Letter to Comrades in the USSR, May 23, 1930

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A Progress Report to the USSR

Dear Friends:

It surely has not escaped your attention that Pravda, Bolshevik, and all the rest of the official press have now renewed the campaign against "Trotskyism" with all their might. Although the behind-the-scenes reasons for this turnabout are unfortunately not known to us, the very fact that the discussion has been renewed after having been virtually suspended for a period of time represents a great victory for us.

Half a year ago Molotov specially recommended to the French Communists that they refrain from polemicizing against "Trotskyism" since in fact it had been totally annihilated. At about that time I was writing to the French comrades that our victory would be half assured the moment we forced the official apparatus to enter into polemics with us, for here our ideological superiority, long since established, would inevitably make itself felt with full force. And we are beginning to harvest the fruits of the Opposition's theoretical and political labor of the past seven years. This applies first of all, of course, to the Western countries, where we have our own publications and where we can answer blow for blow. In the USSR the apparatus can, thanks to the one-sided nature of the polemic, postpone the final outcome of the ideological struggle. But it can only postpone it. The past has seen so many mix-ups, lies, contradictions, zigzags, and mistakes that the simplest general conclusions now thrust themselves of their own accord upon wide layers of the party and the working class. And since these elementary conclusions about the present leadership coincide in essentials with the ideas the Opposition has promoted, the apparatus is forced to start "working over Trotskyism" again from the beginning, in order to try to prevent a link-up between the criticism and dissatisfaction in the party and the slogans of the Opposition, But there can be no doubt that the warmed-over serving of the same old dish will not bring salvation. In some recent articles, for example those by that helpless soul Pokrovsky, the belated call for a "working-over of Trotskyism" has an obviously panicky tone. The importance of these symptoms cannot be rated too highly. A lot of things have begun to stir in the party and are moving in our direction.

In the West we are meeting with real success, especially in France and Italy. The official press of the French Communist Party has totally rejected the advice from Molotov referred to above — advice which Molotov himself has even managed to repudiate. Instead of attacking us with hopelessly absurd fabrications in the style of the "Wrangel officer," the French Communist press is trying to develop a polemic on matters of principle. But that is exactly what we want! The French Opposition is taking part more and more effectively in the activities of the CP, making a record for itself in them and making a criticism of them, thus gradually breaking down the wall between itself and the party. The Opposition has found support in the trade-union movement, where our cothinkers have published their own platform and established their own center, continuing the struggle of course for a united confederation of labor (the CGTU).

In the Italian party, serious shifts have also taken place recently. You know about the expulsion from the party, on charges of solidarity with Trotsky, of Comrade Bordiga, who recently returned from exile. The Italian comrades have written us that Bordiga, having acquainted himself with our latest publications, did indeed make a statement, it seems, about his agreement with our views. At the same time a split that had long been in preparation has taken place in the official party. Several members of the Central Committee, who had been responsible for some of the most important work of the party, refused to accept the theory and practice of the "third period." They were declared "right deviationists," but in fact they had nothing in common with Tasca, Brandler, and Company. Their disagreement on the "third period" forced them to reexamine all the disputes and differences of recent years, and they declared their full solidarity with the International Left Opposition. This is an exceptionally valuable widening of our ranks!

In one of my recent letters I emphasized that the past year was a year of great preparatory work for the International Left Opposition and that now we could expect political results from the work we had done. The facts I have cited, involving two countries, attest that these results have already begun to take on tangible form. It is no accident, after all, that the Comintern press feels forced, in the wake of the Soviet Communist Party, to take the road of open "principled" polemics with us, which, naturally, will only work in our favor.

The Sixteenth Congress will not yet reflect these obvious, indisputable shifts in the Soviet party and Comintern, shifts that promise much but that are nevertheless only beginning. This will be a congress of the Stalinist bureaucracy, as before. But a frightened, distraught, "reflective" bureaucracy. Organizationally Stalin will hold onto his positions at the congress, in all likelihood. Even more, this congress is sure to formally draw the balance sheet on the whole range of Stalin's "victories" over his opponents and to sanctify the system of "one-man rule." But in spite of that — or more precisely because of that — one may say without the slightest hesitation: the Sixteenth Congress will be the last congress of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Just as the Fifteenth Congress, which sealed the victory over the Left Opposition, powerfully spurred on the disintegration of the Right-center bloc, so too the Sixteenth Congress, which presumably will crown the defeat of the Rights, will spur on the disintegration of bureaucratic centrism. This disintegration should proceed faster, the more it has been held back by the rude and disloyal apparatus crowd. Not only does all this open up new possibilities for the Left Opposition; it also imposes very great obligations upon it. The road to the party lies through the process of reviving the party itself, and only through that, and consequently through the strengthening of the tenacious theoretical and political work of the Opposition in the party and working class. All the rest follows of its own accord.

With firm communist greetings,

L. Trotsky