1. Fighting Against the Stream¶
Core Argument¶
The Trotskyist movement originated in the Left Opposition formed by Leon Trotsky in 1923, after the German Revolution’s failure, to defend Lenin’s programme against the rising Stalinist bureaucracy. The theory of ‘socialism in one country’ reflected the bureaucracy’s material interest in a quiet life and disdain for world revolution. In Britain, the Communist Party leadership, politically weak and theoretically ignorant, slavishly followed Moscow. Trotsky was condemned in November 1924 on disciplinary rather than ideological grounds, with only a handful defending him. The Stalinist line produced disastrous opportunism during the 1926 General Strike, where the CPGB covered for the TUC leaders who betrayed the strike, causing mass demoralisation and membership collapse. The 1927 Chinese Revolution’s defeat, caused by Stalin’s policy of subordinating the CCP to the Kuomintang, sealed the Left Opposition’s fate.
By 1927, the balance of forces inside Russia was shifting. The Left Opposition had warned of capitalist restoration from appeasing the kulaks, demanding industrialisation based on Five-Year Plans and progressive taxation. Stalin ridiculed this, but the kulaks’ grain strike of 1927-28 panicked him into adopting a caricature of the Opposition’s programme: forced collectivisation and adventurist targets, causing agricultural collapse and famine killing perhaps 10 million. Internationally, Stalin adopted the ultra-left ‘third period’ line, declaring social democracy and fascism ‘twins’ and social democrats the main enemy. In Germany, Stalinists refused a united front against the Nazis, collaborated with them in strikes, and allowed Hitler to come to power. In Britain, the tiny CPGB denounced Labour leaders as ‘social fascists’, broke up meetings, and isolated itself into a sect.
Trotsky urged the Balham Group towards systematic work and education. Expelled from the CP in 1932, they formed the Communist League, publishing the Red Flag. Trotsky argued for entering the Independent Labour Party, a 100,000-strong organisation moving leftwards after the 1929-31 Labour Government’s collapse. The Communist League’s leadership rigidly rejected this; Trotsky condemned their sectarianism, warning that doctrinal intransigence was only 10% of Bolshevism. After a year-long dispute, the minority entered the ILP in March 1934, winning CLR James to Trotskyism, while the majority later entered the Labour Party and sank without trace.
Following Hitler’s victory in 1933, Trotsky concluded the Comintern was dead. The ILP leadership, however, maintained a centrist position, seeking a middle road between Stalinism and Trotskyism. By 1935, the ILP was disintegrating. The Marxist Group’s entry into the ILP failed to win existing members; internally, it suffered from centrist tendencies and a clique that exaggerated to the International Secretariat. Trotsky concluded the ILP experiment must end and called for entry into the Labour Party, especially the Labour League of Youth. The Marxist Group leadership rejected this as a reformist swamp; Trotsky accused them of formalism and lack of dialectics. The resulting split produced the Bolshevik-Leninist Group inside the Labour Party.
The CPGB abandoned ultra-leftism for a thoroughly opportunist ‘united front’ with pacifists, clergy, and ‘progressive Tories’, carrying Union Jacks and singing “God Save the King” alongside Mosley’s fascists. This reflected Stalin’s post-1935 strategy of appeasing Western democracies. In Spain, Stalin feared a successful revolution would inspire Soviet workers, supplying arms at a price while forcing counter-revolutionary policies and eliminating revolutionary elements like the POUM. The British Trotskyists campaigned against the Moscow frame-ups. After internal conflicts, including the slandering of Ralph Lee with allegations of stealing union funds, expelled members formed the Workers’ International League in December 1937, determined to cut a new path with world war looming. Trotsky had argued that splits during revolutionary turns are inevitable; fearing them substitutes petty-bourgeois sentimentalism for revolutionary policy.