Leon Trotsky: From a Letter to the Chinese Comrades

March 5, 1935

[Writings of Leon Trotsky, Vol 7, 1934-1935, New York 1971, p. 219]

Dear Friends,

The role of the Communist International, i.e., of the Stalinist bureaucracy, is thoroughly catastrophic, especially in the East. The latest sessions of the League of Nations show that the Stalinist bureaucracy increasingly abandons the rights of peoples to self-determination. Its main principle is now the "status quo." The consequences of the submission of the Comintern to the conjunctural needs of Soviet diplomacy are not as catastrophic in the East as in the West The first requisite for the success of the Chinese revolution is the breakaway of the proletarian Chinese vanguard from the national-conservative Soviet bureaucracy.

The greater the crimes the Soviet bureaucracy perpetrates against the international proletariat, the more brutal and odious are the attacks it launches in its struggle with the Bolshevik-Leninists who, with steadily growing success, are its accuser before the court of justice. There is, for example, the failure of the Kirov amalgam, which apparently is credible only to the worst elements of the Comintern. It would, however, be criminally light-minded to believe that the Stalin clique was satisfied with this result Precisely because the falsification had not the effect intended, the falsifiers must work out a fresh amalgam, which this time will be better prepared. It is not excluded that the wretched piece will be played this time in France. The GPU has sufficient agents in the workers' movement. Where the Stalinist consul was not able to get any letter from the terrorists for Trotsky, the agents of the GPU are well able to prepare a bomb with a Trotskyist visiting card attached. A fresh amalgam is most likely; in other lands too, including China, the provocation against our friends produces a shameful crop. Therefore, vigilance is on the order of the day.

With brotherly greetings,

Crux [Leon Trotsky]