Q. What was the Left Opposition?
A. The expulsion of the Left Opposition in the Communist Parties (Third International)which stood by the principles of Internationalism and Marxism, now took place. The defeat of the British General Strike and the Chinese Revolution of 1925-1927, prepared the way for this development. At this stage it was a question of 'mistakes' in the policies of Stalin, Bukharin and their henchmen. It was a question of their position as ideologists of the privileged layer and the enormous pressures of capitalism and reformism. These mistakes of leadership had doomed the movement of the proletariat in other countries to defeat and disaster.
Having burned their fingers in trying to conciliate the Reformists in the West and the Colonial bourgeoisie in the East, Stalin and his clique zig-zagged to an ultra-Left position, dragging the leadership of the Communist International with them. They split the German workers instead of advocating a United Front to prevent Fascism coming to power in Germany, and thus prepared the way, by paralysis of the German proletariat, for the victory of Hitler. The degeneration of the Soviet Union and the betrayal of the Third International in its turn prepared the way for the crimes and betrayal of the Stalinist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union.
Apart from the nationalisation of the means of production, the monopoly of foreign trade and planned production, nothing remained of the heritage of October. The purge, the one sided civil war in the Soviet Union, had their counterparts in the parties of the Communist International. The victory of Hitler and the defeats in Spain and France were the results of these developments. From 1924 to 1927, Stalin had based himself on an alliance with- the Kulaks and 'Nepmen' in the Soviet Union, and the 'building of Socialism at a snail's pace'. At the same time, abroad Stalinism stood for a 'neutralisation' of the capitalists, and a conciliation of the Social-Democrats as a means of 'warding-off' the threat of war. The defeat of the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union, with its programme of a return to Workers' Democracy, and the introduction of five-year plans, was due to the international defeats of the proletariat, caused by Stalinist policies.
From grovelling before the Social Democrats, and other international 'friends of the Soviet Union', the Communist International swung over to the policies of the 'third period'. The slump of 1929-33 was supposed to be 'the last crisis of capitalism'. Fascism and Social Democracy were twins, and these 'theories' paved the way for the terrible defeats of the international working-class.
At the same time, the policies of the Left Opposition in Russia won over the most advanced elements in the most important Communist Parties in the world. The Lessons of October, a work by Trotsky, dealt with the lessons of the abortive revolution of 1923 in Germany. The general programme of the opposition at home and abroad was answered by expulsions not only in the Russian Party, but in the main sections of the International. There was a rise of opposition groups in Germany, France, Britain, Spain, USA, South Africa and other countries. The programme of the opposition at this time was one of reform in the Soviet Union and the International, and the adoption of correct policies as against the opportunism of the period of 1923 to 1927, and the adventurism of the period from 1927 to 1933.
These splits, as Engels had remarked in another connection, were a healthy development in the sense of attempting to maintain the best traditions of Bolshevism and of the ideal of the Communist International. The crisis of leadership was the crisis of the International and of all mankind. Thus, these splits were a means of maintaining the ideals and methods of Marxism. In the first period of its existence, the Left Opposition regarded itself as a section of the Communist International; although expelled, and stood for the reform of the International.
The masses, and even the advanced layers of the proletariat, only learn through the lessons of great events. All history has shown that the masses can never give up their old organisations until these have been tested in the fire of experience. Up till 1933, the Marxist wing of the International still stood for the reform of the Soviet Union and the Communist International. Whether they would remain viable organisations would be shown by the test of history. Thus tenaciously the opposition maintained itself, although formally outside the ranks, as part of the International.
It was the coming to power of Hitler and the refusal of the Communist International to learn the lesson of the defeat which doomed it as an instrument of the working-class in the struggle for Socialism. Far from analysing the reasons for the fatal policy of Social Fascism, the sections of the Communist International declared the victory of Hitler to be a victory for the working-class, and as late as 1934 continued the same suicidal policies in France, of united action with the Fascists against the 'Social Fascists' and the 'Radical Fascists'. Daladier, which if successful would have prepared the way for the Fascist coup in France in February 1934.