Letter to the International Secretariat, March 12, 1933

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KPD or New Party? (I)

To the International Secretariat

Dear Comrades:

German Stalinism is collapsing now, less from the blows of the fascists than from its internal rottenness. Just as a doctor does not leave a patient who still has a breath of life, we had for our task the reform of the party as long as there was the least hope. But it would be criminal to tie oneself to a corpse. The KPD today represents a corpse.

The scorn of the vanguard of the German workers for the bureaucracy which has deceived them will be so great that the slogan of reform will seem false and ridiculous to them. They will be right. The hour has struck! The question of preparing for the creation of a new party must be posed openly.

In what form shall this work be done? It will of course have to be based on those elements that were created by the preceding development But the new perspective and the new slogan will open new possibilities for the Left Opposition. It is necessary to state that the split with the Stalinist bureaucracy in Germany is a fact. This sharp turn in our policy, provoked by the turn in the situation (the Fourth of August is an accomplished fact), will not be absorbed all at once by all our comrades. That is why it is necessary to analyze the question in our own ranks and, above all, among the German comrades. This task will be made easier if the Secretariat immediately adopts a firm and resolute position.

The Stalinist bureaucracy is organizing a new "Amsterdam congress," this time against fascism. If the congress is called, we must utilize it to better advantage than the antiwar congress. All sections without exception will have to find a way to be represented at the congress. Transfer of authorizations to the comrades in the country where the congress will be held is one of these means. Declarations of principle will have to come from all sections (not in their own name but in those of various workers' organizations).

Since it is a question of appearing before the congress as opponents of the centrist bureaucrats and of the liberal antifascists, we will have to try to make agreements with organizations such as the party (and the trade unions) of Sneevliet in Holland, the SAP in Germany, and other similar organizations. To this end, along with our own declaration which should call on the German workers to create a new party, it will be necessary to work out in advance a shorter and simpler document with which, after preliminary conversations, our allies will be able to associate themselves (unmasking the mistake of this congress as a fundamental theme). This is a very important tactical step in view of the fact that it will promote the political self-determination of our allies and should facilitate the creation of the new party in Germany.

Differences on this or that special point cannot be significant and will be pushed aside by the progress of our work if we are in agreement on the principles, that is, on the necessity of carrying out a sharp turn in our attitude toward the KPD.

The turn obviously does not consist in "proclaiming" ourselves the new party. There can be no question of that But we declare the following: The official German party is politically liquidated, it cannot be reborn. The vanguard of the' German workers must build a new party. We Bolshevik-Leninists offer them our collaboration.

Here it is natural to ask how we act toward the other sections of the Comintern and the Third International as a whole. Do we break with them immediately? In my opinion, it would be incorrect to give a rigid answer – yes, we break with them. The collapse of the KPD diminishes the chances for the regeneration of the Comintern. But on the other hand the catastrophe itself could provoke a healthy reaction in some of the sections. We must be ready to help this process. The question has not been settled for the USSR, where proclamation of the slogan of the second party would be incorrect We are calling today for the creation of a new party in Germany, to seize the Comintern from the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy. It is not a question of the creation of the Fourth International but of salvaging the Third.

The internal situation in Germany and above all the situation of the KPD dictate the conclusion. We must aim far, without spending ourselves on details. In practice this means that we must first of all create a German theoretical and political organ abroad for the Left Opposition. We must do this immediately in order to give the thinking of the advanced workers a point of support in this time of general turmoil We must agree as quickly as possible with the German comrades on this publication.

G. Gourov [L. Trotsky]