Letter to Max Shachtman, May 23, 1931

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

Part of the Responsibility for the German Split

Dear Comrade Shachtman:

1. As you have assumed, I am really overburdened with work and can hardly conceive of writing the foreword for the China book that you ask of me. It would have to be elaborated very carefully. I cannot think of what manuscripts on China to send you. The larger work, “The Chinese Question After the Sixth World Congress,” was sent to you in January. Did you purposely disregard the long article in the Russian Biulleten number 15-16, pp. 7-19, “Stalin and the Chinese Revolution”? The article is perhaps somewhat dry, it consists mainly of quotations, but it represents quite an ample piece of work and can to a certain extent substitute for the foreword that you desire, since it coordinates the different stages and besides brings to light new, important documents. I would recommend that you insert this article either as the first or the last. At any rate this would greatly facilitate the task of the foreword for me. Likewise, I do not find on your list my latest article, published in La Vérité, “The Strangled Revolution,” a review of Malraux’s novel. I believe this article will fit in very well within the framework of the book.

2. Together with Comrade Frankel, we are very glad that you have halfway overcome your reservations regarding Landau. Your explanation, allow me to say, does not appear very convincing to me. You write that you wanted to avoid a premature split. Do you feel that I did want to bring about or hasten this split? And if not, what practical steps did you propose to achieve this aim? I, for my part, have done everything that appeared possible and expedient to me. Aside from this, it seemed to me that if the leading comrades of the national sections had exercised proper pressure on Landau in time, he might — I say might — have been saved. Unfortunately that was not the case and you bear a small part of the responsibility for this. The lion’s share, after Landau, is naturally borne by Naville, who encouraged Landau with false hopes, sent equivocal information, etc. Now Landau wants to have nothing to do with the International Secretariat and is energetically working to form a new International, with the Gourget people, with the Prometeo people, with Overstraeten, and, it is reported, with — Weisbord for America. More than that: while he has done everything to prevent unification in Austria, and to destroy it in Germany, he accuses me of having split all the national sections, particularly in America. So, my dear Shachtman, I bear the responsibility for your not being on good terms with Weisbord. I am afraid that Naville will have to take the same road. His closest friends have deserted him, and not by accident. Those whom he influences are hostile to us, and mean it earnestly. Naville, however, is playing with ideas and has never meant it seriously and honestly. He remains in the League in order to sabotage it from within and in order to help Landau build his new International. The principle involved in this I have written about in a letter which my son will send you.

It is obvious that decisions must be arrived at according to the principled lines of the different tendencies, and I understand quite well the caution taken by your organization in this field. But this criterion must not be conceived pedantically and so formalistically. The Bordigists are a tendency and they must be judged according to their fundamental principles. Gourget is a tendency and van Overstraeten is a tendency — naturally an unfortunate one. But what shall we say of the Mahnruf group,which changes its “tendency” seven times in the interests of the self-preservation of the old clique and in doing this does not halt before the dirtiest methods? Judgment must be based on the fact that it is an altogether unprincipled clique, demoralized by the methods, splits, and intrigues of the Comintern, which does not take ideas seriously, and with whom we must watch not their theses but their fingers. What is important is not the theses that Landau will present tomorrow, but the fact that he approves everything on China, even on America and the other countries, insofar as it does not touch his position of power. What is characteristic of Landau is not to be found in his trade union theses, but in the fact that he kept up a deadly silence on the trade union question in France because Naville is his friend. The programs, the theses, the principles, are highly important when they represent a reality. However, when they are only an adornment and a mask for clique struggle, then they must be booted aside in order to uncover the gentlemen concerned and represent them in natura.

3. Naturally, I am glad that you have received some money for the pre-publication rights [for excerpts from the first volume of The History of the Russian Revolution]. Insofar as the rights for the German Volkszeitung [in New York] are concerned, I have sent Fischer [publisher of the book in Germany] a letter by air mail and not a telegram, in order to make the matter more clear to him. I have asked him to cable his decision to America. Unfortunately, I am not sure that he will comply and in the negative case I would gladly see the Militant coffers reimbursed.

It is, however, at present a question of a perspective dealing with a larger sum. I am afraid that Boni will attempt to deduct 5 percent from the Saturday Evening Post royalties as well. And since, on the one hand, I have been too long cheated and betrayed by the publishers and, on the other, need the money for the creation of a German theoretical journal, I am determined not to pay the 5 percent in any case, even at the risk of breaking the contract. I have written to Eastman more fully. I would very much like to have the 5 percent committed to The Militant, from the book as well as from the pre-publication reprints. It would mean a considerable sum. You must see to it that our dear Eastman deals with Boni more energetically and does not surrender our common interests as he has done with his own.

4. I have no idea what comments the bourgeois press has made [on the printing of excerpts from the History] and would gladly have anything of interest in it.

5. I do not have to tell you that I rejoice at the perspective of transforming The Militant into a weekly. The next step must be a theoretical monthly. I am very much inclined to attach this destination to my contribution for the Militant fund.

With best regards.

Yours,

L. Trotsky