[page 20]
The general
the minority
Extract from The mistakes of the right
elements of the French Communist League
on the trade union question' 4 January
1931.
THE DISASTROUS experience with
the Anglo-Russian Committee was
based entirely upon effacing the in-
dependance of the British Communist
Party. In order that the Soviet trade
unions might maintain the bloc with
the strike-breakers of the General
Council (allegedly in the state interests
of the USSR!) the British Communist
Party had to be deprived of all in-
dependence. This was obtained by the
actual dissolution of the party into the
so-called 'Minority Movement', that is,
a 'left' opposition inside the trade
unions.
Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev-in this
question they were all in solidarity, at
least in the first period-sought to
replace the weak British Communist
Party by a 'broader current' which had
at its head, to be sure, not members
of the party, but 'friends' , almost Com-
munists, at any rate, fine fellows and
good acquaintances. The fine fellows, the solid 'leaders', did not, of course,
want to submit themselves to the leadership of a small, weak Communist
Party. That was their full right; the party cannot force anybody to submit himself to it. The agreements between the Communists and the 'Lefts' (Purcell, Hicks and Cook) on the basis of the partial tasks of the trade union movement were, of course, quite possible and in certain cases unavoidable. But on one condition: the Communist Party had to preserve its complete independence, even within the trade unions, act in its own name in all questions of principle, criticise its 'Left' allies whenever necessary, and in this way, win the confidence of the masses step by step.
The experience of the Anglo-Russian Committee was unfortunately the least understood and grasped even in the Left Opposition groups. The demands for a break with the strikebreakers appeared even to some within our ranks as... sectarianism. Yet, this question has a gigantic importance: without a clear understanding of what happened in Britain in 1925-26, neither communism as a whole nor the Left Opposition in particular will be able to find its way on the right road.
This only possible road, however, appeared too long and uncertain to the bureaucrats of the Communist International. They considered that by means of personal influence upon Purcell, Hicks, Cook and the others (conversations behind the scenes, correspondence, banquets, friendly back-
CP leaders Rust and Hannington, jailed in O
slapping, gentle exhortations), they would gradually and imperceptibly draw the 'Left' opposition ('the broad current') into the stream of the Communist International. To guarantee such a success with greater security, the dear friends (Purcell, Hicks and Cook) were not to be vexed, or exasperated, or displeased by petty chicanery, by inopportune criticism, by sectarian instransigence, and so forth... But since one of the tasks of the Communist Party consists precisely of upsetting the peace of and alarming all centrists and semi-centrists a radical measure had to be resorted to by actually subordinating the Communist Party to the 'Minority Movement'. On the trade union field there appeared only the leaders of this movement. The British Communist Party had practically ceased to exist for the masses.
Sta
lin's position
What did the Russian Left Opposition demand in this question? In the first place, to re-establish the complete independence of the British Čommunist Party towards the trade unions. We affirmed that it is only under the influence of the independent slogans of the party and of its open criticism that the Minority Movement could take form, appreciate its tasks more precisely, change its leaders, fortify itself in the trade unions while consolidating the position of communism.
What did Stalin, Bukharin, Lozovsky and company reply to our criticism? 'You want to push the British Communist Party on to the road of sectarianism. You want to drive Purcell, Hicks and Cook into the enemy's camp. You want to break with the Minority Movement.
What did the Left Opposition rejoin? 'If Purcell and Hicks break with us, not because we demand of them that they transform themselves immediately into Communists-nobody
21
demands that!-but because we
ourselves want to remain Com-
munists, this means that Purcell and
company are not friends but masked
enemies. The quicker they show their
nature, the better for the masses. We
do not at all want to break with the
Minority Movement. On the contrary,
we must give the greatest attention to
this movement. The smallest step for-
ward with the masses or with a part
of the masses is worth more than a
dozen abstract programmes of circles of intellectuals, but the attention devoted to the masses has nothing in
common with capitulation before their temporary leaders and semi-leaders. The masses need a correct orientation and correct slogans. This excludes all theoretical conciliation and the patronage of contusionists who exploit the backwardness of the masses'
What were the results of the Stalinists' British experiment? The Minority Movement, embracing almost a million workers, seemed very promising, but it bore the germs of destruction within itself. The masses knew as the leaders of the movement only Purcell, Hicks and Cook, whom, moreover, Moscow vouched for. These 'left' friends, in a serious test, shamefully betrayed the proletariat. The revolutionary workers were thrown into confusion, sank into apathy and naturally extended their disappointment to the Communist Party itself which had only been the passive part of this whole mechanism of betrayal and perfidy. The Minority Movement was reduced to zero; the Communist Party returned to the existence of a negligible sect. In this way, thanks to a radically false conception of the party, the greatest movement of the English proletariat, which led to the general strike, not only did not shake the apparatus of the reactionary bureaucracy, but, on the contrary, reinforced it and compromised Communism in Great Britain for a long time.