Principled and Practical Questions Facing the Left Opposition

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Dear Friend:

I haven't written to you in several days because I have been completely absorbed by my book. I have finished three more chapters. Right now I don't have time to write articles and circular letters, and I don't anticipate having time for this in the next two or three months. That is why I would like to take up in this letter a series of principled and practical questions facing the International Left Opposition, so that you can use this material in one form or another with comrades who may be interested in the points considered here.

1. The Brandlerites say that we are a "sect" while they are for a "mass movement." Generally speaking, this is the classic accusation that the Mensheviks hurled against the Bolsheviks. In counterrevolutionary periods, the Mensheviks adapted — to a certain extent they simply followed closely all the turns of the workers' movement — while the Bolsheviks selected and educated cadres. Today, in another situation, under other conditions, at another stage of development, precisely the same difference is the basis of the conflict between the left and the right. The enormous difference in the present situation results from the fact that many of the oppositions, both left and right, are influenced by the official parties, which represent different forces in different countries, but which, as a whole, are nevertheless an enormous factor in the international workers' movement It is Urbahns's total inability and Naville's partial inability to understand this that renders their positions sterile. The official party, particularly in Germany, is an enormous factor. But it is necessary to make a precise evaluation of the very special nature of this fact. What accounts for the strength of the German Communist Party? (a) the profound social crisis on a national scale in Germany; (b) the tradition of the October Revolution, and, above all, the existence of the USSR. These two factors are very important; but they are not sufficient to create "the essence of the party." The stability of the party and its own strength are determined by the internal ideological attachment of the cadres to their activity, tested by experience before the eyes of the masses.

In the Comintern today, it is precisely this element of the party, in the German party as well, that is extraordinarily weak. This weakness is best exemplified by the person of Thälmann If you can imagine for a moment that the USSR did not exist and that the CP were deprived of all official support, it is not difficult to see that the German party would immediately break ranks ideologically on an enormous scale, and that the organization would begin to disintegrate. Belief in the Soviet state and the October Revolution is centered in the person of Thälmann Without these two props, Thälmann's apparatus is an empty shell.

In the projected platform [Theses of the International Left Opposition on the Russian Question], the state of the Bolshevik Party, which rests entirely upon an administrative apparatus, is described in detail. The ideology that holds the party together is today so formalistic and full of contradictions that the party will shatter into several pieces at the first severe shock. Thus, within the Comintern there are at least two large sections that are strong as organizations, but extremely weak as parties. It is precisely this fact that determines our role as a faction with respect to the official party in the immediate future First of all we are creating the elements and preconditions for a Marxist crystallization within the official party. We are creating cadres. Whether we are a sect or not will be determined not by the quantity of the elements who are at present grouped around our banner, nor even by the quality of these elements (for we are very far from the point where all are of the highest quality), but rather by the totality of the ideas, the program, the tactics, and organization our particular group can bring to the movement. This is why at the present stage the struggle of the Left Opposition is above all a struggle for program and for strategic principles. To say that we must speak to the needs of the masses, and to counterpose this truism to the Left Opposition means to fall to a fatal level of vulgarity; for our task is precisely to know with what ideas to address ourselves to the masses, with what perspective to develop their demands, including their partial demands. At one time the Stalinists in China appealed to huge masses. But what did they appeal with? With the program and methods of Menshevism. They destroyed the revolution. When the Brandlerites say "We can't feed the German masses with the Chinese revolution," they are not demonstrating their fancied realism but their vulgar opportunism. Spanish communists who have not assimilated the lessons of the Chinese revolution can destroy the Spanish revolution. And when a revolutionary situation develops in Germany, the German workers will look for cadres whose flesh and blood have been nourished by the lessons of the Russian, Chinese, and Spanish revolutions. At a time when we are just beginning to educate and reeducate the cadres, the Brandlerites counterpose mass work to cadre education. That is why they will have neither one nor the other. Because they have no principled positions on basic questions and therefore are unable to really educate and temper their cadres, they spend their time carrying out a caricature of mass work.

But in this domain the social democracy on the one hand and the Communist Party on the other are incomparably stronger than we are The very fact that desperate Brandlerites turn to us for answers to basic questions, even if they only accept them halfway and faintheartedly, is an indication of how the Left Opposition will add new cadres to its ranks, not just at the expense of the Brandlerites, but above all at the expense of the official party.

2. The Brandlerites, Urbahns, and Sneevliet all agree that our politics are sectarian. Fundamentally, Frey, Landau, Naville are moving in their direction, only they do not see the logical conclusion of their train of thought, and they do not fully express what they are thinking. Take Urbahns. In his paper he has already repeated more than once: "The Left Opposition demands that you accept Trotsky down to the last comma." We can only thank Urbahns for posing the question so clearly and openly. Serious, thinking members of the Left Opposition should not be embarrassed by the raising of the question on this level since it has been posed in this way by opponents. Our differences with Urbahns concern nothing more nor less than the class nature of the Soviet Union and the questions: Are we a party or a faction? And when there is danger of war should we be on the side of the Soviet Union, or should we simply open the discussion about whose side we are on? For counterrevolutionary China or the Soviet republic? These are the questions that Urbahns calls "Trotsky's commas." In this way he reveals his tremendous light-mindedness, and his bohemian or [lumpen] proletarian cynicism. This reveals that he is concerned only with his own outfit and not with the fundamental questions of the world revolution. But even more, in talking about "Trotsky's commas" Urbahns leaves aside the Russian Opposition and all its experience, all its struggles on various fronts, and its platform as well. Our intransigent attitude toward the Myasnikov group, our break with the "Sapronovists" — is all this one of "Trotsky's commas" ?

And the hundreds and thousands of revolutionaries, young and old, with their rich experience, who have spent years in prison or in exile, continuing the struggle against Sapronovism there — is it possible that they do all this because of one of Trotsky's commas? Is this not shameful and outrageous?

Finally, if according to Urbahns all of this comes down to nothing more than a comma, what right does he have to break with the International Left Opposition and stay outside its ranks over a punctuation mark? His position is based on charlatanism and ideological adventurism.

Is it necessary to pause at Sneevliet? He swears that he has nothing in common with the Second International. But we don't believe in oaths. He works shoulder to shoulder with Roland Holst and supports Monatte up and down the line, systematically reprinting his articles. Roland Holst is for the unification of the Second and Third Internationals. Monatte stands between the reformists and the communists, closer to the reformists than to the communists, and blocs with the reformists against the communists; and Sneevliet blocs with Roland Holst and Monatte against us. And to absolve himself of this direct act of treason against communism, Sneevliet says: "They demand of us that we accept Trotsky down to the last comma." What does this mean? It means that Sneevliet feels constrained to justify for some of his workers his policy of collaboration with Roland Holst and not with the revolutionaries. Rather than giving an honest answer: "Roland Holst is closer to me on fundamental questions than these people are," Sneevliet says: "Those people over there demand that you take an oath on every punctuation mark." Isn't this the purest form of charlatanism? Can people who argue this way be taken seriously? Or worse yet: Can you respect political people who throw dust in the eyes of the workers like this?

3. Among the remarks made by the Brandlerites there is one that really merits attention. They accuse us of not yet having provided a concrete analysis of the situation in Germany in 1923. That is true I have already many times reminded the German comrades of the necessity to produce such a work. I will not be able to undertake such a study myself in the near future But how did I personally come to a conclusion about the German situation of 1923 without a "concrete analysis"? It was very easy: I applied myself to an evaluation not after the fact, but by going through the 1923 situation politically, following it in the press, through discussions with German comrades, etc. I formed my picture of the German situation just as I did of the Russian situation in 1905 and 1917. Of course now, after the fact, above all for the sake of the young generation, it is necessary to theoretically reconstruct the situation, facts and figures in hand. The Left Opposition should do this work and it will do it. But here, once again, we stand apart from the Brandlerites on this as on all basic questions of world development. Thalheimer evaluates the 1923 situation with a scholarly air. But has he learned anything from the Chinese situation of 1927? Or from the Russian situation during the right-centrist period? Or from the British situation during the time of the Anglo-Russian Committee? Does he have any attitude to the problem of what is called the permanent revolution, an issue that has become a burning question in Spain? To the Brandlerites it will always seem as though people are accusing them in bad faith for 1923 because in 1931 they have maintained and even deepened their opportunist positions.

4. Frey, Landau, and to a great extent Naville are in the process of developing a new political passport for themselves, one of exceptional profundity: In politics, they say, they are in agreement with Trotsky, but look, his organizational methods are bad. None of them has taken the pains to formulate on paper clearly and precisely just exactly what he means by "organizational methods." The persons mentioned along with certain others always begin to complain about organizational methods at the very moment it becomes necessary to criticize them politically. Take Frey, for example For several years he carried out his national opposition in a single country, displaying a colossal indifference to everything that went on beyond its borders, including in the USSR He entered the Left Opposition only in order to have the cover of international "authority" for his national affairs and his only condition was to be recognized as a leader and then be left in peace. When this condition was not met, he left the ranks of the Left Opposition on the pretext that its organizational methods were bad. Does this seem right on a principled basis? Isn't the prime duty of Marxist revolutionaries to help other national sections free themselves from incorrect organizational methods? Can one desert the Left Opposition simply because it has incorrect organizational methods? At the same time Frey asks to rejoin the Austrian CP with his organization even though, it would seem, incorrect methods hold sway there too. In this way Frey reveals that his internationalism is purely verbal, superficial, for show, and for cover. Now, Frey is basically an Austro-Marxist. It is not a question of "organization" at all. The most fundamental positions are involved. Frey broke with us because he is not an internationalist-minded revolutionary. And he covers himself with the organizational "comma" because it is not advantageous for him to explain the basis of his break with us.

5. Landau is in all respects a disciple of Frey, and at the same time a caricature of him, a malicious caricature In my circular letter I showed (a great deal was already demonstrated in Comrade Frankel's letter) how light-mindedly Landau accepts and approves without criticism or verification all proposals concerning the USSR, China, Spain, etc. No one has written such immoderate and uncalled-for panegyrics on the Russian Opposition and its leaders as Landau. But he is ready at once to reject, to disapprove, to condemn everything as soon as his own petty national affairs are brought into question. As if the question of Mahnruf were an organizational question! No, it is a question of ideological honesty and revolutionary propriety. We can have nothing in common with a group that changes its principled positions at every step and without any basis accuses a man who has left it of espionage. It is necessary to sweep such individuals and such groups out of a revolutionary organization. What about organizational methods in this case?

Landau didn't know anything at all about French affairs! The poor fellow! Meanwhile Naville along with Gourget were carrying out an anticommunist line on the trade-union question. But as soon as Molinier made an obviously grave tactical error on the strike question, it turns out that Landau knows all about this and immediately begins writing circulars on the subject. This shows that he doesn't give a damn about French affairs but that he needs Naville for his Austrian and German affairs and if Naville is carrying out a non-Marxist trade-union line during this time, it is nothing for Landau to worry himself about Without doubt Landau parrots internationalism in words, but we go by deeds and not words.

Following his model Frey to the letter, Landau complains about organizational methods. We have not even arrived at organizational methods on an international scale. We are still in a period of preliminary selection and differentiation. We must say straight out that in various countries the most heterogeneous elements are united under the name of the Left Opposition, and unfortunately elements that are not always of high quality. Far, far too many have masked their ambitions for their groups, their petty-bourgeois conservatism, their national narrow-mindedness, with generalities expressing solidarity with the Russian Opposition. It is only in the last two years that the testing of this solidarity has begun with respect to questions of program, strategy, and the living facts of the struggle. Landau, who breaks with the Russian Opposition in favor of Mahnruf, cannot of course openly and honestly say that he doesn't give a damn about anything outside his national circle. He cannot (that is, at present he does not yet dare) invent principled differences with the Russian Opposition as he attempted to do with Leipzig on the Russian questions. What then does he have left? The organizational "comma."

Landau's attempts to use unprincipled intrigue left and right in order to unify with the Prometeo group compromise him in a most severe manner. Prometeo is a group with ideas, serious, and very principled for its type. In this respect it is diametrically opposed to Landau. This group never declared solidarity with the Russian Opposition. Just this past year they declared that their differences with us were not only very great, but were increasing systematically. On the question of democratic demands the Prometeo group has developed certain theses that throw it back to the era of pre-Marxist socialism. In Spain at the present moment the communists have as their task the development of a determined offensive campaign around democratic slogans in order to win the workers away from the republicans and the socialists. If the Spanish comrades had adopted a Bordigist position, it would have been a disaster for the Spanish revolution. We must mercilessly reject this line We cannot bear even a shadow of responsibility for this semi-anarchist sectarian reaction. We would be traitors if we gave the slightest support to these prejudices. What does Landau do? He tries to bloc with the Bordigists against the nucleus of the Left Opposition. Is it because he agrees with the Bordigists on the question of democracy? Oh, no! Landau is not preoccupied with this. He is concentrating on correcting Trotsky's organizational ways, and for this he needs allies.

The whole business can be explained by Landau's "organizational" needs.

Of course, Landau will say: "We have serious differences with the Bordigists, but" … etc., etc. … (All opportunists and adventurers sing this song.) "the differences do not prevent us from working together." Landau, as we know, is quite generous, liberal, and broadminded when it comes to Italy, Spain, or China. But, alas, all this changes when it comes to Leipzig or Hamburg. Landau is the type of narrow sectarian nationalist who takes on protective coloration and imitates internationalism. But this coloration disappears as the first reaction to any serious test or criticism.

6. Landau tries to find the consummation of his theory (i.e., what he has borrowed from Frey without indicating his sources) in Lenin's testament. Several comrades have written me that Landau is taking the road of Stalin and Zinoviev on this question. No, that is not right. Despite everything Stalin and Zinoviev recognize the facts and despite everything they still approach political questions, even the petty ones, much more seriously. Lenin speaks [in the testament] of my overestimation of administrative methods on the question of the reciprocal relations between the state apparatus and the economy. He is referring pointedly to the experience of the commissariat of transport. In my autobiography and in some other works I have explained what this was about. Administrative methods were not sufficient to bring the economy out of an impasse. But as long as the party held to the terrain of War Communism, there were no methods other than administrative ones. We were debating in a vicious circle in a situation that had never occurred before in history. Our differences with Lenin arose from this vicious circle of War Communism which led us both to the NEP and the elimination of the differences. At present it is not a question of anything like this. There exists the experience of eight years of struggle by the Russian Opposition. In this struggle the question of the party regime, beginning with my pamphlet The New Course (and also before), occupied the most important place. Thousands, even tens of thousands, of party members grouped together on this basis. Where then and from whom then has Landau acquired all of his wisdom about centrism, about the centrist bureaucracy, if not from the Russian Opposition? And now it turns out that the Russian Opposition did not notice all of this and that Landau did and exposed it. Can one take this seriously?

Is it possible that we broke with the Stalins, Zinovievs, Bukharins, and Tomskys in order to unify with or adapt to the Brandlers, the Sneevliets, the Mahnrufs? No, that is a bad joke. We defend a definite set of ideas that have emerged from the broad experience of the Russian and the world proletariat There is sufficient room for all sorts of groups, grouplets, sects, Mahnrufs, etc., outside the Left Opposition. The question does not come down to whether Peter or Paul or their very respectable niece or aunt in Vienna is with us today. It is a question of systematic development and of adapting the fixed capital of ideas to events, and thereby educating real revolutionary Marxist cadres. To do this we must purge ourselves of the accidental passers-by who have joined us out of curiosity or by mistake. We will defend our views with the greatest diligence and patience before any young worker who wants to know the truth and is ready to learn. But in the future we will display a tenfold increased intransigence toward all the confusionists, intriguers, and adventurers who want to pitch their tent under the banner of the International Left Opposition and gather their good friends and acquaintances around it. No, this trick will not work.

L. Trotsky

May 8

P. S. The more facts one collects the more two fundamental traits are revealed that separate the groups mentioned here from the International Left Opposition: their excessive and outright sectarian intolerance within the cadres of their national circle* and their generous liberalism in the international arena. Landau, who demands absolute monolithism in Germany (in addition to which he has not been able up to now to explain just what this consists of), is ready to unify and bloc with anyone at all in the international arena, under one absolute condition: support against the Russian Opposition and the central nucleus of the International Left Opposition. In order more conveniently to hide the absence of principles the struggle is fought, ostensibly, against the International Secretariat But this is only a conventional sign for the standards and methods that have formed the basis of the Left Opposition for eight years. If Frey did not happen by chance to have a rival group in Austria, Landau would have been in his arms long ago. The same is true with respect to Urbahns. If he led the Leninbund in Spain rather than in Germany, Landau would be fighting in the same ranks with him against the International Left Opposition. Only one thing is important: there should be no dangerous rivalries, and dangerous rivalries are to be found only in Germany and Austria. In contrast, it is permissible to unify with the Prometeo group and through it to attempt to unify with Overstraeten. Really, it is not the fault of the International Secretariat if Overstraeten has shown himself to be a capricious dilettante who comes to political decisions with the aid of inspiration, who arouses the wrath of Oppositional Belgian workers with his somersaults. For a whole year I held the Charleroi group back from a break with Overstraeten. The former leadership of La Vérité acted in the same manner. But when all was said and done, it turned out that the Charleroi workers were completely correct and that Overstraeten did not belong in the International Left Opposition — not on the basis of his fundamental principles, or of his political conclusions, or of his organizational methods. On the Russian question he stands with Urbahns, on the trade-union question with Monatte, on the Belgian question, having behind him a dozen comrades, he is for a second party. But what significance can all this have compared to the fact that Overstraeten is opposed to the International Secretariat — that is, against the basic nucleus of the International Left Opposition?

Clearly, all the groups and national cliques who have nothing in common save their hostility toward the consistent politics of the International Left Opposition must be helped to create a rival international organization with the sole principle: "Live and let live." That means no interference into the internal affairs of other cliques. While the International Left Opposition rids itself of accidental alien elements that belong elsewhere (this predictable process of elimination is called the "crisis of the International Opposition" by the phrase-mongers) we will see at the other pole the efforts of this collected debris to create a shadow international organization. That will be a very instructive if not very engaging spectacle. We can predict the outcome of this attempt. Since none of these groups will tolerate the intervention of the others in its affairs, and since because of their national sectarian traits none of them feels the need for such an intervention (this is demonstrated by their entire past history), after some time it will turn out that this international organization that was just created will be of no use to anyone or anything. Q. E. D.

The closer these elements move toward one another, the more their lack of principle will come to the fore, and the more they will compromise themselves by revealing that most of them have nothing more in mind than cultivating their own garden.

It would be well to reveal to one of these sages that he explains the relationship between politics and organization on the basis of counterposing one to the other. All of them, under the leadership of Frey, are building their own "politics" and their own "organization." No one has written about "the organization of the October insurrection and the organization of the Red Army" with such sympathetic pathos as Landau. It would be interesting to ask him how he understands organization in this case — as pure politics, or as pure organization independent of politics, or as some combination of the two that makes organization the vehicle for politics? The counterposition that Landau takes flows from the fact that for him, as the leader of a clique, organizational methods have a totally independent character, sufficient unto themselves: whisper to one, trip up a second, circulate insinuations about a third, ingratiate yourself with a group of workers who are not too critical-minded by flattering their prejudices — these organizational methods really have nothing in common with politics, at least with Marxist politics. But it is precisely our task to rid our ranks of these poisoned and corrupted methods.