Trotskyism and Fascism – P. Lang

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TROTSKYISM AND FASCISM ¹

P. Lang

ONE: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

The reactionary reformist leaders and their press, which have taken the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang under their protection, now have to defend themselves from the anger of the members of their own organizations. For not a single worker, not a single honest, reasonable man, no matter what his political opinions may be, can fail to understand that the real meaning of the action of Messrs. Citrine, Bauer and Co. is not insistence upon any particular form of court procedure, but defense of despicable terrorists, an attempt to secure immunity for the counter-revolutionary miscreants who worked in collaboration with the Gestapo.

More than that. The direct results of this defense of terrorists are already apparent: the chief organizer of these terrorists, the arch-provocateur Trotsky, is taking advantage of the protection afforded him by the secret police as well as by the reactionary leaders of reformism openly to utter threats against the leaders of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government, openly to call for vengeance.

After the verdict of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., can anybody plead ignorance of the significance of these threats uttered by the adventurer who has not only lost the last traces of human dignity but every possible political means of carrying out his threats? Have any of Trotsky’s protectors grounds for saying that they cannot guess by what means this absolutely bankrupt counter-revolutionary counts on wreaking his vengeance upon the great people of the Land of the Soviets? Has he any other means than the help of the Gestapo and terror?

In order to escape from political responsibility for protecting the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists, the reactionary leaders of reformism are pouring slander upon the Soviet court, and they are doing all they can to discredit its verdict. In their cynical insolence they have gone to the lengths of hinting that the honest, proletarian trial of the criminal gang of Trotsky-Zinoviev agents recalled the Leipzig trial staged for the provocateur purpose of throwing upon the Communists the blame for the crimes committed by the Hitler government.

But, while uttering these slanderous hints, the reactionary leaders refuse to say what there is “in common” between the Leipzig trial and the Moscow trial. And this is understandable, for nothing so exposes Trotsky’s protectors as a simple and conscientious comparison of these two trials. The slanderers know this; and that is why, having uttered a crude lie, they try to get out of it in the hope that, as the saying goes: “Throw mud, some of it will stick.”

But this trick won’t work!

The workers must bowl the slanderers out; they must say to them:

Gentlemen, you are throwing ambiguous hints—and because they are ambiguous, they are particularly disgusting—hoping thereby to conceal the shameful part you are playing in protecting despicable murderers. Remember that on September 23, 1933, three years ago, in his first speech at the fascist trial in Leipzig, Comrade Dimitroff changed roles: from an accused he became the menacing accuser of the fascist incendiaries and provocateurs. Please understand that a fair comparison between the honest proletarian trial and the provocateur, fascist trial merely emphasizes the malicious part you are now playing for the purpose of disrupting the united front and of sabotaging proletarian solidarity in helping the Spanish people.

BOTH at the Leipzig trial and the Moscow trial a fight between two worlds was waged. On the one side was the historically condemned—without any right of appeal, Sir Walter Citrine! —world of exploitation and oppression represented by its most reactionary and morally most corrupt elements, fascism. On the other side was the new world of socialism which has opened for humanity a free and joyous life of creativeness.

The profound historical difference and the impassable gulf which divide Moscow from Leipzig are seen first of all in the alignment of the forces which are engaged in a life-and-death struggle—freedom and socialism on the one side, enslavement and fascism on the other.

In Leipzig, the judge’s bench was occupied by fascism—that most ruthless enemy of human progress and civilization, the incarnation of the most savage and unbridled obscurantism. In Leipzig, fascism played the role of judge because it, the most inveterate enemy of the overwhelming majority of the German people, had succeeded in establishing its bloody and barbarous power.

In the prisoner’s dock at the Leipzig trial was Comrade Dimitroff, the great proletarian warrior, though physically tortured in fascist captivity, with the scars inflicted by his manacles still visible on his wrists, an indomitable, merciless and passionate accuser of fascism. He was in the clutches of that most bloodthirsty fascist beast of prey because the working-class of Germany had suffered a temporary, but severe, defeat, because German Social-Democracy had opened the gates to fascism, and the Communist Party was not yet strong enough to lead the masses into the decisive, victorious battle against it.

In Moscow, in the Red capital of all the toilers, the alignment of class forces was entirely different.

In Moscow the judge was socialism, organized as a state in which all forms of exploitation of man by man have already been abolished, a state which, thanks to the self-sacrificing and undeviating struggle of the toilers of the Land of Soviets under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party headed by the great Stalin, has become the most monolithic, strong and powerful state in the world.

In the dock were the agents of the exploiting classes already routed in open battle, dregs which had nothing to support them in the present, and no prospects for the future.

The Leipzig trial, like the burning of the Reichstag itself, was an act of provocateurs. Its object was to throw the blame for the burning of the Reichstag upon the Communists, to shield the real culprits, to create a pretext for releasing a fresh wave of brutal terror against the working-class in order to exterminate the best of the German people.

The Moscow trial was an open act of social defense by the people of the Soviet Union for the purpose of purging the Land of Soviets of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist bandits, who, under the cloak of Marxism and even of Party membership, tried to do the work of the Gestapo.

In Leipzig, cynical liars and provocateurs who feared the most elementary truth worse than a sentence of death upon themselves were on the judge’s bench. In Moscow, similar liars, who more than once have been caught in acts of despicable hypocrisy and deception, were in the prisoners’ dock. It is not surprising, therefore, that the preliminary investigations as well as the court proceedings, even from the standpoint of judicial procedure, were entirely different in Leipzig and in Moscow.

TWO: THE COLLAPSE OF THE LEIPZIG TRIAL—THE CHARGES IN THE PROLETARIAN COURT PROVED

IN LEIPZIG, a fearless proletarian fighter for truth sat in the prisoners’ dock.

“I admit,” said Comrade Dimitroff, hurling his challenge at the judge, “that I am speaking a language that is stern and severe. But my language is frank and sincere… I can say with a clear conscience that in this court, and consequently before the bar of public opinion, I have spoken the truth on all points.”

An unbending revolutionary character, an indomitable proletarian will, steeled in ceaseless class struggle among the toiling masses, were required to secure victory in this struggle for truth at a fascist trial.

All the efforts of the police commissars, of the examining magistrates, of the official fascist lawyers, of the judges, of the gang of perjurers headed by Goering and Goebbels were exerted in order to prevent Comrade Dimitroff from seeing, hearing and speaking, in order to blind him and gag him. He was treated with particular severity in prison; for months he was kept in chains; while he was being searched efforts were made to fasten upon him false documents fabricated by the fascist police. He was completely isolated from the outside world. Not a single political document sent to him by his friends was handed to him, he was not permitted to call witnesses whose truthful evidence would have been dangerous for the provocateurs; attempts were made to force upon him as his counsel a lawyer who was a political agent of the fascist executioners. A whole pack of perjurers—fascist deputies and journalists, police officials and provocateurs like Karvane who, before he became a National-Socialist member of the Reichstag, belonged to the Trotskyist group of Katz in Germany; political spies and criminals, and finally, the most hardened provocateurs in the Hitler government, Goering and Goebbels—were brought against him. During the examination of witnesses, he was prevented from speaking on numerous occasions. During those moments at the trial when the situation became most dangerous for the provocateurs he was removed from the court. He was prevented from putting oral questions and was compelled to submit them in writing in order that the judge might examine them first. Efforts were made to intimidate him by threats of vengeance outside the court by that mad executioner Goering. Even during his final speech, he was interrupted no less than thirty times. He was prevented from quoting articles published in Voelkischer Beobachter, the official organ of the National-Socialist Party. He was not even permitted to read the indictment, which towards the end of the trial actually became a document exposing those who had drafted it as provocateurs. And, finally, he was prevented from finishing his speech in defense and was compelled to formulate his demands to the court in the briefest manner.

But all this did not save the fascist court from the most shameful disgrace and defeat in the history of capitalist justice, for even in their abbreviated form the charges formulated by Comrade Dimitroff at the end of his speech in summing up the trial were a verdict of political death for the fascist regime.

In complete contrast to the farcical trial staged by the fascists, the Soviet court was not interested in anything so much as to ascertain with the greatest possible care the real circumstances of the criminal activities of the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center, particularly of those who had traversed the incredibly long path of disgrace from the counter-revolutionary struggle within the Party to collaboration with the Gestapo.

In their struggle against the Communist Party and against the Soviet government, against the people of the Soviet Union, the Trotskyites and Zinovievites resorted to methods of counter-revolutionary struggle each more criminal than the other. They started with a controversy in the Party with the object of imposing their will upon it. Then they fruitlessly tried to carry their counter-revolutionary agitation among the masses; but the latter cast them aside, and so they finished up with bandit terrorism.

Those of the accused who had been members of the Communist Party could not but tell the court how cynically they had betrayed the confidence of the Party which had repeatedly given them opportunities of abandoning the path of counter-revolutionary struggle against the Soviet government.

Not for one year, but for ten years, first the Party control bodies and then the judicial authorities tried hard to get these people to tell even the most simple, elementary truth about their views, plans and activities. More than once these people uttered hypocritical speeches of repentance, pretended “truthfully” to reveal their past crimes against the Soviet government and promised to stop them once and for all. This false, perfidious and treacherous “truth” was all the more dangerous a weapon in the arsenal of the Trotskyites and Zinovievites for the reason that these despicable terrorists resorted to it not only for the purpose of saving themselves from punishment for crimes they had already committed, but also in order to continue committing their crimes.

“For ten years, if not more,” admitted Kamenev in his final plea before the Supreme Court, “I waged a struggle against the Party, against the government of the Land of Soviets, and against Stalin personally. In this struggle, it seems to me, I utilized every weapon in the political arsenal known to me—open political discussion, attempts to penetrate into factories and works, illegal leaflets, secret printing presses, deception of the Party, the organization of street demonstrations, conspiracy and, finally, terrorism.

“I once studied the history of political movements and I cannot remember any form of political struggle that we did not use during the past ten years. The proletarian revolution allowed us a period of time for our political struggle which no other revolution gave its enemies. The bourgeois revolution of the 18th century gave its enemies weeks and days, and then destroyed them. The proletarian revolution gave us ten years in which to reform and to realize that we were in error. But we did not do that. Three times was I reinstated in the Party. I was recalled from exile merely on the strength of my personal statement. After all the mistakes I had committed, I was entrusted with responsible missions and posts. This is the third time I am facing a proletarian court on the charge of terroristic intentions, designs and actions.” ²

But the Trotskyite and Zinovievite adventurers took advantage of the opportunities the Party afforded them to mend their ways, not in order to ponder over their misdeeds and to abandon their path of crime, but in order to adopt more cunning methods to deceive the vigilance of the Soviet state. They sank lower and lower; they became counter-revolutionary bandits working underground and, placing no limits to their foul designs, established contacts with the Gestapo. Eighteen months after the foul murder of Comrade Sergei Kirov by the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center, however, the hour struck when this diabolical game was completely exposed, and the criminals realized that their lies could no longer save them. Under the weight of irrefutable evidence they began, bit by bit, to tell the truth about their criminal misdeeds. And although they admitted only those facts which they could not possibly deny, the evidence against them was so irrefutable that when the indictment was drawn up the actual picture of the criminal activities of the terrorists became clear.

The task which confronted the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. was to reveal the whole truth to the people; to subject the evidence to the closest scrutiny, to establish with the utmost impartiality the extent to which the various accused were implicated in the crimes, to ascertain the aims and motives which prompted them, and to determine the degree of guilt of each one of them. The whole world knows that the proletarian court fulfilled this task without in any way restricting the accused’s right of defense, without hindering them in any way from contesting the evidence, in giving their own evidence, in making any explanation they cared to make, and in submitting any evidence they cared to bring in refutation of the charges against them.

It is a fact that not one of the requests the accused made to the court was rejected. It is a fact that not a single question put by any of the accused was vetoed by the President of the Court. It is a fact that not a single explanation made by any of the accused, even when it was repeated over and over again, was interrupted by the President of the Court. It is a fact that the accused were not only permitted to quote all the documents in the case, but any known document and fact, even if it was not actually in the case. It is a fact that the accused took full advantage of their rights, freely constructed their speeches in defense, and told the court all they wanted to tell it in the way that they thought best.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the prominent English jurist, D. N. Pritt, who was present at the trial, described what he saw as “truly remarkable”.

“At every stage of the trial,” he wrote, “the judicial atmosphere was completely maintained… And throughout the hearing, when the result was a foregone conclusion, and nothing that was or could be said could do much to lessen the guilt or the complete social worthlessness of the accused, they received the same courteous treatment, the same liberty to intervene at almost any moment and say anything they wanted at length… At no stage did any sign or sound of hostility emerge that might have disconcerted or upset the prisoners…”

Although given every opportunity to refute the charges made against them, all the sixteen accused, in open court, admitted that they were the organizers and members of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist gang, that in its terroristic struggle this gang did not hesitate to resort to the most cynical and sordid methods, that it was this gang that killed Comrade Kirov and prepared a number of terroristic attempts on the lives of Comrade Stalin and his closest comrades.

But, say the defenders and protectors of these terrorists, the charges were based entirely on the bare confessions of the accused! Is this true? No, it is obviously false! It is said in the hope that those who have not read the report of the trial will believe this unsupported statement.

As a matter of fact, the crimes committed by the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang were proved in open court by documents, facts and material evidence. It is precisely for that reason that every one of the accused was compelled to confess. It was impossible for him to persist in his denials any longer; he was exposed by objective clues as well as by the evidence of the rest of the accused.

Take, for example, the confession of Valentine Olberg, who stated that he had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky to commit terroristic acts with the aid of the agents of the Gestapo and that he was assisted in his preparations for these terroristic acts in the Soviet Union by his brother, Paul Olberg, who, in the guise of a specialist, was sent to the U.S.S.R. especially for this purpose by the German secret police. Was the confession of Valentine Olberg merely a “bare” confession or even the result of genuine repentance? No, not in the least. He could not deny that he was preparing to commit terroristic acts because the weapons and explosives with which he had intended to make an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin were discovered. He could not deny his connections with the Gestapo because documents which proved this beyond doubt were discovered.

One of the proofs submitted to the court was a passport made out in the name of a citizen of the Republic of Honduras which was taken from Valentine Olberg when he was searched. Olberg had no connection whatever with the Republic of Honduras; consequently, the passport was obviously a false one. But the passport was issued to Olberg by a person evidently authorized to do so, the Consul-General of the Republic of Honduras in Berlin, Lucas Paradess. When this document fell into the hands of the Soviet investigation authorities Olberg had to explain, first, why this Consul-General took it into his head to transform Olberg into a citizen of the Republic of Honduras, and second, why Lucas Paradess found himself in Prague where this false passport was issued. In answering these questions Olberg could not help revealing the circumstances of his three journeys to Moscow.

It transpired that, having received instructions from Trotsky to prepare for and carry out the murder of Comrade Stalin, Olberg first went to Moscow at the end of March, 1933. But he could not remain in the U.S.S.R. at that time because the false passport he then had was unsuitable. He returned to Prague where, with the aid of his brother, he established contacts with Tukalevsky, an agent of the German secret police, who undertook to arrange the matter for him. In his evidence at the trial Olberg said:

“Then I wrote a letter to Sedov in Paris telling him about the proposal made by the agent of the Gestapo, and asked him to inform me whether L. D. Trotsky would approve of an arrangement with such an agent. After some time, I received a reply sanctioning my actions, that is to say, my understanding with Tukalevsky. Sedov wrote saying that the strictest secrecy was necessary, and that none of the other members of the Trotskyite organization was to be informed about this understanding.” ³

And indeed, as if by magic, the Consul-General of the Republic of Honduras in Berlin, whom Olberg needed, found himself in Prague. And here Olberg, with the aid of Tukalevsky and 13,000 Czechoslovakia Kronen which were paid to this Consul, is transformed into a citizen of the Republic of Honduras. Olberg obtained the money to pay for the passport from Sedov, Trotsky’s son.

The case of the Honduran passport was one of the incidents of the trial which revealed the connection and collaboration between the Trotskyite and Zinovievite bandits with the Gestapo.

Moreover, already exposed as having conducted joint terroristic work with the Gestapo, Valentine Olberg had no reason for concealing the general agreement between the Berlin Trotskyites and the Gestapo to commit acts of terror against the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government.

But the defenders of the Trotskyite provocateurs may ask: Did not Olberg, for some reason or other, invent this story about his false passport? Did not Olberg invent this Tukalevsky or, at all events, his connection with him? Is not the story about the brother, Paul Olberg, an invention? What objective proof is there that the Berlin Trotskyite organization had entered into a pact with the Gestapo?

But these cunning evasions will not help the terrorists.

Tukalevsky is a real, live person. As Olberg stated, he occupied the post of Director of the Slavonic Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. In view of the facts revealed at the Moscow trial the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs has suspended him from this post pending the results of the investigation of this matter. Not only is Olberg’s connection with Tukalevsky proved; it is also proved that Tukalevsky was interested in the terroristic work. One of the exhibits at the trial was Tukalevsky’s visiting card bearing code signs; this card had been sent to Olberg in Stalingrad, but it fell into the hands of the Soviet investigating authorities.

Paul Olberg, who also came to the U.S.S.R. from abroad, was exposed as an agent of the German secret police. While under examination he corroborated the evidence of his brother, the Trotskyist Valentine Olberg, concerning his terroristic work and added:

“Valentine Olberg informed me that an official of the German secret police told him that all persons taking part in preparing and committing terroristic acts would be given refuge in Germany.” ⁴

As for the agreement between the Berlin Trotskyites and the Gestapo, sufficiently convincing proof of this is contained in the fact that, notwithstanding their alleged “revolutionary” prattle, the handful of Trotskyite adventurers in Germany have not been arrested and are living happily under the fascist dictatorship.

Absolutely false also is the assertion of the slanderers that in their confessions in court the members of the terrorist gang “repeated a well-rehearsed role” without troubling to explain to the court the role which each of them played in the common crime. On the contrary, each one of the accused took advantage of all the means of defense in order to minimize his own guilt at the expense of the others; each one of them, and particularly the leaders, tried to hide behind the backs of the others. But in the face of the irrefutable evidence against all the accused this fight among them merely helped to reveal more fully the whole sordid picture of their crimes, and served to strengthen the grounds of the charges made against each one of them. We will quote a few examples.

Smirnov, Trotsky’s closest friend, and the actual organizer and leader of the Trotskyite counter-revolutionary underground organization in the U.S.S.R., tried, at the beginning of the trial, to minimize the actual part he had played in the terroristic activities. Under the weight of irrefutable evidence, however, exposed by facts, he was compelled, toward the end of the trial, to admit his crimes. Smirnov tried to conceal Trotsky’s role as the direct initiator and organizer of the terroristic murders and attempts at assassination; but towards the end of the trial this “Trotsky’s deputy in the Soviet Union”, as the other accused called him, could not help admitting that it was Trotsky who was the initiator.

Smirnov’s starting point in his defense at the trial was his assertion that, having received instructions to adopt terroristic methods of struggle from Trotsky’s son, Sedov, in Berlin, in 1931, he regarded this instruction merely as Sedov’s private opinion which was not obligatory for the Trotskyite counter-revolutionary underground organization in the U.S.S.R. But this evasion was refuted by the other leaders of the Trotskyite terrorist organization, Mrachkovsky and Ter-Vaganyan, who stated that after returning from Berlin in 1931, Smirnov communicated the decision to adopt terror as Trotsky’s instruction. But it is not the fact that Smirnov was once again proved to be lying that is decisive in exposing Trotsky, but the fact that even Smirnov, while defending Trotsky to the very utmost, could not deny that in 1932 he received absolutely definite instructions directly from Trotsky, who demanded that the adoption of terror against the leaders of the Party and the Soviet government be not postponed.

During Smirnov’s examination the following dialogue took place between him and the Public Prosecutor concerning this instruction of Trotsky’s:

Vyshinsky: It can be considered as established that in 1932 you received fresh instructions from Trotsky through Gaven?

Smirnov: Yes.

Vyshinsky: Did these instructions contain direct reference to the necessity of embarking on a terroristic struggle against the leadership of the Party?

Smirnov: Quite true.

Vyshinsky: In the first place, against whom?

Smirnov: No names were mentioned there.

Vyshinsky: But you understood that the terroristic struggle was to begin first against Comrade Stalin?

Smirnov: Yes, I understood it to mean that.

Vyshinsky: And that is what you communicated to your colleagues?

Smirnov: Yes. ⁵

Why was Smirnov, throughout the course of the trial, compelled, step by step, to retreat from his attempt to shield Trotsky? Because he was proved to be lying, not only by the other accused, but also by the witness Safonova, his own wife, between whom and himself, he had to admit, there were no personal grudges. Safonova was a member of the leading center of the Trotskyite organization and was present at the meeting in the autumn of 1931 at which Smirnov reported that in Berlin he had received, through Sedov, instructions to adopt terroristic methods of struggle. In communicating this line Smirnov had emphasized that it originated from Trotsky. In her evidence Safonova said:

“At that same meeting Smirnov informed us that the center had decided to adopt terrorism, and in the first place to commit a terroristic act against Stalin. In 1932 Smirnov received from Trotsky directions brought by Gaven. These directions were a direct confirmation of Trotsky’s instruction on terrorism previously received by Smirnov through Sedov. Smirnov also informed us about these directions. These directions were not only a confirmation of those conveyed through Sedov, but were at the same time instructions on the necessity of hastening the terroristic act against Stalin.” ⁶

The verdict of the court, however, is based on the fact which nobody, not even Smirnov, disputed, namely, that in the autumn of 1932, on the instructions of Trotsky received by Smirnov, the amalgamation took place of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite underground counter-revolutionary groups and that a united center was formed for the purpose of committing individual acts of terror against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet government.

Thus, it was Smirnov’s own evidence, the object of which was to shield Trotsky, that served as the actual corroboration of all the other facts which exposed Trotsky.

Take another incident during the trial, when Zinoviev’s role as head of the gang which agreed to collaborate with the Hitlerites for the purpose of organizing terrorist acts against Comrade Stalin and his comrades-in-arms was being investigated. Zinoviev’s role in this was most strikingly revealed in connection with the collaboration between Nathan Lurye and the German fascist Franz Weitz.

The evidence in the case established that Nathan Lurye, who had been sent to Moscow by Trotsky for the purpose of making an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin, had entered into connection for this purpose with Weitz, a confidential agent of Himmler, then chief of the fascist S.S. Nathan Lurye joined Weitz’s fascist terrorist group, and after Weitz’s departure he became its leader. However, compelled by the evidence to admit these facts, the bandit Nathan Lurye was no longer interested in concealing from the Soviet investigating authorities his conversation on this subject with the other bandit, Moissei Lurye, who was his teacher in Trotskyism while they were still in Berlin. Moissei Lurye, in his turn, sought the advice of the higher authority, Zinoviev. What reply did Zinoviev give to his fellow bandit? He said that since it was a matter of fighting against the Soviet government and of committing terrorist acts against its leader, collaboration with the fascists should not give rise to any disquietude.

This fact is so monstrous that the question arises whether Moissei Lurye did not denounce Zinoviev in order to minimize his own guilt, and whether Zinoviev failed to protest against this denunciation for some reason or other, for example, because he would not be believed even if he did protest against it. But precisely because this doubt might have arisen the whole chain of evidence: Trotsky—Nathan Lurye—Franz Weitz—Moissiei Lurye—Zinoviev—Franz Weitz, was carefully investigated by the court at every link, particularly the last link, Zinoviev—Franz Weitz. Moissiei Lurye’s statement about his conversation with Zinoviev concerning Weitz was most critically and all-sidedly examined. And what was the result?

Both Zinoviev and Lurye confirmed that the question of the permissibility of joint terroristic work with Weitz was really discussed by them. Both confirmed that during their conversation one of them said that “Lassalle considered it possible to utilize Bismarck in the interests of the revolution.” But they did not merely repeat each other’s words. No, they were fighting against each other. Each one related this conversation in his own way, to suit his own interests, and to damage those of the other.

Moissiei Lurye’s version of the conversation was that Zinoviev “drew the parallel of Bismarck and Lassalle” in order to prove that collaboration with the fascist-terrorists was permissible and that he, Lurye, merely submitted to Zinoviev’s authority. Zinoviev stated, however, that it was Moissiei Lurye who referred to Lassalle and that he, Zinoviev, challenged this analysis and expressed opposition to Nathan Lurye’s membership in the fascist terrorist organization. But this dispute between the “teacher” Zinoviev and his “pupil” Lurye leaves no doubt whatever that a conversation about collaboration with Himmler’s agents did really take place between them. And Zinoviev admitted that this conversation took place, not because he was prepared to admit any sort of denunciation. No, he combatted Moissiei Lurye’s version and tried to throw the blame upon him. The only reason that he did not entirely deny that this conversation took place was because he could not possibly do so.

Thus, the dispute between Zinoviev and M. Lurye regarding their respective points of view during their conversation about Franz Weitz merely confirms the fact that this conversation actually took place. And even if we were to believe the version which Zinoviev advanced in his own justification, although there are no grounds for believing it, it remains beyond doubt: (1) that there was collaboration between Nathan Lurye and the Hitlerite

Weitz in organizing terroristic acts; (2) that Zinoviev knew about this collaboration; (3) that this collaboration did not cease after the conversation between Zinoviev and Moissie Lurye; (4) that Nathan Lurye, who through the medium of Franz Weitz entered the service of Himmler, acted with the consent of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center, which consent was communicated to him by Moissie Lurye.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” such, according to the admission of the accused, was the “theoretical” formula put into circulation by the leaders of this gang for the purpose of removing all doubts in the minds of the actual assassins about the permissibility of working jointly with the Gestapo.

Incidentally, these assassins did not very much feel the need for “theoretical” justification. Even before the exhortations of scoundrels like Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, they were quite prepared to merge themselves with the fascist terrorists. In his evidence Nathan Lurye stated:

“I arrived at the conclusion that since the Trotskyites had adopted the method of fighting with arms this had its logic, that is to say, that if a fascist offered his services for the purposes of terrorism, those services should be made use of. I continued my connections with Franz Weitz and worked under his practical guidance.”

Thus, in Leipzig, in an atmosphere of fierce intimidation of the fascist court, Comrade Dimitroff forced the charge fabricated against him by the Hitler government against the wall. He exposed the real picture of the burning of the Reichstag. Before the whole of the civilized world, he put fascism in the dock. He put the brand of criminals and provocateurs on the foreheads of the fascist leaders.

In Moscow, however, where all the accused were not only given full guarantees of the formal right of defense, but were given every opportunity of actually exercising this right, the guilt of all the accused of heinous crimes committed against the Soviet people, and against the international proletariat, was proved up to the hilt.

Instigated by Trotsky, the Trotsky-Zinoviev center, consisting of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Evdokimov, Bakayev, Mrachkovsky and Ter-Vaganyan, decided to kill Comrade Kirov. For this purpose, it organized a number of terrorist groups. In order to expedite the murder and to check up the preparation made for it, Kamenev went to Leningrad in June, 1934, and Bakayev went in November, 1934. Zinoviev did everything he could to hasten Nikolayev’s treacherous shot, declaring that “we are losing precious days”. By the hand of L. Nikolayev, the Trotskyite and Zinovievite scoundrels foully murdered Comrade Kirov by a treacherous shot in the back. Simultaneously, these despicable murderers also prepared to commit a number of terroristic acts against Comrade Stalin and other leaders of the Soviet government and the C.P.S.U. Not satisfied with the criminal work of the terrorists in the U.S.S.R. Trotsky, during the period of 1932-1936, systematically, in collaboration with the fascists, sent to the U.S.S.R. specially selected, downright scoundrels such as Berman-Yurin, Fritz David, Nathan Lurye, Moissei Lurye and Olberg who, while on Soviet territory, operated in close alliance with the agents of the bloody German S.S. and directed all their efforts in preparation to murder Comrade Stalin. Twice the scoundrels Bakayev, Reingold and Dreitzer, on the instructions of their chiefs, tried to kill Comrade Stalin. The Trotskyite Nathan Lurye, in collaboration with the terrorist organization of Franz Weitz, prepared in Moscow, in the period of 1932-33, attempts on the lives of Comrades Stalin, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Orjonikidze. In 1934, while in Chelyabinsk, Nathan Lurye tried to make an attempt on the lives of Comrades Kaganovich and Orjonikidze; and in 1936, on the instructions of the other assassin, Moissei Lurye, he tried to murder Comrade Zhdanov. In collaboration with the Pilsudskytte and Hitlerite organizations operating in the Ukraine, preparations were made for attempts on the lives of Comrades Kossior and Postyshev.

In all these nefarious crimes against the Soviet people, and against the whole of humanity, the leading, political and organizational role was played by the arch-provocateur Trotsky, who, it is to be regretted, was not in the prisoners’ dock.

THREE: SOCIALISM COMES OUT OPENLY—THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION HIDES ITS FACE.

AT THE Leipzig trial, Comrade Dimitroff stood forth, as even our class enemies admitted, as “the incarnation of the program of the Communist International”. Truly Leninist-Stalinist mettle and firm and unshakable principles were required in order, in a fearless struggle at a fascist trial, to break through the barbed wire of cynical arbitrariness, and to transform the prisoners’ dock into a revolutionary tribune from which to proclaim the principles and tactics of Communism to the whole world.

Only by heroic preparedness to make any sacrifice for the triumph of Communism, and by the Bolshevik ability to utilize the slightest illegal as well as legal possibilities, was it possible, over the head of the executioners’ court, to proclaim the program of the Communist International in such a way that it reached not only the numerically small Communist vanguard as a prospect for the future, but the broad masses of the workers who eagerly grasped at every word uttered by Comrade Dimitroff as an inspiring and mighty call for the mobilization of all forces for the fight against fascism today.

But what program could the agents of the interests of the routed exploiting classes in the Soviet Union proclaim from the prisoners’ dock at the Moscow trial?

The Trotsky-Zinoviev bandits raised their criminal hands against Comrade Stalin because he is the great leader and organizer of the victories of socialism, because for the whole of mankind he is the symbol of socialism which is victorious on one-sixth of the globe. They killed Comrade Kirov, the passionate fighter in the cause of the emancipation of the working-class, in the cause of socialism. They resorted to the most despicable methods of fighting against Comrade Stalin and his closest comrades because the victories of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R., the cultural and economic growth of the land of social-

ism, the joy and happiness of the Soviet people, roused in them the malicious passion to avenge themselves on the Soviet people for their own shameful bankruptcy.

Placing all their hopes on the failure of socialist construction, the gang of Trotskyites and Zinovievites could only have a program which would lead to the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. This, in fact, was their program of home politics. Realizing that they were absolutely impotent to overthrow the Soviet power, the mad Trotsky-Zinoviev dogs banked on the defeat of the Soviet Union in the event of an attack upon it by the fascist states. Counter-revolutionary defeatism—such was their program in foreign politics.

Summing up his counter-revolutionary struggle against the Soviet people and against socialism, Evdokimov, in his last plea, stated:

“Fascism openly and frankly inscribed on its banner: ‘Death to Communism’. On our lips we had all the time ‘Long live Communism’, whereas by our deeds we were fighting socialism which was victorious in the U.S.S.R. In words— ‘Long live the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’. In deeds—preparation for the assassination of the members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party, one of whom we did kill. In words— ‘Down with Imperialism’, in deeds—banking on the defeat of the U.S.S.R. in the struggle against international imperialism.” ⁷

Another of the accused, Reingold, relating the aim of the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang and of its collaboration with the Gestapo, ended his speech with the following words:

“I and the whole of the terrorist Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization sitting here have been exposed by this trial as the shock troop, as a White-Guard, fascist shock troop, of the international counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.” ⁸

Even Kamenev, in his final plea, could no longer conceal the actual program of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center. He concluded his speech with the following words:

“Thus, we served fascism, thus we organized counter-revolution against socialism; prepared, paved the way for the interventionists. Such was the path we took, and such was the pit of contemptible treachery and all that is loathsome into which we have fallen.” ⁹

This is the platform upon which the Trotskyite-Zinovievite and the government at the present time. Stalin combines in himself all the strength and firmness of the present Party leadership. Therefore, Stalin must be put out of the way in the first place. Kamenev enlarged on this theory and said that the former methods of fighting, namely, attempts to win the masses, combinations with the leaders of the Rightists, and banking on economic difficulties, have failed. That is why the only method of struggle available is terroristic acts against Stalin and his closest comrades-in-arms, Kirov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Orjonikidze, Postyshev, Kossior, and the others.” ¹⁰

Particularly furious activity in organizing terroristic acts against Comrade Stalin and his comrades was organized abroad by the scoundrel Trotsky. The following are a few facts established at the trial:

The summer of 1931. Smirnov went to Berlin and, as we have seen above, brought back an instruction from Trotsky, received through his son, Sedov, couched in the following words: “Until we put Stalin out of the way, we shall not be able to come back to power.” In fulfillment of his instruction Trotsky’s center instructed Mrachkovsky and Dreitzer to choose “reliable” people to form terrorist groups. In his evidence Mrachkovsky said: “That period, 1931 and 1932, was spent in inducing and preparing people to commit terroristic acts.” ¹¹

Beginning of 1932. Nathan Lurye received from Trotsky, through Moissei Lurye, instructions to go to the U.S.S.R. and there to carry on terroristic work. In his evidence at the trial Nathan Lurye said: “This instruction did not come as a surprise to me. It logically followed from all the preceding work.” ¹² And Mrachkovsky said: “For this purpose I recruited Yatsek and Yudin. Dreitzer recruited another group of people including Schmidt, Kuzmichev and some others whom I don’t remember.” ¹³

The summer of 1932. Trotsky asked Holtzmann, a representative of the Trotskyist terrorist center who had gone from Moscow to Berlin for instructions, to visit him in Copenhagen. There Trotsky asked Holtzmann to convey the categorical demand that individual terror against the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government be made the principal method of the Trotskyite struggle.

Autumn, 1932. Receiving from Smirnov a request to express

an opinion on the expediency of amalgamating with the Zinovievites, Trotsky replied through his agent Gaven that such an amalgamation must without fail have for its basis the employment of terror, and he emphasized that it was necessary in the first place to kill Stalin, Voroshilov and Kirov.

End of November, 1932. The Berlin Trotskyite, Berman-Yurin, after negotiations with Sedov in Berlin, was called to Copenhagen, was met at the station by Grishevich and taken to meet Trotsky. Dealing with this meeting with Trotsky in his evidence at the trial, Berman-Yurin stated:

“Trotsky said: The principal question is the question of Stalin. Stalin must be physically destroyed. He said that other methods of struggle were now ineffective.” ¹⁴

After Berman-Yurin had agreed to go to the U.S.S.R. for terroristic purposes, Trotsky gave him detailed instructions concerning the circumstances under which he considered it necessary to kill Comrade Stalin.

Autumn, 1932. At about the same time, Trotsky invited Fritz David to meet him in Copenhagen. In his evidence on the nature of the conversation, he had with Trotsky at that time, Fritz David stated that Trotsky had said that the only way by which the Trotskyites could come into power in the U.S.S.R. was the physical destruction of Stalin.

One of the prospects that Trotsky held out was to take a defeatist attitude in the event of war, but he stressed the point that “there is a closer prospect of the Trotskyites coming to power—the prospect of the physical removal of Stalin”. ¹⁵

In accordance with Trotsky’s instructions, Fritz David went to Moscow in March, 1933, and established contact with Berman-Yurin in conjunction with whom he made preparations to kill Comrade Stalin at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. After the Seventh Congress messengers arrived from Sedov, Trotsky’s son, on two occasions and, in Sedov’s name, accused the terrorists of being insufficiently active and urged them to expedite the terroristic acts in accordance with Trotsky’s instructions.

End of March, 1933. On Trotsky’s instructions, Sedov sent Valentine Olberg to the Soviet Union for the purpose of organizing terroristic acts. In his evidence at the trial Olberg said on this point:

“The first time Sedov spoke to me about my journey was after Trotsky’s message in connection with Trotsky’s being deprived of citizenship of the U.S.S.R. In this message Trotsky developed the idea that it was necessary to assassinate Stalin. This idea was expressed in the following words: ‘Stalin must be removed’.” ¹⁶

Before leaving for the Soviet Union, Olberg intended to visit Trotsky in Copenhagen together with Sedov. This journey did not take place, but Sedov’s wife, Suzanna, was sent to Copenhagen instead. On her return she brought a letter from Trotsky addressed to Sedov in which Trotsky gave his consent to Olberg’s journey to the U.S.S.R. and expressed the hope that Olberg would succeed in carrying out his mission. Sedov showed this letter to Olberg.

March, 1933. At about the same time, M. Lurye received an instruction from Trotsky through Ruth Fischer and Maslov to go to Moscow and to convey to Zinoviev Trotsky’s instruction on the necessity of expediting the organization of terroristic acts, primarily against Stalin.

October, 1934. Dreitzer’s sister brought him from Warsaw a German cinema magazine given to her for Dreitzer by an agent of Sedov. In this magazine Dreitzer had no difficulty in finding a message in Trotsky’s own handwriting, written in invisible ink—this method of communication had been arranged with Sedov in Berlin beforehand. The message was an instruction immediately to prepare for and carry out terroristic acts against Stalin and Voroshilov. Dreitzer immediately passed this message on to Marchkovsky. At the trial Marchkovsky admitted that in December, 1934, while in Kazakhstan, he received from Dreitzer Trotsky’s message written in invisible ink, couched approximately in the following terms:

“Dear friend, the task that confronts us today is to accelerate the assassination of Stalin and Voroshilov. In the event of war, it is necessary to adopt a defeatist position and take advantage of the confusion. Nuclei must be organized in the Red Army.” ¹⁷

The latter was signed “Starik” (old man).

Marchkovsky emphasized that he knew Trotsky’s handwriting very well and had not the slightest doubt that the letter had actually been written by Trotsky.

The whole of the work of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite gang in the Soviet Union and abroad, all its attention and all its efforts were concentrated on “killing . . . killing as quickly as possible”. Terror was everything, all the rest was mere scribbling, repentance, speeches, declarations—all camouflage.

“Remove Stalin” is the slogan which Trotsky hurls forth openly, in the press, considering himself safe beyond the reach of Soviet justice. “Heads are peculiar in that they do not grow on again”, ¹⁸ is the aphorism which the scoundrel Kamenov, surrounded by his gang, utters in response to Trotsky’s call for the murder of Comrade Stalin. The more socialism flourishes in the Soviet Union, the more furious becomes the rage of the despicable terrorists against the Soviet government and the Soviet people, the more desperate are the attempts of the Trotskyite fascist murderers to strike their blow against the great leader of the people, Stalin, against his comrades-in-arms, against the Central Committee of the Leninist-Stalinist Party. Thus, they aimed at the very existence of the Soviet state, at the life of the Soviet people, at the fate of socialism in the Land of Soviets and throughout the world.

FOUR: INDIVIDUAL TERROR—THE WEAPON OF FASCISM

WHILE in the fascist dungeon, Comrade Dimitroff, smashing Hitler’s provocative charge against the Communist Party of Germany, loudly and categorically expressed the Communists’ opposition to individual terror. In his very first written statement to the police authorities, and later, in his first speech at the trial he, as a follower of the teachings of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, declared himself to be emphatically opposed to individual terror and putschist adventures. Such tactics are incompatible with the fundamental Communist principles and methods of class struggle, with the economic and political mass struggle; they merely injure the movement for the emancipation of the proletariat and the cause of Communism.

At the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, Comrade Dimitroff, with all the ardor of a fighter for Communism, attacked all those, and primarily the German fascists, who resort to individual terror as a political weapon for the achievement of their designs against the people.

The Trotsky-Zinoviev gang, however, smashed to atoms in the open class struggle, and standing no chance whatever of extricating itself from its counter-revolutionary underground, in its desperation and hatred clutched at the most despicable method of struggle against the Soviet government and the leaders of the Communist Party, the method of political assassination.

What arguments did the contemptible chiefs of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc put before their henchmen in support of the necessity of resorting to individual terror? This question was answered by the accused Reingold, who, in his evidence, said the following:

and the government at the present time. Stalin combines in himself all the strength and firmness of the present Party leadership. Therefore, Stalin must be put out of the way in the first place. Kamenev enlarged on this theory and said that the former methods of fighting, namely, attempts to win the masses, combinations with the leaders of the Rightists, and banking on economic difficulties, have failed. That is why the only method of struggle available is terroristic acts against Stalin and his closest comrades-in-arms, Kirov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Orjonikidze, Postyshev, Kossior, and the others.” ¹⁹

Beginning of 1932. Nathan Lurye received from Trotsky, through Moissei Lurye, instructions to go to the U.S.S.R. and there to carry on terroristic work. In his evidence at the trial Nathan Lurye said: “This instruction did not come as a surprise to me. It logically followed from all the preceding work.” ²¹ And Mrachkovsky said: “For this purpose I recruited Yatsek and Yudin. Dreitzer recruited another group of people including Schmidt, Kuzmichev and some others whom I don’t remember.” ²²

The summer of 1932. Trotsky asked Holtmann, a representative of the Trotskyist terrorist center who had gone from Moscow to Berlin for instructions, to visit him in Copenhagen. There Trotsky asked Holtmann to convey the categorical demand that individual terror against the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government be made the principal method of the Trotskyite struggle.

Autumn, 1932. Receiving from Smirnov a request to express

an opinion on the expediency of amalgamating with the Zinovievites, Trotsky replied through his agent Guven that such an amalgamation must without fail have for its basis the employment of terror, and he emphasized that it was necessary in the first place to kill Stalin, Voroshilov and Kirov.

“Trotsky said: The principal question is the question of Stalin. Stalin must be physically destroyed. He said that other methods of struggle were now ineffective.” ²³

October, 1934. Dreitzer’s sister brought him from Warsaw a German cinema magazine given to her for Dreitzer by an agent of Sedov. In this magazine Dreitzer had no difficulty in finding a message in Trotsky’s own handwriting, written in invisible ink —this method of communication had been arranged with Sedov in Berlin beforehand. The message was an instruction immediately to prepare for and carry out terroristic acts against Stalin and Voroshilov. Dreitzer immediately passed this message on to Mrachkovsky. At the trial Mrachkovsky admitted that in December, 1934, while in Kazakhstan, he received from Dreitzer Trotsky’s message written in invisible ink, couched approximately in the following terms:

The latter was signed “Starik” (old man). Mrachkovsky emphasized that he knew Trotsky’s handwriting

very well and had not the slightest doubt that the letter had actually been written by Trotsky.

“Remove Stalin” is the slogan which Trotsky hurls forth openly, in the press, considering himself safe beyond the reach of Soviet justice. “Heads are peculiar in that they do not grow on again”, ²⁷ is the aphorism which the scoundrel Kamenev, surrounded by his gang, utters in response to Trotsky’s call for the murder of Comrade Stalin. The more socialism flourishes in the Soviet Union, the more furious becomes the rage of the despicable terrorists against the Soviet government and the Soviet people, the more desperate are the attempts of the Trotskyite fascist murderers to strike their blow against the great leader of the people, Stalin, against his comrades-in-arms, against the Central Committee of the Leninist-Stalinist Party. Thus, they aimed at the very existence of the Soviet state, at the life of the Soviet people, at the fate of socialism in the Land of Soviets and throughout the world.

FIVE: THE HEROISM OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PROLETARIAT AND THE SERVILITY TO FASCISM OF TROTSKY AND COMPANY

A great historical moral victory over the powers of darkness and reaction only because throughout his struggle he showed how to combine Leninist-Stalinist principle with personal courage and fearlessness. The heroic behavior of Comrade Dimitroff, the moral elevation of every one of his pronouncements, compelled not only the advanced sections of the workers to watch his fearless struggle with great intensity, but even those who mistrusted and were prejudiced against the Communists. As Comrade Dimitroff has pointed out more than once, fearlessness in the face of death is not a personal quality, but the quality of the revolutionary proletariat, the quality of every real Communist. This quality is developed and molded in ceaseless work among the masses, in constantly overcoming the difficulties and dangers of the everyday struggle.

His example roused in the masses determination to fight against the bitterest enemy of the workers, against fascism. All over the world a powerful mass movement arose in support of Dimitroff. And into this movement was drawn all that is honest in international public opinion. This international solidarity displayed itself in the most varied and in increasingly emphatic forms. It became a really great force directed against the fascist incendiaries who set fire to the Reichstag. The Leipzig trial was transformed from an anti-Communist trial into a great anti-fascist demonstration and a fiasco for fascism.

Hitler fascism found itself hopelessly isolated all over the world. The mask was torn from the faces of the incendiaries. They were surrounded by universal hatred and contempt. Fascism stood in danger of this wave of universal anger spreading to Germany and sweeping away its demographic influence even among its own

Brown Shirts. Hitler could do nothing else but release and deport the prisoners of Leipzig.

The fascist murderers, insolent provocateurs and incorrigible criminals in the prisoners’ dock in the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. displayed a depth of moral degradation that is rarely met with even in purely criminal cases. The Trotsky-Zinoviev gang of malicious saboteurs of socialist construction and enemies of socialism, who hated the people of the Soviet Union and feared it, strove to seize power by means of terroristic assassination and resorted to the most subtle and shameful methods of provocation, camouflage and deception adopted by the fascist secret police. They did all they possibly could to deceive the Bolshevik Party, to deceive the organs of the government, to deceive the people of the Soviet Union, and to deceive all honest people. Even their relations among themselves were based on mutual deception and the readiness of the chiefs to betray their subordinates at any moment.

“Who will believe a single word of ours?” asks Evdokimov in opening his last plea. “Who will believe us, who played so detestable a comedy at the fresh grave of Kirov whom we had killed? Who will believe us, who only by accident, not through any fault of our own, did not become the assassins of Stalin and other leaders of the people? Who will believe us, who are facing the court as a counter-revolutionary gang of bandits, as allies of fascism, of the Gestapo? Did the heart of even a single one of us, who were convicted in last year’s trial of the Zinovievites in Leningrad, shudder at the thought of our accomplices remaining at liberty, knowing as we did, although in prison, that any day, any hour, another dastardly shot might be fired? Not one of us did what he should have done had we been bound by the thinnest of threads to the cause of the revolution.” ²⁸

The diabolical cunning and base deception by which the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang succeeded, happily only for a time, in removing the traces of their complicity in the foul murder of Comrade Kirov are characteristic of the whole system of duplicity and provocation which for a period of many years Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their henchmen pursued against the building of socialism, against the Bolshevik Party and against the Soviet government.

SIX: THE FIGHT OF TROTSKY AND COMPANY AGAINST LENIN IN THE PARTY

FOR a period of fifteen years before the November Revolution, Trotsky, as a confirmed Menshevik, fought against Lenin’s party and against Comrade Lenin under the mask of “Left” phrases and unrestrained demagogy. As far back as 1911 Lenin deservedly nicknamed Trotsky “Yudishka-Trotsky” ²⁹ and stated that Trotsky was behaving like “a despicable careerist and factionalist”. Just before the November Revolution, Trotsky, being a leader without an army, was compelled to join the Bolsheviks. He painted his Menshevik skin with Bolshevik colors and concealed his irreconcilable disagreements with Lenin on the most important problems of the proletarian revolution, particularly on the central problem of the revolution, the possibility of building socialism in the Land of Soviets. But even after he joined the Bolshevik Party, he always remained an alien element in its ranks.

As for Zinoviev and Kamenev, they, as far back as January, 1910, betrayed Lenin by demanding that the newspaper Proletarii, which Lenin edited, cease publication to please Trotsky and the Mensheviks. In 1916 Zinoviev revealed his duplicity by entering into negotiations, behind Lenin’s back, with a semi-Anarchist group with a view to collaboration. In 1914 Kamenev was arrested together with the Bolshevik deputies of the Duma. At the trial before a tsarist court the Bolshevik Duma deputies staunchly adhered to their principles, but Kamenev betrayed the confidence of the Party by pleading that his position in regard to the imperialist war was the same as that of the pro-war Mensheviks. While he was in Siberia the news came of the abdication of the tsar and the transmission of the crown to the Grand Duke Michael. Kamenev, together with the capitalist merchants of Siberia, sent a telegram to the Grand Duke Michael, congratulating him on his succession to the throne.

On the eve of the great November Revolution Zinoviev and Kamenev, behind the back of the Party, published a statement in the semi-Menshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn, protesting against the decision of the Central Committee of the Party to start the insurrection, thus betraying the plan for the November insurrection to the class enemy. Lenin at that time referred to the action of Zinoviev and Kamenev as “infinite baseness, downright treachery”. And after the November Revolution Kamenev and Zinoviev in negotiations with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries agreed to the latter’s proposal to remove Lenin from the leadership of the Soviet government and to put the Right Socialist-Revolutionary, Avksentiev, in his place.

Trying in every way to exaggerate and misinterpret the role which Trotsky and Zinoviev played in the revolution in the past, the defenders of these exposed terrorists ask: Why then, if Kamenev and Zinoviev were proved guilty of betraying the Party in the interests of the bourgeoisie, were they appointed to responsible posts? The answer is: For the same reason that Trotsky, who had fought against the Party for many years, was taken into the Party in 1917. The Party believed the promises and assurances of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev that they would strive to atone for their sins and crimes against the revolution by loyally fighting in the cause of the working-class. The Party could never suspect that these people who claimed to be Marxists could sink to the depths of baseness and treachery they actually sank to.

Even while Lenin was still alive these people broke their promises in one form or another. But when, during the transition from the period of restoration to the period of reconstruction of Soviet economy, the working-class was confronted with the task of overcoming the enormous difficulties of socialist construction, the Trotskyites and Zinovievites tried to take advantage of the death of Lenin in order to seize the leadership of the Party and of the country. They tried to foist upon the Soviet Union the policy of capitulation to capitalism. They exerted every effort to compel the Party to renounce Leninism and adopt Trotskyism. This they did, not openly, but by pretending to be “loyal disciples

of Lenin”, and by juggling with distorted passages from his works. Thus, Trotskyism became the center of attraction for all the remnants of the defeated opposition factions within the Bolshevik Party, for all the degenerates and petty-bourgeois adventurers who had not yet been combed out of the Party. There arose what the late Henri Barbusse aptly called “something in the nature of a deviation trust”.

Even while they were still an opposition faction within the Bolshevik Party the Trotsky-Zinoviev adventurers, notwithstanding their pseudo-radical phrases, earned the praise and approval of the enemies of the Soviet Union, of the Menshevik and White-Guard émigrés. This is not surprising, for by their nefarious work the Trotskyites and Zinovievites released the counter-revolutionary forces that were still considerable in the country at that time; they strove to disrupt the Bolshevik Party and to discredit its central bodies and leaders. The Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition furnished the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie with arguments against Bolshevism by their assertion that it was impossible to build socialism in the U.S.S.R., that the degeneration of the Bolsheviks was inevitable, etc. By organizing anti-Soviet demonstrations in Moscow and Leningrad in 1927, the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition placed a tactical weapon in the hands of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie in the U.S.S.R. in their fight against the Soviet government. They also placed an organizational weapon in the hands of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie by setting up their own anti-Bolshevik, underground group.

At the time of the Fifteenth Congress of the Communist Party, the Trotskyist opposition faction within the Party had obviously grown into open counter-revolution. After a long and determined struggle under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, Trotskyism was utterly defeated and the Bolshevik Party flung the Trotskyists out of its ranks. The rout of Trotskyism removed from the path of socialist construction the hotbed of decay and disbelief; it imbued the ranks of the working-class with new strength and increased the determination of all the builders of socialism to overcome all difficulties.

Even while it was an opposition faction within the Party, the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc never dared face the Party and the working-class openly. Being themselves a bloc of degenerates who had lost all contact with the working-class and who were disrupting the work of socialist construction, the Trotskyites and Zinovievites slanderously shouted about the “degeneration of the Leninist Party”, “Thermidor”, etc. Denying that it was possible to build socialism in the Soviet Union, and urging a policy that would have meant the restoration of capitalism and surrender to the bourgeoisie, the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition came out in the guise of fighters for the victory of socialism simultaneously in all capitalist countries. Basing their calculations for the overthrow of the Party leadership on the defeat of the U.S.S.R. in a war with the capitalist countries (the so-called “Clemenceau thesis” advanced by Trotsky), the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc came out in the guise of champions of world proletarian revolution.

The victory of socialism, the construction in the main of classless, socialist society in the U.S.S.R. removed the last remnants of the soil on which deviations and opposition groups could arise within the Bolshevik Party. It is not surprising, therefore, that the new bloc formed in 1932 on the basis of the employment of terror against the Soviet leaders was not in any way an opposition group within the Party, even though several members of this gang held Party membership cards under false pretenses. But these pseudo-members of the Party differed in no way from any White Guard who had managed to steal a Party membership card and thus claim to be a member of the Party. The lower the Trotsky-Zinoviev counter-revolutionaries sank politically, the more subtle and atrocious became the methods of duplicity and provocation by means of which they strove to deceive the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet government and the international proletariat.

SEVEN: DUPLICITY—A CLOAK FOR TERRORISM

THE scene of treachery which was unfolded at the Moscow trial exceeds all that has been known hitherto in the history of provocateur work. Camouflage was the principal method adopted by the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists in their criminal work. They know that to the extent that the mask was torn from their faces they lost the particular value which fascism and international counter-revolution attached to them.

Zinoviev and Kamenev and their henchmen did not try to get into the Bolshevik Party by every possible means merely for careerist purposes. No, they crawled into the Bolshevik ranks in order, by shielding themselves behind their Party membership cards, to facilitate the technical realization of their terroristic plans. Trotsky tried to keep in the ranks of the working-class movement by means of his outrageous demagogy because this was the only way by which he could fulfill his function as the vanguard of the international counter-revolution.

In the summer of 1932, with the formation of the terroristic center, the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang adopted the terroristic assassination of the leaders of the Communist Party and of the Soviet government as their principal weapon in their fight against the people of the Soviet Union. All the efforts of these counter-revolutionary scoundrels were concentrated on the organization of the murder of Comrade Stalin. But in the autumn of 1932 Zinoviev and Kamenev, once again exposed as double-dealers, were expelled from the Party and the gang was compelled for a time to suspend its terroristic activities. Giving evidence at the trial, Reingold said:

“There was an interruption in our terroristic activities between the autumn of 1932 and the summer of 1933 caused by the fact that Zinoviev and Kamenev were compromised in connection with the Ryutin case. In connection with that, in the beginning of 1933, at one of the conferences held in the apartment of Bogdan, Zinoviev’s former private secretary. Evdokimov passed on the instruction in the name of the united center to suspend terroristic work until Zinoviev and Kamenev had returned from exile, until they had declared their repentance, were reinstated in the Party and had gained a certain amount of confidence… Zinoviev and Kamenev insisted upon every advantage being taken of legal possibilities for the purpose of ‘crawling on the belly into the Party’—this was Zinoviev’s favorite expression—and of winning the confidence of the Party, particularly of Stalin. After this confidence had been restored, strictly secret terroristic work was to be carried on parallel with open work.” ³⁰

This time Zinoviev and Kamenev once again succeeded in carrying out their treacherous plan of “crawling on the belly into the Party” in order to continue their work of organizing attempts on the lives of its leader and teacher, the great Stalin, and his loyal comrades-in-arms.

In May, 1933, Zinoviev sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Party in which he not only promised to renounce all his past mistakes, but hypocritically vowed his loyalty to socialism and to the Party. He concluded the letter with the following words:

“I ask you to believe that I am speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. I ask you to restore me to the ranks of the Party and to give me an opportunity of working for the common cause. I give my word as a revolutionary that I will be the most devoted member of the Party, and will do all I possibly can at least to some extent to atone for my guilt before the Party and its Central Committee.” ³¹

Kamenev sent a letter couched in similar terms. Both leaders of the terrorist gang succeeded in returning to the Party and in coming back to Moscow. But they resumed their terroristic work with renewed energy. On this point Zinoviev said the following at the trial:

“After our return from exile the first steps we took were directed toward liquidating, if one may so express it, the breakdown of our terroristic activities, the fiasco of the conspirators, and toward restoring confidence in order to be able to continue our terroristic activities later on. We continued our tactics, which represented a combination of ever subtler forms of perfidious double-dealing, with the preparation of the conspiracy.” ³²

One of the central moves in the game of duplicity played by Zinoviev and Kamenev during the whole period of their terroristic activities was to vow and to give assurances that they had broken off relations with Trotsky and to pour curses on his head. Trotsky, in his turn, in his writings roundly abused Kamenev and Zinoviev for their “cowardly surrender to the Stalin leadership”. In this way he tried to create the impression that he believed the vows of renunciation of his close collaborators in terroristic work. Thus, at both ends, the leaders of this gang of assassins did all they could to prevent their joint criminal efforts from being exposed. When, in the autumn of 1933, Zinoviev and Kamenev began to suspect that their connection with Trotsky was becoming revealed, they decided to expedite the fulfillment of their terroristic plan. This is what Kamenev said in his evidence at the trial:

“This pressing forward was caused by two circumstances: first, the collapse of the policy of double-dealing pursued by Zinoviev, who was removed from the editorial board of the Bolshevik. This made us fear that information about our connection with Trotsky might have reached the Party leadership. Secondly, the Trotskyites energetically insisted on expediting the terroristic activities, having received instructions to this effect from Trotsky. Organizationally, this found expression in the decision that was adopted to hasten the assassination of Stalin and the assassination of Kirov.” ³³

The activities of the terrorist gang assumed a more furious and feverish character. In the spring of 1934, the preliminary work was completed.

“In June, 1934,” said Kamenev at the trial, “I myself went to Leningrad where I instructed the active Zinovievite Yakovlev to prepare an attempt on the life of Comrade Kirov parallel with the Nikolayev-Kotolynov group.”

In October, 1934, under the guidance of Kamenev, Evdokimov and Bakayev, efforts were made to expedite the preparations for an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin. The attempt failed, and Bakayev went to Kamenev to report this to him. As Bakayev stated at the trial: “Kamenev said: ‘A pity, let’s hope that next time we’ll be more successful’.” ³⁴ Kamenev and Zinoviev instructed Bakayev to go to Leningrad to expedite the murder of Comrade Kirov. Bakayev went to Leningrad and there met Kotolynov, Ryumantsev and other members of the two Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist gangs. He gave Nikolayev his last instructions and on his return to Moscow reported to the chiefs of the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang.

On December 1, 1934, the Trotsky-Zinoviev bandits achieved their object. Comrade Kirov was killed.

What do these scoundrelly double-dealers do after this murder? They do not merely deny their complicity in this crime. They go further than that. Zinoviev immediately sits down and writes an obituary article in memory of Comrade Kirov entitled “The Beacon Man”. On December 4, he sent this article to Pravda. Similar articles were written by Kamenev and Evdokimov.

In this atrociously cynical article, excerpts of which were read at the trial, the hypocrite Zinoviev wrote about the murdered Comrade Kirov in the following terms:

“Beloved son of the Party… Son of the working-class—that is what this Beacon Man was . . . our dear, deep, strong . . . one could not help believing him, one could not help loving him, one could not help being proud of him.”

Let those who still have the slightest shadow of doubt about Trotsky’s collaboration with the Gestapo, and who still have the slightest confidence in what Trotsky writes, remember this disgusting article which Zinoviev wrote, not only in his own name, but in the name of the whole of his gang which brutally cut the threads of life of the indomitable and loyal Bolshevik, Kirov.

At the trial of the Moscow Center which took place after the conviction and execution of Nikolayev, Kotolynov and the other murderers of Comrade Kirov, Zinoviev and Kamenev resorted to all the cunning and falsehood at their command in order to conceal their collaboration with Trotsky. At that time, they were compelled to admit political and moral responsibility for the murder of Comrade Kirov; but they were afraid to admit two things: firstly, their role, not only as political instigators but as the direct organizers of this murder, and, secondly, their collaboration with Trotsky.

It is easy to understand why the chiefs of this gang concealed the fact that they had organized the murder of Comrade Kirov. They know that the only sentence a Soviet court and the Soviet people could pass for a crime of this sort was a sentence of death. But why were they afraid to reveal their collaboration with Trotsky and the existence of the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center? Because, as they knew very well, connection with Trotsky was connection with the Gestapo; connection with Trotsky was connection with the fascist aggressor for the purpose of attacking the Soviet Union. Zinoviev and Kamenev knew that a confession of collaboration with Trotsky would at the same time be a confession that in their counter-revolutionary work they had established contact with fascism.

EIGHT: TROTSKY—CHIEF OF THE TERRORIST GANG

TROTSKY, in his turn, taking advantage of the freedom to carry on his counter-revolutionary struggle against the Soviet government which he enjoyed in capitalist countries, had no need to resort to the same amount of camouflage as that resorted to by that section of the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang which operated on Soviet territory. Of course, Trotsky, too, did everything he could to conceal the organizing role he played in the murder of Comrade Kirov, and in the terroristic acts against the other leaders of the Communist Party and of the Soviet government. He was, and is still, afraid of the wrath of the workers of all countries that would pour down upon his head as soon as they became convinced that he is the miscreant and murderer who sent to their death those whom the international proletariat honors and loves as its wise leaders and great champions of socialism.

Nevertheless, even while desperately denying responsibility for these frightful crimes, Trotsky wrote eulogies in praise of individual terror in the Soviet Union. It is true that he did this in the Jesuitical way, masked from the juridical point of view, but in a way that was sufficiently understood by his counter-revolutionary gang. As Fritz David stated at the trial:

“Trotsky said . . . that talk about individual terror not being compatible with Marxism was a subject for the philistines of Marxism.” ³⁵

These were the lessons in disgusting provocateur work that Trotsky gave in intimate conversations with his fellow bandits.

It is precisely “philistines of Marxism” whom Trotsky was addressing when, while extolling Nikolayev and the other murderers, he made hypocritical reservations to the effect that “individual terror in general is inexpedient”. The provocateur meaning of such statements can leave no doubt whatever. Their object was to make the ordinary man in the street believe that Trotsky was not in the least implicated in the murder of Comrade Kirov, and at the same time it gave Trotsky’s secret protectors, who understood perfectly well what he was driving at, the opportunity of saying that officially they had no information about Trotsky inciting terrorists to murder Soviet leaders.

In the light of Comrade Kirov’s murder, it became quite clear what signals Trotsky gave his henchmen when he wrote—in well-paid articles which the Hearst and other fascist newspapers willingly published—that it was necessary “to remove Stalin”, “to perform a surgical operation on the Stalin leadership”, “to pierce the Bolshevik ulcer with a lancet”, etc.

Only a few months before the publication of the indictment, in the recent case of the terrorist center, Trotsky published an article in the New York New Militant of May 9, 1936, entitled “The New Constitution of the U.S.S.R.”, in which, with exceptional cynicism, he extolled the employment of individual terror in the Soviet Union. In this article he wrote:

“… At the dawn of the Soviet power the terrorist acts were perpetrated by S.-R.’s and the Whites in the atmosphere of the still unfinished civil war. When the former ruling classes abandoned all their hopes, terrorism disappeared as well. Kulak terror, traces of which are observable even now, was always local in character, and was an accompaniment of the partisan war against the Soviet regime. This is not what Molotov had in mind. The new terror does not lean upon either the old ruling classes or the kulak. The terrorists of recent years are recruited exclusively from among the Soviet youth, from the ranks of the Y.C.L. and of the Party. While utterly impotent to solve those tasks which it sets itself, individual terror is, however, of the greatest symptomatic importance, because it characterizes the sharpness of the antagonism between the bureaucracy and the wide masses of the people, especially the younger generation. Terrorism is the tragic accompaniment of Bonapartism.” (Our italics.)

Trotsky pretended that he was condemning the “old” White-Guard, S.-R. terror, which the exploiting classes supported. Why does he indulge in this farce? Because, while heaping abuse on the “old” terror he at the same time eulogizes the “new”, Trotsky-Zinoviev, terror, concealing from his readers the fact that it is supported by the same exploiting classes, now, however, utterly routed by the toilers of the Soviet Union in open class struggle.

Inciting his followers to anti-Soviet terror, Trotsky asserts that the “terrorists of recent years are recruited exclusively from among the Soviet youth, from the ranks of the Y.C.L. and of the Party”. If that is the case, why did he not go to the Soviet court and prove that he had recruited the agents and allies of the Gestapo, Olberg, Nathan Lurye and Co., whom he has sent to the U.S.S.R., “exclusively from among the Soviet youth”? Why did he not try to prove that Zinoviev, Kamenev and Co., who treacherously “crawled into the Party on their bellies” for the purpose of striking a death blow at its heart and brain, were genuine members of the Bolshevik Party? Instead of appearing at the trial Trotsky made desperate attempts as soon as the indictment was published to disavow the whole of his gang. He declared that he had no connection whatever with his followers in the Soviet Union, that he gave no terroristic instructions whatsoever, and that “being a Marxist, he was on principle opposed to individual terror”.

The arch-provocateur Trotsky hoped that by means of these bare denials of his crimes he could save his own skin and retain the possibility of sending fresh bandits to the U.S.S.R. for the purpose of committing murder, sabotage and espionage.

But now his diabolical game has been utterly exposed. The trial revealed to the whole world the central points in the whole of Trotsky’s counter-revolutionary work which no honest man will ever forget. The trial tore the mask from Trotsky’s face. It showed the whole world that he was the ally and ward of the Gestapo.

It is characteristic that in condemning the “old” terror, Trotsky carefully concealed that side of it which helped particularly to expose the Right Socialist-Revolutionary, White-Guard terrorists who killed Comrades Volodersky and Uritsky, and who shot at Comrade Lenin. Trotsky admits that the Russian counter-revolution backed the “old” terrorists, but he does not say a word about the international counter-revolution, the General Staffs of the interventionists, and the secret police of the various countries who guided the hands of the White-Guard and Socialist-Revolutionary provocateurs. Why does Trotsky avoid mentioning this point? Because there is nothing that Trotsky fears so much as the exposure of the fact that the international secret police support all acts of terror against the Soviet leaders, that behind the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang stands the Gestapo.

In sending terrorists to the Soviet Union Trotsky, either personally or through his son, Sedov, warned them that if they are arrested, they must conceal their connections with the Trotskyists and particularly must they conceal the fact that he, Trotsky, had sent them to commit terroristic acts. This was mentioned at the trial by Olberg who, in his evidence, stated:

“He [Sedov] said if I were arrested by the organs of state security of the U.S.S.R. I was under no circumstances to say that this terroristic act was carried out on Trotsky’s instructions, and at all events, I was to try to conceal Trotsky’s role.”

In an intimate conversation in his apartment with Fritz David, Trotsky made the latter pledge himself in the event of arrest not to betray his connection with the Trotskyists. At the trial Fritz David stated in evidence:

“He [Trotsky] proposed that I go to the U.S.S.R. and personally commit a terroristic act, without the aid of others, without any organization, without contacts with other Trotskyites… Trotsky told me that this affair involved risk and that there was no point in exposing the Trotskyite organization in the U.S.S.R. to that risk.” ³⁶

When instructing Berman-Yurin to kill Comrade Stalin under such circumstances that “the shot at Stalin shall ring out at a large assembly”, Trotsky imposed the same condition upon him. At the trial Berman-Yurin stated in his evidence:

“Trotsky said that I should not have contact with any Trotskyites in Moscow, and that I should carry on the work independently. I replied that I did not know anybody in Moscow and it was difficult for me to see how I should act under these circumstances. I said that I had an acquaintance named Fritz David, and asked whether I might not get in touch with him. Trotsky replied that he would instruct Sedov to clear up this matter and that he would give him instructions to this effect.”

In concealing his connections with the bandits, he sent to the Soviet Union to commit murder, Trotsky was first of all concerned about concealing his own position as chief of the terrorist gang. But Trotsky’s instructions about secrecy pursued another no less, if not more important, purpose, to conceal his collaboration with the Gestapo. This collaboration proceeded along various channels.

According to Olberg’s evidence at the trial, Trotsky “sanctioned the agreement between the Berlin Trotskyites and the Gestapo, and the Trotskyites were in fact left free”. In other countries, also, the Trotskyite groups teem with counter-revolutionary adventurers, political spies and secret service agents. But in those cases where Trotskyites, and not Trotsky himself, are exposed as having contacts with the bourgeois secret police and the Gestapo, Trotsky can still hope to remove the traces leading from him to the back door of the Gestapo by insolently posing as a “Marxist” and trading on his short-lived participation in the revolution. But all these fraudulent evasions prove utterly useless as soon as the direct and close collaboration between the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center and the fascist organizations is revealed, for here Trotsky is obviously the central figure in selecting, sending and guiding the work of the Gestapo hooligans in their terroristic crimes. Consequently, the discovery of any of these terrorist scoundrels must inevitably reveal the collaboration and distribution of roles between Trotsky and the Hitler police. Trotsky strongly exhorted the terrorists he sent to the U.S.S.R. not to mention his name precisely because he knew that their arrest would immediately lead to their exposure as agents of the Gestapo.

But Trotsky was not quite sure that his Gestapo terrorists would keep their promise to “maintain secrecy”, that is to say, to shield Trotsky. That is why he took other measures to compel some of his myrmidons to answer for the crimes committed by the whole gang. He instructed the chiefs of the gang in the Soviet Union completely to disavow the acts committed by the terrorists and that “a position should be taken up analogous to that taken up by the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionaries toward Madam Kaplan” who shot at Lenin. This instruction was accepted and carried out by the terrorist center. On this point Reingold stated in his evidence at the trial:

“…In 1933-34 Zinoviev told me when I was alone with him in his apartment that: ‘… The principal practical task is to organize the terroristic work so secretly as to preclude our being compromised in any way. …’

“… When under examination the main thing is persistently to deny any connection with the organization. If accused of terroristic activities, you must emphatically deny it and argue that terror is incompatible with the view of Bolsheviks-Marxists.” ³⁷

The relations within the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang were based on the same principle; each “instance” tried to ensure its own safety at the expense of the group, or persons, who were most directly connected with the terrorist acts.

For example, Bakayev, the leader of the terrorist groups in Moscow, ordered Bogdan to make an immediate attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin, and when he suspected that Bogdan was wavering and was becoming unreliable, he put to him the alternative: “Commit suicide, or we kill you.”

The leaders of the Leningrad terrorist groups who killed Comrade Kirov were treacherously deserted by Zinoviev and Kamenev on whose direct instructions they committed the murder. In the above mentioned hypocritical “obituary article” on Comrade Kirov, Zinoviev not only disavowed the perpetrators of this foul crime, but branded them as “miscreants”.

And, finally, Trotsky disavowed the whole of the captured gang, including Zinoviev and Kamenev. He resorted to every sort of subterfuge and forgery to avoid coming before the court of the Soviet people, in order to throw the whole blame upon the members of his gang for crimes which they committed in conjunction with him, and under his direction.

But the chiefs of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center were not sure that they would be quite safe even after they had disavowed the executors of their bloody crimes. In order to be able peacefully to enjoy the fruits of their crimes they considered it necessary to do away with those who had directly committed them, and who might expose them as having had connections with the Gestapo in their nefarious work. In his evidence at the trial Reingold stated:

“Zinoviev and Kamenev were both of the opinion, and they told me about this, that on the morrow of the coup d’état, after the seizure of power, Bakayev should be put at the head of the G.P.U. in the capacity of chairman of the G.P.U. By the use of the G.P.U. machinery, he was to assist in covering up the traces, in doing away with, in killing, not only the employees of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs—the G.P.U., who might be in possession of any threads of the conspiracy, but also all the direct perpetrators of terroristic acts against Stalin and his immediate assistants. By the hand of Bakayev the Trotsky-Zinoviev organization was to destroy its own activists, its own terrorist gunmen, who were involved in this matter.” ³⁸

But these diabolical provocateur plans of the chiefs of the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang were frustrated. Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky were exposed before they could carry out their designs to seize power and to restore capitalism in the great Land of Soviets and to enslave it to the imperialists. Bakayev did not become the president of the G.P.U. The dream of the Trotsky-Zinoviev provocateurs of destroying the workers of the G.P.U. they hated so much was shattered, nor were they able to do away with the direct perpetrators of the terroristic crimes. The latter, agents of the Gestapo, together with the chiefs of the gang, found themselves in the prisoners’ dock, brought to book for their nefarious crimes. Nathan and Moissei Lurye sitting beside Zinoviev and Kamenev, Olberg, Berman-Yurin and Fritz David sitting beside Smirnov and Mrachkovsky served to illustrate the collaboration between Trotsky and the Gestapo.

Was there a single one of the accused who, after the judicial investigation had come to an end, dared to deny, or even to throw doubt upon, the collaboration between Trotsky’s terrorists and Hitler’s terrorists? No, there was not one. In his last plea Kamenev said:

“I ask myself, is it an accident that alongside of myself, Zinoviev, Evdokimov, Bakayev and Mrachkovsky are sitting emissaries of foreign secret police departments, people with false passports, with dubious biographies and undoubted connections with the Gestapo. No! It is not an accident. We are sitting here side by side with the agents of foreign secret police departments because our weapons were the same, because our arms became intertwined before our fate became intertwined here in this dock.” ³⁹

Another of the accused, Holtzmann, at the beginning of the trial more persistently than any of the others carried out Trotsky’s instruction to deny his personal responsibility for the terroristic murders. Towards the end of the trial, however, he realized that it was useless trying any longer to conceal the connection Trotsky, and consequently the whole of his gang, had maintained with the fascist secret police. In his last plea Holtzmann said:

“Here, in the dock beside me, is a gang of murderers, not only murderers, but fascist murderers. I do not ask for mercy.” ⁴⁰

The stench of the Gestapo pervaded the prisoners’ dock at the trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center.

NINE: WHO ARE DEFENDING THE TROTSKY-ZINOVIEV TERRORISTS?

WHEN, in March, 1933, the Hitler police laid their hands on Comrade Dimitroff, the forces of the German proletariat, upon whom rained the bloody blows of the fascist dictatorship, were scattered and disorganized. In other countries, too, the prospects of organizing a broad, anti-fascist front seemed very remote.

It was under such circumstances that Comrade Dimitroff’s powerful voice rang out from the fascist dungeon calling for the determined, united, militant action of the masses of the workers against fascism.

In the written statement which he submitted at the preliminary investigation he emphasized that the policy of the Communist Party of Germany was directed toward establishing a united front for the purpose of protecting the vital interests and rights of the workers, for the struggle against fascism.

Later on, in his sharp, ruthless and absolutely consistent struggle at the trial, he roused admiration and pride, not only among the workers, but also among all toilers and among the progressive intelligentsia. He presented to the world an example of a Communist who under exceptionally difficult conditions raised aloft the banner of the anti-fascist struggle. Skillfully and with unerring aim, he struck blow after blow at the fascist provocateurs. He smashed the false excuses of the Social-Democratic leaders for being opposed to a joint struggle with the Communists. He caused a breach in the wall of mutual estrangement between the Communist and Social-Democratic workers which was built up by the reformist splitters of the ranks of the proletariat. He showed the middle classes and all anti-fascists that the working-class is marching in the front ranks of the struggle against barbarous fascism and for the genuine progress of mankind.

The attitude toward the Leipzig trial divided the world into opposite camps: all honest, conscientious and progressive people were on the side of Dimitroff; all the forces of reaction and obscurantism were on the side of the fascists.

How are the social forces divided now, in connection with the verdict of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists?

The decisive thing in this matter is that in opposition to this verdict and on the side of Trotsky and Co. are those who sat on the judges’ bench in Leipzig, the fascists. They were the first to hasten to the aid of the captured murderers. The fact that, in conformity with the whole situation, this assistance was rendered in the counter-revolutionary underground and was mainly secret does not minimize it in the least. On the contrary, only to the extent that Trotskyism can disguise its bloc with fascism can it continue to play the role of vanguard of the fascist counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

We saw above that fascism not only provided the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang with a program, an “ideology” and “ethics”, but also placed its material resources at this disposal. As was seen above, in the terrorist groups which murdered Comrade Kirov and were preparing to murder Comrade Stalin and his closest comrades, Trotskyism and fascism were so closely interwoven that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other.

It is not surprising, therefore, that even after the close collaboration between the Trotsky-Zinoviev center and the Gestapo has been revealed, fascism is continuing to help Trotsky to camouflage himself. The fascists know the value of Trotsky’s “radical” fireworks against fascism and are paying him in the same coin. They deliberately depict the Trotskyists, their agents and collaborators, as their irreconcilable enemies.

On the eve of the Moscow trial the fascist and reactionary press, realizing that the Trotsky-Zinoviev center had been exposed, began to “persecute” Trotsky with particular zeal. For example, the official Hitler press depicted its friend Trotsky as a “terrible revolutionary”. The Paris Main invented stupid fables such as the one that Bukharin, while in Prague, brought about an agreement between the Third International and the “Fourth International”, i.e., the non-existent International, which Trotsky wanted to form for his provocateur purposes; or that Trotsky had been appointed leader of the Spanish revolution and that millions of gold rubles had been placed at his disposal.

The fascists of Norway, where Trotsky’s terrorist headquarters were situated, resorted to an ever more subtle maneuver. A few days before the Moscow trial started a group of young fascists staged a “raid” upon the “revolutionary” Trotsky’s premises.

The Goebbels and Rosenbergs do not leave Trotsky unprotected even after the trial. The Voelkischer Beobachter published Trotsky’s portrait and under it, in bold type, gave his biography in which Trotsky was depicted as an “eternal revolutionary” who had “devoted himself to the cause of the revolution” since his youth. The Hitler press spread the story invented by the Denikin blackguards to the effect that the trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center was staged by the Soviet government in order “the more surely to mask its principal agent abroad, Trotsky”, and that the gang of Trotskyites and Zinovievites who were sentenced to be shot “were taken from prison and sent by special train to Lake Baikal”.

Now that the trial has revealed to the whole world that Trotsky is an ally and agent of the Gestapo, no provocateur tricks, no playing at mutual wrangling between the Trotskyists and fascists can conceal their actual collaboration for the purpose of restoring capitalism in the U.S.S.R. and of inflicting military defeat upon the Soviet Union by means of a bloc of fascist states.

But the despicable murderers of Comrade Kirov and the would-be murderers of Comrade Stalin and other leaders of the Land of Soviets have found other protectors. Simultaneously with the fascists, the reactionary leaders of reformism have come out in defense of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center. What was the political significance of the insolent cable sent to the Council of People’s Commissars signed by the chairmen and secretaries of the Labor and Socialist International and International Federation of Trade Unions, de Brouckere, Adler, Citrine and Shevenels? It was a threat to the effect that if these terrorist murderers are given their deserts, they, the reformists, would refuse to cooperate with the Communists in helping the Spanish people.

A wretched and mean swindle!

Explaining why the protection afforded the despicable terrorists by these four reformist leaders means helping fascism, Comrade Dimitroff wrote:

“The trial of the terrorists, the agents of fascism, is a constituent part of the anti-fascist struggle of the international working-class. Genuine solidarity with the Spanish people does not harmonize with the defense of the agents of fascism in other countries. It is impossible to render honest assistance to the Spanish people who are fighting against fascism and at the same time come out in defense of a terrorist gang in the U.S.S.R. that is helping fascism. Those who directly or indirectly support the counterrevolutionary terrorists in the U.S.S.R. are in fact serving Spanish fascism, are disrupting the struggle of the Spanish people and facilitating its defeat.”

It is not surprising that Sir Walter Citrine is the initiator of the campaign started by the four reactionary reformist leaders in defense of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite murderers. It is precisely because Citrine is a malicious splitter of the ranks of the working-class in the interests of the bourgeoisie that he initiated this campaign for the purpose of disrupting the united proletarian front.

Moreover, Sir Walter Citrine has special reasons for hastening to the assistance of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite miscreants. He belongs to that more reactionary section of the reformist leaders who, when Comrade Kirov was murdered, did all they possibly could to justify the Trotskyite-Zinovievite organizers of this crime in the eyes of the workers in capitalist countries. When, in the beginning of 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others faced the proletarian court to answer for the murder of Comrade Kirov, Citrine and his press repeated the Trotskyist argument that, owing to the “Marxian” views held by Zinoviev and Kamenev, they could not have had any connection with Nikolayev’s crime. We have seen above what value they attached to Marxian principles.

But what could Sir Walter Citrine say when all the world learned from the recent trial that Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were the principal organizers of the murder of Comrade Kirov? He could do one of two things: either honestly admit that in 1935 he was an actual, if unwitting, shield of the murderers of Comrade Kirov, or continue shielding these criminals. Sir Walter chose the latter.

He voluntarily placed himself in the dock beside Zinoviev, Kamenev, Olberg and Trotsky, facing the court of the British and of the international proletariat. No “guarantees” of immunity,

which Citrine counts on as the permanent Secretary of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress, will enable him to escape from this trial!

While the position taken up towards the terrorists by Citrine, this open and malicious enemy of the unity of the working-class and miserable slanderer of the land of victorious socialism, is to some extent consistent, how can de Brouckere justify his signing that insolent cable on the grounds that he was concerned for “the greater unity of those who are defending democracy” against the fascist offensive?

The chairman of the Socialist and Labor International explains the motives which prompted him to sign this cable in a special article in Le Peuple of August 22, and in this article, he claims that a cable addressed to the Council of People’s Commissars for a political purpose which coincided with the interests of international reaction was an act based on moral grounds!

On what grounds does de Brouckere base his claim to oppose his private opinion and desires to the verdict of the open court of the great land of the proletariat, to the will of 170,000,000 people of the Land of Soviets who have set an example to the whole world as to how to build a free and socialist life.

De Brouckere’s first argument is a reference to the trial of the Menshevik All-Union Bureau (Groman, Suchanov and others) in 1931. At that time, he says, Soviet justice did not satisfy him and his friends, and he foresaw that it would not satisfy him now.

But the chairman of the Second International acted very unwisely, when, in taking Trotsky’s bait, he indulged in historical reminiscences which seriously compromise him.

It was no accident, of course, that Trotsky wrote about the Menshevik trial of 1931 just before the trial of his own terrorist gang. In the August issue of his wretched Bulletin, Trotsky solemnly declared: “The editor must admit that during the Menshevik trial he took the confessions of the ex-Mensheviks too seriously.”

It was no accident, and not for nothing, that Trotsky made his obeisance to the Mensheviks in the beginning of August, 1936. He knew then that at the impending trial he would be the principal

defendant on the charge of committing the most heinous and despicable crimes.

That is why Trotsky, in effect, made the following proposal to the leaders of Social-Democracy, the meaning of which is sufficiently transparent: “I will withdraw what I wrote about the Menshevik trial in 1931; I will now support what you said then, namely, that the evidence of old and tried Mensheviks which exposed you as having been accomplices in their crime was false and slanderous. You, in your turn, will take me under your protection. At the trial I will be exposed as the arch-provocateur in the discovered terroristic gang; but you repeat my words and say that you do not take the confessions of the Trotskyites seriously.”

Evidently the chairman of the Second International accepted this proposal. He came out in defense of Trotsky and referred to the Menshevik trial of 1931!

Mutual amnesty for crimes committed against the Soviet government—proposed Trotsky.

Agreed, replied the “four” in the effort to take the terrorists under their protection.

Mutual indulgence for future crimes—proposed Trotsky.

We can agree to that too, replied the reactionary leaders of reformism; and they start a campaign under the protection of which Trotsky issues a call for vengeance.

Such is the political significance of de Brouckere’s first argument.

The recollection of the trial of 1931 should have warned the leaders of Social-Democracy against attempting to impose their point of view upon the Soviet court. What happened in 1931?

On the eve of the trial of the Menshevik Union Bureau the Executive Committee of the Second International sent a cable to the Council of People’s Commissars asserting that they could not possibly believe that people “with such an irreproachable political reputation as those in the prisoners’ dock could be guilty of the crimes attributed to them”. But when the trial started the Social-Democratic leaders who signed that cable had the doubtful satisfaction of convincing themselves that the evidence against all the accused in that case was so weighty that these people with “irreproachable political reputations” admitted their guilt in court.

In connection with the same trial, the Second International issued an appeal to the Soviet workers in which they tried to scare the latter with the bogey of inevitable disaster, peasant rebellion, etc., if the policy of industrialization and collectivization were not abandoned. By means of shameful slander the authors of this appeal wanted to undermine the confidence of the working-class of the Soviet Union in its Communist vanguard and its leadership. Of course, their attempt failed utterly. The leaders of the Second International took the Menshevik saboteurs under their protection and called upon the Soviet workers to rely upon the Mensheviks. Naturally, the toilers of the Soviet Union scorned this advice.

Let the leaders of the Second International republish in their press today this appeal to the Soviet workers in connection with the Menshevik trial! They would not dare to do that! They would make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of their own readers, in the eyes of the Social-Democratic workers, who, even if they are still under the influence of their leaders, nevertheless know that the Land of Soviets is flourishing today precisely because it determinedly, firmly and self-sacrificingly marched along the Stalin road.

De Brouckere’s second argument: He thinks it highly improbable that “Trotsky could, from his remote exile, prepare for attempts at assassination . . . that Kamenev and Zinoviev, who were kept under strict surveillance and were concerned not to make their position worse, were so naive as to prepare to commit crimes which were almost impossible to commit.” Whether de Brouckere believes in the naïveté of the terrorist chiefs or not, it is quite certain that not a single worker will believe de Brouckere’s naïveté. Such a defense of exposed criminals even in capitalist countries could only be put up by a dishonest lawyer who in the interest of his client does not hesitate crudely and cynically to distort obvious facts. “Could Trotsky from his remote exile prepare for attempts at assassination?” But it is proved that he did so! “Could Kamenev and Zinoviev kill Comrade Kirov?” But it is proved that they did kill this energetic, passionate, enthusiastic champion of socialism!

How can the reformist leaders hope to undermine the solidarity of the international proletariat with the Soviet Union with rotten arguments of this kind? What do they base their calculations on?

During the Leipzig trial the reformist leaders were unable to maintain their open struggle against proletarian solidarity because the sympathy of the vast masses rushed in an irresistible flood toward the heroic fighter against fascism, Dimitroff. The reformist leaders now think that they can take revenge for this upon the workers who follow them. How? First by their Jesuit attempts to play on the sentiments of the man in the street in order to rouse sympathy for the allies of the Gestapo who have met with the fate they deserve. Second, unlike the situation that prevailed during the Leipzig trial, they and the fascists do not come out openly, but under a mask. The Hitler gangsters and their allies are not now represented by Goering and Goebbels, they come out in the guise of “Marxists” who “accidentally” found themselves in the pay of the Gestapo. Nor do the reactionary leaders of reformism come out openly as splitters of the ranks of the working-class in the interests of the bourgeoisie and as the opponents of international proletarian solidarity; they come out in the guise of champions of working-class unity, pretending to be alarmed lest the execution of Hitler’s agents in Moscow have a fatal effect upon the struggle waged by the Spanish people against the fascist rebels.

But it will not be difficult for the Social-Democratic workers to see through the game of the reactionary leaders who have abandoned the frontal attack against the united front and are now making a flanking movement against it. As a matter of fact, all the arguments that these leaders could bring against the Soviet court and its verdict have already been advanced in the Social-Democratic press. And what do we see?

The Social-Democratic arguments in support of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorists are, in general, astonishingly like the arguments advanced by the fascists who are trying to shield Trotsky and his gang in their own way. The general arguments of Trotsky’s defenders may be summed up as follows:

First argument: Both categories of defenders pretend that they take the “Marxism” of the terrorist bandits seriously, and

on these grounds, a priori, preclude the possibility of their collaborating with the Gestapo. Otto Bauer argues that people who claim to be Marxists cannot engage in individual terror in conjunction with the agents of the Gestapo; while the Voelkischer Beobachter argues that the secret police of Germany would not stain the honor of their race by collaborating with Marxists. But Zinoviev and the Gestapo agent Olberg, and all their fellow prisoners in the dock, who put on the “Marxian” make-up, refuted these arguments. Let us recall Berman-Yurin’s and David’s conversation with Trotsky, and M. Lurye’s conversation with Zinoviev, on the subject of “Marxism and terrorism”. The trial showed that from both sides the Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorists and the agents of the Gestapo moved towards each other until they merged into one, sordid, bloody gang.

Second argument: Both categories of advocates—the fascists and the reactionary leaders of reformism—pretend that as impartial super-judges they refuse to “recognize” the verdict of the Soviet court. They argue that not sufficient evidence was brought forward at the trial to convict the murderers. Both Bauer and Goebbels refuse to recognize the proofs brought forward at the trial as being adequate. The confessions of the accused, corroborated by all the other evidence, were also not enough. Nor was the evidence of each of the accused exposing the criminal activities of the others enough. The material proofs brought forward at the trial were not enough. Trotsky’s articles, in which, as far back as 1931, he, in various forms, issued the outrageous call to “remove Stalin” and eulogized the employment of terror against the Soviet leaders, are not evidence. The murder of Comrade Kirov is no proof. The attempts on the life of Comrade Stalin, which failed, do not count. What other facts and proofs does Goebbels require to fully satisfy him? Does Otto Bauer realize what he is doing when he associates himself with Goebbels and the other organizers of terroristic murders, even on this question?

Third argument: Both categories of advocates declare that “in general, they do not believe” the confessions of the accused members of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center. Why not? It transpires that neither Bauer nor Goebbels likes the investigating authorities of the Soviet state, and on these grounds, they refuse

to recognize confessions made by accused persons in a Soviet court as valid evidence. The objects Goebbels pursues in advancing this argument are obvious. First of all, he wants to ensure immunity for the conspirators of the counter-revolutionary underground; for, as a rule, if underground terrorist work is skillfully organized, the only witnesses of terrorist crimes are those who perpetrate them. And, second, he wants particularly to prevent the terroristic, espionage and diversionist work of the agents of the Gestapo in the U.S.S.R. from exposing the plans of the German government.

Coming as it does from fascism, which does not hesitate to stoop to the most sordid methods in its desperate struggle against the land of socialism, such provocative slander against the Soviet court is quite intelligible. But why is such an active part in this slander being taken by Bauer, who from time to time makes statements admitting that his hostility to the Soviet government in the past was wrong? Why did he hasten to repeat in the press the absurd fascist story that for some “mysterious motive” accused persons before a Soviet court plead guilty to crimes they never committed? Because Otto Bauer, too, is afraid that the crimes of his Russian Menshevik friends that were proved by the Soviet court would expose the anti-Soviet intrigues, plans and actions of the reactionary leaders of reformism. The situation in which several of the leaders of the Second International found themselves in connection with the trial of the Mensheviks in 1931 shows that Bauer’s fears on this score are well founded. A disturbed political conscience—this is what determines the attitude of not only the reactionary but also of the so-called “Left” leaders of reformism towards the Soviet court!

To the arguments which the reformist defenders of the terrorists advance in common with the fascists, they add one other of their own fabrication. They are prepared to admit that the counter-revolutionary misdeeds of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite bandits are proven. For example, Otto Bauer writes: “Let us admit that the confessions of Zinoviev and Kamenev, to the effect that in collaboration with the Gestapo they organized terroristic attempts on the lives of the leaders of the Soviet regime, are genuine.” Nevertheless, he argues, the Soviet government should have hushed up these crimes. Why? For what reason?

Because, if you please, as Bauer slyly puts it, “be that as it may, it is a shocking affair”.

So, this is the advice which Bauer, following the Daily Herald, gives the Soviet government! This is the political moral the reformist “super judges” draw!

Their advice may be summed up as follows: Conceal the truth from the international proletariat, from the whole civilized world. Shield the Trotsky-Zinoviev degenerates who had entered into an alliance with fascism out of fear that the truth about the degradation and despicable crimes of these people will “shock” Bauer and the philistines who follow him! Refuse to perform the first duty of every honest worker of exposing traitors, of tearing the mask from double-dealers, of branding with shame every deserter to the camp of the class enemy, no matter what he may have seemed to be in the past! Prevent the international proletariat from seeing from the example of the degraded creatures of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center that dishonest playing with radical phrases, deception and duplicity are interwoven with deliberate sabotage of the cause of the working-class, and how the saboteurs are in alliance with the fascists and form a single gang with them!

Only petty politicians who are accustomed to toady to the class enemy can put such demands to the people of the Soviet Union who have set the world an example of consistent, determined and victorious struggle for socialism. But the international working-class, which is learning, becoming steeled and trained by the severe lessons of the class struggle, as a fighter for socialism and the building of socialist society, knows that it would be a crime against the interests of the working-class movement and the progress of humanity to conceal the counter-revolutionary crimes of renegades, let alone those of fascist miscreants.

The international proletariat will not permit the defenders of these scoundrels to pose as “impartial” judges. It will say that the very words and deeds of these “judges” reveal their pretense, hypocrisy, and the dishonest game they are playing.

Citrine claims that he wanted to save the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist gang for the sake of the Spanish revolution. It is a lie! The very next day after the insolent cable was sent to the Council of People’s Commissars, he, at a meeting of the National Labor

Council, opposed the proposal that pressure be brought to bear upon the British government to help the Spanish Republic in the fight against the fascist rebels whom the fascist governments are continuing to assist.

“The action of Citrine and others [sending the shameful cable to the Council of People’s Commissars] is a direct blow against the heroic struggle of the Spanish people, for if the Spanish people followed the rotten advice which the reactionary Socialist leaders permit themselves to offer the peoples of the U.S.S.R., the Spanish Republic would be doomed to defeat.” ⁴¹

In justification of his attempt to discredit the proletarian court Otto Bauer pleaded in an article he wrote that he was prompted by the alarm he says he felt for the safety of the Soviet Union. It is not true! When he wrote that article, he knew that first fiddle in the campaign of slander against the verdict of the Soviet court was being played by German fascism, which is trying to knock together a bloc of fascist states for war against the Soviet Union. He also knew that the chairman of the Second International, de Brouckere, in order to justify his shameful action, had written an article in which he repeated the Trotsky-fascist, malicious slander about the “police regime of tyranny in the U.S.S.R.”

TEN: FOR THE UNITED PROLETARIAN FRONT! FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE SPANISH PEOPLE!

THE purpose of the campaign organized by the reformist leaders in defense of the Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorists is not to protect, but to disrupt, proletarian unity and the growing international united front of struggle for the defense of the heroic Spanish people. No evasions can diminish the significance of the fact that all the inveterate enemies of the unity of the working-class and of the popular front, all the enemies of democracy, socialism and the Soviet Union, clutch at the pronouncements of the official representatives of the Labor and Socialist International and of the International Federation of Trade Unions for the purpose of giving a further impetus to the campaign of slander against the U.S.S.R.

But the struggle for the united proletarian front has made so much progress, nationally and internationally, since the Leipzig trial that no double-dealing maneuvers on the part of the reactionary leaders of reformism can check it.

Both the friends and the enemies of the working-class movement have already become convinced that united proletarian action and the popular front movement are powerful weapons in the struggle against the offensive of capital, against fascism and against the danger of war. This is proved by the fury with which fascism attacked the popular front at the recent fascist congress at Nuremberg. It is proved also by the growing resistance to the establishment of the united front on the part of the reactionary leaders of reformism. But despite the hopes of these leaders, the desire of the workers for unity is not diminishing! On the contrary, thanks to the struggle waged by the Communist vanguard, it has grown into a powerful movement of the masses of the people for peace, bread and liberty! And no matter what forms the resistance of the reactionary leaders and their “Left” allies

to proletarian unity may take, it can and will be overcome if sufficient organized pressure is brought to bear by the masses of the workers.

Comrade Dimitroff referred to the resistance of the reactionary leaders of Social-Democracy to the united action of the working-class even when he was in the prisoners’ dock in Leipzig, where, over the head of the fascist court, he explained to the German workers why they had been unable to prevent Hitler from coming into power.

This thesis, thoroughly analyzed and explained, was taken into account by the Seventh Congress of the Communist International when it formulated its new tactics, and it was emphasized by Comrade Dimitroff in his speech at the Congress when he said:

“The assistance the Communists render to that section of Social-Democracy which is becoming revolutionary will be the more effective the more we intensify the fight against the reactionary camp of Social-Democracy which is participating in a bloc with the bourgeoisie.”

The pronouncements of Citrine and Co. in defense of the despicable terrorists have been seized upon with such glee by the enemies of the working-class precisely because their object was to disrupt the united struggle of the toilers against the fascist enemy. The millions of adherents of unity in the ranks of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions must put a stop to a situation in which the enemies of proletarian unity and slanderers of the land of socialism can make pronouncements ostensibly in the name of their organizations. It is the duty of all workers, irrespective of their political opinions, to increase their efforts tenfold in the struggle to establish a united proletarian front and popular anti-fascist front, in the struggle against the enemies of proletarian unity whether they come out under the hypocritical mask of friends of unity or not.

The fine example of proletarian heroism displayed by Comrade Dimitroff at the Leipzig trial continues to live and develop in the minds and hearts of increasing masses of the workers. This is proved by the titanic, self-sacrificing struggle now being waged in Spain by the Communist, Socialist, Anarcho-Syndicalist and unorganized workers, by the peasants and intellectuals, by all

champions of democratic liberty and human progress, against the monarchist-fascist rebels who have been armed to the teeth by the bloc of fascist states and international reaction. It is proved by the hundreds and hundreds of cases of Communists and other anti-fascist fighters in fascist prisons and at fascist trials showing by their deeds that they are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the interests of the working-class. It is proved by the self-sacrifice and staunchness of millions of workers during strikes, demonstrations and mass protest meetings against the capitalist offensive, against the fascist menace. Larger and larger masses of workers are displaying in this struggle against fascism the staunchness, self-sacrifice and loyalty to the cause of liberty which Comrade Dimitroff displayed at the Leipzig trial.

The reformist enemies of proletarian unity assert that the Moscow trial has created an obstacle to the development of the united front. This is not true! The blow at the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists is part and parcel of the anti-fascist struggle of the international working-class and helps to strengthen unity in its ranks. The exposure of saboteurs and malicious splitters of the working-class movement like Trotsky opens the eyes of the workers to all renegades and double-dealers no matter what mask they don. It is in the vital interest of all workers, and primarily the Social-Democratic workers, to learn to distinguish their real friends from their concealed enemies, to learn to expose the agents of the class enemy within their ranks and to expel them in good time. It is in the interest of all workers, and primarily, of the Social-Democratic workers, to ascertain in the course of the class struggle which of their leaders who declare themselves to be opposed to splitting the ranks of the workers really support proletarian unity, and which of them, while talking about unity, are only playing a double game.

The masses of the workers who are inspired by the great victory for socialism in the Land of Soviets will reply to the vicious campaign of the reactionary leaders of reformism, which are seized upon so gleefully by the fascists, by carrying still further, in spite of all obstacles, the banner of proletarian unity which was unfurled by Comrade Dimitroff at the Leipzig trial.

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41 Footnotes

Prepared by Maoism Library from https://annas-archive.gl/md5/c8a7a9f85de354459673519c4fa84077 ↩
The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, p. 169. ↩
Ibid., p. 89. ↩
Ibid., p. 25. ↩
Ibid., p. 82. ↩
Ibid., pp. 76-77. ↩
Ibid., p. 166. ↩
Ibid., p. 167. ↩
Ibid., p. 170. ↩
Ibid., p. 55; italics ours. ↩
Ibid., p. 41. ↩
Ibid., p. 102. ↩
Ibid., p. 41. ↩
Ibid., p. 94. ↩
Ibid., p. 113. ↩
Ibid., p. 87. ↩
Ibid., p. 43. ↩
ibid., p. 16 ↩
Ibid., p. 55; italics ours. ↩
Ibid., p. 41. ↩
Ibid., p. 102. ↩
Ibid., p. 41. ↩
Ibid., p. 94. ↩
Ibid., p. 113. ↩
Ibid., p. 87. ↩
Ibid., p. 43. ↩
ibid., p. 16 ↩
Ibid., p. 166. ↩
Referring to the pious hypocrite Yudishka Golovlev in Shchedrin’s novel The Golovlev Family. ↩
The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, p. 56. ↩
Ibid., p. 133. ↩
Ibid., p. 73. ↩
Ibid., p. 66. ↩
Ibid., p. 133 ↩
Ibid., p. 114. ↩
Ibid., p. 113. ↩
Ibid., p. 19. ↩
Ibid., p. 58. ↩
Ibid., p. 170. ↩
Ibid., p. 172. ↩
Dimitroff ↩