Discussion with the SWP visitors (June 15, 1940)

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Note from Writings of Leon Trotsky:

"Discussions with Trotsky," National Committee Bulletin, Socialist Workers Party, June 1940, where it bore the title "Discussions with Lund" (a Trotsky pseudonym). About half of this document was printed in England in 1965 under the title "Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA." This is a rough stenographic draft, not corrected by the participants, of discussions held during four days in Mexico by Trotsky and a delegation from the Socialist Workers Party. For security reasons pseudonyms were used in the stenographic draft, but are replaced in the present text. The SWP members who participated were James P. Cannon, Charles Cornell, Farrell Dobbs, Sam Gordon, Joseph Hansen, Antoinette Konikow, and Harold Robins.

June 15, 1940

Hansen: Yesterday Comrade Trotsky made some remarks about our adaptation to the so-called progressives in the trade unions, he mentioned the line of the Northwest Organizer and also our attitude in connection with the elections and the Stalinists. I wish to point out that this is not something completely new on Comrade Trotsky's part. More than two years ago during the discussions over the transitional program, he discussed exactly these same points and had exactly the same position, with due regard for the difference in time and that then it was not the elections but the farmer-labor party that was to the fore.

Comrade Trotsky has also written some letters regarding the Stalinists and the need for a more positive line toward them. In the past faction fight too, Comrade Trotsky mentioned in his polemic "From a Scratch to the Danger of Gangrene" the following point, which he underlined: "More than once the party will have to remind its own trade unionists that a pedagogical adaptation to the more backward layers of the proletariat must not become transformed into a political adaptation to the conservative bureaucracy of the trade unions." I am wondering if Comrade Trotsky considers that our party is displaying a conservative tendency in the sense that we are adapting ourselves politically to the trade union bureaucracy.

Trotsky: To a certain degree I believe it is so. I cannot observe closely enough to be completely certain. This phase is not reflected in the Socialist Appeal well enough. There is no internal bulletin for the trade unionists. It would be very good to have such a bulletin and to publish controversial articles on our trade union work. In observing the Northwest Organizer I have observed not the slightest change during a whole period. It remains apolitical. This is a dangerous symptom. The complete neglect of work in relation to the Stalinist party is another dangerous symptom.

Turning to the Stalinists does not mean that we should turn away from the progressives. It means only that we should tell the truth to the Stalinists, that we should catch the Stalinists beforehand in their new turn.

It seems to me that a kind of passive adaptation to our trade union work can be recognized. There is not an immediate danger, but a serious warning indicating a change in direction is necessary. Many comrades are more interested in trade union work than in party work. More party cohesion is needed, more sharp maneuvering, a more serious systematic theoretical training; otherwise the trade unions can absorb our comrades.

It is a historic law that the trade union functionaries form the right wing of the party. There is no exception to this. It was true of the Social Democracy; it was true of the Bolsheviks too. Tomsky was with the right wing, you know. This is absolutely natural. They deal with the class, the backward elements; they are the party vanguard in the working class. The necessary field of adaptation is among the trade unions. The people who have this adaptation as their job are those in the trade unions. That is why the pressure of the backward elements is always reflected through the trade union comrades. It is a healthy pressure; but it can also break them from the historic class interests—they can become opportunists.

The party has made serious gains. These gains were possible only through a certain degree of adaptation; but on the other hand we must take measures to circumvent dangers that are inevitable. I have noticed only some serious symptoms which indicate the need for more cohesion, more emphasis on the party. Our comrades must be in the first line party members, and only in the second line trade union members. This is especially true for trade union functionaries and editors. …

Before we go on—I have just received the latest number of Labor Action. Shachtman is calling for a new slogan: "Let's have a program for peace not war." But it is war not peace. This is a pacifist tendency. It is no program for war which is inevitable.

Cannon: Can the Stalinists be regarded in any important sense as different from any other labor party or grouping? Are tactics applicable to the socialists, etc., also applicable to them? There is a strong tendency to regard the Stalinists as different. Not as a labor tendency. The crassest expression of this tendency is exhibited in the American Labor Party in New York. They regard the Stalinists not as a working class party but as an agency of a foreign power. This was the position of Lovestone and Hook on the Browder passport case. It was Burnham's position in the central committee.

We held for critical defense. If Oneal for example were arrested we would defend him similarly. There is no fundamental difference between Oneal of the Second International and Browder as representative of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Both are treacherous in the labor movement. Burnham held that the Stalinists are not a labor movement at all. That they are like the German Nazis. We should defend neither. This point is important in elaborating our general political tactics. So long as the Social Democrats represent a force we must have not only direct opposition but a policy of maneuver. Can any fundamental distinction be made between them and Lewis, Green, etc.? In my opinion we at least subjectively have made a distinction. We have not had a policy of maneuver since 1934, neither nationally nor internationally. In general should we not reexamine this again? Your proposal raises this drastically.

Trotsky: Of course the Stalinists are a legitimate part of the workers' movement. That it is abused by its leaders for specific GPU ends is one thing, for Kremlin ends another. It is not at all different from other opposition labor bureaucracies. The powerful interests of Moscow influence the Third International, but it is not different in principle. Of course we consider the terror of the GPU control differently; we fight with all means, even bourgeois police. But the political current of Stalinism is a current in the workers' movement. If it differs, it differs advantageously.

In France the Stalinists show courage against the government. They are still inspired by October. They are a selection of revolutionary elements, abused by Moscow, but honest. If they are persecuted in the United States and remain anti-patriotic because Moscow delays its new turn, this would give them considerable political authority. Our revulsion from the Kremlin will not destroy this political authority. We must consider them objectively. We must consider them from the objective Marxist viewpoint. They are a very contradictory phenomenon. They began with October as the base, they have become deformed, but they have great courage.

We can't let the antipathies of our moral feelings sway us. Even the assailants on Trotsky's house had great courage. I think that we can hope to win these workers who began as a crystallization of October. We see them negatively; how to break through this obstacle. We must set the base against the top. The Moscow gang we consider gangsters but the rank and file don't feel themselves to be gangsters, but revolutionists. They have been terribly poisoned. If we show that we understand, that we have a common language, we can turn them against their leaders. If we win five percent, the party will be doomed. They can then lead only a conservative existence. Disintegration will set in, because this five percent connects them with new sources from the masses.

★ ★ ★

Dobbs: I was discussing the question of racial minorities in the United States, and particularly the Negro question with Dunne. The problem was to find a proper basis of approach. Dunne suggested that a column in the Appeal headed "Negro Question" raises in the mind of the colored person our considering him as a special problem. We have other racial minorities, the Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese. He suggested that we change the name to Racial Minorities Department and change the column in the Appeal likewise. That we make a more conscious effort to involve him as a worker with common problems—with special problems too, it is true; that we advise the Fourth International to take up a series of articles on the various racial minority problems on a broader basis, with special emphasis on the Negro problem because of its size.

Trotsky: Have we had any success with the Negroes?

Dobbs: Some success, especially since Birchman took over. We have been trying to link up the Negro Department with the Trade Union Department. In the musicians' union we got a clear cut report of a situation where they have separate Negro locals, continuing to discriminate against the Negro. Such things give us a tangible connection also for following up. We have had considerable reaction from Negroes that we are doing this for philanthropy and not out of class solidarity. We have set up a committee with one PC member and two Negroes.

Konikow: In Boston we tried to reach the Negroes through helping them in agitation on the lynch law. The Stalinists demanded that our comrade be thrown out, but the organization refused.

Gordon: It is not possible to put the Negroes in one category as a special problem. They are unique. They have their own problems, which are much bigger than the general problems of the racial minorities. We have been making headway but haven't yet begun to scratch the surface. In all Harlem we don't have one comrade. But in order to do this work we need Negroes. It seems to me that we have to devise some drastic measures to get into this work. Harlem is the biggest proletarian center in New York.

We have a problem too with the Jewish minority. We attempted once to put out a Yiddish organ but had to give it up. As a party we do nothing about this problem. The Jewish movement is going through a hectic development. It is now social patriotic out of utter despair. It would be a good thing to place on our agenda for lengthy discussion and definition. To determine a perspective. A program of activity regarding both the Jews and the Negroes.

Konikow: The name of the column should be changed. "Negroes" is not very attractive. Perhaps the name should be "Negro Workers."

Trotsky: How is the racial minority question resolved by the different unions? Aren't they international unions?

Cannon: They exist in Canada. This makes them international. Trotsky: Some unions have special groupings? Educational groupings?

Dobbs: Some unions discriminate less. But there is no real progress.

Trotsky: Do they have publications in different languages? Dobbs: In the needle trades they do and they have locals organized according to language.

Trotsky: What ones?

Dobbs: Italians, Greeks, Jews. But they are different in this respect from most unions.

Trotsky: Do the teamsters have any influence among other nationalities?

Dobbs: Only English. In the last few years there has been a rather sharp turn toward the Negroes. Formerly they were discriminated against. Now in a number of unions they can join in the South. In Dallas sixty whites and twenty Negroes went on strike. The Negroes always sat separated. They never spoke until the whites were through and when they were asked. That was at the beginning. On the picket line they showed great courage, even better than the whites. There were company owned houses in which they lived. The company demanded that they pay up their back rent or get out. They were evicted from two houses. The next day the two houses were in ashes. At the end of the strike the Negroes felt more that they had the right to speak.

Trotsky: Why wasn't this reported in the Appeal? It is very important. It would make the best kind of column on the Negroes.

The racial minorities question is not equitable. The most important and most common mean is a publication in the language of the minority in question. The education of the workers is hindered by differences in language. Even the most centralized party must find the means of communicating to different nationalities. The party is never a total of nation organizations. It is not a federation of national groupings and every worker is a member of a common organization. Channels must be created for the expression of these workers. This is true of the Mexican workers, Chinese, Jews, Polish, etc., but the Negroes have nothing to do with language. It is a social question determined by their skin. But it is not necessary to create a new paper; that is why it is not on the same level. That is why it is a different kind of means is not needed.

Dobbs: But these same social discriminations affect the Chinese, etc.

Trotsky: Through what is common, but it is not necessary to create special language papers for them. I believe that it should be explained in articles how we approach these minorities. And to have special approaches for the Mexicans, etc., but most important of course are the Negroes. Should we change the name to one more general? I am not ready to say. Is it the content that is philanthropic? We should exaggerate in favor of the Negroes. The white slaveholders accustom the Negroes not to speak first. But on the picket line they show more courage. That is true of all oppressed nationalities. We must approach them everywhere by advocating that for every lynching they should lynch ten or twenty lynchers.

We should pay more attention to the Latin American workers in relation to American imperialism. We should turn in the direction of Latin America. American imperialism is already turning in that direction.

★ ★ ★

Cannon: The fundamental question of party organization was dealt with in the faction fight. The discussion posed the question: the nature of our epoch is military; the only serious party is one which aims at power. We have had a double hangover in our party from the past. One, the socialists never dreamed of changing society. They wanted to make protests, but actually a party to change society over was never in their bones. Their concept was a flabby one, Christian socialism. People from the Social Democracy who came to our party had these concepts. Two, our party the world over suffered from over-correction of Stalinist bureaucratism, all the more so due to the petty bourgeois. They were afraid more than anything else of being disciplined. They don't want a regime with firmness or discipline. This was a tendency of Burnham and Shachtman. For eleven years we had a see-saw, half the time for Lenin's conceptions, half the time for the other extreme. When it became serious all we got was a forty-fifty percent compromise. In this fight we had a strong impulse from the rank and file for more discipline, a more serious party. We must devote more time to the concept of the party that flows from the military age. A mish-mash party is good for nothing. To have this idea assimilated into the very bones of the members.

I think that the party in the eyes of the leading militants should be considered as a military organization. The party forms should be much more considerably formalized in a deliberate form of hierarchical organization. A strict record of grades of authority in the party. All these things must be deliberately inculcated to build a party able to struggle for power in this epoch. If this is correct we have an opportunity to build it now. One, because there is a real impulse for it from the rank and file. They feel that there is not enough discipline, not enough firmness.

In the leadership now there is no serious conflict on this conception, a far more serious advance for joint collaboration. No opportunity for weak and faltering elements to capitalize on differences. Formerly this was bad, especially in New York. That was the damnable role of Abern and Shachtman, to pacify the weaklings. Now there is no possibility for that, not in the next period.

In my polemics against Burnham I amplified the idea of a professional leadership—no part-time dilettantism and trying to play with the party. I believe of course that in this question of being a full time party worker it depends on funds. But the idea that a party militant should be ready to work for the party—this idea should be universal. Do away with the toleration for amateur leadership.

Trotsky: Before I forget—the party should elaborate a kind of platform for the Jewish question, a balance on the whole experience of Zionism with the simple conclusion that the Jewish people cannot save themselves except by socialist revolution. I believe that we could have an important influence in New York among the garment workers.

Gordon: What tactical approach would you suggest?

Trotsky: That is another thing. I am not informed very well about that phase. The first thing is to give them a perspective, criticize all the past, the democratic tendency, etc. To pose for them that the socialist revolution is the only realistic solution of the Jewish question. If the Jewish workers and peasants asked for an independent state, good—but they didn't get it under Great Britain. But if they want it, the proletariat will give it. We are not in favor, but only the victorious working class can give it to them.

I believe that it is of tremendous importance what Cannon wrote one time, to create a patriotism toward the party, that if mature revolutionists disagree, but also understand the historic value of the party, then they can have a very sharp discussion but can be sure the base is common, that the minority will submit to the majority. Such a feeling cannot be produced artificially, but of course a propaganda expressing the importance of the party in this epoch can make the members proud of their membership. What is miserable about the petty bourgeois is their light-minded attitude toward the party. They don't understand what a party is.

At the same time it is necessary to create an elastic relationship between democracy and centralism. We have enough hundreds of members who have passed through enough experiences who now require more centralized organization. These people in another ten years will be the old guard. These cadres in a new phase can give the possibility of some hundreds of thousands of members of different origin. These people can introduce new tendencies of criticism. To assimilate them it can't be done by centralism. It is necessary to enlarge the democracy, to let them find that the old guard is more experienced. So after a period of very centralized existence, you can have a new period of wide discussion, then a more normalized centralized period.

Our growth will be a convulsive growth. It can introduce into its ranks some half-raw human material. It is a tremendous advantage to have the support of the cadres. They will explain to the new comrades. At the same time it is dangerous to impose centralism too soon on new members who don't have this tradition of esteem for the leadership which is based by and large on experiences of the past. This also maintains the party's equilibrium.

This also was one of the finest qualities of Lenin's leadership: from iron discipline to apparent complete freedom of the ranks. Actually he never lost control, but the average member felt perfectly free. In this way he laid the basis for a new centralism. This gave him the possibility to pass through a severe war. During a severe war the party relations indicated a severe and military organization. In spite of all the party equilibrium was preserved. Even at the front we had closed party meetings, where all party members discussed with complete freedom, criticized orders, etc. But when we left the room, the orders became a strict discipline, for the breaking of which a commander could shoot. We were able to carry out very complicated maneuvers. At the beginning when the army was almost all communists from the pre-revolutionary period, especially with relationships already stabilized, it was easy. But when more than five million joined, the majority were fresh elements without tradition and in the army they learned the discipline in its more severe form. There were protests of dissatisfaction which were utilized then by Stalin against Trotsky. It was necessary for some time to give these elements free rein and then by convincing them to create a new basis for more severe military regime. Tsaritsyn played a role in this, Stalin, Voroshilov, Timoshenko. They based themselves on these elements. They were guerrilla fighters, like Shachtman in his politics. In the Finnish war it was the proof of the old Tsaritsyn group [that] Stalin didn't appear at the front—absolutely incomprehensible. Of course he had his GPU to take care of in the Kremlin. Voroshilov is dismissed, the last of the Tsaritsyn opposition.

Dobbs: We worked out something like that in Minneapolis on the picket line. Full discussion, then work under severe discipline.

Trotsky: Yes, it is a psychological thing, to devote enough time to convince them that the heads carry out these things in the interests of the party and not for their personal interests. Then it is the most important moral capital of the party.

Konikow: Wouldn't it be helped by an internal bulletin?

Cannon: Yes, yes.

Gordon: How do you conceive the party life for the coming period? Can we afford conventions, plenums, etc.?

Trotsky: It depends on objective conditions of the war. It is possible they will begin to persecute you in the next period. Then centralism becomes absolute. The central committee must have the right to co-opt new members without a convention. In case of police arrests. To support by these means the cohesion of the party. Confidence is possible only by good policy and courage. It would be very important proof and very serious selection. The real centralism which will form a precious capital of ultimate party life. When a convention is not possible, we have the possibility of informing the best cadres, the best elements, who then defend the policy in the local organizations so as not to take the party by surprise. It depends often on twenty-four hours time to explain. Then we can begin the action. Otherwise they can be dissatisfied, the party can be disrupted in a short time.