The Left Opposition were denounced as “pessimists” and “cynics” for questioning the bureaucracy’s crude, anti-Marxist ideas. In reality, it was the Opposition who had consistently explained the need for industrialization to strengthen the basis of workers’ rule in the Soviet Union. But they had also explained that this in itself would not be enough to complete the transition to socialism.

Cutting loose from the program of internationalism meant writing off the perspective of reconstruction in Russia in any real sense – i.e., as part of a socialist Europe. The bureaucracy’s alternative was to rely more openly on the wealthy kulaks as the mainstay of the “national” economy. Bukharin went so far as to blurt out to them his slogan of: “Get Rich!” This came under attack because it was too blatant, and was dropped by the central committee, but the general idea nevertheless became party policy.

Zinoviev and Kamenev, with their supporters, joined forces with Trotsky and the Opposition in 1926 in a struggle to pull the party back from Stalin’s increasingly anti-Marxist course. However, this was cut across by new upheavals internationally.

In Britain, the general strike of May 1926 provoked a profound crisis. The small Communist Party was presented with the opportunity of leading hundreds of thousands of workers in opposition to the reformist TUC leadership and prepare the transfer of power to the working class. But the Stalinist leadership in Russia were tied in an opportunistic alliance with the “lefts” on the TUC General Council and permitted no struggle against them.

The TUC right wing betrayed the strike at the first opportunity. Stalin’s “left” allies offered no resistance. After ten days, with the strike still spreading, the General Council unanimously called it off and surrendered to the bosses. This condemned the British working class to a historic defeat.

Despite this setback, hopes were raised by the growing movements of the Chinese working class, where the Chinese Communist Party was becoming a mass force. Workers were moving independently of the bourgeois nationalist movement, the Kuomintang, led by the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek.

Again, Stalinist opportunism stood in the way of victory. Stalin and the Comintern leadership had dangerous illusions in Chiang Kai-shek and declared the Kuomintang to be “a revolutionary bloc of the workers, peasants, intellectuals, and urban democracy [i.e. the capitalist class] on the basis of a community of class interests… in the struggle against the imperialists and the whole militarist-feudal order”. In practice this meant that the Communist Party had to submit to Chiang’s authority. What was this except the old Menshevik idea of common struggle by the working class and the “democratic” capitalists” for democracy on a capitalist basis?

The Left Opposition fought this policy every inch of the way. They explained that Chiang was defending the capitalists and landlords; that a soviet (workers’) government was needed to give land to the peasantry and establish democracy. As Victor Serge explained, “We know that Chiang Kai-shek is preparing the open betrayal of the unions and his communist allies … We are not permitted to speak. And Stalin takes the floor in Moscow before thousands of workers and solemnly assures them that we have nothing to fear from Chiang Kai-shek.”

Chiang used the opportunity that Stalin gave him to prepare a savage massacre of Communists and workers in April 1927. The Comintern then swung over to an opposite, ultra-left course, and tried to engineer an insurrection in Canton. It was drowned in blood.

The Chinese revolution set enormous shock waves in motion internationally. In his autobiography, ‘My Life’ (Chap. 42) Trotsky wrote: “A wave of excitement swept over the [Soviet] party … The opposition raised its head… Many younger comrades thought the patent bankruptcy of Stalin’s policy was bound to bring the triumph of the opposition nearer… I was obliged to pour many a bucket of cold water over the hot heads of my young friends… The fact that our forecast had proved correct might attract one thousand, five thousand or even ten thousand new supporters to us. But for the millions the significant thing was not our forecast, but the fact of the crushing of the Chinese proletariat. After the defeat of the German revolution in 1923, after the break-down of the English general strike in 1926, the new disaster in China would only intensify the disappointment of the masses in the international revolution”.

So, the international defeats, caused by the bureaucracy’s shortsighted opportunism, at the same time strengthened the bureaucracy, and created conditions for the isolation and defeat of the Marxist opposition.

Trotsky explains: “During the years 1926 and 1927 the population of the Soviet Union experienced a new tide of hope. All eyes were now directed to the East where the drama of the Chinese revolution was unfolding. The Left Opposition had recovered from the previous blows and was recruiting a phalanx of new adherents. At the end of 1927 the Chinese revolution was massacred by the hangman, Chiang Kai-shek, into whose hands the Communist International had literally betrayed the Chinese workers and peasants. A cold wave of disappointment swept over the masses of the Soviet Union. After an unbridled baiting in the press and at meetings, the bureaucracy finally, in 1928, ventured upon mass arrests among the Left Opposition. To be sure, tens of thousands of revolutionary fighters gathered around the banner of the Bolshevik-Leninists. The advanced workers were indubitably sympathetic to the Opposition, but that sympathy remained passive. The masses lacked faith that the situation could be seriously changed by a new struggle. Meantime the bureaucracy asserted: “For the sake of an international revolution, the Opposition proposes to drag us into a revolutionary war. Enough of shake-ups! We have earned the right to rest. We will build the socialist society at home. Rely upon us, your leaders!” This gospel of repose firmly consolidated the apparatchiki and the military and state officials and indubitably found an echo among the weary workers, and still more the peasant masses” (‘Revolution Betrayed’, Chap.5)