"Left Wing" Opportunism Wolfgang Eggers - 2020

from: [ Handbook against opportunism ]

What lessons do we Stalinist-Hoxhaists learn from Lenin's struggle

against opportunism that he waged in the Comintern?

[ Handbook against opportunism ]

III

Lenin's two-front struggle against the main danger of right-wing

opportunism and against "left-wing radicalism"

Why is right-wing opportunism the main danger?

This question cannot be answered without exposing the economic roots of opportunism. With their

globalised exploitation, the world imperialists have amassed gigantic sums with which they pay

their bribes.

"And these billions in extra profit form the economic basis of opportunism." (Lenin, Volume 31,

page 219)

In order to resist the world communist movement, the world bourgeoisie finances the labour

aristocracy and the bourgeois intelligentsia, it finances both open anti-communism and anticommunism in disguise - opportunism.

"Opportunism is our main enemy.

Opportunism at the top of the labour movement is not proletarian socialism, but bourgeois socialism.

The opportunists are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself." (Lenin, ibid.)

Lenin directed the main fire in the Comintern against the right-wing elements in communism.Lenin

always fought on two fronts, both against the "left" deviation in communism and against the rightwing deviation. The struggle against "left" and right opportunism must always be viewed from a

historical perspective, as Lenin wrote in 1920:

"Of course, the error of left doctrinarianism in communism is at present a thousand times less

dangerous and less serious than the error of right doctrinarianism (i.e. social-chauvinism and

Kautskyism), but only because left communism is a very young current that is only just beginning to

emerge. That is the only reason why this disease can be easily cured under certain conditions, and

why one must endeavour to cure it with maximum energy." (Lenin, Works Volume 31, page 90)

So let us not underestimate "left-wing" doctrinarism in the world revolutionary situation that

awaits us, and even less so during and after the world socialist revolution. Whether "leftwing" or right-wing opportunism is the greater danger depends not least on which of the two

we have underestimated.

If right-wing opportunism is not consistently combated to the end, if it is not smashed, then it will

not be possible to prevent opposing "left-wing" opportunist currents and lines from emerging from

right-wing opportunism.

The reverse is also true.

If "left-wing" opportunism is not consistently combated to the end, not smashed, then it cannot be

prevented that opposing right-wing opportunist currents and lines emerge from "left-wing"

opportunism.

"Whoever wants to lead the movement and at the same time maintain the connection with the masses

of millions must wage the struggle on two fronts - both against those who are lagging behind and