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 wdiich 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. Skilfully 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 Matin 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 wdiich 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 “wrere 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 terror-
ists 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 naivete of the terrorist chiefs or not, it is quite certain that not a single worker will believe de Brouckere’s naivete. 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 gainst 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 Trotsky- ite 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 gents 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.” (Dimitroff.)
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”
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