Letter to the Bolshevik-Leninist Organization of Greece (Archio-Marxists), October 1930

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Dear Comrades:

The recent visit of two representatives of the International Secretariat of the Left Opposition, the thorough inquiry they have made into the situation of the Left Opposition in Greece and the direct contacts they have established between your organization and the international center of the Left Opposition, give us an opportunity to address to you the following observations, which we believe will bring the necessary clarity into our relations and precision into the political activity which you are about to undertake.

(1) In the resolution adopted by your conference you mention the Communist International. Although your relations with the Communist International follow from your general position, they require nevertheless a more exact formulation. In no case are we ready to abandon to the Stalinists the banner of the Communist International, its traditions, and its proletarian core. We are fighting for the regeneration of the Third International and not for the creation of a fourth. It is in this way that we define our role as an international faction. This does not, however, exclude the possibility in one country or another where the official party is extremely weak that the Opposition will have to assume, partially or totally, the functions of an independent political party (leadership of the trade unions and strikes, organization of demonstrations, nomination of candidates). It is impossible for us to decide to what degree such a situation is characteristic of Greece; but no matter how you decide this question in the near future, that will not change the general line of the Left Opposition. Even while acting as a party you must consider yourself as a section of the Third International, regarding the official party as a faction, and proposing to it unity of action in relation to the masses. A principled declaration on your part on this question would be extremely desirable.

(2) We learn from your resolution that you are preparing to execute a turn from the purely propagandist, preparatory stage of your activity to an open political struggle under the banner of the International Left Opposition. The necessity of this turn is perfectly clear to you as well as to us. However, we foresee that this turn will not be able to be realized without certain contradictions, conflicts, and internal struggle. We must foresee in advance the crisis of growth and prepare for it.

The illegal conditions in which the revolutionary organizations of your country are forced to exist, and the reactionary bourgeois character of the official trade union leadership, have caused all the revolutionary workers, devoted to their class and not to the bourgeois regime, to group themselves around your organization in the trade unions. This fact is of great positive importance and guarantees you contact with large layers of the working class, but certain negative factors may flow from it and pop up temporarily. Not only the workers who support you, but also the members of your own organization, although not all, have not as yet a clear idea of the aims and tasks of Bolshevik-Leninists. Certain elements may withdraw from the organization when it passes over to open political action. It is wrong to become frightened before such setbacks. By infusing its ranks with more homogeneity and its activity with a broader political character, your organization will be able to replace one-hundredfold all possible individual desertions.

(3) It is very important to adopt a consistent line of conduct toward the Opposition organization, Spartakos. The existence of two Opposition organizations, both declaring their solidarity with the International Left, will undoubtedly derail workers and impede your development. It is difficult for us to judge whether unification is possible at the present moment. At any rate the possibility or the impossibility of unification can only become manifest in practice, that is, if you seek united action in the form of an agreement on each political question, since a fusion of the organizations is impossible. In this way the members of both organizations and their worker followers will be able to distinguish the existing differences by means of the experience of political struggle, and make their choice. In other words, we suggest a policy of the united front under these circumstances and at the present moment.

(4) The terrorist methods introduced by the Stalinist bureaucracy into the heart of the labor movement in Greece represent a very serious danger. Naturally every organization and every revolutionary is obliged to defend himself when he is attacked. The most serious method of defense is, however, in this case a correct position on the question of the application of methods of violence instead of methods of persuasion, and a persistent propagation of this position in the ranks of the working class. Of course, we are not pacifists, but a Marxist must understand clearly where the limits of the application of violence begin and where they end, where it is transformed into a revolutionary factor and where into a reactionary one. It is pure insanity on the part of a minority of the working class to believe that it can conquer the majority by applying methods of violence against other minority groups. The working class can make its choice only on the basis of experience. The attempt to replace experience by terrorist methods inevitably produces in the working class a hatred against all those who employ these methods, and may for a long time sustain a reformist reaction.

We believe that a clear and precise declaration on this question is especially necessary on your part. This declaration may take the character of an open appeal to the official party and to the Spartakos group, demanding that they definitely and categorically condemn, in the name of the three organizations, the use of violence in the internal relations between them and propose that each case of apparent violence be examined by an impartial interfactional commission. Of course, we do not insist on the form of your proposal, which is important only as an example. You will yourselves no doubt find the form appropriate under the circumstances.

(5) The incorrect conduct of individual members of your organization in the courts of bourgeois justice necessitates, we believe, a principled solution of this question. The illegal existence of your organization demands no doubt a rigorous conspirative form and great foresight on the part of your leaders in order to avoid superfluous arrests and victims. But the members of your organization, and especially all its responsible militants, must remember when they are arrested that they are in front of the tribunal as the fighters of their party and their class. It is perfectly permissible to refuse in the course of the cross-examination to make certain statements, especially in case these statements can serve to incriminate the accused or other persons. But it is altogether impermissible before the tribunal to disavow the banner of the party or to misrepresent its aims and its methods through the veiled ideology of the bourgeois state. Such methods can only in rare cases lead the prosecutors and the judges off the track, but on the other hand they usually mislead the workers and undermine the revolutionary authority of the party. For revolutionists the tribunal remains one of many tribunes. We have noted with satisfaction that the comrades responsible for such incorrect conduct before the tribunal have been expelled from your organization. We believe it altogether essential for you to lead a public action on this case, explaining the causes of the expulsions and clarifying your principled position in the question of the inquest and the tribunal.

We have permitted ourselves to make these suggestions with the firm conviction that the experience of the International Secretariat of the Left Opposition will be of undoubted service to your young organization and will enrich your political action.

With communist greetings,