On the Draft Political Statutes

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I will confine myself to the most important remarks on this document. Point 4, “Against support for parliamentary democracy.” In this general and absolute form, it is false, especially in the present situation in France. We are in favor of maintaining parliamentary democracy when it is being attacked by fascism or Bonapartism. It is precisely on this basis that the united front has become possible and even the entry of the League into the SFIO. At the same time, we are for overthrowing parliamentary democracy with soviet democracy. These two sides of our policy must be formulated separately.

Point 5. Defense of democracy and defense of the USSR are put on the same plane. These two questions must be divided by linking the defense of the USSR to point 7a (which should itself be divided into two or three points).

The same point 5 takes a stand in favor of the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war, but it says nothing about revolutionary activity to prevent the war from breaking out. At the present time, when we are in the midst of a political and social crisis, when the struggle against fascism can only grow sharper and sharper, we can and must foresee the possibility of launching large-scale revolutionary movements against war. It is that task which we must emphasize above all others.

Point 6 speaks of the “disintegration” of the bourgeois army. This formulation should perhaps be avoided for legal reasons. It would be sufficient to say: “in order to win over its best elements to the cause of the proletariat.”

Point 7a. It is quite characteristic that the point which speaks of the revolutionary defense of the USSR carries the letter “a.” This suggests that in the original text the question of the defense of the USSR was not mentioned at all. I dwell on this “peculiarity” because it reveals a state of mind which I find disastrous. If the young Leninists want to discredit themselves and perish, they need only adopt an equivocal position on the defense of the USSR, by putting this question on the same level as the defense of democracy; that is, by equating capitalist property relations with nationalized property relations, by equating the most perfect bourgeois state (where does one exist, by the way?) with the most deformed workers’ state.

My conclusions: the point dealing with the revolutionary defense of the USSR must be placed among the first points of the statutes and completely separated from the question of the “right to criticize the Soviet bureaucracy.” Moreover, the latter formulation is not very clear; it is not apparent whether we are demanding these rights for the Soviet workers or for ourselves. It seems that in the eleven points of the preconference of the International Left Opposition (February 1933) the same idea is formulated more correctly.

Point 9 speaks of a new youth organization, of a new party. This is too abstract and does not explain why we have entered the JS. A campaign for a united youth organization is now under way. We need to state that this campaign will prove fruitful only on the basis of the revolutionary principles set out in our political statutes. We propose these statutes as a charter for the united youth organization.

The greatest defect of the statutes is that they do not deal with the real situation of the JS, to which you belong, and of the Seine Alliance in particular. Your weakness is your totally unfavorable social composition. You have hardly any young workers, and that is the question which should be at the center of your political statutes, which are written not for the universe and for all time, but for your small group, which is inside the Seine Alliance in 1934. The conclusion must state: that principles set out in our statutes can really be applied only if our organization is anchored in the working class itself. Otherwise it will have only an ephemeral, inconsequential existence. That is why our supreme task — the task of the entire organization and of each individual member — is to recruit young workers. Our real successes will be measured not by how much we repeat the same super-revolutionary formulas, but by how much we can radically change the social composition of our organization.

The statutes say nothing on the question of the united front. This is a serious omission. We must indicate that the united front must pursue concrete tasks of the mass struggle while maintaining the right of each organization to criticize, within the framework of discipline in action.

You speak again of the “autonomy” of the youth. This is a formulation which has been compromised, because it has been identified with the tendency to split from the party. At the present time, this is not our tendency, but that of the right-wingers who really would like to have us outside the party! Speaking of autonomy in the statutes provides the best possible service to Levy and the others. We should speak of the youth’s right to freedom of discussion and freedom of criticism in the framework of discipline in action. This is completely adequate and has the advantage of not inciting the adult workers to oppose us.

Vidal [Leon Trotsky]