Historic interactions between Trotskyists and the Communist Left?

[Ostrinski]

Has there ever been any kind of happening of this nature, whether it be collaborative or counteractive? I think this would be an interesting topic that I don't think I've ever seen discussed.

[Devrim]

There is a section (http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2000-10-01/trotsky-and-the-internationalist-communist-left) on this in the CWO pamphlet on Trotskyism (http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2000-10-01/trotsky-and-trotskysm).

Devrim

[Android]

P. Bourrinet discusses the relationship of the early Italian Left to the International Left Opposition in his book (http://libcom.org/files/p.bourrinet%20-%20the%20'bordigist'%20current.pdf).

[Geiseric]

Bordigaism was the first major split from the left opposition, which soon became Trotskyists. At least he persuaded half the membership to leave because of their sectarianism towards the idea of a United Front.

[Devrim]

Bordigaism was the first major split from the left opposition, which soon became Trotskyists. At least he persuaded half the membership to leave because of their sectarianism towards the idea of a United Front.

Please read some history, or at least check things before you post.

Devrim

[Noa Rodman]

This thread (http://www.leftcom.org/en/forum/2011-12-14/decists-russian-communist-left) discusses a bit the relation of Trotskyists and Decists. I mentioned there also a letter by Trotskysist to the decists, but didn't finish translating it (one can copy-paste it in google-translate).


To comrades of group "15"


Dear comrades! To our Voronezh group of exiled oppositionists a
letter came of comrade Sapronov from 5/VIII, addressed to comrade Nechaev, and the remnants
of a letter of comrade Vladimir Smirnov, referring, obviously, to the same period.
After reading these letters and comprehensively having thought over the positions put forward in them, we believe it is our revolutionary duty to tell you this.
1. Never before since the moment of the October victory has the country of the dictatorship
the proletariat been in greater danger than in the ongoing period. We are facing the fact of the cowardly surrender of the higher authorities of the Party and Soviet power to the capitalist forces, grown by the yeasts of opportunistic leadership.
Only this terrible fact and the general attitude towards it can be in this moment the decisive criterion for determining the further ways of the opposition and for establishing the appropriate political policy of the relations between the seperate opposition currents.

...

[then talking about a position of Smirnov] We sincerely believe that this is not your point of view. We also believe that few of you will stand for a further inflation of differences, which is overdue to eliminate them without remainder. The days are coming strong fighting for the Bolshevik Party, the dictatorship of the proletariat. We believe that
We have no irreconcilable differences of principle and give them no more invent. Quite a squabble. Time urges the revolutionary
unity, the Bolshevik determination.
Voronezh group exiled Bolshevik-Leninists (the opposition)
Voronezh, 12 October 1928


BTW that thread on leftcom was very depressing for me to have to explain to left communists why they should bother with decists.

[l'Enfermé]

The Left Opposition wasn't Trotskyist though. Trotsky's didn't have his own cult at that point yet.

edit: well there's obscene shit like Radek's Trotsky, Organizer of Victory (http://marxists.org/archive/radek/1923/xx/trotsky.htm), but it seems to be more of an exception than a rule.

[Geiseric]

Fair enough, Bordigaists weren't really part of the left opposition, but they refused to participate in it, in any significant way, more or less about the united front question. I would still consider that sectarianism.

[Grenzer]

I would still consider that sectarianism.

That's because you have no conception of what sectarianism is. You've already said on multiple occasions that anyone who doesn't endorse a British labourite style party is a sectarian. If anything, it is Trotskyism that is sectarian since it endorses selling the working class out to Capital at every turn in the form of the "workers' states" and bourgeois parties in the form of the united front. By encouraging collaboration with Capital, Trotskyism is actually an impediment to the growth of the proletariat as an independent revolutionary political force. Bordiga simply acknowledged the nature of social-democracy as a faction of Capital and refused to compromise class lines. There is nothing sectarian about this at all.

[Ostrinski]

You would consider it sectarian, but they wouldn't because there are very good arguments against the united front that you are not even willing to consider. It is perfectly fair and within reason to argue that a coalition with non-communist and anti-communist organizations based solely on the fact that they might have working class membership effectively acts to undermine if not liquidate the communist movement.

To say that communist organizations should consciously sabotage their own organizations and their own movement, is, a very serious thing.

I'll let those that are well versed in and properly representative of the anti-united front arguments take up the task but to say that just because the communist left opposed such a policy of very grave implications, that makes them simply sectarian is extremely unreasonable because there is a larger divide between these two factions than you realize.

[Geiseric]

That's not how it worked in Russia during the Kornilov revolt, the only time it's necessary to ally with reformists would be when fascism or the reactionaries are actively trying to liquidate the working class. If the united front is successful, the bourgeoisie is in that much worse of a position. Yeah left communists believe in red unions or whatever, which is another rediculous idea, I don't see how that couldn't be considered sectarianism, seeing as you're rejecting working inside the working class's already existing organizations, due to the leadership's actions towards communists. Look up William Z. Foster, he tried the "red union," idea in the U.S. with miners, and it ended up in an abject failure. It also ended in abject failure in Italy. The United Front did not end up in abject failure in Russia, although Grenzier refuses to recognize it as a united front, when in fact it was, with the Bolsheviks allying against the White Army, momentarilly with the Mensheviks and SRs who were in charge of the provisional government, and most of the military. As a result of crushing the Kornilov revolt, the Bolsheviks were top dogs in the soviets. It was the result of a united front.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

"hate fucking"

[l'Enfermé]

What United Front in Russia? The whole affair started when Kerensky's would-be puppet turned against him, at a time when Bolshevism was practically outlawed by the SR-Menshevik government and most of the prominent Bolshevik leaders were in exile(like Lenin) or in prison(like Trotsky, Kamenev, etc). Kerensky called on everybody to defend the revolution against Kornilov's putschists, released the Bolsheviks from the prisons, and began distributing arms to Petrograd workers. The Bolsheviks, seeing that Kornilov's entire justification for marching on Petrograd was to put down the supposed planned-uprising of German spies(i.e Bolsheviks), mobilised the workers for a military defense of Petrograd, and more specifically, the Petrograd Soviet, against Kornilov, successfully agitated for the rail-road workers to sabotage the advance of Krymov's army, and then sent out Bolshevik agents to convince the men to abandon Kornilov, which resulted in the men arresting their officers and shooting some of them(even the Cossacks were persuaded to abandon Kornilov and Krymov).

This was a matter of a few days, but these precious United Fronts of yours last for years.

[Geiseric]

Yeah that's my entire point, Kerensky called the bolsheviks out of prison and exile to defend the revolution, making himself look like a fool, seeing as he supported imprisoning them in the first place, making the Bolsheviks the head hanchos of defending and carrying out the revolution. They then took the offensive against Kerensky, immediately after the united front's necessity was over. The KPD could of worked with the SPD specifically, for no other purpose, than fighting the Nazis, but they came up with the fucking genious slogan, imitating the SPD, "After Hitler, Us." Which is mind blowingly stupid, seeing as Hitler was around specifically to liquidate them, like Kornilov was. The front would of only had to last as long as the Nazis were a threat. After they were crushed, the bourgeoisie as a whole would of been crushed. The SPD was not a bigger threat to the working class than the Nazis, they needed unions and working class organizations in order to exist as a party, even the bureaucracy realized that, like the Mensheviks and SRs needed the soviets and provisional government to exist, so they could continue to exist whatsoever. The united front is a defensive thing, which the bolsheviks turned into an offensive against Kerensky and the Mensheviks when the Putsch was over, like the KPD could of emulated.

[Noa Rodman]

It's maybe even more interesting to read the Decists among themselves debate. Sapronov to Smirnov;


I think that basically there was a process of degeneration (socio-political) and not only of the VKP, but the entire system of proletarian dictatorship, on the basis of which alone the rule of the elite was possible. And in connection with this, not simply the exclusion of the opposition from the party, as the renegades and the Trotskyists assert, but a split of the VKP happened at the XV Congress, as a result of which the majority converted the XV Congress in to the founding congress of another, non-proletarian, petty-bourgeois party. My formulation of the question in one of my letters last year about the transformation of the VKP "in to a bourgeois workers' party" in the style of the postwar German social-democratic one was wrong. Apropos this I agree with your
objections. It would be correct to say with a proper analogy, that the VKP transformed roughly in such a party, which the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was in 1917 – a petty-bourgeois party with a very solid [percentage] of workers. So, if the VKP is not dead, but a political party headed (precisely so) by petty-bourgeois government renegades of bolshevism and retaining in "opportunistic grip" hundreds of thousands of workers, from this also follows a slightly different approach to questions of tactics. First of all, my assessment, fitting for the actual alignment of class forces of the present moment, underlines the complexity of the situation. Would it really not have been easier to organize a party and the labor movement for the fight for a dictatorship of the proletariat with the existence of an obvious to the masses Bonapartist government and with the elimination of the VKP as a political Party? This means that the tasks of the bolshevik party, lies not only in pushing the right and revolutionary slogans, for example, our basic slogan of the conquest of the proletarian dictatorship can be mastered by broad masses of workers only in the case, that they are personally convinced that the current SNK and the VKP no longer represent a proletarian dictatorship. Before us the most difficult of exposing to the working class and poor peasants both the petty-bourgeois renegade nature of government and the party, disguised with attributes of the proletarian dictatorship and bolshevik phraseology. This task is immeasurably more complex and difficult than the similar problem in 1917 of exposing the counter-revolutionary nature of the temporary government and its supporting socialist parties. Then the imperatives of the carnage of June 18 at the front, the shooting of the proletariat – July 5, the introduction of [death] penalty and, finally, only the speech of bonapart Kornilov contributed to the final unmasking of socialist windbags. Such damning facts would be required for a revolutionary upsurge in the present conditions. But are there such imperative facts now? So I do not understand why you are trying in every possible way to say that if the VKP is not a corpse, then, at best, a commissariat for promotion of government measures. It means sowing harmful illusions, for which will be dearly paid.

http://libcom.org/library/letters-smirnov-timofei-sapronov

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

What United Front in Russia? The whole affair started when Kerensky's would-be puppet turned against him, at a time when Bolshevism was practically outlawed by the SR-Menshevik government and most of the prominent Bolshevik leaders were in exile(like Lenin) or in prison(like Trotsky, Kamenev, etc). Kerensky called on everybody to defend the revolution against Kornilov's putschists, released the Bolsheviks from the prisons, and began distributing arms to Petrograd workers. The Bolsheviks, seeing that Kornilov's entire justification for marching on Petrograd was to put down the supposed planned-uprising of German spies(i.e Bolsheviks), mobilised the workers for a military defense of Petrograd, and more specifically, the Petrograd Soviet, against Kornilov, successfully agitated for the rail-road workers to sabotage the advance of Krymov's army, and then sent out Bolshevik agents to convince the men to abandon Kornilov, which resulted in the men arresting their officers and shooting some of them(even the Cossacks were persuaded to abandon Kornilov and Krymov).

This was a matter of a few days, but these precious United Fronts of yours last for years.
Yes. That is the point. United Fronts are not ongoing coalitions or political formations. They are temporary formations to take specific agreed upon actions in defense of the working class. Such as defending a meeting or march. It also means never giving up freedom to criticize the other United Front participants. United front actions between KPD and the SPD against the Nazis would have not only slowed down or perhaps stopped the Nazis, but if initiated by the KPD would have probably drawn a large number of SPD members toward the KPD.

[Noa Rodman]

If anything, it is Trotskyism that is sectarian since it endorses selling the working class out to Capital at every turn in the form of the "workers' states" and bourgeois parties in the form of the united front. By encouraging collaboration with Capital, Trotskyism is actually an impediment to the growth of the proletariat as an independent revolutionary political force. Bordiga simply acknowledged the nature of social-democracy as a faction of Capital and refused to compromise class lines. There is nothing sectarian about this at all.

Specifically on the Anglo-Russian Committee, the Decists were on the same page as Trotsky - opposed to it. I don't know their position on the anti-fascist united front (they would of course recognize the opportunist nature of the "left turn" by the ComIntern), and (relevant to this thread) whether they differed with Trotsky, but then again the thread is about a 'united front' between left communists and Trotskyists, and not the front between SPD and KPD :rolleyes:

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

That's because you have no conception of what sectarianism is. You've already said on multiple occasions that anyone who doesn't endorse a British labourite style party is a sectarian. If anything, it is Trotskyism that is sectarian since it endorses selling the working class out to Capital at every turn in the form of the "workers' states" and bourgeois parties in the form of the united front. By encouraging collaboration with Capital, Trotskyism is actually an impediment to the growth of the proletariat as an independent revolutionary political force. Bordiga simply acknowledged the nature of social-democracy as a faction of Capital and refused to compromise class lines. There is nothing sectarian about this at all.
There is a deep confusion here between class lines and political program. They are not the same thing. That is how it is possible to write off the USSR as "capitalist" by what, 1921? 1924? Capitalism as Marx understood it, as Lenin understood was not restored to what was the USSSR until the 1990s. Same thing with labor unions and reformist parties -- you give up on the people in them, because of incorrect politics -- a foolish position. The bourgeoisie sure as hell don't consider labor unions to be anything other than a challenge to their hegemony. To say they are bourgeois because the leadership is pro-capitalist is a non-materialist perspective. I'm not aware of any time or place in history that trying to form red unions and eschewing existing worker's organizations led to anything significantly positive for revolutionaries. Why do you do work in the labor unions? As the gangster Willie Sutton said, "That's where the money is." In this case, it is where the workers are.

Of course, you are absolutely correct to say that in the history of the left, there have been quite a few ostensibly Trotskyist groups that have gone well beyond the tactic of the United Front, to actually support bourgeois parties. That is not Trotskyism and "coalitions" or political blocs with reformist parties, much less bourgeois parties are betrayals of the proletariat. The United Front is a specific tactic to take united action in defense of proletarian interests with non-revolutionary organizations. It is limited in scope. And always allows for criticism of whatever groupings are involved. It is NOT TO BE CONFUSED with the Stalinist/Reformist Popular Fronts -- which were governing entities.

[Grenzer]

Specifically on the Anglo-Russian Committee, the Decists were on the same page as Trotsky - opposed to it. I don't know their position on the anti-fascist united front (they would of course recognize the opportunist nature of the "left turn" by the ComIntern), and (relevant to this thread) whether they differed with Trotsky, but then again the thread is about a 'united front' between left communists and Trotskyists, and not the front between SPD and KPD :rolleyes:

You're entirely failing to understand the issue here. No one is talking about the Comintern, the KPD, or the SPD. The issue at hand is that the Trotskyists advocated working with bourgeois parties. The left communists refused to work with the Trotskyists precisely because the latter allied with a faction of Capital(social-democracy). It's the actions of the Trotskyists, not the Stalinists, that are of interest here. The Trotskyists highlighted their political opportunism time and time again, which really came to the fore with the French Turn.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You're entirely failing to understand the issue here. No one is talking about the Comintern, the KPD, or the SPD. The issue at hand is that the Trotskyists advocated working with bourgeois parties. The left communists refused to work with the Trotskyists precisely because the latter allied with a faction of Capital(social-democracy). It's the actions of the Trotskyists, not the Stalinists, that are of interest here. The Trotskyists highlighted their political opportunism time and time again, which really came to the fore with the French Turn.
The French Turn, which was a great success, was a tactic. It in no way tied the Trotskyists to social democracy. If you think ripping out thousands of leftward moving militants from the SP in France, or the US, was some kind of a betrayal of revolutionary principle, well, your reasoning is unsound. The revolutionary party was strengthened and the reformist working class party was greatly weakened. You call the French SP in the thirties a bourgeois party. That is simply incorrect. You come from a position of purity and idealism. Not the stuff of Marxism.

[Noa Rodman]

[on Trotsky's article in Daily Express] In general, the confusion among Trotskyists is supernatural. How it will end, Allah knows. We have to admit that Stalin knew what he was doing, sending Trotsky abroad.
Well, all the best. Shake your hand.
V. Smirnov



The main instrument of the proletarian struggle is, of course, the bolshevik party. The situation today absolutely precludes any oscillations on this question. The proletariat needs a reconstituted party. For this cry the stones.
Only recidivating (not by Stalin and co., but "selfmade'') historical trotskyism still can – in the image and likeness of its wretched fuss with the old liquidators - huddle now with the new liquidators. The VKP – an organization, located outside the worker movement: it is now no more, no less, like a professional organization of bonapartist bureaucracy, having nothing in common with the working class. The trotskyites' course to "reform the party" talks about developing towards proletariat trends in that perfidious group.
Ruthlessly exposing trotskyists - responsibility of bolsheviks. Only in struggle against that group succeeds the preserving for the movement those truly proletarian elements, which are still, certainly, in it.
http://libcom.org/library/several-considerations-%E2%80%93-democratic-centralist

[Aurora]

That's because you have no conception of what sectarianism is.
Says the person who thinks all communists other than the ultra left(and probably most of them too) are the 'left wing of capital' which you compare to social-democrats and fascists in the left-com group taking up the politics of Stalin's ultraleft third period, who thinks the social-democratic parties in the 20's and 30's were bourgeois parties, no doubt the communist parties were bourgeois too, and who thinks the SU was capitalist?
Please, you couldn't be more sectarian if you were wearing a crown and shouting orders.

The defining feature of the ultra-left is childish revolutionary phrase-mongering, a complete inability to adapt marxism to real existing conditions and the protection of theoretical purity at all costs, the pathetic excuse for an argument against the united front is a great example so thanks for that.

[Ottoraptor]

Says the person who thinks all communists other than the ultra left(and probably most of them too) are the 'left wing of capital' which you compare to social-democrats and fascists in the left-com group taking up the politics of Stalin's ultraleft third period, who thinks the social-democratic parties in the 20's and 30's were bourgeois parties, no doubt the communist parties were bourgeois too, and who thinks the SU was capitalist?
If communists seek to gain control of the capitalist state and manage capitalism or if their actions (will) lead to preserving capitalism, then yes they are the left wing of capital. This term doesn't have much meaning for small sectlets. Also the left communist position on social democrats is not the same as the third periodists. We do not uphold the concept of social-fascism and to accuse us of such would be to grossly misrepresent our position. The social democratic parties especially the SPD was bourgeois (membership composition means very little) and it very strongly defended a capitalist state. Even if they weren't "bourgeois", they were most certainly reactionary. Also thinking the SU was capitalist is hardly sectarian and to accuse anyone of hold such opinion is so stupid it is laughable.
Please, you couldn't be more sectarian if you were wearing a crown and shouting orders. Yeah and people from a tendency who have a long history of saying "if you don't hold our opinions you are sectarian!". And if you are going to say that left communists and ultralefts say that anyone who doesn't hold our positions are bourgeois then you have no idea how varied left communism and ultra-leftism to the point I doubt Bordigists and autonomists would agree on much.


The defining feature of the ultra-left is childish revolutionary phrase-mongering, a complete inability to adapt marxism to real existing conditions and the protection of theoretical purity at all costs, the pathetic excuse for an argument against the united front is a great example so thanks for that.

Yeah I guess that's why KpK, Mouvement Communiste, and Battaglia Communista aren't involved in any class struggle and that's why BC never held any conferences with other organizations and change positions based on those conferences and that KpK and MC don't work on developing theoretical positions from experiences in class struggle. Oh wait, they do do all of this. Please stop talking about a tendency with which you have no experiences and only have read stuff lenin wrote on them or experienced a few people online who subscribe to this tendency. As far as the united front is concerned it was a horribly unrealistic policy even barring the issues with working with bourgeois organizations. I don't understand why you all obsess over a policy that would have never been enacted in Germany even if KPD wanted it. Also I want you to answer this question which I have never seen a trotskyist answer before. Why do trotskyists never talk about having the KPD form a united front with the KAPD and the anarchists in germany who were pretty large in size and very involved in class struggle?

[Geiseric]

Because both of those groups weren't very significant compared to the SPD. I don't know much about those parties, and it was evident that the KPD leadership were the ones pushing away the fronts from forming, so great job supporting the ones following the stalinist line. And it was not unrealistic, if the KPD simply worked against fascism then revealed the SPD as class traitors, there wouldn't of been a problem. The united front would ofonly lasted untill the greatest bastions of reacton were liquidated, and as son as tat was over, the reformists would of been the next ones on the chopping bloc for the victorious (over fascism) proletariat. Figuratively.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

If communists seek to gain control of the capitalist state and manage capitalism or if their actions (will) lead to preserving capitalism, then yes they are the left wing of capital. This term doesn't have much meaning for small sectlets. Also the left communist position on social democrats is not the same as the third periodists. We do not uphold the concept of social-fascism and to accuse us of such would be to grossly misrepresent our position. The social democratic parties especially the SPD was bourgeois (membership composition means very little) and it very strongly defended a capitalist state. Even if they weren't "bourgeois", they were most certainly reactionary. Also thinking the SU was capitalist is hardly sectarian and to accuse anyone of hold such opinion is so stupid it is laughable. Yeah and people from a tendency who have a long history of saying "if you don't hold our opinions you are sectarian!". And if you are going to say that left communists and ultralefts say that anyone who doesn't hold our positions are bourgeois then you have no idea how varied left communism and ultra-leftism to the point I doubt Bordigists and autonomists would agree on much.



Yeah I guess that's why KpK, Mouvement Communiste, and Battaglia Communista aren't involved in any class struggle and that's why BC never held any conferences with other organizations and change positions based on those conferences and that KpK and MC don't work on developing theoretical positions from experiences in class struggle. Oh wait, they do do all of this. Please stop talking about a tendency with which you have no experiences and only have read stuff lenin wrote on them or experienced a few people online who subscribe to this tendency. As far as the united front is concerned it was a horribly unrealistic policy even barring the issues with working with bourgeois organizations. I don't understand why you all obsess over a policy that would have never been enacted in Germany even if KPD wanted it. Also I want you to answer this question which I have never seen a trotskyist answer before. Why do trotskyists never talk about having the KPD form a united front with the KAPD and the anarchists in germany who were pretty large in size and very involved in class struggle?
I don't know if Trotsky wrote about the KAPD or the Anarchists in Germany in the late twenties and early thirties. I'm sure that United Front action with those groups would have been welcomed by him. But these groups were tiny compared to the SPD. So the emphasis was on the SPD rank and file, not their leadership. Essentially, then, you must support the KPD's policy that there was no difference between Hitler and the SPD? (okay, those idiots when one better and said the main threat was from the SPD whom they labeled "social fascists.") It worked fucking great, comrade. Good thing the SPD was squelched. That really served the cause of communism in Germany. :rolleyes:

In any case, your analysis of the SPD in the twenties is simply wrong. Were the Mensheviks a bourgeois party? No. Did their policies support the bourgeoisie? Yes they did, at least often they did. Is it impossible for you to make that distinction? The Kadets were the main bourgeois party in Russia in the early twentieth century.

With you guys its all about moral purity. I'll take a Marxist Program over that, thank you.

[Geiseric]

After hitler, us! After Kornilov, us! That's the only argument I need.

[Noa Rodman]

Because both of those groups weren't very significant compared to the SPD.
Were there even Trotskyists in Germany though?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

After hitler, us! After Kornilov, us! That's the only argument I need.
Well, yes. But I think the disgust for the SPD and reformist parties is not a bad thing. But trying to be morally pure has no place in the revolutionary movement. Taking joint action in the interests of the proletariat is always fine. And I suspect there is so much confusion about the tactic of the United Front, that any opportunity to discuss it intelligently should be welcomed. And kind of ironic, but not accidental, that the Stalinists had the ultra-left policy of no United Fronts, but then followed that, after the debacle in Germany, with the hideous adaptation to international capital, and called that "People's Fronts" or "Popular Fronts." Yup, that's Stalinism for you. One day, you can't even take defensive joint action with reformist parties. The next day, you accept portfolios in governments formed by reformist and bourgeois parties. Reactive, panicked 180 degree turns. All, btw, in the service of SIOC.

[Noa Rodman]

According to Trotsky it was a change caused by the comintern having its hands burned with the Anglo-Russian Committee (and the Kuomintang). The left turn did have some success in disorientating the left opposition.

In the years 1928-29 I don't think the issue of United Front against fascism is yet important. I don't think it was the defining issue between left communists and Trotskyists anyway. That would be the attitude toward Russia and the need for a second party. I think that that the rest follows from this.

Anyway, this text (from Trotsky archive, recommended by Trotskyist historian Jean-Jacques Marie, there is a speech by him online in French) about the Decists gives also some details on Russian Trotskyists:
http://libcom.org/library/democratic-centralism-eduard-dune

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

According to Trotsky it was a change caused by the comintern having its hands burned with the Anglo-Russian Committee (and the Kuomintang). The left turn did have some success in disorientating the left opposition.

In the years 1928-29 I don't think the issue of United Front against fascism is yet important. I don't think it was the defining issue between left communists and Trotskyists anyway. That would be the attitude toward Russia and the need for a second party. I think that that the rest follows from this.

Anyway, this text (from Trotsky archive, recommended by Trotskyist historian Jean-Jacques Marie, there is a speech by him online in French) about the Decists gives also some details on Russian Trotskyists:
http://libcom.org/library/democratic-centralism-eduard-dune
Right. I would add that Third Period Stalinism was also, perhaps primarily, a reaction to events internal to the USSR, particularly the mess with the peasantry. And it sure as heck disoriented the LO. Thank you for the link, comrade.

[blake 3:17]

Were there even Trotskyists in Germany though?

Not many. It would may more sense to push for a united front in the SPD or as part of the Right Opposition of the KPD.

Trotsky's writing was quite popular in the 30s, but I don't think he had any base. I tend to think his political instincts weren't too highly regarded -- he had effed up on urging the 1923 "revolution" and was on bad terms with nearly every left leader in the country.

Didn't help that both the Socialist and Communist Parties were banned in 33 or 34.