The following are new translations of excerpts from Trois points c’est tout by Fred Zeller (1912–2003). Zeller, who, at the time, was the secretary of the Seine (Paris) Young Socialists and a sympathiser of the Trotskyist movement in the mid-1930s, visited Trotsky in Norway at the end of October 1935. This was at the time when the Socialist Party leaders were expelling the left from the Young Socialists as well as dissolving the Bolshevik Leninist tendency, whose members had joined the SFIO in late 1934.
Following these discussions with Trotsky, Zeller was won over from the centrist wing, led by Marceau Pivert, to the Bolshevik Leninists. He initially played a leading role but later left the movement. The text provides an important insight into Trotsky’s approach and thoughts about a number of issues, including the organisational problems that were faced by the Trotskyists.
Trotsky often insisted on discussing organisational questions and rightly attached a great importance to this subject.
“If you do not train good, serious administrators at every level of the movement, even if you are right a thousand times over, you will not win. What the Bolshevik-Leninists have always lacked, particularly in France, are organisers, good treasurers, accurate accounts, and legible and well edited publications…”
The most serious difference, if I dare say so, that I had with Trotsky related to democratic centralism, the implacable authoritarian conception which seemed to me to be as dangerous as the Social-Democratic method, which never allowed the rank-and-file branch members to influence the direction of the party in a decisive way.
The application of centralism by Lenin’s Political Bureau enabled the taking of power. Under Stalin, it led to revolutionary defeats and the degeneration of the so-called Communist Parties.
Trotsky, strongly emphasising the fact that Lenin’s Political Bureau applied a “democratic” centralism whilst that of Stalin applied a “bureaucratic” centralism, admitted to having struggled with this problem at the Second Congress [of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903], which separated him from Lenin for a number of years.
“However,” he added, “once again Lenin was right. Without a strongly centralised party, we would never have taken power. Centralism means focusing the organisation to the greatest possible extent towards its ‘goal’. It is the only means of leading millions of people in struggle with the possessing classes.”
“If you admit, along with Lenin, that we are in the stage of Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism, it is necessary to have a revolutionary organisation that is sufficiently flexible to respond to the demands of clandestine struggle as well as those of the taking power. Hence the need for a strongly centralised party, capable of orienting and leading the masses and supporting the gigantic struggle from which they must emerge victorious. Hence also the need to make collectively, at every step, a loyal self-criticism.”
He added that the application of centralism must not be schematic, but must evolve out of the political situation. He gave the example of the Russian Communist Party in 1921, passing from the ultra-centralised and military form imposed by the Civil War to an organisation based on the cells of workplaces taking part in the reconstruction of the economy:
“Between congresses, it was the Central Committee and its Political Bureau that led the Party and ensured the rigorous application, at all levels, of the policy decided by the majority. It was not permissible to return at every instant to questions of orientation and in so doing distort the application of the policy that had been defined by the Party.”
He often came back to one of the greatest dangers facing the vanguard of the working class: Sectarianism, which exhausts, withers, demoralises and isolates:
“This is what threatened the French section. It was one of the main reasons why we urged our comrades to enter into the S.F.I.O [the French Socialist Party] as a ‘tendency’. Experience has proved this correct because it allowed them to work amongst the masses, to check the correctness of their perspectives, to extend their influence and to strengthen themselves organisationally.
“All of his life Lenin fought against sectarian deviations which would cut off, and did cut off, revolutionaries from mass movements and from the understanding of a situation. On many occasions, he had to struggle against the ‘Old Bolsheviks’ barely able in his absence to match the ‘sacred texts’ with reality.”
Trotsky recalled what happened in 1905; the Bolsheviks then playing only a minor role because of the sectarian position they adopted in the absence of Lenin towards the Petrograd Soviet:
“Theoretical routine, this absence of political and tactical creativity, cannot replace the need for insight, the ability to surmise things at a glance, the flair for ‘feeling’ a situation, while unravelling the main threads and developing an overall strategy. It is in a revolutionary period, and especially an insurrectionary one that these qualities become decisive.”
Listening to him, I thought of Rosa Luxemburg who wrote in the summer of 1918, shortly before she was murdered:
“The revolutionary movement must be a foaming and limitless torrent of life in order to find the millions of new forms, improvisations, creative forces and healthy criticism it needs to correct and ultimately move beyond all of its mistakes.”
Trotsky regularly returned to the need to strengthen fraternal bonds between comrades in struggle:
“It is necessary to preserve them, encourage them, watch over them,” he would repeat. “An experienced militant worker represents an incalculable asset for the organisation. It takes years to make a good leader. One must therefore do everything to save a member. Don’t break him if he weakens, but help him to overcome his weakness, to get over his moment of doubt.
“Do not lose sight of those who ‘fall’ on the wayside: Facilitate their return to the organisation if you have nothing irremediable to reproach them for in terms of revolutionary morality.”
When we walked along the mountainside in the evening, it would occur to him to discuss the physical health of the comrades; his or her ‘shape’ as we say nowadays. He was very concerned about this point. He thought about the concern towards those who had become exhausted, the need to preserve the energies of the weakest:
“Lenin was always preoccupied with the health of his collaborators. ‘One must go as far as possible in the struggle and the way is long’ he used to say.”
The internal atmosphere of the organisation made him anxious. In the small vanguard movements, which fight against the stream, internal disputes are sometimes the most severe and heated. After their exclusion from the SFIO, the Bolshevik-Leninist Group divided itself into several hostile factions:
“If the comrades look beyond this and focus their efforts outward and practical work, the ‘crisis’ will subside”, said Trotsky. “But it is necessary to always watch that the atmosphere always emerges healthy and acceptable for all. Each must work with all their heart and with the maximum of confidence.
“The building of the revolutionary party demands patience and hard work. At any price, you must not discourage the best, and you must show yourself to be able to work with anyone. Each is a lever to be used as much as possible to strengthen the Party. Lenin knew the art of this. After the liveliest discussions, the bitterest polemics, he knew to find the words and gestures which mitigated unfortunate or offensive words.”
For Trotsky, the essential task of the period ahead consisted in forming and consolidating an organisational apparatus. Without an apparatus, there is no possibility of applying a policy: everything limits itself to chatter without real significance. The difficulty of grand human constructions is choosing judiciously which personality is best suited for such and such a role. The art of the organiser consists in accustoming individuals to working together so that each becomes the complement of the other. An ‘apparatus’ is an orchestra where each instrument expresses itself individually only to blend and fade into the harmony created.
“Avoid placing members of equal value and temperament on a work committee. They will nullify each other without obtaining the intended results.
“Knowing how to choose a comrade for a given task; patiently explaining what is expected from them; acting with subtlety and tact, this is what true leadership means.
“Leave the maximum amount of initiative to the comrade responsible for the work. In case of mistakes, correct them by explaining amicably how they are prejudicial to the interests of the Party. Only impose sanctions in the most serious of cases. The general rule must be to permit each to progress, to develop and improve.
“Do not lose yourself in secondary details which mask the totality of the situation. Only do what you can with the forces you have. Never more, except admittedly in decisive situations.”
The Old Man added that one must not strain the comrades’ nerves indefinitely. After each effort, we must catch our breath, get one’s bearings, and renew one’s energies. At the level of organisation, one must be methodical and precise, leaving nothing to chance:
“Whatever you do, set yourself an objective, even a very modest one, but strive to achieve it. Then elaborate a short- or long-term plan and apply it without weakening, with an iron hand. It is the only way to advance and for the whole organisation to make progress.”
