The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
Contents
Note about the author
Preface
Introduction
Appeal of the deportees
Problems of the International Opposition (two letters)
The international factor
To a few exiled friends
‘Pravda’ sounds the alarm
A pair of Sancho Panzas
Pyatakov: a politically finished man
Our correspondents
The relation of criticism to support
Letter to Ryazanov
We cannot follow a short-range policy
Conditions in Alma-Ata
The general outline of my work
The Opposition’s errors—real and alleged
Preobrazhensky’s proposal
Portrait of a capitulator
The methods of leadership
Rumors from Moscow
A crudely empirical turn
Declaration to the Sixth Comintern Congress
What to expect from the Sixth Congress
Radek’s theses
The July Plenum and the right danger
The conflicts are still ahead
The law of zigzags remains in force
Who is leading the Comintern today?
Remarks after the Sixth Congress
7
9
13
27
37
46
51
56
63
67
70
74
76
80
87
91
94
110
113
119
131
140
146
167
174
184
196
200
204
238
The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
Max Eastman: A friend of the October Revolution
A heart-to-heart talk with a well-meaning
party member
The Sixth Congress and the Opposition’s tasks
No political concessions to conciliationist moods
Analogies with Thermidor
The danger of Bonapartism and the Opposition’s role
How to criticize the centrists
An ultraleft caricature of Stalin
Our differences with the Democratic Centralists
Crisis in the right-center bloc
On the topics of the day
Too conciliatory a line?
Marxism and the relation between proletarian
and peasant revolution
What is the ‘smychka’?
Reply to an ultimatum
Reply to two conciliators
Protest against deportation
Message on arriving in Constantinople
248
Appendix A: Bukharin-Kamenev meeting
Appendix B: Philosophical tendencies of bureaucratism
Appendix C: Summary of charges against Trotsky
Glossary
Further reading
Index
421
434
458
459
480
481
252
280
297
300
302
320
324
327
337
376
385
388
394
404
411
417
419
The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
Preface
This is the third and final volume of Leon Trotsky’s writings devoted to the Soviet Left Opposition in the years 1923–29. The first
volume (1923–25) covered the beginnings of the Stalin-ZinovievKamenev bloc (the “triumvirate”) and the formation of the Left
Opposition in the All-Union Communist Party (AUCP), following the defeat of the 1923 German revolution; the Opposition’s
support of Lenin’s proposals to restore workers’ democracy within
the party and state, to promote rapid industrialization and economic
planning, stem the growth of bureaucratism, and counter Stalin’s
self-serving perversion of party history and distortion of Lenin’s
views.
The second volume (1926–27), which began after the break-up
of the triumvirate, opened with the formation of the United Opposition between Trotsky’s Left Opposition and the Leningrad Opposition of Grigory Zinoviev and Leon Kamenev. By this time the
economic situation had become critical, due largely to policies of
the Political Bureau (Politburo) that favored the wealthy peasants
over the poor peasants and urban and rural workers. The defeats
of a developing prerevolutionary situation in Britain and an actual revolution in China had vindicated the Opposition’s criticisms
of the Comintern’s international policy for all who cared to see.
Thus, in addition to the issues of party democracy and the rate of
industrialization, the Opposition used the lessons of the AngloRussian Committee and the Chinese revolution to show how Joseph Stalin and his allies and supporters in the leadership were
overturning the Leninist policy of proletarian internationalism
under cover of the “theory” of “socialism in one country.” By the
end of 1927 the United Opposition bloc had been expelled from
the party and had split, the Zinovievist leaders capitulating to Stalin
and the Trotskyists, maintaining their opposition to bureaucrat-
9
The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
10 / challenge of the left opposition (1928–29)
ism, about to be deported to exile colonies throughout Siberia and
Central Asia.
Most of the contents of the present volume were written by
Trotsky in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, where he arrived on January
25, 1928, accompanied by his wife, Natalya Ivanovna, and their
elder son, Leon Sedov (Lyova). Their younger son, Sergei (Seryozha), joined them for a short visit in the spring. This year was
marked by a “left turn” by Stalin. In response to a new crisis in grain
deliveries, the Politburo authorized “extraordinary measures”—
requisitioning reminiscent of war communism—to collect grain
from the peasants. There were new capitulations by sections of the
Opposition who mistook Stalin’s “left turn” for a genuine proletarian course; a controversy within the Opposition over Trotsky’s
proposal to give “critical support” to every bona fide progressive
move by Stalin; the beginnings of a split between the party’s center, led by Stalin, and its right wing, led by Nikolai Bukharin, and
a campaign of phony “self-criticism” and scapegoat trials designed
to discredit and undermine Bukharin’s supporters. The Sixth World
Congress of the Comintern, held in the summer, initiated the “third
period” policies that were to hobble the Communist movement for
six years. Within the exile colonies, the debate with the Democratic
Centralist current over Thermidor and the need for a second party
continued; and there was renewed debate within the Opposition
over the validity of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, and
discussion of the possibility of a bloc with the Bukharinist right
wing to restore inner-party democracy.
These lively political exchanges were abruptly halted when Trotsky was declared guilty of counterrevolutionary activities and forcibly deported to Turkey. All of his published writings from then
until his murder in 1940 by a Stalinist agent in Mexico, and much
that was never published during his lifetime, are in the Writings
of Leon Trotsky (1929–40), a twelve-volume series with a two-part
supplement, and in several other volumes arranged by theme (see
“Books and Pamphlets by Leon Trotsky” at the end of this volume).
Shortly after arriving in Alma-Ata, Trotsky initiated a correspondence, which became enormous, with Oppositionists in exile
colonies throughout the Soviet Union. That correspondence forms
The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
preface / 11
the backbone of this volume. Many of his letters were intended to
be circulated from hand to hand. These so-called “circular letters,”
which were often sent out in multiple copies and which frequently
reached dozens of Oppositionists, served as discussion articles or
position statements for the exiles. They may have been cloaked in
letter form to evade or lighten the heavy-handed postal censorship inflicted upon the Opposition. In later years, Trotsky was apparently considering a collection of these letters for publication;
and at some time before he sold his archives to Harvard University in 1940 he went through the 1928 correspondence and selected
some, which he numbered “AA” (Alma-Ata) 1–46, for possible publication. The choices for the present volume are based in part on
his selection.
Trotsky’s major work of the year 1928 was his book-length
“Criticism of the Draft Program of the Communist International,”
prepared for the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern, which
met in Moscow in July–September 1928. That and his long letter
to the congress, entitled “What Now?” are not included here because they are in print in The Third International After Lenin (New
York: Pathfinder, 1972), in a translation by John G. Wright. A list
of other writings of this period and a glossary are in the back of
this book.
Only about one-fifth of the contents of this volume have been
published before in English, mostly by Trotsky’s cothinkers in the
United States. They were published in newspapers or magazines
of the 1920s, ’30s, or ’40s and, with the exception of two short items,
none has been in print for decades.
An editorial note preceding each selection explains its source
and gives other information about the events mentioned in it. All
translations from French have been checked against the Russian
original for accuracy and stylistic consistency. Translations that
were already in English in The Militant, Fourth International, or
New International have likewise been checked and partly revised
against the original Russian. Wherever possible, we have replaced
Trotsky’s citations of Russian texts with references to the standard
English translation: in the case of Lenin, all references are to the
English edition of his Collected Works (Moscow: Progress, 1960–
The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928–29)
Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press
12 / challenge of the left opposition (1928–29)
69). Stalin’s Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages, 1952–55) have
also been used.
Of great help in compiling this volume was Louis Sinclair’s Leon
Trotsky: A Bibliography (Hoover Institution Press, 1972). This
project could not have been successful without the kind permission of the Harvard College Library and the Library of Social History to examine, translate, and publish material in their collections.
The Editors