The Opposition’s Fight for Clarity
In our party life legends are playing an ever-increasing part. One such legend is the absurd rumour, which is being spread systematically, concerning my ‘fear’ of the harvest. On the same ideological and political level is based a new legend to the effect that I regard the British Communist Party as a reactionary organisation, an obstacle in the path of the working class. Anyone who has merely glanced at my little book Where Is Britain Going? will easily understand how foolish, how absurd are these assertions, the object of which is not to elucidate the essence of the question, but to put me at odds with the British Communist Party.
On the eve of great events in Britain, in a letter to the Politburo, I expressed the fear that the British Communist Party, like the Bulgarian, in a critical moment of mass activity, might adopt too passive or temporising an attitude – the more so because against it would be ranged the immense pressure of a bourgeois state, of bourgeois social opinion, and of all the officialism of the working class. What conclusion did I draw from this? Well, here it is. “One of our principal tasks is to assist the British Communist Party to understand and think out this prospect fully.” We must help it to select and group around itself those elements “which are capable of understanding the inevitability of major mass battles and are not afraid of them but go out to meet them.” This is the conclusion which I drew from my own doubts and misgivings. Can this really be said to be directed against the British Communist Party? Since when has uttering a caution, before great struggles, against the dangers of passivity, recommending a choice of more active elements, implied speaking against the Communist Party? And this in Lenin’s party.
At an extended plenary session of the Executive Committee, some British comrades warned against overestimating the critical state of British capitalism. By this they revealed they underestimate the depth of the crisis and the imminence of social clashes. An incomparably less significant fact, namely the publication of my book with a preface by Brailsford, was for me a further symptom of a willingness to compromise by an important section of the British Communists. They have not yet had experience of leadership by mass action. Taken together, all this aroused quite reasonable fears of excessive caution, lack of decision, and even passivity on the part of the powerful bureaucratic opposition in all the old administrative organisations of the working class.
Does not fundamental revolutionary teaching suggest that in these circumstances it was indeed necessary to stress, to repeat, to emphasise the danger that in all the old organisational superstructure, the imminent strike would meet counter-activity, resistance, sabotage, and from the side of the Communist Party, a lack of decision? I consider that the main task of our party in the International consists in warning before the action and not in punishing by bureaucratic means after the action. In a letter reporting on the British party, we read:
Unfortunately, in some of our regional organisations, it could be noted that there still remained in the party sectarian survivals; these organisations have not taken root sufficiently deeply in the trade unions; by which is also explained the fact that, during the strike, they lagged behind the mass.[1]
Thus, from the words of the British Communists themselves it is apparent that shortcomings of this kind had emerged, shortcomings which could and must be feared. Fortunately, the revolutionary activity of the party was, on the whole, at a reasonably high level. This is our general achievement, which, however, does not minimise the necessity for issuing a warning. Without criticism of certain British comrades on the Executive Committee of the Comintern, without friendly cautions and warnings, the elements of passivity and indecision might have proved more influential than, fortunately, they were found to be.
Yet it is criminal to portray the matter in this way, as if the British Communist Party had coped with all its problems. The discrepancy between its strength, its resources, its means, and these objective tasks which are becoming increasingly imminent, is gigantic; and about this we must speak openly, not replacing revolutionary policy by party legends and formulas.
But meanwhile, in view of the monstrous conservatism of British social life, the young British Communist Party needs to increase tenfold its implacability, its criticism, its counter-activity, to the pressure of bourgeois social opinion and its ‘worker’ organisation.
* * *
Resolution on the General Strike in Britain, submitted to the
Central Committee and Central Control Commission joint plenum,
July 1926, written by Trotsky and signed by Zinoviev, Trotsky,
Kamenev, Pyatakov and Krupskaya.
In view of the completely indisputable fact that the General Council, having betrayed the miners on 12 May by viciously breaking the General Strike, is now preparing for the final betrayal of the miners’ strike, already isolated by the Council’s action;
In view of the fact that the General Council, in this work of betrayal, is trying to gain time and apparently wants to conceal its treacherous work from the eyes of the masses, at least for a certain time longer, by maintaining the formality of the Anglo-Russian Committee;
In view of the fact that it is for these and only these purposes that the traitors of the General Council have need of the Paris conference of the Anglo-Russian Committee;
The plenum instructs the Politburo:
To hasten the convening of the Anglo-Russian Committee in every way, not allowing the Paris conference to be put off for a single day;
To pose all questions at the Paris conference with full bluntness and sharpness, denying the traitors any opportunity to dodge or evade the question and once again deceive the workers;
And having exposed the traitors’ intents in all respects, since we may not either directly or indirectly conceal or go along with the betrayers of the miners’ continuing struggle, to immediately break off the Anglo-Russian Committee. At the same time, to intensify every effort to strengthen the united front, from below, relying above all on the ties that have been established with the mineworkers’ union.
In addition, the plenum declares that the Politburo majority has pursued a profoundly incorrect policy on the question of the Anglo-Russian Committee. The point at which the working masses of Britain exerted the greatest opposing force to the General Council was when the General Strike was being broken. What was necessary was to keep step with the most active forces of the British proletariat and to break at that moment with the General Council as the betrayer of the General Strike. For many decades the bourgeois Labour politicians of Great Britain have periodically deceived the working masses, each time arousing the workers’ indignation. But the absence of a genuinely revolutionary party has always allowed them to let some time pass for the anger of the masses to cool down and then to resume their treacherous work once again. Therefore, it was necessary to break with the General Council without hesitation over the question of the betrayal of the strike at the moment of the betrayal and before the eyes of the masses. The traitors should not have been allowed to appear as our ‘allies’ for a single hour after the breaking of the strike. Only the British workers can throw out the present General Council, but they should be supported in this work by our example, and not hindered, even by indirect support to the General Council through the maintenance of organisational ties.
It would be an impermissible error, bordering on the criminal, if we allowed the General Council in the future to move this question back, step by step, and to gradually and imperceptibly reduce the Anglo-Russian Committee to nothing or to break with it themselves over some second-rate question, as over the statutes of the Committee or the like. Every conscious British worker would then ask us why we did not break with the General Council when it betrayed the General Strike or later, when on top of that, it betrayed the miners’ strike, but rather broke with it on this or that secondary question after the miners’ strike had been liquidated. For all the efforts of the General Council are aimed in that direction. A passive, wait-and-see policy on our part would contribute to the success of this policy of the General Council chiefs, a policy that counts on the Anglo-Russian Committee being buried unobtrusively with the minimum of losses for the British traitors.
To defend the maintenance of the Anglo-Russian Committee with the argument that we cannot leap over the organisations of the proletariat that are ‘historically given’ is to engage in crude sophistry, which will invariably lead to opportunist conclusions. We cannot leap over the trade unions, since they are ‘historically given’ organisations of the proletariat. But the Anglo-Russian Committee is a temporary formation, brought into existence by a temporary situation.
We were absolutely correct to conclude this alliance when we did, but in order to turn it against the opportunists; in order to push vacillating leaders forward as far as possible; and in order to expose them and break with them in the event of their betrayal. But to break with the betrayers of the General Strike in the way that we have done by our example and our actions is to say to the British masses: “Curse your leaders as traitors but let them stay in their posts; that is, do as we have done in relation to the Anglo-Russian Committee.”
All the arguments about the impermissibility of ‘leaping over’ the treacherous General Council can and should be applied with tenfold force to the question of entering the Amsterdam International. From this point of view the very existence of the Profintern could be declared an attempt to ‘leap over’ Amsterdam… The most consistent advocates of maintaining the Anglo-Russian Committee, no matter what, are in fact gradually sliding over to support for entry into the Amsterdam International.
The attempt to justify the existence of the present Anglo-Russian Committee is fundamentally wrong. True, Baldwin is fighting against the General Council – just as Hindenburg fought against the German Social Democrats. It does not follow from either of these facts that it is necessary or permissible for us to form a bloc with Purcell or Scheidemann.
The tactic of the united front still retains all its power as the most important method in the struggle for the masses. A basic principle of this tactic is: “With the masses – always; with the vacillating leaders – sometimes, but only so long as they stand at the head of the masses.” It is necessary to make use of vacillating leaders while the masses are pushing them ahead, without for a moment abandoning criticism of these leaders. And it is necessary to break with them at the right time when they turn from vacillation to hostile action and betrayal. It is necessary to use the occasion of the break to expose the traitorous leaders and to contrast their position to that of the masses. It is precisely in this that the revolutionary essence of the united front policy consists. Without this, the struggle for the masses always threatens to turn into an opportunist kowtowing to spontaneity covered up by an in-no-way-binding criticism of opportunism in words alone. The line of the Politburo majority on the question of the Anglo-Russian Committee was clearly a transgression in terms of the revolutionary essence of the united front policy.
The trade unions are the main mass organisations in Britain. But the struggle for influence with the masses organised in these unions should in no case lead to bowing down before the conservative forms of trade unionism in the spirit of completely opportunistic tail-ending formations. The more rapid the revolutionary development in Britain and the more sharply new organisational forms (shop stewards, action committees) are counterposed to the old ones, not in circumvention of the trade unions but based on them – the more attention the British Communists should pay to the formation and development of new organisational forms based on the mass movement.
The plenum emphatically rejects the attempt to use Lenin’s teaching on the need for constant, untiring, and stubborn struggle within every kind of workers’ organisation as a justification for a passive, conciliatory, wait-and-see attitude toward the treacherous leaders on the pretext that they reflect the present stage of development of the working class, that “they are the best there is”, that “there is no one yet ready to replace them”, and so forth. Lenin allowed the possibility of a temporary bloc even with opportunist leaders under the condition that there would be a sharp and audacious turn and a break based on the actions of the masses when these leaders began to pull back, oppose, or betray. An attempt to abandon this truly intransigent aspect of Lenin’s teaching on taking the offensive, which is in the sharpest contrast with Menshevik passivity and watchful waiting, would signify nothing less than the devitalisation of the revolutionary doctrine of Leninism.
The plenum expresses its unshakable conviction that the international interests of the USSR, as the first state in the world consisting of a proletarian dictatorship, coincide totally and completely with those of the workers of the world and with those of the oppressed peoples. The development of the revolutionary movement on the basis of fraternal solidarity remains as before the main guarantee of the USSR’s inviolability and the possibility for us of world socialist development.
At the same time the plenum declares with all its energy that the crudely erroneous policy stands exposed, which aroused hopes that the present General Council headed by Thomas, MacDonald, and Purcell would be ready and able to conduct a struggle against imperialism, military intervention, etc. These compromising leaders who so basely betrayed their own workers during the strike will all the more inevitably and shamefully betray the British proletariat, and the Soviet Union, and the cause of peace along with them, at the moment of the danger of war. Only an unrelenting exposure of the traitors in the eyes of the masses, only their removal from their posts, will prevent the bourgeoisie from catching the workers unprepared when it decides to try to start a war. Linking up with the British working masses on the basis of an effective unmasking of their present treacherous general staff, the General Council, will be the firmest guarantee against a war. The Thomases, MacDonalds and Purcells are as little able to prevent an imperialist attack as the Tseretelis, Dans and Kerenskys were to stop the imperialist slaughter. It would be a great crime toward the peoples of the USSR and the world proletariat to sow any kind of illusions whatsoever on that score.
The Comintern’s tactics, which were worked out in all essentials under Vladimir Ilyich’s leadership, ought to remain hard and fast. The following elements of these tactics are of special importance: (1) the necessity for Communists to work in the most reactionary trade unions in order to fight to win over the masses under conditions of all kinds; (2) the necessity for British Communists to enter the Labour Party and to fight against being expelled from that organisation, since the experience of the past five years fully confirms what Lenin said on this question at the Second World Congress of the Comintern and in his Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder; and (3) the necessity for a struggle against the right opportunist deviation as well as against the ultra-left.
“Anarchism”, Lenin wrote, “has often enough served as a kind of punishment for the opportunist sins of the labour movement. The two types of deformity mutually reinforce one another.”
The plenum regards as totally impermissible the ever more obvious course of the Politburo majority toward the replacement of Lenin’s statement of the question by a struggle (sometimes an entirely principled one) against the ultra-left alone and by a glossing over of the right opportunist dangers (Poland,[2] Britain, Germany[3]). The situation is especially dangerous since the more people warn against the growing rightward danger, the more they are accused of being ultra-left.
The plenum calls attention to the changes introduced into the statutes of most of our trade unions by the leading clique in the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions [AUCCTU] without the knowledge of the party or of the mass membership of these unions. Whereas before the end of last year the trade union statutes spoke of their adherence to the Red International of Labour Unions, through the AUCCTU, at the end of last year and early this year, the Red International of Labour Unions was replaced by the International Federation of Trade Unions. A change of such importance in principle cannot be understood as anything but the setting up of preconditions for entering the Amsterdam International.
The plenum categorically condemns these efforts and proposes that the faction in the AUCCTU take steps to see that all union statutes indicate clearly and precisely that our unions, in full agreement with the opinions and wishes of the working masses, belong to the Red International of Labour Unions.
The plenum regards as totally unjustified the action of a number of comrades in carrying disputes within the Politburo on the question of the Anglo-Russian Committee into the press and into meetings outside the Politburo, spreading the crudest distortions of the views of the members of the Politburo minority, making crude personal attacks, etc.
Politburo members who are in the minority on this question, which was by no means decided in advance (or even discussed) at the Fourteenth Party Congress, were not given the opportunity to state their actual views on this question. As a result a distorted and one-sided ‘discussion’, poisoning the atmosphere in the party, has developed.
In the Moscow party organisation and in those of other cities, reports were given and theses introduced with the aim of exacerbating the differences in the Politburo and of carrying the one-sided ‘discussion’ into the Comintern.
This kind of activity brings very serious injury to the cause of party unity in the All-Union Communist Party and can substantially damage the Comintern.
The plenum rejects the motion for approval of the tactics of the Politburo, since that would mean the following:
- To maintain the bloc with the strike-breakers and traitors of the General Council as long as possible;
- To leave uncriticised and uncondemned the plainly erroneous shift to the right in the politics of the Politburo majority;
- To leave uncriticised as well the corresponding changes in trade union statutes, pointing towards entry into the Amsterdam International;
- To leave the trend towards entering the Amsterdam International itself uncriticised; and
- To strike a blow at those members of the party who have criticised the errors listed above and have demanded their correction. To do this would inevitably result in a deepening of the opportunist deviation and would not only strengthen Purcell but would also give preponderance to the rightward tendencies in the British Communist Party, which are already significant enough without that.
* * *
After the betrayal of the British General Strike by the right and ‘left’ trade union leaders, the Anglo-Russian Committee has not only lost all meaning, but has become simply the source of deception of the British and of the international working class.
All the more incomprehensible, then, is the official report on the last Berlin conference of this committee. Therein was announced, without even a single resolution being referred to, “complete unanimity” and “cordial understanding” between the Russian and the British delegates. Present among the British delegates was one of the most typical, most right-wing British social-imperialists, the notorious Citrine, so that even the former threadbare excuse for maintaining this committee, namely, that behind the left reformists stand workers who consider them revolutionary, is unmasked as a conscious lie.
The Conference of Party Workers condemns most resolutely:
- The methods of secret diplomacy which were employed at the conference of the Anglo-Russian Committee;
- The complete inactivity of this committee with regard to all questions of pressing importance at the present time (war transport to China,[4] imperialist war preparations, the fascist putsch in Latvia);
- The “cordial understanding” with right-reformist leaders, which by its very nature can only occur upon a reformist, never on a communist basis;
and demands the immediate break-up of this committee by putting forward feasible demands for action, which are clearly rejected by the reformists:
- Boycott of the murderously fascist country of Latvia;
- Prevention of all further troop transport to China;
- Revolutionary propaganda among the troops already sent there;
- International conferences of transport workers, seamen, arms, munitions and chemical workers for the preparation in a revolutionary manner of real resistance to every imperialist war.
Endnotes
[1] Letter from T. Stewart to the secretary of the Comintern of 21 May 1926.
[2] In May 1926 Józef Piłsudski, retired marshal and Polish head of state, staged a coup and overthrew the Wito government which was attempting to reduce the power of parliament. The Communist Party supported this coup d’état on the grounds that it would remove the threat of fascism, and joined the social democrats in a general strike. With Piłsudski’s troops they fought Wito’s forces in the streets of Warsaw. On taking power, Piłsudski rejected the social democrats’ proposals for a left coalition government and himself established a dictatorship.
[3] On 12 October 1923 three German Communists, Heckert, Brandler and Bottcher entered as a minority into a coalition government in Saxony together with left social democrats headed by Zeigner. Participation in such governments (similar steps were taken in Thuringia) was advised by the Executive Committee of the Communist International under Zinoviev as a means of gaining access to stocks of arms in preparation for a hastily planned all-German uprising. Nine days later, the two state governments were overthrown by troops sent from Berlin. At the Fifth World Congress held the following year, the leadership of the Communist Party under Brandler, Thalheimer, Walcher, and others, was condemned not so much for its hesitancy and then lack of preparation for revolution but because of opportunist speeches made by Communist Party ministers in the state parliaments, and their failure to press for arming the workers at the last minute.
[4] The British government was shipping war material to Chiang Kai-Shek’s government for his counter-revolutionary operations against the communists and the workers’ movement in China.