The Conference of the Spanish Opposition (1932) (original) (raw)
Andres Nin
(1932)
From The Militant, Vol. 5 No. 22 (Whole No. 118), 28 May 1932, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
The National Conference of the Spanish Left Opposition was recently held at Madrid. Comrades from all parts of the country were represented, reporting organizational and ideological progress in every locality. Theses for future work were adopted and preparations made to expand the activities of the Spanish section of the Left Opposition. Among these, the renewed publication of El Soviet, the weekly organ, is being planned at Barcelona. A detailed report of the conference is forthcoming. The article below is a message from comrade Andres Nin, one of the leaders of the Spanish Left Opposition.
* * *
When, in June of last year, we came together as the followers of the International Left Opposition in Spain, we constituted not more than a small group of militants ready to fight enthusiastically for the creation of a real Communist movement in our country. The political stupidity of the official party, the irresponsibility of its leaders – typical products of Stalinism – which has caused so much ruin in the international revolutionary movement, had discredited even the idea itself of Communism in the eyes of the working masses. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Bloc, the birth of which is due principally to the profound mistakes of the party and the International, had transformed itself into an opportunist organization, typically petty bourgeois which constitutes a big obstacle, with its innate confusionism, to the development of a strong Communist movement in Catalonia. Finally, anarcho-syndicalism, thanks to the impotence and incapability of the Communist organization, had been able to exercise an enormous influence over the broad masses of the proletariat.
The Opposition had to start an extremely difficult fight on these three fronts. For this fight it was not equipped with more than a monthly theoretical magazine of a very small circulation and the ardent enthusiasm of the handful of Spanish Oppositionists. The organized group could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The material resources were very limited. The point of view of the Left Opposition was unknown to the big majority of the workers.
In spite of all this, the results obtained in the ten months of struggle have surpassed all our hopes. The National Conference, recently held in Madrid has showed the really surprising progress achieved in less than a year. The balance of the work achieved is highly encouraging. The Communist Left Opposition is no longer a nucleus of isolated militants as it was a year ago, but a real Communist movement, with branches in every part of the country, alive, active, combative, intimately attached to the working class and to its struggles. The danger of the Opposition becoming transformed into a circle of critics, into a sterile sect, into a ready refuge for the lazy, the cowards and the disillusioned has been victoriously overcome. The best, the most conscious, the most self-sacrificing fighting militants have joined our ranks. Today the Communist Left Opposition is really the vanguard of the vanguard of the Spanish proletariat.
The National Conference has given a program, a tactic and a structure to our movement. The Communist Left Opposition has clearly showed the way for the Spanish working class to follow and has constructed the basis upon which a big Communist movement will develop in our country.
The Communist Left Opposition has made a big step forward. Now more than ever before, we are firmly convinced that the road taken by us has been confirmed as correct and that only the Opposition is the heir to the traditions of revolutionary Marxism, the faithful executor of the work of the International of Lenin and Trotsky, capable of forging the weapon which the Spanish proletariat needs in order to obtain victory over the bourgeoisie: a big Communist party.
The progress achieved in the last ten months, in spite of our meagre material resources and with the enormous difficulties under which we have been fighting, is the surest guarantee of the success which the future has in store for us.
But we do not know how much time is left to us by history in the exceptional circumstances in which we live today. We have not a moment to lose. We must redouble our efforts, intensify our propaganda and our organizational work, consecrate all our energy to the immense task we have started to solve in order to equip the proletariat with the weapons necessary for its triumph.
Last updated on 15.6.2013