Trotsky wrote: "They content themselves with sectarian mutterings against us, and count meanwhile on spontaneous movements."

I find that the relation between Trotsky's group and the decists then has some similar characteristics to the relation between the ICC and the ICT nowadays.

Trotsky accused the decists of parasitism. Smirnov called Trotsky a half-menshevik. Trotsky called Smirnov a left caricature of Stalin. And so on. Meanwhile, we're all for unity but the other side should make the first move.

Dashkovskij tried a proposal for unity, but the Trotskyists refused and furthermore he got blamed by his own fellow decists for making a sacrifice of principles.

However depressing this episode is, perhaps some lessons can be drawn from it nonetheless. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue what those lessons could be though.

Shachtman is correct about the importance of Trotsky's original criterion of workers's control (rather than his later one on nationalized property). Trotsky's argument with the decists is also important. If in 1928 the dictatorship of the proletariat was liquidated and with it the party, if the Thermidor was completed and so reform was impossible, then it's necessary to unfurl the banner of a second, proletarian (political and social) revolution and found a new party on a new foundation. However, the question for Trotsky is not about 'yes or no', but putting forward a political alternative. It is here that no answer is provided by the decists. Take Smirnov. The text 'Several considerations' is almost certainly written by him. Smirnov indeed says that the Thermidor happened and a new party must be founded. But what does he put forward, what is his analysis? He himself admits that he has no idea what we should understand by a new slogan for the dictatorship of the proletariat. And furthermore, Smirnov thinks a peaceful development of the second proletarian revolution is possible, after all, Engels thought the same for socialism in England. This text is at the same time very anti-Trotskyite.

I think Dashkovskij made some good criticisms of Smirnov. To think that the decists could fight Stalinism without the help of the Trotskyists is nuts.

The lack of an international perspective is one of Trotsky's critcisms to the decists (which in the text 'Several considerations' is responded to).

The health of the relationship between the decist group and Trotsky's group would only matter if one held there was a chance of restoring the proletariat's sway. Of course according to marxism socialism was impossible in a single, backward country like Russia. Perhaps it's true that the opposition's insight about this was clouded by their need of a little hope for deliverance of their own exile, imprisonment in the camps and torture, but we should not count their mistake too heavily I think.

To be clear, I was only expressing my own opinion. The decist leader Smirnov thought that the "responsibility of bolsheviks" is to "ruthlessly expose trotskyists". And further;

,,That's why I thought that in the emerging revolutionary movement of the proletariat, they would amount to an opportunistic group, something like former mensheviks. And that's why in a letter about the position of Trotsky, I called him a half-menshevik. I think that I'm not mistaken.

Therefore, assigning oneself the task of association with this tendency is useless and harmful. By the way, as usually happens with opportunistic tendencies, it divides into an infinite number of groups and sub-coteries who, without seeing the possibility neither of coming to an agreement, nor to breaking up, cast their glances to the "Leader", who could give them the overall "guidelines", no matter how unstable the latter are. And when this "orientation" is obtained, then, not daring to openly criticize it each direction begins to reinterpret it differently. Their name "bolshevik-leninists" - sheer hypocrisy: with it they want at least somewhat hide the fact that they are not bolsheviks and not leninists."

It was not every decists who felt this strongly against Trotsky's group (for instance not Dashkovskij, which is why I prefer his view).

Remember that Stalin called Trotsky a 'cinema revolutionary' whose 'permanent revolution' theory was just capitulationist Kautskyism. Trotsky in the text introduced by Shachtman also points out that the early decist leader Ossinsky moved completely to the rightwing. So I think Trotsky has a point that Smirnov looks somewhat like a left version of Stalin (again, not all decists agreed with Smirnov, and they probably would have cringed about his anti-Trotsky language). For Trotskyists reading that ICT text I think it will look like a left charicature of a Stalinist text.

A left charicature of stalinism is not stalinism. It would make no sense indeed to call the decists (or the ICT) stalinist. So what did Trotsky mean? Well the ICT text states:

A valid criticism of Trotskyism has nothing in common with the Stalinist method of unearthing his Menshevik past prior to 1917,

Which is what Smirnov did; he called Trotsky a half-menshevik. But Trotsky avoided a certain kind of anti-Stalinism, which sees Stalinism in every mind-fart or thing you disagree with. Smirnov for instance accuses Trotsky of using the amalgamation method of Stalin, etc. because trotsky said the decists were close to Korsch allegedly (in fact Korsch's wife translated their platform). But I would say that this over-use of the allegation of Stalinism causes it to lose most of its meaning.

Trotsky said somewhere that such extreme anti-Stalinism is Stalinism in reverse.

Yes I got that info from the article on your site. It also says that the decist platform was translated also into French by Reveil Communiste, the group around Pappalardi.

leftcommunism.org

So it was know to the German and Italian left historically, which makes, I woud argue, the 'Russian' decists part of the left communist tradition. It's the somewhat poor knowledge about the decists (not completely unknown of course) which is why I bring them up. If I was a Trotskyist I would dismiss them, instead of taking them serious. If we take them serious, we would see how they cope with having to operate outside of the party after the 15th Congress.

It seems your take is that they should have quit the party on their own way earlier. I'm sure the decists also had debates on this, but as of now I don't have a clear picture what their analysis was.

Another translation which shows a little bit more of the Decists's attitude to both Miasnikov and Trotsky: libcom.org

In Russian there is also a text from a Trotskyist group to the Decists: lib.ru (search for К ТОВАРИЩАМ ГРУППЫ "15" , and you can copy-paste it into an e-translation site). They mostly complain about a lack of efforts from the Decists (especially Smirnov) to work together with them.

I noticed my link to the Trotskyist letter (12 October 1928) was broken, this one is ok: lib.ru

Another thing; I said Trotskyists today would not be interested in the Decists, but the audio of Jean-Jacques Marie's lecture disproves this, because he's a Trotskyist historian. He's not very positive about them, but contrary to what you'd expect, it's because (to put it simply) they were not radical enough in his eyes.

@Cleish, but you know Smirnov made this judgement about Trotskyism already at the time and in much harsher terms (not only did he not need hindsight, he predicted it would happen!). I think Dashkovskij's more cooperative attitude was an exception within the Decists. But they all have a critical position to Trotskyism, though the reasons/objections for that can surprise you when you read for example the ones Smirnov gave. And even Dashkovskij when he responds to Sapronov, fires back at him by claiming that Sapronov holds similar believes to the Trotskyists. Thus we learn at the same more about what "really existing" Trotskyist groups thought then in Russia (as opposed to just focus on Trotsky in exile).

Now about Kronstadt, it's true the Decists in these texts don't condemn the repression but see it in the context of peasant uprisings, etc. But at the time Miasnikov didn't seem to bother about that, because he tried to organise with the Decists (even though all but one were in prison). But if we are consistent we have to condemn Miasnikov as well, namely for trying to collaborate with these people who supported the Kronstadt supression, though he can generously be forgiven because of the desperate situation he was in.

The Decists, like the Trotskyists, had arguments about understanding the process of counter-revolution, though obviously their analysis was distorted by the hope of being able to restore the dictatorship of the proletariat... yes, why not be consistent and see the Octobre revolution carrying the seeds of failure from the start (certainly with Brest-Litovsk peace treaty).

p.s. Trotsky above means a different Smirnov than the Decist Smirnov (there were many Smirnovs). Vladimir Mikhailovich Smirnov didn't capitulate.