The Bolshevik attitude to unity... and splits¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter: The Bolshevik Attitude to Unity... and Splits
This chapter mounts a trenchant Marxist critique of the approach taken by comrades Cooper and Stuart toward unity among British Trotskyist groups, accusing them of treating unity as an abstract good rather than interrogating the political content of existing divisions. The central argument is that unity cannot be pursued at any price; it must be grounded in a common programme and revolutionary principle. The text insists that the Workers’ International League (WIL) did not leave the 1938 unification conference on unprincipled grounds, but rather refused to sign an agreement that permitted two tactics within a single organisation—a formula that produced ten splits in five years. The WIL alone, it claims, maintained a principled democratic centralist position in 1938, and subsequent events vindicated its stance.
The chapter situates these disputes within the broader historical context of the epoch of reaction following the European revolutionary defeats and the Thermidor in Russia, which destroyed a generation of Comintern cadres and gravely weakened the fledgling Fourth International. Splits, it argues, were not accidental but inevitable and necessary for growth under conditions of isolation and persecution. The movement has now entered a new period requiring fresh cadres and the Transitional Programme; Cooper’s error is to ignore the political basis of splits and focus solely on organisational forms.
A notable polemic targets the characterisation of the WIL’s wartime position as “chauvinist”—a charge as serious, the text contends, as those that caused Lenin to break with the Social Democrats. The WIL declares itself prepared to unify on the programme of the Fourth International, and argues that if the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) took its principles seriously, it would either unify on that basis or break with the International. The RSL is described as hopelessly sectarian, its membership not predominantly industrial workers, and its political position essentially that of Oehler. The WIL draws on Leninist precedent, citing Lenin’s opposition to unity with the Mensheviks, and insists that democratic centralism is a means to building the party, not an end in itself. Programme and policy are decisive; unprincipled “unifications” in Britain have been as damaging as splits elsewhere. The chapter concludes by affirming that the WIL stands for principled unity on a Bolshevik basis, not unity at any price.