Page THE MILITANT Saturday, June 7, 1930 An Open Letter to the Members of the 6)
By TROTSKY (Continued from Last Issue)
hunted Opposition remains an active factor The Position of the Leit Wing in the life of the Soviet republic and the Communist International.
The break between the epigones of the acter of the State, we have been able to the with the strengthening leadership and the Leninist tradition pre attain tempo of economic development After all there is nothing very astonof the capitalist reaction and the social sents itself under a well defined form of that capitalism has never known.
ishing in this. The innumerable books and The democracy in the whole world, with the organization: all the cadres which par very possibility of experiences in the form defeat of the revolutionary movements, pamphlets against the Opposition publishticipated in the building of the Comintern of plans and of collectivization, with all ed since 1923, the special collections of with the weakening of the positions of their contradictions and errors, constitutes and presided over its leadership in the periCommunism and the strengthening of opquotations intended for Congresses and Conferences, the collections against Trotod of the first four Congresses are not a gigantic acquisition for all of humanity. portunist tendencies in its ranks.
Can they be compared for an instant with skyism. etc. are today the most cononly thrown out of the leadership, but in The crisis in grain provisionment of such errors as the patriotic participavincing proof in favor of the Opposition.
1927 28 having led it to a blind alley the their overwhelming majority excluded from tion of the social democracy in the imper.
We keep our Platform in reserve.
This Stalinist apparatus abruptly reversed its They the ranks of official Communism.
iallst slaughter or the present disgusting positions and entered into struggle against fear it mortally, while seeking to assail fact alone suffices to denounce the whole game of Mueller and MacDonald who crawl a part of the petty bourgeois forces with it by means of provocative polemics. Yet abyss that has been created between today about in search of a recipe for the rejuv whose aid it has set upon the Left wing.
today as yesterday, the whole ideological and the revolutionary past. The new enation of capitalism?
Without the slightest hesitation, the Oplife of the Party turns around the Oppo theory. the new policy and the new The conquests of the October revolution position subscribe this turn abot sionist Platform as around a pivot.
face Tegime have acquired new people. It must show the incalculabel possibilities thau The declaration of comrade Rakovsky, and declared itselt ready to support in full be said openly to the workers at the hour could be attained by Europe and humanity the leadership in any of its move oriensupported by the fundamental cadres of of danger, at the moment of decisive com as a whole if the social democracy of Ger tated in the sense of a revolutionary policy the Opposition, was an application of the bat, the revolutionary inconsistency of the many, England and other countries where united front towards the Party.
and a cleansing of the regime within the apparatus of the will become striking it can formally become a majority (it it The Centrist leadership replied to it by Party.
ly obvious to all, Irresponsible subalterns, should want it, that is, it it should But it is now incontestable that the sharpening the rigors of repression. The formulate a proletarian program) were Opposition having sincerely proposed to always ready to accomodate themselves to swing to the Left in 1928, constituting a to inscribe on the order of the day a each new leadership, have never been capparticularly brutal zig zag, did not result attenuate the rigidity of organization of socialist reconstruction of relations with in a new course. It could not result in its struggle for a purely Marxist line, the able of leading the assault against the the Soviet Union on the basis of an indisruling classes.
one, since it was not accompanied by an apparatus replied by having Blumkin shot.
soluble collaboration.
ideological regeneration of the Party. NoWe must say it openly to the Party and to The Left wing (Bolshevik Leninists)
Against Socialist Treachery thing has changed: there is still the same the working class. We must explain the whose spirit of clearsighted criticism and miserable and eclectical porridge instead import of our proposal, name those responslogans have been entirely confirmed from But that is out of the question, for sible for its defeat, and proclaim our inthe social democracy constitutes the den of a living theory: still the same bureauthe point of view of the internal develocratic basis of capitalist conservatism cratic functionary selection of the persondestructible determination to fight for our opment of the as well as the and is the penultimate resource of a sonel, only much narrower; still the same opinion and to increase two fold, five fold, situation on the international arena, 18 ten fold our efforts towards consolidating ciety based upon exploitation. The ultimate methods of mechanization pushed to the submitted to the vilest offensive. Neverthethe Bolshevik Leninist fraction. In that resource will be fascism.
highest degree.
less, and in spite of all the lies of the alone can loyalty to the October revolution The social democratic criticism of The program of the administrative liofficial press, the Left Opposition grows be manifested today.
the Soviet regime is like the cry of the quidation of a class is in actuality no less in numbers and is being fortified ideolognight watchman: it is destined to maintain disastrous in the political field than was ically in the whole world. French proverb says that one must the tranquility of the propertied and to the scandalous report of Stalin to the conThe progress has been great especknow how to fall back sometimes in order guarantee them peaceful slumber. To fight ference of Marxist Agronomists in the field of theory.
against the dictatorship of the proletariat, It is not conceivable that the better to leap. That is the condition Jally this last year. The press of the Left there are not in Lenin Party thousands in which the leadership of the Soviet slate, Opposition in Europe, in America and in the social democracy utilizes the difficulties that it has itself created for the So upon thousands of people in whose mind Asia constitutes at the present time the as well as the leadership of the Communist the politics and the theory of Stalin does International finds itsell at present.
only serious Bolshevik Marxist press, an viet Union, augmented by those the leadership has caused. If, in relation to the not sow uneasiness and indignation, Nealyzing events, drawing the conclusions, Both are driven by their own advencapitalist world, the social democracy plays vertheless there was no protest at all.
proceeding to the formation of new cadres turism to the depths of an impasse. Placa role of protection towards the Nobody dared to reply, while in the press and preparing the regeneration of the Coming its prestige above the interests of its aim bears a character of restoration. the latest brood of reptiles set about to the world revolution, the Centrist bureaumunist International.
The struggle for democracy and liber develop the ideas of this illiterate report cracy draws ever more the noose around In every country, the Left Opposition ties in the very sphere of world imperialas being the latest revelation of historical the neck of the Party. In matters of tachas put out of its ranks all those who, ism, one of whose guardians the social thought.
tics, the first task is the following: to beat under cover of its banner, endeavored to democracy has made itself, really signifies The leading Stalinist group has ara retreat by abandoning the positions of dissimulate their spirit of opportunism, the struggle for the re establishment of rogated the power in its most cynical form. adventurism. The retreat is inevitable in thcir retty bourgeois dilettantism or their capitalism. Only thus the question is in That is precisely why its supreme point of any case. It must therefore be carried out hall anarchist hostility to the country of portant. It indicates that to the extent victory the moment when the leaders as soon as possible and in the best pogthe proletarian dictatorship.
that the crisis becomes graver, the more of the Right wing capitulated was at the sible order.
In spite of all the calumnies of the implacable will become our struggle same time the point of departure for a (To Be Continued)
official press, the international Left Op against all the democratic agents of the decrease of its domination over the Party.
position remains unshakably faithful to the restoration no matter who they are. AU The coronation of the infallible leadership October revolution and the Soviet State. the same time, the further we go the more was judged necessary at the moment when The false friends whom the Soviet clearly we see that Communism cannot this same leadership felt itself on the eve bureaucracy draws to itself by means of fight victoriously against the social demof bankruptcy.
ocracy except on the road marked out by The Party leads an ever more, ghostly concessions or alms these Purcells, Fimthe Opposition.
existence. Stalin is much more revoltingly mens and Barbusses of all countries are impudent with the Congresses than was the Cape Town, South Africa all very good for anniversary festivals The Party is the supreme political Czar towards the Duma.
but not for the revolutionary struggle. The weapon, Dear Comrades: It is in the Party that the possiFurthermore, on the very inside of the Opposition is an ideological selection which bilities of the revolution and its future schematic cadres of the Russian Communist It was with great joy that reccived the persecutions and the fury to which it are embodied. But it is from this very Party there are tens of thousands of rev from comrade Glass of Johannesburg the has been exposed has hardened. At the source that the dangers proceed today.
olutionary proletarians who can and will first few copies of the Militant followed a Berious moment it will be found in the The adventurism of the bureaucracy does become the creative forces in the rebirth of while later by a complete file which you front lines.
not halt with the destiny of the Party.
the Party. It is to this nucleus that we sent him and which have eagerly read.
The Role of the Social Democracy Parallel to the generalized collectivization attach the destinies of our group.
As a theorist of Marxist Leninism as The Russian Mensheviks, the Social there takes place the generalized registry Conditions of the Opposition Cadres a proletarian strategist, as the embodiment Revolutionaries and other groupings reof proletarian sagacity and courage and of factories and trades in the Party. This The circumstances under which the cadhonesty, as a master of lucid exposition and duced to nothing at the same time as the means nothing less than the dissolution of res of the Opposition find themselves placed vivid prose Trotsky is unequalled in the bourgeoiste, anxiously scent the crisis, the Party into the class, that is, in reality are without example in the history of the workers movement. And if the American hoping gain of the void. the suppression of the Party. In this way, revolutionary movement. The barsh maThe democratic scoundrels of the excomrades of the Opposition had done nothe bureaucratic apparatus acquires more terial conditions of deportation are aggrathing in the past for the movement (and ploiting classes think to find their re extended power of oppression.
vated by the application of complete pothey have their records are great. and birth in the fall of the Soviet power which Its follies do not encounter the resisti litical isolation. The complicated system if they should do little in the future (which they await impatiently. In reality, the ance of any criticism, neither correctives of State and private measures of order is is extremely unlikely. they yet will defall of the dictatorship of the proletarnor reactions, so long as life does not set especially intended to sap the health of the lat would signify the opening of a long itself to reply to them violently. The first serve and obtain the deep gratitude of all deportees. At the same time the official period of civil wars for many years, with warning of this kind has just been given, honest Communists for making available in press brings the Oppositionist relegated to English the writing of the leader of the sporadic attempts at impotent Bonapartist Everything leads to the belief that the suba forsaken spot, triumphant information dictatorship in various corners of the sequent one will be much more peremp on the progress of the collectivization, of world Opposition.
country, in the Chinese or Deniken manner, tory than all the preceding ones.
the industrialization, and on the uninterComrade Glass and myselt were amongst with the inevitable consequence of the The country, even though not very dis rupted victories of the Communist Parties the small band of comrades in South Africa arrest of economic and oultural develop tinctly, is taking this into account very throughout the world.
who from the very first, gave adherence to ment for many years. The way out of all profoundly. Naturally, each class in its Certain of the isolated and weaker the teachings of Lenin and Trotsky and this chaos could not be in the sense of own way. dull uneasiness reigns in the elements do not resist this pressure. But took an active part in the publication of democracy this political form being Party. But the order that prevalls in the the majority of the capitulations are obthe Bolshevik, a monthly Journal, at the least likely in Russia, given the structure Party is such that nobody would dare to viously simulated: broken and exhausted, Cape. Comrade Glass, believe, has given and historical past of the land but much express his fear aloud, nor even to put they sigo what they have no beliet in. you an account of the position in the South rather under the form of colonial subjug a question. The regime of self criticism new series of capitulations is being preAfrican Union and will not dwell on it ation or of a new October revolution.
here save to state that under the leadership in its new stage consists of the obligation pared for the Sixteenth Congress, proceedThe international social democracy does for each and every one to gubscribe not of a Stalinized Comintern, the gospel of ing from furtive negotiations followed by not want to and cannot take into account only to the precision but also to the gen secret agreements behind the scenes. This Marcus Garvey is written large in the the economic and cultural expanse of the jus of the leadership and to hound those sort of stage play is one of the most displatform of the South African Communist October revolution whose creative force whom the leadership orders to hound.
Party.
gusting manifestations of revolutionary exin every teld 18 without equni in any Stalin Victory over the Party haustion and moral decay. enclose a donation of ten shillings The pathetic known historical regime. All the dangers towards the sustaining tund of the Militant It is evident from this that the vic Invocation of the socalled need of returnof the present moment whose source lies and will endeavour to make it a monthly tory of the Stalinist bureaucracy over the ing to the Party betokens only eynicism in the great betrayal by the social democradonation. Wishing you the very best of Opposition was at the same time a victory toward that same Party. For can the Party cy which submits deliberately to capitalism, luck in your splendid work for the cause, over the Party. This process coincides be served by deception and falsehood? That all the mistakes of the Stalinist leadership, remain with the withering away of a whole section 18 why the most eminent capitulators are cannot for a single instant obscure the of revolutionists, with the growth of bur immediately transformed into political cadYours for Communism, eaucracy and of the petty bourgeoisie in avers left onburied, while the expelled and tact that thanks to the proletarian char MANUEL LOPES Tribute From a So. African Militant