The Left Opposition and the SAP

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

Dear Friend,

I have received your letter of April 20 in which you inform me of your discussion with the leading comrades of the SAP. Your information clarifies the resolution of the SAP’s last conference, especially of the parts in which relations with you are concerned.

Until March 5 the leaders of the SAP reproached us for still having hope in the regeneration of the KPD. Today this difference is resolved by the very course of events. We consider the Stalinist apparatus in Germany doomed and call for the assembling of cadres for a new party. In the field of relations between us and the SAP, therefore, the problem should reduce itself to that of the program, the policy, and the regime of this new party. We need, obviously, not general abstract formulas, but the affirmation on paper of the experience of the recent years in which both organizations, the Left Opposition and the SAP, have participated. The fundamental conclusions from that experience have been stated in telegraphic language at our preconference of February this year (in fact, we must make corrections to those theses on the problem of our attitude towards the KPD). From the leaders of the SAP, we should have expected corrections, supplements, or counter-propositions of a programmatic character.

Instead, we hear quite different arguments from them. I admit that I approach this point with reluctance for it concerns me personally. But problems of revolutionary policy are above personal considerations; it is necessary to take arguments in the form in which they are presented by potential allies or enemies. The Left Opposition, according to the SAP leaders, is too closely linked with the personality of Trotsky, depends too much on him, etc. … The German section, it appears, undertakes nothing without the guidance of T., etc. … The concentration of an organization around a single individual presents great dangers, etc. …

First of all, I want to correct this picture of the internal life of the Opposition. I shall not speak of the past experience of the German section and of its serious differences and sharp internal crises in relation to which it happened that I personally played the part, at the most, of an outside adviser. On the order of the day now is the problem of a new party in Germany. The Left Opposition is the only organization that openly discusses this problem before the eyes of all. The majority of the leadership of the German section have differences on this question with the International Secretariat and with me and energetically conducts its campaign, accusing me of "sophisms" and of "diplomacy" and of other sins, strictly in accordance with the rules of the game in such a struggle. I firmly hope that the discussion will end in the elaboration of a common point of view. But in any case, neither in the SAP nor in the KPO (Brandlerites) does one polemicize as openly and decisively against Walcher-Frölich or Brandler-Thalheimer as in our German section one polemicizes against me or the International Secretariat of the Left Opposition. I by no means wish to idealize the Left Opposition as it is. The principal fault of our organization is that it is weak. Its weakness and its inadequate contact with the masses create conditions under which it is possible, even inevitable, that individual personalities have an excessive influence. For this, however, there is but one remedy: to construct a stronger, a more massive organization. If the basic positions and methods of the Left Opposition are fundamentally correct, then the creation of such an organization is assured, or at least fully realizable. Let us concentrate, therefore, on the programmatic, strategical, tactical, and organizational problems.

Against what, basically, do the comrades of the SAP defend themselves: the influence of a definite personality or the influence of definite ideas with which the personality is connected? On this point there is not yet all the necessary precision. In the resolution of the SAP's conference it is said that the SAP is in agreement on many points with the Left Opposition and with the KPO. One is at once struck by the lack of precision in the expression "on many points." That's not Marxism. The resolution of an organization responsible to the vanguard of the workers is required to say clearly and exactly on what problems it is in agreement with other organizations and on what problems it differs. There can be no revolutionary policy without clearness and exactness in the formulation of ideas. The situation is complicated by the fact that the resolution proclaims at the same moment solidarity with us Bolshevik-Leninists and with the Brandlerites. This lessens enormously the value of the declaration since the Brandlerites are separated from us by irreconcilable differences.

During the last two years the key to the international situation was in Germany. In connection with tactical problems (but not with those of strategy), it might have seemed at times that the differences between us and the Brandlerites were not great The German proletarian vanguard has since allowed the key to escape its hands. Austria is now the center of attention. But the problem of Austria has, in spite of everything, an episodic character. The principal key to the situation of the international proletariat is really in the USSR. We assume that the policy of bureaucratic centrism and the dangers it engenders are known to the comrades of the SAP. Are they in agreement with us? If they are in agreement even in general, how can they be in agreement at the same time with the Brandlerites, who support the Stalinist policy in the USSR (which in practice means — in the entire world) and who have more than once treated us as counterrevolutionaries? In not taking a stand on the most important and urgent problems, the leaders of the SAP give the impression that they desire to have the Bolshevik-Leninists on their left, the Brandlerites on their right, and, by separating the two flanks, to conserve their independence (which is not a calamity) and their lack of precision (which is very bad!).

Such a tactic can appear very "clever." Actually, it would be ruinous. It would signify the continuation of the policy of Seydewitz in a new situation. I really do not say this for polemical purposes. For my part, I am ready to do everything to facilitate mutual understanding and collaboration with the comrades of the SAP. But the first condition for this is an honest political understanding.

The leaders of the SAP sometimes complain that the Left Opposition poses the problem of the centrist policy in China, of the Anglo-Russian Committee, of the course of the Comintern in Spain, of the policy of Stalin in the USSR, etc., too mechanically. In reality, the question is not one of arbitrary criteria on our part or of different creeds of the faith. The question is a single and unique problem: that of the policy of the directing centrist faction in different countries and under different conditions. We have put in the forefront the most important events of the last ten years in order to most sharply counterpose, on the basis of these experiences, the policy of Marxism to that of centrism. Obviously we put living political facts and problems in first place. But continuity of revolutionary thought is necessary for the education of revolutionary cadres. From the experience with the Kuomintang, the Canton adventure, the bloc with the English strikebreakers, etc., etc., … runs an uninterrupted line of centrism to the German catastrophe.

In the SAP, as in other organizations, there are thousands of workers to whom this connection is not obvious, who have never studied or thought about the policy of Stalin in China, in Bulgaria, in Spain. To demand of these comrades that they recognize in a purely formal fashion the correctness of our position towards the problems enumerated above would be, in any case, senseless. A long work of propaganda cannot be accomplished at a single stroke. But it is correct for us to demand that those leaders who take upon themselves the responsibility and the initiative of forming an independent proletarian party indicate now their attitude towards the fundamental problems of proletarian strategy and to do that, not in general and abstract form, but on the basis of the living experience of the present generation of the world proletariat. Nor do we pose these problems mechanically to the leaders. We say: "Before deciding definitely on the possibility of our collaboration, which we desire to be the closest possible, it is necessary to be quite sure that we share the same attitude toward the fundamental problems of proletarian strategy. Here are our opinions formulated at the end of the struggle in different countries. What is your attitude towards these problems? If you have not yet defined your attitude toward them, let us try to examine them in common, beginning with the sharpest and most burning political problems." I sincerely believe that the posing of the problem in this fashion does not have a shade of sectarianism. Marxists in general have no other way of posing the question. It is necessary to add to this that we are ready, of course, for practical collaboration without waiting for the definite solution of all the problems under discussion.

The comrades of the SAP believe that an early convocation of a conference of all the organizations, existing Communist groups, which would respond to such an appeal, is indicated. If such a conference is convoked, the Left Opposition would, I believe, participate in it in order to explain its point of view; but to expect serious results for the launching of Communist work from such a conference would be wrong. If it were a question of helping emigres, of defending their interests, or of some such partial political campaign, the conference would be able, perhaps in all these cases, to take on a practical function. But on the agenda is the question of developing the fundamentals of revolutionary policy for a long period. Such problems have never been solved by motley conferences called together in an improvised manner. On the contrary, the lack of political preparation, the hasty convocation of the conference in a helter-skelter atmosphere, would only be to run the risk of increasing the ideological chaos and the mutual exasperation of the different groups.

The leading centers of the German revolutionary movement in the period which is now opening will necessarily be found among the emigres. But the expelled German comrades still feel as though they were merely camping out. Even those among them who understand the significance of the catastrophe that has taken place theoretically have not yet adapted to the new situation psychologically. Within Germany, the different groups continue to live in the inertia of yesterday. That applies also to the SAP, the largest but the least firm of all the Communist oppositional organizations. The left wing of the SAP, in spite of the fact that the leaders have no organ of their own, has won over the majority of the party, removing the Seydewitz faction. This fact is the best demonstration of the general direction of development of the SAP, where we have already seen the beginning of a "living current" Nor can we be blind to the fact that the SAP represents even now the raw forces of communism. Moreover, the situation has radically changed: on the order of the day are not tasks of immediate combat but a long task of preparation under conditions of illegality. The less the organization is formed ideologically, the less it is able to resist the factors of destruction (disillusionment, fatigue, repression, agitation of other groups, etc.). Only ideologically tempered cadres will be able to endure the counter-blows of adverse forces in the coming period!

The Left Opposition, there can be no doubt on this score, is ready to do everything in its power to facilitate a mutual understanding with the SAP. The technical forms for the examination of contentious or unresolved problems are not difficult to find: discussion bulletin, common theoretical journal, a series of discussions at the center and within the groups.

I think it is necessary to pose these problems with perseverance to each member of the SAP.

L. Trotsky