Off With All the Blindfolds!

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What leaps to the eye from l'Humanité's articles concerning Comrade Trotsky's expulsion [from France] is, above all, their stupid provocativeness. But, as is known, in politics an evaluation of this kind is totally insufficient It is true that the theoretical and political levels of the leaders of the French Communist Party are extremely low as are, in any case, those of the entire Comintern. Already in 1921, Lenin wrote to Zinoviev and Bukharin, "If you seek only compliance, you will collect only fools around you."

Lenin liked to and was able to call things by their names. Since 1921, the selection of "compilers” has achieved monstrous success. The fatal illness of the Comintern nests in its bones, that is, in its cadres, in their selection, training, habits and methods. All that is absolutely beyond dispute It is not the general characteristic of the Stalinist cadres, however, that now interests us but their political content in connection with Comrade Trotsky's expulsion.

L'Humanité starts off from the assumption that there exists a division of labor, based on an agreement between the government, the police, all the organs of the bourgeois press, the Social Democracy and Trotsky. The government expels Trotsky; he "allows" himself to be expelled; the press chases after Trotsky. Le Populaire, as the lawyer, defends the right of asylum, while carefully keeping its distance from Trotsky, and all this is done with the aim of increasing the authority in the eyes of the workers of the "counterrevolutionary" ideas defended by Trotsky and of preventing the Stalinist party from carrying out revolution.

But however ludicrous this explanation might be, it leads us to the very center of the political problem of France and, at the same time, to the central political error of Stalinism, which has already brought about the death of its German and Austrian sections. The bitter campaign over Barbizon had been started up — according to I'Humanité — by the wish of the bourgeoisie to raise the credit of Social Democratic ideas. What do these ideas consist of, then? Salvaging the democratic forms of the ruling capitalist class: if not entirely, then at least three-fourths or half of it Insofar as the Socialist Party "protests" against the expulsion of Trotsky, it is preoccupied no doubt with the maintenance of its democratic reputation. There is nothing enigmatic about Le Populaire s conduct.

However, the essence of the problem is not Le Populaire but the French bourgeoisie. Is it true that it is presently interested in reviving reformist and democratic ideas and illusions? It is enough to put this question clearly for the whole of l'Humanité's construction to fall to dust The leaders of the Stalinist party have understood nothing about what has happened in France and Europe during the last period. Two years ago, the French bourgeoisie made a great attempt — in fact the last one can believe — to regenerate democracy, its forces, images and customs and its illusions.

The attempt found expression in the victory of the Left Bloc. Given that after the May 1932 elections the Radicals had become the main ruling party of the bourgeoisie, French Social Democracy, of all shades, became the regime's main political support One of the by-products of this political constellation was Comrade Trotsky's entry visa into France. The Socialists need to color their support for the bourgeois regime with "symbolic gestures." And even the Radicals, in reality pursuing a conservative and imperialist policy, needed a democratic mask. Any serious revolutionary could and should have used this situation, without violating his principles, naturally, and without sowing any illusions on the score of the "sacred" right of asylum and other democratic rights.

However, the attempt made during these last months to restore Left Bloc "democracy" has suffered a total and shameful defeat The reformists blame the Radicals for it The Radicals blame the reformists. All this superficial discussion takes place in the sphere of parliamentary politics. The truth is, the Bloc failed because decomposing capitalism cannot allow reforms and, consequently, has been forced to pass from "democratic" to Bonapartist (military-police) repressive or fascist (mass pogrom) methods. Trotsky's expulsion is only one of the by-products of this significant turn in France's political life that has taken place before our eyes.

If it is incontestable that Leon Blum's party was the main political support for the Herriot, Chautemps and Daladier governments, only wretched parrots can go on repeating the same phrase when dealing with the Doumergue government.

For this government to be born, a civil war was needed, which, in the last resort, was directed — it goes without saying — against the proletariat but which had set itself the immediate task of overthrowing the Radical government The main political support for the Doumergue government is formed by the parties and their armed bands that, on February 6, wanted to drive out the capitalist parliament and that killed police officers and their horses, on the road to the Palais Bourbon. That, today, is the grouping of forces. The fact that the same Stalinists found themselves, by pernicious but not accidental aberration, tailing after the fascists has delivered a mortal blow to their political reputation, but it is not reflected to the slightest degree in the results of the counterrevolutionary offensive.

The Doumergue ministry is only a transient combination along the road by which bourgeois rule is freeing itself from democracy, parliamentarism, and Socialist support The present government keeps itself above parliament thanks to the growing antagonism between the two camps: fascist and proletarian. The big bourgeoisie has definitively given up ruling "democratically," that is, directly through the Radicals, indirectly through the Socialists. The entire bourgeois press is preparing the road for a more open Bonapartism. Hence the fierce chase against parliamentarism, Freemasons, deputies, civil service unions and workers' organizations. The bourgeoisie is now attempting not to regenerate and support democratic illusions but, on the contrary, to compromise, soil and destroy the democratic institutions. The fascists and attendant royalists are acting only as the extreme wing of the united front of the reaction. Le Matin, official organ of the Bonapartist-fascist bloc, says quite openly that Trotsky's expulsion is only the beginning.

Soon it will be the turn of Cachin and Leon Blum. There is nothing fantastic in this prophecy. We have seen in Germany and Austria how it works. Le Matin knows what it is saying. Tardieu knows what he is doing.

On the other hand, the Stalinist Bourbons have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. The political turn of February 6 does not exist for them. The Social Democracy as in the past remains for them the "main" support of the bourgeoisie. The articles in I'Humanité dealing with Trotsky's expulsion, which struck the whole world by their stupidity, are not the product of chance inspiration but flow logically from the entire Comintern policy. Stalin's celebrated formula, "Fascism and Social Democracy are not antipodes but twins, "has definitively been transformed into a blindfold over the Comintern's eyes. L’Humanité is now the reformist bureaucracy's best aid and the greatest obstacle on the road of struggle against fascism.

Le Matin presents the political reality in an incomparably more serious and correct manner than does l'Humanité. Trotsky's expulsion from the shelter of Barbizon is only a small rehearsal of the way in which workers' editors, leaders, central committees, administrative commissions, etc., will be thrown out … from their party and union locals. It is precisely this perspective that must be developed before the French workers. Off with any and all kinds of blindfolds, Stalinist as well as reformist! It is high time to look stark reality in the face. Declarations against fascism, "revolutionary" phrases, verbal protests, settle nothing. What we need is mass resistance to the offensive of the pogrom bands on which the Bonapartist reaction relies. This resistance must be organized. This very day we must teach every worker to demand from his "chiefs an immediate answer to the question: What is to be done? Whoever does not give a direct and immediate answer must be rejected. The proletarian united front must be built with the perspective of great battles. Events in France show us once more that the correct revolutionary perspective is given only by the International Communist League, builder of the Fourth International.