In Defense of the Opposition Bloc

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The Stalinist faction bases its policy of splitting the party on the counter-position of “Trotskyism” to Leninism and the assertion that the 1925 (Leningrad) Opposition has gone over from the position of Leninism to that of “Trotskyism.” It is quite obvious to every thinking member of the party that the objective of such agitation is to turn attention away from the actual political differences — caused by the obvious backsliding of the Stalin faction from the class line — and toward the old political differences, which have either been completely overcome, have lost their sharp meaning, or have proven imaginary.

The allegation that the 1925 Opposition had given up and gone the way of the 1923 Opposition is untrue and is dictated by rude and disloyal political considerations. Since 1923 the party has accumulated enormous experience, and the only elements who have not learned from this experience are those who have slipped unconsciously into the petty-bourgeois swamp. The Leningrad Opposition sounded a timely alarm concerning the covering up of class differentiation in the village, the growth of the kulaks, and the expansion of their influence not only on the basic functioning of the economy but also on the policies of the Soviet government; over the fact that in the ranks of our own party and under the protection of Bukharin, a whole theoretical school of thought had taken shape clearly reflecting the pressure of the petty-bourgeois element in our economic life. The Leningrad Opposition took an energetic stand against the theory of socialism in one country as the justification of national narrow-mindedness. All these questions, which are of the greatest theoretical importance, were included in the joint declaration of the United Opposition. In their declaration, both groups formulated the basic economic and party-political tasks:

1. The need to accelerate the rate of industrialization and change the approach to wage questions;

2. The need to counteract the pressure from the kulak, and from the petty bourgeoisie in general, upon the soviets and the cooperative societies; and the need to arrive at an understanding with the village population, especially the middle peasants, not through the kulaks but from below, through the agricultural workers and poor peasants. (On the question of the relations between proletariat and peasantry we stand completely on the ground of the theoretical and tactical teachings of Lenin based on the experience of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, as well as the experience in socialist construction, all of which he summarized in the term smychka);

3. The need for a radical struggle against the tendencies toward petty-bourgeois degeneration in the ranks of our own party;

4. Finally, the need to ensure a maximum proletarian membership in the party and a decisive influence by the proletarian centers, districts, and cells on the policies of the party; and in conjunction with that, the need to return the party regime to the Leninist road of internal democracy.

We proceed from the fact that, as experience has irrefutably shown, on all more or less fundamental questions over which any of us differed with Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich was entirely right. We have united in the defense of Leninism against its falsifiers, with everyone’s unconditional acknowledgment of all advice concerning each of us in Lenin’s Testament (because the profound import of this advice has been completely confirmed in practice); on the basis of unconditionally putting the Testament into practice in life, not only the point about the removal of Stalin from the post of general secretary, but also the point about preserving the entire leadership team that was built under Lenin, and by preventing the degeneration of the party leadership from Leninism to Stalinism. Only due to the joint experience of both currents (the Opposition of 1923 and the Opposition of 1925) have all basic questions — the economy, the party regime, the policy of the Comintern — been given a correct and complete solution.

Each and every attempt to use old articles or theses by representatives of either current with the aim of sowing mutual distrust based on old ideological struggles constitutes an attack with defective weapons. The Stalinist attempt at “discrediting leaderships” will not succeed. In revolutionary politics what is decisive is not memories, no matter how maliciously distorted, but the revolutionary tasks facing the party. The United Opposition pointed out in April and July, and will point out again in October, that the unity of its views is only strengthened by all the rude and disloyal baiting. The party will come to understand that only on the basis of the views of the United Opposition is there a way out of the present severe crisis.