Secret Message to the Politbiuro. October 15, 1923

Original Source: Trotsky Archive, T802a.

To the Politbiuro of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party - Secret:

The extreme seriousness of the situation compels us (in the interests of our party, in the interests of the working class) to tell you openly that the continuation of the policy of the majority of the Politbiuro threatens serious harm for the whole party. The economic and financial crisis which began at the end of July of this year, together with all the political (including intra-party) consequences which have stemmed from it, has unmercifully uncovered the unsatisfactoriness of the party leadership, in the area of the economy and especially in the area of intra-party relations.

The casualness, thoughtlessness, lack of system in the decisions of the Central Committee, not making ends meet in the area of the economy, has to this, that with undoubted large successes in the area of industry, agriculture, finance and transport, successes achieved by the country's economy essentially not thanks to, but in spite of the unsatisfactory leadership, or rather, in the absence of any leadership - we face the prospect not only of the cessation of this success, but of a serious general economic crisis...

If broad, considered, planned and energetic measures are not taken quickly, if the present absence of direction continues, we will face the possibility of an unusually sharp economic shock, unavoidably linked with internal political complications and with complete paralysis of our external activity and strength. And the latter, as anyone understands, we need now more than ever; on it depends the fate of the world revolution and of the working class of all countries.

Similarly, in the area of intra-party relations, we see the incorrectness of direction, paralyzing and disrupting the party, which has appeared with special clarity during the recent crisis.

We explain this not by the political incompetence of the present directors of the party; on the contrary, however we may differ with them in evaluating the situation and in the choice of measures to change it-we consider that the present leadership under any conditions cannot but be kept by the party in the leading posts of the workers' dictatorship. But we explain the crisis thus: that under the external form of official unity we actually have a selection of people and a guiding of action which are one-sided and adapted to the views and sympathies of a narrow circle. As a result of the party leadership being distorted by such narrow considerations, the party is to a significant degree ceasing to be the living, self-acting collective, which really embraces living activity, being linked by thousands of threads with this activity. Instead of this we observe a more and more progressive division of the party, no longer concealed by hardly anyone, into the secretarial hierarchy and the "laymen," into the professional party functionaries, selected from above, and the simple party masses, who do not participate in its group life.

This is a fact which every member of the party knows. Members of the party who are dissatisfied by this or that decision of the Central Committee or even of a provincial committee, who have in mind certain doubts, who have noticed "by themselves" certain mistakes, confusions and disorders, are afraid to speak of these at party meetings; further, they are afraid to converse with each other, unless their conversants appear to be completely reliable men in the sense of keeping quiet. Free discussion within the party has in fact disappeared; the party's social mind has been choked off. In these times the broad masses of the party do not nominate and elect the provincial committees and the Central Committee of the RCP. On the contrary, the secretarial hierarchy of the party to an ever greater degree selects the membership of conferences and congresses, which to an ever greater degree are becoming executive consultations of this hierarchy.

The regime which has been set up within the party is absolutely intolerable; it kills initiative in the party, subjects the party to an apparatus of appointed officials, which undeniably functions in normal times, but which unavoidably misfires in moments of crisis, and which threatens to reveal itself as completely bankrupt in the face of the serious events which are approaching.

Source: Robert V. Daniels, ed., A Documentary History of Communism (Hanover: Published for the University of Vermont by University Press of New England, 1984), p. 237.