The Trotsky-Zinoviev Assassins Before the Bar of the Working Class

P. LANG 

October 1936

THE trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center was conducted for five days by the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. This center was accused of the gravest crime, namely the murder of Comrade Kirov and the preparation of a number of terrorist acts against the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government. At the open public sessions of the trial the accused were allowed every possibility for defense. They fully utilized the possi­bilities offered them with the skill of cunning politicians. If they refused the right to invite counsel and call witnesses it was for the simple reason that they knew that it was impossible to deny the facts of their crimes. At the same time every one of the accused in every way strove, both at the preliminary investigation and at the trial, to minimize, at the expense of the others, their role in the crimes they jointly committed. The chiefs of the center in particular tried in every way possible-in the words of the other accused-"to hide behind the backs of the others". 

But, with the existence of indisputable proofs incriminating all the criminals, the whole of this struggle led to the fact that not a single one of the terrorists was in a position to deny his guilt. All of the accused right up to Smirnov himself, who stubbornly not only def ended himself but was anxious to conceal the remaining frag­ments of his terrorist group, were obliged to admit the complete justice of the charges against them. 

By the end of the trial not a single one of the terrorists was able to deny the fact that the Trotsky and Zinoviev counter-revo­lutionary groups, who were active in the territory of the Soviet Union, in 1932, following an instruction sent by Trotsky from abroad, united on the basis of the use of individual terror against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet government. Nobody, not even Zinoviev and Kamenev, with all their unsurpassed cynicism in denying established facts, could conceal that on their hands lies the blood of Comrade Kirov. No evasions could shake the truth of the charge against the members of the terrorist group that, simultaneously with the preparations of the murder of Comrade Kirov, and after this murder, they time and again tried to assassinate Comrades Stalin, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Orjonikidze, Kossior and Postishev. 

Not all the provocation and hocus-pocus of the fascists and cun­ning efforts of other defenders of Trotsky will be able to white­wash the absolutely established fact that Trotsky not only demanded of his representatives by every available channel that they speed up terrorist murders but, apart from this, personally, at different times, sent terrorists from abroad to the U .S.S.R. Five of them were in the dock and had, with the direct knowledge of Trotsky, worked directly with the agents of the German secret police in carrying out terrorist acts, or were paid agents of the Gestapo. 

A passport of the accused Valentine Olberg, with the name of a citizen of the Honduras Republic which was taken when his house was searched, figured as corpus delicti. Olberg could not deny that he received the passport through Tukalevsky, an agent of the Ger­man police, living in Prague, in order to travel to the U .S.S.R., paying for it with money which he had received from the Trotskyist organization for this purpose. In the dossier there is a visiting card of the very same Tukalevsky, which he sent to Olberg at a secret address in Stalin bad, with letters written on it in cipher. 

Could Olberg with all his adroitness as a spy deny his connections with the Gestapo in the face of such facts? Could Valentine Olberg, after the arrest of his brother Paul Olberg on Soviet territory, the same Paul Olberg who was convicted of being in the service of the German secret police and who admitted it, deny the fact that they both collaborated in carrying out the terrorist acts as instructed by Trotsky? 

The accused Nathan Lurye, convicted by the materials against him which were to hand, was compelled to con.firm the fact that, in making the preparations for terrorist acts against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. indicated to him by Trotsky, he joined up with the terrorist organization of the German fascist Franz W aiz which was pursuing the same aims. Once having admitted his collaboration with W aiz, who was one of Himmler's trusted men, Nathan Lurye took no further trouble at the investigation to conceal what he had said about this collaboration to Moissei Lurye, who had been his teacher in Trotskyism in Berlin. How did M. Lurye react? He turned to the highest authority, Zinoviev, for a solution of this "debatable" question. What did Zinoviev do? He gave his permission to cooperate with Franz W aiz. Zinoviev did not deny this conversation.

The fact of Zinoviev's cooperation with the Gestapo for the purpose of carrying out his terrorist plans . is so monstrous that tho question could arise whether M. Lurye is not denouncing Zinoviev, to mitigate his own guilt? Parhaps Zinoviev renounced the fight against this slander for some personal reason, perhaps because he considered that anyway he would not be believed? In view of the possibility of such a doubt arising, the whole circle of incriminating evidence with regard to Trotsky, Nathan Lurye, Franz Waiz, Moissei Lurye and Zinoviev in all its links was subjected to a thor­ough check-up both at the preliminary investigation and at the trial, and particularly in its last link, Zinoviev-Franz W aiz. M. Lurye's assertion concerning his talk with Zinoviev with regard to W aiz was investigated critically from all angles. 

In the course of the court proceedings the following points be­came perfectly clear. First of all, both Zinoviev and Lurye give al­most the same version of the subject of this conversation-both state that the question of whether joint terrorist work with W aiz was per­missible was discussed by them and was decided with the help of the reference to "Lassalle considered it possible to use Bismarck in the interests of the revolution". At the same time, however, they did not simply repeat each other's words. No. They fought against each other. Each one of them, in accordance with his own interests, gave his version of the conversation. 

Moissei Lurye's version was that the historical parallel with Lassalle was cited by Zinoviev and accepted by him, Lurye, and that as a result of this, Nathan Lurye continued to cooperate with the fascist terrorist organization, making the preparations for the assassination of Comrade Stalin, and, after the departure of W aiz to Germany, also conducted the work of this organization. Zinoviev's version is that Lurye was the one to quote Lassalle and that he, Zinoviev, rejected this parallel; but Nathan Lurye's cooperation with Waiz still continued. This dispute, which took place at the trial between the "teacher" and his "pupil", leaves no doubt of the fact that the conversation about cooperation with Hitler's agent W aiz actually took place and Zinoviev admitted the fact of this conversa­tion and the subject of it not because he did not care a rap and was ready to take upon himself all manner of false charges. No. He fought against the facts incriminating him, he denied that he had given Lurye his sanction to take part in the terrorist organization of the fascists, he gave his version of the conversation and, with the given evidence, did everything possible to hide behind the back of his pupil Moissei Lurye. 

But even if Zinoviev's subterfuges are to be believed, or even  if his version, which he was forced to give in order to justify himself, were to be accepted, it becomes clear that, first of all, he was aware of the cooperation of his terrorists with Waiz, and secondly, that the joint work of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center with the agents of Himmler did not stop as a result of this conversation. On the contrary. As has been established by the facts accumulated, this work received its "theoretic" basis and the "sanction from above".

All the material of the trial was fully printed in the Soviet press. There was nothing to stop the representatives of the bourgeois press present at the trial from giving adequately objective reports on the proceedings, if only they had the least respect for truth. 

First and foremost the trial showed that the Trotsky-Zinoviev plotters were an isolated gang, having no support in the country of Soviets, no connections with the masses. This gang does not repre­sent any section of Soviet society today. The Trotsky-Zinoviev ter­rorists were only the relics of the exploiting classes, the rotting refuse of the old regime which is carrying on a vicious struggle against the people, against its will, against its decisions. 

The convicted criminals are the .fiercest enemies of socialism. Ten years ago they started a struggle against the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, hypocritically whining that the build­ing of socialism would inevitably lead the country to catastrophe and doom. Today, it is victory on all fronts of socialism in the Soviet Union that is continually aggravating their raging fury against the C.P.S.U., their savage hatred of its leadership.

Isolated from the people, the enemies of socialism could not screen themselves behind any political program which they could promise to carry out had they succeeded in getting power. 

Anyone who acquaints himself with the reports of the trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist group will be struck by the following fact: among the various documents which came up before the court there was not a single document which usually forms an integral part of any political trial, there was no politico/ .program, political platform, or political slogans of any kind. 

Is this perhaps to ,be explained by the fact that in the preliminary investigation the activity of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center was not thoroughly enough investigated? Or, perhaps, the investigating au­thorities intentionally did not attach this document to the dossier? No! The preliminary examination was conducted with the most extraor­dinary care. The court gave the accused the right to refer to all documents, even to those which were not read out to the court, as well as to all known facts and documents even if they were not in the dossiers, In their speeches, the accused used this Possibility. 

Why is it then they did not even mention a single political pro­gram of their own, or any kind of political views? For the simple reason that the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists had no political program, that they did not even take the trouble to invent such a program. Why? The accused themselves clearly answered this question. 

At the trial, they declared that their terrorist activity needed no program. "We had nothing in our group," stated the accused Rein­gold. "All we had was a gun". To such an extent have the Trotsky­Zinoviev adventurers lost all semblance to political leaders! In the dock are "has-beens", degenerates, criminals who, carrying on an unprincipled struggle simply for power, had nothing to show the Soviet people but their fascist face distorted with rage. 

In the struggle against the Communist Party, against the Soviet power, against the Soviet people, the Trotsky-Zinoviev center passed from one means of criminal counter-revolutionary struggle to ever more criminal forms of struggle. They began with internal Party discussion which had the object of forcing their will on the Party. Then, they unsuccessfully tried to carry their counter-revolutionary agitation into the masses who cast them off. They ended up with gangster terrorism. 

Those of the accused who were formerly members of the Com­munist Party could not but mention at the trial the patience and leniency: with which the Bolshevik leadership treated them, how the leadership repeatedly tried to save them from .final disgrace. Even Kamenev, when he spoke of the depths to which he had fallen, had to state that the Party many times had warned him, forgiven him, had given him the possibility of atoning for his crimes, believed his statements, promises, and oaths. 

But the Trotsky-Zinoviev adventurers made use of the leniency of the Party, and afterwards of the proletarian court not in order to come to their senses and to leave the path of crime. On the con­trary, they used ever more cunning means of evading the vigilance of the Soviet government. They fell so low that they became gang­sters of the counter-revolutionary underworld, knowing no bounds to their bloody plans. They joined up with the Gestapo. 

The question may be asked, why did people who had fallen so low hold on so .firmly to the mask of revolutionaries and Marxists? 

The court proceedings showed that they needed this mask not only in order to avoid ,punishment for crimes committed, hut also in order to have the ,possibility of continuing their crimes in the future. 

Camouflage was the most necessary element in all the terrorist work of the Trotsky-Zinoviev criminals. They knew that once the

mask was torn from their faces they would lose the particular value they had in the eyes of international reaction. 

Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates did not fraudulently make their way into the Bolshevik Party because of any kind of ordinary careerist aims. No! They made their may in because, under cover of a stolen Party card, they calculated on assassinating the leaders of the Party. 

A document of exceptional baseness and treachery is the obituary on Comrade Kirov which Zinoviev wrote with his hands stained in the blood of the great son of the Bolshevik Party, whom he murdered, the close comrade in arms of Comrade Stalin, the unforgettable Comrade Kirov. In order to understand the full value of this docu­ment not only from the point of view of its depravity, but also from the point of view of its danger, it is necessary to remember that Zinoviev, hiding behind his hypocritical tears over the body of his victim, not only had it in mind to avoid all responsibility for the brutal crime which he had committed, but also to preserve the pos­sibility of continuing to organize the assassmatwn of Comrade Stalin. 

TROTSKY-THE ORGANIZER OF TERROR 

In all the testimonies of the terrorists, who were sent from Germany to the Soviet Union by Trotsky, one point stands out: to everyone who began his conversation with "German A:ffairs"-and they were all taken from the circles of the Berlin Trotskyites­ Trotsky declared that all talk about the German labor movement is at present of no importance, as everything must be solved in Moscow. How? To this question Trotsky, after the probing of his companions, gave the curt answer: murder. To go to Moscow and murder Com­rade Stalin. Trotsky's whole so-called "international position" and the scoundrelly plans which he dictates to his groups in the various countries are defined by this basic aim: to prepare and select the maddest adventurers for terrorist assassinations of the leaders of the C.P .S. U. and the Soviet government, to help the fascist aggressor in his military attack on the Soviet Union.

But, ask those who do not want to, or have as yet not been able to understand all the monstrous Trotskyite provocation revealed by the trial, is it possible that Trotsky not only politically instigated the murder of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party and Socialist state but also organizationally guided the murders? Why does Trotsky deny his guilt in organizing individual terror, basing himself on the f act that "being a Marxist he cannot consider individual terror an expedient form of struggle"? 

Let those who are in doubt compare two facts. Firstly, the murder of Comrade Kirov by Zinoviev and secondly the obituary on Comrade Kirov written by Zinoviev. No doubt can be cast on these two facts. What do they prove? Zinoviev's "indignation" about the murder of Comrade Kirov is expressed no less eloquently than the "indignation" with which Trotsky writes against the fas­cists. But this indignation at the murder of Comrade Kirov did not hinder, but rather helped, Zinoviev to murder Comrade Kirov. Exactly in the same way Trotsky's fight with words against fas­cism does not hinder but helps Trotsky and his agents to cooperate with the Gestapo for the purpose of organizing the assassination of the leaders of the C.P .S. U. and Soviet government. 

"Only petty-bourgeois Marxists can reject the application of individual terror in the struggle against the Stalinist leadership", was the lesson Trotsky taught his gangsters in private conversation. But with Jesuit evasiveness, he in public writes of the inexpediency of individual terror. Let the philistine reading these articles think that he, Trotsky, condemns the murder of Comrade Kirov._ Let the more shrewd advocates of Trotsky think that they, officially, were not aware of the fact that Trotsky advocated the terrorist assassination of Soviet leaders. 

At the same time, these articles of Trotsky, which were more than once exposed in the Communist press, even at the time of the preparations for the murder of Comrade Kirov, contained in. a clear enough form a call for the physical destruction of the "Stalinist leadership". Recently they have even more openly praised the applica­tion of individual terror in the Soviet Union. 

To this public incitement to murder Comrade Stalin and his closest comrades-in-arms, Trotsky added frantic underground work -directly organizing these murders, and the demand for speeding them up without shrinking from the most criminal means.

TROTSKY AND THE GESTAPO

But how could the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center act in alliance with the Gestapo, why do Trotsky and Goebbels so sharply attack each other?-will be said by those who believe what Trotsky and Goebbels write to be the truth. But it is better not to believe the writings of these .provocateurs. 

We saw from the private conversation of Zinoviev with Moissei Lurye to what word shuffling the "theoreticians" of the Trotsky­Zinoviev center resorted in order to give a "basis" to their collabora­tion with the Gestapo. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend", such was the theoretical formula, in the words of the accused them­selves, that was used by the heads for the .purpose of setting at ease

any doubts the terrorist gunmen entertained in connection with joint work with the Gestapo. The gunmen themselves were not very much in need of "theoretical" justification. Coached by such scoundrels as Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev they were quite ready to merge with the fascist terrorists. 

I came to the conclusion," stated the accused Nathan Lurye, "that if the Trotskyists had gone over to methods of armed fight, then this had its logic, that is, if a fascist off ered his services for terrorism, these services had to be made use of. I continued the con­nection with Franz Waiz and worked under his practical guidance." 

The proposal of Trotsky's son Sedov to make connections with the Gestapo, to get a false passport, could not arouse any doubts in Valentine Olberg, for the simple reason that, according to his evi­dence at the trial, he knew that the connections of the German Trotskyists with the German secret police was a system which had been introduced with the knowledge of Trotsky. 

At the trial Olberg de.fined this connection between the German Trotskyists and German fascist police, established in 1933,. as an "agreement". Olberg, who was absent from Berlin for a time, found out about this from his benefactor Tukalevsky who advised him to go to the Soviet Union through Berlin, in order to meet there somebody by the name of Slomovitz, who was the connecting link between these two honorable organizations. Olberg took this advice.

"In Berlin", states Olberg, "I visited Slomovitz who told me the following: during my absence, few Trotskyist cadres had remained and now the dilemma was for the Trotskyists either to disband or to come to an agreement with the German fascists. The basis for the agreement was the question of the preparation and. carrying out of terrorism against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and of the Soviet go'Uermnent. Trotsky sanctioned the agreement between the Berlin Trotskyists and the Gestapo, and the Trotskyists were really un­ mol1sted."

 Was there any one at the trial who, at the end of the court proceedings, had made up his mind to deny, or at least to cast doubt on the proved fact of cooperation between the Trotskyist terrorists with the Hitler terrorists? No, there was not one.

"I ask myself," said Kamenev in his last words, "is it an accident that along with me, Zinoviev, Yevdokimov, Bakayev, Mrachkovsky there sit the emissaries of foreign secret police, people with false pass­ports, with doubtful biographies and with undoubted connections with the Gestapo? No! It is not an accident. We sit here together with the agents of foreign secret police because our weapons were one and the same, because our hands had intertwined earlier than our fates were intertwined here, in this dock." 

But perhaps Kamenev took responsibility for the most shameful crime that can be imagined, although he was not guilty of it, hoping in this way that the punishment awaiting him would be mitigated. No! Such base suggestions which the defenders of the murder try to circulate cannot deceive a single honest person. When Kamenev pronounced these words he already understood that the only answer to continuous gangsterism could only be to be shot. He himself had to say: 

"I am now before the proletarian court for the third time, accused of terrorist intentions, plots and acts. Twice my life was spared me. But there is a limit to everything, there is a limit even to the magnanimity of the proletariat, and <we have exhausted it."

Not only at the time when Zinoviev and Kamenev reckoned on keeping the stolen Party card but also in 1935 they were both deadly afraid that their cooperation with Trotsky would come out. When the murder of Comrade Kirov was being investigated in January, 1935, both Zinoviev and Kamenev, even while admitting their guilt of the grave crime of political and moral responsibility for the murder of Kirov, continued to deny two facts, which they con­sidered particularly dangerous-firstly, their direct participation in the brutal murder of Comrade Kirov, and, secondly, their connec­tions with Trotsky. It is not difficult to understand why they denied that they were the murderers of Comrade Kirov: they knew that the Soviet court and the Soviet .people could only shoot them for such a crime. But why were they so afraid to reveal the existence of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center and connections with Trotsky? Because they knew that the discovery of this connection would com­pletely expose them. Connections with Trotsky meant connections with the Gestapo, i.e., with the secret police of German fascism, the fiercest enemy of the working class, the savage torturers of the Communists, Socialists and non-party workers. Connections with Trotsky are connections with the fascist aggressor for a military attack on the Soviet Union. 

As a band of murderers, as the bitterest enemies of socialism, the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist center could not but gamble on the defeat of the Soviet Union in a war with the imperialists. As far back as 19 31 Zinoviev and Kamenev instructed their associates as follows: "We are for def eat, which will overthrow the present lead­ership, even at the price of a piece of Soviet soil, even at the price of a piece of the Far East." This is the same policy of selling land to the imperialists, which General Franco is at present trying to carry out, promising to pay Germany and Italy for their military interven­tion against the Spanish people with "pieces" of Spain. 

But the difference between Franco and Zinoviev is very funda­mental. Franco could make use of the fact that the young demo-

cratic republic of Spain had not in good time cleansed the state apparatus of fascist and monarchist plotters. But Zinoviev was drawn into the fight against the great socialist state of workers and peas­ants, the impregnable bulwark of the liberty of the .peoples, against the Soviet power. Zinoviev's gamble on the defeat of the U.S.S.R. therefore pre-supposed the direct connection of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center with international reaction, and first and foremost, with fas­cism. This connection was embodied and is embodied in the person of Trotsky. 

TROTSKY AND CITRINE 

The sentence in the trial of the sixteen counter-revolutionary gangsters who, in the name of their shameful, self-seeking aims., have taken to the most disgraceful crimes, and who have shown themselves as dangerous and as incorrigible as mad dogs, could not be other than shooting. This sentence was dictated by the whole enormity of the crimes committed. The whole of the Soviet people burning with anger and fury against the murderers, the Soviet people, each one of whose sons was ready, at any moment, to protect Comrade Stalin from Trotsky's fascist bullets with his own body, the Soviet people demanded this sentence. Former members of the Trotsky opposition, Comrades Pyatakov, Radek, Rakovsky and Preobrazhensky have published articles in which they declared that "To the highest degree of treachery and depravity can be accorded only the highest degree of punishment." Finally, the accused them­selves, in their last words, agreed that the demand of the prosecutor that the highest sentence be passed on them was a just, inevitable and lawful demand. 

The sentence of the Supreme Court has called forth a feeling of relief and satisfaction throughout the U .S.S.R. The working people of the whole world, and all honest men who are interested in barring to fascist agents the road to the Soviet Union, and in cleansing the wonderful Land of Socialism from all remnants of Trotsky-Zinoviev rottenness welcome the sentence. 

But the condemned gangsters have found defenders. Who are the defenders? First and foremost the fascists themselves. 

The help which the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang are getting from fascism is of two kinds. First, and this the trial has clearly shown to the whole world, the Trotsky-Zinoviev band of terrorists rely on the material forces of fascism. If Trotskyism had not the forces of international reaction behind it, its pernicious work would not be a danger to the working class movement. 

Secondly, the fascists are giving real assistance to the Trotskyists by helping them to disguise themselves and to appear as revolutionaries. The fascists know the value of Trotsky's lies and his pretended hostility to fascism, and they pay him in the same coin. They present the Trotskyists, their agents and collaborators, as their uncompromising enemies. 

Before the beginning of the trial, when they saw they had been found out, the fascists hastened to speak of the "persecution" of Trotsky. 

The fascists of Norway, where Trotsky has now set up his fascist headquarters, have taken even more demonstrative action: a few days before the beginning of the trial a group of young fascists played the comedy of an arbitrary search of the "revolu­tionary" Trotsky's house. 

In view of this house searching, Der A ngriff and the V oelki­ scher Beobachter, which have nourished the German Trotskyists, have raised the cry that the revolutionary work of Trotsky threatens the peace of fascism. 

After the trial Goebbels and Rosenberg did not withdraw their support from Trotsky. The Voelkischer BeobfJChter prints Trotsky's picture and underneath it in black type a biography in which Trotsky is shown as a "permanent revolutionary" who, from youth up, has devoted himself to the "service_ of the revolution". 

But now that Trotsky is exposed before the whole world as the direct ally of the Gestapo, that, in the public sessions of the court, people have appeared who are at the same time agents of Trotsky and of Himmler, and that the names of others of the same kidney were mentioned, the disgraceful Trotskyist Bulletm and Goebbels' Angnff can no longer keep up the comedy of mutual attack and their game of provocation. 

But the murderers of Comrade Kirov and the organizers of an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin and other leaders of the Land of Soviets have found other defenders. 

The official representatives of the Socialist International and of the International Federation of Trade Unions, De Brouckere, Adler, Citrine and Schevenels did not ask their organizations to come out against these foul terrorists; they tried to present them as "guilt­less victims" of the injustice of the proletarian courts. Citrine and company are trying to save the agents of the Gestapo from the just, lawful and inevitable demand of proletarian justice with the hypocrit­ical, consciously dishonest objection that the trial of the counter­revolutionary terrorists in the Soviet Union is a danger to proletarian solidarity with the Spanish people. Comrade Dimitroff tears the mask from the face of these hypocritical, reactionary leaders of reformism. 

"The employment of the courts against the terrorists and agents

of fascism," writes Comrade Dimitroff, "is an integral part of the anti-fascist struggle of the international working class. True soli­darity with the Spanish people is not compatible with the taking into protection of the agents of fascism in other countries. One cannot sincerely support the Spanish people, who are :fighting against fas­ cism and at the same time play the part of protector of the terrorist rabble in the Soviet Union which is helping fascism. Whoever sup­ports counter-revolutionary terrorists directly or indirectly in the Soviet Union is in principle serving the ends of Spanish fascism, he is rendering difficult the fight of the Spanish people and facilitat­ing its defeat." 

The day after the publication of these words in Pravda, Citrine gave a clear proof of the fact that he is not interested in helping the Spanish people in their fight with the rebels, who are supported by international reaction as a whole, and in the first place by Hitler, but that he is interested in helping the counter-revolutionary gang, who commit the foulest crimes and who are defended by the whole of international reaction headed by the Gestapo. 

At the meeting of the National Joint Council of Labor, Citrine spoke against the proposal that the Council, in the name of the trade unions, Labor Party, and Cooperative Union should approach the British government in order to make it assist the legal Spanish government based on the will of the whole people, in the fight against the monarchist rebellion. Citrine succeeded in making. the I',ational Joint Council adopt, by a majority vote, the standpoint of "neutrality", the standpoint of the Baldwin government which hides the policy of the military intervention of Germany and Italy in Spanish affairs in the course of the civil war. 

Sir Walter Citrine has special reasons for hastening to the aid of those convicted of criminal Trotsky-Zinoviev work. As is well known, he belongs to the most reactionary sections of the reformist leadership who, in the days of the murder of Comrade Kirov, tried by all possible means to conceal from the workers of the capitalist countries the Trotsky-Zinoviev organizers of this crime. These reac­tionary leaders of reformism spread filthy rumors about the causes of the murder. Even after the exposure of those guilty of the murder they took Nikolayev and the other gangsters under their protection. 

When, at the beginning of 1935, Zinoviev and Kamenev stood their trial for the murder of Comrade Kirov, Citrine and his press repeated the Trotskyist reference to the alleged "Marxist opinions" of Zinoviev and Kamenev, in order to prove that they could have had no connections with Nikolayev's crime. What then can Sir Walter Citrine say now that the whole world knows that Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were the chief organizers of the murder of Comrade Kirov? He can only either honestly admit that he, in fact,

perhaps without meaning to, covered up the murder of Comrade Kirov or he must continue on the path of covering up these criminals. Sir Walter Citrine has chosen the latter. 

He has voluntarily placed himself in the dock along with Zinoviev, Kamenev, Olberg and Trotsky, before the tribunal of the English and the entire international proletariat. 

No "guarantee" of impunity on which Citrine is counting as permanent Secretary of the General Council of Trade Unions can free him from this tribunal, since he is playing the disgraceful role of a political accessory to convicted criminals. 

DE BROUCKERE's ARGUMENTS 

The action of the four reactionary reformist leaders in under­mining the solidarity of the international proletariat with the pro­letariat of the Soviet Union is a blow to the movement for unity of the working class. It is, therefore, understandable that Sir Walter Citrine, who is the open and bitter enemy of the unity of the working class, participated in it. But how can De Brouckere justify his participation in this step, seeing that he states that he is anxious for "the ever greater unification of those who defend democracy" against the attacks of fascism? How can he justify his step, which is clearly directed against the united front of the working people? 

In a special article ( Peuple of August 22, 1936), the President of the Labor and Socialist International gives his reasons for his step. The author states that he was guided not by political but by moral motives, thereby showing a peculiar form of color-blindness. In the title of his article, he demonstratively calls the trial of common mur­derers a "Political Trial" but his telegram to the Council of People's Commissars which has a political aim, coinciding with the interests of world reaction, he represents as a moral act. 

On what does De Brouckere base his attempt to oppose his private opinions and desires to the judgment of the public court of the great proletarian country, to the will of one hundred seventy million Soviet people who have given the whole world an example of how to build up a free and happy socialist life? 

The first argument of De Brouckere. The reference to the trial of the Bureau of the Menshevik Union (Groman, Suhanov, etc.) of 1931. At that time, writes De Brouckere, Soviet justice did not satisfy the wishes expressed by him and his confreres; he foresees that this time, too, it will not satisfy them. 

But the President of the Second International was so careless as to fall into Trotsky's trap and take the .path of historical recol­lections which strongly compromise De Brouckere himself. 

It is understandable that Trotsky just now is recalling the Menshevik trial. But why does De Brouckere need to? 

In the August number of his shameful Bulletin, Trotsky solemnly declares: 

"The editors must agree that at the time of the Menshevik Trial, they greatly underestimated the degree of shamelessness of Stalinist justice and so took too seriously the confessions of the former M ensheviks." 

It is not by chance or by accident that Trotsky does such rever­ence to the Mensheviks. He knows that his terrorist band had been smoked. He foresees that they will be convicted for their crimes and breaks with them in advance, and deprecates the statements to the court of members of the gang. At the same time, Trotsky makes a proposal to the leaders of Social-Democracy in the following sense: 

"I withdraw what I wrote in 1931 when your people were con­victed of a counter-revolutionary struggle against the Soviet power; but you must now defend me." 

The President of the Second International openly accepts this proposal and, by reference to the Menshevik trial, he now actually comes forward on Trotsky's behalf. Mutual amnesty for crimes against the power of the Soviets. 

This is the political meaning of De Brouckere's first argument. Recollections of the trial of 1931, however, should take from the leaders of Social-Democracy any desire to press their standpoint on the Soviet courts. What was the position at that time? 

Before the beginning of the trial of the Menshevik Union Bureau, the Executive Committee of the Second International sent a ruHled telegram to the Council of People's Commissars, stating that they considered it impossible that people of such unstained political standing as the accused could have committed the alleged crimes. But when the trial began, the Social-Democratic leaders, who had signed the telegram, had the doubtful satisfaction of becoming con­vinced that all the accused were so deeply incriminated that they admitted their guilt before the court. 

The Menshevik emigrants, who had nothing more to lose, limited themselves to calling the. oldest members of the Menshevik Party­with "unstained political standing"-"liars, calumniators and pro­vocators". But the leaders of the Second International were in a pain£ ul position: with their predictions and "guarantees" they came to grief in the eyes of their own adherents. 

In connection with the Menshevik trial, the Second International turned to the Soviet workers with an appeal in which they tried to frighten them with the inevitability of a catastrophe, of peasant uprisings, etc., if they did not give up the policy of industrialization and collectivization. The authors of this appeal, by unprincipled calumnies, tried to destroy the confidence of the working class of the Soviet Union in its Communist advance guard and its leadership. They naturally came to grief. The leaders of the Second Interna­tional took miscreants under their wing and called on the Soviet workers to rely on the Mensheviks. Naturally the working people of the Soviet Union laughed at this advice. 

But let one or another of the leaders of the Second International print in its own press this appeal to the Soviet workers with regard to the Menshevik trial! They should try it! Let them dare to make themselves ridiculous before their own readers, before the Social­Democratic workers, who, though still under the influence of their leaders, do know that the Soviet country has prospered just because it has followed and is following unitedly, unswervingly and devotedly the path of Stalin. 

The second argument of De Brouckere. The reference to the trial of the Central Committee of the Right Socialist-Revolution­aries who were sentenced for organizing the murder of Comrades U ritsky and Volodarsky and for the attempt on the life of Comrade Lenin. At that time, said De Brouckere, representatives of the Sec­ond International were permitted to defend. He would like to repeat this experiment now. But this historical comparison defeats De Brouckere and his comrades for the following reason: 

Even before the beginning of the Socialist-Revolutionaries' trial, Lenin gave warning that Bukharin and Radek had committed a great mistake when they thoughtlessly voted for allowing repre­sentatives of the Second International to come as defenders. Only by swindling could the representatives of the Second and Two-and­a-Half International wring this promise from Bukharin and Radek at the Berlin Conference of the three internationals on the establish­ment of the united front. When the trial began it immediately be­came clear that Comrade Lenin's warning had been correct; when V andervelde, Rosenfeld, and Theodore Liebknecht took their places as official defense counsel they did not set themselves the task of help­ ing to find out the truth about the activity of their clients but did everything possible to obscure the truth. For this purpose, they tried with their invective and political demonstrations to discredit the court and disorganize its work. They tried to influence some of the accused who had carried out terrorist acts, admitted their crimes and convicted the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionaries of having given terrorist instructions.

This attitude of the representatives of the Second International in the court called forth the natural indignation of all sections of the working people throughout the Soviet Union; and when Vandervelde, Liebknecht and Rosenfeld were convinced that they would not succeed and that the defense devised by them would not be allowed by a proletarian court, it then occurred to them to leave the court. 

The "case of precedence" of 1922 does not speak in favor of but against the intervention of the representatives of the Second Inter­national in Soviet justice. 

Thirdly, De Brouckere, in the comparison between the Socialist­Revolutionaries' trial of 1922 and the trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev center of 1936 conceals one very essential condition from his read­ers. Low as the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries had fallen­who tried to take shelter behind the backs of the terrorists whom they had sent to do murder-the Central Committee bore themselves in the dock as a definite political group. In 1936, in the trial against the Trotsky-Zinoviev center, there sat in the dock common mur­derers who possessed nothing but bitter, impotent hatred of the Land of Socialism and its leadership, who were united by only one aim: to get personal power through no matter what crime, who had so far degenerated that even simple personal confidence in one another was lacking .... It was just for this reason that Zinoviev appeared before the court, as he himself said, with a Gestapo agent, Olberg, on his right and another such agent, Nathan Lurye, on the left. How is it that De Brouckere has not seen the kernel of the activity of the Trotsky-Zinoviev gang of terrorists-their entanglement with the Gestapo? 

The Third Argument of De Brouckere. He considers it, he says, as unlikely that "Trotsky could prepare assassination from his distant exile • . . that Kamenev and Zinoviev, under strong guards, and anxious not to worsen their position, would have been so naive as to prepare crimes whose achievement is practically impossible". Whether De Brouckere believes in the innocence of the terrorist chiefs or not is his a:ff air. But one thing is sure, that no worker believes in De Brouckere's own innocence. Even in a capitalist coun­try, only a shady lawyer would defend convicted criminals; a lawyer who, in the interests of his client, does not shrink from cynically and insolently distorting well-known facts. "Could Trotsky prepare assassination from his distant exile? " But it is proved by facts that he did it. "Could Kamenev and Zinoviev murder Comrade Kirov?" But they did murder him, the best son of the Soviet people, a devoted fighter in the cause of the working class. 

The murder leaves De Brouckere and his friends unmoved.

They make a .fine show with their light-minded unconcern of the life and security of the best men of our time. That is De Brouckere's and his comrades' own lookout. But they should not give the Soviet people and the international proletariat lessons on how to protect the cause of socialism from fascist murderers! Don't let them shield these murderers! 

The trial has shown the friends as well as the foes of the Soviet Union that there is no place on Soviet soil for cowardly terrorists and fascist mercenaries. 

It has shown the international proletariat that the renegades, the double-crossers, the miscreants in the ranks of the working class, who, like Trotsky, play with radical phrases, are carrying on fascism's dirty work. 

"To be able to display class vigilance at every step, to be able to distinguish real friends from concealed enemies, to know how to expose double-dealers and agents of the class enemy and to remove ruthlessly and in good time from the ranks of the proletarian organi­zations,-this is one of the most important lessons of the trial for the workers' movement in all countries." (Dimitroff.)

The Communist October 1936