Letter to the National Committee Workers Party of the US, August 12, 1935

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A Cancer in the Workers Party

To the National Committee Workers Party of the U.S.

Dear Comrades:

I mentioned in my first letter that at the time of the French “turn” a large majority of the European sections opposed it. But the experience itself has been so eloquent, so striking, that an overwhelming majority of the comrades have since recognized the justice of the turn. The Naville group has not only entered the SFIO but has gone back into the Bolshevik-Leninist Group.The unity of the former League is fully reestablished, if we do not count the insignificant group of Lhuiller. It is not, however, the unity of the former League which is decisive, but its new role. From a propaganda group with some two hundred members, youth included, it has transformed itself into a revolutionary factor directly and indirectly exercising an influence upon the working class movement of the country. One can say without the least exaggeration that the specific gravity of our French section in the working class movement in France is far greater than the specific gravity of the Dutch or American parties in the labor movements of their respective countries. This means that progress has been made in France. The situation has changed not only quantitatively but qualitatively.

The fate of all Europe, and to certain degree the fate of the whole world, is being decided for the present in France. This objective fact doubles and triples the importance of the work of our French section. What is the elementary duty of all the other sections? To give their fullest attention to the activity of the Bolshevik-Leninist Group in France, to solidarize with it, and to extend to it material and moral support. This international duty is all the more imperative and urgent in view of the fact that the reformist bureaucracy — hand in hand with the Stalinist clique, which is sparing neither effort nor money for this purpose — has embarked upon a war of extermination against the Bolshevik-Leninist Group. A new chapter is opening. This year of work in the SFIO is opening new opportunities for an independent revolutionary party. All the comrades of the Bolshevik-Leninist Group agree with this. Naturally, it is necessary to know how to act, and also how to maneuver, in order to create an independent party in the most favorable possible circumstances. This is the task of the next period.

Now, instead of supporting our French section with all its strength, the Oehler group occupies itself in belittling, misrepresenting, and even slandering -our French comrades. I do not at all desire to sharpen the atmosphere of the discussion in the WP, but I must state frankly that the attitude of Oehler and his confreres looks very much to us like the attitude of strikebreakers.

In my letter to the Polish comrades I briefly characterized the first successes of our Belgian section (Lesoil). I underlined the fact that the left wing of the Socialist Party has come, more or less, under the influence of our comrades, or at least of our ideas, throughout the whole country, excepting Brussels. Brussels is the only city in which the local section of the former League was under the influence of Vereecken and remained with him after the split. We have here, then, an experiment that is almost chemical in its clarity. In the very center of Vereecken’s activity, the left wing of the Socialist Party has fallen completely under the influence of Dr. Marteau, the Stalinist agent in the POB. Could there be any more striking proof of the absolute sterility of sectarianism? While Vereecken recruits with the utmost difficulty here and there a handful of young intellectuals and young, isolated workers, the group of Lesoil (our section) is actively influencing the development of the left wing in the Socialist Party and the Young Socialist Guards.

I do not at all mean by this that the American comrades must attempt a simple reproduction of the French or Belgian experience in the United States. The difference in existing conditions is obvious to the naked eye. The fusion of two independent organizations has opened up great possibilities. for you. No tendency among you proposes entry into the Socialist Party. As part of your task as an independent organization, it is a question of knowing how to influence, directly and systemically, the development of the left wing in the Socialist Party. During the first months of 1917, the Bolshevik Party represented a far more considerable force than the Workers Party does today. Nevertheless, the Bolshevik Party maintained continuous relations with the left wing of the Mensheviks, and on occasion even drew up common electoral slates in the municipal elections in Petrograd with the left Mensheviks (Larin group). At the same time, in agreement with Lenin, I remained in the organization of the Internationalists to bring them as a whole toward fusion with the Bolshevik Party. A fusion congress was convoked in July 1917. In April, Lenin spoke at the Menshevik conference. At the fusion congress in July a representative of the left wing of the Menshevik congress delivered a speech of congratulations, etc. Bolshevik intransigence is indissolubly bound to an understanding of the real process in the workers’ organizations, to the ability to influence this process, to a flexibility in maneuvering with regard to groupings and even individuals.

On the other hand, each sectarian wants to have his own labor movement. By the repetition of magic formulas he thinks to force an entire class to group itself around him. But instead of bewitching the proletariat, he always ends up by demoralizing and dispersing his own little sect.

I cannot express an opinion from this distance on the practical course to take with regard to the Socialist and Stalinist parties. From Europe, unfortunately, I see far less of America than Comrade Oehler, from America, sees of Europe. That is why I prefer to remain prudent rather than offer counsel which might prove unwise. But I am absolutely in agreement with Comrades Cannon and Shachtman when they say that a Leninist policy toward the Socialist Party and its left wing “cannot be pursued in an atmosphere of hysteria over the nonexistent danger that a realistic consideration of the dynamics of development in the Socialist Party represents the preparation of capitulation to the SP.”

I have read with attention the minutes of your plenum and with a certain horror I have read of your Control Commission. One seems to breathe in a somewhat nightmarish atmosphere when one reads of the suspicions and rumors directed against comrades who have long fought for the ideas of the proletarian revolutionary struggle. Such methods can paralyze and demoralize the party unless they are at once brought to an end by the will of all.

How does it happen that Comrades Oehler, Stamm, and others take recourse to such means? We have had in France an analogous case with Bauer, who, not content with a political struggle against the “turn,” suddenly became an inexhaustible source of suspicions, accusations, and even unbelievable slanders directed against all of us. He was, however, an honest and sincere man, devoted to socialism. His misfortune is that he is a sick sectarian. Such a man can remain tranquil and friendly so long as the life of the organization continues to revolve in familiar circles. But woe be it if events bring about a radical change! The sectarian no longer recognizes his world. All reality stands marshaled against him and, since the facts flout him, he turns his back on them and comforts himself with rumors, suspicions, and fantasies. He thus becomes a source of slanders without being, by nature, a slanderer. He is not dishonest. He is simply in irreconcilable conflict with reality.

Comrades Weber and Glotzer accuse the Cannon group of proceeding too rudely and bureaucratically against Oehler. I cannot express an opinion on this charge, since I have not had the opportunity to follow the development of the struggle. Hypothetically, I can concede the possibility of a certain hastiness on the part of the leading comrades. It would naturally be a mistake to desire to organizationally liquidate an opposition group before the overwhelming majority of the party has had the chance to fully understand the inconsistency and sterility of that group. Leaders are often impatient in seeking to remove an obstacle in the path of the party’s activity. In such cases the party can and must correct the precipitateness of the leaders, since it is not only the leaders who educate the party but also the party that educates the leaders. Herein lies the salutary dialectic of democratic centralism.

But Comrades Weber and Glotzer are decidedly wrong when they place on the same plane the “mistakes” of Oehler and the mistakes of Cannon. Sectarianism is a cancer which threatens the activity of the WP, which paralyzes it, envenoms discussions, and prevents courageous steps forward in the life of the workers’ organizations. I should like to hope that a surgical operation will not be necessary. But precisely in order to avoid expulsions, it is necessary to strike pitilessly at the Oehler group by a decision of an overwhelming majority. This is the preliminary condition of all possible future successes for the Workers Party. We all want it to remain independent, but before all and above all, independent of the cancer which is eating at its vitals.

Fraternally,

Leon Trotsky