Letter to the Politburo, January 4, 1932

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Absolutely Secret

To the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (B)

To the Presidium of the Central Control Commission

History has again arrived at one of its great turning points. In Germany the fate of the German proletariat, of the Comintern, and of the USSR is being determined. The policies of the Comintern are steering the German revolution toward destruction just as inevitably as they did the Chinese revolution, although this time it is being done from the opposite direction, is Everything it was necessary to say in this regard, I have said elsewhere. There is no point repeating it here. Perhaps two or three months — and that in the very best of cases — remain in which to reverse a ruinous policy, the responsibility for which lies completely with Stalin.

I do not speak of the Central Committee because it has in effect been dismissed. The Soviet papers, including those of the party, speak of "Stalin's leadership," "Stalin's six conditions,"¹⁹ "Stalin's forecasts," and "Stalin's general line," ignoring the Central Committee altogether. The party of the dictatorship has been brought to such a state of degradation that the ignorance, organic opportunism, and lack of loyalty of a single individual can leave their mark on great historical events. Having blundered hopelessly in China, England, Germany, in every country of the world, and first of all in the USSR, Stalin, struggling for the salvation of his inflated personal prestige, supports a policy in Germany that automatically will lead to disaster on a scale as yet unknown in history.

In order not to create difficulties for Stalin, the "party" press, reduced to slave status, remains generally silent about Germany. Instead it talks a great deal about "Trotskyism." Entire pages are again filled up with "Trotskyism." The problem is to make people believe that "Trotskyism" is a "counterrevolutionary" tendency, the "vanguard of the world bourgeoisie." Under this sign the Seventeenth Party Conference has been called. It is quite clear that this crude "agitation" is not meant to pursue any ideological goals, but rather to promote very definite, practical — or more precisely, personal — aims. A concise formulation of these would be stated as follows: the time has come for the Turkulization of policy toward representatives of the Left Opposition.

Through the official Communist press in the West, Stalin has allowed revelations to be made concerning the schemes and designs of a White Guard terrorist organization, hiding these facts all the while from the workers of the USSR. Stalin's aim in having these revelations published abroad is quite clear: to provide himself with an alibi in his joint labors with General Turkul. The names of Gorky and Litvinov were added in all likelihood for purposes of camouflage.

The question of terrorist reprisals against the author of this letter was posed by Stalin long before Turkul: in 1924-25 at an intimate gathering Stalin weighed the pro's and con's. The pro's were obvious and clear. The chief consideration against was that there were too many selfless young Trotskyists who might reply with counter-terrorist actions.

There came the time that I was informed about this by Zinoviev and Kamenev, when they had come over to the Opposition; moreover, the circumstances were such and the details provided were such as to dispel any doubts whatsoever about the veracity of the report. Zinoviev and Kamenev, as I hope you have not forgotten, belonged jointly with Stalin to the ruling "triumvirate" which stood above the Central Committee: they were privy to things that were quite inaccessible to rank-and-file members of the Central Committee. If Stalin should now force Zinoviev and Kamenev to renounce their testimony of that time, no one will be taken in.

The question was dropped in 1925; as the present events show, it was merely held over for later consideration.

Stalin has come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to have exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union. He had hoped, as is known from his statement in the Politburo at that time — which is on record — that Trotsky, deprived of a "secretariat," and without resources, would become a helpless victim of the worldwide bureaucratic slander campaign. This apparatus man miscalculated. Contrary to his expectations it turned out that ideas have a power of their own, even without an apparatus and without resources. The Comintern is a grandiose structure, that has been left a hollow shell both theoretically and politically. The future of revolutionary Marxism, which is to say of Leninism as well, is inseparably bound up from now on with the international cadres of the Left Opposition. No amount of falsification can change that. The basic works of the Opposition have been, are being, or will be published in every language. Opposition cadres, as yet not very numerous but nonetheless indomitable, are to be found in every country. Stalin understands perfectly well what a grave danger the ideological irreconcilability and persistent growth of the International Left Opposition represent to him personally, to his fake "authority," to his Bonapartist almightiness.

It is Stalin's calculation that the mistake needs rectification. His plan runs along three channels: first, information obtained by the GPU is made public concerning a terrorist plot against Trotsky being prepared by General Turkul (under maximum favorable conditions, created for him by Stalin); second, an international "ideological" campaign is opened up which will surely culminate in a resolution by the party conference and one by the Comintern — such a resolution being necessary for Stalin as a kind of political mandate for collaboration with Turkul; third, through the services of the GPU Stalin singles out and purges with truly brute ferocity everything that is suspect, unreliable, or questionable, in order to assure himself against counter-blows

I of course have not been let in on the technical details of the undertaking — whether Turkul will try to attribute the work of his hands to Stalin or whether Stalin will hide behind Turkul. This I do not know, but some Yagoda, playing the role of middleman, with the undoubted assistance of the celebrated "Wrangel officer," surely knows quite well.

Needless to say, Stalin's schemes and designs cannot affect the politics of the Left Opposition or mine individually, not in any way or from any angle. The political fate of Stalin, corrupter of the party, gravedigger of the Chinese revolution, destroyer of the Comintern, candidate for gravedigger of the German revolution, is foreordained. His political crash will be one of the most terrible in history. It is not a question of Stalin but of saving the Comintern, the proletarian dictatorship, the heritage of the October Revolution, of bringing the party of Lenin back to life. The majority of office holding bureaucrats on whom Stalin bases himself both in the USSR and in all the Comintern sections will flee at the first roll of thunder. The Left Opposition will remain true to the banner of Marx and Lenin to the end!

The present document will be preserved in a limited but fully sufficient number of copies by reliable hands in several countries. Thus you have been notified in advance!