Leon Trotsky: Open letter to Nieuwe Fakkel

To the Editors of De Nieuwe Fakkel and De Internationale

[Internal Bulletin [SWP] No. 5, New York, August 1938, p 8 f.]

(Copy: to all sections of the Fourth International with request to publish it)

Dear Comrades:

You have more than once given me the honor of publishing my articles. I do not doubt, therefore, that you will not refuse to publish the following brief letter.

From the very beginning of the existence of your party I have disagreed with its leaders and, first of all, with comrade Sneevliet upon all basic questions. Actually the leadership of the R. S.A,P, has always been in irreconcilable opposition with all the other sections of the Fourth International and during the last two years the differences have become increasingly aggravated.

In full agreement with the overwhelming majority of our international organization I have considered and still consider the politics of Sneevliet to be ruinous in the sphere of the trade- union movement.

I have considered and still consider the R.S.A.P.'s lack of a revolutionary program of action and the resultant unprincipled character of agitation to be completely impermissible,

I have considered and still consider that the attitude of the leadership of the R.S.A.P, toward the politics of the ’’Peopled Front” has at all times remained equivocal, i.e., covertly and at times openly opportunistic.

The policy of comrade Sneevliet on the question of the P.O.U.M is in full contradiction with the alphabet of the class struggle and has caused an indubitable injury to the Spanish revolution and the Fourth International,

The policy of comrade Sneevliet on the Russian question was and still is false in essence and disloyal in attitude toward the Russian Bolshevik-Leninists. I have considered and still consider the parliamentary activity of Com. Sneevliet to be opportunistic.

I nave considered and still consider the completely uncomradely attitude of the leadership of the R.S.A.P. toward all other sections and to the International Secretariat to be impermissible.

I have considered and still consider that the political correctness in all basic conflicts between comrade Sneevliet and the International Secretariat has been on the side of the I.S.

Dozens of times the International Secretariat has proposed to your Central Committee to open a frank discussion upon all disputed questions. You have stubbornly refused to fulfill this elementary duty in relation to your own party. Instead of opening a discussion your Central Committee resolved to the expulsion of genuine partisans of tho Fourth International from your organization. This measure could signify nothing less than the preparation for a split with the Fourth International and a shift into the camp of the “left” Social Democrats united abound the London Bureau.

My last letter to comrade Sneevliet, dated December 3, 1937, in which I asked whether your party intended to participate In the International Conference, has been unanswered. More important is the fact that the official inquiry of the International Secretariat has aIso remained unanswered.

The present letter, summing up the five year attempt at collaboration, comradely criticism, mutual clarification and rapprochement, has as its aim to say frankly what is. Each one has to bear responsibility for his political line. The members of your party and of all the sections of the Fourth International will judge.

With revolutionary greetings,

Coyoacan, D. F., Jan. 21,

Leon Trotsky