Stalin in April 1926 at the plenum of theCentral Committee of the party against myself as head ofthe Dnieprostroy commission. nThere is talk . . . of our con-structing Dnieprostroy through our own means. But the sumshere are large, several hundred million. How can we avoidfalling into the position of the peasant who had saved up somemoney, but instead of repairing his plough and renewing hisequipment, bought a phonograph and went bankrupt?(laughter) . How can we not take into account the congressresolution that our industrial plans must correspond to ourresources? But Comrade Trotsky does not take this congressdecision into accounf' (stenographic report of the plenum,p.110).

Simultaneously the Left Opposition for several years carriedon a struggle against the Stalinists in favor of collectivization.Only when the kulak refused to deliver grain to the state didStalin, under the pressure of the Left Opposition, accomplisha sharp turn. Being the empiricist that he is, he moved to

Lenini$n and Stalinism 289

the opposite extreme, and set as a task for two or three yearsthe collectivization of all the peasantry, the liquidation of thekulaks as a class, and the compression of the fiveyear planinto four years. The Left Opposition declared that the newtempos of indusbialization were above our forces, and thatthe liquidation of the kulaks as a class in the course of threeyears was a fantastic task. If one wishes to say so, we findourselves this time "less radicaln than the Stalinists. Reoolu-tionary realism tries to draw the maximum advantage fromevery situation-that is what makes it revolutionary-but atthe same time it does not permit us to set ourselves fantasticaims - that is what makes it realistic.

Q'' If we accept the views that the policy of Stalin has apurely empirical character, is determined by the circumstancesof the moment and is incapable of seeing far ahead, how canwe explain the victory of Stalin's faction over the Left Oppo-sition?

A' Above, I emphasized the significance of revolutionaryshategy. Here I must come back to the decisive importanceof objective conditions. Without a correct shategy victory isimpossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot givevictory under unfavorable objective conditions. The rwolutionhas its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushesthe most highly developed, determined, and farseeing stratumof the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions. Yetthe proletariat has not only a vanguard, but also a rearguard,and besides the proletariat there are the peasantry and thebureaucracy. Not one revolution up to now has brought allthat was o<pected of it by the masses. Hence the inevitabilityof a certain disillusionment, of a lowering of the activity ofthe vanguard, and consequently of the growing importanceof the rearguard. Stalin's faction has raised itself on the waveof reaction against the October Revolution. Look back athistory-those who guided the revolution in the time of itsculmination never kept their leading positions long after theturning poinl In France, the leader of Jacobinism perishedon the guillotine; with us, the change of leadership was achievedby means of arrest and banishment. The technique of the pro-cess is gentler, but its essence is the same.

Q.' How do you reconcile your criticism of the Soviet Unionin the capitalist press with your revolutionary sympathies?Is it true that you are "turning the thinking youth away fromRussia," noffering enemies of the Soviet regime the best possiblearguments and material,n and giving ne<-radicals and near-Communists an €!(cuse for maligning Moscow and abstainingfrom participation in revolutionary action"?


A' The Soviet state does not need either illusions or camou-flage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmedby the facts. The more clearly and deeply the public opinionof the world, in the first instance the opinion of the workingmasses, will understand the contradictions and the difficultiesof the socialist development of an isolated country, the morehighly will it appreciate the results achieved. The less it iden-tifies the fundamental methods of socialism with the zigzagsand errors of the Soviet bureaucracy, the less will be the dangerthat, by the inwitable revelation of these errors and their con-sequences, the authority not only of the present ruling groupbut of the workers' state itseU may decline. The Soviet Unionneeds thinking and critical friends, such as are capable notonly of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of notshrinking in the hour of defeat and danger. Journalists ofthe type of Fischer accomplish a progressive work in defendingthe Soviet Union from calumnies, malicious inventions, andprejudices. But these gentlemen overstep the limits of theirmission when they attempt to give us lessons of devotion tothe Soviet state. If we fear to speak of dangers, we shall neverconquer them. If we close our eyes to the dark sides of theworkers' state which we have helped to create, we shall neverreach socialism.

GREETINGS TO THE MILITANT2sS

November 1, 1932

To the Editors of. The Militant

Dear Friends:I fear that my greetings to the fourth anniversary of. The

Militant will arrive a little late. But my greetings are nonethe less hearty because of it. All our friends on this side ofthe ocean value highly the work which you have carried onduring this long, and yet short period.

Can we consider ourselves satisfied with the results of ourwork? Of course, this question concerns not only the UnitedStates but also all the other countries in which our adherentslive and struggle. To answer this question is not so simple.As yet, the Left Opposition has nowhere become a mass movement. But it has assembled the rwolutionary kernel whichknows what it wants. Precisely in this field are the achievementsof. The Militant greatest. Not so long ago the Right Oppositionin a number of counhies seemed to be much shonger andmore deserving of attention than the Left From the very outset,we were of the opinion that the right-wing group would expe.rience an evolution towards the Social Democracy; giving upsome of its elements to us and some to official centrism. Thedevelopments of the last year have completely confirmed thisprognosis. In Germany the Brandlerites have split, givinga considerable minority to the Socialist Workers party, whichmeans to the Left Social Democracy. In Czechoslovakia theRight Opposition went over to the Social Democracy; the mi-nority, with the revolutionary elements, under the leadershipof Comrade Neurath, joined us. In Switzerland the Right Op-position is coming closer to the Social Democracy while amongthe better section of the workers sympathies are growingtowards the Left Opposition. As far as can be judged from

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here, the Lovestone group in America can hardly boast ofany successes. Their official organ' in the first place, is char-acterized by confusion. Ttrese people do not know what theywant and are scarcely capable of foreseeing what shore theywill be washed upon by the first strong wave.

In the camp of official communism, confusion of no lesser

degree: the risolutions of the TWelfth Plenum of the ECCIoffer a terrible testimonial of poverty which the leadershipof the Comintern issued to itself- In spite of the exceptionalconditions of the economic crisis and the complete internationalimpasse of imperialism, communism barely moves ahead. Insome countries (Germany, Bulgaria), it registers certain purelyparliamentary successes, which do not, however, correspondin any way to the scope of the social crisis. In other countries,communism retreats before the Social Democracy on everyfield of the working+lass movement (France, Czechoslovakia).In all countries without erception, the cadres of official com-munism are most dissatisfied, disoriented, split into separateinimical groups.

The condition of the party apparatus in the USSR bearsa most menacing character. No one really busts the leadershipthere and the leadership has lost all faith in itself. All thatthe party contains of thinking revolutionary elements is turningtowirds the Left Opposition. The forces on which Stalin basedhimself in the struggle against us are furning ever moretowards Thermidor. The situation in the Soviet Union is anextremely difficult one In the political chaos to which the cen-

trist burLaucracy has brought the party, only the Left Opposi-tion knows what it wants.

The political life of the United States is clearly approachinga turning poinl Within the near future it will become clearthat when Heraclitus the Dark said, "Everything flows, every-thing changes," he had in mind also the republic of Hoover-Roosevelt.28g Old traditions, conceptions, prejudices, will goby the board. Through a period of ideological chaos andstress, the classes in American society will create for themselvesa new modern ideology. A strong revolutionary kernel, weldedby a uniformity of dochine and political method, will be calledupon in such a period to play a great role The creation ofsuch a kernel is the achievement of. The MilitanL So muchthe heartier is my greeting'

L. Trotskv

PERSPECTIVES OFAMERICAN MARXJSM2gO

Open Letter to V. F. Calverton

November 4, 1932

Dear Comrade Calverton:291I received your pamphlel For Reoolution, and read it with

interest as well as profit to myself. Your arguments againstthe American "knights of pure reform" are very convincing,certain of them are really splendid. Bul so far as I understandyour request, what you wanted from me was not literary com-pliments but a political evaluation. I am all the more willingto grant your request since the problems of American Man<ismhave acquired at the present time an exceptional importance

By its character and structure, your pamphlet is most ap-propriate for the thinking representatives of the student youth.To ignore this youth would, in any case, be out of the question;on the contrary, it is necessary to know how to talk to thesestudents in their own language Howwer you yourself repeatedly emphasize in your study the thought which is ele.mentary to a Marxist: namely, that the abolition of capitalismcan be achieved only by the working class. The rwolutionaryeducation of the proletarian vanguard, you correctly proclaimas the chief task. But in your pamphlet I do not find the bridgeto that task, nor any indication of the direction in which itmust be sought

Is this a reproach on my part? Yes and no. In its essenceyour little book represents an answer to that special varietyof petty-bourgeois radicals-in America they seem to bewearing out the threadbare name of nliberals"-who are readyto accept the boldest social conclusions provided they incurno political obligations whatever. Socialism? Communism?Anarchism? Very good! But not otherwise than by way ofreforms. Transform societ5z, morali$2, the family from topto bottom? Splendid! But absolutely with the permission ofthe White House and Tammany.

Against these pretentious and sterile tendencies you present,as I have said before, a very successful line of argumentation.But this controversy itself thereby inevitably takes on the

293


character of a domestic dispute in an intellectual club withits own reformist and its own Marxist wing. It was in thisway that thirty and forty years ago in Petersburg and Moscowthe academic Marxists disputed with the academic Populists:must Russia pass through the stage of capitalism or not? Howmuch water has flowed over the dam since that time! The merenecessity of posing the question as you do in your pamphletthrows a glaring light on the political backwardness of theUnited States, technologically the most advanced country inthe world. To the extent that you neither can nor have theright to tear yourself out of American conditions, to that a(tentthere is no reproach in my words.

Yet at the same time there is a reproach. For side by sidewith pamphlets and clubs where academic debates pro andcon revolution are carried on, in the ranks of the Americanproletarial with all the backwardness of its movement, thereare different political groupings and among them revolutionaryones. You say nothing at all about them. Your pamphlet doesnot mention the so-called Socialist Party, nor the CommunistParty, nor any of the transitional formations, in particular thecontending factions within the Communist movement. Thismeans that you are not calling anybody in particular to goanywhere in particular. You explain the inevitability of the rev-olution. However, the intellectual who is convinced by you canquietly finish smoking his cigarette and pass on to the nextitem on his daily agenda. To this extent there is in my wordsan element of reproach.

I would not have put this circumstance at the top of thelist if it did not seem to me that your political position, asI judge by your articles, is typical of a rather numerous andtheoretically skilled stratum of left intellectuals in the UnitedStates.

There is, of course, no need to talk of the Hillquif-Jhqmas 2e2

party as an instrument of the proletarian revolution. Withouthaving achieved in the slightest degree the power of Europeanreformism, the American Social Democracy has acquired allof its vices and, barely past childhood, has already fallen intowhat the Russians call "senility of dogs." I trust that you agreewith this evaluation and have perhaps more than once evenexpressd similar viervs.

But in the pamphlet For Rasolution you did not say a wordabout the Social Democracy. Why? It seems to me because,had you spoken of the Social Democracy, you would havealso had to give an waluation of the Communist Party. Andthis is not only a touchy but also an extremely important

Perspectioes of Amoican Marxism 255

question, which imposes obligations and leads to consequences.I may perhaps be mistaken with respect to you personally,but many American Marxists obviously and stubbornly avoidfixing their position with respect to the party. They enrollthemselves among the "friends" of the Soviet Union, they "sym-pathize" with communism, write articles about Hegel and theinevitability of the revolution and-nothing more. But thisis not enough. For the instrument of the revolution is the party,don't you agree?

I would not like to be misunderstood. Under the tendencyto avoid the practical consequences of a clear position, I donot at all mean the concern for personal welfare. Admittedly,there are some quasi 'Marxists" whom the Communist Partyscares off by its aim of bringing the revolution out of thediscussion club and into the street. But to dispute about arwolutionary party with such snobs is generally a waste oftime. We are talking about other, more serious Marxists whoare in no way inclined to be scared by revolutionary action,but whom the present-day Communist Party disquiets by itslow theoretical level, by its bureaucratism and lack of genuinerevolutionary initiative. At the same time they say to them-selves, that is the party which stands furthest to the left whichis bound up with the Soviet lJnion, and which "represents"the USSR in a certain sense. Is it right to attack it, is it per-missible to criticize it?

The opportunist and adventurist vices of the present leader-ship of the Communist International and of its American sectionare too wident to require emphasis. In any case, it is impos-sible and useless to repeat within the framework of this letterwhat I have said on the subject in a series of independentworks. All questions of theory, strategy, tactics, and organi-zation have already succeeded in becoming the object of deepdivergences within communism. Three fundamental factionshave been formed, which have succeeded in demonstratingtheir character in the course of the great events and problemsof recent years. The struggle among them has taken on allthe sharper character since in the Soviet Union every differencewith the current ruling group leads to immediate enpulsionfrom the party and to state repressions. The Marxist infellectualin the United States, as in other countries, is placed beforean alternative: either tacifly and obediently to support theCommunist International as it is, or to be included in thecamp of the counterrevolution and "social fascism." One groupof intellectuals has chosen the first way: with eyes blindedor half-blinded, it follows the official party. Another groupwanders without a party home, defends, where it can, the Soviet


Union from slander, and occupies itself with abstract sermonsin favor of the revolution without indicating through whichgate one must pass to meet it"

The difference between these two groups' however, is notso great. On both sides there is renunciation of the creativeeffort in working out an independent opinion, and renunciationof the courageous struggle in its defense, which is preciselywhere the revolutionist begins. On both sides we have the fellow-traveler type and not an active builder of the proletarian party.Certainly a fellow traveler is better than an enemy. But aMarxist cannot be a fellow traveler of the revolution. Moreover,as historical e<perience bears out, at the most critical momentsthe storm of the struggle tosses the majority of the intellectualfellow travelers into the enemy's camp. If they do refurn, itis only after the victory has been consolidated. Maxim Gorkyis the clearest but not the only e>rample. In the present Sovietapparatus, incidentally, clear up to the top a very importantpercentage of people stood fifteen years ago openly on the otherside of the October 1917 barricades.

Is it necessary to recall that Marxism not only interpretsthe world but also teaches how to change it? The will is themotor force in the domain of knowledge too. The momentMarxism loses its will to transform in a revolutionary waypolitical reality, at that moment it loses the ability to correctlyunderstand political reality. A Marxist who, for one secondaryconsideration or another, does not draw his conclusions tothe end betrays Marxism. To pretend to ignore the differentCommunist factions, so as not to become involved and com-promise oneself, signifies ignoring that activity which, throughall the contradictions, consolidates the vanguard of the class;it signifies covering oneself with the abstraction of the rev-olution, as with a shield, from the blows and bruises of thereal revolutionary process.

When left-bourgeois journalists summarily defend the Sovietrepublic as it is, they accomplish a progressive and praise-worthy work. For a Marxist revolutionist, it is absolutelyinsufficient. The problem of the October Revolution-let usnot forget!-has not yet been solved. Only parrots can findsatisfaction in repeating the words, 'Victory is assured.n No,it is not assured! Victory poses the problem of strategy. Thereis no book which sets in advance the correct orbit for thefirst workers' state. A mind does not and cannot e:<ist whichcan contain the ready-made formula for a socialist society.The roads of economy and politics must still be determinedonly through o<perience and worked out collectively, that is,through a constant conflict of ideas. A Man<ist who limits him-

Perspectioes of Antrican Marrism 297

seH to a summary "sympathy''without taking part in the strug-gle over the questions of industrialization, collectivization, theparty regime, etc., rises not to a higher level than the "progres-sive" bourgeois reporters of the type of Duranty,2eJ Louis Fisch-er, and others, but on the contrary stands lower, because heabuses the name of revolutionist.

To avoid direct answers, to play blindman's buff with greatproblems, to remain diplomatically silent and wait, or stillworse, to console oneself with the thought that the presentstruggle within Bolshevism is a matter of "personal am-bitions"-all this means to indulge in mental laziness, to yieldto the worst philistine prejudice, and to doom oneself to demor-alization. On this score I hope we shall not have any differenceswith you.

Proletarian politics has a great theoretical tradition, andthat is one of the sources of its power. A trained Marxist studiesthe differences between Engels and Lassalle2e'l wi0l regardto the European war of 1859. Ttris is necessary. But if heis not a pedant of Marxist historiography, not a bookwormbut a proletarian revolutionist, it is a thousand times moreimportant and urgent for him to elaborate for himself an in-dependent judgment about the revolutionary strategy in Chinafrom 1925 to 1932. It was precisely on that question that thestruggle within Bolshevism sharpened for the first time to thepoint of split It is impossible to be a Mar:<ist without takinga position on which depends the fate of the Chinese revolutionand at the same time that of the Indian too, that is, the futureof almost half of humanigr!

It is very useful to sfudy, let us say, the old differences amongRussian Marxists on the character of the future Russian rev-olution; a study, naturally, from the original sources andnot from the ignorant and unconscionable compilations of theepigones. But it is far more important to elaborate for oneselfa clear understanding of the theory and practice of the Anglo-Russian Committee, of the "third period," of "social fascism,"of the "democratic dictatorship" in Spain, and the policy ofthe united fronl The study of the past is in the last analysisjustified by this, that it helps one to orient oneself in the present.

It is impermissible for a Marxist theoreticidn to pass by thecongresses of the First Internadonal. But a thousand timesmore urgent is the study of the living differences over the Am-sterdam "antiwar" congress of 1932. Indeed, how much isthe sincerest and warmest sympathy for the Soviet Union worth,if it is accompanied by indifference to the method of itsdefense?


Is there today a subject more important for a revolutionist,more gripping, more burning, than the struggle and the fateof the German proletariat? Is it possible, on the other hand,to define one's attifude to the problems of the German revo-lution while passing by the differences in the camp of Germanand international communism? A revolutionist who has noopinion on the policies of Stalin-Thaelmann is not a Marxist.A Marxist who has an opinion but remains silent is not arevolutionist.

It is not enough to preach the benefits of technology; it isnecessary to build bridges. How would a young doctor bejudged who, instead of practicing as an interne, would besatisfied with reading biographies of great surgeons of the past?What would Marx have said about a theory which, insteadof deepening revolutionary practice, serves to separate onefrom it? Most probably he would repeat his sarcastic statement:"No, I am not a Marxist."

From all indications the current crisis will be a great mile-stone on the historical road of the United States. Smug Amer-ican provincialism is in any case nearing its end. Those com-monplaces which invariably nourished American politicalthought in all its ramifications are completely spent. All classesneed a new orientation. A drastic renovation not only of thecirculating but also of the fixed capital of political ideologyis imminent. If the Americans have so stubbornly lagged behindin the domain of socialist theory, it does not mean that theywill remain backward always. It is possible to venture withoutmuch risk a conhary prediction: the longer the Yankees aresatisfied with the ideological castoff clothes of the past, themore powerful will be the sweep of revolutionary thought inAmerica when its hour finally strikes. And it is near. Theelevation of revolutionary theory to new heights can be lookedfor in the next few decades from two sources: from the AsianEast and from America.

In the course of the last hundred-odd years the proletarianmovement has displaced its national center of gravity severaltimes. From England to France to Germany to Russia-thiswas the historical sequence of the residency of socialism andMarxism. The present revolutionary hegemony of Russia canleast of all lay claim to durability. The fact itself of theexistence of the Soviet lJnion, especially before the proletarianvictory in one of the advanced states, has naturally an im-measurable importance for the labor movement of all countries.But the direct influence of the Moscow ruling faction uponthe Communist International has already become a brakeon the development of the world proletariat. The fertilizing

Paspectioes of American Marrisrn 299

ideological hegemony of Bolshevism has been replaced in recent years by the stifling oppression of the apparatus. It isnot necessary to prove the disastrous consequences of thisregime: it suffices to point to the leadership of the AmericanCommunist Party. The liberation from the unprincipled bureau-cratic command has become a question of life and death forthe revolution and for Marxism.

You are perfectly right in saying that the vanguard of theAmerican proletariat must learn to base itself on the revo-lutionary traditions of its own country too. In a certain sensewe can accept the slogan, "Americanize Man<ism!" This doesnot mean, of course, to submit its principle and method torevision. The attempt of Max B..1tnap2e5 to throw overboardthe materialist dialectic in the interests of the "engineering artof revolutionn represents an obviously hopeless and in its pos-sible consequences retrograde adventure. The system ofMarxism has completely passed the test of history. Especiallynow, in the epoch of capitalist decline-the epoch of warsand revolutions, storms and shocks-the materialist dialecticfully reveals its inexorable force. To Americanize Marxismsignifies to root it in American soil, to verify it against theevents of American history, to elaborate by its methods theproblems of American economy and politics, to assimilatethe world revolutionary er<perience from the standpoint of thetasks of the American revolution. A giant labor! It is timeto start it with shirtsleeves rolled up.

In connection with strikes in the United States-after theshattered center of the First International2e6 had been trans-ferred there, Marx wrote to Engels on July 25, 1877: "Theporridge is beginning to boil, and the transfer of the centerof the International to the United States will yet be justified.'Several days later Engels answerd him: "Only twelve yearsafter the abolition of chattel slavery, and the movement hasalready achieved such acuteness!" They, both Marx and Engels,were mistaken. But as in other cases, they were wrong as totempo, not as to direction. The great transoceanic "porridge"is unquestionably beginning to boil, the breaking point in thedevelopment of American capitalism will unavoidably pyovokea blossoming of critical and generalizing thought, and it maybe that we are not very far away from the time when the the.oretical center of the international revolution is transferredto New York.

Before the American Man<ist opentaking perspectives!

truly colossal, breath-

With sincere greetings,L. Trotsky

TO FRIENDS IN FRANKFURT2gT

November 5, 1932

Thank you for your letter and the clipping from the Frank-furta Nachrichten [Frankfurt News]. There is no need to tellyou how I rejoice at your successes and hope that they mayincrease still more in the near future. They are o<tremely sig-nificant. In the present situation careerists seeking office orjournalists looking for a newspaper don't come to the LeftOpposition, poor and under attack not only from the rulingclass but also from the Stalinist bureaucracy. To us comeonly people who are deeply devoted to the proletarian rw-olution, cadre elements. Armed with the correct methods, theyadvance on the road to the masses.

The article in the Frankfurter Nachrichtery like many otherarticles in the bourgeois press, clearly shows that the classenemy understands very well the danger which the Left Op-position represents to its policies. Unlike the Stalinists, theydo not raise a howl that we are "counterrevolutionaries"; thebourgeoisie apparently puts no stock in the Stalinist labelsand considers us - not without reason - their most irreconcilableenemies. The future will show that they are righL

Tlte Frankfurts Nachrichtm speaks of Trotsky's politicalattack on Thaelmann's "Hamburg dock workers." The purposeof this counterposition is all too clear: it is to play gameswith the workers' self-respect and to assign them to the officialbureaucratic party, away from the inlluence of Bolshevik-Leninist criticism. Stalinist tactics today, as we have said'carry very little danger.

Needless to say, my criticism was directed not against Thael-mann's "dock workers" but against the very lofty bureaucracy,which stops the arguments of wery critical worker with a fistin the mouth. But if Stalin cannot easily succeed with thismethod in the Soviet lJnion, still less will Thaelmann be ableto succeed in stifling Marxist ideas among the proletariat inGermany.

I wish you success in your work in the fufure.L. Ttotskv

300

FIELD'S FUTURE ROLE298

November 13, 1932

To the Leadership of the Communist League of America

Dear Comrades:I wrote you that we had in mind "legalizing" Comrade Field

in one of the European sections for the duration of his workhere. It was with the understanding that he would remainfor a considerable period of time. But it now appears thatthis is impossible for him because of financial reasons and thathe will soon have to return to America. With this is eliminatedthe abovementioned plan, which we of course intended to carryout only in collaboration with you.

In regard to the future in America, the plans of Field are,as it appears to me from conversations with him, the following:he returns fully determined to work for the Left Oppositionand to find his way back to the League. But in no case bythe methods attempted by Weisbord. He will offer his servicesto the League without simultaneously raising the question ofhis reinstatemenl I believe he can be of good service in thefield of winning the intellectual Marxists (an activityfor examplein the sense of my letter to Calverton). Through our theoreticalpolitical superiority as against the party we will be able tocount on certain sympathies from the nacademicians," and wecan utilize these sympathies materially and intellectually, with-oul of coursq delivering the organization to these elements.During the course of this work it will perhaps be proven thatField himself belongs in the organization. But this you willbe able to judge better than we can from this distance. WhatI want to insist upon is that the relationship with Field beas much as possible so arranged that he can in the futurealso be utilized for our international theoretical work.

Please let me once more assure the leadership of the NewYork organization that I was and still am very far fromwanting to take its organizational decision lightly. My motivein this whole question was only the necessity of obtainingqualified forces for our international activities.

With best communist greetings,L. Tlotskv

301

STALIN AGAIN TESTIFIESAGAINST STALIN2gg

'Autumn f932

The revision of the principles of Bolshevism has irrevocablyled to the revision of the history of Bolshevism. In particular,that which is now called the history of the October Revolutionis a completely artificial and contradictory construction whichconcentrates on the private and personal problems of the higher-ups of today's political world and not on the reconstructionand explanation of the facts of the pasl

In 1922 the task was entrusted to Yakovlev 3o0 - fhsn inthe People's Commissariat of Agriculture-to compile a"Historyof the October Revolution.n The fact that the Central Com-mittee appointed Tlotsky beforehand to edit Yakovlev's workshows how far the Central Committee was-despite the absenceof Lenin-from the thought of directing the history of theOctober Rwolution against Trotsky. Redirection in this matterbegan only in 1924. Yakovlev, it is trug wrote no historyof the October Revolution. But he managed to publish a fewcollections of historical material to which he provided his ownprefaces. Roughly, one can lay down the following law: thecorrectress of Yakovlev's prefaces is in inverse ratio to thesquare of time which elapsed before the publication of eachcollection. More simply: the more time passed, the more boldlyYakovlev lied. In 1928, in his preface to the minutes of theSecond Congress of Soviets, Yakovlev already was bold enoughto assert: 'The Bolshwiks did not yield to 'constitutionalillusions,' and having rejected the proposal from ComradeTrotsky to time the insurrection without fail [?] for the SecondCongress of Soviets, they took power before the opening ofthe Soviet Congress" (Second. All-Russian Congress of Sooiets,State Publishers, 1928, p. 38).

302

&alin Again Tesffies Against Stalin g0B

From the quotation it follows that in the problem of thetiming and methods of the insurrection the Central Com-mittee, under Lenin's leadership, carried out a policy opposedto Trotsky's. The falsity of this construction, which belongsnot to Yakovlev but to his inspirers, above aU to Stalin, issmashed to smithereens by the facts and documents in theappendix to the last volume of Trotsky's History. But of theevidence cited in the History perhaps the most colorful pieceis absenL

On April 23, 1920, the Moscow organization celebrated.Lenin's fiftieth anniversary. The unwilling hero" of the lestivi-ties stayed away from the celebration and appeared oily atits very end in order to €xpress the hope that the party wouldrefrain from the depressing practice of jubilee celebrations.Lenin was mistaken in his hopes. Later jubilee celebrationstook on a compulsory character; but this is a special problem.Kamenev was the main speaker at the celebration. Besideshim, Gorky, Olminsky, and Stalin also spoke. Instead of fore-casting the further development of events, Stalin, in a veryshort and clumsy speech, set himself the task of "pinpointinga trait [of Lenin] about which no one had as yet spoken-hiimodesty and the a.d.mission of his ntistakes." The speaker citedtwo examples: the first concerning the boycott of the StateDuma (1905), the second concerning the timing and methodof the October insurrection. Let us quote verbatim Stalin'saccount about this second "mistake" of Lenin:

'Ir July 1917, under Kerensky, when the Democratic Con-ferences0l was called and the Mensheviks and the Social Revo-lutionaries were setting up a new institution-the preparliamentwhich was supposed to set the rails for a switch to constitution-al government- we in the Central Committee decided to goahead with reinforcing the Soviets, to summon the Congreisof Soviets, to begin the insurrection, and to proclaim the bon-gress of Soviets the organ of state power. Ilyich [Lenin], whowas then in hiding, did not agree and wrote that it was neces-sary to disperse and arrest this riffraff [the Democratic Con-ference]. We realized that the matter was not so simple, knowingthat the conference consisted of a half or at least a third ofdelegates from the front, that by arrest and dispersal we couldonly spoil the whole business and worsen relations with thefront. All the holes and pidalls on our course were more visibleto us. But Ilyich is great and doesn't fear [?] either holes orpidalls or chasms in his way; he doesn't fear threats and says,'Be determined and go ahead.' But the fraction saw thai itwas disadvantageous to act in this way at the time, that it wasnecessary to go round these obstacles in order to take the bull


by the horns. And in spite of Ilyich's demands we went aheadwith reinforcement and presented [?] t]re picture [?] of October25 as the date of the insurrection' Ilyich, smiling, slyly lookedat us and said, 'Yes, you were right.' This astonished us.Sometimes Comrade Lenin in problems of great importanceconfessed his shortcomings [?1" (The Fiftieth ,4nnioersary ofV. L Uyanoo-Lenin, 1920, pp. 27-28).

Stalin's speech does not appear in any version of his Works.Nevertheless, it is extremely interesting' In the first placg itdoes not leave one stone standing of the latest legend, the most"scienfific," formulated by Yakovlev, that the Central Committeeunder Lenin's leadership crushed the constitutional illusions ofTrotsky regarding the timing and method of the insurrection'According to Stalin-that is, according to Stalin in 1920-ittranspires, on the contrary, that on this question the CentralCommittee supported Trotsky against Lenin.

In his recollections of 1924,302 Trotsky tells how Lenin,appearing in the Smolny on the night of the twenty-fifth [ofOciober] iaid to htn, nAU right, one can proceed in this fashionas well, provided we seize power." The'historian" Yaroslavskyin 1930 indignantly denied the authenticity of this account:after all, the overthrow was carried through by the CentralCommittee in accord with Lenin-against Trotsky; how couldLenin have said, "one can proceed in this fashion"? We learnfrom Stalin, however, that the Central Committee "in spite ofIlyich's demands" held its course toward the Congress of Soviets.rrd "ptetettted the picture of October 25 as the date of theinsurrectionn; Lenin, indeed, on his arrival at the Smolny de'clared, "Yes, you were right." Could one present a more con-vincing even if involuntary corroboration of Trotsky's accountand a hore crushing refutation of all later falsifications?

Stalin's jubilee speech is instructive in all its ou0ines anddetails. What a devastating primitiveness in the depiction ofpeople and circumstances! Stalin even incorrectly describesthe Central Committee's plan: "to go ahead with reinforcingthe Soviets, to summon the Congress of Soviets, to begin theinsurrection, and to proclaim the Congress of Soviets the organof state power." This is that very mechanical schematism whichLenin, not unjustifiably, stigmatized as constitutional illusionslto summon the Congress of Soviets beforehand in order onlythen to announce the insurrection would have meant givingthe enemy the chance to strike at the Congress of Soviets beforethe insurrection. The question arises of itself: Was Lenin'sfear a result of one of his meetings with Stalin? Ln fact, theplan that was actually carried out consisted in mobilizing the

Stalin Again Testifies Against &,alin 305

masses under the slogan of the Congress of Soviets as thesupreme organ of the country and under cover of this legalcampaign preparing the insurrection and striking at a suitablemoment, near the congress but definitely not after iL

Stalin makes a crude mistake in the central point of theOctober strategy because he did not think out the problemsof the insurrection for himself, neither at the time of the eventsnor afterwards. All the easier was it for him then to blessYakovlev afterwards for attributing his own, Stalinist, stra-tegical thoughts, not worked out to their conclusion, to Trotskyand for uniting Stalin with Lenin in a struggle against "con-stitutional illusions"! From this single episode the theoreticallevel of the epigones stands out in all its dreadful poverty.

The little book of 1920 jubilee speeches which has come intoour hands by chance is not o<ceptional. Not only the archivesof the part5r and of Soviet institutions but also official publica-tions from before 1924 represent their own kind of foundationof dynamite on which is erected the superstrucfure of epigoneideology. Every brick of this foundation threatens to collapseIn great as in small problems the tradition of Bolshevism isfully on the side of the Left Opposition.

A SUPPRESSED SPEECH OF LENIN3O3

And Other ltems

Autumn 1932

The Third Congress of the Comintern assembled in Moscowthree months after the "March dayd' of 192 1 in Germany:l0aThe young leadership of the German Communist Party, whichhadn't yet cooled down after the March battles, was arguingin approximately the following fashion: Since this is a revo-lutionary epoch then we, the revolutionary vanguard, mustmarch in the lead, not stopped by any obstacle, and drawthe working class along by our orample. This meant pro'ceeding not from the concrete circumstances or from the realeondition of the proletariat, with all its varied groupings, butfrom the general characterization of the period as revolutionary.Such is the general historical-philosophical basis of revolution-ary adventurism. In 1921, this philosophy was sketched onlyin timid strokes. Ten years later, it is dweloped, canonized,bureaucratized - under the name of the theory of the "thirdperiod."

It is all the more important to recall Lenin's attitude towardthis theory since one of his clearest speeches is still being hiddenaway from readers in the Comintern's archives. We have inmind Lenin's speech of June 17, 1921, at a session of theExecutive Committee of the Communist International on theeve of the Third Congress. In order to clarify the e><hactsfrom this speech, which are quoted below, it is necessary torecall that ultraleftism at that time was to be found in almostall the parties. A section of the French delegation, for er<ample,was advocating-though after the went-refusal of militaryservice by those subject to the draft in 1919. The delegate fromLuxembourg accused the French party of not "hindering" ttteoccupation of Luxembourg by French troops. Ttotsky, inspeaking against the opportunist policies of Cachin-Fros-sard,3os was forced, as he explained, to preface his speechwith criticism of the ultraleftists. He showed that it wasimpossible to conquer militarism by the passive opposition ofone military age-group ("the class of 1919," as the Frenchsay); what was needed instead was the active intervention of

306

A &rypreesed fueuh of Lenin 3Oz

the whole working class. He showed that if the proletariatas a whole was not ready for a complete revolutionary over-throw, then it could not prevent the military occupation ofLuxembourg. Attempts to solve these kinds of "privaten prob-lems by a show of strength when that strength was insufficientfor solving the basic problem, i e, the seizure of power, leadto adventurism - a path that could prove fatal for young Com-munist parties.

Zinwist, Bukharin, and Radek were on the side of the ultra-leftists. But since they didn't know whose side Lenin wouldtakg they themselves refrained from an open struggle. Theypushed forward Bela Kun3oc who defended not only the Marchstrategy in Germany (for this strategy he personally bore asignificant share of the blame), but also the ultraleftist criticismof the Luxembourg delegate and of a section of the Frenchdelqation, including Laports,so? a future fascisl

Lenin was not present at that session. Having found outabout the debate that was developing, he sent for a verbatimtranscript and then appeared at the session of the ECCI andmade a powerful speech against the ultraleftists:

nComrade Bela Kun contends that only the opportunists aremistaken-but in actual fact the leftists too are mistaken. Ihave the verbatim transcript of Comrade Trotsky's speech.According to this reporl Trotsky says that leftist comradesof this kind, if they continue along the same path, will destroythe Communist movement and the workers' movement inFrance (,Applnuse.) I am deeply convinced of this. I havetherefore come here to protest against the speech of ComradeBela Kun, who has opposed Comrade Trotsky instead ofdefending him-which he should have done had he wantedto be a genuine MarxisL . . .

"Comrade Bela Kun thinks that to be a revolutionary meansdefending the leftists always and everywhere Preparation forrevolution in France, one of the biggest countries in Europe,cannot be carried out by any party alone. The French Com-munists winning the leadership of the trade unions-that iswhat would please me mosL

"!Vhm I look at the magnificent work of the CommunistParty, when I see all these cells in the trade unions and otherorganizations, I say: The victory of the revolution in Franceis assured if the leftists don't do anything stupid. And whensomeone says, as does Bela Kun, that coolness and disciplinehave not proven correct-that is idiocy in the spirit of the leftwing. I came here to say to our left-wing comrades: U youfollow such advice you will destroy the revolutionary movemertL . . .n


Passing to the question of the French party's opportunistmistakes, Lenin said:

"Let us take another e>rample-Marcel Cachin and otherswho in the French Chamber of Deputies refer to Anglo-Frenchcooperation and say it is a guarantee of peace. This is op-porlunism, and a party which allows this is not a Communistparty. Of course, in our resolutions we must show that suchand such a statement cannot be tolerated, that this is not theCommunist way. But it is necessary that the criticism be con-crete. We must brand opportunism. But the real opportunismof the party, reflected in the speech of Cachin, is not subjectedto criticism. Instead of criticizing it they criticize this statement

[of Trotsky's], and give new 'advice' This is what ComradeTrotslry said in his speech (the German oersion of Tfotsky'sspeech is read).

"Therefore Comrade Laporte was completely wrong and Com-rade Trotsky, who protested against this, was completely righlPerhaps the behavior of the French party was not thoroughlyCommunist I am ready to admit this. But at the present mo-ment such an idiocy-refusal of military seryice, etc.-woulddestroy the Communist movement in France and England'Revolution is not made by an appeal to those facing the 1919drafL Comrade Trotsky was a thousand times right whenhe repeated this. But we still have the comrade from Luxem-bourg who rebuked the French party for not sabotaging theoccupation of Luxembourg. Well! He thinks that this is a geo-graphical question, as Comrade Bela Kun contends. No, thisls a political problem, and Comrade Trotsky was completelyright to protest against this. This is a very 'left-wing,' a veryrevolutionary idiocy, and one very harmful for the Frenchmovement.

nI know," continued Lenin, nthat among the Communist youththere are genuine revolutionaries. Criticize the opportunistson concrete grounds, point out the mistakes of official Frenchcommunism, but don't do silly things yourselves. When themasses come more and more toward you, when you are ap-proaching victory, then it is necessary to take control of thetrade unions. The majority of trade unions yield wonderfullyto preparatory work, and if we succeed in this it will be agreat victory. Bourgeois democracy has no standing any long-er, but in the trade unions the bureaucratic leaders from theSecond and the TWo-and-a-haU Internatiela|s3o8 still prevail.In the trade unions we must first of all gain a reliable Marx-ist majority. And then we will begin to make the revolution,not with the help of an appeal to the 1919 military agegroupand not with the help of those idiocies in which Bela Kun spe

A Suppressed Speech of Lmin 309

cializes, but, on the contrary, through the struggle againstopportunism and against the idiocies perpetrated by the left-wingers. Perhaps this will be not so much a struggle as awarning against the speeches of Marcel Cachin-together withan openly declared struggle against the traditions of oppor-tunism-and a warning against left-wing idiocies. That is whyI considered it my duty to support fundamentally all thatComrade Trotsky said and to declare that the policy defendedby Comrade Bela Kun is unworthy of any defense whatsoeverby any Marxist or any Communist."

Who Bound Bakovsky?In 1918 the Rumanian invaders of Bessarabia addressed to

the inhabitants of Mogilev the following appeal:TO THE PEACEFUL INHABITANTS OFMOGILEV

Hand over Rakovsky, bound, otherwise we will not stop thebombardment.

We want peace but Rakovsky wants war.Choose him or us.If you will only hand over Rakovsky to us you will get

peace and we will send you provisions.Rumanian Army

But the Soviet revolution did not bind Rakovsky or handhim over to his enemies; he was necessary to it; great worklay ahead for him.

In October 1927 the French reactionary rulers demanded therecall of Rakovsky from Paris. Chicberin,s@ in a note ofOctober 12, 1927, protested against "the recall of Mr. Rakov-sky to whose efforts and energy the Franco-Soviet conferenceis indebted to a significant degree for the results obtained.'But precisely because of this energy and these talents of arwolutionary diplomat Rakovsky became hated by the Frenchbourgeoisie It became necessary to recall him.

But Stalin recalled Rakovsky simply to fulfill the wishesof the Rumanian bourgeoisie: he bound Rakovsky hand andfoot and, if he didn't hand him over to BucharesL tid himup in Barnaul.

Just What Is This?Ekonomicheskaga Zhizn comments on the decree of the Cen-

tral Control Commission on the expulsion of "a counterrevolu-tionary group." The article shows groveling in unsurpassedfashion. In two smallish columns we read:

nUnder the experienced leadership of the Central Committeewith Comrade Stalin at its head";

further:


". of the Leninist party, with Comrade Stalin its leaderand teacher at its head';

after this:"Our party, under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, the most

faithful disciple of Lenin";right after that:"Ttre workers of our country and of the whole world see

in the person of Comrade Stalin an unflinching fighter forsocialism, under whose leadership [?] they are successfullygoing from victory to victory'';

and finally:"Under the banner of Lenin and under the leadership of his

best pupil, Comrade Stalin. . . .'All this was written not because it was Stalin's birthday,

not on the occasion of his name day, and not on the anni-versary of his "six conditions." No, this glorification' repeatedfive times, arises in an article devoted to the expulsion of ascore of part5r members.

In the same article we find an aphorism which deservesto be immortalized: "Ttre party has unmasked for all time thecounterrevolutionary essence of the factional struggle againstthe gmeral line of the party and against its Leninist leadership.nEvery leadership is 'Leninisf because it leads, and its everyline is ngeneral," and every struggle is against the line of coun-terrevolution. This is unmasked-'Tor all time." And is, andwas, and ever shall be. Amen.

''Big" and "Iluge"In Rabochaya Moskoa's account of the September youth

demonstration, we are told:nln the offices of the governing bodies hangs a big portrait

of Ilyich.' A few lines after that: nThere is a huge portraitof Stalin in the Museum of History." Everything is in pro-pordon: for the big Lenin- a big porhait; for the huge Stalin-a huge portrait.

Adoratsky and ZinovievIn 1923 Adoratsky3lo wrote regarding Zinoviev's History

of the Party:"The lectures by Comrade Zinoviev are only fleeting sketches

but they give a correct perspective and in general faithfully out-line the contours of the movement and really serye as a goodintroduction to the study of the history of the party. ." (ho-letarskaya Reoolutsia, 1923, no. 5, p. 344).

It would be interesting to know what opinions Adoratsky,who has now replaced Ryazanov,3ll holds on this questiontoday.

TO GREEK FRIENDS EN ROUTE TOCOPENHAGEN312

November 19. 1932

Dear Comrades and Friends:I sincerely regret that the circumstances-which are known

to you-did not permit me to leave the ship and visit withyou.

But my companions on this voyage conveyed your greet-ings and your friendly wishes.

As we passed through the Corinthian canal, we heard yourfriendly and warm voices in the night. We are with you withall our hearts.

Warmest fraternal greetings,L. Trotskv

311

PRESS STATEMENT ATMARSEILLESsls

November 21. 1932

There is nothing mysterious about my voyage and it presents,in my opinion at least, not the slightest interest to the public.

This is the only reason why I refused to say anything tothe Greek press or the Italian press. But since this has givenrise to regrettable interpretations I believe it advisable now tomake the following statement:

I have lived for four years in-Turkey. I have read, I havewritten, and in my leisure hours I have fished and hunted. Ihave been chiefly occupied with The History of the RussianReoolution. This work is finished, and its last pages have goneto the printers.

Students in Copenhagen, at their own initiative, have invitedme to lecture to them on the subject "lVhat Is the October Revo-lution?' In my lecture, which I will give in German becauseI do not know the Danish language, I shall try to review theresults of my historical researches.

My lecture pursues scientific, not propagandistic, aims; thisdoes not mean, of course, that I intend to conceal my pointof view, which remains the same as it was at the time of theOctober 1917 insurrection.

I am accompanied by -y wife, N. L Sedova, who has sharedthe vicissitudes of my life for thirty years, and by three youngfriends who came voluntarily from three different countriesto the island of Prinkipo to help me in my scientific and po-litical work: Jan Frankel, Czechoslovak; Otto Schuessler, Ger-man; Pierre Frank, Frenchman.3l4

After our short visit to Denmark, we will refurn to Prinkipo,where we have retained our house with the small library re.stored after the fire of 1931.

That is all.312

PRESS STATEMENT ON LEAVINGDUNKIRKsls

November 22. 1932

Sirs:I am leaving France through which, actually, I had to pass

in order to go to Denmark.Passing through it briefly has only renewed and refreshed

the impressions I already had of this country with its old cul-ture and its taste for tough work.

I avoid political interviews so as not to complicate the tech-nical matter of getting visas because of differences of opinion,which nonetheless retain their significance.

The French authorities with whom I have dealt during myshort trip have done their duty with a great deal of tact.

313

PRESS STATEMENT ON REACHINGESBJERG3I6

November 23, lg32

Dear Sirs,I am pleased to visit your hospitable country for the second

time in my life. The first time the occasion was an internation-al socialist congress, almost a quarter-century ago. Despitethe shorbress of my stay then, I took back the most pleasantmemories of your capital, Copenhagen. My wife rememberseven today the splendid photographs, postcards, etc. that Isent her from Copenhagen.

I come now, as you are all aware, at the invitation of theDanish Social Democratic student organization in order to givean account of the Russian Revolution. The goal of my lectureis to explain the historical lawfulness of the Russian Revolu-tion. Unfortunately I do not speak Danish, and will thereforedeliver the lecture in German.

One small supplemental remark, in some respects an apology:In response to a telegraphed request, I promised an interview -not a political one-to a Copenhagen paper. This was to beobtained in Marseilles by the correspondent of the paper inquestion. The late arrival of the ship and the necessity of over-taking the train in an automobile made it impossible to fulfillthis promise. It was not my fault, but rather a force majeure'

314

AN INTERVIEW BYSOCIAL-DEMOKRATEN3lT

November 23. 1932

Trotsky: First and foremost, I want to o<press my thanksfor the invitation and entry permit to Denmark. I recognizethat the government, which in no way shares my viewpoint,has given me permission to give a purely historical and scien-tific lecture to a number of interested young people. I hadalready receivd a similar invitation prior to this from Nor-way, but I had to turn it down because of a fire in my housein Istanbul last year. The trip has been a great pleasure, es-pecially for my wife, who for ten years was in charge of all themusenms in Russia, and who was happy to be able to see thewonders of Italy in this field.

Rechmdorf: How long has it been since you spoke in publb?T; I have not given a speech in Western Europe since 1914,

in Austria. For four years I have been isolated not only frompolitical life, but also from public life in general and from anyreal communication with broader circles. I have no auditoriumwhere I can speak face to face with people. All I have is myliterary activity.

R: Are gou lonesome??} On the island where my house is located, I live alone with

my wife and my six-year-old grandson-who, by the way, wasto have come with us-and with a few good friends, some ofwhom come to visit from great distances. There are six hundredinhabitants on the island, but I have no contact with them. Igo fishing, hunting, and boating-and, of course, I write.

R Onlg about Russia?T I was more at the center of the Russian Revolution than

any other living person and as a result I have certain qualifi-cations for portraying it. I have just finished a three.volumehistory of the revolution-a work that has required three yearsof intense labor. I just finished thoroughly going over the ma-

315


terial, which I plan to present to my audience in Copenhagen.And I am already enjoying the fact that I will be able onceagain to speak directly to an audience in a meeting, ratherthan to unknown readers. But I am going to talk only aboutthe results of historical research; I am not going to talk politics.

R: Do you haoe any plans for the fuh-te?T Yes, I am preparing three books-one about the world

economic and political situation and one about Lenin, a biog-raphy, which I have already written a little about in an En-glish periodical. * But reports of my book on Lenin have leakedout In Spain, for instance, a book on Lenin has already comeout with my name on the title page. A falsehood and a forgeryfrom one end to the other. I didn't write a word of iL

k What's behind this forgery, politics or the desire to rnake a.

dollar?7] A combination of both, I think. The book will bring in

money, and at the same time it will do damage to me. Thebook is political in character, and it is full of abominations.Among other things, it has me making extremely disparagingand contemptuous statements about Lenin, speaking abouthim in a way that was completely inconceivable for me. I amnow trying through the Spanish courts to have justice done inthis matter.

R What do you plan to write about Lenin?? Besides writing his biography, io the second volume I

want to do away with the false interpretations of his teachingsand the incorrect conclusions that have been drawn from hisideas. And in the third volume, which will be theoretical andpolitical, I will go into a polemic against what I call his epi-gones in Russia.

R: Was Lenin himself the Ru.ssian Rwolution?T As a Marxist, I know that history is made according to

the material conditions. But under certain circumstances, mencan end up playing a decisive role. Without a mechanic, themachine will not run, and without the spark plug's spark, themotor will not start-even if wery other part is working fineLmin was the Russian Reoolution's spark.

R: Do you mean that without Lenin, thqe would haoe bemno reoolution?

*This text of the interview does not give the subject of the thirdbook, but in another version of the to<t, published in Folkeblad'Trotsky said the following: "As for my third projected book, it isabout the Red Army, aboutwhich Ihavesome knowledge"-D.T.

An Intensiao by Social-Demokraten 317

?] All the necessary conditions for revolution were presentin Russia in October 1917. But without him, I doubt that itwould have occurred at that point. Or perhaps it would havelasted for three years; new factors would have come into play,and perhaps the opportunity would have been missed.

R What was Lenin like?T A lovable and simple person. I can still remember hirn

playing with my two sons in the corridors of the Kremlin,where we both had offices. He was like a child in the midstof all the seriousness. His character was such that he took aresponsible approach to everything he did. He worked justas carefully on a speech to five workers in London as he didon a proposal to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Andthis almost omniscient man could all by himself make theworld's most complicated questions simple and easy for theuninitiated to understand.

R What did his death mean for the Sooiet Union?? That Russia lost a man who could not be replaced.R: Andforgou?? Aren't you trying to sneak in some politics here? You

know I'm not going to say anything about politics.R: fsn't eoerybody asking gou about politics?7} Yes, they are, but in order to avoid any misunderstand-

ing, I never let a word about current politics cross my lips-let alone an intervierr. I am writing. I am enjoying the plea-sure of relaxing after the exertions of the trip, and I intendto spend my time seeing Copenhagen and its surroundings,and renewing acquaintances I made during my stay here twen-ty-two years ago for the 1910 congress.

AN INTERVIEW BY POLITIKENs1s

November 23, lg32

nAre there particular reasons why you accepted the invitationto give a lecture in Copenhagen? I imagine you have receivedmany other invitations as well?"

"Naturally it's a long way.up here," Trotsky replies, "butI wanted to take a trip at the moment, and I am fond of Scan-dinavia. I've been here before, you know. It's purely accidentalthat I am now visiting Denmark before Norway. Tbo yearsago I received an invitation from Norwegian students, and Iwas even granted an entry permit by Mowinckel,:ltv but inFebruary of last year, just as I was about to begin the hip'there was a bad fire in my home in Prinkipo. All my manu-scripts and papers were destroyed, and I left the island whilethe house was being repaired. I did not want to travel whilethat was going on. But now that is finished, and we will begoing back there after our trip to Scandinavia.n

"Have you been to Denmark before? I ask, after promisingnot to touch on politics.

"In 1910 I took part in the international socialist congressin Copenhagen. I came here from England with Rosa Luxem-burg, who in those years was living in exile from Russia thesame as L Ttre lovely days spent in Copenhagen at that timeare some of the happiest memories of my life. There is something gentle and friendly about the Danes. I'm not trying toflatter tJrem, because obviously they can't help being the waythey are. But it made an impression on me, I remember.

\[e ended the congress with a big banquet in the city hall'I believe, and that was a magnificent experience. Yes, a lothas certainly happened since then. When I think back on thepeople who were together in Copenhagen at that time numerousevents come back to mind. There was Bebel, the German social-ist leader; Jean Jaures,S2o who was murdered when the worldwar broke out; Lenin, who was relatively unknown at the time;

318

An Intentieu by Politiken 319

and Rosa Luxemburg, who fell as a martyr for her passionateconvictions. If we engaged in guesswork over the future, wenonetheless never guessed what was to happen later."

"Was your wife along with you that time?""No, but she has kept the photographs and picture postcards

that I sent her from Copenhagen, and she has always lookedforward to seeing the city that I praised so highly."

"Do you know that Lenin lived in Copenhagen a while whenhe was in exile?"

"That I have never heard, but I find it interesting to know.I myself almost went to Copenhagen in 1907 at the time ofmy second escape from Siberia. Disguised, I managed to getto the Urals. From there, in my rashness, I took the trainto St. Petersburg, and fortunately was able to avoid the policespies. At the Finnish border, I was met by Finnish activistswho helped me get to Sweden. Yet on my way to Copenhagen,I only reached Malmo-a steamship there happened to beheading for London."

"Are you going to give a speech in Norway this time too?""I think so. If only I can get in, I'll travel up there. My wife

and I would also both like to go to Sweden, my wife mosflyto see the museums and arL For ten years she was in chargeof all the Russian museums-both scientific and artistic-andthere are now many valuable collections that she was responsi-ble for bringing together. Irr Italy, where we stopped on ourway here, we had a great enperience We saw the new, huge e<-cavations in Pompeii What the Italians have achieved there isreally colossal. A third of the city has been re-created just theway it was in times past and you can relive the life of thecity at that time."

"Have you had a hard trip?""Not at all. We had eight days of maryelous sailing from

Constantinople to Marseilles, where, forfunately, we arrivedtoo late to catch the train, so we had to take a car to Lyons.That was an unforgettable drive-400 kilometers throughsouthern France. I like to get around." With this Trotsky getsup and rolls up the window blinds. "f would also like to seea little of Denmark," he adds, "though it's too bad about thefog you've got here at the moment."

'What is your speech in Copenhagen going to deal with?""I am going to talk about the Russian Revolution-but it

will consist of a purely historical and scientific o<planationof events. I am going to stick orclusively to Russia and willnot get into international politics. I unfortunately can't speakDanish, but I have chosen to speak in German, which is under-stood, I have heard, by many Danes."

32O Writings of Leon TlotskE (1932)

"How long have you been living in Prinkipo?'nFor four years. I have been given the right to live in e>rile,

you know, and Prinkipo is, naturally, better than Siberia.When I'm not wr-iting, I go hunting or fishing. At presentI am working on a neqr, big work on the Russian Revolu-tion. I have a daughter, who lives with me along with hersix-year-old son; and, as you know, where there are children,time never hangs heavy. Yet naturally I am not planningto settle down on the lit0e island forever."

T)o you hope to go back to Russia?n"No, thanks,n smiles Trotsky, pulling thoughffully on his

grizzld,, pointed beard, 'now you're trying to provoke meinto talking politics, but I already told you I wouldn't."

RADIO MESSAGETO THE UNITED STATES321

November 27, 1932

Esteemed listeners! My attempt to give the American radioaudience a short e><pose of my lecture on the Russian Rev-olution is in two senses a,daring enterprise. The limits of timeare too narrow, and my English, my poor English, is in noproportion to my admiratiqn for Anglo-Saxon culture I begyour indulgence all the more since this is the first time thatI am addressing an audience in English.

What questions does the Russian Revolution raise in themind of a thinking man? One: Why and how did this rev-olution take place? And two: Has the October Revolution stoodthe test? The fact that the proletariat reached power for thefirst time in such a backward country as the former czaristRussia seems mysterious only at first glance; in reality, it isfully in accord with historical law. It could have been pre-dicted and it was predicted- Still more, on the basis of thisprediction, the revolutionaries built up their strategy long before the decisive events.

Permit me to quote here a passage from a work of my ownin 1905:

nln an economically backward country,"-I quote-nthepro-letariat can arrive at power earlier than in a capitalisticallyadvanced one The Russian revolution creates the con-ditions under which the power can (and in the event of a suc-cessful revolution, must) be transferred to the proletariat evenbefore bourgeois liberalism receives the opportunity of dis-playing its genius for government.n

I quote these passages to show that the theory of the Rus-sian revolution which I advocate preceded the October Rev-olution by a long time

Let me sum up briefly this work, which dates from 1905.Lr accordance with its immediate tasks, the Russian revolution

32r


is a bourgeois revolution. But the Russian bourgeoisie is anti-revolutionary. The victory of the revolution is therefore pos-sible only as a victory of the proletariaL But the victoriousproletariat will not stop at the program of bourgeois democ-racy; it will go on to the program of socialism.

This was the theory of permanent rwolution, formulatedby me in 1905 and since then o<posed to the severest crit-icism under the name of "Trotskyism." It is clear, therefore,that not only the causes but the general course of the rev-olution were visible to the Man<ists years before it occurred'

The first and most general er<planation is: Russia is a back-ward country, but only a part of world economy, only anelement of the capitalist world system. In this sense, Lenino<hausted the riddle of the Russian Revolution with the con-cise formula, "The chain broke at its weakest link."

The intolerable condition of the peasantry under the feudal-monarchic system, aggravated by capitalist er<ploitation' cre-ated a terrific e:<plosive force which found its leadership inthe proletariat. A fundamental factor was the existence of agreat revolutionary reserve in the oppressed nationalities onthe borders of the empire, constituting 57 percent of the totalpopulation. To these must be added the experience of the rw-olution of 1905, which Lenin called the "dress rehearsal" forthe revolution of 1917, and which witnessed the first creationof soviets; and the imperialist war, which sharpened all theconhadictions, tore the backward masses out of their immo-bility, and thereby prepared the enormous scale of the catas-trophe.

Last, but far from least, was the existence of a powerfulBolshevik Party, the most revolutionary party in the historyof mankind. It was the living condensation of the modernhistory of Russia, of all that was dynamic in il It learnedto recognize the class mechanics of society in struggle' in thegrandiose events of twelve years, from 1905 to 1917. It ed-ucated cadres equally capable of initiative and subordination.The discipline of its revolutionary action was based on theunity of its dochines, on the tradition of common struggles,and on confidence in its tested leadership. Thus stood the partyin the year 1917.

In September, Lenin, who was compelled to keep in hiding'gave the signal: nThe crisis is ripe, the hour of the insurrec-tion has approached.n He was right. The bourgeoisie finallylost its head. The democratic parties, the Mensheviks and theSocial Revolutionaries, wasted the remains of the confidenceof the masses in them. The awakened army no longer wantedto fight for the foreign aims of imperialism. Disregarding demo-

Radio Message to the United &ates 323

cratic advice, the peasantry smoked the landowners out oftheir estates. The oppressed nationalities at the periphery roseup against the bureaucracy of Petrograd. In the most impor-tant workers' and soldiers' Soviets the Bolsheviki were dom-inant. The workers and soldiers demanded action. The ulcerwas ripe It needed a cut of the lancet.

Only under these social and political conditions was theinsurrection possible. And thus it also became inevitable. Thepart5z carried through the October insurrection with cold cal-culation and with flaming determination. For this reason, itconquered almost without victims. Through the victorious So-viets the Bolsheviki placed themselves at the head of a countrywhich occupies onesixth of the surface of the globe.

The question now comes up: What was achieved at the highcost of the revolution? Many critics reveal their malicious joyover the fact that the land of the Soviets bears but little re.semblance to a realm of general well-being. Why then the rev-olution and why the sacrifices?

Esteemed listeners! Permit me to think that the contradictions,difficulties, mistakes, and wants of the Soviet regime are noless familiar to me than to anyone else But in criticism, aswell as in creative activity, perspective is needed. Fifteen years!How much that is in the life of one man! But these same fif-teen years-what an insignificant period in the life of a people!Only a minute on the clock of history!

In the course of the Civil War in the United States, fift5rthousand men were killed.322 Can these sacrifices be justified?From the standpoint of the American slaveholder and theruling classes who marched with them-no! From the stand-point of the progressive forces of American societ5r, of theNegro, or of the British workingman-absolutely! And fromthe standpoint of the development of humanity as a whole,there can be no doubt whatever! Out of the Civil War came thepresent United States with its unbounded practical initiative,its rationalized technology, its economic elan. These achieve.ments of Americanism will constitute a part of the basis forthe new society.

The deepest, most objective, and most indispensable criterion of social progress is the growth of productivity of sociallabor. The evaluation of the Russian Revolution from thispoint of view is already given by experience The principleof planned economy has for the first time in history shownits ability to record unheard-of results in production in a shortspace of time.

I have no intention of denying or concealing the seamy sideof the Soviet economy. The results of industrial production


are influenced by the unfavorable development of agriculture.That field has not yet risen essentially to socialist methods,but at the same time has been led on the road to collectivi-zation with insufficient preparation, bureaucratically rather thantechnically and economically. These mistakes can and willbe corrected. lhe first Edison lamp was algo not perfect Butthis is a great question which goes far beyond the limits ofmy talk.

The profoundest significance of that great rwolution, how-ever, consists in the fact that it forms and tempers the char-acter of the people The conception of the Russian people asslow, passive, melancholy-mystical, is widespread and notaccidental. It has its roots in the past But in Western counhiesup to the present time those far-reaching changes which havebeen introduced into the character of the people by the rw-olution have not been sufficiently considered. The revolutionis a hard school. We did not choose it. A heavy hammersmashes glass, but forges steel. The hammer of the revolutionforges the steel of the character of the people.

For an explanation of the er<traordinary persistence whichthe masses of the people of the Soviet Union are showingfhroughout the years of the revolution, many foreign obseryers,in accordance with ancient habit, rely on the 'passivity" ofthe Russian character. The Russian masses of today enduretheir privations patiently, but not passively. With their ownhands they are creating a better future, and they want to createit at any cosl But let the enemy only attempt to impose hiswill from the outside on these patient masses' and he will see

whether they are passive or not!I am sure that the great American people has the highest

interest, moral as well as material, in observing with sym-pathy the efforts of the great Russian people to reorganizetheir social life on a higher historical level. If my short talkcan help a few thousand or even a hundred Americans tounderstand the internal inevitability and the development ofthe Russian Revolution, I shall feel that my efforts have beenwell rewarded.

Trotsky in Copenhagen speaking to the United States,November 1932.

Trotsky in Copenhagen making a propaganda film in French,November 1932.

QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNTSTSs23

November 1932

Comrades: You want my reply to the question of why Ibelong to the Bolshevik-Leninist faction which is in sharpopposltion to the current policy of the Communist Interna-ti-onal and the Soviet government. I will by to outline at leastthe most important points of the question.

The chief aim of the Communist Part5z is to construct theproletarian vanguard, strongly class-conscious, fit for com-bat, resolute, prepared for rwolution. But revolutionary ed-

ucation requires a regime of internal democracy. Rwolutionarydiscipline has nothing to do with blind obedience. Combativitycannbt be prepared beforehand nor can it be dictated by anorder from above: it must always be renewed and tempered.Revolutionary discipline poses the question to wery honestand conscious Communist worker: Do we have democracyin the party - yes or no? To ask the question is to answerit. Even the smallest vestiges of party democracy are vanishingwith every passing day.

In the Soviet Union the Communist Party is in power. Theeconomic successes are incontestable. The number of workersin the country has doubled and tripled. The cultural level ofthe masses has been considerably raised in the last fifteenyears. In these conditions, party democracy ought to be ex-panding. But we see just the opposite

Despite all the achievements and successes' the proletariatas a whole and the Communist vanguard in particular havebem fettered by the steel grip of the party and state bureau-cracies. The unprecedented deterioration of the party regimemust have profound social and political causes. We, the LeftOpposition, have more than once analyzed and revealed theseciuses during the post-Lenin period. Has the official leader-ship of the party ever loyally submitted our arguments todiscussion by the party? Never!

The less the functionary is controlled by the masses, theless consistent he is, the more subject to outside influenceshe becomes, and the more inwitably his political oscillationsresemble the graph of a delirious fever. That is centrism. Irepeat: that is centrism. The destruction of democracy clearsan area for the development of petty-bourgeois, opporfunist'or ultraleft influences.

g26

Questions for Communists 327

The differences began in 1923 over the questions of the partyregime, industrialization, and relations with the kulaks. Moreover, are you acquainted with the 1926 pladorm of the Rus-sian Left Opposition? Have you followed the later developmentof the struggle around the fiveyear plan and collectivization?In all these questions, the "crime" of the Opposition is that,armed with the Marxist method, it could see clearly, anticipatesome things, and give warning in time against mistakes.

Have you read the documents which were written in thefactional struggle over the questions of the Chinese revolu-tion? Do you know about the opposing conceptions over theAnglo-Russian Committee-the application of the "united front'only from above and in fact against the masses in struggle?Is the work of the Opposition in this field known to you? Ifnot, it is your duty to familiarize yourself with these docu-ments before taking a position against the Left Opposition.

You must certainly remember the senseless adventures ofthe'third period" which have badly compromised communismin the eyes of all conscious workers. Is there a single Com-munist who still can have any doubts on this subject?

The new development in Germany gives a striking exampleof the fundamentally wrong policy of the leadership of theproletariat: likening democracy to fascism, repudiating thepolicy of the united fronl and consequently renouncing the cre-ation of soviets-because soviets are not possible except asthe achievement of a united front of workers belonging todifferent organizations as well as to different parties. Nothinghas helped the German Social Democracy to maintain itselfas much as the policy of the international Stalinist apparatus.

We, the Left Opposition, remain faithfully devoted to theSoviet Union and the Communist International, with a dif-ferent devotion, a different fidelity than that of the majorityof the official bureaucracy. The worker who considers himseUa Communist but who accepts hearsay, and does not sfudythe documents or verify the facts, is not worth very much.No, he is not worth very much. It was about such peoplethat Lenin invented his harsh but true saying: He who takesanybody's word in politics is a hopeless idiot.

The tenth year since the founding of the Left Oppositionis drawing near. Great events have verified and confirmedour attitude. Serious cadres have been educated. We face thefuture with confidence. No force can separate us from the inter-national proletarian vanguard. The Soviet Union-it is ourfatherland! We will defend it to the very end! The ideas andmethods of Marx and Lenin will become the ideas and methodsof the Communist International!

TO AN UNKNOWN COMRADEs24

November 1932

Dear Comrade:I am not sure whether you know my handwriting. If not,

you will probably find someone else who does. I am profitingby this fortunate occasion to write a few words to you. Thecomrades who sympathize with the Left Opposition are obligedto come out of their passive state at this time, maintaining, ofcourse, all precautions. To communicate with rne directly isnot always easy. But it is possible to find an absolutely sureway, of course, not direct; for example, through my son inBerlin. You can find him through Pfemfert ( I am enclosinghis address), through Grylewicz,325 through personal acquain-tances, etc. Keeping all precautionary measures' it is necessaryto establish communications for: information, to distribute theBiulleten, aid with money' etc., etc. I am definitely expectingthat the menacing situation in which the party finds itselfwill force all the comrades devoted to the revolution to gatheractively about the Left Opposition.

I will wait for a written (typewritten) affirmation that thisletter has been received. It can be written to: M. Pierre Frank,Poste Restantg Pera, Istanbul.

I clasp your hand firmly.Yours,L. Trotsky

328

LITERARY PROJECTS ANDPOL ITICAL C ONSIDERATIONS 326

November 1932

My literary projects? First a book on the world situation. Iwill try to give a comparative picture of the correlation offorces in the world arena. The war and postwar developments,including the Russian Revolution, have entirely changed the faceof our planet from the economic, political, military, and dip-lomatic points of view. This new face is in no way stable.The relationship of forces is dynamic, laden with unforeseencomplications and sharp turns. We are no longer in the timeof the HoIy Alliance of Metternich, nor in the epoch of pretended European equilibrium between the Entente and the Triple[l]ianss.32? European equilibrium has become a bitter mem-ory or a half-formed dream. Europe in general has ceased tobe the center of the world. It is foolish to hope that one dayit will again hold this place. The terrible crisis at present, de-spite its ravages in the United States, has modified the rela-tionship of forces, not in favor of Europe, but in favor of theUnited States and the colonial countries. To see where we aregoing-the struggle for a new division of the world on theone hand and the attempts at disarmament on the other-it is necessary to uncover the fundamental economic, social,and political forces, to trace the curve of their development andtheir mutual reactions, and to draw out their perspectives. Thereyou have the content of my projected book.

The collection of the necessary materials and preliminarystudies on diverse questions have occupied me for severalyears. The fire that destroyed my house and library on Prin-kipo in February 1931 was a serious blow to my work, buta great part of the material has been regathered since then.The principal obstacle to my work has been the poverty ofdocumentation in Tbrkey. I need at least three months of preparatory work in one of the richest libraries in the world. The

329


place best situated for observing the panorama of the world,from every point of view, is in my opinion New York. Is itutopian to dream of working in one of the great Americantreasure houses of books? I hope the o<ample of the Danishgovernment will not be lost on oflrer countries.

It is evident that political considerations, especially in theUSSR, may contradict my literary plans. It is unnecessary torepeat that my sharp conflicts with the faction presently inpower, conflicts that finally led to my banishment in Thrkey,have changed neither my attitude toward the Soviet republicnor, I daresay, the attitude of the real majority of the partytoward me.

The situation in the USSR is characterized by the combina-tion of great successes with grave difficulties. The question ofassessing the successes and difficulties depends, in the lastanalysis, on the program and the methods of the politicalleadership, which means its composition as well.

My connections with friends in the Soviet Union and my in-formation enable me to declare with certainty: The prevailingopinion in the Bolshevik PartSr demands the establishment ofunity in the ranks and the replacement of individual leader-ship, which has in no way justified itself, by collective lead-ership.

You ask if I am ready to collaborate with Stalin and hisclosest collaborators? I have never repudiated such collabora-tion, and now, before the serious difficulties within and withoutthe country, I am less disposed than ever to repudiate it.

Politics knows no personal resentment nor the spirit of re.venge. Politics knows only effectiveness. For myself, as wellas my companions, it comes back to the questron of. the pro-gram of the collaboration.

The Left Opposition, to which I belong, presents its politicalprogram in a publication that appears in Russian in Berlinwith my fullest participation. Number 32 of this publication,the Biulleten Oppozitsie, is now at the printers. In addition toits programmatic and political articles, our publication illus-trates the internal situation in the country with many articlesfrom the USSR. Thus I feel in no way isolated from the statethat emerged from the October Rwolution.

ON STUDENTS AND INTELLECTUALS32s

November 1932

And so Trotsky arrived. Anyone o<pecting to be faced withan old, brutal, fearful figure would be disappointed. Quitethe opposits There was something friendly, highly cultivated,pleasant, and likable about him. After greeting each of hisvisitors, he sat down in the empty armchair and waited forour questions.

Where does the revolutionary outlook of sfudents comefrom - when in fact they are revolutionary?

At the addition of this last qualification, a very revealingand mischievous smile came over the familiar feafures of hisface.

"There you put your finger on it!"Do they owe this to their social and economic position, or

do we have to turn to psychology, perhaps even to psycho-analysis, to enplain it?

Once again a mischievous smile. "First and foremosl youhave to understand that students do not constihrte a distinctand unified group in socie$2. They fall into various groups,and their political attitude closely corresponds to the one prevailing in these various groups in society. Some students areradical-oriented; but of these, only a very tiny number canbe won over to the revolutionary party.

nThe fact is that very often radicalism is a sickness of youthamong what are actually petty-bourgeois students. There isa French saying: 'Avant trente ans revolutionnaire, aprescanaille'- Under thirty a revolutionist, thereafter a scoundrel.This expression is not heard only in France. It was also knownand used in connection with the Russian students in the prewarperiod. Between 19O7 and 1917 I was living in o<ile, andI traveled around a lot, giving speeches to the various coloniesof Russian students abroad. All these students were revolution-

331

332 Writings of Leon T'rotsky (1932)

ary in those days. During the October Revolution in 1917,99 percent of them fought on the other side of the barricades.

'You find this radicalism among youth in every country.The young person always feels dissatisfied with the societyhe lives in-he always thinks he can do things better thanhis elders did. So the youth always fed they are progressive-but what they understand by progress varies quite a bit. InFrance, for enample, there is both a radical and a royalistopposition. Naturally this radicalism includes a certain numberof healthy oppositionist forces, but for the most part it amountsto what can only be called careerism.

'Here we have the real psychological motor force The youngfeel shut out; the old take up all the spacg and the young can'tfuid any ouflet for their abilities. They are dissatisfied quitesimply because they themselves are not sitting in the driver'sseat But as soon as they cre sitting there, it's all over withtheir radicalism.

"It's like this: gradually these young people move into theavailable posts. They become lawyers, office heads, teachers.And so they come to look upon their earlier radicalism asa sin of their youth, as a simultaneouely repulsive and charm-ing error. As a result of this memory of hig own youth, theacademician comes to lead a double life throughout his entirelife. What it is, is that he himself beliwes that he still posseasesa kind of revolutionary idealism, and in reality he retainsa certain liberal veneer. But this veneer is only a coating forwhat he really is-a narrow-minded, petty-bourgeois socialclimber, whose real interests boil down to his career.n

Trotsky shifted in his chair a bit and looked around witha kind, apologetic smile

Can students be of any importance to a revolutionary movement?

"The revolutionary student can only make a contributionif, in the first place, he goes through a rigorous and consistentprocess of revolutionary self-education, and, in the eecondplace, if he joins the revolutionary workers' movement whilehe is still a student. At the same time, let me make clear thatwhen I talk about theoretical self-education, I mean the studyof. unfals ifid. Manr ism."

What should be the relationship between the academicianand the workers' movement?

A stern and determined expression comes into Trotsky's eyes.

"He must realize that he is coming into the workers' movement as a learner and not as a teacher. He must learn tosubordinate himself and do the work that is demanded of him,

On &ud,ents and Intelletuals 333

and not what he wants to do. The workers' movement forits part must regard him with the greatest skepticism. A youngacademician must first 'toe the line' for three, four, or fiveyears, and do quite sirnple and ordinary party work. Then,when the workers have confidence in him and are completelycertain that he is not a careerist, then he can be allowed tomove up-but slowly, very slowly. When he has worked withthe workers' movement in this way, then the fact that he wasan academician is forgotten, the social differences disappear.'

What, then, is the role of the intellectual in the revolutionarymovement?

nHis role is to draw general conclusions on the basis of con-crete facts. If this process of drawing generalizations out ofcurrent conllicting material is not constantly going on, themovement becomes banalized."

Earlier you said that by a theoretical self-education youmeant the study of unfalsified Marxism. What do you meanby unfalsified Marxism?

"Criticism of Man<ism is not so dangerous. Falsificationis a different matter. What I mean by it is theories that goby the name of Marxism, but that have acfually abandonedthe essence of Manr's teachings. The revisionist Bernstein, foro<ample, made the movement itseU the main thing in his theoryand pushed the ultimate goal into the background. What re.sulted from this 'Man<ism'? In England, a MacDonald-ora Lord Snowden.32g You can find other er<amples yourselves.Such falsification only uses the name of Marxism in orderto deceive the workers."

Well, but, as Lis Toersleff wrote, the world hasn't stoodstill since Marx's time, has it?

"Of course not. I'm no fetishist-Marxism did not come toa halt when Marx died. Marx could also be wrong-mainlyin his predictions of when events would occur, and then heerred only in his assessment of the timing. Lenin integratednewly emerged historical factors into Marxism and thus adaptedit to our time."

Trotsky then took up the question of democracy and dictator-ship: "We Communists do not deny-as, for o<ample, theanarchists do - the importance of democracy. But we recognizeits importance only up to a very definite point. That pointis reached as soon as the class contradictions become so greatthat the tension causes a short circuit to occur. At that point,democracy can no longer function, and the only alternativesare either a proletarian or a bourgeois dictatorship. Lookat the evolution of the Social Democratic republic in Germanyfrom 1918 to the present. In the early days, the Social Demo-


crats had power, but now it is reactionary generals who aresitting at the wheel.

'T)emocracy can no longer wen play its own game becauseof the class contradictions. Look, for example, at how thedemocratic right to asylum-the right of an exiled personto residency - is observed these days."

With the mention of the right to asylum, you could see thatTrotsky was again coming back to Dalgas Boulevard' Witha broad smile, he continued:

"I am not a stubborn Marxist. You can still get me to believein democracy. But first yolr'll have to comply with two wishes:first bring about socialism in Germany through democraticmeans, and second get me a residence permit in Denmark.'

A BOLSHEVIK-LENINISTDECLARATION ON

COMRADE TROTSKY'S JOURNEY33O

November 1932

1. Journalists and politicians hostile to communism havetried to turn against the Left Opposition the fact &at ComradeTrotsky used the visas of bourgeois and Social Democraticgovernments for his journey. By the same logic one couldreproach a Communist for traveling on a capitalist ship.

2. Communism does not "deny" democracy as a principle;still less as a facL All communism does is point out the limitedhistorical role of bourgeois democracy. During one era, itfacilitates the formation of proletarian organizations. But itis incapable of solving social problems. The single exampleof present-day Germany exhausts the question.

3. In all the old parliamentary countries, bourgeois democ-racy is using up what is left of its old capital. This appliesparticularly to the right of asylum: it er<ists in today's Europeonly for refugee counterrwolutionaries, not for revolutionaries.The recent o<perience concerning the length of Trotsky's stayin Denmark reveals this with renewed force.

4. The fact that the Left Opposition had to avail itself ofthe initiative of a Social Democratic student organization isexplained by one circumstance and one alone: the Stalinistapparatus has, for the moment, made it impossible for au-thentic Bolshevik-Leninists to speak at official meetings of theCommunist Party. There is no need to mention that ComradeTrotsky's speech from beginning to end was devoted to thedefense of the October Revolution and of the Soviet Union.

5. The Social Democratic government, ie., the leftnost wingof bourgeois democracy, authorized Trotsky's entry into Den-mark only because it felt it would be awkward to deny therequest made by its own students and young workers, andthus to reveal too crudely, over a minor question, not onlyits antisocialist but its antidemocratic character as well.

335


As soon, however, as the question arose of a simple uten-sion of the duration of the visa, this "democracy" showed thatthe difference betwtcn it and the White Russian emigres, whodemanded that the visa be revoked, came down, all in all,to a matter of eight days.

6. Every regime must be judged first and foremost accordingto its own rules.

The regirne of the proletarian dictatorship cannot and doesnot wish to hold back from infringing the principles and formalrules of democracy. It has to be judged from the standpointof its capacity to ensure the transition to a new society.

Tlte d.emocrafic regirne" on the other hand, must be judgedfrom the standpoint of the extent to which it allows the classstruggle to develop within the framework of democracy.

7.-Ttre example of the Danish visa reveals the total insuf-ficiency of contemporary democracy' even in secondary andminor matters. Under the pressure of world imperialist reaction,petty-bourgeois democracy, even in relatively npeaceful" Den-

-aik, is shown to be incapable of maintaining its "reputation"by granting the right of asylum to a revolutionary, if onlyfor i few weel<s. Can one believe wen for a moment, underthese conditions, that democracy will be able to prwent civilwar with its worn-out principles and formulas?

8. The Stalinist faction has taken up a shameful positionin the struggle of class forces over the question of the visa.It acted with all its power, through its diplomatic agents' toprevent the issuing of the visa to Comrade Trotsky. Kobetskyin Denmark and Kollontais3t in Sweden threatened economicand other reprisals. As long as the Social Democracy stillwavered on the question of the visa, the Stalinist agenciesmaintained an alliance with the bourgeois section of the co-alition government, against the Social Democrats.

Aiding the imperialist bourgeoisie in the shattering of whatwas left of the right of asylum, the Stalinists ended up bydirectly and openly dmouncing, to the capitalist governmentsand their police forces, the alleged holding of a "Trotskyistconferencd' in Copenhagen.

9. The furious campaign of vilification on the part of theRussian White emigres and the inlluential imperialist press,with a thinly disguised call for a terroristic attack againstComrade Trotsky; the perfidy of the Social Democratic leadersin relation to thet own followers; and finally, the Stalinists'denouncing the Bolshevik-Leninists to the European police-all this blends into one inseparable whole. To complete thepicture, one need only add that an important element in theopposition to the right of asylum was constituted by the Danish

A B o lshwik- Len inist Declaration 337

royal family and, linked with it, the remnants of the Russianroyal family.

10. Before the world working class it has been shown oncemore with full clarity that the Bolshevik-Leninists, the vanguardof the vanguard, have been placed outside of the law by therulers throughout the world.

11. The denunciation by the Stalinist bureaucracy throughTass is not only shameful politically but also wrong as faras the facts are concerned. There was no "Trotskyist conference"in Copenhagen. Anyone who follows the press of the Left Op-position and the course of the preparatory work it is engagedin knows that no conference can be held any sooner thantwo or three months from now.

12. Only this is true: Comrade Tlotsky's friends and co-thinkers, alarmed by world reaction's furious vilification,despite material difficulties and obstacles, hastened to Copen-hagen from countries neighboring Denmark to lend him theirassistance. The strong internal bond among the Bolshevik-Leninists internationally was shown with remarkable force.But the international conference remains as before a task ofthe period ahead.

ANSWERS TOJOURNALTSTS', QUESTTONSs32

December 3, 1932

Am I satisfied with the result of my trip? Completely. Wasn'tI e<pecting to spend a longer time in Denmark? Yes. I hadhoped that after my talk I would be able to stay a few weeksin order to secure medical beahnent for my wife and me. How-ever, the refusal of the Danish government was not uno<pected.I am very far from illusions about democracy, consequentlyalso from disillusion.

The opportunity for me to visit Denmark came about notin any way through principles of democracy (right of asylum,freedom of assembly, etc.), but by a play of political interests.The left circles of the students and the working-class youthexpressed the wish to arrange my lecture in Copenhagen. TheSocial Democratic government found it all the more incon-venient to refuse because at present there is an undoubted shiftto the left in the working class. As agreed, I kept my lecturestricfly historical and scientific in character. But the governmentevidently found that eight days were more than enough to meet

the interest in the ideas which I stand for.My informed friends told me that the main opposition to my

being granted the opportunity to stay and get medical care(apart from the court circles, the fascists, the leading circlesof the Social Democracy, etc.) came from agents of the Sovietgovernment. I am unfortunately not in a position to be ableto refute this report. I should like only to emphasize that itis not a case here of the interests of the Soviet state or of theRussian people, but of the special interests of Stalin's faction.On November 27, Tass informed the world by radio that a se'cret nconference of Trotskyists" of the Western European coun-tries had met at Copenhagen. It is difficult to call this reportanything but a false denunciation. It is a dmunciatior4 becauseit is a call for police repressions against my political cothinkers.It is a /alse denunciation, because no conference was calledin Copenhagen at all.

The Danish authorities are very well aware of what really

338

Answers to Journalists' Questions 339

took place. My friends in various countries of Europe wereo<tremely worried by the campaign in the European reaction-ary press. They saw this campaign in connection with the recentdisclosures in the left press about the terrorist act being prepared against me by the organization of General Ttrrkul. Sometwo dozen of my cothinkers arrived from the six countries near-est Denmark. After the completely peaceful outcome of my talk,they all went home, apart from one or two who decided toaccompany me back.

How is one to o<plain Tass's unheard-of radio report, or thebehavior of certain Soviet agents on the question of my visa?Above all by the internal situation in the USSR. The rumorsabout the forthcoming "collapse of Soviet power" assiduouslyspread-for the umpteenth time-by a certain section of thepress are completely ridiculous and fantastic. But it is utterlyindisputable that Stalin's personal position has been shakenonce and for all. Ttre errors of his policy are now clear to all.In the part5z the tendency to reestablish a collective and morecompetent leadership is very strong. Hence the new wave ofrepressions against the so-called "Trotskyists." My friend Ra-kovsky, former chairman of people's commissars of theLJkraine, subsequently Soviet ambassador in London andParis, has had his three years' banishment extended for anotherthree. All this is officially motivated by the Left Opposition's("Trotskyists'") supposed carrying out of "counterrevolutionarynactivity against the Soviet republic. My talk in Copenhagen,my radio speech to America, my interview for the sound film,enabled me to formulate our real attitude to the Soviet republic,which has not changed from 1917. Hence the exceptional effortsof the group now ruling in Moscow to expel me from WesternEurope. The fact that the Stalin faction has found numerousallies and accomplices on this path is fully in accordance withthe nature of things.

If I am not coming away from Copenhagen with any newideas of the nature of bourgeois democracy, I am neverthelesstaking back the best of memories of the friendliness and hospi-tality of the Danish people. I could adduce some absolutelyexceptional e><amples in this field, which are perhaps impossiblein any other country in Europe.

You ask about the condition of my life in T\rrkey? There arenot a few false conceptions circulating on this score. I did notof course come to T\rrkey voluntarily. But it is not true thatthe Ttrrkish government is subjecting me to any restrictions.My wife and I chose Prinkipo Island for climatic considera-tions. We have more than once met with attention and coopera-tion from the T\rrkish government.

AN OPEN LETTERTO VANDERVELDEss3

December 5, 1932

Citizen Vandervelde:Some years ago you addressed an open letter to me con-

cerning, if I am not mistaken, reprisals against the Menshwiksand Social Revolutionaries. You expressed yourseU against theBolsheviks in general and without exception-in the name ofthe principles of democracy. That is your right. If yourcriticism did not have the desired effect, it was because we Bol-sheviks proceeded from the principles of revolutionary dictator-ship.

The Russian Social Revolutionaries, your cothinkers on thequestion of democracy, at one time had opened up a terroriststruggle against us. They had wounded Lenin and soughtto blow up my military train. Brought before a Soviet court,they found in you one of their most ardent defenders. Thegovernment of which I was a member allowed you not onlyto enter Soviet Russia but also to act in court as attorney forthose who had tried to assassinate the leaders of the firstworkers' state. In your defense plea, which we published in ourpress, you repeatedly invoked the principles of democracy.That was your righL

On December 4, 1932, I and my companions stopped in tran-sit at Antwerp harbor. I had no intention of propagandizingfor the proletarian dictatorship there, or of acting as defensecounsel for the Communists and strikers arested by the Bel-gian government who, so far as I know, have made no at-

tempts against the lives of the members of that government.Some of my companions, and my wife with them, wished tovisit Antwerp. One of them needed to get in touch with a con-sulate in that city in connection with some travel matters. Allof them were categorically forbidden to touch the soil of Bel-gium, even under guard. The part of the harbor where our

340

An Opm Lettq to Vand.qtselde 341

ship was had been thoroughly cordoned off. On both sidesof the ship-port and starboard-police boats were stationed.From our bridge we were able to review a parade of democ-racy's police agents, military as well as civil. It was an im-pressive spectacle.

The number of cops and screrws-permit me these familiarterms for brwity's sake-er<ceeded that of seamen and long-shoremen. Our ship looked like a temporary prison; the adja-cent part of the harbor, like a prison court5rard. The policechief made photocopies of our papers, although we were notbound for Belgium and, as mentioned, had not been permittedto get off at Antwerp. He demanded an er<planation of whymy passport was made out in someone €lse's name.33l I de.clined to engage in any discussion with the Belgian police,since they had nothing to do with me, nor I with them.

The police officer hied to use threats: he declared that he hadthe right to arr€st anybody whom the ship's sailing route hap-pened to bring into Belgian waters. I must acknowledge, how-ever, that there were no arrests.

, I urge you not to read my rernarks as a complaint of anykind. It would be ridiculous to complain about such trifleein the face of all that the toiling masaes and especially the Com-munists are forced to suffer nowadays in all parts of the world.But the Antrnerp episode seems to me a suflicient excuse to re-turn to your old "Open Letter," to which I did not reply at thetime

I am not mistaken, am I, in counting Belgium among thedemocracies? The war which you canied on was the war fordemocracy, wasn't it? Since the war you have been at the headof Belgium as a minister and even as prime minister. Whatmore is needed to bring democracy to firll flower? On thatscore, I beliwe, we would have no argument. Why then doesthis derrocracy of yours still reek so of the old prussian policespirit? And how could anyone suppose that a democracy whichexperiences such nervous convulsions when a Bolshevik hap-pens to come near its borders would prove capable of neutral-izing the class struggle and of guaranteeing the peaceful hans-forrnation of capitalism into socialism?

In reply you will undoubtedly remind me of the Cheka, theGPU, the internal exile of Rakovsky, and my own enpulsionfrom the Soviet Union. That argument misses the point TheSoviet regime does not adorn itself with the peacock feathersof democracy. If the transition to socialism were possible with-in the state forms created by liberalism, revolutionary dicta-torship would not be necessary. For the Soviet regime thequestion can and should be posed of whether it is capable of


teaching the workers to struggle against capitalism. But it isabsurd to demand that the proletarian dictatorship observethe forms and rites of liberal democracy. The dictatorship hasits own methods and its own logic, a very rigorous one Sometimes even proletarian revolutionists who helped establish ihe

regime of dictatorship fall victim to this logic. Y9s' inthd development of the isolated workers' state, betrayed by the

international Social Democracy, the bureaucratic apparatushas acquired power which is dangerous for the socialist revo-lution. There is no need to remind me of this. But before the

class enemy I assume full responsibility not only for the

October Revolution which produced the dictatorship, but even

for the Soviet republic as it is today, including its govern-ment which has qriled me and deprived me of my Soviet citizen-ship.

We destroyed democracy in order to settle matters with cap-italism. You are defending capitalism allegedly in the name

of democracy. But where is it?Not in Antwerp harbor in any cass There were cops and

screws and gendarmes with rifles. But not even the shadowof the democratic right of asylum was to be found there.

For all that, I left the waters of Antwerp without the slightestpessimism. During the noon break, longshoremen gathered-on

the deck, emerging from the hold or coming over from the

docks. There were two or three dozen of them, sturdy, serene

Flemish proletarians, thickly covered with coal dust. A cordonof detectives separated them from us. The longshoremen viewedthe scene in silence, taking the measure of everyone present'One sturdy docker winked at us, over the flaffeet with theirhats on. Our bridge responded with smiles; a stirring passed

among the workers. They had recognized their own kind' Ido noi say that the Antwerp longshoremen are Bolsheviks' Butby sure instinc! they made clear where they stood. Goin-g backto work, they all smiled at us in a friendly fashion and manyput gnarled fingers to their caps by way of greeting. That isozr democracy.

As our ship sailed down the Scheldt in the mist, past cranesparalyzed tV tfre economic crisis, all along from the dock-sides the farewell cries of unknown but faithful friends keptringing out

f iniJning these lines between Antwerp and Vlissingen, I send

a fraternal greeting to the workers of Belgium.Leon Trotsky

A TELEGRAM TO HERRIOT3s5

December 7, lg32

Together with my wife, I have received authorization to passthrough France, from Istanbul to Copenhagen and return.At Dunkirk my friends informed me that by missing the boatwe would be forced to remain nine days in France, near Mar-seilles, which did not enter our baveling plans. We made ar-rangements accordingly. Upon our arrival in Marseilles wewere put on an Italian boat, Carnpidiglio, in spite of the factthat this unexpected turn disorganized the new arrangements.We ascended the boat without objection in order not to createan incident. We then learned that this boat is not indicated inour voyage and that it takes fifteen days to get to Istanbulwhich, without speaking of the material difficulties, would beentirely harmful to my wife's and my health. When I triedto explain to the special commissioner that I cannot leaveon this boat. he threatened me with violent measures.

The transit visas, even-the strictesl do not signify, at leastwithout previous formal advice, the right of the police to holdme as a prisoner and to force me to take a boat which isabsolutely contrary to that indicated for my trip. I hope thatthe French government will prevent this abuse. I am readyto leave France by way of Italy, and I hope that the Italiangovernment will not refuse me a transit visa through Venicgwhich would permit me to leave France tomorrow or the dayafter.

I await your reply on the docks of Marseilles, with my wifgsurrounded by police agents. The declaration of the policechief that he can take no responsibility for the attitude of theRussian Whites cannot change my decision, which is dictatedby the circumstances.

L. TrotskyP. S. I have just learned that the police are going to put us

in a hotel in order to set us on the Italian boat by force ifthe Italian land visa is not given us before our departure.

343

PRESS STATEMENT AT BRINDISI336

December 8, 1932

I'm very sorry but I don't have a great deal to tell you'My trip is of an absolutely private character. All the rumorsto the contrary are nothing but false hypotheses and extrava-gant inventions. Are my wife and I happy to get away fromeverything for a few weeks? Yes, we are glad to see once againthe countiies and cities we knew from long stays and frequenttrips before the war. Many things have changed. Some for the

belter; others, more numerous, for the worse. But this is toocomplicated a theme, one better suited for a book than a briefinterview.

The incident at Marseilles has already been widely reported,and not always very accurately, in the European press' I catrgive you a few words of explanation about this disagreeableincident, which I feel in no way responsible for. When I arrivedat Dunkirk, the police informed me that the next ship fromMarseilles would not be leaving for nine days and that we

would have to spend a week in France. I was told that ourfriends had already rented a small villa outside Marseilleswith the permission of the French authorities. We accepted thisunforeseen episode in our voyage as stemming from absolutenecessidr, that is, shipping schedules and the French policeWe changed our travel plans in accordance with the circum-stances, ind two of my collaborators remained in Paris tobuy some books, etc. I arranged with my German editor foran interview in Marseilles. Our son came from Berlin with hiswife to spend the weel< with us. When we got off the train atMarseilles we learned from the police that all the arrangementsmade for us twelve hours previously had been declared nulland void, and that we had to board the Italian ship Cam-pid.iglio immediately in order to leave the following day' We

Viaaea quietly and, as you can well believe, unenthusiastically

344

Press Statemmt at Brindisi 345

to these new orders from the police. We went on board, and itwas only once we were in our cabin that we learned the shipwas a freighter, that it would take two weeks to arrive in Istan-bul, and that it was in no way adapted to the elementaryneeds of passengers. I climbed down from the bridge, and atthe bottom of the gangplank I met the special commissionerfrom Marseilles. I told him that the situation was not a case ofnecessity but of caprice, that the visa we'had been granted couldnot have been intended as a trap, and that we could not, es-pecially with my wife suffering from seasickness, make useof a ship so unsuited to our voyage. The special commission-er told me he had orders to use force. "You think then thatyou have the right to use the power of the French police toput me on an Italian ship?' He answered me with a categorical"Yes." I refused to submit no less categorically. My wife andthe young friends who accompanied us disembarked fromthe ship. Surrounded by the French police, we stayed in asomewhat inhospitable corner of the port from midnight untilthree thirty in the morning. My wife's cold remains as a souve.nir of this episode of our trip. Telephoned orders and counter-orders succeeded one another. It was not until dawn that theydrove us to the hotel. I sent telegrams of protest to the presi-dent of the Council, M. Herriot; to the minister of the interior;and to sweral deputies. I formed a new plan: to immediatelyask the Italian government for authorization for passage fromMarseilles to Venice. A response from Rome, positive, arrivedin time to relieve the French authorities of a very disagreeableproblem: whether to retreat or use force.

My hip across Italy took place under the most normal condi-tions. We gazed in constant admiration at this superb Po Val-ley, which I know very little and my wife, not at all. This isthe first time we have visited Venicg and we hope it will notbe the lasl

Postscript, December 9, 1932Ship schedules have once again intervened in our destiny,

but this time in a much friendlier fashion. The ship from Veniceleft before we arrived. We spent five hours in Venice, ramblingin every direction in this unique city. We were compelled tocross a great part of Italy, from Venice to Brindisi, by rail.Unfortunately half of this trip took place at night, which meantwe were not able to see the diverse and always superb scenesof Italy.

PRESS STATEMENT AT ISTANBULssT

December 11, 1932

Istanbul, Turkey, Dec. 11 (AP) - Leon Trotsky, eniled Rus-sian Bolshevik, is back in T\rrkey, where life for him is dullbut safe. Sunounded by civil service workers aboard the steam-er ,Adria, where he will spend the night, he sent the followingstatement ashore by his secretary:

"My wife and I have had a very satisfactory trip, which wasmy first during my four-year stay in Tbrkey. Visa difficulties'which first made the trip seem impossible, were easily over-come, thanks to the loyal and swift aid of the T\rrkish authori-ties.

nThis fact alone should quell rumors circulating in Europethat I am treated as a prisoner in Turkey. The rumors areuntrue that I went to Copenhagen to talk with representativesof the Soviet government. Surely T\rkey would be a likelierspot for such a conversation than Denmark. The trip wasentirely private without the slightest political purpose.

'We shall return to the island of Prinkipo, where my fish-ing and hunting gear await me and where I have the smalllibrary which remains from the fire in 1931.

"I shall write a short book about my trip before settlingdown to more serious work on the international political andeconomic situation, which will occupy me throughout 1933"'

346

APPENDIX

INTERVIEW ON.. PROLETARIAN LITERATUTRE'' 338

By Maurice Parijanine

April 1932

While visiting Leon Trotsky at Prinkipo, I asked his opinionon "proletarian literafure," after acquainting him with the de.bates provoked by certain quarrelsome writers in the West.It would, I trust, be absurd and inappropriate to have to in-sist upon .Trotsky's right to represent the revolutionary tradi-tion. Like it or not, his place in history is established. As aparticipant in the great Russian Revolution, he remains trium-phant even when banished. As a writer he fulfills his task as arepresentative of the proletariat with rare clarity and firmness.

He began by telling me that his work scarcely left him timeto keep abreast of literary movements, even those calling them-selves "proletarian." Consequently he didn't feel qualified to takea position on the matter. But later, having taken sufficienttime to reflect upon it, he gave me a series of documents, bothlong and shorl All that remains for me is to present themscrupulously. The reader will find here an interview that wasspread out over two weel<s. It came into my hands from thesecond floor, where Trotsky lives, to the ground floor where hehad lodged me.

The following is Leon Trotsky's to<t:

"l\dy attifude toward proletarian culture is expressed in mybook Literature and Reoolution. To counterpose proletarianculture to bourgeois culture is incorrect or only partially cor-recL The bourgeois regime, and, consequently, bourgeois cul-ture, developed over the course of several centuries. The proletarian regime is only a short-lived regime, in transition tosocialism. So long as this transitional regime (the dictatorshipof the proletariat) continues to exist, the proletariat cannotcreate a class culture that is to any degree complete. It canonly fashion the elements of a socialist culture. The task of theproletariat is not to create a proletarian culfure, but to producea socialist culture on the basis of a classless societv."

347


I reply to Trotsky that while he is certainly correct to die-sociate the notion of culture from class attitudes, this distinc-tion is only useful in reference to an as-yet-undetermined datein the future Meanwhile, it is conceivable that the workingclass, in its period of struggle for the conquest of power andthe eurancipation of all categories of workers, could concernitself with creating, even with insufficient means' a distinctivgprovisional culture precisely suited to the needs of the revolu-tionary struggle. It would be a culture of undefined duration,etrictly limited to contemporary societies-but is this culture notnecessary?

"Yes," replies Tlotsky, nand please emphasize that I wouldbe the last to scorn the creative attempts of an artistic or moregenerally cultural nature that happen to arise within the re',r-

olutionary movement. I only meant to say that the results ofthese atternpts cannot be definitive. . I will by to provideyou with a more precise formulation."

I receive another document from Trotsky. It is an eKcerptfrom a letter dated November 24, 1928, that he wrote to afrieud from a deportation center. The fact that Tlotsky gave mea copy of this document more than three years after it waswritten shows that he adheres rigorously to an opinion whichour French "proletarian" writers will not accept without bit-terness.

Let us read it:"Dear friend, I received the very interesting wall newspaper

and the issue of Okfuabr containing the article of Serafimo'yistr.83s These curiosities of bourgeois belles lettres beliErze

that they are called upon to create a 'proletarian' literature.What they mean by thal very obviously, is a second- or third-rate petty-bourgeois forgery. One would be just as correct insaying that margarine is 'proletarian butter.'* Good old Eng-els perfectly characterized these gentlemen, especially in com-menting on the French 'proletarian' writer Valles.s4o Engelswrote to Bernstein, August 17, 1884: 'There ls no reason for

*The interviewer is sorry to have to reproduce here such a harshjudgment on a writer whose Torrmt de Fer (Torrent of Iron) hehas translated. But what would become of an interview twisted tofit the taste of the interviewer? As far as Serafimovich is concerned,it should be noted that this author of bourgeois training and quitelackluster talent magnificently surpassed himself in his reportageon the civil war in the Caucasus. Moreover, he has the great meritof having given his full support to the October Rwolutiorl thusdrawing upon himself the hatred of better writerg now reactionaries,who had once received him with a discreet sympathy. -M. P.

Interoiant on "holdarian Litqature"

you to be so complimentary about Valles. He is a deplorableliterary windbag, or rather one with literary pretensions, whorepresents absolutely nothing in himself. For lack of talenthe has gone ooer to the rnost utremist elenents and has be-come a writer \nrith a causen in ord,er to put ooq his rottenlitqah.tre' [the emphasis here is Trotsky's-M.P.l. Our classicswere ruthless in such matters, but the epigones make 'proletarian literature' a beggar's knapsack in which they gathercrumbs from the bourgeois table. And whower is unwillingto accept these scraps for proletarian literature is called a 'ca-pitulator.' Ah! Those vulgar personages! Those windbags!Those disgusting people! Ttris literature is wen worse thanthe malaria that's beginning to run rampant here again. . . ."

This outburst will scandalize the good souls in the revolu-tionary circles where the author of L'Insurge passes for aliterary saint. But what can I do? It so happens that Engels,one of our classics, actually wields the cudgel. His discipleand continuator simply seizes it to destroy the reputation ofan anarchist writer whose unsoundness we suspected withoutbeing too willing to admit iL*

A little later I use this written conversation as a pretext toquestion Trotsky on the manufacturers of the propagandaplays that furnish o:ur soirees ouorieres [workers' evenings].He tells me he knows nothing about them.

I also ask him about Mr. Henri Barbusse and Le Mond.eIn Trotsky's eyes, Mr. Barbusse and his literary entouragesimply don't e><ist I had hoped so.

* The revolutionary honesty of Valles, his fervor, valor, and self-denial are unquestioned. But his pathetic literaturg full of braggingand empty of doctrine, is least suited to the proletariat. It is notpart of the great movements of the masses of people and their heroicepochs. Still we must often regret that in such epochs "phrases,""boasting," and an inconsistent egocentricity multiplied by an un-conscious "revolutionary" charlatanism have had so much influenceon the masses. The Commune was only too rich in manifestationsof this sort, and Valles, very sincere even in his affectation, derivedfrom it a kind of literature of the firebrand petty bourgeoisie. Un-fortunately, semi-Marxists and anarchists took it for the very modelof revolutionary proletarian literature. The rediscovered pages ofValles published by Lectures du Soir only further support the severejudgment of Engels. It seems, moreover, that Poulaille has adopteda very superficial notion of contemporary revolutions and (withValles in mind) far too enthusiastic an idea of "proletarian"literahrre - I![. P.

349


Suddenly, Leon Davidovich, still seeking to clarify his think-ing, informs me that some curious works of Engels concern-ing Ibsen, never before published, have just been released'

TWo mediocre German writers who once belonged to theexheme left wing of the Social Democracy and later becameconservatives and fascists had initiated a polemic on the socialvalue of Ibsen, whom they declared a reactionary petty bour-geois. Engels, invited to take part in the polemic, began bystating that lack of time and the complo<ity of the questionmade it impossible for him to go to the heart of the matter.Nonetheless, he wished to indicate that in his opinion Ibsen,a bourgeois writer, had qrercised a progressive influence. Inour epoch, declared Engels, we have learned nothing fromliterature if not from Ibsen and the great Russian novelists'The German writers are philistines, cowardly wretches, andmediocrities because German bourgeois society has been latein developing. However, Ibsen, a spokesman for the Nor-wegian bourgeoisie (which for the moment is a progressiveelement outstripping even the evolution of its own small coun-try) has an enormous historical importance, both in and out-side his country. For one thing, he shows Europe and theworld the necessi$r of the social emancipation of women. AsMarxists we cannot ignore that. We must make a distinctionbetween the progressive bourgeois thinking of Ibsen and thereactionary, cowardly thinking of the German bourgeoisie.The dialectic obliges us to do so.

It was more or less in those terms that Trotsky passed Eng-els's reflections on to me. I was unable to take notes at thetime. We were eating dinner.

On April 2, communicating from his rooms to the groundfloor, Trotsky sent me this message:

"Comrade Parijanine-to avoid misunderstandings on thequestion of literature and proletarian culture, I would like toemphasize a point that is substantially understood by anyMarxist but carefully blurred by the Stalinist bureaucracy andmany others. Even under capitalism we must of course doeverything to raise the cultural level of the working masses-And that includes, in particular' concern for their literary level.The party of the proletariat must consider the artistic needsof young workers with the greatest attention, sustaining andguiding their efforts. The creation of circles of promising work-er writers can, if well conducted, give entirely profitable re-sults. But important as this area of work is, it will inevitablyremain confined within narrow limits. A new literature and

Intqoieus on "holetarian Litqature" 351

culture cannot be created by isolated individuals arising fromthe oppressed classes. It can only be created by the wholeclass, the entire people, once they have freed themselves fromoppression. To violate historical proportions-which in thepresent case would mean to overestimate the possibilities ofproletarian culture and proletarian literature-tends to distractattention from revolutionary problems in order to bring it tobear on cultural problems. It detaches young worker writersor 'apprentice' writers from their own class. It corrupts themmorally, all too often making them second-class imitators withpretensions to an illusory calling. It is against this, and onlythis, in my opinion, that we must lead a relentless struggle."

In short, Trotsky calls for an authentic culture and rejectsmediocre imitation - the flat, tasteless bread of the spirit, thatbankrupt caricafure of art, that miserable music-hall propa-ganda, that "prolen theater, those countless sentimental and"philosophical" horrors that the workers' organizations poisonthemselves with. Tlotsky feels equally hostile toward the ex-perimenters in "revolutionary arf'-kindly sent our way bya "sympathizing" bourgeoisie irreparably satisfied or distractedby small eccentricities of style and staging. In a word, Trotskyscorns fugitives from the proletariat who, as artists living bytheir craft, pretend to remain "of the people," claiming to scornand transform the bourgeois culture that celebrates them, ifonly for its own distraction.

Culture, the general disposition of societies to work and bearfruit in a certain way, is not improvised. Marxist doctrine holdsthat the new societ5r will take in everything of value that remains from the old society; the revolutionary is far from deny-ing the rights and duties of succession. It is always the taskof a victorious class to impose a new culfure, enriched andcompleted in its detail with the passage of time. But if newis truly new, if the present is the future, it nevertheless containsan enormous admixfure of the past A collaboration of allthe popular forces awakened by the revolution is needed, Trot-sky thinks, to create the new while preserving the heritage.

In Trotsky's view, as faithfully as I can interpret it, cultureis the unified er<pression of the development of the workingclass, of the collective power that has already crystallized butwhich reveals itself only through the revolution. Marxists rec-ognize the stability and the constitution of the species, thecontinuity of its responses to daily needs which is so constantand consequently so changing. This is what permanent rev-olution means. The two contradictory sides of this term affirmthe highest law of nature that we know.


Tlotsky, however, still worried that I might misrepresenthis thinking. Along with the preceding letter, he sent me thefollowing communication:nlt is necessary to define what is understood by proletarianliterature. Works dealing with the life of the working classconstitute a certain part of bourgeois literature. It is sufficientto recall GerrninaL The same considerations apply even ifsuch works are imbued with socialist tendencies and their au-thors happen to have arisen from a working-class milieu. Thosewho speak of proletarian literature, counterposing it to bour-geois literature, evidently have in mind not sweral works buta totality of artistic creation that, to their way of thinking'constitutes an element of a new, 'proletarian' culture. Ttris un-plies that in capitalist society the proletariat would be capableof creating a new proletarian culture and a new proletarianliterature. Unless the proletariat er<periences a spectacular cul-tural upsurge, it is impossible to speak of a proletarian cultureand literature, for in the last analysis culture is created bythe masses and not by individuals. If capitalism offered suchpossibilities to the proletariat, it would no longer be capitalism-There would no longer be any reason to overthrow it.

"To portray a new, proletarian culture within the confinesof capitalism is to be a reformist utopian, to believe that cap-italism offers an unlimited perspective of improvement.

"The task of the proletariat is not to create a nerv culfurewithin capitalism, but rather to overthrow capitalism for anew culture Of course, certain artistic works can contributeto the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. Talentedworkers can enter the ranks of distinguished writers. But thereis still a great distancebetween this and'proletarian literature.'

nUnder capitalism the essential task of the proletariat is therevolutionary struggle for the conquest of power. After thisconquest, the task is to build a socialist society and a socialistculfure. I remember a short conversation with Lenin-oneof our last-on these topics. Lenin demanded insisten0y thatI come out in the press against Bukharin and other theoreti-cians of a 'proletarian culfure.' In this exchange he o<pressedhimself almost precisely as follows: 'To the extent that a cul-ture is proletarian, it is not yet a culture- To the extent thata culture e><ists, it is already no longer proletarian.' His think-ing is completely clear: once the proletariat has come to pow-er, the higher it raises its own culture, the more this cultureceases to be proletarian, dissolving itself into socialist culture.

nln the USSR, the creation of a proletarian literature is pro-claimed an official task. On the other hand, we are told that

Intqoieus on "holetarian Litqature" 353

in the course of the ne<t five-year period the USSR will betransformed into a classless socie{r. But in a classless societyit is obvious that only a literature without a class character-therefore not proletarian-can exist Clearly, there is a quali-tative difference between the terms.

"T?re leading role of the 'fellow havelers'f in literature cor-responds, to a certain degree, to the hansitional regime in theUSSR The preponderance of the 'fellow travelers' is also fa-cilitated by the fact that the bureaucratic regime stifles theautonomous creative tendencies of the proletarial The worksof less gifted 'fellow havelers' who distinguish themselves bythe flenibility of their spines are presented as models of pro.letarian literafure. Among the 'fellow bavelers' there are a cer-tain number of real talents, though they still drain neededresources. But the sole talent of the Serafimoviches is mimicry.

"The crude mechanical tutelage exercised by the Stalinist bu-reaucracy on all forms of spiritual creation must be liquidated.This is the indispensable condition for raising the literary andcultural level of the young proletarian elements in the USSRto the path of socialist culture."

It was a question of literary technique that brought me toPrinkipo. Tlotsky knew how much I respected him as a fighterfor the proletarian cause and the illustrious organizer of thevictories of October. He knew that I considered him one ofthe greatest men of our time. He had no need of crudely flat-tering confidences, and we didn't even discuss his politics. Ifmy thought and feeling had obliged me to give him my fullviews, I would have done so, and I would so testify. My dec-laration would, I know, have no importance for the revolu-tionary movement. This I consider one of the reasons to ab-stain from reflections along those lines.

The specific purpose of my visit and stay was to clear upa translation of considerable length over which a differencehad arisen between the author and me.

As one can easily imagine, during the long hours of worktogether we were led to discussions of which some record isworth preserving because of the historic position of my part-ner in conversation.

I believe that Leon Trotsky, as a writer, uses methods whoseyield is very uneven. He acknowledges having edited or dic-

* In the USSR, "fellow travelersn is the name given to writers, gen-erally of middleclass or bourgeois background, who adapt them-selves to the work of the revolutionary proletariat -M. P.


tated certain of his numerous works with the sole concelnof e<pressing his thought as rapidly and clearly as possible.If his temperament orplodes with images or surprising meta-phors that ncorrecf Russian does not always easily render,he is unconcerned. Above all, he deliberately uses current po-litical terminology and doesn't worry about repetitions. Hecares indifferently for this or that version, judging that theend is attained if hls ideas have hit the point aimed aL I knowof a book that he insisted be published immediately despiteunquestionable imperfections in the translation-and he toldme: "It must appear thus. The style, in this case' is unimpor-tanL"

But when Leon Trotsky, this man of action, wishes to erecthis literary monument, he is quite different. He has writtenand he has said that he hesitated a long time between thecareers of engineer and writer before becoming the revolu-tionary we know. In several periods of his life he has dem-onstrated a calling as a "man of letters." With the greatestcare he constructs books whose high artistic quality no onewould deny: 1905, Lenin, MU Life, and now, his History ofthe Russian RsD olutiorL

"Ah, but it is difficult to writd'he told me.Trotsky's manuscripts are immense sheets filled with as much

paste as ink."IVIy work is not advancing rapidly no more rapidly

than yours. . ."Worth noting here is the e:<treme tact of Leon Trotsky. He

comes to see me: "You may have thought that I was reproach-ing you for working slowly. No. That was not at all my in-tention. I know what you are doing. ."

But he sometimes becomes indignant when I claim to defendour French syntax against flagrant violations.

I had written a sentence whose construction was schematicallyshaped as follows: "Comme iI m'avait dit ceci, que d'autrepart il agissait de tdle maniere et qz'enfin I'idee qz'il se fai-sait. ." ("Since he had told me this, since on the other handhe was acting in such a way, and, finally, since the idea thathe was dweloping. . . .')

"Ah! Comrade Parijanine, why all those quds?""Que is regularly substituted for cornme in a series of sub-

ordinate clauses. .""Ah! comrade, comrade! . . . look for something else! . . .

take away these qze's! ""Thesyntax... .'"Yes, the syntax! The Academie! , . . But it is pure pedantry,"

cries Tlotsky. (He fidgets in his chair, his irritation unfeigned,

Interoiao on "holetarian Litqature" 355

his expressive fingers warning me.) "Your que's! Don't youknow that Flaubert detested the que's? Just waitt When wemake the revolution in your country, your qze's. .n

I lowered my head: nYes, perhaps. . But the revolutionhas not yet taken place. .n

Trotsky, good-natured and discouraged: 'Well, let's not men-tion it any more. Leave them, your quets, . , . But I'llmake up for it soon. . You'll see! "

And the batfle continues.Trotsky admires the writing of Flaubert and . . . of Pascal.

Yes, Blaise Pascal, author of apologetics for Christianity. Thematerialist writer relished Pascal's quick and crisp formulas,the explosive strength that breaks the copious and methodicalflow of French prose Tlotsky does not like the oratoricalflourish, the "padded" (according to him) development; skillin this seems to him a weakness.

He teases me somewhat ironically:"You write like Bossuet, comrade! .""Ha, ha, that wouldn't be bad at all, if I could believe

you! ."But did he not then become impatient when he senses the

rhythmic recitation of Flaubert? No, probably not, becausehe found in Flaubert, independent of the rhythm, the e><tremevigor of contrasts.

These preferences characterize not Pascal and Flaubert, butTrotsky himseU. They indicate his affinities as a writer. Whatis more, in revealing his temperament, they in no way indicatehis competence as a critic. They demonstrate only his orig-inality as a man made for battle and the surprise of impulsiveformulations.

It is nonetheless hue that Trotsky's opinion of socialist cul-ture in general and so-called proletarian literature in particularis of the first importance. For it determines exactly the rela-tions between incomplete elements: on the one hand, artistsof necessity bound in the pay of the bourgeoisie; on the otherhand, the miserable cultural level of the proletariat, a levelthat the works of the so-called proletarian writers do not evenattain.

Ihere lies the tragic aspect of a situation that will changeonly with the revolution. And it is this aspect that Leon Trotskyhas sharply and clearly raised.

OTHER WRITINGS OF 1932

In addiflon to the material in the present volume, the followingwritings of Trotsky during the period covered here have been pub-lished:

Ite History of the Bussian Revolutlon" volumes 2 and 3' 1933.In Russian, Germarq and other languages these two volumes werecombined into a single one designated as volume 2.

Probleme of the Chinese Berrolution 1932. Contains articles andspeeches on the Chinese revolution of L925-27, writtenbetween 1927and 1931, many of them published for the first time in 1932.

Leon Tlotsky on the Jewlsh Queetlon 19?0. Contains a letter toa Yiddish-language paper in New York, "Greetings to Unzer Kamf"(May 9, 1932).

lhe Shuggle Against Fascbm ln Gernany. 1971. Containe "WhatNext? Vital Questions for the German Proletari,af (January 27, 1932),"Interviews with Montag Morgenn (May 12, 1932)' 'The GermanPuzzle" (August 1932), "The Only Road" (September 14, 1932)' and'German Bonapartism' ( October 30, 1932).

Leon lloteky Speaks. 1972. Contains nln Defense of the RussianRevolution," a speech in Copenhagen (November 27, t932).

the Spantsh Bevoluflon (193f89). 1973. Contains "Mesaage tothe Conference of the Spanleh Left Opposition" and nThe Internation-al Relatione of the Spanish Sectlon" (both March 7, t932), "To theSpanish Youth" (June 13, 1932), and nThe Spanlsh Kornilovs andthe Spantsh Stallniste'(September 20, 1932).

356

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. 'The 'Uprising' of November 7, L927." Ihe Mtlitant (weeklypaper of the Communist League of America, section of the Inter-national Left Opposition), February 6, 1932. This was in responseto a letter by Stalin, "Some Questions Concerning the History ofBolshwism," published at the end of October 1931, and reprintedin Stalin's Worke, volume 13. Although Stalin had defeated anddispersed the Left and Right Oppositions in the Soviet Union, hewas apprehensive at this time about the dwelopment of opposition-al moods inside the Communist Party and anxious to nip them inthe bud by creatlng an atmosphere inimical to any critical think-ing and questions. Along these lines he seized on a discussion ar-tide in the magazine Proletarshaya Berrolutela, "The Bolshevikson the German Social Democracy in the Period of Its hewar Cri-sis" by a minor writer named Slutsky, which had been printed ayear before. Slutsky's article was "antipart5f and "semi-Trotskyisfand should nwer have been printed, Stalin declared; no forumshould be provided for na slanderer and falsifier," even when hewears the guise of a 'historian" Why did the magazine's editorsmake this error? "I think that they were impelled to take that roadby rotten liberalism, which has spread to some o<tent among a sec-tion of the Bolsheviks. Some Bolshwiks think that Trotskyism isa faction of communism-one which makes mistakes, it is true,which does many foolish things, is sometimes wen anti-Soviet butwhich, nwertheless, is a faction of communism. Hence a certainliberalism in the attitude toward the Tlotskyists and Tlotskyist-minded people. It scarcely needs proof that such a view of Tlotsky-ism is deeply mistaken and harmful. As a matter of factTlotskyism is the advanced detachment of the counterrevolution-ary bourgeoisie, which is nghting against communism, against theSoviet regime, against the building of socialism in the USSR . . .

Who gave the counterrwolutionary bourgeoisie in the USSR a tac-tical weapon in the shape of open actions against the Soviet regime?The Tlotskyists, who bied to organize anti-Soviet demonshationsin Moscow and Leningrad on November7,1927, gave it that weap-on. It is a fact that the anti-Soviet actions of the Tlotskyists raisedthe spirits of the bourgeoisie and let loose the wreching activitiesof the bourgeois o<perts. . . ." In addition to his article on the 1927"uprising' at the revolution's tenth anniversary celebration, Tlotsky

357


wrote several others, reprinted later in this volume, about the Stalin-ist crackdown on historical discussion and the meaning of Stalin'sattack on the "rotten liberalism" in the Communist Party.

2. The Left Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists) was formed in 1923as a faction of the Russian Communist Party, and the InternationalLeft Opposition was formed in 1930 as a faction of the Comintern.A group of ILO leaders met with Ttotsky when he was in Copen-hagen in November 1932, and an international preconference ofthe ILO was held in Paris in February 1933. When the ILO decided to work for the ereation of a new International in 1933, italso changed its name to the International Communist League.The founding conference of the Fourth International was held inParis in September 1938. It held one more conference dur-ing Trotsky's lifetime-an emergency conference in the WesternHemisphere in May 1940, which adopted a manifesto on WorldWar II written by Tlotsky (see Wrttings 3940).

3. Joeeph Stalin (1879-1953) became a Social Democrat in 1898'joined the Bolshwik faction in 1904, was coopted to its CentralCommittee in 1912, and elected to it for the first time in 1917. In1917 he favored a conciliatory attitude to the Provisional Govern-ment before Lenin returned and reoriented the Bolsheviks towardwinning power. He was elected comrnissar of nationalities in thefirst Soviet government, and general secretary of the CommunistParty (Bolshevik) in 1922. Lenin called in 1923 for his removalfrom the post of general secretary because he was using it to bu-reaucratize the party and state apparatuses. After Lenin's death in1924, Stalin gradually eliminated his major opponents, startingwith Ttotsky, until he became virtual dictator of the party and theSoviet Union in ttre 1930s. The chief concepts associated with hisname are "socialism in one country," "social fascism,' and "peaceful coexistence." His biography by Trotsky, uncompleted when thelatter was assassinated in 1940, is entitled Stalin, An Appraisal ofttre Man and IIis Inllumce.

4. The notorious isolation prison camp in the Upper Urals heldhundreds of Left Oppositionists. A report in The Militant' Decem-ber 26, 1931, listed the names of 117, some of whom had beenincarcerated there for almost three years; it also gave details abouttheir eighteen-day hunger strike, broken only when their jailers beatand fed them forcibly.

5. Christian Georgorich Rakovsky (1873-1941), a leading revo-lutionary in the Balkans before World War I, became head of theUkrainian Soviet in 1918 and later served as ambassador to Lon-don and Paris. An early leader of the Left Opposition, he was de-ported in 1928, where he suffered illness, medical neglect, and iso-lation. In 1934 he gave up the fight against Stalinism but hiscapitulation did not save him. In 1938 he was one of the majordefendants in the third Moscow trial, where he was sentenced totwenty years' imprisonment.

Notes for Page 15 359

6. Georgy Butov, Trotsky's coworker in charge of the Revolution-ary Military Council's secretariat during the civil war, was arrestedfor refusing to sign false charges against Tlotsky, went on a hun-ger strike, and died in prison in September 1928. Jakob Blumkin(1899-1929) was a Left Social Revolutionary terrorist who becamea Communist and a GPU official. He was the first Russian sup-porter of the Left Opposition to visit Trotsky in exile in T\rrkey.Bringing back a letter from Ttotsky to the Opposition, he was behayed to the GPU and shot in December 1929. Henry Yagoda wasStalin's chief lieutenant in the Soviet secret police After supervisingthe organization of the 1936 Moscow trial, he was made a defen-dant himself in 1938, was convicted and executed.

7. Socialism in one country was the theory proclaimed tn 1924and later incorporated into the program and tactics of the Comin-tern It became the ideological cover for the abandonment of revo-lutionary internationalism in favor of narrow nationalism and wasused to justify the conversion of the Communist parties through-out the world into docile pawns of the Kremlin's foreign policy.A comprehensive critique by Tlotsky will be found in his 1928 bookThe third International After Lenin.

8. Chiang Kai-shek (1887- ) was the right-wing military lead-er of the bourgeois-nationalist Kuomintang (People's Party) of Chinaduring the revolution of 1925-27. The Communists had entered thepart5r on the orders of the Comintern leadership in 1923 and theStalinists had hailed him as a great rwolutionary until April 1927,when he conducted a bloody massacre of the Shanghai Commu-nists and hade unionists. He ruled China until overthrown by theChinese Communist Party in 1949.

9. The aim of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his National Social-ist Party (Nazis) was to destroy the bourgeois-democratic govern-ment of Germany and replace it with a fascist regime. Trotsky hadbeen warning since 1930 that despite the ultraleft rhetoric employedby the German Communist Party leadership, there was a seriousdanger that it might capitulate before the Nazis when a show-down came. In 1932 the Stalinists characterized such warnings as"Trotskyist slander." In 1933 the CP allowed itself and the Germanworking<lass movement to be destroyed without firing a single shot.

10. The Comintern ( Third International or Communist Interna-tional) was organized under Lenin's leadership as the revolution-ary successor to the Second International In Lenin's time its worldcongresses were held once a year-the First in 1919, the Secondin 1920, the Third in 1921, the Fourth tn Lg22-despite the civilwar and the insecurity of the Soviet Union. Trotsky regarded thetheses of the Comintern's first four congresses as the programmat-ic cornerstone of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International.The Fifth Congress, where Stalin's machine was in control, washeld in 1924, the Sixth not until 1928. and the Seventh not until1935. Ttotsky called the Seventh the "liquidation congress" (see


Writings 3t36), and it was in fact the last before Stalin announcedits dissolution in 1943 as a gesture to his imperialist allies.

11. Vladimir tryich Lenin (1870-1924) restored Marxism as thetheory and practice of revolution in the imperialist epoch after ithad been debased by the opportunists, rwisionists, and fatalistsof the Second International. He initiated the tendency that becameknown as Bolshevism, which was the first to point the way on howto build the kind of party needed to lead a working-class revolu-tion. He was the first Marxist to fully understand and o<plain thecentral importance of the colonial and national struggles. He ledthe first victorious workers' revolution in 1917, and served as thefirst head of state of the Soviet governmenL He founded the Com-munist International and helped to elaborate its principles, strategy,and tactics. He prepared a fight against the bureaucratization of theRussian Communist Party and the Soviet state but died before hecould carry it out His notes of the last week of December 1922and first week of January 1923 (or, more narrowly, his letter ofDecember 25 and postscript of January 4), written shortly beforehis Iast stroke which led to his death, are known as his tetamentIn the postscript Lenin called for the removal of Stalin from thepost of general secretary. Ttre testament is reprinted in Leon Tiotskyon the Suppreesed Testament of Lenin

12. NEP was the New Economic Policy initiated in 1921 to revive the economy after the civil war, replacing the policy of "WarCommunism." It was adopted as a temporary measure and alloweda limited revival of internal free trade and foreign concessions along-side the nationalized and statecontrolled sections of the economy.The Nepman, who benefited from llis policy, was viewed as a po-tential base for the restoration of capitalism. The NEP was suc-ceeded in 1928 by forced collectivization of the land and the firstfiveyear plan.

13. GPU was one of the abbreviated names for the Soviet polit-ical-police department; other names were Cheka, NKVD, MVD,KGB, etc., but GPU is often used in their place.

14. Ivan T. Smilga (1892-1938), an Old Bolshevik, was a mem-ber of the Revolutionary Military Council and in 1927 deputy chair-man of the State Planning Commission. A leader of the Left Op-position, he was deported in 1928 and capitulated in 1929. At thetime of the Moscow trials he disappeared, without trial orconfession.

15. Leon Troteky (1879-1940) became a revolutionary in 1896and a collaborator with Lenin on Iskra in 1902. He broke withLenin the next year over the nahrre of the revolutionary party andaligned himself with the Mensheviks. He broke with the Mensheviksin 1904 and hied during the ner<t decade to reunite the party. Inthe 1905 revolution, he was the leader of the St. Petersburg Sovietand dweloped the theory of permanent rwolution. In 1915 he wrotethe Zimmerwald manifesto against the war. He joined the Bolshevik

Notes for Pages 16 to 18 361

Party in 1917, was elected to its Central Committee, and organizedthe Bolshevik insurrection that made the new Soviet state possible.His first government post was as commissar of foreign affairs. Thenas commissar of war he organized the Red Army and led it to vic-tory through three years of civil war and imperialist intervention.He formed the Left Opposition in 1923 and fought for the ne).t decade to return the Soviet Union and the Communist Internationalto Leninist internationalism and proletarian democracy. Defeatedby the Stalin faction, he was er<pelled from the Communist Partyand the Comintern, and e><iled to T\rrkey in 1929. In 1933 he gaveup his efforts to reform the Comintern and called for the creationof a new International. He viewed his work on behalf of the FourthInternational as the most important of his career. Gregory Zinoviev(1883-1936) was a leading figure of the Comintern in Lenin's time,serving as its first president Hg along with Kamenev, helped Stalinlaunch the crusade against "Trotskyism" but then he formed a blocwitlr the Left Opposition, 192G27; when he was expelled from theparty in 1927, he capitulated to Stalin kpelled again in Iate 1932,he repented again in 1933. He was framed up in the first Moscowhial in 1936 and e:<ecuted.

16. 'A Letter to the Politburo." By permission of the Harvard Col-Iege Library. Translated for this volume by George Saunders.On October 31, 1931, Die Bote Fahne (The Red Flag), the GermanStalinist paper, published a report about the plans of a RussianWhite Guard terrorist group led by czarist general Anton W. T\rrkulto assassinate Tlotsky in T\rrkey and to put the blame on Stalin(see declaration of the Bolshevik-Leninists on "The White Guard Prep-aration of a Terrorist Act Against Comrade Tlotsky" in Writ-ings 3O-31). The information about the T\rrkul plot, which couldhave come only from the GPU, was not printed in the Soviet IJnion,and when representatives of the Left Opposition approached the So-

viet embassies in Berlin and Paris to discuss the possibility of jointsecurity measures in behalf of Tlotsky, they got a runaround. Thedeclaration cited above was another demand by the Left Oppositionfor Soviet help toward Trotsky's defense; it was sent to Moscow,and not published until later, when it had become plain that theStalinists did not intend to help, and that they had published theRote Fahne report primarily toprovide an alibifor Stalin Ttotsky'sletter to the Politburo also was not intended for publication original-ly; it was not until five years later, a few months after the first Mos-cow trial, that he recalled and printed part of this letter, as evidencethat he could not have been together with Zinoviev and Kamenevin the kind of conspiracy charged at that trial (see'A SignificantEpisode," December 30, 1936, in Writings 37-38)' Part of Stalin'sanswer to Tlotsky's letter was the decree depriving him of Sovietcitizenship a month and a half later.


1?. The Polltburo (Political Bureau) was the ruling body of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1932 it consisted of Stalin,Andreyev, Kaganovich, Kalinin, Kirov, Kossior, Kuibyshw, Molo-tov, Ordzhonikidze, and Voroshilov.

18. The Chinese rwolution of 1925-27 was crushed in part because the Chinese Communist Party, following the Comintern's or-ders, entered the Kuomintang and subordinated the workers'interests to those of the Chinese bourgeoisie. Ttotsky is contrast-ing this false policy of class collaboration in China with the falsepolicy of ultraleftism practiced by the Stalinists in Germany andelsewherg L928-34.

19. lStalln's eix conditions' to guide the dwelopment of industry,laid down in a speech June 23, 1931, stressed the need to organizethe recruitnent of workers for industry, eliminate \rage equaliza-tion," end the lack of personal responsibility, create a working-classindushial and technical intelligentsia, improve the treatnent of theolder engineers and technicians, inhoduce business accounting, etc.("New Conditions-New Tasks in Economic Construction," in Stalin'sWorks, volume 13).

20. The term dictatorship here is short for dictatorship of the pro-letarial the Mar:<ist term for the form of rule by the working classthat will follow rule by the capitalist class (dictatorship of the bour-geoisie). More modern substitutes for dictatorship of the proletariatare workers' state and (a term Trotsky disliked) workers'democracy.

21. White Guards and White Russians were names used for theRussian counterrevolutionary forces following the October Rev-olution,

22. Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), the Russian author, was a Bol-shevik slrnpathizer before and after 1905. He was hostile to theOctober Revolution in 1917, but later gave support to the new gov-ernment until he left the counEy in 1921, ostensibly for reasons ofhealth. When he returned in 1932, he gave general supportto Stalin's policies. Maxim Litvinov (187G195f ), an Old Bolshe.vik, was people's commissar of foreign affairs, 1930-39, ambas-sador to the United States, 194143, and deputy commissar forforeign affairg 194346. Stalin used him to personify "collective se-curitS/ when he sought alliances with the democratic imperialistsand shelved him during the period of the Stalin-Hitler pact and thecold war.

23. Leon Kamenev (1883-1936), an Old Bolshwik, was, withZinovist, an ally of Stalin again'st Tlotsky and then an ally ofTrotsky until the Opposition was defeated and its leaders er<pelled.With Zinoviw, he capitulated in December L927 and was reinstatedin 1928, was expelled again in late 1932 and capitulated again in1933. He was executed after the first Moscow trial frame-up.

24, Zinoviev and Kamenev, with Stalin, formed a "biumvirate"in the Politburo against Trotsky, initiating the crusade against


"Ttotskyism" in 1923 and continuing it especially after Lenin's deathin January 1924. They broke with Stalin in 1925 and collaboratedwith the Left Opposition in a Joint Opposition in I92G27.

25. Bonapartism was a central concept in Trotsky's writings dur-ing the 1930s. He saw two types-bourgeois and Soviel BourgeoisBonapartism appears during periods of acute social crisis, he said,usually in the form of a government that seeks to raise itself abovethe nation and the contending classes; it must not be equated withfascism, wen though both serve in the interests of maintaining thecapitalist system. His most extensive writings on bourgeois Bona-partism will be found in lhe Shuggle Against Fascism in Germany.His views on Soviet Bonapartism reached their final form in hisessay, "The Workers' State, Thermidor and Bonapartism," reprintedin Writings 34-35.

26. In 1927 the GPU identified somebody seeking contact withmembers of the Left Opposition as a "Wrangel ofricer.n Wrangel wasa White Guard general who had fought against the Soviets in thecivil war. This attempt to smear the Oppositionists as collaboratorsof counterrevolutionaries backfired when the GPU was forced to ad-mit that the alleged Wrangel officer was actually an agentof the GPU.

27. Karl Marx (1818-83) was, with Frederick Engels, the founderof scientific socialism and a leader of the First International.

28. "The Left Opposition and the Right Opposition." Ihe MilitantJanuary 30, 1932 (under the title "Left Opposition and the Brand-lerites").

29. The Brandlerite faction was the German component (KPO)of the Right Opposition in the Comintern; in the Soviet Union, theRight Opposition leaders were Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky; inthe United States, Lovestone.

30. The Social Democracy was the name of various socialist par-ties. Until 1914, when most Social Democratic parties supportedthe war, it was synonymous with revolutionary socialism or Marx-ism. Thereafter it was used by revolutionaries to designate oppor-tunist behayers of Marxism.

31. Heinrich Brandler (1881-1967) and August Ihalheimer (1884-1948), leaders of the KPO, had been founders of the German Com-munist Party. Brandler was its principal leader when it failed totake advantage of the revolutionary situation in 1923, was madea scapegoat by the Kremlin and removed from party leadershipin1924. Both were expelled in 1929.

32. Max Seydewib (1892- ), a left Social Democrat and mem-ber of the Reichstag, was one of the founders of the GermanSocialist Workers Party (SAP) in October 1931. Agroup in the KpOled by Walcher and Froelich advocated that the KPO join the newSAP, and later split away to join it themselves in 1932. Seydewitzsoon left the SAP; after World War II he became a Stalinist func-tionary in East Germany.


33. On February 15, 1928, kavda printed an article calling at-tention to a serious grain shortage and a kulak danger to the So-viet economy. Written only a month after Trotsky's deportation toAlma-Ata, it offered evidence supporting the proposals of the LeftOpposition and was the first sign of the coming Stalinist "turn tothe leff both in the USSR and in the Comintern.

34. Lazar Kaganovich (1893- ) was a crony of Stalin andan undeviating Stalinist in various Soviet governmental and partyposts. He was removed from all his posts as an nantipart/ elementwhen Khrushchev took over the Soviet leadership in the 1950s.

35. The Canton insurrection of December 1927 was called by theChinese Communist Party at the instigation of Stalin. Since the par-ty was isolated and the uprising unprepared, it was crushed in less

than three days at a cost of sweral thousand lives. Cantonlet therefore is probably a term for adventurist or putschist

36. Left Badtcale was the name used to designate the left wingof the prewar German Social Democracy. Its leaders were RosaLuxerrburg, Karl Liebknecht Franz Mehring, and others who laterfounded the Spartakusbund and ttre German Communist Party.

37. A conference to reassemble the antiwar internationalist cur-rents that had survived the debacle of the Second International atthe outbreak of World War I was held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland,in September 1915. Mostof theparticipantswerepacifists; a minorityled by Lenin constituted the Zlmmerq'ald L€ft Ture Nerman(1S8e ) was a Swedish poet and writer who represented theNorwegian delegation. Carl lloglund ( 1884-1956) was a leaderof the Swedish Left Socialist Party and, from L9I7-24, a leader ofthe Communist Party. Jullan Borchardt (1868-1932) was in the leftwing of the German Social Democracy.

38. Fredertck r'.ngels (182G95) was the lifelong collaborator ofKarl Marx and coauthor with him of many of the basic works ofMarxism. In his last years he was the outstanding figure of theyoung Second International. Eduard Berndeln (1950-1932), the lit-erary executor of Engels, was the first theoretician of rwision-ism in the German Social Democracy. Socialism, he held, wouldcome about through the gradual democratization of capitalism; therefore Man<ism had to be "revised" and the workers' movqment hadto abandon the policy of class strqgle for one of class collabora-tion with the "progressive" capitalists. Bernstein's book, &olufionar5rSoclalism, was attacked by the noted Marxists of the period, butrevisionist theory and practice became increasingly dominant in themost important Social Democratic parties and led to the collapseof the Second International in 1914. The quotation is from Engels'sletter dated November 28' 1882'

39. Ttris passage demonstrates that while Tlotsky in 1932 wasopposed to giving up the policy of trying to reform the Cominterr\his mind was by no means closed to the possibility that events mightdictate its abandonment and replacement by the perspective of anerr International.


40. 'Internal Polemics and the Party hess." Internal Bulletin" Com-munist League of America, number 2, July 1932. In 1931, MaxShachfonan, one of the founders of the CLA, served as its represen-tative in the Adminishative (International) Secretariat of the ILO;there he incurred Ttotsky's criticism for positions he took in regardto a number of internal disputes in various European sections;Trotsky held that in these areas Shachhnan was expressing personalpreferences rather than really representing the CLA's positions. Afterhis return to the United States, Shachtrnan was the leader of a mi-nority tendency inside the CLA. In June 1932 a plenum (full meet-ing) of the CLA National Committee was held to try to resolve dif-ferences that were paralyzing the organization and to approve aclearcut position on the disputed international questions amongothers. After the plenum, two internal bulletins were published forCLA members; as part of the documentation one of these includedsix letters, full or e:<cerpted, written by Trotsky during 1931 and1932 to Shachhnan and the CLA National Committee. The articleby Felix (a member of the Communist League of France and leaderof its Jewish group) to which Tlotsky objected in the present letterappeared in lhe Militant of December 19, 1931. br reply the CLANational Committee informed Tlotsky that his apprehensions aboutShachhnan in this instance were unfounded since he had had noth-ing to do with the publication of the Felix article.

41. The General ConJederation of Labor (CGT) was the majorunion federation in France, dominated by a reformist leadership.A split in 1921 resulted in the formation of the radical but smallerrival, the Unitary General Confederation of Labor (CGTU), whichlasted until the two were reunified in 1936.

42. Max Shachhnan (1903-72) was a founder of the AmericanLeft Opposition and the Socialist Workers Part5r. In the early 1930she led a minority tendency inside the CLA against a majorigz ten-dency headed by James P. Cannon; the difrerences between themwere not well-defined, leading to a stalemate in which the externalwork of the organization suffered. These differences were overcomein 1933, partly with Trotsky's aid, and during the ner<t sweral yearsShachhnan played a leading role in building the Fourth blterna-tional movernent in the U.S. In 1939, however, he succumbed to pet-ty-bourgmis pressure when World War II began, and led a struggleto revise basic Mancist policies and practices. In 1940 he and JamesBurnham led a split from the Socialist Workers Party; in 1958 hejoined the Socialist Party and became a leader of its right wing.

43. Maurice Paz (189G ), a French lawyer, was an earlyOppositionist associated with the magazine Contre le Courant(Against the Stream), which was published from 1927 to 1929. Hevisited Trotsky in T\rrkey in 1929 and broke with the Oppositionthe same year over what he considered its unrealistic perspectives.He joined the French Socialist Party and became part of its leader-ship, associated with the Paul Faure tendency of the apparatus.


44. Albert Weisbord (1900- ), who was enpelled from theAmerican Communist Party in 1929, organized a small group, the

Communist League of Struggle, which proclaimed its adherence tothe ILO in the early 1930s although its politics vacillated betweenthose of the Right and Left Oppositions. He later broke with Marx-ism and became an American Federation of Labor organizer.

45. Kadikoy, in the outskirts of Istanbul, on the Asian coasl wasthe place where Trotsky, his family, and comrades lived for almostone year following the fire that destroyed their home in Prinkipoin the early hours of March 1, 1931. Most of the articles in thisvolume were written in Prinkipo, to which they moved back aroundthe end ofJanuary 1932.

46. Albert Glober (1905- ) was a leader of the Left Opposi-tion in the U.S. He was closely associated with Shachtman' andsplit from the SWP with him in 1940' At the end of 1931' he vis-ited Ttotsky in Kadikoy. His report of the visit, "Five Weeksin Kadikoy, " appears in Writings 3O€1.

47. T"be Jwish group of the Communist League of France wasintended to promote Left Oppositionist propaganda among Jewishworkers in that country; for a while it published a Yiddish paper'Klorkeit (Clarity). Trotsky's friendly letter to this paper in May 1930is reprinted in Leon Tiotsky on the Je$ish Question. When the Jew-ish group became a faction in the French League, Tlotsky accusedit of trying to turn the League into a federation of national groups.

48. 'Reply to the Jewish Group in the Communist League ofFrance." From an unnumbered and undated internal bulletin pub-Iished by the Communist League of America in 1932. This bulletinalso contained parts of a circular letter to the sections of the ILOwritten by Trotsky December 22, 193L, which included criticismsof the Communist League of France and its Jewish group (for thewhole letter, see Writings 30.31). The same bulletinprinted "Declara-tion of the Jewish Group" to which Trotsky made this reply, andother articles, letters, and resolutions by its leaders.

49. The Jewish Bund (the General Jewish Workers Union ofLithuania, Poland, and Russia) was part of the Russian SocialDemocratic Labor Party until 1903, when it opposed Lenin's con-cept of a multinational, democratically centralized party. When theparty rejected the Bund's demand for a federated party structure,in which the Bund would be in charge of relations with Jewish work-ers, it split and became an independent organization. In 1917 itsided with the Menshwiks against the Bolshevik Revolution.

50. Bolshevism and Menshevism were the two major tendenciesin the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, section of the Sec-

ond International, following its Second Congress in 1903. The Bol-sheviks, led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks' led by Julius Martov,

Notes for Pages 24 to 28

evenhrally became separate parties, ending up on opposite sides ofthe barricades in 1917. Old Bolsheviks were those who joined theBolshevik Party before 1917, that is, members of the party's "oldguard." Although it was an honorific designation, Lenin sometimesused it slightingly for party veterans who hadn't learned or relearnedanything for a long time

51. M. MilI had been chosen by the Russian Opposition as itsmember of the Administrative Secretariat of the ILO, largely because of his knowledge of the Russian language; after he was removed from this post in 1932 because of his maneuvers and per-sonal intrigues, he became an agent of Stalinism. Trotsky describedhim as an East European, but Isaac Deutscher, in lhe Prophet Out-cast, called him an American.

52. Raymond Molinier (1904- ) was a founder of the Commu-nist League of France and its paper La Verite (The T!uth), in 1929,with whom Trotsky collaborated in many of the League's internaldisputes until 1935; their collaboration ended that year when theMolinier group published a periodical, La Comrrune (see Writings3t36). Molinier was for several years the target of rumors and in-nuendos about allegedly improper fund-raising methods. In orderto concentrate the discussion on the political differences, Tlotskysought to settle those rumors by having them formally investigatedby a conhol commission.

53. Pierre Naville (1904- ) was a founder of the French Leagueand a member of the International Secretariat of the ILO. He leftthe Fourth hrternationalist movement during World War IL He isthe author of many scientific books and of a memoir, Trotsky vi-vanl published in 1958.

54. Alfrd Rosm€r (1877-1964) was a revolutionary syndicalistand collaborator of Tlotsky in France during World War L Hewas elected to the &ecutive Committee of the Comintern in 1920,and was a leader of the French Communist Party until his expul-sion in L924. He was a leader of the Left Opposition and its In-ternational Secretariat until 1930. when he withdrew over differenceswith Tlotsky. Their personal friendship was renewed in 1936. Hewrote several books on labor history. His memoir of Trotsky inParis, 1915-16, appears in the collection Leon Tlotsky, The Manand IIis Work (Pathfinder Press, 1969).

55. Kurt Landau was for a short time a leader of the Left Op-position in Austria and Germany; he was assassinated by the Stal-inists in Spain during the civil war. Trotsky's analysis of "Landau-ism" appears in Writings 32-33. Tlotsky's differences with Landau,Naville, and Rosmer were not the same in each case (see especial-ly Writings 3O and 30.31), but they had this common feature-that he believed each of them represented tendencies that had joinedthe Left Opposition through accident or misunderstanding and thatthey lacked the political capacity to provide a Bolshevik type ofleadership.

367


56. Nbert Theint (1889- ), the leader of the French Commu-nist Party who supported the Joint Opposition led by Ttotsky andZinoviev and was expelled 'tn 1927, collaborated with several com-munist groups, including the Commr-rnist League of France, to whichhe belonged for a few years. He later joined a syndicalist group.For Trotsky's differences with Treint at the end of 1931, see Writ-ings 3G31.

5?. Disputes in the International Left Opposition over "faction"and "part5/ concerned the Opposition's relationship to the Comin-tern and the degree to which it could engage in independent politi-cal activity. The views of Trotsky and the ILO majority on thisquestion at the end of 1932 are e>rpressed in "T'he International LeftOpposition, Its Tasks and Methods" (Writings 32-33).

58. Henri Delfoese had been, like Felix, a member of the editorialboard of Contre le Courant

59. 'No Deal with German Governmenl" An Associated Press dis-patch in the Nw York Timee, January 24, L932.

60. Heinrich Bruening (1885-1970), the leader of the CatholicCenter Party who was opposed to working with the Nazis, wasappointed chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg in March 1930.Lacking a majority in the Reichstag, he ruled by decree from July1930 to his dismissal in May 1932. Tlotskyviewed him as a representative of Bonapartism in the epoch of the decay of the bourgeoissystem.

61. Hemann Mueller (187G1931), a Social Democrat who servedas chancellor in a coalition government (1928-30), was replacedby Bruening,

62. "Is Stalin Weakening or the Soviets?" The Political Quartedy(London), July-September 1932; a shortened version appeared inthe New York Times, May 8, 1932. It has been dated January L932in this volume because of the reference in its next to last paragraphto the Seventeenth Party Con-ference in Moscow, which was held fromJanuary 30 to February 4.

63. Vyacheslav M. Molotov ( 1890- )' an Old Bolshevik, waselected to the Russian party's central committee in 1920 and soonbecame an ardent supporter of Stalin. He was a member of the Exec-utive Committee of the Communist International, 1928-34, presidentof the Council of People's Commissars, 193041, and foreign minis-ter, 193949, 195356. He was eliminated from the leadership in1957 for opposing the I(hrushchev "deStalinization" program.

64. Pavd Miliukov (1859-1943) was the leader of the Cadets (Con-stitutional Democrats), the major capitalist party, and minister offoreign affairs in the first Provisional Government following the Feb-ruary rwolution. Nexander Kerensky (1882-1970), associatd with


the Social Revolutionary Part5z, was prime minister of the govern-ment overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

65. The first fiveyear plan was shortened to four years and threemonths, extending from October 1928 to the end of 1932. Furtherdiscussion on this fiveyear plan and on the projection of the secondwill be found later in this volume, in "The Soviet Economy inDanger."

66. Emdyan Yaroslavsky (1878-1943) was a top Stalinist spe-cialist in the extirpation of nTlotskyism," which, however, did notprwent him from falling from favor in 1931-32 when he failed tokeep up with the tempo demanded by Stalin in the rewriting of So-viet history.

67. havda (T!uth) was the official Bolshevik paper starting inl9L2; it became a daily in 1917.

68. Alfonso XIII, king of Spain, abdicated after the growth of rebellious movements among the workers, peasants, and shrdents, anda republic was proclaimed in April 1931. The new government prom-ised radical change and designated itself as a "republic of labor,"but its leaders felt that granting Trotsky a visa would be goinga bit too far. For Tlotsky's analysis of the problems facing Spain,see The Spanish Bevolution (1931-39) (Pathfinder Press, 1973).

69. Nexei Rykov (1881-1938)n president of the Council of People'sCommissars, 1924-30, Mikhail Tomsky (188e1936), chairman ofthe trade unions until 1930, and Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938),president of the Comintern, 192G29, represented the right wing inan alliance with Stalin against the left The Stalinist drive againstthe Right Opposition began shortly after the Fifteenth Congress hadexpelled the Left Opposition at the end of. 1927; by the end of 1929all three capihrlated. Bukharin was expelled from the Politburo in1929, Rykov and Tomsky in 1930. Tomsky committed suicide dur-ing the first Moscow trial, Bukharin and Rykov were victims ofthe third Moscow hial.

70. This refers to the so-called Menshevik-Industrial Party nwreck-

ers" trials, where the defendants confessed to sabotage of the econ-omy. In 1930 and 1931 Trotsky aceepted theseconfessions as valid(see Writings 193G31), a view he still held in 1932. Later, priorto the first Moscow trial in 1936, he admitted that he had made anerror in accepting the official version of these frame.ups.

71. Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947) was a leader of the British Con-servative Party and prime minister in 1923, t924-29, 1935-37. Win-ston Churchill (1874-1965) was first a Conservative, then a Liberal,and then a Conservative again, holding many cabinet posts, includ-ing prime minister, 1940-45, 1951-55. He took a hard line againstthe Bolsheviks, was one of the chief inspirers of irnperialist inter-vention after the October Revolution, and remained a fervent op-ponent of the Soviet Union.

72. "For Collaboration Despite Differences.' Internal Bulletin, Com-


munist League of America, number 2, July 1932. Shachbman with-drerr his resignation and continued to serve as an editor of TheMilitant

?3. nAnsnrers to Questions by the New York Time." The Nerp YorkTimee, March 5, L932, where it was entitled "Ttotsky Predicts WorldSovietism.n This interview was arranged through Simon and Schuster,

the American publisher of lhe History of the Bussian Reirolution in1932-33, which sold its rights to thatwork in the McCarthvite 1950swhen Trotsky's books did not sell well.

74. In the United States this book was published under the nameWhither Bussia?

75. Thermidor 1794 was themonth, according to the new calendarproclaimed by the French Revolution, in which the radical Jaco-

bins led by Robespierre were overthrown by a right wing withinthe rwolution; although it opened up a period of political reactionthat culminated in the seizure of power by Napoleon Bonapartgit did not go so far as to restore the feudal regime. Ttotsky calledthe conservative Stalinist bureaucracy Thermidorean because he be'lieved that their policies were preparing the way for a capitalistcounterrevolution. Trotsky modified his theory about the Ther-midorean analogy in a 1935 essay, nTtre Workers' State, Theimi-dor, and Bonapartism" (reprinted in Writings 34-35).

76. Bamsay MacDonald ( f866-1937) was the prime minister in the

first British Labour government (1924) and in the second (1929-31). In 1931 he bolted the Labour Party to form a "national unitS/cabinet with the Conservatives and Liberals (1931-35). Althoughhe remained as prime minister, the real power in the governmentwas held by Baldwin, and he was ignored by the Conservativesand rwiled by the Labourites. Joeeph Chamberlain (183G1914)was an early advocate of a protective tariff when free trade wasstill the prevailing policy in England. The reference to the son wasprobably to Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937), Conservative for-eign secretarv 0924-29), who had been awarded the Nobel peace

prize in 1925 for his part in the Locarno pact and entry of Ger-

many into the League of Nations but became unpopular because

of a break in diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the

failure of a Geneva disarmament conference in L927. Neville Cham-berlain (1869-1940), anotlter son, Conservative prime minister(193?-40), is known for his appeasement policy toward Germany.

77. The united front was a tactic utilized by the Bolsheviks inRussia before the October Revolution and elaborated by the Second

Congress of the Comintern in 1920. It is designed to give the work-ing class the opportunity to struggle jointly against the commonclass enemy, even when the workers are divided into reformist andrevolutionary organizations. Between 1928 and 1934 the Stalinistsperverted this tactic into what they called the "united front from below." which was based on the idea that joint-action arrangements


must be negotiated and consummated with the ranks, and not theleaders, of non-Stalinist organizations; the effect was to torpedo thepossibility of any actual united fronts, Trotsky's fullest discussionof the united front will be found in The Struggle Against Fascismin Germany.

78. Aridtde Briand (1862-1932) was expelled from the FrenchSocialist Party in 1906 for accepting office in a capitalist cabinetHe was premier several times and representative to the League ofNations. On September 19, 1929, at a diplomatic luncheon attendedby representatives of twenty-seven countries, he called for the es-tablishment of a United States of Europe, which Tlotsky used asthe occasion to write an essay entitled "Disarmament and the UnitedStates of Europe" (Writings 29).

79. Trotsky's remarks about a labor party in the U.S. touched offa considerable discussion in the CLA and between the CLA andother radical organizations. Later in the year he wrote a letter onthat subject alone ("Ttre Labor Party Question in the United States,"May 19, 1932, reprinted in this volume). Six years later, after theCIO had been organized, he modified his views and urged his Ameri-can comrades to work for the creation of a labor party (see his1938 discussions with Americans reprinted in The Transitional program for Socialist Revolution (Pathfinder Press, 1973).

80. "From a Letter to Simon and Schuster.n The Nerv york Times.February 27, 1933, in a story entitled 'Publish First Volume ofTrotsky's History." On the date that the first volume of The His-tory of the Bussian Revolution was published, Simon and Schusterpersuaded the Nery York Timee to print occerpts from a letterTrotsky had written the publishers (date of letter not given). In ad-dition to the excerpts, the Timee summarized Tfotsky's remarksabout technical difficulties he had encountered in T\rkey in obtain-ing material for his history, and about the complete suppressionin the Soviet Union of the thirteen volumes of his Collected Workspublished in the 1920s; he estimated that the Works projected atthat time would have come to more than thirty volumes. A letterin 1971 from the editors of the present volume asking for a com-plete copy of the Trotsky letter received the following reply: "Un-fortunately, Simon and Schuster long ago gave up the rights tothe book and I am afraid the letter you are referring to is somewhere in our warehouse in New Jersey.n

81. Trotsky's History of the Bussian Revolution was publishedin two volumes in Europe, and in three in the United States.

82. Woodrow lVilson (1S5G1924) was U.S. president, 1918-21;David Lloyd George (1863-1945) was British prime ministerr916-22.

83. The Entente was the World War I alliance of Great Britain.France, Russia, and later Italy.

372 Writings of Leon TYotsky (1932)

84. "Interview by the Associated Press." From an Associated Press

dispatch from Prinkipo in the New York Timee, February 27, 1932;excerpts, somewhat modified, also appeared in La Verite March 15,1932, where they were mistakenly dated. This interview, which T!ot-sky stipulated had to be printed word for word or not at all, tookplace six days after the Soviet government issued a decree strip-ping him of his Soviet citizenship; Tlotsky had not yet seen the textof the decree, about which he wrote at length a few days later inhis "Open Letter to the Presidium of the Central E<ecutive Commit-tee of the USSR" Trotsky's remarks here and in other statementsfor the capitalist press about his lack of time for current politicsshould not be read too literally. Even his historical writings wereintended to shengthen the revolutionary movement, and his volumi-nous politcal correspondence of 192940 represented a major po-litical intervention in the life and work of the Left Opposition and theFourth International. Statements giving a contrary impression hada 'diplomatic" character-he was still trying to get a visa for a Eu-ropean counhy that would put him closer to the center of politicalevents, and he wanted to avoid if possible any trouble with the T\rk-ish authorities.

85. "Amalgam' was the term frequently used by Trotsky to desig-nate the Kremlin's practice of lumping together different or oppos-ing political opponents and accusing them of common crimes or sins.

86. Permanent revolution was the theory and label most closelyassociatd with Trotsky beginning with the 1905 revolutionwhen hefirst dweloped his ideas about the leading role of the working classin bad<ward and underdeveloped countries. Although Lenin and 0ne

Bolsheviks accepted the conclusions of this theory in leading therevolution in 191?, the Stalinists centered their fire on it in the 1920s'especially after adopting the theory of socialism in one country.Ttotsky's ddense, Ihe Permanent Revolution, was written in 1928.

8?. This staterrrent was at least partly ironical. MacDonald (note76) was the prime minister of a government engaged in savagelysuppressing the Indian struggle for independence; it had recentlyarrested Mohandas Gandhi and outlawed the nationalist Congressmovement

88. "Interview by the United Press.' Biulleten Oppozitsit (Bulletinof the Opposition), number 28, July 1932. Tlanslated for this vol-ume by Tom Scotl The UP interviewer was J. D. Quirk. Tlotskystarted this Russian-language magazine shortly after his er<pulsionfrom the USSR in 1929:, it continued publication until a year afterhis death in 1940. In 1932 the Biulleten was being printed in Ger-many, where Trotsky's son and coeditor, Leon Sedov, was thenliving. After Hitler came to power in 1933 and banned i! the Biul-leten was transferred to Paris. The complete collection, in four vol-umes, has been reprinted by Monad Press, 1973. On February 18,


shortly before this interview was obtained, the Japanese invadersof Manchuria had declared that vast northeast Chinese provinceto be an "independenf nation named Manchukuo and establisheda iuppet regime to rule it in the interests of Japanese imperialism.

89. The Seiyukai, founded in 1900, and the Minseito, in 1928,were the two principal bourgeois parties until the dissolution of allparties by the military government in 1940. Both were viewed as"liberal" but this was true only in relation to the central governmentThey were headed by samurai families and were virtually in thepay of the big monopolies. Ttrey supported the government's per-secution of the labor movement and the left

90. The mikado was Hirohito (1901- ), who had become em-peror ofJapan in 1926.

91. The Chinese Eastern f,ailroad was the portion of the originalroute of the Ttans-Siberian Railroad which went through Manchuriato Vladivostok. It became the object of a bitter dispute in 1929.When the Japanese imperialists consolidated their control of Man-churia in 1932, the CER remained in thehands of the USSR Stalinhung onto it until 1935, when he sold it to Manchukuo in an ef-fort to ward off a Japanese attack. Ttre railroad came under Sovietcontrol again in World War IL Although the Communist Party tookover the Chinese mainland in f 949, Stalin did not cede the railroadto Mao Tsetung's government until 1952.

92. 'On Being Deprived of Soviet Citizenship.' Ihe Mili0ant, April2 and 9, 1932. On February 20, L932, the Soviet Central &ecutiveCommittee issued a decree depriving thirty-seven persons of theirSoviet citizenship and forbidding their return to the USSR Tlotskyand the members of his family in exile were on this list; in fact,theXr were its chief targets. Coming only a few months after the rev-elations about the "T\rrkul plof against Trotsky's life (see "A Letterto the Politburo," earlier in this volume), the decree undoubtedlywas intended to remove whatever protection against terrorist actionTrotsky's Soviet citizenship may still have afforded him. In addi-tion, it increased the risks run by anyone in the Soviet Union whomight be considering making contact with Tlotsky.

93. Izvesfla (News) was the official daily paper of the Soviet gov-ernmert

94. Karl Kautsky (1854-1938), a leader of the German SocialDemocracy, was regarded as the outstanding Mar:rist theoreticianuntil World War I, when he abandoned internationalism and opposed the Russian Revolution. He helped to form the TWo-and-a-half International but left it shortly before its collapse to return tothe Second International n L922. Alfred Adler (1870-1937) wasa Viennese psychologist and psychiatrist who was at first a Freudianbut later formed his own school; the person probably meant bythe authors of the dispatch was Frederick Adler, the Austrian SocialDemocrat (see note 255).


95. Vladimir Purishkevich (1870-1920), one of the monarchistleaders in the czarist Duma (parliament), was a notorious anti-Semiticleader of Black Hundred gangs and an organizer of pogtoms.

96. Feodor Dan (1871-1 947), a Menshevik leader on the presidiumof the Pehograd Soviet in 1917, was an opponent of the OctoberRevolution. Raphael Abramovich (1879- ) was a prominentBundist and right-wing Menshwik. He left Russia after the rwolu-tion and Dan was expelled rn 1922, both ending up in the UnitedStates.

97. Cenhism is the term used by Trotsky for tendencies in theradical movement that stand or oscillate between reformism, whichis the position of the labor bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy,and Marxism, which represents the historic interests of the workingclass, Since a centrist tendency has no independent social base, itmust be evaluated in terms of its origin, its internal dynamic, andthe direction in which it is going or being pushed by events. Untilaround 1935, Trotsky saw Stalinism as a special variety-"bureau-cratic centrism." After that. he felt that "bureaucratic centrism" wasinadequate as a term for the Stalinists.

98. Ustrialov was a Russian professor and economist who op-posed the October Revolution but later went to work for the Sovietgovernment because he beliwed it would inevitably be compelledto restore capitalism; he supported Stalin's measures against Trotskyas a step in this direction.

99. Mikhail Kalinin (1875-1946) was elected president of the SovietCentral Executive Committee in place of the deceased Sverdlov in1919. Klinent Voroshilov (1881-1969) was commissar of war, 1925-40, and president of the USSR, 1953-60. Both were placed on thePolitburo in 1926. T'hey were believed to sympathize with some ofthe ideas of the Right Opposition but went along with Stalin, per-haps because he had access to information that would have em-barrassed them if made public.

100. In 1923 Germany was shaken by a prerwolutionary crisis'which the floundering leadership of the German Communist Partybungled, enabling the government to survive. Brandler was the princi-pal leader of the party at that time.

101. The two-class workers' and peasants' parties was a formulaused by the Stalinists in the 1920s to justify support for the Kuo-mintang and other bourgeois parties in the Orient. Tlotsky's critiqueappears in the Third International After Lenin and hoblems of theChinese Rwolution. The Kuomintang of China was the bourgeois-nationalist party founded by Sun Yat-sen in 191 1 and led after 1926by Chiang Kai-shek. In 1926, the Kuomintang was admitted intothe Comintern as a sympathizing party. The bloc with British shikebreakers refers to the Anglo-Russian Tlade Union Unity Committeeestablished in May 1925 by the"leff'bureaucracv of the British tradeunions and union representatives of the Soviet Union. For the Britishthis was a cheap way to demonstrate "progressivism" and shield them-


selves against criticism from the left, especially useful at that time,not long before the British general strike of 1926 which they soldoul Ttre committee folded only when the British members, no longerneeding a left cover, walked out in 1927.

102. Bessedovsky, Agabekov, and Dnitriwsky were Soviet dip-lomats who defected to the capitalist world.

103. In "A Squeak in the ApparafuB,' an article dated April 13,1930, Trotsky had called attention to evidence of dissension in theCP's ranks (see Writings 3O).

104. Dmitri Manuilsky (1883-1952) was secretary of the Comin-tern from 1931 to its dissolution in 1943. Like Tfotsky, he hadbelonged to the independent Marxist organization, the Mezhrayontzi(brter-Dishict Group), which fused with the Bolshevik Party in 1g12.He became a supporter of the Stalinistfaction in the early 1g20s.

105. The theory of social fascfum, dweloped by Stalin, held thatthe Social Democracy and fascism were not antipodes but twins.Since the Social Democrats were only a variet5z of fascism, and sincejust about everyone but the Stalinists was some kind of fascist (aliberal-fascist or a labor-fascist or a Tlotsky-fascist), then it wasimpermissible for the Stalinists to engage in united fronts with anyother tendency against the ordinary fascists. No theory could havebeen more helpful to Hitler in the years leading up to his winningpower in Germany. The Stalinists finally dropped the theory in 1934without any explanation, and soon were wooing not only the SocialDemocrats but also capitalist politicians like Roosevelt and Daladier,whom they were still calling fascists early in 1934.

106. 'A Correction on Rakovsky.' Bulletin International l'Opposition Communiste de gauche (French language edition of the ILO'sinternational bulletin), number 15, March 1932. Tlanslated for thisvolume by Iain Fraser.

107. 'A Word of Welcome to Osvobozhdenie." Osvobozhdenie(Lib-eration, the weekly paper of the Bulgarian Left Opposition), April15, 1932. Ttanslated for this volume by Iain Fraser.

108. The International n€d Aid was organized in the early 1920sas a labor defense and civil liberties organization; its United Statescomponent was named the International Labor Defense.

109. The German Left Opposition and Tlotsky supported the presi-dential candidacy of Ernst Ttraelmann, nominated by the Commu-nist Party in opposition to Hindenburg and Hitler, in the two.partelection held in March and April 1932.

110. "I See War with Germany." The Forum, April 1932. Morethan a year before Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany,Trotsky wrote that a Nazi victory "would mean, according to my


deepest conviction, an inevitable war betweerr fascist Germany andthe Soviet republiC' ('The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria," Writ-ings 30'31). Like many of his prognoses, this proved accurate. Butin this case some of his premises proved wrong, In the present ar-ticle, written early in 1932, he asserted that if Hitler came to power'"he would become one of the chief pillars of Versailles, and wouldturn out to be a mainstay of French imperialism"' This assertion,rvhich he noted himseU "may seem paradoxical," was based on theassumption that however Hitler came to power-legally or througha coup - the German working class would resist and Germany wouldin effect be plunged into a civil war: "This would inevitably para-lyze the forces of the country for a considerable period of time, andcompel Hitler to seek in surrounding [capitalist] Europe, not revenge,but allies and protectors." In defense of that view it might be ar-gued that at the start of 1932 it was still correct to o(pect that thepowerful German working class would not submit to fascism with-out a struggle to the end. But even if that was so, it was no long-er the case a year later, when Hitler was appointed chancellor; ifat the start of 1932 the German workers had not become too demoralized by the Stalinists and Social Democrats to conduct an ef-

fective struggle, they evidently had reached that stage by the startof 1933. Even then Trotsky continued, in the first days after Hit-Ier's appoinhnent, to hope for and advocate last-ditch resistanceby the German workers. Not until Hitler began to consolidate hisvictory (achiwed through a combination of legal and extralegalactions) did Trotsky concede that civil war was out of the ques-

tion. And even then he argued that it had been correct and neces-

sary "to proceed from a course based upon resistance and to doall in our power for its realization. To acknowledge a priori theimpossibility of resistance would have meant not to push the pro-letariat forward but to introduce a supplementary demoralZing elemenf' ("Germany and the USSR," March 17, 1933, in The ShuggleAgainst Fascism in Germany). Hitler's victory proved to be so easythat he had a much freer hand in foreign policy than Trotsky hadexpectd in 1932. When that became clear in the spring of 1933Trotsky revised his analysis of the Nazi strategy abroad (see "Hit-ler and Disarmamenf in Writings 32-33).

111. The League of Nations was set up by the victors of WorldWar I, who prohibited the entry of the defeated nations at its in-ception. The U. S. did not join. During World War II, the UnitedNations was organized as its successor.

112. The Versaillef lteaty, signed in June 1919, reshaped na-tional boundaries along the lines of the secret treaties of the Allies.It deprived Germany of territory in Europe and of her overseascolonies, Iimited her military strength, and provided for paymentof war reparations. It was engineered to accomplish the dismantlingof German military and economic strength, but it also had the aimof stemming the revolutionary tide in Germany. It was a major fac-tor in Hitler's coming to power and prepared World War II.


113. Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the founder of Italianfascism,was a member of the antiwar wing of the Socialist Party in 1914but became an agent of the Allied imperialists. He organized thefascist movement in 1919, became dictator rn 1922, and set the pat-tern of repression on which the German Nazis modeled their regime.He remained in command of Italy until 1943; two years later, hewas killed when attempting to flee Italy.

114. Jos€f Pileudski (1867-1935) was exiled to Siberia whilea student for an alleged attempt on the life of Alexander III. Onhis return in 1892, he founded the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). In-terned in 1917 by the Central Powers, he was freed by German rev-olutionists in 1918 and returned to Warsaw to become chief of thenewly created Polish republic. In March 1920 he led his arrny againstthe Soviet Union in the Ukraine, and was driven back into Polandby the Red Army in June. He retired in 1923, but led a coup inMay 1926 that returned him to power and was dictator of Polandfrom various posts until his death. An article about the 1926 coup,"Pilsudskism, Fascism, and the Character of Our Epoch," appearslater in this volume.

115. The Polish Corridor, a narrow strip of land about ninetymiles long extending to Danzig (Gdansk) and the Baltic Sea, wastaken from Germany and assigned to Poland by the VersaillesTreaty.

116. Le Temps (The Times) was the unofficial voice of the Frenchgovernment in the 1930s.

117. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Trotsky decided thatthe economic and political conditions in the Soviet lJnion were un-favorable for intervention by the Red Army, and that under thesecircumstances demands for such intervention would be sheer ad-venturism (see "Germany and the USSR," March 17, 1933, and "Hit-ler and the Red Army," March 21, 1933, in Ihe Struggle AgainstFascism in Germany).

118. "The Left Social Democrats." Osvobozhdenig April 22, 1932.Translated for this volume by Iain Fraser.

119. In the presidential runoff election of April 10, 1932, Thael-mann, the Communist Party candidate, received 3,706,800 votes,or 10.2 percent of the total. In the primary election on March 13he had received 4,983,300, or 13.2 percent of the total.

120. "On a Political Novel." From the preface, Ich Kann NichtMehr . . . by Margarete Neumann, E Prager-Verlag, Leipzig-Wien,1932. Translated for this volume by David Thorstad. The author'spreface introduced Trotsky's letter with the following explanation:"Ttris book deals with the struggles and fate of the Tlotskyists inthe Soviet Union. I therefore sent the manuscripl before it was print-ed, to the outstanding leader of this Opposition, Comrade Trotsky.


Especially because, as a member of the Communist parties of Aus-tria, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet lJnion, and Germany since 1919,I was both ideologically and organizationally linked to this opposi-tion movement from 1923 to 1930. For that reason, I feel it is myduty to inform the reader of Comrade Trotsky's comments, whichare contained in the following letter." Although Ttotsky said it wasobjectionable to him, the publisher printed his picture on the jacketof the novel.

121. nAnswers to Questions by the Chicago Daily News." ChicagoDaily Nws, May 18, 1932.

122. lvar Kreuger (1880-1932), Swedish financier and "matchking," headed a worldwide match-production-and-marketing monop-oly which went bankrupt in 1931-32, revealing financial specula-tion. etc. He shot himself in Paris in March 1932.

123. Andre Tardieu (187G1945) was premier of the French right-wing cabinet, which was ejected from office a few weeks after thisinterview in a parliamentary election which brought a shift to theleft.

124. "' Tbe Foundations of Socialism. " lhe Mllitant, July 30, 1 932.125. Karl Badek (1885-1939) was an outstanding revolutionary

in Poland and Germany before World War I and a leader of theComintern in Lenin's time. He was both an early Left Opposition-ist and one of the earliest to capihrlate to Stalin after his expulsionand orile. He was readmitted to the party in 1930 and served as apropagandist'for Stalin until he was framed up in the second Mos-cow trial and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.

126. The Brest-Litovsk peace treaty ended Germany's war againstthe new Soviet government in March 1918. A sharp struggle tookplace at the Swenth Party Congress between those, headed by Lenin,who felt the Soviet Union was so weak militarily that it had nochoice but to accept the peace treaty on very unfavorable terms,and the "Left Communists," headed by Bukharin and Radek, whodemanded declaration of a revolutionary war as a matter of prin-ciple. Trotsky held a third position of "neither war nor peace":against signing the peace treaty and against conducting a revolu-tionary war. When Germany insisted on the signing of the treatyand renewed its military attack, Tlotsky supported Lenin. Thereis a question as to whether the Lenin quotation cited by Tlotskyactually was aimed against Radek, or whether it was aimed againstRyazanov, another supporter of the "revolutionary war" position.The following note about this quotation appears in the findings ofthe Dewey Commission, which investigated the charges againstTrotsky in the Moscow trials, published inthebook Not Ghrilty (Har-per & Brothers, 1938, p. 199): "In checking this quotation we findthat it appears as Tlotsky gave it in Lenin's Gollected Works, State


Publishers, 1925 (volume 15, pp. 131-2). In the thtrd Russian edi-tion of Lenin's Collected Works, published in 1935 [and in subsequent editionsl, the name of Ryazanov has been substifuted for thatof Radelr (volume 22, p. 33I). The editors neither er<plain the changenor even state that in earlier editions Radek's name figured in placeof Ryazanov's."

L27. "A Reply to May Day Greetings." Owobozhdenie, May 13,1932. Translated for this volume by Iain Fraser.

L28. br the Aprtl 24, 1932 elections to the Prussian Landtag(state parliament), the Nazis made big gains, becoming thelargest party in the state that contained a majority of the Germanpopulation. The Communist Party received less votes in Prussiathan it had received in the first presidential election in March, and300,000 less than it got in Prussia in the previous Reichstag elec-tion (September 1930). In the French parliamentary elections ofMay 1 and 8, 1932, the CommunistPartymore or less held its owndespite a trend to the left that benefited the liberals. The sense inwhich it could be said that the German and French elections wentin the same direction was that in both countries the Stalinists wereunable to make any gains at ihe ballot box wen in the midst ofacute economic and political crises.

129. "'Blocs' and Absurdities." I),er Neuer Mahnruf (The New Call),publication of the Communist Opposition of Austria (the MahnrufCroup), October 1932. Translated for this volume by Janet Peace.This probably was a letter to the ILO Administrative Secretarial

130. The L. groupwas the oneledby Kurt Landau (see note 55).131. Die Permanente Revolution was the paper of the official Ger-

man section of the Left Opposition, published until Hitler came topower in 1933, when it was replaced by Unser Wort (Our Word),which was published in exile and smuggled into Germany.

132. "The Labor Party Question in the United States.n lhe MilitantJune 11, 1932. Trotsky's remarks about the labor party in his in-terview, "Answers to Questions by the Nerr York Times," evokedquestions in the United States which prompted him to write this let-ter. Among these questions were those raised by the CommunistLeague of Strugglg an American group led by Albert Weisbord,who had gone to T\rrkey to discuss his differences with the Left Op-position (see "To the Communist League of Struggle," May 22, lg32).

133. The Second National Conference of the Communist Leagueof America had been held in New York in September 1931. Itadopted a resolution (see lhe Militanl July 25, 1931) which op-posed advocacy of a labor party while recognizing the need to workinside any that might be formed.


134. Jay Loveetone (1898- ) was a leader of the AmericanCommunist Party who was errpelled on Moscow's orders in 1929shorfly after the downfall of his Soviet ally, Bukharin. The Lovestone group, like others of the Right Opposition tendency, remainedin existence until World War IL Lovestone himself later became cold-war adviser on foreign affairs for AFLCIO president George Meany.

135. Chartism, a mass movement which began in 1838 and dis-sipated in the early 1850s, was a struggle for political democracyand "social equalit/ which attained near-revolutionary proportions.It centered around nThe People's Charter,n a program drawn up bythe London Workingmen's Association.

136. At the end of 1919 the Chicago Federation of Labor, alongwith labor bodies from other areas, formed a national Labor Party,later called the Farmer-Labor Party, and ran a presidential ticketin the 1920 elections. ltre Arnerican Communist Party ignored thisdevelopmen! but at the end of 1922, under the direction of Comin-tern representative John Pepper (Joseph Pogany), it reversed itseUand succeeded in capturing control of the Farmer-Labor Party atits July 1923 convention. The Chicago Federation of Labor andother labor groups withdrew, and the name of the party was changedto Federated Farmer-Labor Party; it then proceeded to tie up withthe 1924 La Follette Progressive Party presidential campaign, Therewas objection to this policy in the Communist Party, and an opinionof the Executive Committee of the Comintern, which was consulted,characterized the tactic as opportunist. The Communist Party hast-ily put up its own candidateg with one section of the FFLP sup-porting them and the other joinine the La Follette campaign.

137. Reformism is the theory and practice of gradual, peaceful,and parliamentary change (as opposed to revolution) as the bestor only means of proceeding from capitalism to socialism. Beform-ists therefore shive to soften the class shuggle and promote classcollaboration. The reformists of the tradeunion bureaucracy in theUnited States make no pretense of going beyond a liberalized capi-talism. .

138. Eligoneg disciples who corrupt their teachers' doctrines, wasTrotsky's derisive term for the Stalinists, who claim to be Leninists.

139. "International and National Questions." Internal Bulletin, CLAnumber 2, July 1932. The National Committee of the CLA hadadopted a statement on the international questions disputed in theILO, printed in The Militant April 23, 1932 (and later to be reaffirmed by a plenum in June); it was in accord with the positiontaken by Trotsky and a majority of the ILO leadership. The in-ternal CLA dispute to which Trotsky referred concerned develop-ing differences behreen a majority led by Cannon and a minorityled by Shachtrnan; Trotsky was not to take a position on this dis-pute until a year later, when it was resolved (see Writings 32-33).


140. "Who Should Attend the International Conference?" An un-numbered and undated internal bulletin of the CLA' 1932. Signed"G. Gourov." Trotsky's proposals at the end of this Ietter to the Ad-ministrative Secretariat were adoptd and governed participationat the international preconference held in Paris in February 1933(see Writings 32-33).

141. Julian Gorkin had been a figure in the Left Opposition inSpain before he joined the Workers and Peasants Bloc led by JoaquinMaurin. He later became a leader of the POUM (Workers Party ofMarxist Unification) which was formed in 1935 when Maurin's groupmerged with the Spanish Left Oppositionists led by Andres Nin

142. Spartakos (Spartacus) was the paper published by the Greekgroup that formerly had been recognized as an affiliate of the LeftOpposition.

143. Joscf Frey (1882-1957), a founder of the Austrian CommunistParty from which he was er<pelled 'tn 1927, was also briefly the leaderof an "Austrian Communist Party (Opposition)." The negotiations forreaffiliation with the Left Opposition were broken off by the Freygroup before the preconference was held.

144. Edouard van Overshaeten, a leader of the Communist Partywho was o<pelled in 1928, was a founder of the Left Oppositionin Belgium. The dispute in the Belgian organization between the Ex-ecutive Committee in Brussels led by Overstraeten and the CharleroiFederation took on serious proportions through 1929-30 and endedin a formal split in December 1930. The Overstraeten group existedfor a short while under the name of the League of Communist In-ternationalists, but he withdrew from politics before it errpired.

145. The Archto-Marxids had become associated with the LeftOpposition in mid-1930. Its publication was called Palt Ton Takeeon(The Class Struggle).

146. Ttre Prometeo group, whose journal was called Prometeo(Prometheus), was also known as the Italian Left Faction and asthe Bordigists, after their leader, Arnadeo Bordiga (188$1970), whowas er<pelled from the Comintern on charges of "Tlotskyism" in 1929.It was the first Italian group to adhere to the ILQ but itsinveterate sectarianism compelled the ILO to dissociate itself fromit at the end of 1932.

L47. "To the Communist League of Struggle" The Militant, Sep-tember 10, 1932. The same paper carried Weisbord's answer toTtotsky in its September 17 and, 24, 1932, issues, and the CLA'sresponse to Weisbord in its issues of October 1 and 8.

148. The German Socialist Workers Party (SAP) was formed inOctober 1931 after the Social Democrats o(pelled a number of left-wing Reichstag deputies headed by Max Seydewitz and Kurt Rosen-feld, also a well-known civil liberties lawyer. In the spring of 1932,a split occurred in the German Communist Right Opposition (KPQBrandlerites) and a wing headed by Jakob Walcher joined the SAP.


When Seydewitz and Rosenfeld withdrew from the SAP, the e:<-Brand-lerites became its leaders. In 1933 the SAP agreed to work togetherwith the Left Opposition in forming a new International, but it soondranged its mind and became an opponent of the Fourth In-ternational.

149. Morris Hillquit (i869-1933), a lawyer, was one of the found-ers of the American Socialist Party.

150. "To a Bulgarian Worker in the U.S." Osvobozhdenig June 17,1932, Tlanslated for this volume by Iain Fraser.

151. "Closer to the Proletariansof the 'Colored' Races!" The Mtli-tant July 2, 1932. The Johannesburg letter to which Tlotsky referredappeared in the same paper's June 4 issue. It was addressed to theCLA and o<pressed the decision of its signers to apply for member-ship in the Left Opposition, circulate its literature, etc. The follow-ing paragraph of o<planation in their letter is of special interest:"Comrades! Do not worry over seeing all these applicants beingNegroes, and think that we are purposely refusing to unite withthe European comrades. No, we are not. It is only about two monthsago that we have been considering joining your league. Althoughit is difficult for a Negro comrade to organize a European worker,we hope that later on white militants will follow our lead. The colorquestion makes organization difficult. Negro workers are generallybeing considered inJerior even on such matters as revolutionaryorganization, and usually European workers are being consideredsuperior. We have been functioning under the name of CommunistParty of Africa."

152. "Democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peaeantry'was the formulation used by Lenin to designate the objective of theBolsheviks before 1917; after the February 1917 revolution he dis-carded this perspective and reoriented the Bolsheviks to a strugglefor power and a workers' state, the ndictatorship of the proletarialnAfter Lenin's death the Stalinists revived the discarded slogan andused it to justify class collaboration between the workers and thecapitalists in China, which led to the crushing defeats of the Chineserwolution of 1925-27.

153. "The Coming'Congress Against War." lhe Militant July 16,1 932.

154. Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) was a pacifist novelist who joinedthe French Communist Party in 1923 and wrote biographies of Stalinand Christ.

155. Bomain Rolland (186G1944), novelist and dramatist, wasa leading spirit of the "leff' ever since his pacifist denunciation ofWorld War I. In his later years he lent his name to Stalinist liter-ary congresses and manifestoes.


156. Emile Vandervdde (186G1938), leader of the Belgian So-cialist Party and president of the Second International, 1929-36,was among the first socialists to enter the war cabinet, serving aspremier, and held various cabinet posts in the twenties. He was asigner of the Versailles Treaty.

L57. The hofintern (Red International of Labor Unions) wasorganized in Moscow in July 1920 as a rival to the reformist Am-sterdam International. In 1945 the leaders of the two union inter-nationals united as the World Federation of Trade (Jnions, but theysplit again when the cold war began, and the reformists createdthe International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in 1949.

158. The Second International (also known as the Laborand Socialist International) was organized in 1889 as the successor tothe First International. It was a loose association of national SocialDemocratic and labor parties, uniting both revolutionary and reformist elements, whose strongest and most authoritative section wasthe German Social Democracy. Its progressive role had ended by1914, when the major sections violated the most elementary social-ist principles and supported their own imperialist governments inWorld War I. It fell apart during the war but was revived as a com-pletely reformist organization in 1923. The Ansterdam International(the International Federation of Ttade Unions, sometimes calledthe 'yellod international) was the major organization in this field,associated with and controlled by the reformists.

159. The Anti-Impertalfut League (or League Against Imperial-ism) was one of the projects of Muenzenberg (see note 258). Itsfirst congress was held in Brussels in February 1927, its second andlast in Frankfort on the Main in July 1929. The period between thetwo congresses witnessed the breakup of the Anglo-Russian Commit-tee, the Kuomintang suppression of the Chinese revolutionary forces,and the Stalinist shift to an ultraleft policy. This was reflected inthe representation to and the character of each of the congresses.

160. Oseip Ptahritsky (1882-1939) was a secretary of the Comin-tern, 1922-31, and headed its Organizing Bureau, whose aim wasto conhol the practical everyday work of the various Communistparties.

161. "![hy I Signed Radek's Theses on Germany.n 1he No' In-ternational, February 1938, where it appeared under the title "TlvoLetters on the German October." Ihe Nen' International was themonthly magazine of the American Left Opposition and SocialistWorkers Party until 1940, when a minority splitfrom the SWP underthe leadership of Max Shachtnan and James Burnham; Shachtmanpublished the NI until 1958 when his group entered the SocialistParty. In 1940 the SWP began publishing Fourth Internationa!whose name was later changed to Internafionat Socialist Beview.

162, Alois Neurath was a leader of the Communist Party of Czecho-slovakia and a member of the hecutive Committee of the Comin-


tern. After being expelled as a nTlotskyis!' he became a Brandlerite.h 1932 he became critical of Brandler because of the latter's apolo-gies for the Soviet bureaucracy's role inside the USSR and his dis-honest criticisms of Tlotsky's proposals on how to fight the Nazisin Germany,

163. Yurt katakov (1890-1937) played a leading role in theOctober Revolution and the civil war and held many key party andstate posts. In his testament Lenin called him and Bukharin the

"two ablest young men in the party." He became a Left Opposition-ist in 1923, was expelled in 1927, and capihrlated and was rein-stated in 1928. As vice chairman in the commissariat of heavyindustry, he helped to indushialize the country in the 1930s. He

was convicted in the second Moscow trial and er<ecuted.

164. Hermann Remmele (1880-1937) became part of the Thael-mann leadership in the German Communist Party in the years whenthe Nazis rose toward power. In 1933 he fled to the Soviet Union,where he was executed by the GPU in 1937.

165, The platform of the Opposition, of which Trotsky was theprincipal author, was the program of the bloc between the Left Op-

position and the Zinoviev-Kamenev group' It was translated in lheReal Situation in Buesia (1928).

166. Paul Boettcher (1891- ) was a German Communist Partvfunctionary who became a leader of the SAP in the 1930s, andjoined the Stalinists in East Germany after World War IL

167. The Central Committee of the German Communist Partyasked the Russian Politburo to send Trotsky to Germany in a capac-ity which would have meant, in effect, that he direct the impendinginsurrection. Zinoviw, together with Stalin and Kamenev, offered

various pretexts for not concurring in the German request, and nomi-nated Pyatakov for the mission.

168. "The Stalin Bureaucracy in Straits." Ihe MilitanL July 9' 1932.169. The 'third periodr" according to the schema proclaimed by

the Stalinists in 1928, wasthefinalperiodof capitalism. The Comin-tern's tactics during the next six years were marked by ultraleftism'adventurism, sectarian nredn unions, and opposition to the unitedfront In 1934 the theory and practice of the third period were of-ficially discarded and replaced by those of the People's Front(1935-39), but the latter period was not given a number. The'Tirstperiod" was l9L7-24 (capitalist crisis and rwolutionary upsurge);the "second period" was 1925-28 (capitalist stabilization).

1?0. Johannes Buechner was the author of a pamphlet titled TheAgmt Provocateur in the Labour Movernent it was hanslated andprinted in England and distributed in the U.S., without a date orany information about the author. An er<tract: "It is oftenthose groups which have seceded from the Communist party whichprovide the police with a definite contingent of informers and agmtsprovocateurs, who aim at the political disintegration of the Commu-


nist party. It is characteristic that Trotsky's autobiographyMy Lile has been published in Polish by the Warsaw political policein an attempt to impair the morale of the Communist movemenLThe press organs of the'right' and 'left' renegades-Conhe le Cou-rant Die Botre Fahnq and the like-are everywhere distinguishednot only by slanders against the Communists but also by director indirect denunciations. The police in all countries are gatheredround tle renegade groups like maggots on a carcass."

'171. The Social Revolutionary Party (SRs), founded in 1900, soonbecame the political erpression of all the earlier Populist currentsin Russia and had the largest share of in-fluence among the peasantryprior to the October Revolution. Its right wing was led by Kerensky,The Cadets (Constitutional Democratic Party), a bourgeois-liberalparty which favored a constitutional monarchy for Russia, was representative of the progressive landlords, bourgeoisie, and intelligen-tsia. It was headed by Miliukov.

172. Boman Mallnovsky (1878-1918) was a czarist police agentin the Bolshevik Party for years and was even elected to its firstindependent Cenhal Committee after the definitive split between theBolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1912. That same year he was a suc-cessful Bolshevik candidate to the Duma, aided by the police in theirarrest of his opponents. In 1914, when he suddenly gave up hisseat in the Duma, he was orpelled from the party. Although therehad been suspicion about him, his connection with the police wasn'tproved until after the October Revolution when the police files wereopened. He was tried and executed,

173. Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), German general, chief ofstaffof the army during World War I, conducted the negotiations withLenin allowing Lenin's rehrrn to Russia through Germany, then atwar with Russia. The eealed traln was the one that carried Leninand twenty-nine other Russian emigres from Switzerland throughGermany back to Russia in March 1917. Theemigres had previous-ly tried to make other arrangements but when these efforts provedunsuccessful, they negotiated the conditions for passing throughGermany. Ttris, along with a charge of receiving German gold, wasemployed in a campaign of slander and repression against the Bol-shevik Party in July 1917, and later echoed by counterrevolution-aries as evidence of collaboration of the Bolsheviks with the reaction-ary regime of Germany.

174. Iraklii Tseretelli (1882-1959) was a Menshevik leader whosupported the rar and held ministerial posts in the bourgeois Pro-visional Government March-August 1 91 7.

L75. Lev Sosnovsky (188e1937), an outstanding Soviet jour-nalist was, like Rakovsky, among the early supporters of the LeftOpposition and one of the last to capitulate; he was killed withouttrial or confession. Nikolai Muralov (1877-1937), an Old Bolshwik,was a commander in the civil war. He was er<iled n 1927 and latera victim of the second Moscow trial.


176. "A Letter to the Workers of Zurich." lhe Mtlttant Au-gust2O,1932.

177. The Hohenzollerns became the ruling family of Germanyin 1871; their dynasty lasted until November 1918, when the Ger-man revolution overthrew the monarchy and Kaiser Wilhelm IIabdicated.

178. Vatelav Voroveky (1871-1923), an Old Bolshevik who servedas a Soviet ambassador, was assassinated in Switzerland while at-tending an international conference at Lausanns Conradi his as-

sassin, was a White Russian.179. Max Hofimann (f 86$1927), major-general, with Kuhlmann,

foreign secretary, headed the German delegation at the peace nego'tiations held in Brest-Litovsk in November 1917-January 1918.Tlotsky headed the Soviet delegation at the decisive sessions' Brest-Litovsk was a town on the Polish-German line

180. "Hands Off Rosa Luxemburg!" theMilttant August 6 and 13,1932. Stalin's article to which Tlotsky replies in defense of Luxem-burg was written in the form of a letter, the same one that containedthe allegation of an "uprisingl by the Opposition on Novernber 7, 1927 (see note 1).

181. Bosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was a founder of the PolishSocial Democratic Party and a leader of the left wing of the GermanSocial Democratic Party, where she fought rwisionism and the party'ssupport of World War L Although jailed in 1915, she and KarlLiebknecht organized the Spartakusbund, which later became theCom-munist Party of Germany. Freed by the revolution of Novem-ber 1918, she helped lead the Spartacist uprising. This was crushedin January 1919 and she and Liebknecht wete assassinated on theorders of the Social Democratic rulers of Berlin. Some of her writ-ings recently published in English are Bosa Luxemburg SpeakqSelected Political Wrttlnge of Bosa Luxemburg, and lhe Accumula-flon of CapttaL

182. Auguet Bebd (184G1913) was a cofounder with WilhelmLiebknecht of the German Social Democracy, The party becamepowerful under his leadership, which, like that of Kautsky, for-mally rejected revisionism but bore responsibility for the growthof the opportunist tendencies that took over the SPD shortly afterhis death.

183. Ttre full title of Lenin's article is "1\ro Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution." This and following quotationsare taken from the F.nglish hanslation of Lenin's Collected Workswhich was published in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. In somecases, Ttotsky's dates and those in the Gollected Works do not cor-respond.

184. George Plekhanov (185e1918) formed the first Russian Marx-ist group, the Emancipation of Labor, in Switzerland in 1883. Hewas an editor of lekra but degenerated politically and was at odds


with the Bolsheviks and even with the Menshwiks, Later he wasan ardent supporter of the war and opponent of the Bolshevik Revo-lution.

185. On Auguet 4, lgl4, the more than one hundred Social Demo-cratic deputies in the Reichstag voted for the war budget, despitethe party's antimilitarist stand up to that time; on the same daythe French and Belgian socialist parties issued manifestoes declar-ing support of their governments in war. Vorwaerts (Forward) wasthe daily paper of the SPD.

186. Aler<ander Shlyapnikov (1885-1937) was active in the Bol-shevik illegal organization in Russia during World War I and oneof the heroes of the civil war. He headed the "lVorkers' Opposition,'I92L-23, and later the group of "twenty-two" who were very criticalof the NEP. He was jailed by Stalin, his fate unknown.

187. Gustav Noske (1868-1946), a right-wing German Social Dem-ocrat was minister of defense in 1919, chargedwith the suppressionof the Spartacist uprising. As minister, he ordered the assassina-tion of Luxemburg and Liebknechl

188. Julian Markhlewsky (186&1925), veteran of the Polish labormovement and a founder with Luxemburg of the Polish Social Dem-ocratic Party, worked for decades in the German labor movementAfter the Russian Revolution, he was head of the University of thePeoples of the East in the Leninist Comintern. Felix Ilzenhinsky(L877-1926), a founder of the Polish Social Democratic Part5r, wasactive in the Polish and Russian rwolutionary movement. After therevolution, he headed the Cheka from its formation in Decem-ber 1917, and from 1924 also the SupremeCouncil of National Econ-omy. He was a supporter of Stalin.

189. Albert hrrcell (1872-1935) was a leader of the General Coun-cil of the British Ttades Union Congress and of the Anglo-RussianTrade Union Committee during the betrayal of the British generalshike of 1926.

190. Alexandre Millerand (1859-1943) was the first socialist toenter a bourgeois cabinet when he became minister of commerce inthe French government in 1899; he was subsequently o<pelled fromthe Socialist Party. He held several ministerial posts and was presi-dent of the republic in 1920. Rosa Luxemburg wrote a series ofarticles in 1900-01 under the title'The Socialist Crisis in Francenwhich scathingly denounced Millerand; a long excerpt from thesearticles is reprinted in Rosa Luxemburg Speake.

191. Alexander Parvug ( 1869-1924), prominent in prerwar years asa Marxist theoretician in Eastern Europe, collaborated with Trotskyand reached conclusions similar to the theory of permanent rwo-lution. Trotsky broke with him in 1914 when Parvus became one ofthe leaders in the prowar wing of the German Social Democracy.In 1917 he tried to reconcile the German party with the Bolshwiksand later the Independent Socialists with the Ebert-Noske SPD lead-ership.


192. Jultus Mantov (1873-1923), one of the founders of the Rus-sian Social Democratic Labor Party, was a close associate of Lenhrin tlre early years. He later becarne a left-wirrg Mensbevik leader,opposed the October Revolution, and eurigrated to Germany in 1920.

193. LJlrich von llutten (1488-1523), German humanist and poet,was a theoretician for elements of the nobility who were for reformof the empire by elfuninating princes and secularizing church property.

194. "An Appeal for the Biulleten.'Blulleten Oppozitsit number 28,July 1932. Unsigned. Translated for this volume by Fred Buch-man. The name of an "officialn or nresponsible' editor was requiredin the Biullden; at this time, when it was three years old and being published in Berlin, Anton Grylewicz performed that function.The actual editors were Trotsky and Leon Sedov.

195. 'On Demvan Bedny." Blulleten Oppozitsii number 28,July 1932. Signed 'Alpha." Tlanslated for this volume by JuliaDrayton.

196. Demyan Bedny (1883-1945), unofficial poet laureate in theSoviet Union until 1930, wrote propaganda poetry again duringWorld War II but was never back in favor.

19?. Leopold Averbach ( 1903-193?), a literary critic, was the domi-nant figure in the RAPP until 1932 and the denunciation of Aver-bachism. Ironically, he was disposed of during the purges as a"Trotskyisl" The BAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writ-ers) was the controlling organization in the literary field from 1929until 1932, when it was replaced by the Union of Soviet Writers.It attadced the fellow travelers, allowed only "proletarian" literature,and trled to organize literary production like industrial production,in the spirit of the flrst fiveyear plan. Trotsky's views on prole-tarian literature appear in the appendir to this volum€, "An Inter-vierr,' on 'Prol,etarian Literature,'" by Maurice Parijaning also inLeon Trotaky on Lilerature arrd Art and Literature and Xevolufion.

198. Nikolay Klvucv ( 1885-193?) was a peasarrt poet of a mvs-tical-revolutionary-Populist eharacter. He was caught in the purgesand probably died in a concentration camp.

199. The Black l{undreds were monarchistgangs thatwere formedby the czarist police to combat the rwolutlonary movement; theyorganizd pogroms against Jews and workers. Ktevlyantn (the Kiw-an) was a former monarchist daily newspaper.

200. Alorander Bezyrnensky (1898- ), a rival of Demyan Bednyas chief poet, played a leading role in the RAPP with Averbach;the height of his popularity was 1929-31.

201. "Declaration to the Antiwar Congress at Amsterdam." TheMilftant, August 27, L932. This manifesto, signed by the Russian,Germarg Greek, Spanish, French, Americar\ Belgian, Czechoslova-


kian, British, Swiss, Bulgarian" and Italian sections of the Left Op-positioq was written for the antiwar congress held in AmsterdamAugust 27-29, L932. The congresswasrunina highly undemocraticmanner, with known Oppositionists having dificulty in getting thefloor or being heard over the booing. The Oppositionists were unableto get a vote on their main resolution and had to content themselveswith voting against the document presented by Barbusse, which wasadopted by around 2,000 to 6.

202. PauI von Hlndenburg (184?-1934) was a Prussian field mar-shal who commanded the German forces in World War I. Against So-cial Democratic opposition he was elected president of the Weimar re-public in 1925, and in 1932 was redected with Social Democraticsupport. He appointed Hitler chancellor in January 1933. Trotsky'sreference here is to the coup carried out by Hindenburg's recen0yappointed chancellor, Franz von Papen, on July 20, t932. Shor0ybefore this, Papen had lifted a ban on the Nazi storm boopers, whotook to the sbeets in a reign of political terror that left hundredskilled and wounded. Papen then utilized this to claim that the SocialDemocratic government of Prussia could not maintain'law and ordefin that state with more than half of Germany's total population,and he deposed that government on July 20, appointing himselfReich commissioner for Prussia. Tbe Social Democrats, who hadsworn they would oppose any coups, "whether from the right or theleft" meekly submitted. No one benefited more from this coup thanHitler. Eleven days later, when Reichstag elections were held, theNazis received another big advance, becoming the largest party inthe Reichstag.

203. Frank Kellogg (185G1937), U.S. secretary of state, 1925-29, arranged the Kdlogg Pact an agreernent to renounce war asan inshument of national policy signed by fifteen countries in 1928.It was later ratilied by a total of sixty-three, including the SovietUnion. Edouard Herriot (1872-L957) was the leader of the bour-geois Radical (or Radical Socialist) Party who was most prominentlyidentified with the policy of arranging alliances with the SocialistParty in the 1920e (Left Bloc)-an early form of the People's FrontTlotsky wrote a pamphlet about him, Edouard llerriot, Polldclanof the Golden Mean (see lf,rlfings 35-36).

2(X. Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) was the leader of the nation-alist movernent that later became the Congress Party of India. Heorganized massive opposition to British rule, but insisted on peaceful, nonviolent passive resistance methods.

2O5. lhe PLIP (Party of Proletarian Unity) was a short-livedFrench centrist group formed by expdled Communist Party andformer Socialist Party members. The British ILP (Independent LabourPart!r), founded in 1893, played an influential role in the creation ofthe Labour Party, to which it was affiliated and in which it usuallyoccupied a position on the left It voted to disaffiliate from the LabourParty in 1932, after which it flirted with the Stalinists and othercentrists before voting to return to the Labour Party in 1939.

389


206. 'Pilsudskism, Fascisrn, and the Character of Our Epoch."Intercontinental Press, March 1, 1971. Translated by George Saun-ders. In 1932 Trotsky found a copy of the stenogram of a speechhe had been permitted to make in July 1926 at a special commissionof the Comintern. The commission had been set up to consider mis-takes made by the Polish Communist Party that facilitated MarshalJosef Pilsudshi's seizure of power on May 12, 1926. Trotsky wrote anintroduction to the speech and printed both under the above title inBiulletm Oppozitsii numbers 29-30, September 1932. Seeking infor-mation about some of the Polish figures mentioned by Trotsky inthis and a subsequent article, nGreetings to the Polish Left Opposition,"August 31, 1932, the translator asked the help of Isaac Deutscher,who had been a young leader of the Polish Opposition in 1932 andhad published these articles by Tlotsky in Polish at that time. Ina letter shortly before his death in 1967, Deutscher supplied some ofthe information sought and an opinion about Tlotsky's political des-ignation of certain Polish Communist Party leaders (Warski, Kos-trzewa, Walecki, Leszczynski, Lapinski): "He [Ttotsky] was absolutelyright in the substance of the controversy, but in the personal char-acterization he allowed himse[ in the heat of battle, to make somepolemical overstatements. When you republish these remarks now,you ought to pay attention, in my view, to two circumstances: First,all these leaders whom Trotsky mentions were the founders of thePolish Communist Party, cofounders of the Communist International,active participants of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal movements, etc.

In 1925 they all protested, in the name of the Polish Central Commi'tee, against Stalin's and Zinoviev's first anti-Trotskyist campaigrr. Sec'

ondly, all of them perished in the Stalinist purges in 1938. Stalinnwer forgave them the protest against Tlotsky's treahnent. Theywere all denounced by Stalin as Trotskyists, spies, agents of the Polishpolitical policg etc., and have all been emphatically rehabilitated inthe post-Stalin era. Between 1925 and 1938, as emigres in the USSRthey did adjust themselves to the Stalin line. But they did so withmany mental reservations and with much anguish; and some ofthem, whenever they could, advised Polish Communists' coming toRussia on short trips, to work quietly within the Polish party againstthe Stalinist line. To describe them now, as Trotsky did in 1926 or1932, as 'Menshevik types' would be utterly wrong and unjust.Warski . . ., like Walecki, Lapinski, and Kostrzewa, were in the endBukharinists or near-Bukharinists, the leaders of the Right Oppositionin the party, but not Menshevik types. . . There is no need to blurover the political mistakes they all made in their quasi-Bukharinistperiod. But when one gives an appraisal of their activity three decadesafter their mart5rrdom, one should take into account the whole oftheir record, and not merely one part of it; and one should treatthem objectively and historically, without being too much affectedby an epithet Trotsky threw out in a particular situation. ." For adiscussion of Deutscher's differences with Tlotsky over the natureof the Pilsudski regimg see WritingE 34-35, note 56.


207. Adolf Warski (1870-193?), a close associate of Rosa Luxem-burg for almost 25 years, was a founder of the Social DemocraticParty of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), which was for a timeaffiliated to the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, on whosecentral committee he served. When the SDKPiL helped to form thePolish Communist Party in 1918 he became one of its chief leaders.

208. Wera I(ostrzerwa was a member of the Left Polish SocialistParty (Left PPS) which merged with the SDKPiL to form the PolishcP.

209. The PPS (Polish Socialist Party) was a reformist nationalistorganization founded by Pilsudski and others in 1892. A radicalwing, the Left PPS, split away and became an independent partyuntil it merged with the SDKPiL in 1918. Under Pilsudski's leader-strip the PPS moved to the righl becoming aggressively anti-Sovietafter World War I. After his coup in 1926, the PPS nominally wasin opposition, but did not conduct an active fight against his regime

210. Jacobing was the popular name for members of the Societyof the Frimds of the Constitution who provided the leadership ofthe French Revolution. The left-wing Jacobins (the Mountain) wereled by'Robespierre and Marat; the righfwing Jacobins (the Girond-ists) by Brissot; and the cenhists (the Plain) by Danton.

211. Maximilian Walecki (1877-193?) joined the PPS in 1895 andbecame a leader of the Left PPS after its split He became a leadingmember of the new Polish CP in 1918, author of its programmaticplafform and its representative to the Comintern-

212. Julian Leszcz5rnski (1890-193?), originally an SDKPiL leaderand then a major figure in the Polish CP, was, unlike many of hisPolish colleagues, a prominent Comintern spokesman during the"third period" and the early years of the People's Front, but he tooperished in the purges.

213. 'Intensify the Offensive!" Ihe Militang August 27, 1932. T\eincident referred to in this article occurred in Paris on July 28, 1932,at a public meeting on the German political crisis called by theFrench Communist Party. Left Oppositionists had announced that theywould attend and present their point of view. When they arrived, theywere greeted with the remark, "You'd better make sure you've someiodine and bandages on hand." When one of the speakers, PierreSemard, the Communist Party's general secretary, said a few wordsabout the united fronl the Oppositionists applauded. Semard thengave the order, "Throw them oufl" Some fifty Stalinists assaulted theOppositionists, kicking them in the head and stomach and beatingone unconscious, and threw them out. Maurice Ttrorez took the floor,raised his foot demonstratively, pointed to it and said, "This is themethod to deal with them." A report appeared in The Militant August20, L932.

2I4. 1\e Narodniks (Populists) were an organized movement ofRussian intellecfuals who saw the development of Russia in the lib-


eration of the peasanhy and conducted their activities among them.In 1879 the movement split into two parties, one of which was ledby Plekhanov, which split again, the Plel<hanov group becomingMarxist while the other wing evolved into the Social RevolutionaryParty,

2I5. G. Ii Ordzhonikidze (188G1937), an organizer of the Stalinfaction, was later put in charge of heavy industry. Although he remained a faithful Stalinist the circumstances around his death arestill not publicly known.

216. "Three Letters to Lazar Kling." By permission of the BundArchives of the Jewish Labor Movement, New York City. Trans-lated for this volume by Marilyn Vogt. Parts of these letters werecompiled into a question-and-answer article published under the title"On the 'Jewish Problem"' in Clase Struggle, February 1934, andreprinted in Leon Troteky on the Jervish Question (Pathfinder Press,1970); parts were also included by Joseph Nedava in his Trotskyand the Jors (Jewish Publication Society of America, L972)' LazatKling a journalist, had met Trotsky in New York in 1917 andin Moscow in the 1920s, where he became a sympathizer of the LeftOpposition before returning to the United States. In 1932 he cor-responded with Trotsky and became a member of the editorial boardof Unzer l(amf (Our Struggle), the Jewish-language paper of theCommunist League of America (1932-33); for a brief period hewas also a member of the CLA. He deposited four letters from Trot-sky at the Bund Archives; the fourth, dated January 28, 1934, willbe found in Writings 3334 (second edition).

217. "Perspectives of the Upturn.' The MilitanC August 12, 1933;the postscript was printed in Internal Bulletin, Communist Leagueof America, number 4, 1932.

218. Solomon Lozovsky (1878-1952) was in charge of the Profin-tern (Red International of Labor Unions). "Lozovsky's 'third peri-od'" refers to ultraleft and adventurist policies in the union movemenl Manuilsky's, to similar policies on the political arena. Lozov-sky was arrested and shot on Stalin's orders during an anti-Semiticcampaign.

219. BGO were the German initials of the Revolutionary TradeUnion Opposition, a small union federation organized by the Ger-man Communist Party in 1929 to compete with the ADGB (Gen-eral German Trade Union Federation, also called the free tradeunions), the major union federation, Ied by the Social Democrats.At the end of 1930 the ADGB had almost five million members.the RGO fewer than 150 thousand.

22O. Leaders of the Belgian Opposition at this time were play-ing a leading role in a militant mine shike in Charleroi


22I. B. J. Field had recently been expelled from the CLA in NewYork, and had gone to Turkey where he offered to collaborate withTrotsky on a number of projects.

222. "A Conversation with Trotsky." Die Linke Front (The LeftFront), December 1, 1932. TYanslated for this volume by Iain Fraser.An introductory note in this SAP journal stated that a member of itsstaff (Bergmann) had visited Trotsky in Prinkipo and preparedexcerpts from their discussion. Some of the formulations attributedto Trotsky are more one.sided than those he made in his own wri!ings at the time, but Trotsky himself certified in writing that Berg-mann had caught the gist of their conversation "broadly correctly,"

223. Jakob Walcher (1887- ) and Paul Froelich (1884-1953),founders of the German Cornmunist Party, became leaders of theKPO and then leaders of the SAP, which they joined in the springof 1932. After World War II, Walcher rejoined the Stalinists, hold-ing posts in East Germany, while Froelich, a biographer of RosaLuxemburg, died in West Germany.

224. Eirnst Thaelmann (1886-1945) was the leader of the GermanCommunist Party, its presidential candidate, and a supporter ofthe Comintern policies that led to Hitler's victory. Thaelmann wasarrested by the Nazis in 1933, and was executed at Buchenwaldin 1945. Paul Loebe, a Social Democrat who was president of theReichstag, 1924-32, had been suggested by the SAP and other fig-ures as a presidential candidate to be supported in the 1932 Germanelection by both the Social Democrats and the Communists. TheSPD preferred to support the incumbent Hindenburg, the CP ranThaelmann. and Loebe did not run.

225. Georg Ledebour (1850-1947) was a German Social Demo.crat who opposed World War I and became a founder of the cen-hist Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). He fought againstentry of the USPD into the Third International in 1920 but did notrejoin the SPD with the USPD in L922 and founded a new USPD.In 1931 he joined the SAP, where he opposed linking up with theLeft Opposition. He fled to Switzerland in 1933 and died there.

226. "Greetings to the Polish Left Opposition." Biulleten Oppozitsiinumbers 29-30, September 1932. Tlanslated for this volume byGeorge Saunders.

227. T\,e Tesniaki were a revolutionary tendency in the BulgarianSocial Democracy which took over leadership of the party in 1903and of the Bulgarian unions later. l)rey changed their name to theCommunist Party of Bulgaria in May 1919, two months after par-ticipating in the founding congress of the Comintern.

228. V. Kolarov (1877-1950), a Tesniaki leader, became a mem-ber of the presidium of the &ecutive Committee of the Communist


International, L92243, and president of the Krestintern (PeasantInternational), 1928-39; as a top leader of the Bulgarian govern-ment after World War II, he helped to arrange the Sofia equiva-lent of the Moscow trials, the Kostov purge. C'eorgi Dimihov ( 1882-1949), Bulgarian Communist Party leader, had emigrated to Germanyand was one of the defendants in the Reichstag fire trial set up bythe Nazis in 1933. He was acquitted, permitted to leave Germany,became a Soviet citizen and executive secretary of the Comintern,1934-43, and was premier of Bulgaria, 194649.

229. Sanislaw Lapfurski was a leader of the Left PPS and thePolish CP. In 1915-16 he had collaborated with Trotsky in Parison the antiwar paper Naehe Slovo ( Our Word).

230. "Fourteen Questions on Soviet Life and Morality." Liberty,January 14, 1933, where it appeared under the title "Is Soviet RussiaFit to Recognize?' This article was written during the 1932 elec-tion campaign, when recognition of the USSR was one of the cam-paign issues. United States recognition finally took place in Novem-ber 1933, sixteen years after the revolution.

231. Nadezhda Ii Krupskaya (1869-1939) was a leader of theBolshevik Party and the companion of Lenin.

232. Leonid Krasin (1870-1926), an associate of Lenin and aleader in the 1905 revolution, served the Soviet government in im-portant administrative and diplomatic posts, including commissarof foreign trade, 1922-24. In the interval between revolutions, hebecame a successful engineer.

233. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917.

234. 'Peasant War in China and the Proletariat." Ihe MilitantOctober 15, 1932. As Tlotsky said in the first paragraph, the Chi-nese Bolshevik-Leninists were beginning to recover from severe repression by the Kuomintang government.

235. The Lcft Opposition manifesto on China, cosigned and co-written by Trotsky, was published in September 1930 and is reprinted in Writings 30-31.

236. Nestor Makhno (1884-1934) headed peasant bands thatfought against Ukrainian reactionaries and the German occupationforces at the beginning of the civil war in Russia but by 1919 turnedagainst the Soviets; he was finally routed in 1921.

237. Victor Chernov (187G1952), a founder and leader of theSocial Rwolutionary Party (SRs), served as minister of agriculturein the Provisional Government after the February revolution, andopposed the October Revolution.

238. "'Do Not Ask So Long . .'n Osvobozhdenig September 30,1932. Tlanslated for this volume by Iain Fraser.


239. "From the Archives." Biulleten Oppoziteii, numbers 29-30,September 1932. Unsigned. Tlanslated for this volume by IainFraser.

24O. V.V. Osinrky (1887-1938) was a leader of the DemocraticCentralism opposition until 1923, then a member of the Left Op-position for a few years, and finally a supporter of the RightOpposition.

241. The Stalinists, including Molotov, had bitterly denouncedTlotsky for falsifying the history of 1917 when, in his pamphletLeseons of October (L924), Tlotsky told about the disorientationof the Bolshevik Party before Lenin's return to Russia in April.

242. Nikolai N. Sukhanov (1882-193?) was a Menshevik-Inter-nationalist during World War I and a member of the PetrogradSoviet Executive Committee. His book about the October Revolu-tion was translated into English under the title The Russian Revo-lution 1917. He was one of the defendants in the 1931 Mensheviktrial, last heard of in prison, where he complained that he had beendoublecrossed by the Stalinists, who had promised him that he wouldbe released from prison after a short while in rehrrn for his "con-fession" at the trial.

243, A second conference of the Zimmerwald movement was heldat Kienthal, Switzerland, at the end of April 1916, where Lenin'sviews prevailed.

244. Yakov M. Sverdlov (1885-1919), an Old Bolshevik, wasin charge of the organizational work of the Bolshevik Party bothduring the revolution and afterwards. He served as president ofthe Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.

245. "A Proposal to an American Editor." lhe Symposiurn, Oc-tober 1932. fire Symposium, an independent magazine edited byJames Burnham and Philip Wheelwright, had printed Burnham'slong and generally favorable review of lhe History of the RussianRevolution in its July 1932 issue. Burnham replied to Trotsky'sletter but evaded his proposal.

246. "For a Strategy of Action, Not Speculation." Class ShuggleJune 1933.

247. Franz von Papen (1879-1969) was a representative of theJunkers, the Prussian landed aristocracy. He was appointed chan-cellor of Germany by Hindenburg in June 1932 and helped Hitlerrise to power by dissolving the Social Democratic government ofPrussia. Replaced by Schleicher in December 1932, hebecame Hitler'svicechancellor in January 1933.

248. Wang Ming (1904- ) was one of a group of Chinesestudents in the Soviet Union during the Chinese revolution of1925-27. He returned to China in 1930, became the party's generalsecretary in 1931, and left for Moscow to become the Chinese dele


gate to the Comintern in 1932. Hecontinuedto be a literary spokes-man for Stalinist policies in China until he was stripped of all au-thority by Mao Tsetung in the early 1940s. He held nominal postsin the early days of the Mao regime after 1949, but in the mid-1950s moved back to Moscow where he now lives in o<ile.

249. While Tlotsky thought that mobilizing the masses for thewar against Japanese imperialism could not be the cmtral fisht-ing slogan of the revolutionaries in 1932, hedid put it in lirst placein 1937, when the second major phase of Japan's invasion of Chinabegan, and he carried on a bitter strggle against sectariians in andaround the Fourth Internationalist movement who refused to sup-port the Chinese side (see Wrltlngs 3?-88).

250. Ch'en Trr-helu (1879-1942), a leader of the Left Oppositioqwas a founder and leader of the Chinese Communist Party and fol-lowed Comintern policy in the Chinese revolution. In 1929 he published a letter to the Chinese Communists announcing his supportof the Left Opposition and errplaining his own part in the defeatof the Chinese revolution and the part played by Stalin andBukharin. He was imprisoned from 1932 to 1937 and his healthwas broken. He left the Tlotskyist movement while in pri:son andbecame something of a humani:st Social Democral but was not activein politics after his release His last years were devoted to literarywork, including an autobiography which dealt only with the yearsbefore the founding of the CP.

251. Alsander Martinov (1865-1935) was an et(treme right-wingMenshevik before 1917 and an opponent of the October Revolution.He joined the Russi,an Communist Party in 1923, and became anopponent of Ttotsky. He was a chief architect of the "bloc of fourclagses" in China, which sought to justify the Stalinist tactic of hav-ing the Chinese CP join the Kuomintang on the basis that the Kuomintang was a party of the'progressiven bourgeoisie

252. "Preface to the Polish &lition of Lenin's L€ft-Wing Gommu-nirn, an Infanfile Dlsorder.' the Conmunist (published by the Brit-ish Bolshevik-L€ninists), May 1 933.

253. Kurt noscnfeld (1877-1943), a well-known civilJiberties law-yer, was a left-wing leader of the German Social Democracy whowas expelled in 1931 and helped to found the SAP, of which hewas a leader for a short time

254. Dr. Joe€ph Kruk was the representative of a small group'the Independent Labor Party of Poland.

255. Frederick Adler (1879-1960) was the secretary of the AustrianSocial Democratic Party from 191 1 to 1916, when he assassinatedthe Austrian premier and was thrown in prison. Freed by the 1918revolution, he was a founder of the Tbo-and-a-half International,which he led back into the Second International in 1923, becom-ing secretary of the amalgamated body.

256. Paul von Schoenaich (188&1954) was a Junker naval of-ficer turned pacifist who wrote favorable articles on the Soviet Union.


257. Vallabhbhai Patel (1877-1950) was a right-wing leader ofthe Indian Congress Party and became a member of the govern-ment after the proclamation of India'a independence.

258. Wtlli Mumzenberg (1S8$1940), an organizer of the Com-munist Youth International and a loyal Stalinisl founded a wholestring of propaganda enterprises with Comintern money, includingnewspapers, magazines, a film company, a publishing housg etc.He continued his operations for the Comintern in paris after 1983,until he broke with its People's Front policy in 1gg7. He was founddead in mysterious circumstances after the Germans invaded France.

259. Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) was a German Social Demo.cratic deputy in the Reichstag when World War I broke out. Althoughhe followed SPD discipline in voting for war credits on Au-gust 4, 1914, he soon brokewith thewar policy and was imprisonedfor antiwar activity from 191G18, With Rosa Luxemburg, he foundedthe Spartakusbund, leading the November 1918 uprising with her.They were both assassinated by order of the Social Democratic gov-ernment

260. The Indepmdent Social Democratic Party (USPD) of Ger-many was founded in 1917 by cenhist elements from the SocialDemocratic Party. The majority of the USPD fused with the GermanCommunist Party in 1920. The minority continued as an indepen-dent organization adhering to the Tlvo-and-a-half International until1922, when it rejoined the SPD, with the o<ception of a small groupheaded by Ledebour.

261. Gaston Bergery (1892-1958), a French Radical Party poli-tician and "friend of the Soviet Union" in the 1930s, became a founderof the People's Front in 1935. Later he turned right and servedas an ambassador for Petain.

262. "Zgzag:s and Eclectic l.Tonsense" Btulleten Oppocibii, num-ber 31, Novernber 1932. Tlanslated for this volume by Tom ScotL

263. "Fifteen Years!" the Milttant November 12, L9&2.

264. "The TWelfth Plenum of the Cominternn 1teMilitanl Novem-ber 5, 1982. The plenum was held in Moscow, August 2?-Septem-ber 15, 1932.

265. ()tto Kuusinen (1891-1964) was a Finnish Social Democratwho fled to the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Finnish revo-lution in April 1918. He became a Stalinist spokesman and a secre-tary of the Comintern from 1922 to 1 931.

266. The German Stalinists dweloped an agitation for the "na-tional liberation" of Germany in order to compete with the Nazisas champions of German nationalism in opposition to the oppres-sive Versailles Treaty. Only the Nazis benefited from this competition.

357


267. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885' butit was only after 1920, under Gandhi, that it became a mass or-ganization of struggle against British domination. After India gained

political independence in 1947, it became the major political party'

268. "A Letter to Weisbord'' The Militant' December 31' 1932.Dissatisfied with Weisbord's reply to its criticisms, the National Com-mittee of the CLA suspended its negotiations with the CommunistLeague of Struggle at the end of October 1932.

269. "MiU as a Stalinist Agent." Biulleten Oppozitsii number 31,November 1932. Signed "G. G." Translated for this volume by lainFraser. Another translation appeared in lhe Militant' Novem-ber 12, 1932.

270. "The Lesson of Mill's Tleachery." Internal Bulletin, Commu-

nist League of America, number 6, January 15, 1933' Signed

"G. Gourov."271. Boris Souvarine (1893- ) was a founder of the French

Communist Party and one of the first biographers of Stalin. Hewas repelled by Stalinism in the 1920s and turned against Lenin-ism in the 1930s. For Ttotsky he was a prototype of the cynicismand defeatism that marked the renegades from Bolshevism.

272. 'The hpulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenw." Ihe Militant,November 12, 19, and 26' 1932.

273, Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed the Bolshevik decision tolaunch the insurrection in October 1917 and expressed their oppo-sition publicly. For this they were almost arpelled, but their viola-tions of discipline were overlooked when the insurrection was suc-

cessful.274. Aler<ander Tbiurupa was a deputy president of the Council

of People's Commissars under Lenin; in 1924, after Lenin's death,he became head of the State Planning Commission.

275. I[alter Cihine (188?- ) was general secretary of the Brit-ish Ttades Union Congress, 192G46. For his services to Britishcapitalism he was knighted in 1935 and made a baronet in 1946.

276. Nikolai A. Uglanov, a Stalinist who rose to high rankthrough his anti-Trotskyist zeal and then became a Right Oppo-sitionist, was dropped from the Central Committee in 1930 andcapitulated. Implicated in tHl Riutin case in 1932' he capitulatedagain. In the end he disappeared in the purge. M. N. Riutin' an-

other leader of the anti-Trotskyist crusade in Moscow, was also removed from some of his posts in 1930 for sympathy for the RightOpposition. At the end of 1932 he was arrested and o<pelled from


the party for circulating a plafform critical of Stalin that advocatedreform, through party and constitutional channels, of the party andthe economy. He was specifically charged with holding discussionswith Bukharinists and Zinovievists. Agiforop, Departnent of Agi-tation and Propaganda, was set up as a departnent under the Sec-retariat of the Russian Communist Party in September 1920; itsjurisdiction was o<panded through the twenties to include the pressand publishing houses, religion, etc.

277. Slepkov was a Bukharin supporter. Maretsky, a professor,was accused of er<pounding neo-Populist ideas in the university andthe press.

278. Andrei Bubnov (1883-193?), an Old Bolshevik who wasassociated with the group of Democratic Centralism and other op-positionist groups, as early as 1923 dropped all of them and linedup with Stalin. He was a victim of the purge of the Stalinist appara-hrs at the end of the thirties.

279. "On Field and Weisbord." Internal Bulletin, Communist Leagueof America, number 4, 1932. This letter was in response to oneTlotsky got from the CLA National Committee that had criticizedhis procedure in relation to Weisbord and Field, printed in ttre samebulletin After this reply was received, the National Committee saidit was satisfied and was dropping the matter. Many years laterJames P. Cannon, then national secretary of the Socialist WorkersParty, still recalled the "happy day when we got that letter," becausefor him it meant that in the Left Opposition the relations betweennational sections and the international leadership would not resemblethat dweloped in the Comintern after Lenin ("Internationalism andthe SWP,' May 18, 1953, in his book Speecheg to the party, Path-finder Press, 1973).

280. A" J. Muste (1885-1967), a Protestant minister and pacifistwho became involved in the labor movement during World War I,was a founder in 1929 of the Conference for Progressive LaborAction (CPLA) to promote militancy, union democracy, and indus-trial unionism inside the American Federation of Labor. In 1933the CPLA organ2ed the American Workers Party, a cenhist groupmoving to the lefl At the end of 1934, the AWP merged with theCLA to form the Workers Party of the United States, of which Mustewas secretary. In 1936, after the WPUS had voted to enter the So-cialist Party, Muste broke with Marxism and returned to pacifismand the church. In the 1950s he was one of the few to defend vic-tims of the witch-hunt and helped form the American Forum forSocialist Education to encourage systematic exchange of radical views.In the 1960s he played a leading role in building the anti-war movement

281. "The Soviet Economy in Danger." The Militan! Novem-ber 12, 19, and 26, 1932; December 3, 17, and 31, 1g32; and Jan-


uary 7, 1933; also included in a 1933 Pioneer Publishers pamphletof the same name.

282. Sydney Webh (1859-1947) was the chief English theoreticianof gradualism and a founder of the Fabian Society. He and hiswife, Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943), coauthored numerous bookson trade unionism and cooperation, one of which Lenin translatedinto Russian. They became apologists for Stalinism in the 1930swithout ceasing to be reformists and patriots.

283. Valerian V. Kuibyshw (1888-1935)' Old Bolshevik, helda variety of posts before becoming chairman of the Supreme Coun-cil of National F,conomy in 1926, from which post he served as aIeading spokesman for the Stalinist economic policies. Although hewas a dedicated Stalinist, he met with a mysterious death.

284. Gregory Sokolnikov (1888-1939), another Old Bolshevik'filled diplomatic and military posts after the revolution; for a tirnehe supported the Zinoviev opposition on the issue of the party regime He was framed up in the second Moscow trial in 1937 anddrew a prison term.

285. Eugene A. heobrazhensky (188&1937), a secretarv of theBolshevik Central Committee, l920-2t, wrote The Ncnr Economicsin 1926, a creative analysis of the problems facing the Soviet econ-

omy. A Left Oppositionist, he was o<pelled from the party in 1927'readmitted in 1929, o(pelled again in 1931, again readmitted. Hislast public appearance was at the Seventeenth Congress in 1934.During the purges he refused to make a confession and was shotwithout a trial.

286. "Leninism and Stalinism." Ihe Militant, April 15, 1933. WhenLouis Fischer's article, "Ttotsky's World Revolution,n appeared inCurrent History, September 1932, B. J. Field, who was then visit-ing Trotsky in Prinkipo, persuaded Trotsky to answer Fischer inthe form of an interview. On October 7, 1932, Tlotsky wrote a let-ter to Field, in which he said, "You undertake to introduce a littleclarity into the question concerning the struggle behreen the factionof Stalin and that faction of Bolshwism to which I myself belong.It is not an easy task; the Soviet Union has fortunately many friendsin the world. Not a few friends has also the Stalinist faction. . .

Your article, written with a full knowledge of the literature of thequestion, can undoubtedly serve to eliminate some conscious or un-conscious confusion. Precisely for this reason, I give with full willing-ness answers to the questions which you asked me. I do not doubtthat there wilI be some publications in America with sufficiently largepolitical interests to give a place to your article For my parl Iwill await with the greatest interest what the opponents will say con-cerning the inventions which you have refuted and the facts whichyou have established." (Nov International Bulletin, January 1936'in an article by Field, "Sectarianism, Centrism and Tlotsky.") Fieldwidently was unable to place the interview with the magazines heapproached, because in the end it was printed only in lhe Militant


287. Louis Fischer (1896-1970) was a European correspondentfor Ihe Nation, serving chielly in the Soviet Union, and authorof several books on European politics. Trotsky viewed him as anapologist for the Stalinists.

288. "Greetings to The Milttant" The Mtlttant November 26, t932.289. Herbert Hoover (L874-I9M) was the Republican president

soon to be defeated in the November 1932 elections by DemocratFranklin Boosevelt (1882-1 945).

290. "Perspectives of American Marxism." Ihe Milttant, Decem-ber 31, 1932; a revised translation byJohnG. Wright is taken fromFourth International, Fall 1954.

291. V. F. Calverton (1900-1940), a radical writer, was editorof The Modern Monthly, which printed several articles by Trotskyuntil 1937, when Tlotsky broke off relations because of its attitudetoward the role played by Carleton Beals in the Dewey Commis-sion hearings on the Moscow trials (see Writings 3?-38).

292. Nornan Thomas ( 1884-1969) was the Socialist Party'spresidential candidate in 1928 and in the subsequent electionsthrough 1{X.8.

293. Walter Durant5z (1884-1957) was a New York Times Moscowcorrespondent for years and an apologist for the Stalinist policies.

294. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) was a major figure in theGerman working<lass movement, establishing the General GermanWorkers Union. His followers joined the early Marxists in found-ing the German Social Democracy.

295. Max Eastnan (1883-1969), editor of lhe Masses before WorldWar I, was an early sympathizer of the Russian Left Oppositionand translator of several of Trotsky's books. His rejection of dialec-tical materialism in the 1920s was succeeded by his rejection of so-cialism in the late 1930s. He became an anti-Communist and aneditor of Beader's Digest

296. The First International (International Workingmen's Asso-ciation), under the tutelage of Marx and Engels, was founded inLondon in 1864. Its center was moved to the United States afterthe defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871; its last conference washeld in Philadelphia in 1876.

297. "To Friends in Frankfurl" Biulleten Oppozitsii, number 32,December 1932. Tlanslated for this volume by A. L, Preston.

298. "Field's Fufure Role." Internal Bulletin, Communist Leagueof America, number 4, L932. On his refurn to the United States,Field renewed relations with the CLA, was readmitted to member-ship and became a writer on economic questions for The MilitantHe was enpelled again early in 1934 for violating discipline duringa hotel strike in New York.


299. "Stalin Again Testifies Against Stalin." Blulleten Oppozitsiinumber 32, December 1932. Signed "Alpha." Translated for thisvolume by Tom Scotl Tlotsky returned to Stalin's 1920 speech

in his article, \Mhat is Historical Obiectivity?' April 1, 1933 (see

Wridnge 32-33). He also used most of the present article for hischapter on "How the October Insurrection Actually Took Place,'March 3, 193?, in the American edition of the Stalin School ofFalsification.

300. Yakov Yakovlev (1896-1939), who ioined the BolshevikParty in 1913, was a chief right-wing spokesman in the Ukrainein 1918 and later an ardent supporter of Stalin against the Opposition He, along with many other Stalinists in the apparafus, van-ished during the purges.

301. The Democratic Conference, like the heparliammt which wasset up by i! was an effort by the Mensheviks and Social Rwolu-tionaries to find a new base of popular support outside of the Soviets after the Soviets had begun to reject them and furn towardthe Bolsheviks in the weeks before the overthrow of the ProvisionalGovernment It proved fruitless.

302. The tecollections ol 1924" are Trotsky's short book whichwas republished in 1971 with a new translation by Tamara Deutscherunder the title Lenin: Notes for a Biographer. See page 96 for Lenin'sremark on the day of the insurrection.

303. 'A Suppressed Speech of Lenin." Biulleten Qppozitsit, number32, December 1932. Unsigned. Tlanslated for this volume by TomScott; the first part was printed in International Socialfut Revior,May 1970. As of 1973 Lenin's speech of June 17, L92L, still remainssuppressed in the Soviet Union.

304. The lhird World Congress of the Communist International,held in Moscow JuneJuly 1921, took place after a shift in the inter-national situation which, in the opinion of Lenin and Tlotsky, re-quired that the revolutionary movement develop defensive tactics,learn how to promote the united front, win over the ranks of thereformist and centrist organizations, etc. This put them in oppositionto ulhaleft currents in the Comintern, but they succeeded in winninga majority at the congress for their "right-wing" position. Ttre March1921 events were a series of uprlsings in the cenhal provinces of Ger-many in isolation from the workers in the rest of the country. TheGerman Communist Party intervened in these uprisings and triedto carry them further than the situation allowed; their delegates atthe congress hoped it would gloss over or approve their adventur-istic errors.

305. Marcel Cachin (1869-1958) and Louis.Olivier Froesard (1889-1946) were leaders of the French Communist Party who came froma parliamentary background in the Socialist Party; their opportunismrankled members of the French delegation at the Third Congress,


who represented the younger, more revolutionary ranks of the party.306. Bela Kun (188&1939) was a leader of the Hungarian rev-

olution of 1919 and head of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet re.public. Moving to Moscow, he became a Comintern functionary, notedfor a bent toward ultraleftism. He was reportedly shot by the Stalinregime during its purge of Communist er<iles in the late 1930s.

307. M. Laportg who Trotsky says later became a fascist, was theleader of the French Young Communist League in 1921. In The FirstFive Years of the Communist International, Trotsky gave the fol-lowing account of his exchange with Laporte: "On that occasion Iasked one of our young friends [Laporte]: 'What is your opinion,should the draftees resort to armed or purely passive resistance?'And the comrade vehemently replied, 'Naturally, with revolver inhand.' He supposed that he was thus manifesting his complete agreement with the Third International; that he was thus giving the ThirdInternational the greatest revolutionary happiness and that he wasfulfilling his duty by speaking as he did. He meant it quite seriouslyand he was unconditionally ready to fight the draft with revolver inhand. Naturally we poured a bucket of ice water over him and Ibelieve the comrade will learn better" (volume I, p. 276).

308. The TVo'and-a-half International (or International Associ-ation of Socialist Parties) was formed in February 1921 by centristparties and groups that had left the Second International under pres-sure from the revolutionary masses. While criticizing the SecondInternational, its leaders did not have a basically different orientation;in May 1923 they reunited with iL

309. Georgi V. Chicherin (1872-1936), who had been a diplomatin'the czarist ministry, supported the Social Revolutionaries in the1905 revolution and was forced to emigrate. Refurning to Russia inJanuary 1918, he became a Bolshevik, succeeding Trotsky as com-missar of foreign aflairs in 1918 and serving in this post until 1930.

310. Vladimir Adoratsky (1878-1945), an Old Bolshwik, workedin the Commissariat of Education and at the University of Kazanbefore replacing Ryazanov in the Man<-Engels Institute.

311. David B. Byazanov (1870-193?), historian and philosopher,was a Menshevik-Internationalist during World War I and joinedthe Bolsheviks in 1917. He organized the Marx-Engels Instifute andwithdrew from political activity. But his scholarly and scrupulousattitude toward party history made him offensive to Stalin, whoordered him to be implicated rvith the defendants at the 1931 "Men-shevik trial." He was dismissed as director of the Marx-Engels Instituteand o<iled to Saratov. Trotsky gives 1933 as the year of his death;others subsequently have set it as 1935 and 1938.

312. "To Greek Friends En Route to Copenhagen." Pali TonTbkseon, December 3, 1932. Translated for this volume by GerryFoley. A Social Democratic shrdent organization in Copenhagen hadinvited Trotsky to give a lecture on the Russian Revolution in No-

403

404 Writings of Leon Tiotsky (1932)

vernber 1932. He accepted, hoping that he might get a visa for anextended period from Denmark or another country. The Danish So-

cial Democratic government gave him a visa for only eight days.He and his party sailed from Turkey on November 14. When hisship stopped at Greeh ports of call, he was denied permission to goashore; the government's pretext was a threatened Stalinist demon-shation, which did not take place A pro-Tlotsky demonstration didtake place, however, at Piraeus, and another took place at night whenthe ship passed through the Corinthian canal. Trotsky's letter refersto the latter, when shouts-"Long live Ttotsky! Long live the Com-mune!"-could be heard all along the canal.

313. "Press Statement at Marseilles." The New York Times, Novem-ber 22, 1932. The Timee' translation,whichwasnot altogether com-plete, has been compared with the French original, by permissionof the Harvard College Library, and corrected slightly. Ttre Frenchauthorities intercepted Trotsky and his party on the steamship Pragashorfly before it reachd the harbor of Marseilles and sped themacross France by car and train to Dunkirk for another ship thatwould take them to Denmark. By this timethe French press was in anuproar of rumor, speculation, and denunciation. The French author-ities suggested that Ttotsky prepare a press statement that they couldgive the reporters, who were angry at the government for preventingthem from interviewing Trotsky.

314. Jan Frankel, a Czech Oppositionist starting in 1927, becamea member of Trotsky's secretariat and guard in 1930. He was theonly other wihress besides Tlotsky at the April 1937 hearings on theMoscow trials conducted by the Dewey Commission (see The Careof Leon Troteky). (Xto Schueaeler, of Leipzig, also was known asOskar Fischer. Holding that the Soviet Union had become fascist,he broke with the Fourth International after World War II. PlerreFrad( ( 190e. ) was then a member of the Communist Leagueof France, and later of the International and United.Secretariatg ofthe Fourth Internationatr, He was'a reretary of Trotsky from 1932to 1933. Hts brief history of the Fourth International Le QuahtemeIntcrnatlonale (Maspero, 1969), was serializd in English in Intcr-contlnental hece, March l3June 5, 1972.

315. 'Press Statement on Leaving Dunkirk." By permission of theHarvard College Library. Translated for this volume by DavidThorstad.

316. 'Press Statement on Reaching Esbjerg." By permission of theHarvard College Library. Translated for this volume by Allen Myers.This was prepared in German for Trotsky's arrival at the port ofEsbjerg, Denmark.


317. "An Interview by Social-Demokraten." Intercontinental hess,October 30, L972. Translated by David Thorstad. The intervieqrwas obtained by Henrik Rechendorf on the train that was takingTrotsky, Natalia Sedova, and theL friends from Esbjerg to Copm-hagen, and appeared in the November 24, 1932, issue of the Copen-hagen paper Social-Demokraten

318. "An Intervierp by Politiken"" Intercontinental hess, October30, 1972. Translated by David Thorstad. This intervierv, also heldon the train trip from Esbjerg to Copenhagen, appeared in the Danishpaper Politiken on November 24, 1932.

319. Johan Mowinckel (1870-1943) was the prime minister orminister of foreign afrairs for most of the period between World War Iand 1935.

320. Jean Jaures (1859-1914), prominent French socialist and out-standing orator, was assassinated on July 31, 1914.

321. 'Radio Message to the United States." By permission of theHarvard College Library. An incomplete and overedited version ofthis speech was printed in lteMittant, DecemberS, 1932. Tlotsky'sarrival in Denmark on November 23 was greeted by blasts from amember of the Danish royal family, the Soviet ambassador and theDanish Stalinists. His activities in Copenhagen therefore were restrict-ed, but he made maximum political use of time there. In additionto his speech to the shrdents on November 27,he made a radiospeech and a short propaganda film as well as holding politicaldiscussions with a number of his comrades from various parts ofEurope and bying to find ways of er<tending his visa. The speechto America, the first he had wer given in English, was hansmittedover radio by the Columbia Broadcasting System.

322. Trotsky's figures for the Civil War casualties were wrong;the official estimate is almost a half a million.

323. "Questions for Communists.' Translated for this volume byPatti Iiyama from a sound film. While in Copenhagen, Tlotsky gavea short propaganda speech, in both French and Germarq which wasrecorded on film. The translation here is from the French version.Its objective was to reach members of the Communist parties and topose questions that could help them to learn what the Left Oppositionreally stood for.

324. "To an Unknown Comrade." From lte Case of Leon Trotsky,pages 274-5. A British visitor to Copenhagen, Ilarry Wicks, toldTtotsky that he had contacts with Russians in London, and theyhad connections in the Soviet [Jnion, but that they did not have thenecessary confidence in him, even though they sympathized with the

405


Left Opposition and understood he was a member. Trotsky wrotethis letter and gave it to Wicks for possible help with his work amongRussians in London.

325. I"ranz Pfemfert (1879-1954), editor of Die Aktion (Action)'1911-32, one of the most important publications of German Expres-sionism, was active in the Spartakusbund, then in the KAPD, and in1926 initiated the Spartakusbund II which was dissolved n L927.Alexandra Ramrn, his wife, translated Trotsky's works into German.Both of them were his friends, not political associates. Anton Gry-lewicz was a leading Oppositionist in Germany, listed in BiulletenOppozitsii then being published in Berlin, as its nofficial editor."

326, "Literary Projects and Political Considerations." By permissionof the Harvard College Library. This statement for the press wastranslated from the French for this volume by Michael Baumann.

327. Prince Lothar von Metternich (1773-1859), Austrian ministerof foreign affairs, 1809-48, organized the Holy Alliance of Aushia-Hungary, Russia, and Prussia in 1815, with the aim of maintainingcontrol of Europe following the French Revolution and Napoleonicwars. The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italywas formed in 1882. Counterposed to it was the Tiiple Entente ofBritain, Russia, and France, formed in 1907. The two rival blocsmaintained a balance of power in Europe up to World War L

328. "On Students and Intellectuals." Intercontinental Press, No-vember I3, 1972. Ttris interview by students who had invited himto Copenhagen first appeared in the December 9, 1932, issue of the

Studenterbladet It was reprinted in the March 1937 issue of FjerdeInternationale (Fourth International), from which this translation byDavid Thorstad was made.

329. Philip Snowden (1864-1937), chairman of the British Indepen-dent Labour Party, 1903-06 and L9l7-2O, left the ILP in 1927 tojoin the Labour Party, which he left in 1931 when he supported Mac-Donald's "national unity" government.

330. "A Bolshevik-Leninist Declaration on Comrade Trotsky's Jour-ney." Biulleten Oppozitsii, number 32, December 1932. Unsigned.Translated for this volume by Fred Buchman. Trotsky's efforts toget his visa extended gained him only an additional two days. Oneof the factors that worked against these efforts was the November 27announcement in Moscow, through Tass, the Soviet press agency,that Trotsky was using his stay in Copenhagen to hold a secret"international T!otskyist conference."

331. Mikhail V. Kobetsky (1881-1937), an Old Bolshevik, in theearly years after the revolution served on the &ecutive Committeeof the Comintern; subsequently he was placed in the diplomatic ser-


vice. Als<andra M. Kollontai (1872-1952), a popular Bolshevikagitator during the 1917 revolution, supported the ultraleft WorkersOpposition in the early postrevolution years; she separated from allopposition movements before the decisive struggle against the LeftOpposition, and became part of the apparatus. Her first post afterthe revolution was commissar of social welfare. Following that, thefirst woman in the world to be an ambassador, she filled a seriesof ambassadorial posts for a quarter-century, and escaped the purgethat caught practically all who had been prominent in the early days.

332. "Answers to Journalists' Questions.' Biulleten Oppozitsii, num-ber 32, December 1932. Ttanslated for this volume by Iain Fraser.

333. 'An Open Letter to Vandervelde.' Biulleten Oppozitsii, num-ber 32, December 1932. Translated for this volume by GeorgeSaunders. Another translation appeared in The Militant Jan-uary 7, 1933. When Trotsky's ship back to T\rrkey stopped at Ant-werp, it found the harbor cordoned off by police. The incident re.minded Trotsky of the time n L922 when the noted Belgian SocialDemocrat Emile Vandervelde had been permitted to enter the SovietUnion to act as defense attorney for forty-seven Social Revolution-aries on trial for terrorist acts, On that occasion Vandervelde wrotean open letter to Trotsky, which had remained unanswered. Lookingout at the cops on the Antwerp docks, Trotsky decided to send anopen letter of his own to Vandervelde, who was now president ofthe Second International.

334. Under Soviet law either partner in a marriage could takethe name of the other, or both could keep their own names. Forcitizenship requirements Tlotsky had taken the name of Sedov fromhis wife, long before he was exiled. It was this name that appeardon his passporl

335. "A Telegram to Herriol" the Militant January L4, 1932,in an article titled "From Istanbul to Copenhagen." When Trotskygot back to Marseilles, the police tried to ship him off immediatelyon an Italian freighter, contrary to other anangements that hadbeen made and approved. In addition to this telegram to Herriot, hesent telegrams to the French premier and his minister of the interiorand the leaders of the French Communist and Socialist parties.

336. "Press Statement at Brindisi" By permission of the HarvardCollege Library. Translated from the French for this volume byMichael Baumann. The Italian government granted Trotsky per-mission to enter Italy, and the trip continued to Venice and thento the southeastern port city of Brindisi

407


33?. "Press Statement at Istanbul." An Associated Press dispatchfrom Istanbul, in the New York Times, December 12, 1932, underthe title "Trotsky at Istanbul; Thanks T\rrks for Ttip"' He did notwrite a short book on his Copenhagen trip, as he said he wouldin the Iast sentence of this press statement; his daughter Zinaida wasto commit suicide a few weeks later. And he found it more usefulto turn his attention to the coming international conference of theLeft Opposition, which coincided with Hitler's victory in Germany,the event which opened an entirely new chapter in his life.

338. "Interview on 'Proletarian Literature"' by Maurice Parijanine.La Lutte de Classes (Class Struggle), June 15, 1932. Translatedfor this volume by Richard Fidler. Ttre French writer and trans-lator Parijanine visited Trotsky in Prinkipo in connection with histranslation of The History of the Russian Revolution.

339. Oktyabr (October), a Soviet literary group formed rn L922,began publication of the monthly journal of the same name in 1924.Aler<ander Serafirnovich (1863-1949) was a prerevolutionary writerassociaJed with Maxim Gorky; his book, Zhelez,ny potok (Torrentof Iron), was published rn1924.

340. Jules Valles (1832-1885), a participant in the Paris Com-mune, wrote a trilogy, Jacques Vingtras, of which the third volumeis I'Insurge (1886). It is now available in English as The Insur-rectionist (Prentice Hall, 1 971 ).

Abramovich, R., 63, 374n.Adler, A., 63, 373n.Adler, F., 224,396n.Adoratsky, V., 310, 403n.Agabekov, 67, 71, 124-25, t67,

375n.Alfonso XIIL 369n.Amsterdam International ( Inter-

national Federation of TradeUnions), 114, 383n.

Andreyev, A., 362Anglo-Russian Trade Union Uni-

ty Committee, 97, 1^O2, 116,ll9, 247, 297, 327, 374n., 387

Antilmperialist League, 116,383n.

Archio-Marxists ( Greece), lO2,38 1n.

Austrian Communist Party Oppo-sition ( Frey group), 101, 381

Averbach, L., 144, 147, 388n.

Baldwin, S.,40, 369n.Barbusse, H., 113-15, 124, l5l,

153, 181, 223-24, 349, 382n.,389

Beals, C., 401Bebel, A., 132-33, 318, 386n.Bedny, D., 144-47, 388n.Bergery, G.,226,397n.Bergmann, 176-78,393Bernstein, 8., 23, 133, 206, 348,

364n.Bessedovsky, 67 , 167 , 37 5n.Bezymensky, A., 147, 388n.

INDEX

Butov, G., 15, 359n.Byron, G., 186

409

Black Hundreds, 146, 374,388n.Blumkin, J., 15, 71, 724, 237,

359n.Boettcher, P., 120, 384n.Bolshevik-Leninists, see ILOBolsheviks, 26, 35, 38, 54, 60,

123-24, t28, 131-32, 139-41,143, 166, r77, 200, 288, 302,322, 33O, 340, 366n., 385

Bonapartism, 20, 68, 69, 213,363n., 368

Borchardt, J., 22, 364n.Bordiga, A., 381Bordigists (Prometeo group, It-

aly), 102-3, 381n.Bossuet, 355Brandler, H., 21, 23, 65,97, 118-

20, 228, 363n.Brandlerites ( KPO, Germany), 21,

22, 105, 108, 120, 222,229,291, 363n., 381

Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, 90,129, 378n.

Briand, 4., 49, 151, 37 1n.Brown, J., 188Bruening, H., 13, 31, 48, 49,53,

63, 368n.Bubnov, 4.,249,399n.Buchner, H., 82Buechner, J., 122-23, 125, 384n.Bukharin, N., 34, lO8, 245,248-

50, 253, 3O7, 352,369n., 378,384

Burnham, J., 365, 383, 395

4r0 Writings of Leon Trotskg (1932)

Cachirr M.,306,308-9,402n. 48, 49, 70, 77, 83, 122, 176-Cadets (Constitutional Democratic 77, 228-30, 234, 306, 359, 364,

Party, Russia), 123,368, 385n. 374, 375, 384€6, 397,4O2; In-Calverton, V.,293,301,401n. dia, 234; Poland, 156-58, 165,Cannorq J., 365, 380, 399 180€1, 234, 390-91, 393; U. S.,

Catholic Center Party ( Germany), 96, 123, 17 l, 177 , 217 -18, 294-368 95, 299, 380; USSR, L2,32,

Centrism, 64, 105, 1O9,116,223, 156, 158, 167, 2O7,2I8,326,248,374n. 357-58

CGT (General Confederation of Conradi, 129,386n.Labor, France), 365 Conservative Party (Britain), 369-

CGTU ( Unitary General Confed- 70eration of Labor, France), 24,114, 365n. Daladier, 8., 375

Chamberlain, A.,370 Dan, F., 63, 123, 200,374n.Chamberlain, J.,48, 370n. Delfossg H., 28, 368n.Chamberlairl N., 370 Deutscher, I., 390Charleroi Federation (Belgium), Deutscher, T., 4O2

102, 381n. Dewey Commissio4 378, 4OI,4O4Charti3m,95, 380n. Dimitrov, G., 180,394n.Ch'enTu-hsiu,219,396n. Dmitriwsky, 67,375n.Chernov, V., 199, 394n. Dollfuss, E., 13Chiang Kai-shek, 15, 60, 65, 66, Duranty, W., 297,40ln.

121, 138, 168, 198-99, 2L2-14, Dzerzhinsky, F., 136,387n.225,359n.

Chicherin, G., 309, 403n. Eastmarl M., 299, 401n.Christian Social ParW (Austria), Engels, F., 23, l7O, 297, 299,

13 348-50,364n.Churchill, W., 40, 80, 205, 369n. Entente, 50, 329, 37ln.Citrine, W., 247, 398n.Comintern, see Thirdlnternational Farmer-Labor Party (U. S.), 380Communist International, see Faure P., 365

Third International Federated Farmer-Labor PartyCommunist League of America, ( U. S.), 3S0

24, 44,94,98, 1041, llI, L75, Felix,24,2&30, 36b,368236, 255-57, 301, 357, 365, Field, B., 175,255-57,301,393n.,369, 37r, 379€0, 382, 392, 399401398-99, 401 First International, 297, 299, 363,

Communist League of France, 24, 401n.2630, lO2,240-4I,367,391 Fischer, L., 285, 287,29O,297,

Communist League of Struggle 400,401n.( U. S.), 104, 366, 379, 398 Flaubert, c., 355

Communist parties: Britain, 96, Ford, H., 1889?; China, 10, 178, 192, 197, Fotieva. 167199, 200, 215-18, 359, 362, Foucs,26364, 396; Denmark, 335-36, Fourth International, 11, 358-59,338; France, 30, 114, 168,234, 361,372,382307€, 3?9, 391; Germany, 12, Frank. P.,312,328,404n.

Inder 4Ll

Frankel, J.,312,4O4n. ILP (Independent Labour Party,Franklin, B., 188 Britain), 153, 179, 389n., 406Freemasons, I8l, 223,226, 229 Independent Labor Party (Po-Frey, J., 101, 381n. land), 396Froelich, P., 176, 363, 393n. Independent Labour Party (Brit-Frossard, L., 306,402n. ain), see ILP

Independent Social DemocraticGandhi, M., 153, 372, 389n., 398 Party (Germany), see USPDGlasser, 167 International Communist League,Glotzer, 4.,25,255, 366n. 358Gorelov, 249 International Federation of TradeGorkin, J.,99, 256-57, 381n. Unions, see Amsterdam Inter-Gorky, M., 19, t4445, 147,153, national

296,303, 362n.,408 International Labor DefenseGorsky, S., 208 ( U. S.), 375GPU, 16, 20, 249, 341, 36On., International Left Opposition, see

363,387 rLOGruenstein" 124 International Red Aid. 74, 375n.Grylewicz, A., 328, 388, 406n.

Jacobins, 159, 161, 289, 391n.Hegel, G., 295 Jaures, J., 318, 405n.Herriot, 8., 12, 15I,225-26, 345, Jewish Bund, 26, 366n.

389n. Jewish group (of the CommunistHillquit, M., 109, 294,382n. League of France), 25-28, 30,Hindenburg P. von, 12, 13,75, 365,366n.

150, 176,389n.,395Hitler, A., 11-13, 15, 3L, 32, 6I, Kabakchiev, 180

70, 7782, 150, 176, 213, 232, Kaganovich, L.,22, 69, 147,266,266, 287, 359n., 375, 377,389, 273,362,364n.395 Kalinin, M., 65, 270, 362, 374n.

Hoffmann, M., 129, 386n. Kamenev, L., 9, 13, 19, 34, 108,Hoglund, C.,22, 364n. 135, 2034, 2lO, 24448, 25O-Hohenzollerns, 128, 386n. 52,303, 362n.. 384.398Hoover, H.,292,4O1n. Kautsky, K., 63, 131-35, 188,Hutten, U. von, 142,388n. 206,373n.

Keen, 55Ibsen, H., 350 Kellogg F., 151, 389n.ILO ( International Left Opposi- Kellogg Pact, 154, 389n.

tion, Bolshevik-Leninists), 10- Kerensky, A., 33, 123-24, 2OO,13, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27,28, 303,368n.,38544, 74, 75, 84, 91, 93, 99-109, Khrushchev, N., 364, 368lL7-12, l2l-22, 124-26, L43, Kirov, S., 362150, 154, 167-68, l7O.71, 175, Kling L., 169-71, 392n.180, 192, 205-6, 228-30, 237- Klyuev, N., 145,388n.39, 24143, 256-57, 259, 291, Ko Lin,216300, 305, 326, 328,330, 335- Kobetsky, M., 336,40Gn.37, 339, 358n., 359, 364, 368, Koenen, 1 18372,4OB Kolarov, V.. 180. 393n.

4L2

Kollontai, A., 336, 407n.Kossior, S., 362Kostrzewa, W., 156, 180, 390,

391n.KPO, see BrandleritesKrasin L., 190, 394n.Krestintern (Peasant Internation-

al), 394Kreuger, I.,85, 186€7, 378n.Kruk, J.,221, 396n.Krupskaya, N., 190, 394n.Kuibyshw, V., 264, 362, 4OOn.

Kun, B., 307-9,403n.Kuomintang ( China), 65,97,lO2,

104, r11, 116, 156, L98, 212-L5, 219, 247, 374n.

Kuusinerl O., 233-35, 397n.

L. group (Germany), 92, 379n.Labour Party (Britain), 96, 97,

370,389Landau, K., 28, 99, 100, 102,

107, 109, 240, 242, 256, 36?n.Lapinski, S., 180, 390, 394n.Laplace, P.,273Laportg M., 308,403n.Lassalle, F., 297, 40ln.League of Nationg lO, L2,76, 86,

151, 154-55, 370-?1, 376n.Ledebour, G., L79, 22L, 393n.,

397Left Opposition: Austria, 127,L}O,

367, 379; Belgium, 102, 381n.;Bulgaria" 91, 375; China, 192,199, 200-1, 2L9-2O,394; Ger-many, 83, 367,375; Greece,29,102, 381; Italy, 103; Polan4180€1; Spairu 24t42, 381;uss& r5-r7, 2r,29, 33, 36-4L, 43, 45, 48,52, 6466, 69,7 t, 72, 119, 146, L56, 240, 245-5r, 253-54, 266, 281, 28849,292, 327, 357-58, 369

Left Radicals ( Germany), 22,364n.

Leniru V., 9, 16, 20, 33, 34, 37-40, 47,51, 64, 70,71,86, 90,92, l08-9, 123, 128€6, 138,

Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

t4t42, L46, 153, 156, t67,170, 190, 199, 203-10, 221-23,226-27, 232, 239,24445, 266,28547,302€, 310, 316, 318-L9, 322, 327, 340, 352, 358,360n., 366, 378-79, 38485,394, 399,402

Leszczynski, J., 162, 390, 391n.Liberal Party (Britain), 50, 369-

70Liebknecht, K, 226, 364, 386-

87, 397n.Liebknecht, W.,386Lincola A., 188Litvinov, M., 19,86, 362n.Lloyd George, D.,50, 37ln.Loebe, P., 176, 393n.Lovestone, J. (Lovestoneites), 94,

104€, 108, 257, 292, 380n.Lozovsky, S,, 174, 392n.Ludendorff, E., 123, 385n.Luxemburg, R., 13, 131, 133-36,

138-42, 156, 170, 180, 206,318-19, 364, 386n., 387, 391,39?

MacDonald, R., 48, 53,370n.,372

Mahnruf group (Austria),to2

333,

100,

Makhno, 193-94Malinovsky, R., 123, 385n.Manuilsky, D., 70, 116, 156, 174,

375rr.,392Mao Tse.tung 373, 395Maretsky, 249, 399n.Markhlorslcy, J., 136, 38?n.Martinov, A., 219, 396n.Martov, J., 13940, 366, 388n.Marx, K., 23, 70, L59, t?O,232,

260, 266, 287, 298-99, 327,333, 363n.

Maurin, J., 381Meany, G.,380Mehnert, K., 18?Mehring, F., f7O, 364Menshevik-Industrial Partv "wreck-

er$ trials, 369n., 395

Inder

Menshwiks, 26, l2O, 123, 129,132-33, 13940, 166, 199, 308,322, 34O,366n., 385

Metternich, L. von, 329,406n.Mikado ( Hirohito), 59, 373n.Miliukov, P., 33, 123, 368n.Mill, M., 27-3O,23743, 367n.Millerand A., 138, 387n.Minseito Party (Japan), 59, 373n.Molinier, R., 27, 367n.Molotov, V., 32, 45, 65, 2O4, 270-

71, 283,288, 362, 368n., 395Mowinckel, J., 318, 405n.Mueller, H., 31,368n.Muenzenberg W., 226, 383, 397n.Muralov, N., 124, 385n.Mussolini, 8., 77, 158-59, 162,

2t3.377n.Mustg A., (Musteites), 257,399n.

Narodniks (Populists), 166, 197,294, 39ln.

Nathan, l7O:72National Congtess Party ( India),

234, 372, 389, 397, 398n.National Democrats (Poland), 162National Socialism ( Nazis), 9, 10,

13, 76, 77, 80, 359, 377, 379,397

Naville, P., 27,28, 101-2, 367n.NEP (New Economic Policy),89,

2O9, 27 5:7 6, 36On., 387Nermano T.,864n.Nenmanrl NI.,84,377n.Neurath, A., 118, 291, 383n.Nerr Italian Opposition, 103Nin, A.,381Noske, G., 135, 387n.

Old Bolsheviks, 35, 67, 245,251,&67n.

Ordzhonikidze, G., 167, 362,392n.

Osinsky, V.,204,395n.Overstraeterg E. van, 102, 381n.

Papen, F. von, 13,213, 279,389,395n.

4L3

Parljanins M., 347 -54, 408n.Party of Proletarian Unity

( France), see PUPParvus, A., 139-4O, 387n.Pascal, 8., 355Patel, V., 225-26, 234, 397 *Paz, M., 24, 28, 29, 99, 365n.Peasant International. see Krestin-

ternPepper, J., (J. Poganv), 380Petain, H.,397Pfemfert, F., 328, 406n.Piatnitsky, O., 116, 383n.Pilsudski, J., 78, 81, 156€3, 165,

181, 377n., 390Plekhanov, G., 132€3, 386n., 392Poale Zion goup (Palestine), 170-

7lPolitburo (Political Bureau,

cPsu), 12, 18, 19,3436,65,68, 118, 24445,362n.

Populistg see NarodniksPoulaillg 349POUM (Workers Party of Marxist

Unification, Spain), 38 1

PPS (Socialist Party, Poland), 377Preobrazhen*y, E., 273, 4OOn.Prolintern (Red International of

Labor Unions), Il4, 153,383n.. 392

Proglessive Party ( La Foilette,u. s.), 380

Prometeo group, ree Bordigistsftashny, 249PUP (Party of Proletarian Unit5r,

France), 153,389n.Purcell, A., 138, 247r 387n.Purishkevicl5 V., 63, 374n.Pyatakov, Y., 118, 252,384n.

Radeh, K., 87, 88, 90, 108, 118-19, 135-36, 139, 252, 307,378n., 379

Radical Socialists ( France), 12,223,226,229, 3gg

Rakovsky, C., 15, 29, 33, 37,48, 65, 71, 73, 91, 110, 124,207, 2U, 268, 270,280, 309,339, 341,358n.

414

Ramm, A.,406RAPP ( Russian Association of Pro-

letarian Writers), 146, 388n.Rechendorff. 315-17, 405Red International of Labor

Unions, see ProfinternRemmele, H., 118, 384n.RGO (Revolutionary Trade Union

Oppositioru Germany), 174,392n.

Right Opposition ( USSR), 24849,25r, 253-54, 266, 357, 363,369. 398

Riutin, M., 24849, 25 1, 398n.Rolland, R., 113-16, 151, 382n.Romanov dynasty, 191, 394n'Rooswelt, F., 9, 13, 292, 375,

4Oln.Rosenfeld, K., 221,229, 38182,

396n.Rosmer, A., 27-29, 100-1' 238,

24O42,367n.Ruskin, J., 182Russian Association of Proletarian

Writers, see RAPPRyazanov, D., 310, 378-79, 403n.Rykov, A., 34, 244,24849,253,

369n.

SAP ( Socialist Workers Party, Ger-many), 105, 108-9, 153, 176,L79, 202, 221, 228-30, 291,363, 381n., 382, 384, 393

Schleicher, K. von, 13, 395Schoenaich, P. von, 225-26,396n.Schuessler, O., 312, 404n.Second International, l14, 131,

t53, 223-24, 308, 359-60, 364,373, 383n., 396,403

Sedov, L., 372,388Sedova, N., 312,405Seiyukai Party (Japan), 59, 373n.Semard, P., 167, 391Serafimovich, A., 348, 353, 408n.Seydewitz, M., 21, 176, 221,228'

29, 363n., 381€2Shachtman, M., 24, 25, 44, 98,

365n.. 380. 383

Writings of Leon Trotskg (1932)

Shaw, G., 147Shlyapnikov, A., 134, 387n.Simon and Schuster, 5L, 370:llSinclair, L., 11Slepkov, 249, 399n.Slutsky, 357Smilga, I., 16, 360n.Snowden, P., 333,406n.Social Democracy, 363n.: Austria,

127-3O, 177; Denmark, 335-36,338, 4034; Germany, 12, 22,49, 63, 70,77, 122, L28, l3l,133, 176, 223, 230, 386, 389

Social Revolutionary Party ( Rus-sia), 123, 129, 166, 197, 199,3O3, 322, 340,369, 385n.,392,394,407

Socialist Party (France), 30,365,371

Socialist Party (Poland), see PPS

Socialist Party ( U. S.), 294, 365Socialist Workers Party ( Germa-

ny), see SAPSocialist Workers Party ( U. S.), see

swPSokolnikov, G., 266, 4OOn.Sosnovsky, L., 124, 385n.Souvarine, 8., 242, 398n.Souzg 103Spartakos group ( Greece), 100,

LO2Spartakusbund (Germany), 364,

386, 397, 406Stalin, J., 9, 12, 15-21,3143,45,

47, 48, 52-55, 63-65, 67-72,86,88, 90, 108, 121, L23-25, r3r,133-36, 13842, t47, 156,167,2034, 206, 208, 21O, 219, 235,24546, 24849, 251-52, 267,271, 276, 283, 285€9, 292,298, 300, 302-5, 309-10, 339,357, 358n., 362, 384, 390,400

Steirl 17 1

Sukhanov, N., 205, 395n.Sun Yat-sen, 374Sverdlov, Y., 2078, 395n.SWP ( Socialist Workers Party,

u. s.), 365, 383, 399

Inder

Tardieu, A., L2,85, 378n.Tesniaki (Bulgaria), 180, 393n.Thaelmann, 8., 12, 776,298, 300,

375, 377, 393n.Thalheimer, A., 21, 23, 12O,228-

29, 363n.Thermidor, 47, 64, 146, 247, 249,

251, 254, 292, 37On.Third International ( Cominterrq

Communist International), 10,13, 15, t8-20, 22, 23,70,74,83, 95, 97, t024, 108, 114,116, t2t, 125-26, t43, 153,157-58, 166-68, 174, r78-80,196, 205, 207, 2t9, 222-25,227, 229AO, 233, 235, 240,244, 246, 254, 288,292,295,298, 306, 326-27, 358, 359n.,364, 368, 375, 383, 394, 397,399,402

Thomas, N., 294,401n.Thorez, M., 39 ITolstoy, L., 182Tomsky, M., 34, 2O3, 248-49,

369n.Treint, A.,28, 368n.Trotsky, L., 9-13, 16, 19, 31-34,

36, 39-41, 62, 68, 86, 88, 123,128-29, 13942, t76:79, 203-5,208, 2tO, 237, 24446, 288,300, 302-9, 315-20, 335-37,346-55, 357-58, 360n., 362,364, 366, 372, 373,377, 380-81, 384, 387€8, 390, 393, 395,40042,405:7

Tseretelli 1., L23,200, 385n.Tsiurupa, 4., 244, 398n.Turkul, A., 19, 20, 339,361, 373T\uo - and -a-half International,

308, 373, 396-97,403n.

Uglanov, N., 24849, 252,398n.USPD ( Independent Social Dem-

ocratic Party, Germany), 226,393, 397n.

4t5

Ustrialov, M,374n.

Valles, J., 34849, 408n.Vanderveldg 8., 113-15, I24,

153, 340, 383n.,407Versailles Treaty, 77, 79, 81, 82,

115,376n.,383, 397Voroshilov, K., 65, 86, 288, 362,

374n.Vorovsky, V., 129, 386n.

Walcher, J., L76,363, 381, 393n.Walecki, M., 159, 180, 390, 39ln.Wang Ming, 216-19, 395n.War Communism, 360Warski, A., 156-57, 160, 181,

390. 39ln.Webb, B., 258,400n.Webb, S.,258,400n.Weisbord, A., 24, IO4, 236, 2SS,

257, 30L, 366n., 379, 398-99Wheelwright, P., 395White Guards (White Russians),

19, 193-94, 336, 343, 361,362n.

Wicks, H.,405-6Wilhelm II, 386Wilson, W., 51, 37 1n.Workers and Peasants Bloc

( Spain), 381Wrangel officer, 20, 363n.

Yagoda, H., 15, 20, 250-51,359n.Yakovlev, Y., 302-3, 305,402n.Yaroslavsky, E., 33, 40, 41, 62,

67, 135, L67, 25t-52, 304,369n.

Young Communist League(ussR), 186, 189,249

Zimmerwald LeIt, 22, 2O7, 364n.Zinoviev, G., 9, 13, 16, 19, 34,

40, 108, 118-19, 135, 2034,24448, 250-52, 30?, 310,361n., 384, 390, 398

llfnlilnEs 0I

1EON IROISHTn$21In 1932 Leon Trotsky, the Russion revolutionory who hod beenexiled from the Soviet Union he hod helped lo creote, wosin the fourth yeor of his exile in Turkey. He wos finishingthe lost volume of his monumentol History of thc RussionRcvolulion ond he wrole severol pomphlets urging unitedfront oction ogoinsl the rising donger of foscism in Germony.In oddition he found time to wrile the mony pomphlets, or-ticles, interviews, letlers, ond press slolemenls collectedhere-obout the crisis of the Soviei economy; the Joponeseinvosion of Monchurio; the peosonl wor in Chino; the revo-lulionory future of the oppressed colored roces; morolityond the fomily; pocifism ond disormomenl; ihe uliroleftismthen being procliced by the Communist Internoiionol; thefolsificolion of Soviet history; Stolin's slonders obout Roso

luxemburg; the second expulsion of Zinoviev ond Komenevfrom lhe Soviet Communist Porty; the noture of 'proletorion'lileroiure; the perspectives of Americon Morxism; problemsof the lnternotionol left Opposition; the Soviet edict revokingthe cilizenship of Trotsky ond his fomily; the text of his CBSrodio speech to the United Stotes-ond more. Mony of lhese85 selections hove never before been published in English.

This book is olso ovoiloble in o cloth edition or $p.95

PATHFINDER PRESS,410 Wcst Shccl, New Yorb N.Y. l00l4British Dish Pothfinder Press, 17 lhe Cul, 'london SEI 8L[@VER DEgGN BY DENNIS EDGE

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Writings of Leon Trotsky [Volume 04] (1932) - Léon Trotsky

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