DUPLICITY—A CLOAK FOR TERRORISM

Trotskyism and Fascism

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 tom 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 *md 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 pirvate 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.” (Ibid., p. 56.) 

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.” (Ibid., p. 133.) 

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.” (Ibid., p. 73.) 

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.” (Ibidn p. 66.) 

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’.” (Ibid., p. 60.) Kamenev and Zinoviev instructed Bakayev to go to Leningrad to expedite the murder of Comrade Kirov. Bakayev went to Leningrad and there met Kotoly- nov, 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 w7rote 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 wuth 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 w^hich 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 wfith Trotsky and the existence of the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center? Be­cause, as they knew7 very well, connection with Trotsky was con- nection 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.

TROTSKY— CHIEF OF THE TERRORIST GANG