Speech to the 5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI,
11th Session, Moscow, April 3, 1925.
Untitled reply to “Report on the Discussion in the Russian Communist Party” by N.I. Bukharin, published under the byline “Sanborn” in International Press Correspondence [Vienna],
v. 5, no. 37 (April 23, 1925), pg. 489.
Our American Party, too, has its manifestations of Trotskyism. In America we call it Loreism, as the man who is the exponent of Trotskyism in our Party is [Ludwig] Lore, the editor of our German organ, the Volkszeitung. While theoretically he may not understand what Trotskyism is, he was quick to vote for Trotskyism on the Central Committee of our Party. Comrade Bukharin said that all the critics and enemies of the Communist International were quick to state their approval of the position of Comrade Trotsky, and the case of our American supporter of Trotsky is ample proof of this; for Comrade Lore, who today supports Trotsky in every way he can, has for years been a critic and at many times an opponent of the Communist International. He was with Serrati in 1921 and against the Communist International. He was for Levi and said that the Comintern was wrong, and in 1923 he wrote that it was a correct attitude of the German Communist Party to prevent a revolution in Germany. In 1924 he celebrated the 5th Anniversary of the Communist International in the Volkszeitung by writing an editorial, stating that the Comintern now was “all right.” At the beginning it was a Blanquist organization but it has changed its policy. It was against working in the trade unions and is now for it, and a long list of similar twisting of the true history of the Comintern. In our Party as well as in the Russian Party, Trotskyism manifested itself through an erroneous position on the farmers. Comrade Lore is one of the critics of our work among the farmers in the United States, of our effort to develop the Party’s support and influence among the farmers at the present time.
Comrade Lore also is an opponent of centralism and sharp discipline within our party. After the last convention of our Party in December 1924, Comrade Lore sent a telegram to his paper stating that the newly elected Central Committee was a victory for the Trotskyites in our Party. But fortunately this did not prove to be true. While the Central Executive Committee majority wavered to some extent on the issue of Trotskyism, at the beginning of last year it too took a position against Trotskyism and for the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. In the recent debate, our CEC endorsed the decision of the Central Committee of the Russian Party, and this time we did not have any wavering except on the part of Comrade Lore. However, Loreism as the expression of Trotskyism has a foothold in our Party. It is one of the tasks before our Party to eradicate this American expression of Trotskyism and this can only be done if the CEC of our Party is ready to carry on a united struggle, ideologically and organizationally, against this expression of Trotskyism. Any effort to minimize or escape this struggle, the effort to compromise with Trotskyism, which had expressed itself can only be an expression of sympathy with Trotsky. And we in the American Party will demand that we carry on this fight until this expression does no longer exist in our Party and the Party as a whole stands united against Trotskyism and for the Russian Communist Party.