This pamphlet is an important overview of the history of the first 10 years of the Left Opposition.
It was completed in January 1933, the same month that Hitler was brought to power in Germany. Hitler’s consolidation of power and destruction of the organized working class opposition without a struggle and with no criticism within the sections of the Third International led to the decision within the Left Opposition to found a new international movement, the Fourth International.
Shachtman’s pamphlet reviews the history of the struggle of the Left Opposition, led by Leon Trotsky, against the rise of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. It discusses the major issues and historical turning points that marked its development.
Issues such as the fight for inner party democracy, the lessons of the 1917 October revolution, the promotion of the anti-Marxist perspective of Socialism in One Country are clearly outlined.
The impact of the defeats of the British General strike of 1926 and of the 1925-27 Chinese revolution are also discussed along with a chapter on differences over economic policy between the Left Opposition and the Stalinist bureaucracy.
60 pages