Saturday, February 22, 1980 THE MILITANT Page LETTER FROM MOSCOW How Stalin Murdered Blumkin: RADEK JUDAS ROLE Daily Worker and Blumkin The Russian Opposition Knows Its Path!
Beyond doubt it is known that comrade We believe not, since no coinrades whom summer evening, at Zoubalova (in the sub Rather less, but better. From a tiny Blumkin has been shot and that this was Blumkin could have made use of in estab urbs of Moscow. Stalin confided to Dzer. group we have already twice in the past done at the personal instigation of Stalin. lishing contacts have been annoyed Jinsky and Kameneft: To choose a sacri. 1905 and 1917) became the decisive historThis vile act of vengeance is already arous. Did Blumkin capitulate? If he had in fice to carefully prepare the blow to pit ical force. We are not tired. We know our ing large sections in the Party. But this deed capitulated, that is, adopted Radek ilessly, avenge one self and then to path. Forward!
goes on in secret. One of the sources of stand, he could not but have divulged the go to bed, what could be sweeter in life. T: Bulletin of the Russian Opposition these rumors is Radek. His nervous pratt names of the comrades for whom Trotsky Bucharin has referred to this conversation ling is well known. Now he is completely letter had been destined. myself would (the Stalinist philosophy on sweet vengedemoralized, a characteristic of all capit not have been spared. And yet repeat: ance) in his discourse concerning the strugulators. With Smirnov this takes the no one was arrested. Besides, it comrade gle with the Stalinists, this having appeared form of utter dejection; Radek, on the other Blumkin had capitulated, the G, P, would last year. The books of. Trotsky)
hand, seeks to avoid this by spreading ru not have been forced to satisfy his do his articles, his autobiography are appearmors and gossip, whose purpose is to prove mand that he be shot, but would have ing abroad. This must be avenged. Stalin Continued from page the profound sincerity of his repentance. used him for other purposes, this being in arrested, without cause, the daughter of cealed the fact. He has been shot by Stalin Yaroslavsky beyond doubt, makes use of this deed an exceptional opportunity. Beyond L, but since she was seriously ill (havtrait of Radek to set into circulation any doubt the actually attempted this, now in the dark of the moon and far from ing need of a paeumonthorax. the Politary stories. It is of value to point but ran into the stone wall of Blumkin ical Bureau did not dare. despite Stalin the eyes of the working class imply for belonging to the Opposition.
insistence, it is said) to keep her in prison, Leni out all this in order to make clear the fol obdurance. Then Stalin ordered him to be lowing.
shot. And when alarming mut. erings be especially since Trotsky second daughter an honest revolutionary foe, taken with gan to reverberate in the Party, Yaroslav died of tuberculosis a year and a half ago arms in hands in an insurrection against This version, attributed to Radek, is being circulated: When Blumkin arrived sky, through Radek, set into motion the under similar circumstances. He confined lin, a devoted Bolshevik who opposed him the Soviet power, was released. Under Sta.
in Moscow, his first act was to hunt up Raversion which we have reproduced above. himself to exiling Trotsky son in law, Pladek, with whom he had more contact durIt is in this light that we picture this affair ton Volkov, two months ago, Nevelson, is secretly assassinated for retaining his ing the past few years than with the other to ourselves.
views.
the husband of Trotsky dead daughter, Stalin could not fail to understand that comrades, and whom he looked upon as a has long been in prison. But this vengeanco Messrs. Foster and Co. answer: Why the murder of Blumkin would not pass unhas Stalin done this?
is too ordinary and consequently inadeleader of the Opposition. Blumkin wished quate. The need for pitiless vengeance The Daily Worker has not yet replied.
to be informed and to see clearly and in noticed within the Party, and that this would definitely result in great injury to aided by Radek fell upon Blumkin. StaIt has sought to drown our demand in a particular to understand the reasons for Radek capitulation. the brutal and disloyal (Lenin charHe could not yet flood of vituperation and calumny. It has lin ordered him to be shot and after. he acterization of Stalin Ed. usurper. But went to bed.
declared we are in one counter revolutionbring himself to the realization that in RaYours, ary camp with the pope, with Norman dek the Opposition already had an implac his thirst for vengeance carried him away.
On this point, a story has long been in Thomas, with the French reaction, with Orable foe, who, having lost the last vestige circulation in the Party that in 1923, on a Moscow, December 25, 1929 tiz Rubio and the rest. It says that we of moral balance, did not stop at any abomhave raised the old war cry of the reaction ination. One must take into consideration, against the Soviets. The only change it on the one hand, as a characteristic trait has undergone since the days of 1917.
of Blumkin the tendency of moral idealizawrites the Daily Worker, is that Lenin tion of individuals, and on the other hand, NOTE BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF Now, on the other aspect of the questhe murderer has now been changed to the Intimate nature of his former relations THE BULLETIN OF THE tion: the murder of Blumkin took place Stalin the murderer.
with Radek.
RUSSIAN OPPOSITION following appreciable time after the sending Not at all, gentlemen. Lenin took a few Blumkin told Radek of the thoughts and Although the above letter from Mos of the Declaration by Rakovsky, Okudjava hundred depraved and corrupted aristocrats plans of Trotsky) concerning the cow does not yet give complete picture and Kosslor. The bourgeois and social and bourgeols who had lived on the flesh necessity for a secret struggle for their of the arrest and murder of Blumkin, it democratic press has tried, as is known, to and blood of th: Russian workers and pea1deas. In reply, Radek, according to his nevertheless sufficiently clarifies the most present this declaration as a capitulation, sants and were seeking to drown the revoown words, demanded of Blumkin that he important point of this tragedy. The imme that is, as our refusal to defend our ideas lution in a sanguinary sea, and stool them immediately apperr before the and diate cause for the loss of this revolution in order to gain the good wishes of the apagainst the wall to be shot. The proletarian tell everything. Several comrades say that ary, so unusual in his devotion and his paratus, The contemptible sheet of the revolution is not a plaything. But Stalin Radek threatened Blumkin with immediate courage, evidei lies in two facts: in his Russian Mensheviks naturally also wrote has taken a revolutionist, a Bolshevik, a denunciation if he did not do this. This is own idealistic confidence towards men and in this spirit. An insignificant employee of man whose loyalty and devotion Stalin will quite likely, considering the actual statein the complete decline of the man to whom the same camp, a certain Rosenfeld, annever see reflected in his mirror, and murments of this hysterical mass of putty.
he turned. It is also possible that Radek nounced through. Populaire to the French dered him in the darkness, Lenin was the We do not doubt that this actually ochimself has not sufficiently appreciated the petty bourgeoisie that the former Red aminstrument of the proletarian revolution curred. Following this, according to the consequences of his own actions because bassador Rakovsky renounced his ideas in against the class enemy. Stalin is the inofficial version, Blumkin repented. pre in his turn he idealized. Stalin.
order to win back some important post.
strument of the Thermidorian elements sented himself to the and turned All this human vermin judges revolutionagainst tho proletarian vanguard. That is The personal fate of Radek reveals over the letter of comrade Trotsky which aries by its own standards.
the difference.
with a final cleari. css the pitiful fate of the he had upon his person. Not only that, ho The Daily Worker speaks of the decapitulators. Their first stage: Centrism But it is really shameful to recall that even demanded his own shooting (literally. fense of the Soviet Union. But it is Stalin is not quite so bad as we thought. The in the ranks of the Opposition there were and his paid press that weaken the defense Following this, Stalin had to take his desecond stage: We must come closer to the elements, or at least such as counted them of the Soviet Republic by assassinating its mand into consideration and ordered MenCentrists so as to help them in their strug selves with us, who found nothing better to most faithful guardians. The corpse of zinsky and lagoda to shoot Blumkin. Eviglo against the Right wing. The third do than to estimate the Declaration of the Blumkin is a hostage offered by Stalin to dently Stalin had previously had this decistage: The Centrists must be paid to Russian Opposition in the same spirit, that sion confirmed by the Political Bureau in the pope, to Briand, to Rubio, to reaction.
strugglo against the Right by recognizing is, as a step towards political capitulation. Therefore again we demand of Foster order that the Right capitulators be linked the correctness of Centrism. And finally Naturally Urbahns, who does not let a and the other leaders of the American up with the affair. It is needless to say the last stages: The capitulators turn the single occasion pass by without comprom Communist Party: Do you assume responthat the latter were completely in accord Oppositionist Bolshevik over into the hands in the Lenint und, raised the first accus sibility for the reactionary blow that Stalln with Stalle.
of the dooming him to extermin ing voice against the real revolutionaries, has dealt the party? Why?
How is this official version to be taken?
ation, after he had for months reprinted without The Communist workers still await a Its lying character strikes one. We are not And N. Smirnov? And Preobrazhencomment the shameful articles of the capit reply and they have a right to know.
in possession of authentic information since sky? Their personal role in the tragedy ulators (Radek, Smilga, Preobrazhensky. Blumkin, as far as we know at present of Blumkin is not known to us. But is it So that there shall be nothing missing had not time to inform those outside (the possible that Radek did not confer with from this picture, there comes forward an Ludlow Killer Rewarded prison) as to the actual state of affairs.
them on the attitude to take in this delicate old wound bedecked warrior Maurice Paz But the actual course of events unfolds DENVER Sixteen years after he had affair? In the final analysis, it is noc im in the role of a Cato of the revolution.
with sufficient clarity throughout this sitcharge of the burning to death of 12 little portant. Before the party and the inter There exists a species of Communist dilleuation at least in its general aspects. After children and two mothers at the Ludlow national proletariat, they have assumed retantes who prowl around the pyre of the his conversation Massacre, the notorious Pat Hamrock has with Radek, Blumkin sponsibility for all the ignominies of the revolution, but who are primarily preoccufound himself betrayed. Nothing was left Just been sent to the state penitentiary. Not, Stalinist bureaucracy. Consequently, they pied In not burning their fingers there.
for him except to present himself to the however, to await the trip to the gallows cannot disavow them in this case.
part of the Communists of this species especially since the letter of adhered in its time to the Opposition in the as one would naturally expect after such from the nature of its contents could not hope that that liberated them from party a ghastly orgy of killing, but to have combut be an absolute refutation of all the discipline, that it would bring them high plete charge of the inside of the prison slanders which are being propagated in orrenown without imposing any sacrifices as military dictator.
der to justly the expulsion. Were there upon them. And such parlor revolutionColorado had the worst prison mutiny any addresses of individuals in the letter?
in American history on Oct. 3, when eight THE BULLLETIN arles would give lessons in Armness to of the Russian Opposition Rakovsky, Sosnovsky, Muralov, Kate Zinguards and five convicts were killed. Since that time there has been an almost contin The letter contained no addresses and The new Issue contains artic. es by zadze, Okudjava, Kasparova, Mdivani could harm no one. Its text was but a uous series of petty mutinles, one getting Trotsky on the Twelfth Anniand many others who have behind them short review of the situation in the foreign decades of revolutionary struggles, prison, 80 serious that a prison bullding was set versary of the Russian Revolution, Opposition and an expression of solidarity on fire. In a panic the Board of Corrections Communism and Syndicalism, Syndt showing their fidelity to the proletariat, tounderground work, deportation, and who are in charge of the prison, turned to Colorado with the Russian comrades who were decalism Mistakes in Principle, the manding a complete break with Urbahns.
most expert killer to set up dictatorship.
Austrian Crisis, China, etc. etc. Arday also, in the Altal mountains, in the Hamrock has called his old lieutenant, The letter at the same time stressed the ticles by Christian Rakovsky on Govprisons of Chellabinsk and Tobolsk, and not necessity for energetic measures for the in the halls of the Paris court house.
Lewis Scert, who was in charge on the ernment Policy and the Party Regime, two killings in the 1927 coal strike to be widespread distribution of the Bulletin of the Capitulators. Letters from Russ Blumkin was killed because he was his chief aid.
the Opposition in Russia. Under the cirlan Oppositionists in Exile. An unpub bound to the cause of the Russian Oppo Colorado organized labor lodged a cumstances described by our correspondent, lished document of the Petursburg sition, of those who signed the declaration strong objection with the governor, demanthis letter, in the hands of Blumkin, could Party Committee on the eve of the of Rakovsky. And these austere denoun ding that he immediately file charges not but prove that it contained no element uprising, concealed by Stalin. And cers It must also be said loudly have not against the Board of Corrections before of military conspiracy. This fact exmany other important articles and even raised a finger to help the Russian the Civil Service Commission, plains clearly Blumkins decision to turn documents.
Oppositionists who are imprisoned or de Hamrock answered the labor recital of over the letter after he found it unavoidALL ARTICLES IN RUSSIAN ported. On the contrary, in the person of his record with the statement that he would able anyhow, because of Radek. to the Urbahns they have done everything to ren250 each 18c in bundles repeat the Ludlow massacre If it were Note of the Bulletin. der this and Impossible.
Order From necessary. He has never shown any re According to positive information THE MILITANT The revolutionary detatchment of the morse or regret for the burnings and hir which we possess no comrade to whom 26 Third Avenue, Bolshevik Leninists has no needs of false New York, whole record would lead one to believe hy Blumkin should have turned over the letter friends, and still less of traitors. There are statement that he would gladly repeat this has been annoyed (Note of the Bulletin. still many difficulties and tests before us. holocaust NO.