The right kind of opposition?

Nikolai Bukharin´s father Ivan 

Robert J. Alexander have written an interesting book about the International Communist Opposition (ICO). It's well-edited and very easy to read. Unfortunately, it's grossly overpriced! The full title is "The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930´s".

During the 1930's, the ICO was probably the largest Communist opposition group, i.e. Communist group outside the Communist International. However, they disappeared after only a decade. The ICO was also known as the Right Opposition. In the United States, the supporters of the ICO were known as Lovestoneites, after their leader Jay Lovestone. Their real name was Communist Party (Opposition).

The roots of the Right Opposition go back to the 1920's. The "rightists" were supporters of Soviet Communist Nikolai Bukharin, who was Comintern president from 1926 to 1929. Bukharin opposed Stalin's plans to collectivize Soviet agriculture, and his line as Comintern president was also more moderate than the line Stalin would launch subsequently. Bukharin, of course, lost the power struggle against Stalin. Supporters of Bukharin within the Communist parties all over the world were expelled shortly afterwards. They regrouped into the International Communist Opposition. The American group lead by Lovestone was the most important ICO group. Another well-known ICO group was the KPO in Germany, led by Brandler and Thalheimer.

Curiously, the ICO didn't criticize the domestic policies of Stalin. In contrast to their mentor Bukharin, the ICO supported the forced collectivization and rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, uncritically accepting Soviet propaganda about the successes of the first five year plan. The ICO even supported the first phase of the Great Purges. Only when Bukharin himself was sentenced to death after a show trial in 1938, did the ICO realize that something *very* strange was going on. Internationally, however, the right opposition groups had criticized Stalin's policy from the start. But even here, their politics proved somewhat contradictory. During Stalin's ultra-leftist "third period", the ICO was more moderate than Stalin. When Stalin launched the people's front policy, the ICO suddenly became more radical than the official Communists, since they refused to accept the people's front, clinging instead to the traditional Communist line of the workers' united front. Another leading tenet of ICO policy was "exceptionalism", most famous in the form of "American exceptionalism", the idea that each Communist party should be independent and control its own policy, without central direction from Moscow.

For some reason, the ICO lost faith in Communism very quickly after seeing through the Great Purges. By 1940, Lovestone and his supporters have dissolved their organization. Lovestone eventually became a CIA agent! In some other nations, ICO groups became Social Democrats. In Nazi-occupied Europe, ICO groups were smashed by the Nazis, and were never refounded after the war.

I'm familiar with the ICO because in Sweden, their supporters were actually more numerous than the "official" Communists, at least for a number of years. Thus, they simply called themselves "Communist Party of Sweden". In 1934, they changed their name to the Socialist Party, and left the ICO. Most eventually became Social Democrats, some became Trotskyists or Titoists, while others embraced Nazism. Curiously, a few individuals survived long enough to join a completely different group called the Socialist Party, founded almost 50 years later!

But I'm digressing. Alexander's book "The Right Opposition" mostly deals with the American Lovestoneites. However, Alexander also mentions ICO groups in other nations, including Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. The mysterious Greek Archiomarxists are briefly dealt with. One chapter deals with the Spanish POUM, an important left-wing party during the Spanish Civil War. The POUM was formed by a fusion of ICO supporters and dissident Trotskyists, but never actually joined the ICO. Still, it was the closest thing to a Right Opposition group in Spain, and the ICO supported it during the Civil War. Finally, Alexander has included a section on M.N. Roy, the Indian Communist who was active in both Mexico, Europe, China and India. For a time, Roy supported the ICO, but later broke relations with it. He eventually became an atheist humanist.

I'm not sure if the general reader really cares about what a stray group of reds did 70 years ago. Personally, I found the book a good addition to the labour movement section of my private library.