Written: March 1931.
First Published: The Militant, Vol. IV No. 6, 15 March 1931, p. 2.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
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Slowly but none the less surely the Communist League forges ahead. As this number of The Militant goes to press we are able to record another signal achievement in the publication of the English edition of the International Bulletin of the Left Opposition. For an organization of our limited resources even such an accomplishment, involving additional technical and editorial labors and expense, is worthy of note. And we should value it all the higher because of its paramount political importance.
The Left Opposition is first, last and always the faction of revolutionary internationalism. In the name of internationalism we have taken our stand and under its banner we conduct our fight. Stalinism, with its circumscribed outlook of national socialism, has dealt powerful blows to the international movement of the workers’ vanguard and is still dealing them. We will not accept the caricature it attempts to substitute for the international organization of the proletariat projected by Lenin, and before him by Marx. Neither will we adopt the Brandler idea of platonic relations between independent and autonomous national sections. We have broken forever with the spurious internationalism of bureaucratic command. But all the more are we obliged to replace it – in the policy we defend before the entire movement and in our own work – with a living internationalism consciously and deliberately achieved.
We do not believe in the theory of socialism in one country. And no more do we believe the various national sections of the world Communist movement can live isolated national lives and solve their problems exclusively by their own resources. This conception holds for the faction no less than for the party.
The internationalism toward which we strive is the fraternal union of the Communist workers of the entire world under one single flag. We strive for a reconstitution of the international Lenin army, imbued with a common ideology and regulated by international discipline. In anticipation of this, and in order to make our work fruitful for its realization, the international faction of the Left Opposition must be so organized. The Left, that is, the Marxist faction is and must be at once the fundamental nucleus and the advance guard of the reconstituted Lenin International.
How will we guarantee this? Not by say-so merely, and not by trusting to the ability of the various sections to work out a correct line on national and international problems without mutual assistance. Sad experience has already spoken on this point in the most emphatic manner. No, we must push forward at all cost toward the consolidation of the Left Opposition on an international scale into a single organization, and function as such. Real progress has already been made, as we know. The conference of last year and the constitution of the International Bureau were historic milestones along this path. It is a self-evident necessity to cooperate heartily with the International Bureau and strengthen its authority.
But that is not enough. All sections must steer a deliberate course toward real participation in the affairs of the others and in the common international tasks. This duty is particularly insistent for us be cause we inherit, from the past a certain insularity and we are hampered by barriers of distance and language. All the more necessary, therefore, is a conscious struggle to surmount them. The translation of the International Bulletin and its publication in English creates the primary conditions for the success of this struggle. We have no doubt that the members of the Communist League will recognize the importance of this event and make the most of it.
It will be remembered in this connection that the publication of the International Bulletin was listed as one of the items in our program of expansion for the current year. Its speedy realization has been made possible by the prompt response of the New York branch to the campaign for the two thousand dollar fund to finance this program. The other items in the program will follow in order as the other branches get in step..
Last updated on: 5.12.2012