[3 October 1935, published in The Crisis of the French Section [1935-36], New York 1977 pp. 55-58, “A Dangerous Symptom in Our Ranks”, originally published in Bulletin Interieur, ICL, no. 4, November 1935, where it was dated 4 November 1935. The correct date was provided by the German original at the Harvard archive. Translated from the French by Russell Block.]
To the International Secretariat
Dear Comrades:
From various sides comes the news that there are SAPist tendencies concerning the People’s Front policy in our ranks, too, at least among some individuals and small groups of comrades. This fact seems to me of decisive importance. To permit ambiguity or evasions on this matter would mean exposing ourselves to extreme political demoralisation.
When some comrades complain about the “sharp tone” of our criticism of the SAP, the older comrades, at least, can’t help but remember the history of the discussions between the Marxists and the revisionists. Marxists have always been accused of using the wrong tone. Not so much by the revisionists themselves as by vacillating elements who wanted to blur the discussion in order to soften the sharp angles and avoid posing problems precisely. It goes without saying that sometimes the tone of an article may be too blunt, and it is everyone’s right and duty to call that to the attention of both the author and the editor. But those elements who speak always and nearly exclusively about the tone prove that it is the substance that in fact bothers them, whether they can or will realise it. A discussion about the tone and the permissible degree of severity is, moreover, quite sterile. It will be much more fruitful when it reaches political ground, which is actually where the problems of the People’s Front and social patriotism belong in the first place.
It is understandable that during the first weeks some hesitation appeared even in our ranks; the situation was complicated, and the People’s Front was a new phenomenon for many of us and consequently a new problem. But the fact that some comrades show themselves to be People’s Front politicians even now, after rather significant experience with the People’s Front and after the important articles printed in our press, seems to me an extremely dangerous symptom. On this matter, we must raise a sharp protest before it is too late, because what is at stake here is neither more nor less than the line of demarcation between Bolshevism and Menshevism.
Some say that to demand the expulsion of the Radicals from the People’s Front would be wrong: the masses must first go through experience with the Radicals; that is why it would supposedly be much better to demand that the People’s Front take power; only its bankruptcy will supposedly convince the masses to accept our ideas, etc. This way of thinking is Menshevik from beginning to end.
1. “The popular masses must go through experience with the Radicals.” All right. But why should the working class organisations take part in it? The Radicals can also demonstrate their bankruptcy without the People’s Front. The People’s Front does not expose but covers up this bankruptcy.
2. The Socialists have been participating in People’s Fronts with the Radicals for years. Starting with nothing, they passed through nothing and got nowhere. The crisis forced them to a break (which is far from complete) with the Radicals. This break brought about a split inside the Socialist Party (with the Neo- Socialists). We hope that these facts have some weight. They are precisely the result of the working masses’ disillusionment over the Socialists’ collaboration with the Radicals. This disillusionment sums up a whole historical period. The pressure of the masses has forced the Socialists to form a bloc with the Communists, and the idea of the People’s Front, that is, of restoring the alliance with the Radicals, was raised not by the “masses” but by Moscow. Only the authority of the united leaderships (Socialists and Communists) has made the renewal of the coalition with the Radicals halfway palatable to the working class. If we, the revolutionary wing, say to the working class: “Radicals out of the People’s Front!” we express the result of their historical experience and we reflect the thinking of their vanguard.
3. “The masses must convince themselves.” We by no means stand in their way. We only want to be sure that the petty bourgeoisie doesn’t acquire its new “convictions” at the expense of the working class. And what would these convictions be? If the People’s Front continues to vegetate, achieves governmental power, and fails, then the experience of the masses will lead them to this one great lesson: the Radicals, the Socialists, and the Communists are all the same sorts of scoundrels; it was no accident that they joined forces to betray us. We must turn our back on them and seek justice from the fascists.
4. They forget that the whole crisis of the parliamentary regime originates in the crisis of confidence of the masses in the Radicals, and that the working class organisations have sacrificed themselves, like good Samaritans, to try to repair the reputation of the long-since discredited Radical Party. It would be pure treason for our party not to issue the most severe warnings and not to raise the demand: “Radicals out of the People’s Front!”
5. But the Stalinists do not stop with the Radicals. They already have won the admission of the Neo-Socialists. The split with the Neo-Socialists was a step forward. This step forward has been liquidated. They have accepted the party of Briand, Paul-Boncour, etc., into the People’s Front. And, as if this were not enough, they are now trying to win Flandin’s party to the People’s Front. To be sure, there are a lot of petty bourgeois who vote for Flandin. Is that a good enough reason to make a common front with him? For it is not a matter of the masses’ experience, which they will have without us, against us, and under the blows of our criticisms, but rather of a common front – that is, political collaboration – with the class enemy. That was what the Menshevik philosophy consisted of in 1905, and above all in 1917, in Russia; that was the Stalinist policy toward the Kuomintang in China, etc. Those traitors will always try to mask their own disloyal policy of aid to the bourgeoisie with the “need of the masses for experience.”
6. We can really sigh with relief now that the SAP has finally stopped reproducing our analysis and our slogans, in a somewhat diluted form, and is making an effort to show its own political colours. Around the questions of the war, the Seventh World Congress, and the People’s Front (Spartacus), they have now shown their hand. Let naive souls believe that our “sectarianism” and our “overly severe criticism” has driven them away from the Fourth International. You lie, gentlemen, we shall answer: you are common pacifists (for disarmament); you are second-rate Brandlerites (your attitude toward the Seventh World Congress); you are Mensheviks (your position on political fraternisation with the bourgeoisie – “People’s Front”). If all the good comrades in our ranks understand the depth of our differences, then they will also have to understand that the tone of the polemic must correspond to the sharpness of the differences. Otherwise, the workers would believe that it is a matter of secondary differences within the same family. Marxism comports itself here in an irreconcilable manner toward right-leaning centrism. This means a fight to the finish, without considerations of tact.
7. Some comrades accuse our French section of being “rash”: they supposedly have provoked the reformists with exaggerated criticism or untimely slogans, etc. Those objections are false and rotten to the core, and are only a reflection of SAPist guile. It is not a problem of “tone” or of “rashness,” which are of secondary importance, but of national defence. The whole plan of Léon Blum and Company is not to let this question be raised for discussion at all, so that they will be able, at the last minute, to spring a surprise on their own party. Stalin’s crude declaration to Laval did not look good in this gambit. The congress of the Comintern, using the little Jesuit Ercoli, has succeeded in retreating to the line put forward by Léon Blum in this matter.1 The resolution says nothing to the masses. But it leaves the hands of the leaders free to deceive the masses. Léon Blum showed himself superior to Stalin in the methods of social patriotism. But Léon Blum could not stand anyone stepping on his toes, that is, he could not stand having the question of national defence raised over and over again in the party. But that is just what the Bolshevik-Leninists do. That is what they consider their essential task, and rightly so. Therein lies their real “rashness” and “tactlessness.” Whoever has not understood this crucial point may get distracted by superficial things and chance gossip. At a time when the French comrades are under heavy attack from the reformists and Stalinists, when they are ignominiously betrayed by the SAPists and the Pivertists, our duty is to help them as much as we can. Whoever repeats the SAPist arguments, despite his best intentions, lines up with all the agents of social patriotism.
I suppose that some comrades will also find the “tone” of this letter too sharp, not fraternal enough, etc. I have already resigned myself to it. But let them not neglect the substance of my arguments. If my arguments are wrong, I beg that they be answered in the sharpest way. I promise never to complain about the polemical tone, because the essence is always more important than the form.
Crux [Trotsky]
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