A Conversation with Trotsky (August 1932)

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Trotsky: You come from Germany? What party are you in?

Bergmann: I'm in the SAP.

T.: That's bad!

B.: I came here with the Walcher-Frölich group.

T.: That's worse! A party should be evaluated from two standpoints: national and international! Internationally the SAP links up with all the doubtful elements in the whole world. In Germany it makes the wrong decisions on every important question. Take the presidential elections. It was correct to put up Thälmann. A joint candidacy of Löbe is impossible.I cannot ask workers to vote for Löbe, Le., for the Social Democratic program. Certainly I have many differences with Thälmann, but he does represent a program, a Communist program. But the Social Democracy is a capitalist party.

B.: And if Hitler had been elected like Hindenburg in 1925, i.e., with a margin smaller than Thälmann's total vote? You have to take that into account, and then the Communists would have been responsible before the whole working class for the direct results of Hitler's election.

T.: You can't please everybody. It's enough for me if I can take on the responsibility for my own party. The Seydewitz stuff about putting the interest of the class before the interest of the party is nonsense. That comes from wanting to be a big party all at once, and not having the patience to build up slowly and systematically. A revolutionary must have patience. Impatience is the mother of opportunism.

B.: Do you think that a party which is led by such leadership can carry through the proletarian revolution in a country like Germany, with such a strong bourgeoisie?

T.: In some situations, yes! Circumstances may prove stronger than human incapacity. The German Communist Party contains many revolutionary elements, including ones who more or less know what the October Revolution was and what the dictatorship of the proletariat is. Of course not every Communist bureaucrat will turn out to be a hero, not every reformist bigwig will be a top-notcher. … But in the fight with the fascists in the working-class districts it will be the Communists who will be in the front line. The situation in Germany leaves many possibilities open. It may be that the Communist Party will take over the leadership.

B.: What do you think, Comrade Trotsky, about the slogan "self-determination" up to separation? Is there not a danger that in the event of a revolution the bourgeoisie of a province will hide behind this slogan and carry on propaganda for independence or union with a neighboring reactionary country?

T.: The danger exists, but it becomes greater with every ambiguity on the question. We say to the masses of that province: If you want to leave, go ahead, we won't restrain you by force; but what will you do with the big estates? and what about the factories? That's all that interests us — when by our generosity in respect to nationality we put the social question into the foreground, then we will drive a wedge between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; otherwise we would weld them together. Look, the Russian Bolsheviks said: "Right of self-determination including separation." And Russia has become a block despite its forty languages and nations. The Austrian 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 lesson in this field.

B.: Another question: Is it conceivable for a socialist state to wage war along with a capitalist state against another capitalist state? For example, Russia with America against Japan? What would the attitude of the American Communist Party have to be then?

T.: The concrete case of a war of Russia plus America against Japan is extremely improbable. The American bourgeoisie is the legitimist one among the bourgeoisie, I would say. The above case is conceivable, however, though not for a long time. Since in consequence of a defeat of the third power revolutionary movements will break out in it, an alliance of the two states which had just been fighting each other against the revolutionary proletariat would immediately be formed.

B.: And the tactics of the CP of the country concerned up to that point?

T.: Extreme mistrust of the government; for example, no approval of the budget, but no strikes in the munitions industry, etc. This attitude to continue, of course, only as long as the CP is not strong enough to undertake serious actions to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

B.: If I can put it this way: mistrust and propaganda against the government, gathering of forces for a decisive blow, but no direct sabotage of the war.

T.: Yes, something like that! But I emphasize that this cannot possibly be a prolonged state of affairs. It would come to an end after a short time because of the rupture of the alliance between the socialist and the capitalist state.

B.: What do you think about the possibility of a Japanese-American war, Comrade Trotsky?

T.: It has moved some years off. America cannot wage war against Japan without a base on the East Asian mainland — and arming the Chinese people with the perspective of creating a colonial war as in India would be an experiment with unforeseeable consequences for America and the world. China is a nation, India was a collection of provinces. Now it is becoming a nation, and therefore English rule in India is coming to an end. The arming of the Chinese people by the USSR for a fight against foreign rule, that opens a big revolutionary perspective in the Far East

B.: How do you evaluate China's internal development?

T.: That depends on the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to link up the peasant struggles with the fight of the urban proletariat. The main failing of the Chinese CP consists in its excessive weakness. You will find more details on this in our latest literature

B.: Now the last question. To what do you attribute the faults of the Comintern, bureaucratization, etc., to internal Russian or to extra-Russian causes?

T.: In the first place to internal Russian ones.

B. : Does that mean that the cure must also come from Russia?

T.: That is not necessary! It can also come from outside

B.: That means — for some time at least — the destruction of the Comintern in the present sense

T.: Not necessarily. You must not forget that a new fourth international is only possible after a great historic event. The Third International arose from the Great War and the October Revolution. The worker thinks slowly, he must mull everything over in his mind, I would say. He knows that the party has enlightened him and trained him as a conscious worker, and therefore he does not change as easily as the intellectual. He learns not from discussions but from historical events. Such an event would be the victory of fascism in Germany. But the victory of fascism in Germany does not only mean in all probability the collapse of the Comintern, but also includes the defeat of the Soviet Union. Only if that takes place — it need not necessarily take place, it can still be prevented, and every effort must of course be made to prevent it — only then will we have the right to talk about a new party, about a fourth international.

[At his request, the conversation was sent to Trotsky before publication. He sent it back with the following accompanying note:)

October 24, 1932

Dear Comrade:

There has been some delay in my reply, since my time was very taken up with other things.

Your note gives our conversation broadly correctly. I should just like to add a few things. Insofar as your manuscript concerns my evaluation of the SAP, the impression may arise that I condemn the SAP so sharply mainly because of its international connections with hopeless splinter organizations. That impression would be false, since it would be one-sided. The connection with the ILP, etc., is only the international extension of the internal "line." The SAP has decided fully in favor of the Ledebour policy.

You ask whether the centristic bureaucratization of the Comintern is to be attributed to internal Russian or to extra-Russian causes. Immediately to the Russian ones, as the answer recorded by you states. But one should not forget here that internal Russian development was shaped by the isolation of the Soviet Union, i.e., by extra-Russian causes.

Such additions require many answers. However, I believe that your reader (if you publish the "interview") will be clever enough to draw out from it for himself what is necessary.

Friendly greetings,

L. Trotsky