fredbergen
6th June 2010, 20:40
"Centrist Alchemy or Marxism" by Leon Trotsky, 1935 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/04/centrism.htm)
This important essay was addressed primarily to German and other European socialists after the world-historic defeat that was Hitler's rise to power in Germany. It is a polemic against a centrist group in Germany, the SAP, and its short-lived international grouping, the IAG. But far from being of only historical interest, the polemics in this essay against the diplomatic opportunism of "left unity" schemes, and against bourgeois "peace" coalitionism, apply just as sharply and as urgently to the bulk of the left today. This is essential reading for revolutionists.
This important essay was addressed primarily to German and other European socialists after the world-historic defeat that was Hitler's rise to power in Germany. It is a polemic against a centrist group in Germany, the SAP, and its short-lived international grouping, the IAG. But far from being of only historical interest, the polemics in this essay against the diplomatic opportunism of "left unity" schemes, and against bourgeois "peace" coalitionism, apply just as sharply and as urgently to the bulk of the left today. This is essential reading for revolutionists.