Letter to Federico Vásquez and Mariano Vela, April 12, 1933

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Errors of the Spanish Leaders

Dear Comrades:

I received your letters concerning the collapse of the German CP. Since this is a question of general importance, I chose to answer you as well as the other comrades with an article whose French translation I attach. I would be extremely happy if you would translate it into Spanish so that all the members of the Spanish Opposition can participate in the discussion.

I understand perfectly the heated character of your observations. The question — faction or party — has played a definite role in the internal life of the Spanish Opposition. On this question Comrade Nin has committed every possible error while not adopting a principled position. That is usually Comrade Nin’s position: playing with ideas, maneuvering, jumping from one principle to another. At one moment Comrade Nin stated that the official CP generally no longer existed and that we should not take it into consideration; he rallied to the Catalan Federation not as a Left Oppositionist, but as Nin, “friend of Maurin”; after which he accepted the theory of the narrow faction which recruits members only for the official party. At the last conference, Nin spoke in favor of independent electoral candidates of the Left Communists. All these positions contradict each other, but all reveal an extreme indifference to the fate of the Comintern as well as to the experience of the International Left Opposition. I understand very well that such an inadmissible attitude toward fundamental political questions must have deeply disturbed you.

Now it seems to you that I hold a position on Germany that indirectly justifies Nin’s false position. You fear that elements even more distant from communism than the Stalinists will pick up the slogan for a “new party” and compromise the Left Opposition. I least of all would doubt that your arguments flow from serious political apprehension. Every political turn poses a certain element of danger. However it is much more dangerous to repeat old bypassed formulas in a new situation because of fear of such dangers.

I don’t know what position Comrade Nin’s group now holds on the question of the German CP. Even if Nin shares the IS’s position on this question, that wouldn’t seem to me to have much value in and of itself. Someone’s political line can only be evaluated on the basis of his overall work, his reaction to all the major events, in his own country as well as on the world arena. Comrade Nin has more than once verbally “accepted” the theoretical formulas and the political slogans of the Left Opposition. But such an acceptance never obligates him to anything; in practice, he is guided by his' sympathies or antipathies, by his personal relations or preferences; that is, by the classical criteria of a radical petty bourgeois.

I would now like to add a few words on Comrade Lacroix and his group. On the questions of the Spanish revolution and above all of international politics, Comrade Lacroix commits very serious errors. With a detailed analysis we can see that if Nin has committed all of Lacroix’s errors, the latter hasn’t shared all of Nin’s. On the other hand, Comrade Lacroix has shown an anarchistic individualism absolutely inadmissible within a proletarian organization. While Nin resorted to diplomacy, to silence and equivocation, Lacroix preferred explosions of temperament. Instead of arguments, he insulted his opponents and did not hesitate to make the most arbitrary accusations against comrades and entire organizations. As long as Lacroix used these methods against the IS, the Russian Opposition, the French section, and the German section, he was energetically supported and even encouraged from behind the scenes by Nin’s group. But when Comrade Lacroix used these same methods against Nin’s group, the latter immediately tried to expel Lacroix from the Opposition and presented a series of morally compromising accusations against him.

Comrade Lacroix stated that his way of acting toward the International Opposition was incorrect. We have no reason to doubt his and his group’s sincerity. But it is completely natural that their previous conduct would have left many comrades apprehensive about the future. Many of us say: “It is obviously good that Comrade Lacroix has renounced his struggle against the International Left Opposition and that he is now committed to winning the Spanish Opposition to the positions of the Bolshevik-Leninists. And we would all be very happy to march arm-in-arm with a revolutionary militant like Lacroix. But if tomorrow he finds himself in disagreement on this or that question, won’t he begin once again to replace practical or principled arguments with personal insinuations or simply insults?” The answer to this disturbing question will come from future experience.

Even though your letter severely criticizes my position on a very important question, dear comrades, it has nonetheless very favorably impressed me: it is the first genuine political document that I have received from leading Spanish comrades examining a question in its substance and maintaining a comradely tone in spite of the sharpness of its arguments. I especially appreciated your earnest attitude toward the internal life of other sections and toward international problems. The curse of Spanish politics is its age-old provincialism, which arose from its position outside of the great paths of history and from the disintegration of the power of the Spanish ruling classes. The Spanish bourgeoisie imposes its exasperated, offended, and poisonous provincialism on important layers of the Spanish proletariat via the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. When Comrade Nin, from prison, accuses his partisan, Comrade Fersen, of paying too much attention to international questions, he once again shows that he does not want to free himself from the provincial tradition of Spanish politics.

The Spanish section of the Left Opposition obviously must root itself deeply in Spanish soil. But it will do that more successfully if it participates more actively in the work of the International Left Opposition and uses its experience. I would hope that along this path we will succeed in saving Comrade Nin for the proletarian revolution.