Letter to the International Secretariat, April 17, 1933

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More on the American Dispute

To the International Secretariat

(Copy to the Central Committee of the American League)

Dear Comrades:

It has appeared to you that my letter could be interpreted as being more favorable to the minority than to the majority of the central committee of our American section. If this is your impression, that shows that I have expressed myself badly. In intervening in this question, I strove to discount completely our experiences on an international scale (case of Comrade Shachtman) and to follow step by step, without the least interference on our part one way or the other, the development of the internal conflicts and differences in the American section.

It seemed to me — and it still seems to me — that the minority is exaggerating enormously the importance of the national conference: not as a regular political meeting of a revolutionary organization, but as the means of solving the internal struggle by organizational means, that is to say, by an eventual small majority of several votes. For me, the whole of political wisdom is that, at the present stage, there is no organizational means of bringing about a decision favorable for the development of the organization itself. Quite the contrary, it is necessary to advance policies by guarding sharply against rushing things too much.

It also seemed to me that the majority, as the leading faction in the central committee, showed a certain impatience and applied or attempted to apply organizational measures which, without giving permanent results, could not help but sharpen the conflict.

I notice with satisfaction that the majority has withdrawn on its own initiative one of the measures which consisted in depriving Comrade Abern of a deciding vote in the committee in the absence of Comrade Swabeck. And if I understand the sense of the latest minutes the reaction of the minority seems to me quite disquieting.

There is the matter of our possibilities in the miners federation in Illinois. Cannon is well known down there; he enjoys a certain authority there based especially on his past trade-union activity. Everything appeared to indicate that it was he who should have gone there again with a situation that is promising enough. The continuity of the work already begun also demands it But the minority opposed it with the candidacy of Comrade Shachtman and it is to be feared that the central committee will remain undecided.

Such a measure on the part of the minority cannot be justified except by deep differences about our work among the miners. I do not get the impression that the minority is correct in its criticisms. Far from it Comrade Allard is reproached for not sufficiently emphasizing the point of view of the Left Opposition in the trade-union paper of which he is the editor. Comrade Cannon is reproached for having presented himself as a representative of progressive workers and not as a representative of the League. I cannot see any good grounds for the first reproach; I have only read two issues of the paper in question. In one of them, the editors played up the speech of Comrade Cannon quite big, which is of course of great importance for us. It is quite possible that Comrade Allard does not utilize all the possibilities; but he was quite alone — or at least he was up to very recently. And then, it is a question of a trade-union paper, the editing of which requires a great deal of prudence. The reproach against Comrade Cannon appears to me to be dictated by a purely formalistic intransigence. I do not think that it was the task of Comrade Cannon to present himself as a delegate of the League, the latter being a political organization. Not much is accomplished with political demonstrations inside of the trade unions; it is important to get into them, to gain authority within them, to work inside, to create a fraction there, which in its turn must not abuse the name of the League on every occasion, especially not as long as it remains a tiny minority. The mass union is not a meeting called by some political organization. Naturally, for such things there are no cut-and-dried rules; it is a matter of concrete circumstances. But it appears to me — I can very well be mistaken from afar — that there is in the objections of the minority a certain spirit of sectarian formalism. In any case, these objections do not at all appear to me to be sufficient to prevent Comrade Cannon from fulfilling so important a task as that among the miners.

Since I have decided to follow the development of the internal struggle from step to step, I beg you not to consider this letter as “final." Its purpose is to supplement the preceding letter in the light of new experience.

L. Trotsky