Left Opposiion

Part 1: Origins of the Left Opposition In coming weeks, PRMI will be publishing a series of articles on the history of the revolutionary movement following the victory of the Russian Revolution, covering the formation of the Fourth International and its post WW2 degeneration, leading up to our recent history. By Walter Chambers, 6 February 2025 From the point of view of the international working class, the Russian revolution which began with the overthrow of Tsarism in February 1917, leading in October 1917 to the socialist revolution when the working class led by the Bolsheviks came to power, was one of the greatest events in history.  In the new Soviet state, the Bolsheviks had introduced a whole range of radical socialist measures. After withdrawing from World War 1, Russia refused to recognise secret agreements previously agreed between the imperialist powers, granted land to the peasantry, introduced workers’ control, the right to vote for all citizens men, women and youth, equal rights for women, decriminalised same sex relations, granted the right of self-determination to those nations that wanted it as well as radically transforming the education and health systems in favour of working people and the poor. They established the Communist International, with the aim of building a world revolutionary party capable of spreading the socialist revolution.  International capital however was determined to strangle the revolution. Tsarist and other reactionary forces set up armies to oppose the revolution, they were soon joined by the armies of twenty other countries including large contingents of British, Japanese, Czech, German, Turkish, French and US troops, whilst elsewhere other revolutionary movements were brutally suppressed – with, for example the assassination of the heroic anti-war German revolutionaries Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The imperialist intervention which led to a brutal civil war almost destroyed the new Soviet republic.  Isolation of the revolution Lenin who, with Trotsky, led the Russian Revolution, died in January 1924. In his last year he suffered one stroke after another, most likely caused by the failed assassination attempt by the social-revolutionary Fanny Kaplan in 1918. It is, though, no coincidence that his last major speech in November 1922 was to the 4th Congress of the Communist International discussing the prospects for world revolution. This was followed by a series of letters expressing his concern at the growing influence of Stalin. He formed a block with Trotsky to defend the monopoly of foreign trade, and requested the Soviet Congress to find a way of removing Stalin from the post of General Secretary.  Lenin understood very well, and indeed the principle was enshrined in the DNA of the Bolshevik party, that if the new Soviet State in Russia was to survive and develop in a genuinely socialist direction, the extension of the revolution across Europe and the world was necessary. Lenin’s insistence that the new USSR should be a union of independent socialist states was with the aim of accepting a future socialist Germany as an equal partner.  The four year long civil war waged by reactionary and imperialist armies which sought to overturn the revolution took the lives of many of the best class fighters, left much of the country in ruins, and the Russian economy in tatters. The new Soviet state desperately needed the spread of the revolution to the more developed countries. This was not a false hope – the German revolution saw the Kaiser overthrown before it was betrayed by the Social-democrats, in Hungary a revolutionary government came to power but quickly collapsed, whilst major revolutionary waves spread across Turkey, Italy, Mexico, India, Egypt, Ireland and elsewhere.  What was lacking in these countries were revolutionary parties such as the Bolsheviks, and as a consequence, Soviet Russia was left isolated, laying the basis for the future degeneration of the revolution, a process that did not take place in one leap, but over time in line with a series of international and national developments, resisted all the way by the supporters of what became the International Left Opposition, and then Fourth International, led by Trotsky. Destruction caused by the civil war The Civil War was not just hugely destructive, it had demanded political measures that would not normally be expected in a democratic socialist society. The economy was over-centralised, rather than the peasantry being allowed to develop their newly gained land, they found their grain requisitioned by the state, and the very nature of war demanded strict military discipline.  Even in this situation though, debates over policies raged within the Bolshevik party. Only in 1921, was it thought necessary to introduce a temporary ban on factions – a ban, which Lenin stressed in his resolution was intended at a time of severe crisis to maintain party unity when it was under attack on many fronts. In no way, he stressed, was any genuine criticism or argument to be restricted, but rather than used for factional purposes, should be discussed by the whole party.   Lenin was also recognising another process undermining the new Soviet state. It had, in many ways, inherited the state apparatus from the old Tsarist system. Only the most widespread democratic control, primarily by the working class, could break this down, but this was increasingly impossible because the most conscious class fighters had been taken into the army, or their time was devoured by  multitudinous administrative tasks needed to run society.  For this reason, in one of his last contributions Lenin proposed to strengthen the political role of the Central Committee and sharpen the effectiveness of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate intended to combat bureaucracy.   By 1920 a debate had opened within the new state on how best to develop the economy. Trotsky, who was not only leader of the Red Army, but had also been involved in directing economic work and the railways in the Urals had seen the problems caused by over-centralisation. He proposed in February 1920 to replace grain requisitioning by a progressive tax on the peasantry. Lenin initially rejected this idea. But with the delay of the