A Letter to a French Syndicalist about the Communist Party¶
Core Argument¶
In this open letter from August 1920, Trotsky addresses a French syndicalist who fears that affiliation with the Third International will subordinate the independent trade-union movement to a political party. Trotsky’s core argument is that the supposed independence of the French syndicalist movement is a fiction: it is already entirely in the tow of a political party, namely the reformist wing of French socialism. He insists that the division between Jouhaux, Dumoulin and Merrheim in the unions and Renaudel and Longuet in parliament is merely a division of labour, not a difference in policy. Both pursue the same policy of compromise with the bourgeoisie. The real question, Trotsky argues, is not parliamentarism versus anti-parliamentarism, nor formal party membership, but the content of the policy pursued by the proletarian vanguard. A genuinely communist policy — directed towards the overthrow of bourgeois rule and the dictatorship of the proletariat — must find expression in every sphere of working-class life: trade unions, the press, parliament, and illegal revolutionary groups alike.
Trotsky then develops the theoretical justification for the communist party as the necessary “initiating minority” of the most conscious proletarians. He acknowledges that revolutionary syndicalists correctly identified the insufficiency of broad trade unions alone and the need for a disciplined minority to educate the masses and provide a programme of action. But he insists that this minority cannot be grouped by industry or geography; it must be united by a communist programme and firm discipline. This, he states, is the communist party. He polemicises against the Proudhonian notion that the workshop (l’atelier) will gradually supplant the state, calling it a pure utopia, and against the syndicalist belief that the trade unions as such can destroy capitalist property and smash the bourgeois state. The general strike, he argues, is a defensive weapon, not sufficient for the offensive task of insurrection. The bourgeoisie rests on the army; only open insurrection, prepared by systematic agitation, organisation and technical work in every factory, regiment and government institution, can seize power. This preparatory work requires a centralised communist party with cells in every sphere.
Trotsky draws heavily on the experience of the Russian Revolution and the example of Karl Liebknecht, who was simultaneously a parliamentarian, a journalist, an organiser of soldiers and a revolutionary insurrectionist. He contrasts Liebknecht with the French reformists and argues that the Russian Communist Party guides the soviets and trade unions not by formal command but because it has won the confidence of the working class through years of struggle, in which it proved itself the only party consistently loyal to the proletariat. He dismisses syndicalist fears of party domination by pointing out that the French unions already submit to the bourgeois policy of Jouhaux. The real choice is between subordination to the bourgeoisie and subordination to the revolutionary vanguard. The letter concludes by calling on revolutionary syndicalists like Monatte and Rosmer to cease being an opposition within hostile organisations and to unite with revolutionary socialists like Loriot in a single communist party under the banner of the Third International.