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From The Militant, Vol. IX No. 12, 24 March 1945, p. 5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The program of Bolshevism started with the point of view that the fate of the October Revolution is inseparable from the fate of the international revolution. The program of 1928, in spite of all its “internationalist” phrases, starts with the perspective of the independent building of socialism in the USSR. The program of Lenin declares “Without revolution in the West and in the Orient, we are lost.” This program, by very essence, precludes the possibility of sacrificing the interests of the world workers’ movement for the interests of the USSR.
The program of the Communist international means in practice: the interests of the proletarian revolution in France can and ought to be sacrificed to the interests of the USSR (more strictly, to the interests of the diplomatic deals of the Soviet bureaucracy). The program of Lenin warns: Soviet bureaucratism is the worst enemy of socialism; bureaucratism, which reflects the pressure of bourgeois forces and tendencies, can lead to a revival of the bourgeoisie; the success of the struggle against the scourge of bureaucratism can be assured only by the victory of the European and the world proletariat.
Contrary to this, the present program of the Communist International states: socialism can be built independently of the successes or defeats of the world proletarian movement, under the guidance of the infallible and all-powerful Soviet bureaucracy; anything directed against the infallibility of the bureaucracy is counter-revolutionary and should be exterminated ...
In practice, indeed, the Stalinist bureaucracy long ago replaced the program of the international proletarian revolution with a program of Soviet national reforms. Disorienting and enfeebling the world proletariat by its policies, which are a mixture of opportunism and adventurism, the Communist International thereby likewise undermines the fundamental interests of the USSR. We are for the USSR, but against the usurping bureaucracy and its blind instrument, the Communist International.
(From Whither France, by Leon Trotsky, pp. 105–106. Pioneer Publishers, 1936; 160 pp., cloth $1, paper 75 cents. Order from Pioneer Publishers, 116 University Place, N.Y. 3, N.Y.).
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