Short-term perspective¶
Core Argument¶
Here the author outlines a tactical perspective on the relationship between the Trotskyist movement and the Communist Party, grounded in a short-term assessment of the Stalinists’ trajectory. The core argument is that any leftward shift by the Stalinists is not a principled turn but a transient product of diplomatic expediency—specifically, the clash between British and Russian state interests. This diplomatic friction forces the Stalinist bureaucracy to adopt a more militant posture, which in turn stabilises its internal leadership and consolidates its critics within the CP. The author warns that, given the existing reservoir of pro-Russian sentiment among workers, such a turn could transform the CP into a formidable mass opposition to the Labour Party’s right wing, and would likely exert a powerful gravitational pull on Labour’s emerging left wing. A new Stalinist phase among militant workers, comparable to 1935–36, is presented as probable even under the most correct Trotskyist tactics.
The chapter’s practical recommendations flow directly from this analysis. The author notes that relations with CP rank-and-file members are currently good, enabling open discussion and even united blocs in the unions and factories, despite the Stalinists’ reluctance. Crucially, the present period of vacillation inside the CP makes organised faction work possible for the first time. The author reports that Trotskyists are already working with opposition elements inside the CP and influenced some of their ideas at recent conference discussions. The strategic conclusion is that this work must be extended, with the aim of organising a national faction within the CP. This requires a reversal of past practice: experienced comrades coming toward the Trotskyists should be kept inside the CP, not withdrawn. Less experienced comrades may need to be drawn out, as they are harder to train under the constraints of CP discipline. The author explicitly rules out sending trained Trotskyists into the CP as a general tactic, though even that is not entirely excluded.
The polemical target is implicit but clear: the Stalinist leadership itself, whose left turns are dismissed as unprincipled and reversible, and any sectarian tendency within the Trotskyist movement that would refuse to engage in patient factional work within the CP. The perspective is resolutely conjunctural, refusing both optimism about the Stalinists’ ultimate trajectory and despair about the possibilities for intervention in the present moment.