Of Party Building

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TONY RICHARDSON reviews "The Crisis of the French Section [1935-36]" by Leon Trotsky, published by Pathfinder Press at £2.50 in paperback. 286pp.

In the introduction to this extremely important book the editors say would be futile to search in this book for tailormade solutions to current problems."

Of course history does not repeat itself "exactly". But in reading the correspondence of Trotsky and the reprinted pamphiet by International Secretariat member . Erwin Wolf, the reader continuously has to remind himself that this material was written forty years ago and not yesterday.

The reason for this is simple. It is because many of the forces calling themselves "Trotskyists' today-including George Breitman and Naomi Allen, the editors of this volume, and their political co-thinkers in the "United" Secretariat of the Fourth International-have thrown aside everything that Trotsky fought for in this political struggle in 1935-6.

To some extent the opportunist errors and disorientation of the leadership of the French section of the International Communist League (forerunner of the Fourth International flowed from the complexities of the new situation they confronted.

In France, as internationally, 1935-6 saw the emergence of the Stalinist strategy of the Popular Front -the conscious formation of political blocs with reformist and with bourgeois parties in which the political independence of the workers' parties was abandoned.

"Entry tactic"

And it was in France from 1934-5 that Trotskyists first set out to implement an "entry tactic" into the SFIO (the French Socialist Party led by Leon Blum) in a bid to break tendencies towards sectarianism and self isolation within the tiny (100-strong) Trotskyist group through winning leftward moving sections within the reformist Within the SFIO the Trotskyists were to take up their call for United Front action of workers' parties and organisations against fascism, and to fight for the slogan three "bourgeois politicians the People's Front"

As the economic and political crisis of French capitalism grew worse and the Trotskyist forces began to win growing support for their policies among the youth and in the adult party congress, the SFIO leaders recognised that the Trotskyists stood as an obstacle to their strategy of class collaboration.

At a national congress of the Young Socialists in July 1935 eight Trotskyists and five leading JS members who had been won to their positions were expelled.

Trotsky began campaigning for the French section to consolidate its gains and move towards re-establishing an independent party as an important step towards the Fourth International.

"Our cohabitation with the reformists could not last forever. They themselves took the initiative for the split. Good; that saves us the trouble of doing it ourselves...

"The workers who think -and the other ones, through them-must understand from now on that:

- In order to make an Bolshevik-Leninists.

- In order to make docile cannon-fodder of the vouth. it is necessary first to drive out the Bolshevik-Leninists.

- In order the better to fool the workers, the Stalinists and the reformists have to get rid of those annoying witnesses, the Bolshevik-Leninists.

(pp43-44)

/int had been drawn to 1rotsKyism only on the basis that they had left or been expelled from the Stalinist Comintern.

Flexibility

Under these conditions the fight against opportunism was that much more difficult.

The book illustrates ayays after ns expulsion haid far tha mnue:

Din am IOt nat IO UOM ment, but an iron inflexibility when he considers the concept of the party itself was at stake.

On this basis he was in favour of expelling the rank opportunist Molinier and his supporter Pierre Frank when their centrist tendency

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"History does not repeat itself exactly, and it