From a Letter to an Oppositionist in the USSR, August 24, 1929

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Dear Comrade,

We received your letter of August 8 on the twenty-second. Certainly not as quick as crossing from Europe to America on the Bremen; but for all that, one can’t complain.

You write that a mood of capitulation has taken hold of even some “good lads.” It would be surprising were it not so. Today, the Opposition survives without connections and without literature. It reads only Pravda. For many of our cothinkers the turn of the Stalinists and a certain persistence in this tum is unexpected. The international perspective is completely lost sight of. In Bolshevik is proclaimed these days the coming of the period of open revolutionary conflicts: the first stage, May Day in Berlin; the second stage, the August days throughout the world; and so on. This perspective must not only calm the conscience of the semi-bankrupt “old boys” but also take hold of the “good lads,” i.e., the youth without connections, information, literature, etc.

You write of the vacillations of LN. [Smirnov], that he is distributing the draft of his appeal to the Central Committee, including a whole stock of highly commendable wishes and hopes which — as you write — “they will of course make him delete.” We all know LN. very well, both his magnificent and his weak sides. More than once we risked losing him on past turns on the road. But it ended up satisfactorily. Will we lose him this time? I don't know; but, even if we do, sooner or later we shall get him back. And we shall get back many others. Of course, if we ourselves don't match their vacillations.

As to our being ready to support every step of the centrists to the left, we have already said it ten times. It is certainly possible to repeat it an eleventh time. The problem is not solved by this. We need our own literature; theoretical clarity is indispensable; political connections established on an international scale — that’s how the problem will be solved now. But it is impossible to get these right away. We have to move now in the midst of the greatest difficulties, against the stream, step by step. The less steadfast and the less experienced will waver and depart.

For a serious Marxist it is clear that this turn of the centrists to the left was made exclusively because of our struggle. This was and is genuine, authentic, revolutionary support. In the most critical moments centrism swings on a rope, not knowing where to jump next. If in 1926 and 1927 the Right faction had shown one-tenth of the persistent drive which we showed then, the Stalinists in 1928 would have made a turn to the right and not to the left, under the effect of those same objective causes. Whoever does not understand this — how can one say it politely? — should be called an utter fool. What kind of further “support” can be asked of Marxists for the leftward steps of centrism? I know of no other. As for Radek, Preobrazhensky, and the capitulatory clan in general, they imagine the affair thus: one' takes Yaroslavsky under the arm on the right, another on the left, and both give him “support,” whispering where to put his feet. We shall see, we shall see how this will look in practice.

You ask what sort of article was that which Comrade Urbahns published on the conflict with China, which did you so much harm? A worthless article: a combination of ultraleftism and social democracy. It was printed as discussion material. Along with it a wholly correct article by Comrade Landau was published, also as discussion material. The point of view of the editorial board remains unknown. If you receive Volkswille, then it is no secret to you that blunders of this kind by the editorial board are no accident. Comrade Urbahns has stated more than once that he is not one hundred percent in agreement with the Russian Opposition. Nothing is to be expected from him. But in a series of questions, of great importance, he is in agreement with us less than fifty percent. But that’s nothing. Nowhere has Comrade Urbahns formulated clearly and explicitly his own views on any one debatable question. One should not console oneself with the thought that in the Leninbund we have an ideologically official organization standing for the principled positions we hold. It is still not anywhere near that. Ahead are not a few serious battles inside the Opposition. We have no need of ornamental politics. We need revolutionary clarity. We are going to strive for it; and we shall attain it.

Unfortunately, Urbahns is not alone in his errors. Comrade Paz wrote an absolutely inadmissible article on the same question, showing that to repeat the general formulas of Marxism and to apply them in fact are decidedly not one and the same thing.

The group Vérité has taken up an absolutely correct position in France, publishing a weekly around which is now grouped the Communist Left in France. I think that this organ has the prospect of playing a great role in France. Thanks to it there has already begun a serious regroupment of forces: active revolutionary elements will group themselves around its banner; skeptics and philistines, under cover of the Opposition, will inevitably be thrown into the camp to which they properly belong.

Concerning “the third period" proclaimed by the Sixth Congress, you are absolutely correct: it will have to be written about in greater detail. Now the formula of the third period has begun literally to choke the Comintern. Practical problems are not being worked out according to the real situation but according to the abstraction of the third period.

So that bureaucratism in the sphere of tactics attain its most finished expression, problems of the movement are being timed not by events but by dates on the calendar. After May Day comes the first of August. Now I'Humanité proclaims an anti-imperialist September, since the anniversary of the Young Communist League falls in that month. In this way the anti-imperialist struggle is timed to mark the anniversary of the October Revolution, and so on. To this perspective. are devoted articles and manifestos. The commemoration of these calendar dates must acquire “an increasingly revolutionary character" which, in turn, flows not from the real development of the class struggle but from the metaphysical abstraction of the third period. Is it possible to imagine a greater caricature of Leninism?

Here Zinoviev is linked into the chain. He recently wrote an article in Pravda on the Sino-Soviet conflict. The article correctly brands the international social democracy which, under the slogan of national self-determination, assumes its own defense of Chiang Kai-shek. But the article goes further. According to Zinoviev, China has of course already entered “the third period." And the supremacy of Chiang Kai-shek? Zinoviev is not disturbed by it. Chiang Kai-shek is — Kolchak, and “Kolchak also temporarily gained victories." But didn’t Kolchak signify a provincial counterrevolutionary uprising against a victorious proletarian dictatorship? Isn’t that so? In China there is not a dictatorship of the proletariat, and there never was. To the Chinese proletariat it was forbidden even to think of it. Chiang Kai-shek rules the major centers of the country. Where does Kolchak come into this? This does not prevent one from remembering that in 1924 Zinoviev wrote that General Seeckt too was Kolchak. Why? For what reason? To give encouragement. The real Kolchak was an expense for the revolution, which itself rose steadily higher. Zinoviev thought that was what was happening in Germany in 1924. In honor of the third period one should also declare even Mussolini to be a Kolchak: for the Italian proletariat it would immediately become easier to breathe. Indeed, the heads of these people are like children’s slates on which many have written in different hands, up and down, all over the place. To decipher these letters is back-breaking work.

But of this, what we have to say still lies ahead.

With communist greetings,

L. Trotsky