[D66] The History of the Left Opposition

[R.O.]

    SEP (Australia) holding online lecture on the history of the Left
    Opposition this Tuesday


          5 June 2020

The Socialist Equality Party (Australia) is holding an online lecture 
this Tuesday on the contemporary significance of the struggle waged by 
Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition against the Stalinist betrayal of 
the Russian Revolution. The event is one in a series 
<https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/27/lect-m27.html> of six 
lectures being delivered on the history of Trotskyism.

The lecture will review the political fight launched by Trotsky, the 
co-leader of the revolution, beginning in 1923. The Left Opposition was 
founded in that year to oppose the increasing suppression of inner-party 
democracy, the growing influence of a burgeoning state bureaucracy and 
to fight for policies that would strengthen the social base of the 
revolution, the industrial working class.

It will explain the significance of Stalin’s adoption, in 1924, of the 
program of “socialism in one country,” which was a repudiation of the 
internationalist foundations of Marxism and of the revolution itself. 
The turn to nationalism was to have disastrous consequences, resulting 
in the defeat of mass struggles by the working class in Britain, China 
and Germany, and intensifying the isolation of the Soviet Union.

The lecture will outline the internationalist perspective elaborated by 
Trotsky and the Left Opposition, which was later to serve as the 
foundation of the Fourth International and the contemporary socialist 
movement. It will elaborate the intense relevance of the program of 
world socialist revolution, amid a global crisis of capitalism and the 
emergence of international struggles by the working class, exemplified 
by the current upheavals against police violence.

The lecturer will be Cheryl Crisp, a long-standing member of the 
Trotskyist movement. Crisp, who has played a leading role in the SEP and 
its predecessor organisation since 1972 is the assistant 
national-secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia).

The event will be held on Zoom at 7 p.m. (Australian Eastern Standard 
Time). Time conversions are available here 
<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=The+Left+Opposition%27s+struggle+against+Stalinism&iso=20200609T19&p1=240&ah=1&am=30>. 
To participate, download <https://zoom.us/download> the app or join on a 
web browser, and click on this link before the lecture begins:

https://zoom.us/j/93986680060

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