On the History of the Left Opposition: a discussion with C. L. R. James (April 1939)

[p043] sion on the history of the Left Opposition was held in Coyoa- can in April 1939. The sum- mary (it is not a detailed stenogram) was made by Com- rade Johnson; it was not checked by Comrade Trotsky. ——_ Trotsky: Comrade Johnson has Studied this subject with the 8reatest attention and the numerous annotations I have made are evidence of the care with which I have read his memorandum. It is important for all our comrades to see our past with insistence on revo- lutionary clarity, In parts the manuscript is very perspica- Arsenal of Marxism cious, but I have noticed here the same fault that I have noticed in ‘World Revolution’ — very good book—and that is a lack of dialectical approach, Anglo-Saxon empiri- cism and formalism which is only the reverse of empiricism. C. L. R. James makes his whole approach to the subject dependent on one date—the appearance of Stalin's theory of ‘socialism in a single coun- try’, April 1924. But the theory appeared in October 1924. This makes the whole struc- ture false. In April 1924 it was not clear whether the German revolution was going forward or back. In November 1923 I asked that all the Russian comrades in Germany should be recalled. New strata might lift the revolution to a higher stage. On the other, the revo- lution might decline. If it declined, the’ first step of the reaction would be to arrest the Russians as foreign agents of disorder. Stalin opposed me: ‘You are always too hasty. In August you said the revolution was near; now you say that it is over already.’ I didn’t say that it was over, but suggested that this pre- cautionary step should be taken. By the summer of 1924 41

[p044] Above: the. German revolution. ‘What was wanted in Germany in 1923 was a revolutionary party . Stalin had convinced himself that the German revolution was defeated. He then asked the red professors to find him something from Lenin to tell the people. They searched and found two or three quotations and Stalin changed the passage in his book. The German revolution had more influence on Stalin than Stalin on the German revolu- tion. In 1923 the whole party was in a fever over the coming revolution. Stalin would not have dared to oppose me on this question at the Central Committee. The Left Opposi- tion was very much to the fore on this question. Johnson: Brandler went to Moscow convinced of the success of the revolution. What changed him? Trotsky: I had many inter- views with Brandler. He told me that what was troubling him was not the seizure of power, but what to do after. I told him ‘Look here, Brand- ler, you say the prospects are good, but the bourgeoisie are in power, in control of the state, the army, police, etc. The question is to break that power...’ Brandler took many notes during many discussions with me. But this very boldness of his was only a cover for his secret fears. It is not easy to lead a struggle against bour- geois society. He went to Chemnitz and there met the leaders of the social demo- cracy, a collection of little 42 Brandlers. He communicated to them in his speech his secret fears by the very way he spoke to them. Naturally they drew back and this mood of defeat- ism permeated to the workers. In the 1905 Russian revolu- tion there was a dispute in the Soviet as to whether we should challenge the Tsarist power with a demonstration on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. To this day I do not know for certain whether it was the correct thing to do at that time or not. The committee could not decide, so we consulted the Soviet. I made the speech, putting the two alternatives in an objective manner, and the Soviet decided by an over- whelming majority not to demonstrate. But I am certain that if I had said it was neces- sary to demonstrate and spoken accordingly we would have had a great majority in favour. It was the same with Brandler. What was wanted in Germany in 1923 was a revo- lutionary party... You accuse me also of degeneration when you quote Fischer. But why did I give that interview? In revolution it is always wise to throw on the enemy the responsibility. Thus in 1917 they asked me at the Soviet: ‘Are the Bol- sheviks preparing an insurrec- tion?’ What could I say? I said, ‘No, we are defending the revolution, but if you pro- voke us.. .!’ It was the same thing here. Poland and France were using the Russian Bolsheviks as a pretext for preparing interven- tion and reactionary moves. With the full consent of the German comrades I gave this interview, while the German comrades explained the situa- tion to the German workers. Meanwhile I had a cavalry detachment under Dybenko ready on the Polish border, Johnson: You would not agree with Victor Serge that the bureaucracy sabotaged the Chinese Revolution, in other words, that its attitude to the Chinese Revolution was the same as its attitude toward the Spanish? Trotsky: Not at all. Why should they sabotage it? I was on a committee (with Chicherin, Voroshilov, and some others) on the Chinese Revolution. They were even opposed to my attitude, which was considered pessimistic. They were anxious for its success, Johnson: For the success of the bourgeois-democratic revo- lution. Wasn’t their opposition to the proletarian revolution, the opposition of a bureau- cracy which was quite prepared to support a bourgeois-demo- cratic revolution, but from the fact of its being a bureaucracy could not support a proletarian revolution? Trotsky: Formalism. We had the greatest revolutionary party in the world in 1917. In 1936 it strangles the revolu- tion in Spain. Hew did it develop from 1917 to 1936? That is the question? According to your argument, the degeneration would have started in October 1917. In my view it started in the first years of the New Economic Policy. But even in 1927 the whole party was eagerly awaiting the issue of the Chinese revolu- tion. What happened was that the bureaucracy acquired certain bureaucratic habits of thinking. It proposed tg restrain the peasants today so as not to frighten the generals. It thought it would push the bourgeoisie to the left. It saw the Kuomintang as a body of office-holders and thought it could put communists into the offices and so change the direc- tion of events . . . And how would you account for the change which demanded a Canton Commune? Johnson: Victor Serge says that it was only for the sake Fourth International Winter 1972/73

[p045] of the Sixth World Congress that they wanted the Com- mune ‘if only for a quarter of an hour’. Trotsky: It was more for the Party internally than for the International. The Party was excited over the Chinese Revo- lution. Only during 1923 had it reached a higher pitch of intensity. No, you want to begin with the degeneration complete. Stalin and company genuinely believed that the Chinese Re- volution was a_ bourgeois- democratic revolution and sought to establish the dicta- torship of the proletariat and peasantry. Johnson: You mean _ that Stalin, Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov, and the rest did not understand the course of the Russian Revolution? Trotsky: They did not. They took part and events over- whelmed them. Their position on China was the same they had in March 1917 until Lenin came. In different writings of theirs you will see passages which show that they never understood. A different form of existence, their bureaucratic habits affected their thinking and they reverted to their previous position. They even enshrined it in the programme of the Comintern, Proletarian Revolution for Germany, dic- tatorship of the proletariat and peasantry for semi-colonial countries, etc. Comrade Trotsky here asks V. to get a copy of the Draft Programme and the extract is read. I condemned it in my ‘Critique of the Draft Pro- gramme’... Johnson: What about Buk- harin’s statement in 1925 that if war came revolutionists should support the bourgeois- soviet bloc? Trotsky: After Lenin’s Testa- ment Bukharin wanted to show that he was a real dialectician. He studied Hegel and on every occasion tried to show that he was a realist. Hence, ‘Enrich yourselves’. “Socialism at a snail’s pace.’ dtc. And not only Bukharin, but I and all of us at various times wrote absurd things. I will grant you that. Johnson: And Germany 1930- 1933? Trotsky: I cannot agree that the policy of the International was only a materialization of the commands of Moscow. It is mecessary to see the policy Arsenal of Marxism Above: Chinese Nationalist troops: ‘Stalin and company genuinely believed the Chinese Revolution was a bourgeois-democratic revolution’ as a whole, from the internal and the international points of view, from all sides. The foreign policy of Mos- cow, and the orientation of the social-democracy to Geneva could play a role. But there was also the necessity of a turn owing to the disas- trous effect of the previous policy on the Party inside Russia. After all the bureau- cracy is dealing with 160 mil- lion people who have been through three revolutions. What they> are saying and thinking is collected and classified. Stalin wanted to show that he was no Menshe- vik. Hence this violent turn to the left. We must see it as a whole, in all its aspects. Johnson: But the _ British Stalinist, Campbell, writes that when the British delegation in 1928 was presented with the theory of social-fascism it opposed the idea, but soon was convinced that it was correct... (It was agreed to continue the discussion. During the interval Comrade Johnson sub- mitted a document. Discussion continues:) Trotsky: I have read your document claiming to clarify the position, but it does not clarify it. You state that you accept my view of 1933, but later in the document I see that you do not really accept rg Gi I find it strange that on the Negro question you should be So realistic and on this be so undialectical. (I suspect that you are just a little oppor- tunistic on the Negro question, but I am not quite sure.) In 1924, Stalin’s slogan (‘socialism in a single country’) corresponded to the mood of the young intellectuals, with- 43

[p046] out training, without tradi- tion... But despite that, when Stalin wanted to strangle the Spanish revolution openly, he had to wipe out thousands of old Bolsheviks. The first struggle started on the Per- manent Revolution, the bur- eaucracy seeking peace and quiet. Then into this came the German revolution of 1923. Stalin dared not even oppose me openly then. We never knew until afterwards that he had secretly written the letter to Bukharin saying that the revolution should be held back. Then, after the German defeat, came the struggle over equality. It was in defence of the privileges of the bureau- cracy that Stalin became its undisputed leader... Russia was a _ backward country. These leaders had Marxist conceptions, but after October they soon returned to their old ideas. Voroshilov and. others used to ask me. ‘But how do you think it possible that the Chinese masses, so backward, could establish the dictatorship of the proletariat?’ In Germany they hoped now for a miracle to break the backbone of the social demo- cracy; their politics had failed utterly to detach the masses from it. Hence this new at- tempt to get rid of it... Stalin hoped that the Ger- man Communist Party would win a victory and to think that he had a ‘plan’ to allow fascism to come into power is absurd. It is a deification of Stalin. Johnson: He made them cease their opposition to the Red Referendum, he made Rem- mele say, ‘After Hitler our turn,’ he made them stop fight- ing the fascists in the streets. Trotsky: ‘After Hitler our turn,’ was a boast, a confes- sion of bankruptcy. You pay too much attention to it. F.: They stopped fighting in the streets because their de- tachments were small CP de- tachments. Good comrades were constantly being shot, and in as much as workers as a whole were not taking part, they called it off, It was a part of their Zigzags. Trotsky: There you are! They did all. sorts of things. They even offered the united front sometimes. Johnson: Duranty said in 1931 that they did not want the revolution in Spain. Trotsky: Do not take what Duranty says at face value. Litvinov wanted to say that they were not responsible for what was happening in Spain. He could not say that himself so he said it through Duranty. Perhaps even they did not want to be bothered about Spain, being in difficulties at home . . . But I would say that Stalin sincerely wished the triumph of the German Com- munist P. in Germany 1930-1933... Also you cannot think of the Comintern as being merely an instrument of Stalin’s iereies policy. In France in 1934 the Com- munist Party had declined from 80,000 to 30,000. It was neces- sary to have a new policy. We do not know the archives of the Comintern, what corres- pondence passed, etc. At the same time Stalin was seeking a new foreign policy. From one side and the other we have these tendencies which go to make the new turn. They are different sides of the same process .. . The French Com- munist Party is not only an agency of Moscow, but a national organization with members of parliament, etc. All that, however, is not very dangerous, although it shows a great lack of propor- tion to say that our whole propaganda has been meaning- less. What is much more dan- gerous is the sectarian approach to the Labour Party. You say that I put forward the slogan of Blum-Cachin without reservations. Then you remember, ‘All power to the Soviet!’ and you say that the united front was no Soviet. It is the same _ sectarian approach, Johnson: There has _ been difficulty in England with advocating a Labour govern- ment with the necessary re- servations. Trotsky: In France in all our press, in our archives and propaganda, we regularly made all the necessary reservations. Your failure in England is due to lack of ability; also lack of flexibility, due to the long domination of _ bourgeois thought in England. I would say to the English workers, “You refuse to accept my point of view. Well, perhaps I did not explain well enough. Per- haps you are stupid. Anyway I have failed. But now, you believe in your party. Why allow Chamberlain to hold the power? Put your party in power. I will help you to put them in. But it is very important to bring up these questions periodically. I would suggest that you write an article dis- cussing these points and pub- lish it in our press. COMRADE Johnson agreed that he would. -_-_—_-eeeeee———————————————————————— 44 Fourth International Winter 1972/73

[p047] AGAINST NOTE: The following is a rough uncorrected transcript of @ discussion held in April 1939, between Trotsky and an English Fourth Internationalist, who had raised a number of questions ci ing the devel- opment of the Fourth Inter- national in France, Spain, Great Britain and the United States. In his reply, Trotsky sketched the main reasons for the isolation and slow pro- gress of the Fourth Inter- national in the first stages of its development and pointed out how a new turn in the world situation, like the pre- sent war, would inevitably lead to a radical change in the tempo of development, social composition and mass connec- tions of the Fourth Inter- national. Trotsky: Yes, the question is why we are not progressing in correspondence with the value of our conceptions which are not so meaningless as some friends believe. We are not progressing politically. Yes, it is a fact which is an res- sion of a general decay of the workers’ movements in the last 15 years. It is the more general cause. When the revolutionary movement in general is de- clining, when one _ defeat follows another, when fascism is spreading over the world, when the official ‘Marxism’ is the most powerful organization of deception of the workers, and so on, it is an inevitable situation that the revolutionary elements must work against the general historic current, even if our ideas, our explana- tions, are as exact and wise as one can demand. But the masses are not Arsenal of Marxism THE TIDE educated by prognostic theo- retical conception, but by the general experiences of their lives. It is the most general explanation — the whole situ- ation is against us. There must be a turn in the class realiza- tion, in the sentiments, in the feelings of the masses; a turn which will give us the pos- sibility of a large political success, I remember some discussions in 1927 in Moscow after Chiang Kai-shek tilled the Chinese workers. We predicted this ten days before and Stalin opposed us with the argument that Borodin was vigilant, that Chiang Kai-shek would not have the possibility to betray us, etc. I believe that it was eight or ten days later that the tragedy occurred and our comrades expressed optimism because our analysis was so clear that everyone would see it and we would be sure to win the party. I answered that the strangulation of the Chinese revolution is a thous- and times more important for the masses than our predic- tions. Our predictions can win some few intellectuals who take an interest in such things, but not the masses, The mili- tary victory of Chiang Kai-shek will inevitably provoke a de- pression and this is not con- ducive to the growth of a revolutionary fraction. Since 1927 we have had a long series of defeats. We are similiar to a group who attempt to climb a mountain and who must suffer again and again a downfall of stone, snow, etc. In Asia and Europe is created a new desperate mood of the masses. They heard something analogous to what we say ten or 15 years ago from the Communist Party and they are pessimistic, That is the general mood of the workers. It is the most general reason. We cannot withdraw from the general historic cur- rent—from the general con- stellation of the forces. The current is against us, that is clear. I remember the period between 1908 and 1913 in Russia. There was also a re- action. In 1905 we had the workers with us—in 1908 and even in 1907 began the great reaction. Everybody invented slogans and methods to win the masses and nobody won them ~——they were desperate. In this time the only thing we could do was to educate the cadres and they were melting away. There was a series of splits to the right or to the left or to syndicalism and so on. Lenin remained with a small group, a sect, in Paris, but with con- fidence that there would be new possibilities of arising. It came in 1913. We had a new tide, but then came the war to interrupt this development. During the war there was a silence as of death among the workers. The Zimmerwald conference was a conference of very confused elements in its majority. In the deep recesses of the masses, in the trenches and so on there was a new mood, but it was so deep and terrorized that we could not reach it and give it an expression. That is why the movement seemed to itself to be very poor and even this element that met in Zimmer- 45

[p048] wald, in its majority, moved to the right in the next year, in the next month. I will not liberate them from their per- sonal responsibility, but still the general explanation is that the movement had to swim