Greetings to La Vérité

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The Communist Left Opposition can, it seems to me, look with unconcealed satisfaction on the past year, although its work was basically preparatory in character. The first year has been a year of ideological demarcation. First place in this work, that is, basically in the regeneration of communist thinking, goes, undoubtedly, to France, and in France — to La Vérité. In any case, no one today will succeed in covering with the banner of the Communist Left that kind of ideological confusion that often remained in opposition to official communism only because it was in essence still inferior to it

Allow me in this letter of greeting to bring up one question, the internationalism of La Vérité and of the Communist League.

The opportunists reproach the Left Opposition for building simultaneously its international and national organizations, treating them both as the two sides of one and the same work. The Brandlerites, who represent in themselves the purest residue of prewar social democracy, accuse the International and French Left Opposition of owing their formation to the platform of the Russian Opposition. Thereby they show — without speaking of the rest — they absolutely don't understand the basis on which the Russian Opposition was formed. It would not be amiss to recall it here.

The internal discussion in the Soviet Communist Party did not lead to a system of groups until the events in Germany in the fall of 1923. The economic and political processes in the USSR were molecular in character and had a comparatively slow tempo. The events of 1923 in Germany gave the measure of the differences on the scale of that gigantic class struggle. It was then and on that basis that the Russian Opposition was formed.

The struggle over the kulaks and inner-party democracy in 1925-26 was serious. But here, too, the argument over the organic processes proceeded at a comparatively slow tempo. However, 1926 brought the general strike in Britain and posed squarely the fundamental tactical problems of the Western European workers' movement. The year 1927 put the whole Comintern strategy to the test in the catastrophe of the Chinese revolution. Precisely these events gave final shape to the Russian Left Opposition. Its development would not have been possible without the close 'relations of the Russian Left with critical, oppositionist elements and groups in different countries and, what is more important, without the gigantic struggles of the world proletariat and the problems they posed thereafter.

With changes and variations here and there, that is the way all the other sections of the International Left grew and developed.

The idea imputed to the Communist Left, that for Communist parties in all countries one and the same task and, apparently, one and the same method are entailed, is really the reverse of our true position. Proletarian internationalism, in thought and action, in our epoch flows not from the similarity or homogeneity of conditions in different countries but from their inseverable interconnections, despite the profound differences between them. To be precise, it was the old social democracy which thought that all countries developed along the same high road, some in front and some in the rear, and so it was sufficient to exchange their respective national experiences from time to time at congresses. This conception, consciously or unconsciously, led to socialism in one country and was completely reconciled with national defense, that is, social-patriotism.

We, the International Left, consider world economy and world politics not as the simple sum of national parts. On the contrary, we consider national economy and national politics only as highly distinctive parts of an organic world totality.

In this sense we are irreconcilably opposed to the Right Opposition groups, social democratic (Brandler, POPist) and syndicalist types alike. The Monatte group is national-syndicalist and for that reason alone reformist. In the epoch of imperialism it is no more possible to pose revolutionary problems within the framework of nations than it is to play chess on one square of the board.

The deepest differences separate our internationalism from the official internationalism of the Comintern, which is undermining its own foundations by establishing for the USSR the special privilege of "national socialism." This question has been sufficiently elucidated already.

We have to ask ourselves, however, whether the work of the Communist League, like that of the Left Opposition in general, would have been possible within the framework of a single party. Without the slightest hesitation we answer: Certainly, it would have been possible. If we look at the history of Russian Bolshevism, it presents from a certain point of view the picture of constant — sometimes very keen — struggle between groups and factions. Despite the deep differences separating us from the ruling faction we were fully prepared to struggle for our ideas inside a single party; we had sufficient confidence in the strength of our ideas for that. On another side, the then-dominant faction, for example in France, would never have thought of expelling the Communist Left if it had not been ordered to do so. Conditions in the French communist movement and the development of communism never in any sense or in any way called for or justified a split in the Communist Party. That was carried out on Moscow's orders and was exclusively provoked by the struggle waged by the Stalin faction for its own protection. The plebiscitary regime, definitively confirmed by the Sixteenth Congress, could be maintained only by fragmenting, pillorying, and crushing to dust all ideological currents and all ideas in general. However absurd the argument that the Communist International is nothing but a weapon for the defense of Russia's national interests, it is nevertheless absolutely clear that the ruling faction in the Comintern is only a bureaucratic servant of Stalin's autocracy. None of the present sections of the Comintern can become a genuine proletarian party without a radical change in the course and regime of the Soviet Communist Party. This problem, prerequisite for the solution of all the others, calls for great centralization. The indissoluble international liaison of all the Left Opposition groups is conditioned almost entirely by the need to concentrate their forces to change the regime in the Communist International.

It is understood, there is another way: it consists of turning one's back on the Comintern and setting about building another party, elsewhere. But that would be liquidationism in the true sense of the word. The Comintern is the product of titanic factors: the imperialist war, the open betrayal of the Second International, the October Revolution, and the Marxist-Leninist tradition of struggle against opportunism. That explains why, despite the criminal policies of the leadership, the masses, after pulling out many, many times, return to the Comintern. It is possible to think, for example, that the German workers will give the German Communist Party more votes in the coming election than they gave in the past. If Thälmann, Remmele, and Company do all they can to weaken communism, on the other hand, the collapse of capitalism, the unprecedented commercial-industrial crisis, the decomposition of the parliamentary system, the baseness of the social democracy do everything they can to strengthen communism. And, very fortunately, these factors are more powerful than Thälmann and Remmele, together with their patron, Stalin.

Breaking with the Comintern means entering the field of adventurism, trying to build new parties arbitrarily and artificially instead of freeing the Communist parties, which have emerged from history, from the vise of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Meanwhile, this single task, international in nature, has already made the organization of the International Left Opposition on a centralized basis indispensable.

However, do we not risk ignoring national peculiarities and tasks, of simplifying policies and bureaucratizing methods? Only those who have no confidence in the ideological content of the Left Opposition can pose the question in these terms. To think that each national group is capable, with its own forces, of posing and resolving national problems from an international standpoint, and at the same time to be afraid that an international organization — which includes all these sections — is incapable of taking into account the national peculiarities, is to make a mockery of Marxist thinking.

The Stalinist bureaucracy and Molotov's stupid commandership are not at all the consequences of international centralization but of the national-socialist transformation of the Russian bureaucracy, which systematically subjects all the other sections to its will. The struggle for national "autonomy" (waged by Brandler, Lovestone, Louis Sellier, and others) is basically of the same kind as the struggle for trade-union "autonomy"; both reflect the tendency of reformist elements to evade tight control — which can be exercised only through definite ideas and a definite organization, necessarily centralized and international. That is why it is not at all by chance that Louis Sellier, who profits by the Phrygian cap, and Pierre Monatte, who profits by the Amiens Charter, find themselves closely united in the struggle against revolutionary communism.

The mechanical centralization operating today in the Comintern has no international content; on the other hand, it increasingly serves as the most convenient way to sacrifice the interests of the vanguard of the world proletariat to the demands of the plebiscitary Stalinist faction which rests on the basis of "national socialism." Reaction against this is inevitable. It has begun. It has only just begun. It will bring in its train not a few more blows, expulsions, splits, and final separations.

The right wing is retreating from the Comintern to prewar forms of the workers' movement, whose instability was strikingly revealed by the imperialist war and the October Revolution.

The Left Opposition is also, as is well known, a reaction against the national-socialist bureaucracy, but it does not look back; it looks forward. It represents in itself not a retreat from Bolshevism but the latest further development of Bolshevism in the course of the struggle against its degenerate epigones.

The apparatus will not prevail. Ideas will prevail — if they correctly express the course of development. The apparatus is able to enjoy independent power only to the extent that in the past it was based on ideas that had conquered the masses. The inertia of the apparatus can be very great, especially if it is armed with considerable financial resources and means of repression. But despite all this, the apparatus will not prevail; ideas will prevail — on condition that they are correct.

During the first year of La Vérité's existence, its guiding ideas passed the test in the Opposition camp. The groups of parasites and dilettantes who disdainfully denied La Vérité the right to exist have disappeared from the political scene or are in their death agonies. Stagnating, conservative groups are compelled, under La Vérité's pressure, to reorganize themselves, to look for a new political orientation, and to check their baggage. That is true not only for France but also for Germany, Belgium, Italy, and other countries. That has made La Vérité — to a well-known degree — an international organ of the Opposition. La Vérité has exerted an influence on advanced communist elements not only in Europe but also in Asia and America. The little weekly organ around which, at the beginning, was gathered a small group sharing the same ideas has become a weapon for international activity. Ideas are powerful when they reflect faithfully the objective course of development. Today, La Vérité has sunk deep roots in the soil of France; the group that began it is surrounded by a double circle of friends in the ranks of both the party and the unions.

We are celebrating the first anniversary of La Vérité but it would be incorrect not to say a word about La Lutte de classes. It has long been established that the more revolutionary a proletarian faction the deeper is its interest in theory. It is not by chance that the Communist Left in France has been able to build up a Marxist theoretical organ which has already shown itself to be necessary for the proletariat and which will prove to be of invaluable service to the proletarian revolution in the future.

La Vérité is entering its second year. We have to look ahead. More remains to be done than has been. La Vérité today is the organ of an ideological current; it has to become an organ of mass action. The goal is not very near. The main tasks still lie ahead of us. But now there can no longer be any doubt that the seeds sown in the past twelve months will begin to yield the desired shoots in the second year.