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Left Opposition Левая оппозиция | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Leon Trotsky |
| Founded | October 1923 (1923-10) |
| Dissolved | December 1927 (1927-12) |
| Merged into | United Opposition |
| Ideology | Marxism Trotskyism Anti-Stalinism Permanent revolution |
| Political position | Far-left |
| National affiliation | Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) |
| International affiliation | International Left Opposition |
TheLeft Opposition (Russian:Левая оппозиция,romanized: Levaya oppozitsiya) was a faction within theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927[1] headed byLeon Trotsky, who formed it to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within the party leadership headed by Stalin after the death of the Bolshevik founderLenin in 1924. The Left Opposition advocated for a programme of rapidindustrialization, voluntary collectivisation of agriculture, and the expansion of aworker's democracy[2] in a wider framework with theNew Economic Policy.[3]
Intellectuals who had previously lived in exile during theTsarist era would constitute the core of the Left Opposition during the succession period.[4] Members represented the most internationalist elements of the party and held offices at the highest responsibility withChristian Rakovsky,Adolph Joffe, andNikolay Krestinsky holdingambassadorial posts inLondon,Paris,Tokyo, andBerlin.[5]
Originally, the battle lines were drawn between Trotsky and his supporters who signedThe Declaration of 46 in October 1923 on the one hand and atriumvirate (also known by its Russian nameTroika) ofCommunist International (Comintern) chairmanGrigory Zinoviev, Communist PartyGeneral SecretaryJoseph Stalin andPolitburo chairmanLev Kamenev on the other hand. The Left Opposition argued that theNew Economic Policy had weakened the Soviet Union by allowing the private sector to achieve an increasingly important position in the Soviet economy while in their opinion, the centrally planned, socialised sector of the economy languished (including the mostly state-run heavy industries which were seen as essential not only for continued industrialisation but also defence). The platform called for the state to adopt a programme for mass industrialisation and to encourage the mechanization and collectivisation of agriculture, thereby developing themeans of production and helping the Soviet Union move towards parity with Western capitalist countries, which would also increase the proportion of the economy which was part of the socialised sector of the economy and definitively shift the Soviet Union towards a socialistmode of production.[6]
There was also theRight Opposition, which was led by the leading party theoretician andPravda editorNikolai Bukharin and supported bySovnarkom Chairman (prime minister)Alexei Rykov and Chairman of theAll-Union Central Council of Trade UnionsMikhail Tomsky. In late 1924, as Stalin proposed his newsocialism in one country theory, Stalin drew closer to the Right Opposition and histriumvirate withGrigory Zinoviev andLev Kamenev slowly broke up over the next year (Zinoviev and Kamenev were both executed in 1936). The Right Opposition were allied to Stalin's Centre from late 1924 until their alliance broke up in the years from 1928 to 1930 over strategy towards thekulaks andNEPmen. Trotsky and his supporters in the Left Opposition were joined by theGroup of Democratic Centralism to form theUnited (or Joint) Opposition.
The first confrontation between the Left Opposition and the triumvirate occurred from October 1923 to January 1924 over industrialization policies. The triumvirate won decisively at the XIII Party Conference in January 1924. Following Lenin's death in January 1924, the confrontation between the Left Opposition and the triumvirate expanded more openly into a dispute over Trotsky's policies, with the triumvirate accusing Trotsky's policies of being "anti-Leninist". At theXIIIth Communist Party Congress in May 1924, the triumvirate's position was further strengthened at the Left Opposition's expense. Another confrontation took place from October to December 1924, during the so-called "Literary Discussion" and criticism of Trotsky'spermanent revolution policy as Stalin proposedsocialism in one country. This resulted in the removal of Trotsky from his ministerial post on 6 January 1925, although Stalin opposed Zinoviev's demand that Trotsky be expelled from the Party.
With Trotsky largely marginalized, Zinoviev and Kamenev had a falling out with Stalin at the XIVth Communist Party Conference in April 1925 over Stalin's October 1924 proposal ofsocialism in one country, which Zinoviev and Kamenev now openly opposed. By this time, the Right Opposition leader, Bukharin, had elaborated on Stalin's socialism in one country policy, giving it a theoretical justification. This solidified the Right Opposition as Stalin's main allies, as the triumvirate of Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev from recent years broke up. Soon after the April 1925 Conference, Zinoviev and Kamenev formed theNew Opposition, but they were defeated by Stalin, who was again supported by Bukharin and Rykov, at theXIVth Party Congress in December 1925. Soon after their defeat at the Congress, Zinoviev and Kamenev joined forces with Trotsky's Left Opposition in early 1926, in what became known as theUnited Opposition. From July to October 1926, the United Opposition lost out to Stalin, and its leaders were expelled from the ruling Politburo.
In October 1927, soon aftercatastrophic events regarding theNorthern Expedition, which confirmed the United Opposition's critical analysis of theChinese Communist Party'ssupport for the nationalistKuomintang, the last United Opposition members were expelled from the Communist Party Central Committee; and in November 1927, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Communist Party itself, after holding a street demonstration on the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution.[7][8] In December 1927, theXVth Party Congress declared Left Opposition and Trotskyist views to be incompatible with Communist Party membership and expelled all leading Left Opposition supporters from the Party.
After their expulsion by the XVth Congress, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their supporters immediately surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes" and were readmitted to the Communist Party in 1928, although they never regained their former influence and eventually perished in theGreat Purge. Trotsky and his supporters, on the other hand, refused to capitulate to Stalin and were exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union in early 1928. Trotsky was eventually expelled from the country in February 1929, sent into exile in Turkey. Trotsky's supporters remained in exile, but their resolve began to waver in 1929 as Stalin turned against Bukharin and Rykov and adopted the policy ofcollectivization, which appeared to be close to the policies that the Left Opposition had advocated earlier. The Left Opposition attempted to field opposition candidates against the official Communist Party candidates in the1929 elections, but to no avail.[9] Most (but not all) prominent Left Opposition members recanted between 1929 and 1934, but they nearly all perished during the Great Purge of the mid-late 1930s along with the Oppositionists who remained unrepentant.
Some of its members, while claiming to have given up on their old views, participated in the underground opposition in the USSR. They, likeI. N. Smirnov, even maintained contact with Trotsky and his sonSedov. During this period, the Trotskyists formed anopposition bloc with several other groups, for example the members of the formerRight Opposition. HistorianPierre Broué stated that the opposition groups were dissolved in early 1933, when many of its members were arrested.[10] However, some documents found in 2018 showed that the Underground Left Opposition stayed active even in prison; in fact, the prisons became their centers of activity.[11]
In the meantime, Trotsky founded theInternational Left Opposition in 1930. It was meant to be an opposition group within the Comintern, but members of the Comintern were immediately expelled as soon as they joined (or were suspected of joining) the ILO. The ILO therefore concluded that opposingStalinism from within the Communist organizations controlled by Stalin's supporters had become impossible, so new organizations had to be formed. In 1933, the ILO was renamed the International Communist League (ICL), which formed the basis of theFourth International, founded in Paris in 1938.
Several members of the Left Opposition also engaged in literary-intellectual activities following their forced exile from Moscow during theinterwar period. Radek wrote a biographical account ofLenin, Rakovsky produced a work on the left-wing socialistSaint-Simon, Preobrazhensky completed books on theSoviet economy and the economy ofmedieval Europe, Smilga chronicled the Bukharian school of thought, and Dingelstedt produced essays on the social structure ofIndia.[12]
"We say that there can now be no doubt whatever that, as the evolution of the directing line of the faction (i.e., the majority of the Central Committee) has shown, the main core of the 1923 opposition correctly warned against the danger of a shift from the proletarian line, and against the ominous growth of the apparatus regime."
According to historianSheila Fitzpatrick, the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters asindustrialisation andcollectivisation.[14]
Trotsky maintained that the disproportions and imbalances which became characteristic of Stalinist planning in the 1930s such as the underdevelopedconsumer base along with the priority focus onheavy industry were due to a number of avoidable problems. He argued that the industrial drive had been enacted under more severe circumstances, several years later and in a less rational manner than originally conceived by the Left Opposition.[15] Comparatively, Trotsky believed that planning and N.E.P should develop within a mixed framework until the socialist sector gradually superseded the private industry.[16]
American historianRobert Vincent Daniels viewed the Left Opposition as a critical alternative to the Stalin-Bukharin majority in a number of areas. Daniels stated that the Left Opposition would have prioritised industrialisation but never contemplated the "violent uprooting" employed by Stalin and contrasted most directly withStalinism on the issue ofparty democratization and bureaucratization. Concurrently, Daniels believed that the practical differences in theirinternational policy with other factions had been exaggerated and he contended that Trotsky was no more prepared than other Bolshevik figures to riskwar or the loss oftrade opportunities despite his support forworld revolution.[17]
Russian historian,Vadim Rogovin, argued that the Left Opposition, led by Trotsky, was a political movement that "offered a real alternative to Stalinism, and that to crush this movement was the primary function of the Stalinist terror".[18] Rogovin also stated that contemporary historians believed that 40,000 to 50,000 people (more than 10% of the party membership) had voted for the platform of the Opposition during the 1923 discussion. He noted that the majority of the party organisation, especially inMoscow, had voted for the Opposition in 1923.[19] At the same time, Stalin approved the appointment of Amayak Nazaretian, the head of his personal secretariat, who would laterfalsify voting results of party meetings which were then reported toPravda magazine.[20]
However, political scientist Susan Weissman criticized the lack of consistency from members of the Left Opposition over the issue ofdemocratization. She argued that Trotsky and Preobrazhensky overly focused on intra-party democracy rather than widespread democratization outside of the party during the 1920s. Trotsky would develop his writings ofpolitical pluralism in the 1930s. Although, Weissman acknowledged theheterogenous views of the Left Opposition and described one of their members,Victor Serge, as a consistent defender of a multi-party system and favoured acoalition government tobureaucratic rule.[21] Other figures such asIsaac Deutscher andErnest Mandel maintain that the intra-party reforms proposed by the Left Opposition from 1923-1926 would have revitalised party democratization,mass participation,worker's self-management and eventually amulti-partysocialist democracy.[22][23]
The Left Opposition received active support primarily fromintellectuals and the youth section of the Moscow party base.[24] Party histories and documents such as the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" recorded varying levels of support for the Left Opposition across the membership base. At a meeting of workers' cells, 9,843 voters were cast for the Central Committee (CC) which was controlled by Zinioviev, Kamenev, and Stalin at the time whereas 2,223 voted for the Opposition. Conversely, at meetings of student cells, the CC received only 2,790 voted whereas the Opposition received 6,594. Among the military and administrative delegates elected to regional conferences in Moscow, 1,708 voted for the CC, while 878 voted for the Opposition.[25]
Internationally, Trotsky's opposition and criticism of the ruling troika received support from several Central Committee members of foreign communist parties. This includedChristian Rakovsky,Chairman of theUkraine Sovnarkom,Boris Souvarine of theFrench Communist Party, and the Central Committee of thePolish Communist Party that was led by prominent theoreticians such asMaksymilian Horwitz,Maria Koszutska, andAdolf Warski.[26]
