ON THE TROTSKYITE OPPOSITION
ON THE TROTSKYITE OPPOSITION
(Adopted at the Ninth Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive, 1928)
The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI notes with satisfaction that the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B) resolutely put an end to the Trotskyite opposition by expelling it from the Party. The Plenary Meeting is in full and complete solidarity with the decisions of the CPSU(B) and the measures taken by it through the Soviet organs to stop the anti-Soviet activities of the opposition.
The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI holds that the decisions of the Fifteenth Congress are of immense significance for the further consolidation of the proletarian dictatorship and for the building of socialism in the USSR.
Unquestionably, the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B) correctly charted the further socialist industrialisation of the Soviet economy through an enhancement of the influence of planning by the proletarian state on the country’s economic development, the further ousting of private capitalist elements, extensive collectivisation of the peasant husbandries and an improvement of the living standard of the working class and the broad toiling masses in general.
Whereas in all capitalist countries capitalism is on the offensive against the working class, finding expression, for example, in the lengthening of the working day, the working day in the USSR is being shortened to seven hours and mounting efforts are being made to raise the cultural level of the working people.
The Plenary Meeting welcomes the decisions of the CPSU(B) Congress directed towards improving and simplifying the machinery of proletarian dictatorship and towards drawing larger sections of the masses of workers and peasants into the administration of the country. The influx of a hundred thousand factory workers to the Party at the moment when the struggle of the opposition against the CPSU(B) reached its highest point shows that the CPSU(B), its leadership and policy enjoy the absolute confidence and support of broad masses of the working class, who regard the Leninist unity and the Leninist policy of their Party the guarantee of a firm and victorious proletarian dictatorship.
The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI considers that the international economic and political situation was correctly analysed by the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), which noted the following characteristic tendencies in the current historical period:
1. The sharpening contradictions between the capitalist groups in the struggle for spheres of domination and the redivision of the world, the sharpening of the struggle between imperialism and the oppressed colonial peoples, the sharpening struggle of imperialism against the USSR, the growing prerequisites for new imperialist wars.
2. The growing power of the capitalist trusts, their increasing integration with the bourgeois state, the increasing fusion of the Social-Democratic and reformist leaders with the economic and political system of the imperialist organisations, the mounting capitalist pressure on the working class.
3. The radicalisation of the working masses as a result of the bourgeois offensive on the proletariat. This finds expression in the growth of the strike struggle, the increasing political activity of the working class, the waxing sympathy of the international proletariat for the USSR, the growth of the elements of a new revolutionary upsurge in Europe.
4. The general assault on the Communists by the employers’ organisations, the bourgeois states and the Social-Democratic parties; the striving of the social-reformists to expel the Communists from the mass organisations of the working class; the intensification of the reformist campaign of slander and calumny against the Communists in general and against the world’s first proletarian dictatorship in particular.
The coming phase of development will be marked by further collisions between the working class and the bourgeoisie and an unremitting struggle between the Social-Democrats and the Communists for influence among the working class. The international Social-Democratic movement, which has long since taken a turn towards coalition with the bourgeoisie and full support of its imperialist policy, towards class peace and support of capitalist rationalisation, is trying to stop the radicalisation of the working class and side-track it onto the path of its treacherous policy. This object is served, on the one hand, by the sharp struggle against the Communists—expelling them from the trade unions, helping the machinery of the bourgeois dictatorship to persecute them, and resorting to vile slander and falsehood. On the other hand, the international Social-Democratic movement is viciously slandering the USSR and the CPSU(B), realising that one of the most important forms of the radicalisation of the working class is its growing sympathy for the USSR.
This whole machinery of falsehood and slander has been set in motion by the Social- Democrats in order to undermine the growing sympathy of the international proletariat for the USSR and communism, in order to discredit the tangible achievements of socialist construction in the world’s first country of proletarian dictatorship, in order to divert the workers from the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and persuade them to support the bourgeois policy of capitalist rationalisation implemented at the expense of the working class, and to adopt their treacherous policy of “industrial peace”
An especially false and pharisaical role in this struggle against the USSR and the CPSU(B) is played by the leaders of the so-called “Left” wing of social reformism—the Max Adlers, Bauers, Levis, Longuets, Lansburys and Maxtons, who, taking the sympathies of the radicalising workers for the USSR into account, come out against the proletarian dictatorship more cunningly and disguise their attacks on the USSR with hypocritical phrases of sympathy and “conditional” support for it.
The purpose of these tactics is to stop the working masses from siding with communism and to preserve their support for Social-Democracy. From the standpoint of the struggle to win over the radicalising masses of workers, these so-called “Left” leaders of opportunism are the most dangerous enemies of communism, the Comintern and the USSR. The menace of Trotskyism in the international working- class movement consists, in the present period, in the fact that the Trotskyites directly support the ideas and policies of the “Left” servitors of reformism, that they strengthen the hand of the “Left” leaders of opportunism in their attacks on communism and the USSR, that they increase the means of deception and slander used by the reformists against communism, that Trotskyism has become a species of Bauerism and similar agents of reformism. The Trotskyite opposition has gone over entirely to the position of the “Left” myrmidons of opportunism on all basic questions, acquiring an avowedly counter-revolutionary character. Hurling slander, under cover of verbiage about loyalty to the revolution and the USSR, on the Communist International, the CPSU(B) and the proletarian dictatorship, whose foreign and domestic policy they falsify and distort as much as the Social- Democrats, the Trotskyites, together with the international Social-Democratic movement, pin their hopes on the fall of the Soviet government.
From a factional struggle within the CPSU, the Trotskyite opposition went over to the organisation of a second party, to a struggle in the streets and to open anti-Soviet actions, which, had they not received a crushing rebuff from the broad masses of the proletariat, might have developed into a certain menace for the proletarian dictatorship, rallying the class elements inimical to the proletarian dictatorship round the banner of the Trotskyite opposition. A more openly counter- revolutionary character has been acquired by the group headed by Sapronov, which directly attacks Leninism and openly calls for a struggle against the Soviet government. In programme and tactics it differs in no respect from counter-revolutionary types such as Korsch, Katz, Eastman, Souvarine and others. The proletarian dictatorship cannot and must not allow any counter-revolutionary action, nomatter what banner it is flying.
The Trotskyite opposition, which sought to blow the CPSU up from within, was ideologically and organisationally smashed thanks to the principled firmness and iron solidarity of the CPSU(B) and the working class of the USSR and splintered into several groups, some of which (Kamenev and Zinoviev) are beginning, not without vacillation, to return to the Party positions, gradually abandoning Trotskyism—which proves once more the correctness of the political line of the CPSU(B) and the Communist International—and some are vacillating between the Party and the Trotskyites. The insignificant Trotskyite group which remained intact, having suffered defeat in the CPSU(B) and in the USSR, is now trying to shift the centre of its struggle to the other sections of the Comintern.
The true opportunist face of the Trotskyite opposition is most clearly expressed in its programme for the consolidation of kindred groups in other countries. It appeals, first and foremost, to patently opportunist and counter-revolutionary elements, such as Souvarine and Paz in France. It entered into an alliance with the anti-proletarian petty-bourgeois Maslow group in Germany, the Treint and Suzanne Girault group in France, with the groups which are now speaking about a turn towards “fascism” and “tsarism” in the USSR. The German group is the strongest base of the Trotskyite opposition outside the USSR. It has established connections, on the one hand, with the counter- revolutionary Korsch group (joint actions during the Hamburg elections) and, on the other, it is making contact with the Left Social-Democrats. It is now beginning to organise openly into an independent party under the spurious name of “Lenin League”. It is aiming at becoming an international centre uniting all opposition groups against the Communist International and the USSR.
The Trotskyite opposition is trying to win over to its side the renegades Rosmer and Monatte. Such anti-proletarian opportunist elements are now rallying to the Trotsky its opposition as the Hula group in Czechoslovakia, Roland Holst in Holland and the “Left” Social-Democrats in Belgium, a group of Italian émigrés in France propounding the same counter-revolutionary platform as Korsch, and finally the Right-wing elements expelled from the American Communist Party (Lore and others, who are supported by the German Social-Democrats of America).
All the worst elements in the working-class movement, the openly opportunist elements in the communist movement and all renegade groups flung out of the ranks of the Comintern are now uniting under the Trotskyite banner against the USSR, the CPSU(B) and the Comintern, playing the role of a most abominable tool of international Social-Democracy against the Communists in the latter’s struggle for influence among the broad masses of the working class.
The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI considers that the Trotskyite opposition’s evolution towards Social-Democracy, its avowedly anti-Soviet stand, which is thoroughly hostile to the proletarian dictatorship, and its divisive methods in the Communist parties have resulted in a situation in which adherence to the Trotskyite opposition and solidarity with its views is incompatible with further membership of the Communist International.
The Communist parties must wage an uncompromising struggle to uproot the Trotskyite groups, concentrating the struggle primarily against their leaders. At the same time, it is necessary to continue an ideological struggle to win those workers who are vacillating but have not yet broken with the opposition.
Furthermore, the Communist parties must step up their work of showing the working-class masses the true face of the Trotskyite opposition because the aggravation of the struggle of the Communists against international Social-Democracy inevitably means a sharpening of the struggle against the anti-Communist, Trotskyite groups both in the USSR and in other countries.
The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,
6th Russ. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 495-96
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