Appendix: A discussion with Trotsky — stenographic report dated 12-15 June 1940

[p050] certain. This phase is not reflected in the Socialist Appeal well enough. There is no internal bulletin for the trade unionists. It would be very good to have such a bulletin and to publish controversial articles on our trade union work. In observing the North- west Organizer 1 have observed not the. slightest change during a whole period. It remains a-political. This is a dangerous symptom: The complete neglect of work in ‘relation to the Stalinist party is another dangerous symptom. Turning to the Stalinists does not mean that we should turn away from the progressives. It means only that we should tell the truth to the Stalinists, that we should catch the Stalinists beforehand in their new turn. - It seems to me that a kind of passive adaptation to our trade union work can be recognised. [here is not an immediate dang2r, but a serious warning indicating a change in direction is necessary. Many comrades are more interested in trade union work than in party work. More party cohesion is needed, more sharp manoeuvring, a more serious systematic theoretical training; otherwise the trade unions. ¢an absorb our comrades. It is a historic law that the trade union function- aries form the right wing of the party. There is no exception to this. It was true of the Social Demo- cracy; it was true of the Bolsheviks too. Tomsky was with the right wing you know. This is absolutely natural. They deal with the class, the backward elements: they are the party vanguard in the working class. .The necessary field of adaptation is among the trade unions. “That is why the pressure of the backward elements is always reflected through the trade union comrades. It is a healthy pressure; but it can also break them from the historic class interests —they can become opportunists. The party has made serious gains. These gains were possibly only through a certain degree of adaption; but on the other hand we must take measures to circumvent dangers that are inevitable. I have noticed only some serious symptoms which indicate the need for more cohesion, more emphasis on the party. Our comrades must be in the first line party members, and only in the second line trade union members. This és especially true for trade union functionaries and editors... . Before we go on—I have just received the latest number of Labor Action. Shachtman: is calling ‘for a new slogan, ‘Let’s have a programme for peace not war. But it is war not peace. This is a pacifist tendency. It is no programme for war which is imevitable. . Cannon: Can the Stalinists be regardcd in any important sense as different from any other labour party or grouping? Are tactics applicable to the socialists, etc., also applicable to them? There is a strong tendency to regard the Stalinists as different. Not as a labour tendency. The crassest expression of this tendency is exhibited in the American Labour Party in New York. They regard the Stalinists not ‘workers’ movement. FourtTH INTERNATIONAL, AUGUST 1965 as a working class. party but as an agency of a foreign power. This was the position of Lovestone and Hook on the. Browder passport case. It was Burnham’s position in the CC. We held for critical defence. If O’Neal, for example, were arrested we would defend him similarly. There is no fundamental difference between O’Neal of the Second International and Browder as representative of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Both are treacherous in the labour movement. Burn- ham held that the Stalinists are not a labour movement at all. That they are like German Nazis. We should deferid neither. This point is important in elaborating our general political tactics. So long as the~ social democrats represents a force we must not only have direct. opposition but a policy of manoeuvre. Can any fundamental distinction be made between them and Lewis, Green, etc.? In my opinion we at least subjectively have made a distinction. We have not had a policy of manoeuvre since 1934, neither nation- ally nor internationally. In general should we not re-examine this again? Your proposal raises this drastically. Trotsky: Of course, the Stalinists are a legitimate part of the workers’ movement. That it is abused by its leaders for specific GPU ends is one thing, for Kremlin ends another. It is not at all different from other opposition labour bureaucracies. The powerful interests of Moscow influence the Third International, but it is not different in principle. Of course, we consider the terror of the GPU control differently; we fight with all means, even bourgeois police. But the political current of Stalinism is a current in the If it differs, it differs advan- tageously. In France the -Stalinists show courage against the government. They are still inspired by October. Théy are a selection of revolutionary elements, abused by Moscow, but honest. If they are persecuted in the United States and remain anti- patriotic because Moscow delays its new turn, this would give them considerable political authority. Our revulsion from the Kremlin will not destroy this political authority. We must consider them obiec- tively. We must consider them from the objective Marxist viewpoint. They are a very contradictory phenomenon. They have great courage. We can’t let the antipathies of our moral feelings sway us. Even the, assailants on Trotsky’s house had great courage. I think that we can hope to win these workers who began as a crystallisation of October. We see them negatively: how to break through this obstacle. We must set the base against the top. The Moscow gang we consider gangsters, but the rank-and-file don’t feel themselves to be gangsters, but revolutionaries. They have been-terribly poisoned. If we show that we understand, that we have a common language, we can turn them against their leaders. If we win 5 per cent, the party will be doomed. They can then lead only-a conservative existence. Disintegration -will set in, because this 5 per cent connects them with new sources from the masses.

[p051] LIMITED NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 MACaulay 7029 Write Free for Book List The New Course By Leon Trotsky A collection of articles written in 1923 during the lull before the great storm of persecution which was later to overwhelm Russian Bolshevism. Here Trotsky, analyses the incipient stages of the degeneration of the Communist Party, uncovers its causes and proposes measures for combating its further decline. He here analyses the party in a historical, that is dialectical way. the relationships between generations, social strata, groups, factional forma- tions, tradition and the multitude of factors that go to make a revolutionary party. 111 pages, 3/6 This document is a landmark in the development of 20th century Marxism. It sums up the experience of an entire period of struggle against the Soviet bureaucracy. This Platform also represents the highest point in the fortunes of the Joint Opposition (Trotskyist-Zinovievite) to Stalin. It is the programme of the last of the Bolshevik-Leninists who ; insisted that they remained communists despite all the per- tee S secution, jailings, violence and slander inflicted on them. ‘Left On ~- But this document also represents a watershed—the end of e pposition se) one phase and the beginning of another—in the evolution of ee ' Trotskyist politics. 112 pages, 5/- The Draft Programme of the Communist International by Leon Trotsky This is part of the author’s criticism of the draft programme submitted by the Executive Committee of the Third (Communist) International to the 6th Congress of the Comintern which was held in July 1928. The manuscript of that criticism was written by Trotsky during his exile in Alma-Ata (Central Asia). It was sent to the Congress in Moscow together with an appeal for reinstatement into the party from which he had been expelled a few months before by the Stalinist faction in 1927. Stalin and his supporters had invented the theory of ‘Socialism in one country’, which was made party policy in 1925 and converted into an article of faith to be defended by the world institutions of Stalinism. It is this theory which Trotsky criticises in these pages. 64 pages, 1/- This is a polemic against Radek in 1928. Trotsky examines the arguments against his pre-war theory of the permanent revolution (as expounded in Results and Prospects) and takes up the history of his differences with Lenin before 1917, of which Stalin and his henchmen made so much. Trotsky shows that it was Lenin’s criticisms of his attitude to the centralised Marxist party, which he afterwards understood and accepted, that kept them apart, and not their differences on the permanent revolution. 254 pages, 15/- soft cover, 25/- hard cover This is the basic programmatic document of the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades. By 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to restore working-class leadership after the defeats prepared by the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in tasks of the 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the : Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler’s victory over 4th International SRyreeeeee working class in 1933, finally ruled out the wtemcmocceg perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition. 60 pages, 1/- The death agony of Tee capitalism sy Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.), r/o 180 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

[p052] Subscribe to Fourth International FouRTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of LaBourR~ REVIEW which concluded its 12th year of publication with its last issue, the fifth number of volume 7. FourtH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the - death of Lenin. FourTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals. in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues’ the decades of work by Trotskyists in the International Labour movement and here in Britain. FourTH INTERNATIONAL is now the product of a continuous struggle of the Marxists in the International and _ British Labour movement against Stalinism and Reformism. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in the International and British Labour movement, from the Trotskyist to Communist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL, with this issue, continues a new period of activity in the international and British Labour movements and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention.in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ s. d. to pay for issues of FourRTH INTERNATIONAL. Price 2/6 (postage 6d. per issue) eereseeaereseeeseereeereeeetreceeeeeeeeseseae Some writings by Leon Trotsky The First Five Years of the Communist International Vol. 2 (soft cover) 12s. 6d. (hard cover) 18s. Od. The New Course. ee _ 3s. 6d. The Permanent Revolution (soft cover) 15s. Od. (hard cover) 25s. Od. Draft Programme of the Communist International A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Is. Od. The Revolution Betrayed 10s. 6d. Where is Britain Going? 7s. 6d. Whither France? Ss. Od. In the Middle of the Road Is. Od. Stalinism and Bolshevism 6d. Radio, Science, Technique and Society 1s. Od, 1 Stake My Life!. (Dewey report of the Moscow Trials) 6a. Problems of Life 2s. Od. Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay 2d. The Russian Revolution (The Copenhagen Speech) 4d. Culture and Socialism and Art and Revolution 2s. 6d. A To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ Ss. d. to pay for Pheer ecec ce eaeceresesareracceseneeneseeresaresesrene Cheer sesoreeeesresesenereseeeaeseteseseneereorrresTs

[p053] Subscribe to Fourth International FourTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of LasourR REviEW which concluded its 12th year of publication with its last issue, the fifth number of volume 7. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. FourTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the decades of work by Trotskyists in the International Labour movement and here in Britain. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL is now the product of a continuous struggle of the Marxists in the International and _ British Labour movement against Stalinism and Reformism. FourTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in the International and British Labour movement, from the Trotskyist to Communist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL, with this issue, continues a new period of activity in the international and British Labour movements and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ Ss. d. to pay for issues of FouRTH INTERNATIONAL. Price 2/6 (postage 6d. per issue) ee) ee eee ee ee Some writings by Leon Trotsky The First Five Years of the Communist International Vol. 2 (soft cover) 12s. 6d. (hard cover) 18s. Od. The New Course 3s. 6d. The Permanent Revolution (soft cover) 15s. Od. (hard cover) 25s. Od. Draft Programme of the Communist International A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Is. Od. The Revolution Betrayed 10s. 6d. Where is Britain Going? 7s. 6d. Whither France? 5s. Od. In the Middle of the Road Is. Od. Stalinism and Bolshevism 6d. Radio, Science, Technique and Society Is. Od. I Stake My Life! (Dewey report of the Moscow Trials) 6a. Problems of Life 2s. Od. Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay The Russian Revolution (The Copenhagen Speech) 4d. Culture and Socialism and Art and Revolution 2s. 6d. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ s. d. to pay for Anne nee eee eeeeeneeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeseeseeeeeseess OeePeCOSI COICO CC OSC ee teeter itt e iii i ret tr errr