October 16, 1937 SOCIALIST APPEAL The Beginning of the End.
even worse. the soil. Stalin Will Depart from the Scene Laden with All the Crimes Which He Has Committed Not Only as the Grave Digger of the Revolution but as the Most Sinister Figure in the History of Mankind OOOOOOO By LEON TROTSKY 0000000000OOC The bureaucracy has become gineers in the planning institutionist Antonov Ovseyenko, who, Czechoslovakia, a German emi It is impossible to reconcile onethe instrument for undermining, tions, the directors of trusts and recanted his Oppositional sins in gre, an old and impeccable revo self to less.
demoralizing and degrading the factories, the master workers are 1927 and who was in mortal fear lutionist, Anton Grylewicz, was be sure, the Soviet bureaucountry in spheres social all in mortal fear. No one wants in 1936 lest be fall into the pris arrested on the suspicion of cracy like that of the Nazis and political life. Above all is to assume responsibility. Every oner dock, announced in Pravda connections with the Gestapo. hopes to rule for a thousand this true in the sphere of eco body is afraid to show any ini his complete readiness to strangle The accusation was doubtless years. They are convinced that nomic life. The charges of sabo tiative. At the same time one Trotskyists with his own hands. manufactured by the and if regimes fall it is only because tage flung right and left have runs the risk of facing the firing This individual was promptly supplied in ready made form to sufficiently resolute measures of thrown the entire administrative squad for a lack of initiative. dispatched in the guise of a the obliging Czech police. Genuine repression have not been applied.
apparatus into choas. Every ob The intensification of despotism consul to Barcelona, with precise and alleged Trotskyites are being The secret is simple: If every jective difficulty is interpreted leads to anarchy. democratic instructions as to whom to subjected to persecution especi critical head is lopped off in time, As a failure the part of some regime is as indispensable to strangle. The arrest of Nin on ally in those countries which have it is possible to perpetuate one individual. Every failure is iden Soviet economy as is the good a patently frame up charge, his had the misfortune to become rule. During a certain period tified, whenever the occasion quality of raw materials or lu being kidnapped from jail and dependent upon Moscow: Spain which the Soviet bureaucracy arises, as sabotage. Every pro bricants. The Stalinist system of his being secretly murdered are and Czechoslovakia. But that is was fulfilling relatively province and every region has had management is nothing else but the handiwork of Antonov Ov only the beginning. By utilizing gressive role in great measure its own Piatakov shot. The en la universal sabotage of economy. seyenko. But the initiative, of internatonal complications, and a role that the bureaucracy of course, does not come from him. the hirelings of the Comintern, capitalism had performed in Dictatorship of Ignorance and Lies Poisons Important business of this sort who are ready for anything, and Western Europe in its day dizzy Spiritual Life of People is never undertaken except upon last but not least, the resources successes fell to Stalin lot. But direct instructions from the Gen of the expanding gold industry, this period proved to be very The situation in the sphere of rate, could not but have known eral Secretary himself. Stalin hopes attain the appli brief. Just at the moment when culture is, if that is conceivable, that the charges against the Amalgams on European soil cation of identical methods to Stalin had become completely The dictatorship of Trotskyists and the Red Generals are needed by Stalin not only to other countries. Reaction every imbued with the conviction that ignorance and lies stifles and terests of German and Japanese utterly reactionary international rid of revolutionists, especially if over all obstacles, the Soviet poisons the spiritual life of 170. militarism are sheer twaddle. We policy but also to reinforce the the work of frame ups and mur bureaucracy exhausted its mis000, 000 people. The latest trials need not, naturally, nurse anl il over crude amalgams on Soviet ders is taken upon itself from be sion and began to corrode even and the purge as a whole, which lusions about the morality The mutilated corpse of hind a corner by a foreign revo in its very first generation. This is utterly dishonest both in its Japanese, the German or any Nin is intended to serve as a lutionary government, which is precisely the source whence aims and methods, have com other government.
pletely intrenched the hegemony all, a question not of a competi Oslo. The matter is not confined operates with the aid of domestic and trials which to the average of slander, vileness, denunciation tion in the observance of the ten to Spain alone. Preparations friends who receive their pay philistine appear to have fallen and cowardice. The Soviet school commandments of an ap have long been on the way in a from the self same foreign bud from the clouds.
cripples a child no less gravely praisal of the stability of the number of other countries. In Iget.
than the Catholic seminary from Soviet regime. The Moscow govStronger or Weaker?
which the Soviet school differs ernment can out completely dis Stalinism the Scourge of the Soviet Union and only in that it is less stable. credited from the trials it had Did Stalin reinforce or weaken Leprosy of Labur Movement Scholars, educators, writers and organized. Its enemies, as well as his rule by the bloody purge?
artists who show the slightest its possible allies have a far Stalinism has become the regime.
Revolting profanation! The answer given by the world signs of independence or talent lower estimate of its strength scourge of the Soviet Union and The barracks of the are press on this point was two fold have been terrorized, hounded, and authority than they did prior the leprosy of the world labor not the ideal for which the work and equivocal. The immediate arrested, exiled, if not shot. All to the latest purge. This ap movement. In the domain of ing class is struggling. Social reaction to the Moscow framealong the line the incompetent praisal becomes, in its turn, one ideas Stalinism is a cipher. But ism signifies a pure and limpia ups was such as, to suggesteiah scoundrel triumphs. Hor pre of the most important factors by way of compensation it dis social system which is accommo most to everybody the conclusion scribes the itinerary to science in international and dictates to art the laws of Meanwhile, the government of which exploits the dynamics of the toilers. Stalin regime is sort to such machinations cannot regroupings. poses of colossal apparatus dated to the self government of that a regime constrained to recreativeness. The stifling stench the USSR has been retreating the greatest revolution in history based on a conspiracy of the rul be long lived. But presently the of putrefaction is wafted from step by step before its weakest and the traditions of its heroism ers against the ruled. Socialism more conservative press, whose the Soviet press.
adversary, Japan. The boastful and its conquering spirit. Froin implies an uninterrupted growth sympathies are always assured Is there anything more dis articles and speeches which ac the creative role of revolutionary of universal equality. Stalin has to the ruling Soviet caste in its graceful than the indifference of company these capitulations will violence in a given historical erected a system of revolting struggle against the revolution, the bureaucracy to the interna fool nobody. The Moscow oli period, Stalin, with his congenital privileges. Socialism has made a turn about face. Stalin tional prestige of the country? garchy is waging internal warfare empirical narrowness, has de goal the all sided flowering had completely crushed the OpThe representatives of the inter and is therefore incapable of ex. duced the omnipotence of violence individual personality. When and position, had revamped the national big bourgeoisie and the ternal resistance. The surrender in general. Imperceptibly for where has man personality been eliminated the refractory military staffs all countries of the Amur Islands has comple himself he has passed from the so degraded as in the generals, and during all this the make a much more lucid account tely untied the hands of Japan revolutionary violence the Socialism would have no value people had remained quiescent.
ing of the Moscow frame ups with respect to China. It is quite toilers against the exploiters to apart from the unselfish, honest Clearly, therefore, he had reinand of the seamy side of the probable that Litvinov was in counter. revolutionary At first glance violence and humane relations between forced his rule.
purge than do many labor organ structed in advance to tell the against the toilers. Under old human beings. The Stalin regime each of these two evaluations ap.
izations that are duped by their Japanese diplomats: You can do names and formulas the work of has permeated social and per pears equally convincing. But leaders. What must be the atti whatever you please with China liquidating the October revolution sonal relationships lies, only at first glance.
tude of the capitalist augurs to but don touch us. We will not is thus being consummated.
The social and political meancareerism and treachery. It is ward a socialist government meddle. The ruling clique has No one, not excluding Hitler, not Stalin, of course, who de ing of the purge is clear: which stoops to such base adven no concern for anything except has dealt socialism. such deadly termines the road taken by his ruling stratum is ejecting from tures? Berlin and Tokyo, at any its own self preservation. blows as Stalin This is hardly tory. We possess the knowledge its midst all those who remind it The Communist International Supports the astonishing since Hitler has at of the objective causes which of its revolutionary past, the tacked the working class organ prepared the path principles of socialism, liberty, reaction Counter Revolution in Spain izations from without, while in the But it is no equality, fraternity and the unEqually disastrous is the brand (as impotent against Franco as it assaults Marxism. Stalin not only crest of the Thermidorian wave. lution. The bestiality of the reStalin does it from within. Hitler accident that Stalin rode on the solved tasks of the world revoof diplomatic work that is being is against the Mikado. And just assaults but prostitutes it. Not He was able to invest the greedy pressions testifies to the hatred accomplished through the appa as Stalin requires scapegoats for a single principle has remained appetites of the new caste with which the privileged caste beant and France by themselves would so too in Spain the defeats en sullied. The very names of so Stalin does not bear any respon neity of the ruling stratum and ratus of the Comintern. England his own sins in domestic policy, unpolluted, not a single idea un their most vicious expression to the revolutionists. In this sense never have succeeded in foisting gendered by the reactionary pol cialism and communism have sibility for history. But he does upon revolutionary Spain a bodricies have compelled him to seek been cruelly compromised, from bear responsibility for himself seems to reinforce Stalin posigeois counter revolutionary gov salvation in the destruction of the day when uncontrolled police and for his role in history. It is ernment of the type of Negrin. the revolutionary vanguard.
men making their livelihood by a criminal role. It is so criminal Bureaucracy Hated The so called Communist Inter The methods amalgam and a communist passport, gave the that revulsion is multiplied by national has become an indispen frame up, developed Moscow, name socialism to their police horror.
But this reinforcement is essable transmitting mechanism to are transferred full grown to the sentially spurious in nature.
the diplomats of London and soil of Barcelona and Madrid. Terroristic Acts of Despair Alter Nothing in the Stalin himself, come what may, Paris. In the struggle to win the The leaders of the POUM who Stalinist System Itself is a product of the revolution.
confidence of the French and could only be accused of opporHis closest clique, the so called British bourgeoisie Stalin chief tunism and lack of resoluteness In the harshest codices of man the system itself but merely Political Bureau, consists of inconcern throughout has been to toward Stalinist reaction were kind no suitable punishment can facilitate for the usurpers dividuals who are quite insignifiprevent the Spanish workers from suddenly proclaimed to be Trots be found for the ruling Moscow bloody reprisals against their ad cant; but the majority of them taking the path of the socialist kyists and, consequently, allies clique and, above all, the man versaries. Even from the stand are connected by their past with revolution. The aid given by of Fascism.
Moscow to the People Front Spain discovered letters written ing this, we more than once rais blows cannot offer satisfaction. racy which has so successfully government was always condi in invisible ink by themselves ed in our addresses to the Soviet What is the doom of a dozen used the Stalin clique to make tioned upon the demand of more which established the ties of the Youth a voice of warning against high bureaucrats compared to the short shrift of the revolutioniste stringent measures against the Barcelona revolutionists with individual terrorism whish re number and scope of the crimes cherishes no sympathy or rerevolutionists. As was to be ex Franco in accordance with all the vives so easily on Russia soil committed by the bureaucracy? spect for the present leaders. It pected, the struggle against the rules of the Moscow frame up. soaked as it is with arbitrary The task is to strip criminals desires to be completely free from. workers and peasants behind the For the execution of the gory rule and violence, it was not for naked before the consciousness all the constraints of Bolshevism, Hines invariably led to defeats at directives there is no lack of moral but political considerations of mankind and to cast them even in the mangled form which the front. The Moscow clique is scoundrels. The former revolu Acts of despair alter nothing in into the garbage heap of history. Continued on page 6)
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