Letter to Peter, January 14, 1928

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1. What is the main task of the Opposition in the sections of the Comintern? To win over the Communist parties from within. Since the Communists were able to win over the majority in the German Independent Socialist Party and the French Socialist Party, there is no basis for thinking that given correct policies, the Opposition will not be able to win over the proletarian majority in the present-day Communist parties.

2. For an Opposition group to have a correct policy toward the Communist Party in its own country, it must have a correct attitude toward the Comintern, the AUCP(B), and the USSR. It is necessary to be fully aware of the specific contradictions and peculiarities of the present transitional situation and not to take something that is in process for something that has been completed.

3. To proceed from the view that Thermidor has been completed in the USSR is incorrect; that would mean to facilitate its completion. The class forces have not yet said their decisive word. The politics of the International Opposition must be directed, together with the Opposition in the AUCP, to preventing the further development of Thermidor and to winning back the positions the proletariat has lost.

4. The petty-bourgeois elements in the AUCP rule the party and the state, but they are obliged to base themselves on the working class and to oppose imperialism. They are heading toward concessions to the bourgeoisie. But a sharper onslaught by the bourgeoisie can create a decisive shift to the left in the party. No process has yet been completed.

5. Even with its present petty-bourgeois leadership, the USSR plays a revolutionary role on an international scale. The existence of the USSR was a source of nourishment for the Chinese revolution. The leadership of the AUCP doomed the Chinese revolution to defeat. We must hit at the leadership of the AUCP, without opposing ourselves to the USSR.

6. This also applies to the party, which has become more and more fused with the state, and to the Comintern. If the Opposition simply opposed itself to the USSR as a bourgeois state, and to the AUCP and the Comintern as petty-bourgeois parties, it would be transformed into a sect. We must wage a struggle to win over the AUCP and the Comintern.

7. This means for the present period: not a second party, but a faction, organized to the extent necessary to ensure the possibility of systematic influence on the party.

8. The considerations above, as well as the recent experience in Germany (Altona), argue against our presenting independent candidates. It is impermissible to break with the whole line over some problematic seats in parliament.

9. The creation of a "union of left Communists" is mistaken. The name of the Opposition is sufficiently popular and has an international character. The name "union" adds nothing, but could become a pseudonym for a second party.

There is considerable basis for thinking that the insufficient understanding of the need to fight to win the party from within comes from the same tendencies which formerly led to the rejection of the united-front policy and of work in the trade unions.

10. The question of an independent daily paper must be answered from the same point of view: such a paper can play an enormous role as a means of influencing the party independently and along with it, but secondarily, the non-party masses. But an incorrectly conceived newspaper could quickly isolate the Opposition from the party workers and transform it into a sect.

11. The relation of M. and R. to the Opposition in the AUCP appears, on the basis of available evidence, to be based more on "maneuverist" than on principled considerations. The overall aim of M. and R. is to lower the authority of the Opposition as a whole. Their most immediate task is to bloc indirectly with the capitulators (Zinoviev, Kamenev), contending that others, too, are no better than they. Such a position gives M. the appearance of a strict and incorruptible judge, but in essence it is an alliance (a smychka) with the capitulators.

Without in any way straining relations unnecessarily, we must rebuff these maneuvers, explaining their hidden meaning (orally or by letter; but not in the press, except when absolutely necessary).

12. It is necessary to publish as widely as possible the declaration of the four (Smilga, Muralov, Rakovsky, and Radek) at the Fifteenth Congress and especially the declaration to the ECCI by those about to be exiled, explaining that this declaration comes from the leaders of the 1923 Opposition, plus Smilga, who has joined this group.

13. The struggle against so-called "Trotskyism" is the fishhook Stalin uses to haul in Zinoviev, and which Zinoviev uses on those to his "left" (Safarov et al.). So long as M., too, still hangs on this fishhook, he is compelled to whitewash the capitulators, asserting that they are little worse than others.

14. It is necessary to publish as widely as possible in various languages the letter to the Bureau of Party History devoted to the question of "Trotskyism".

15. The enclosed letters about Zinoviev's and Lashevich's admissions concerning "Trotskyism" (the letter of Trotsky, Pyatakov, Preobrazhensky, etc.) for the time being are not for publication, but it is necessary to use them for information [Ibid., p. 89].

16. The French publication Contre le courant gives a good impression. Unfortunately, we have received only two issues, by chance (1 and 4). We have not even received the platform of the French Opposition. The editorials are good. It is not entirely clear why the editors make the qualification that they are responsible only for the editorial. The editors can and must take responsibility for all articles. The publication of the faction must distinguish itself by complete ideological unanimity.

17. In connection with the considerations of principle developed above concerning the relation of the Opposition to the USSR, it is necessary to make several remarks about the article "The Return of Those Who Saw" (Contre le courant, December 19, 1927), and the other articles devoted to the internal situation in the USSR.

The lead article in no. 1 says, completely correctly, that "to unmask opportunist politics does not at all mean to serve the bourgeoisie." But it is extremely important to point out to the reader in each separate case the point of view from which we approach the internal situation of the USSR. The Communists of capitalist countries must always underline three points:

(a) Even with an opportunist leadership the Soviet state gives the workers and peasants immeasurably more than a bourgeois state would at the same level of development of the productive forces.

(b) The main cause of the very great internal difficulties in the USSR is the insufficient activity of the European proletariat and the insufficient combativity of the European Communist parties.

(c) European Social Democracy (Menshevism), which gloatingly plays up all information about the internal difficulties in the USSR, bears the main part of the responsibility for these difficulties.

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18. The congress of the Red International of Labor Unions will open March 15. We must immediately put this question at the center of our attention.

(a) Do everything possible to get Opposition delegates to the congress.

(b) Prepare positions of principle and practical proposals, based on the trade union experience of each country.

We must not lose even a minute, for there is very little time left.

19. We must also begin preparation now for the congress of the Comintern:

(a) We must prepare theses on all the questions on the agenda of the congress, so that together these theses will constitute the platform of the International Communist Left (Opposition).

(b) We must raise a broad campaign in connection with the excluded Oppositionists in the whole Comintern and in connection with conditions in the USSR.

(c) We must begin work to draft a program for the Comintern (Bukharin's [1922] program is a bad program of a national section of the Comintern, but not the program of a world Communist Party).