The Workers’ United Front and the Revolutionary Party

Introduction

The main instruments the working class has to fight for its immediate and historic interests are its class organizations: trade unions, workers parties, and, during periods of revolutionary mobilization, workers´ councils. It is through building these organizations that the working class can transform itself from a class in itself — wage slaves — to a class for itself — a conscious social agent for its immediate and historic interests.

The First International founded by Marx in 1861 — which grouped together trade unions, workers’ parties, Marxists, anarchists, and all the other elements of the labor movement — was an expression of the workers’ instinctive urge for organization and class unity.

Nevertheless, over the past 140 years, the working class has split into various organizations. When, after 1914, the Social-Democrats betrayed the interests of the workers by supporting the imperialist World War One, the revolutionaries were forced to create a new workers´ international in 1919, the Communist International.

The eventual degeneration of the Communist International — transformed by Stalin into a counter-revolutionary instrument at the service of the bureaucracy which usurped state power in the USRR — obliged Leon Trotsky and his supporters to found the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution, in 1938. Parallel to these developments, the trade union movement has also divided in most countries into various confederations.

Trotsky writes that these divisions are largely the product of the capitalists’ influence in the workers’ movement:

“The class itself is not homogeneous; its different sections arrive at class consciousness by different paths and at different times. The bourgeoisie participates actively in this process. Within the working class, it creates its own institutions, or utilizes those already existing, in order to oppose certain strata of workers to others. Within the proletariat several parties are active at the same time. Therefore, for the greater part of its historical journey, it remains split politically. The problem of the united front — which arises during certain periods very sharply — originates thereby.”

The strategy of the workers’ united front — first fully elaborated by Lenin and Trotsky in the Communist International and inherited and developed on by the Fourth International — is based on the objective necessity for the workers and their organizations to overcome their divisions in the struggle against their exploiters. Because the fight for class unity remains a constant up until (and even after) the Marxists win the support of the majority and the workers seize power, the united front is best characterized as a strategy, rather than just a short-term tactic.

Trotsky elaborates:

“To fight, the proletariat must have unity in its ranks. This holds true for partial economic conflicts, within the walls of a single factory, as well as for such ‘national’ political battles as the one to repel Fascism. Consequently the tactic of the united front is not something accidental and artificial — a cunning maneuver — not at all; it originates, entirely and wholly, in the objective conditions governing the development of the proletariat. The words in the Communist Manifesto which state that the Communists are not to be opposed to the proletariat, that they have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole, carry with them the meaning that the struggle of the party to win over the majority of the class must in no instance come into opposition with the need of the workers to keep unity within their fighting ranks.”[i]

The culmination of this struggle for working class unity is the creation of a government based on workers´ councils (soviets) which group together all the fighting sectors and organizations of the working class and the oppressed masses. Only such a government can put an end to the system based on the private ownership of the means of production, a dying system that can only offer humanity more war, poverty, and barbarism.

But numerous obstacles exist on this road — the most important of which are the bureaucratic leaderships of the working class. In 1938, Trotsky explained:

“The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership. …The central task of the Fourth International consists in freeing the proletariat from the old leadership, whose conservatism is in complete contradiction to the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating capitalism and represents the chief obstacle to historical progress.”[ii]

Only a political party rooted in the program of revolutionary Marxism — the “conscious expression of an unconscious process” of the liberation struggle of the oppressed, which codifies the historic interests of the working class and generalizes the lessons learned from its past struggles and the first three internationals — can lead the workers to victory.

In short, the struggles for working class unity, for a workers´ government, and for the creation of revolutionary parties are interrelated and interdependent aspects of the same process: the self-emancipation of the working class.

In this text, we will introduce the writings of Trotsky and the Communist International in the era of Lenin concerning the strategy of the workers’ united front and the role of the revolutionary party. It is outside the scope of this article to deal with how the strategy of the workers’ united front must be specifically implemented in the context of the early 21^st Century. Nevertheless, one important point must be made.

Decaying capitalism’s crisis has deepened since Trotsky and Lenin’s time — imperialism today not only aims to divide the working class, it must integrate/destroy all independent workers’ organizations in order to break up nations throughout the world. This means that a united front policy today must place more emphasis on the defense of class organizations and national sovereignty than it did a century ago. For more contemporary analysis, see La Verite-The Truth, the theoretical magazine of the Fourth International.

Historical Context

The first Communist parties were formed principally by young revolutionaries who came out of the split with the Social Democrats. The early years of the Communist International were plagued by ultra-left and sectarian tendencies that rejected fighting for immediate demands, uniting in struggle with other organizations, participating in parliament, and working within the existing trade unions.

Lenin considered this ultra-leftism an “infantile disorder” and, together with Trotsky, spent years explaining to the young Communists the method that the Bolsheviks had successfully employed to lead the Russian workers to power.

In light of the fact that, “although the economic and political situation is objectively revolutionary … the majority of the working class is nevertheless outside the Communist sphere of influence,”[iii] Lenin, Trotsky, and the Communist International formulated the strategy of the workers’ united front in its Third and Fourth Congresses in 1921,[iv] and fought for all its sections to implement this orientation.

The Basics of the Workers’ United Front

In 1922, Trotsky began the discussion of the workers’ united front within the framework of the need for Marxists to win leadership of the working class:

“The task of the Communist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution. In order to summon the proletariat for the direct conquest of power and to achieve it the Communist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority of the working class. So long as it does not hold this majority, the party must fight to win it.

“The party can achieve this only by remaining an absolutely independent organization with a clear program and strict internal discipline. That is the reason why the party was bound to break ideologically and organizationally with the reformists and the centrists who do not strive for the proletarian revolution, who possess neither the capacity nor the desire to prepare the masses for revolution, and who by their entire conduct thwart this work.”

But how can the Marxists win over the majority of workers? This is not a simple question to answer. First of all, a correct understanding of the constant need for working class unity in action is needed. Trotsky explains:

“It is perfectly self-evident that the class life of the proletariat is not suspended during this period preparatory to the revolution. Clashes with industrialists, with the bourgeoisie, with the state power, on the initiative of one side or the other, run their due course.

“In these clashes — insofar as they involve the vital interests of the entire working class, or its majority, or this or that section — the working masses sense the need of unity in action, of unity in resisting the onslaught of capitalism or unity in taking the offensive against it. Any party which mechanically counterposes itself to this need of the working class for unity in action will unfailingly be condemned in the minds of the workers. …

“The problem of the united front — despite the fact that a split is inevitable in this epoch between the various political organizations basing themselves on the working class — grows out of the urgent need to secure for the working class the possibility of a united front in the struggle against capitalism. For those who do not understand this task, the party is only a propaganda society and not an organization for mass action.”[v]

The United Front from Below?

So unity is needed for struggle. “But,” the sectarians countered, “shouldn’t Marxists try to unite the masses independently of and apart from the reactionary leaders?”

Trotsky and Lenin rejected this strategy of “the united front from below” because large sectors of the masses still had illusions in their traditional leaderships:

“Does the united front extend only to the working masses or does it also include the opportunist leaders? The very posing of this question is a product of misunderstanding. If we were able simply to unite the working masses around our own banner or around our practical immediate slogans, and skip over reformist organizations, whether party or trade union, that would of course be the best thing in the world. But then the very question of the united front would not exist in its present form.

“The question arises from this, that certain very important sections of the working class belong to reformist organizations or support them. Their present experience is still insufficient to enable them to break with the reformist organizations and join us. It may be precisely after engaging in those mass activities, which are on the order of the day, that a major change will take place in this connection. …

“The Communists, as has been said, must not oppose such actions but on the contrary must also assume the initiative for them, precisely for the reason that the greater is the mass drawn into the movement, the higher its self-confidence rises, all the more self-confident will that mass movement be and all the more resolutely will it be capable of marching forward, however modest may be the initial slogans of struggle. And this means that the growth of the mass aspects of the movement tends to radicalize it, and creates much more favorable conditions for the slogans, methods of struggle, and, in general, the leading role of the Communist Party.”[vi]

The Fourth Congress´ “Theses on Comintern Tactics” explicitly states: “For the sake of [the workers´ daily] struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International.”[vii]

In other words, the strategy of the workers’ united front means constantly fighting for both the “united from above” (agreements with or proposals to the existing leaderships) and the “united front from below” (direct Marxist intervention in the popular struggle and mass organizations).

The sectarians were quick to accuse Trotsky and Lenin of bending to the Social Democrats. Trotsky responded that nothing could be further from the truth:

“It is possible to see in [the united front] policy a rapprochement with the reformists only from the standpoint of a journalist who believes that he rids himself of reformism by ritualistically criticizing it without ever leaving his editorial office but who is fearful of clashing with the reformists before the eyes of the working masses and giving the latter an opportunity to appraise the Communist and the reformist on the equal plane of the mass struggle.”[viii]

The Fourth Congress´ “Theses on the United Front” noted that it was precisely the reactionary labor leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie inside the labor movement, who aimed to split the class. The reformist leaders “are looking for a way out of their own impasse and are bringing splits, confusion and organized sabotage to the struggle of the working masses. … The reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.”[ix]

In other words, the fight for the workers’ united front both helps the workers’ struggle advance and exposes in practice the reactionary nature of the existing leaderships.

The strategy of the “united front from below” was eventually put into practice by the Stalinists in the early 1930s during the Communist International´s ultra-left “Third Period” phase, when it ordered the Germany Communists to denounce the Social Democrats as “social-fascists” and, against Trotsky´s advice, reject a united front against fascism. By dividing the class, Stalin and the German CP paved the way for Hitler´s easy rise to power in 1933.

How to Win the Majority

At the root of the debate between Lenin and Trotsky and the sectarians was a difference in methodology. The sectarians believed in shouting as loud as possible, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that the current labor leaders were traitors, that socialism was the solution, and that the workers should follow their organization. Marxists characterize this method as “propagandism” — when the principal activity of an organization is the spread of the principles, the “big ideas,” of Marxism.

Trotsky argues that the fundamental error of sectarians is their “refusal to struggle for partial and transitional demands, i.e., for the elementary interests and needs of the working masses, as they are today. … Political events are for them an occasion for comment but not for action.”[x]

He explains that winning over the majority is less simple than the sectarians believe:

“The progress of a class toward class consciousness, that is, the building of a revolutionary party which leads the proletariat, is a complex and a contradictory process. … The very need for the party originates in the fact that the proletariat is not born with an innate understanding of its historical interests. The task of the party consists in learning, from experience derived from the struggle, how to demonstrate to the proletariat its right to leadership.”[xi]

Marxists know that the broad masses learn through their direct experience, and therefore the only way for a Marxist organization to win the leadership of the class is by directly participating in the existing mass struggle and proving in practice that it is most consistent and farsighted defender of the interests of the oppressed.

Whereas sectarians, in the words of Trotsky, “approach slogans formally and judge them with the yardstick of verbal radicalism, without taking into account the processes occurring within the working class itself,”[xii] Marxists raise slogans and demands that can be understood by the broad masses, that push them to mobilize, and that, in this way, enable them to learn through their experience in struggle.

In his 1922 text, Trotsky emphasized this point:

“It is precisely in the course of struggle that broad masses must learn from experience that we fight better than the others, that we see more clearly than the others, that we are more audacious and resolute.”[xiii]

The Communist International’s Third Congress thesis “On Tactics” specifies:

“From the day of its foundation the Communist International has clearly and unambiguously stated that its task is not to establish small Communist sects aiming to influence the working masses purely through agitation and propaganda, but to participate directly in the struggle of the working masses. … It is not a question of appealing to the proletariat to fight for the ultimate goal, but of developing the practical struggle which alone can lead the proletariat to the struggle for the ultimate goal.”[xiv]

The resolution goes on to explain in detail that the method of mobilizing the masses around concrete demands is wholly revolutionary because in our epoch, that of imperialist decay, even the most basic demand of the working class is a challenge to the capitalist system:

“The Communist parties can only develop through struggle. Even the smallest parties should not limit themselves to propaganda and agitation. The Communists must act as the vanguard in every mass organization. By putting forward a militant program urging the proletariat to fight for its basic needs, they can show the backward and vacillating masses the path to revolution and demonstrate how all parties other than the Communists are against the working class. Only by leading the concrete struggles of the proletariat and by taking them forward will the Communists really be able to win the broad proletarian masses to the struggle for the dictatorship. …

“In place of the minimum program of the centrists and reformists, the Communist International offers a struggle for the concrete demands of the proletariat which, in their totality, challenge the power of the bourgeoisie, organize the proletariat and mark out the different stages of the struggle for its dictatorship.

“Even before the broad masses consciously understand the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, they can respond to each of the individual demands. As more and more people are drawn into the struggle around these demands and as the needs of the masses come into conflict with the needs of capitalist society, the working class will come to realize that if it wants to live, capitalism will have to die. This realization will be the main motivation in their struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The task of the Communist parties is to extend, deepen and unify the struggle around these concrete demands.…

“The present epoch is revolutionary precisely because the most modest demands of the working masses are incompatible with the continued existence of capitalist society, and the struggle for these demands is therefore bound to develop into the struggle for Communism.”[xv]

The Demand for a Workers’ Government

But it isn’t enough for Marxists to build and unify struggles around immediate demands. To advance the movement and win over the majority, Marxists must constantly try to bridge these struggles toward socialist revolution by raising “transitional demands,” a central one of which is the call for a united-front workers’ government.

“From the united front flows the slogan of a workers’ government,” writes Trotsky in his “Report on the Fourth Congress”:
“Communist Parties have not yet won [the] majority and so they say on every appropriate occasion: ´Socialist workers, syndicalist workers, anarchists and non-party workers! Wages are being slashed; less and less remains of the 8-hour working day; the cost of living is soaring. Such things would not be if all the workers despite their differences were able to unite and install their own workers’ government.´
And the slogan of a workers’ government thus becomes a wedge driven by the Communists between the working class and all other classes: and inasmuch as the top circles of the Social Democracy, the reformists, are tied up with the bourgeoisie, this wedge will act more and more to tear away, and it is already beginning to tear away the left wing of Social-Democratic workers from their leaders.”[xvi]

The Fourth Congress’ “Theses on Tactics” elaborates on this:

“The slogan of a workers’ government (or a workers’ and peasants’ government) can be used practically everywhere as a general agitational slogan. However, as a central political slogan, the workers’ government is most important in countries where the position of bourgeois society is particularly unstable and where the balance of forces between the workers’ parties and the bourgeoisie places the question of government on the order of the day as a practical problem requiring immediate solution. In these countries the workers’ government slogan follows inevitably from the entire united front tactic.

“The parties of the Second International are trying to rescue the situation in these countries by advocating and forming a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the social democrats. … In place of a bourgeois/social-democratic coalition, whether open or disguised, Communists propose a united front involving all workers, and a coalition of all workers’ parties around economic and political issues, which will fight and finally overthrow bourgeois power. … Even a workers’ government that comes about through an alignment of parliamentary forces, i.e., a government of purely parliamentary origin, can give rise to an upsurge of the revolutionary workers’ movement.”[xvii]

In 1938, Trotsky summarizes the strategy of the struggle for a workers´ government as follows:

“The chief accusation which the Fourth International advances against the traditional organizations of the proletariat is the fact that they do not wish to tear themselves away from the political semi-corpse of the bourgeoisie. … Of all parties and organizations which base themselves on the workers and peasants and speak in their name, we demand that they break politically from the bourgeoisie and enter upon the road of struggle for the workers’ and farmers’ government. On this road we promise them full support against capitalist reaction. At the same time, we indefatigably develop agitation around those transitional demands which should in our opinion form the program of the “workers’ and farmers’ government.”[xviii]

Concerning the possibility of the Communists joining such a united-front government, Trotsky answers in advance:

“Can we Communists conceivably participate in the same government with Renaudel, Blum and the rest? — some comrades will ask. Under certain conditions this might prove temporarily unavoidable, just as we Russian Communists were willing, even after our October victory, to permit Mensheviks and SRs to enter the government, and we actually did draw in the Left SRs.”[xix]

Though the creation of such a government is only “a highly improbable variant,” if it were created it “would represent merely a short episode on the road to the actual dictatorship of the proletariat,”[xx] i.e., a new state based on democratically elected, grassroots, workers’ councils.

Workers’ Councils: The Highest Form of the Workers’ United Front

The culmination of the fight for the workers’ united front is the creation of workers’ councils — called soviets in Russian — and their conquest of political power.

Trotsky clarifies that the workers’ councils are essentially the highest form of the workers’ united front:

“Most often the soviets are defined as the organs of struggle for power, as the organs of insurrection, and finally, as the organs of dictatorship. Formally these definitions are correct. But they do not at all exhaust the historical function of the soviets.

“First of all they do not explain why, in the struggle for power, precisely the soviets are necessary. The answer to this question is: just as the trade union is the rudimentary form of the united front in the economic struggle, so the soviet is the highest form of the united front under the conditions in which the proletariat enters the epoch of fighting for power. ….

“The political conscience of the class does not mature so methodically and uniformly; deep inner divergences remain even in the revolutionary epoch, when all processes develop by leaps and bounds. But, at the same time, the need for an organization above parties and embracing the entire class becomes extremely urgent. To crystallize this need into a form — that is the historic destiny of the soviets. That is their great function. Under the conditions of a revolutionary situation they arise as the highest organized expression of proletarian unity. Those who haven’t understood this have understood nothing in matters relating to the problem of the soviets.”[xxi]

Conclusion

As we’ve shown in this article, the fight for the workers’ united front, a workers’ government, and a mass revolutionary party are inter-dependent elements of the liberation struggle of the oppressed. Trotsky succinctly summarizes this dialectical relationship as follows.

“The Communist Party cannot come to the head of the class except on the basis of the class’ own revolutionary experience. However, its experience cannot take on a revolutionary character in any other way than by drawing millions into the struggle. Yet non-Communist masses, the more so if unorganized, cannot be drawn into the struggle except through the policy of the united front.”[xxii]

A central task of revolutionary workers and youth today is to assimilate this revolutionary method, in order to prepare for the momentous class battles that lie ahead.

Appendix One: The Workers’ United Front in the Russian Revolution

From April to October 1917, the Bolshevik Party consistently implemented the strategy of the workers’ united front.

In April, the reformist Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries, the leaders of the Soviets who were supported by the vast majority of the population, were pushed into the Provisional Government. The workers demanded land, peace, and bread and thought that the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries were going to satisfy their demands.

The united front policy of the Bolsheviks focused on mobilizing and uniting the workers around their concrete demands, enabling them in this way to overcome their illusions in the reformist leaders through their experience in struggle.

Trotsky summarizes this experience as follows:

“From April to September 1917, the Bolsheviks demanded that the S.R.s and Mensheviks break with the liberal bourgeoisie and take power into their own hands. Under this provision the Bolshevik Party promised the Mensheviks an the S.R.s, as the petty bourgeois representatives of the worker and peasants, its revolutionary aid against the bourgeoisie categorically refusing, however, either to enter into the government of the Mensheviks and S.R.s or to carry political responsibility for it. …

“Nevertheless, the demand of the Bolsheviks, addressed to the Mensheviks and the S.R.s: ‘Break with the bourgeoisie, take the power into your own hands!’ had for the masses tremendous educational significance. The obstinate unwillingness of the Mensheviks and S.R.s to take power, so dramatically exposed during the July Days, definitely doomed them before mass opinion and prepared the victory of the Bolsheviks.”[xxiii]

Let’s look at how this strategy was translated (tactically) in practice during the definitive turning point of the revolution. In August, the reactionary General Kornilov ordered his troops to march on the capital to crush the Kerensky government. Trotsky writes:

“The status of the Bolshevik Party was semi-legal. Its leaders from Lenin down were either hiding underground or committed to prison. … These persecutions emanated from Kerensky’s government, which was supported from the left by the coalition of Social Revolutionary and Menshevik deputies.

“What course did the Bolshevik Party take? Not for an instant did it hesitate to conclude a practical alliance to fight against Kornilov with its jailers — Kerensky, Tseretelli, Dan, etc. Everywhere committees for revolutionary defense were organized, into which the Bolsheviks entered as a minority. This did not hinder the Bolsheviks from assuming the leading role: in agreements projected for revolutionary mass action, the most thoroughgoing and the boldest revolutionary party stands to gain always. The Bolsheviks were in the front ranks; they smashed down the barriers blocking them from the Menshevik workers and especially from the Social Revolutionary soldiers, and carried them along in their wake. …

“The Bolsheviks did not content themselves with a general appeal to the workers and soldiers to break with the conciliators and to support the red united front of the Bolsheviks. No, the Bolsheviks proposed the united front struggle to the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries and created together with them joint organizations of struggle. …

During the last days of August, Kornilov was crushed, in reality not by force of arms but by the singleness of purpose with which the masses were imbued. Then and there, after September 3, Lenin offered through the press to compromise with the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks: you compose the majority in the soviets, he said to them. Take over the state; we shall support you against the bourgeoisie. Guarantee us complete freedom of agitation and we shall assure you of a peaceful struggle for the majority in the soviets. Such an opportunist was Lenin! The Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries rejected the compromise, i.e., the new offer of a united front against the bourgeoisie. In the hands of the Bolsheviks, this rejection became a mighty weapon in preparation for the armed uprising, which within seven weeks swept away the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries.”[xxiv]

Even after the Bolsheviks won the majority in the Soviets and led the October insurrection they held fast to the united front method by offering a place in the new revolutionary soviet government to the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries; only a left-wing fraction of the Social Revolutionaries agreed.

———

Appendix Two: The Anti-Imperialist United Front

Class relations in countries dominated by imperialism have a specific character. As Trotsky writes:

“In the industrially backward countries foreign capital plays a decisive role. … The government veers between foreign and domestic capital, between the weak national bourgeoisie and the relatively powerful proletariat. This gives the government a Bonapartist character of a distinctive character. It raises itself, so to speak, above classes. Actually, it can govern either by making itself the instrument of foreign capitalism and holding the proletariat in the chains of a police dictatorship, or by maneuvering with the proletariat and even going so far as to make concessions to it, thus gaining the possibility of a certain freedom from the foreign capitalists.”[xxv]

So in the neo-colonial, semi-colonial, and colonial countries, what should be the strategy of the working class and the revolutionary Marxists?

The Communist International in the era of Lenin and Trotsky clearly answered this question:

“At the present time the key slogan to advance is the anti-imperialist united front. Its expediency follows from the perspective of a long-drawn-out struggle with world imperialism that will demand the mobilization of all revolutionary elements. This mobilization is made all the more necessary by the tendency of the indigenous ruling classes to make compromises with foreign capital directed against the fundamental interests of the mass of the people.

“Just as in the West the slogan of the workers’ united front has helped and is still helping to expose the social democrats’ sell-out of proletarian interests, so the slogan of an anti-imperialist united front will help to expose the vacillations of the various bourgeois-nationalist groups. This slogan will also help the working masses to develop their revolutionary will and to increase their class consciousness; it will place them in the front ranks of those fighting not only imperialism, but the remnants of feudalism.

“The workers’ movement in the colonial and semi-colonial countries must first of all establish itself as an independent revolutionary factor in the common anti-imperialist front. Only when its importance as an independent factor is recognized and its complete political autonomy secured can temporary agreements with bourgeois democracy be considered permissible or necessary. Similarly, the proletariat supports and advances such partial demands as an independent democratic republic and the abolition of all feudal rights and privileges.”[xxvi]

The policy of the anti-imperialist united front is a strategy that aims to help the working class become the leader of the oppressed nation, replacing the leadership of the bourgeois nationalists, who are incapable of leading the resistance to imperialism to the final victory due to their subordination to the world imperialist system — the only form that the system of capitalist exploitation can survive today.

It is up to the working class to raise the slogans for the defense of the nation, democracy, agrarian reform, while also struggling for its own social demands, which are in contradiction with the system based on the private ownership of the means of production. This is the heart of Trotsky’s perspective of “Permanent Revolution.”

For example, in 1938, this policy was expressed through Trotsky´s proposal to unconditionally support the progressive measures of the Lazaro Cardenas government in Mexico, such as the nationalization of the oil, while at the same time fighting for the full political independence of the trade unions from the government.

ENDNOTES

[i] Trotsky, Leon. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution. 1938. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1938-tp/index.htm

[ii] Idem.

[iii] Third Congress of the Communist International. “On Tactics.” July 12, 1921. <http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/3rd-congress/tactics.htm&gt;

[iv] The Communist International also elaborated the strategy of the Anti-Imperialist United Front for the imperialist-dominated countries. See Appendix Two.

[v] Trotsky, Leon. “On the United Front.” March 2, 1922. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1924/ffyci-2/08.htm&gt;

[vi] Idem.

[vii] Fourth Congress of the Communist International. “Theses on Comintern Tactics.” December 5, 1922. <http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/4th-congress/tactics.htm&gt;

[viii] Trotsky, Leon. “On the United Front.”

[ix] Fourth Congress of the Communist International. “Theses on the United Front.” December 1922. <http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/4th-congress/united-front.htm&gt;

[x] Trotsky, Leon. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution.

[xi] Trotsky, Leon. “Vital Questions for the German proletariat.”

[xii] Leon Trotsky. “From the ECCI to the Paris Convention of the French Communist Party.” The First Five Years of the Comintern, Volume 2.

[xiii] Trotsky, Leon. “On the United Front.”

[xiv] Third Congress of the Communist International. “On Tactics.”

[xv] Idem.

[xvi] Trotsky, Leon. “Report on the Fourth Congress.” The First Five Years of the Comintern, Volume 2.

[xvii] Fourth Congress of the Communist International. “Theses on Comintern Tactics.”

[xviii] Trotsky, Leon. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution.

[xix] Leon Trotsky. “From the ECCI to the Paris Convention of the French Communist Party.”

[xx] Trotsky, Leon. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution.

[xxi] Trotsky, Leon. “Vital Questions for the German proletariat.”

[xxii] Idem.

[xxiii] Trotsky, Leon. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution.

[xxiv] Trotsky, Leon. “Vital Questions for the German proletariat.”

[xxv] Trotsky, Leon. “Nationalized Industry and Workers’ Management.” May 1938. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1938/1938-mexico03.htm&gt;

[xxvi] Fourth Congress of the Communist International. “Theses on the Eastern Question.” December 5, 1922. <http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/4th-congress/eastern-question.htm&gt;