Statement to the Plenum of the ECCI

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The new resolution against the Opposition represents the high point of a line which is clearly and unequivocally a right deviation from the Marxist-Leninist line.

The objective causes of this deviation are: the defeats of the international proletariat, the temporary stabilization of capitalism, and the slowed tempo of socialist development in the USSR.

As the result of a series of defeats — under incorrect leadership that crawled after the bourgeoisie — the right deviation has increased and gathered strength. This deviation magnifies the consequences of the defeats of the working class and makes the preparations for its victories more difficult.

The defeat of the German proletariat in 1923, the defeats in Bulgaria and Estonia, the defeats in the great strikes in Britain, and, finally, the defeat of the Chinese proletariat have not only strengthened the Social Democracy at the expense of the Communist Party, but they have also strengthened the right wing within the Communist Party at the expense of the left. The right wing, for its part, exploits the huge apparatus, directs its blows exclusively against the left, uses repression, punitive transfers, firings, and expulsions to shift the balance of forces against the left wing to an even greater extent.

These are the general reasons why we, the Left Opposition, appear as a minority, while communists the likes of Martynov, Šmeral, Pepper, Thälmann, etc., denounce us in the name of the majority. On the question of the Anglo-Russian Committee, the plenum approved the outrageous capitulation to the strikebreakers and traitors in Berlin. Like it or not, this is the line that leads to Amsterdam. And furthermore! If this line is maintained, unavoidably tendencies will arise within the Comintern demanding that a bridge be built to the Second International. We cam see these tendencies forming at this very moment. We issue a warning against them. We declare an implacable struggle against them in due course.

Speculations about help from the reformist British leaders against the war [danger] have revealed themselves to be sad illusions. The behavior of the leaders of the General Council and the Labour Party before and during the severing of diplomatic relations was dictated by cowardliness and baseness. As war really approaches, these two characteristics will only become more pronounced.

On the question of the Chinese revolution, the plenum has accepted a resolution that approves the false line of the past and prepares the way for new defeats in the future. The leading Guómíndǎng people in Hankou, people the likes of Wāng Jīngwèi and Company, are beginning to become involved with the bourgeoisie, holding back the agrarian movement and the workers’ movement, and if they do not succeed in holding these back, they will unite with Jiǎng Jièshí against the workers and peasants. Those who, under these conditions, oppose soviets and are for subordination to the Guómíndǎng, i.e., to Wāng Jīngwèi, are preparing the way for a new and perhaps even more serious defeat for the Chinese revolution. We pledge ourselves to an all-out struggle within the Comintern for a change in this grossly opportunistic political line.

You have not allowed Comrade Zinoviev, who for seven years was president of the Comintern, to appear here. Our speeches and articles are not printed. The work of the Executive Committee itself is shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy. Is this the way to prepare the working class for the war danger? But now it is already no longer sufficient to suppress just the speeches and articles of the Opposition. Every day, dispatches from China, England, from all over are hidden from the workers simply because the course of events runs against the leadership’s false line.

More and more frequently facts have to be suppressed. In doing this the party is disarmed, the errors compounded, and the ground is laid for new defeats.

The attempt to represent the struggle against the Opposition as a struggle against Trotskyism is a woeful, cowardly way of masking the right deviation, particularly when seen in the light of the Chinese events. You try to artificially breathe life into differences that Trotsky had with Bolshevism but which he settled long before most of you present here joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks. In vain! The most complete expression of the official line on the Chinese question was presented here by Martynov, who has taken an active counterrevolutionary position in three revolutions, He repeats here, applied to China, everything he said in 1905 and 1917, The Menshevik leader Dan acknowledges Martynov’s position as correct and truly Menshevik. You call Lenin’s fundamental views on revolution “Trotskyism” in order to justify the Martynovist struggle against them. Such a facade is a necessity given the level of ideological degradation. But it will not help. The views we put forward are the views of Bolshevism tried and tested throughout the entire history of our party.

A few days ago, approximately one hundred Old Bolsheviks, the pillars on which our party is built, delivered a declaration of solidarity with the basic positions of the Opposition to the Central Committee. This fact discredits the false appeals to “Trotskyism” once and for all. The percentage of those who signed who come from other parties is far smaller than the percentage of such people in the leadership of the Comintern or the AUCP.

The attempt to expel Comrades Trotsky and Vujović from the Executive Committee of the Comintern is as flagrant a violation of the statutes of the Communist International as the refusal to allow Comrade Zinoviev to attend the sessions of the executive. Both are the expression of ideological weakness and bureaucratic arbitrariness. Both are the clearest expressions of Stalin’s line, the dangers of which Lenin warned against in his Testament.Instead of correcting the obvious errors of the leadership, errors the party has already paid for so dearly, Stalin wants to get rid of those who anticipate these errors and warn against them. The immediate object of barring Zinoviev and attempting to expel Trotsky and Vujović is to shield the Sixth World Congress against criticism. It will be followed by the expulsion of the Oppositionists from the CC of the AUCP so that not one voice of criticism can ring out at the similarly prepared Fifteenth Party Congress. The application of such shabby methods will only undermine the authority of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern. In the meantime a decision of yesterday’s Executive Committee meeting unexpectedly postponed without discussion the convening of the Sixth Congress for a whole year (until four years after the Fifth Congress). The purpose of this postponement is to present the International with faits accomplis, especially with regard to the Opposition, and to demand that the congress merely give its approval after the fact to what has already taken place. This, to use Lenin’s expression, is the “rude and disloyal” method which is intended to make it impossible for the party to introduce corrections through normal party channels. It will do no good. The line will be corrected. But the Comintern and international proletariat will have to pay much more dearly for this correction.

In anticipation of our resolution, work is being carried out for the preparation of a new and even more blatant repression. Your resolution is supposed to place the stamp of approval on it. But this will not advance the cause a single step. Truth and justice are on our side. The period of international upheavals which we are now entering will affirm the correctness of our views with each passing day and at the same time discredit every attempt at hypocrisy and double-dealing. We have set down our views in the documents we have introduced. You have condemned us, but the international working class has a right to know why you have condemned us. Suppressing our documents — this is only possible with an open awareness of one’s own impotence. Articles can be hidden from view. Facts cannot. You will have to revise your resolutions. We are preparing for tomorrow. We embody the continuity of revolutionary Bolshevism. After this plenum we are more convinced than ever that revolutionary Bolshevism will triumph. For, apart from it, there is only confusion, vacillation, retreats into Menshevism, and defeats.

Long live the Third International! Long live revolutionary Bolshevism!

L. Trotsky

V. Vujović