What Next in the Campaign Against the Russian Right Wing?

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By the time this issue [of Biulleten Oppozitsii] is off the press, the campaign against the right-wingers will have been concluded by decisive organizational measures: the removal of Rykov, Tomsky, and Bukharin from the Central Committee (perhaps Rykov only from the Politburo). Whether matters will come to the expulsion of the right-wing leaders from the party and to their administrative punishment at the next stage depends partly on the conduct of the leaders of the Right, but primarily on the degree to which the Stalinist staff will feel impelled to make a turn to the right For this is how things are at the top now. Just as the smashing of the Left Opposition at the Fifteenth Congress in December 1927 immediately preceded the left turn, which officially was taken on February 15, 1928, so the inevitable turn to the right will have to be preceded by an organizational smashing of the Right Opposition. Why must it be? Because if this turn should be made with the presence of the Rights on the Central Committee, they would declare their solidarity with the turn. That would not only make their expulsion from the party difficult but in addition would mar the perfection of the general line But this is only one side of the matter. There is also another, no less important Long before the decisive organizational destruction of the Left Opposition, a new split was being prepared in the core of the then leading majority, without which the turn to the left could not even be thought of, not to speak of the fact that there would be nobody to blame for yesterday's right-wing course And now when the inevitable turn of the general line to the right is being described on the horizon, one must assume, a priori, that a new split is taking shape in the ruling circle which will be revealed only after the turn to the right It cannot be otherwise. On the one hand, not only in the party — this goes without saying — but even in the apparatus itself, there are those who took the ultraleft zigzag seriously as a systematic left course; these elements will resist the approaching turn. On the other hand someone has to bear the responsibility for the dizzy-headedness and for the turns on a statewide scale. One can even guess beforehand along what lines the split will proceed "theoretically," or more correctly has already proceeded, by applying the process of elimination. To attribute the excesses in industrialization and collectivization to Voroshilov and Kalinin is impossible; everyone knows well enough where the sympathies of these two captives of the left zigzag lie To attribute the responsibility for the political dizzy-headedness to Kuibyshev, Rudzutak, or Mikoyan is impossible; nobody would believe it, because political dizzy-headedness requires something akin to a political head. Therefore there remains only one — Molotov.

The conclusion arrived at by the process of elimination is substantiated by several Moscow sources. We are told that for some time Stalin has been very diligently spreading rumors through various channels that Molotov has become conceited, that he is not always obedient, and that, pulling at his coattail from the left, he interferes with him, Stalin, in conducting a completely infallible "general line." The mechanics of the new zigzag are thus clear in advance because they reproduce the past we already know. But there is also a difference — an awareness of the mechanics and an acceleration of the tempo. An increasing number of people know how it is done and what phrases it goes by. It is becoming clear to broader and broader circles of the party that the basic source of duplicity is the general secretariat, which systematically deceives the party, saying one thing and doing another. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that Stalin's leadership is too costly to the party. Thus in the mechanics of the centrist zigzags and the apparatus crackdown a moment arrives when quantity must change into quality.

The Soviet and party bureaucracy lifted Stalin on the wave of reaction against the October Revolution, against War Communism, against the upheavals and dangers inherent in the policy of international revolution. This is the secret of Stalin's victory. By 1924 new generations were being raised and the old ones reeducated in the spirit of the theoretical and political reaction of a national-reformist character. Stalin's left" reservations — reservations of a cautious centrist — did not interest anyone. What pervaded the consciousness were these moods: quietly, little by little, we will build up socialism without any revolutions in the West; one must not skip stages; the slower you go, the further you get. Why not conclude a bloc with Chiang Kai-shek, Purcell, Radic? Why not sign the Kellogg Pact? (Even a piece of string may come in handy on a trip.) And above everything, down with the "permanent revolution"; not the theory, with which the majority of the bureaucrats are not in the least concerned, but the international revolutionary policy, with its disturbances and risks, when in the USSR there is something real at hand.

This is the philosophy on which the Stalinist apparatus, numbering millions of people, was reared. The majority of the real Stalinist bureaucracy feels it has been double-crossed by its leader since 1928. "A peaceful growing-over" of the October regime into national state capitalism did not and could not take place. Coming to the edge of the capitalist precipice, Stalin — even though he is no lover of jumps — made a breakneck jump to the left The economic contradictions, the dissatisfaction of the masses, the tireless criticism of the Left Opposition, compelled Stalin to make this turn in spite of the partly active, mainly passive resistance of the majority of the apparatus. The turn took place with a gnashing of teeth by the majority of the bureaucrats. This is the main reason why the new stage of "monolithism" was accompanied by the open and cynical establishment of the plebiscitary-personal regime. Only by utilizing its final remaining inertia can Stalin still carry out the crackdown of the Rights and the new turn, and only at immeasurably higher cost to himself than all the preceding ones.

About a year ago we said that a new squeak was heard in the apparatus. Since then the squeak has become a clatter. Of what importance is the fact that Syrtsov, placed in a high post for the purpose of easing out Rykov, turned out to be the head of the so-called "double-dealers," that is, people who vote for Stalin officially, but think and, if they can, also act differently. How many such Syrtsovs are there in the apparatus? Alas, such statistics are inaccessible to Stalin. They can be revealed only in action. The official press characterizes Syrtsov as a right-winger. The fact that Syrtsov sought a bloc with left centrists of the Lominadze and Shatskin type not only displays extraordinary confusion in the ranks of the apparatus but also shows that Syrtsov is one of those disoriented right-wing apparatus people who have become frightened by the threat of Thermidor.

There are also others. There are those who vote against Syrtsov and Lominadze, demand the expulsion of Rykov and Bukharin, swear allegiance to the one and only beloved leader, and at the same time have in the back of their minds: how to betray to their own best advantage? These are the Agabekovs and others. The sycophants of the revolution, its bureaucratic toadies, have succeeded in making their way sufficiently well in foreign countries; jumping over the fence, they soon sell themselves to their new boss. How many of them are there in the Soviet apparatus inside the USSR? It is harder to count them than to number the frightened right-wingers and the honestly confused centrists. But there are many of them. Stalin's successes, with all his zigzags, have resulted in the formation of a core in the apparatus of a faction of toadies, who remain devoted even "without flattery" up to five minutes before complete betrayal. This human abomination is absolutely incapable of any kind of independent political, much less historical, role But it can well serve the role of a banana peel on which the plebiscitary perfection of Stalin will slip.

Once it begins to slip, the Stalinist apparatus will be unable to find its former balance. It has no support of its own under its feet. Will it find support at the right? No. There are two sectors: confused and even despairing opportunists, incapable of any initiative, and bureaucratic toadies, capable only of initiative for betrayal. The centrist elements will find no support at the right.

And at the left? Only here, from the left wing, is it possible to repel the Thermidorean-Bonapartist danger, intensified by the policy of the centrists. Does this mean formation of a bloc with Stalin? The struggle of the Bolsheviks against Kornilov, who openly attacked the Provisional Government — was that a bloc with Kerensky? In the face of a direct counterrevolutionary threat, a common struggle with the part of the Stalinist apparatus that will not stand on the other side of the barricades is self-evident.

This, however, is not the main question. The moment the apparatus, split by contradictions and falsehoods, begins to rock, the situation can be saved, not by any part or particle of the apparatus itself, but by the party, the vanguard of the proletariat. This is the task! But the party as an organizational entity is nonexistent. The accumulation of toadies in the apparatus has meant the destruction of Bolshevism and the party. In this lies the historical crime of Stalin. But the components of the Bolshevik Party are extraordinarily numerous, alive, and indestructible. No matter how much the apparatus strives to disorient them, the worker-Bolsheviks draw their own conclusions. Tens of thousands of Old Bolsheviks so and hundreds of thousands of young potential Bolsheviks will rise up at the moment of danger. The bourgeois restoration that will attempt to seize power will have its hands chopped off.

The Left Opposition is the vanguard of the vanguard. The same qualities and methods are demanded of it in relation to the official party which under normal conditions are required of the party in relation to the class: an unwavering principled firmness and, at the same time, a readiness to move even the smallest step forward together with the masses.

Within the party the voice of alarm must be sounded in the nearest future. The party must begin to reassert itself. This must take place; it flows from the whole situation. By what road will this process go forward? It is impossible to foretell. But there will be a deep internal realignment, that is, a selection and welding together of the real revolutionary proletarian party away from the human dust trampled underfoot by the apparatus.

In the face of the sharp convulsions and acute changes in the situation, it would be doctrinaire to bind oneself beforehand by any kind of partial unprincipled organizational-technical slogans, to which the slogan of a coalition central committee is partially related. We wrote on this subject several weeks ago, on the eve of the last campaign against the Rights. Since then much has changed. But we think even now that the slogan of a coalition central committee may appear to the broad circles of the party as the only one capable of finding a way out of the chaos. It is understood that the coalition central committee in itself would not solve anything; but it could make it easier for the party to solve the tasks before it, giving it the possibility to find itself with the least possible convulsions. Without a deep internal struggle this is no longer possible; but we must do everything to keep out of this interned struggle all elements of civil war. An agreement on this basis may do a great service to the party at the most critical moment. It is not the Bolshevik-Leninists who will resist such an agreement. But making it, they can now less than ever before renounce their traditions and their platform. We must say outright: there is no other banner at present!