Voices of Protest from the Bolsheviks in Exile (Belated though it is in publication dozens of old Bolsheviks lead the terrible In January 1930, the collegium of the The mass repression undertaken in the here, the declaration which follows retains life of prisoners, condemning their health, based itself upon treacherous informa deportation on the eve of the Sixteenth all its timeliness and importance. It was undermined by the illegal work before the tion of the renegade Karl Radek, condemned Congress has as its object the achievement addressed as a supplement to the declara revolution and by the civil war, to certain to capital punishment comrade Blumkin, of the extermination of the Leninist cadres tion of the Bolshevik Leninist Opposition ruin. In the Tomsk prison, subjected to member of the to his last day. of the party. recent weeks, the best by the group of Oppositionist deportees at conditions of fatal isolation, lives comrade Under conditions that have remained ob comrades who resisted capitulation, were Kansak and sent as a protest to the six Sosnovsky, suffering from diabetes at an scure, the collegium of the sen snatched out of deportation. At Archangel, teenth Congress of the Ed. acute stage. Previously, he was submitted tenced to death comrades Rabinovitch and Alma Ata, Krasnoiarsk, Milousinsk, Tomsk, to detention at Cheliabinsk where he was Silov, members of the who were Sarakul, Slavgorod, Ufa, Hodjent, Kansk, For two and a half years, the vanguard Imprisoned for the second time (the first accused at their trial of belonging to the even on the Angar, hundreds of miles from time on the eve of the imperialist war. of the Bolshevik party has been submitted Opposition. At the same time, the old Bol a railroad, there have been repeated the a merciless repression.
to During this Comrade Sosnovsky has not the possibility shevik, Yosselevitch was condemned to capi comedies of raids in which accusatory maof feeding himself normally prohibited by time, all the means of repression have been tal punishment, commuted to ten years ofterial was assembled like personal letters, the prison administration. and has fallen employed in the struggle against the Op riogrous isolation solely for the crime of extracts from Soviet papers and from the into the hands incorrigible gendarmes, having remained loyal to the Opposition works of Lenin and Plechanov, books pubposition: calumny and provocation, raids and arrests, ceportations and solitary prison, void of all feeling of incorrigible gendarmes, after his return from deportation.
lished by the Soviets, etc. The repression up to assassination itself. The apparatus, the workng class. These are Rotchin, chief THE DESPERATE METHODS still continues today, embracing an ever of the secret section of the at wider circle of victims. It seems that a assisted by the with the manifest Tomsk and under detention now far more OF CENTRISM new crime is being prepared for the Sixsympathy of the domestic and international is Greenstein, an old Bolshevik former (3) The Oppositionists who are de teenth Congress; a spicy dish in the words counter revolution, has deported many hunmember of the Political Bureau of the Cendreds of Bolsheviks to the Siberian taiga, ponted are constantly exposed to various of Lenin, directed solely masking and tral Committee of the Communist party, repressions. The political isolation, the to the steppes of Central Asia, to the damp justifying all the sordid affairs carried on sections of the Upper Urals, of Cheliabinsk, seriously ill, crushed under the blows of physical and material privation, that is the by the Stalinist leaders nst its own of Tomsk and Suzal. Up to the Sixteenth the penitentiary administration, At Viatka, fate of many hundreds of comrades (leported party, in order to slander once more the Congress, a special commission for the Opis Kavtaradze. At Suzdal, Smirnov, beyond the Urals, thousands of miles from Opposition, to lead the party and the workposition has been functioning unknown to who has already gone through three soli the industrial centers. The insignificant ing class into error. Provocation serves as the party and the working class. The re taries and two places of deportation since aid, frequently given belatedly, the lack of a mask for a shameful repression slander 1929. Elzin, Sapronov and many others work, almost dooms the families of the de encourages the criminal method of strugpression against the Opposition has not taken place without leaving its traces in are isolated in such a manner that it is portees to starvation (Narym, the region gle. With this object, the apparatus blackSince then, espionage, pronot even known in what prison holes they of Priangarsk, Karapalpakia, many regions the country.
maileel the party on the eve of the Fifteenth may be.
vocation, raids have become frequent and of Kazakstan, the region of the North Congress with the aid of the Wrangel customary phenomena in the workers quarPHYSICIAL DESTRUCTION the territory of Komy, etc. Very few of oflicer. allegedly connected with the Op ters, in the university communes, and even OF LEFT OPPOSITION the comrades live under conditions of ma position. But turned out that he was in the factories. The arrests and the expul. 2) From deportation and imprisonment terial security, above all in the cities. The an agent sent in by the see the sions of old Bolsheviks, of workers, memin solitaries, which have produced the deported Bolshevik Leninists, deprived of stenographic record of the Plenum of the effect hoped for, the apparatus has passed all rights, even of the right to defend thembers of the Party and the Communist Youth, Central Committee of October 1927. With have a painful effect upon party, deto more criminal means of repression. For selves against the arbitrary actions of the this object, criminal and charlatanist. Yara long time now, a group of Opposition local chieftains, have actually been outmoralize the working class and unleash the oslavsky, the eve of the Sixteenth Conists lives on the Solovsky Island in a lawed. Under one pretext or another, the gress, atributes to the Opposition the inbureaucracy. There is the most obvious result of the last two years! For its petty concentration camp. In flagrant contradie most absurd and severe persecutions are tention of putting itself at the head of factional interests. the apparatus has sur tion to the «lecree of the in undertaken against them, they are pro peasant uprisings and to the Bolshevik.
1926, interdicting the dispatch of political hibited from using the libraries, the lecture rounded the party with a system of espionLeninists who are arrested in the deportaage so that a denunciation or a secret prisoners to Solovsky, the even at halls, the movies (Kansk. they are evicted tion, the false accusation is presented of the end of 1927, incarcerated the Opposi from their homes (Hocjent. the gauntlet agency prevail over the decision of a whole creating anti Soviet organizations on the organization of the party.
tionist Pitersk there. In the protest ad is practiced against them with the aid of scale. We warn the Sixtenth dressed in the name of the colony of de the militin (Yalutarovsk, Yeneseisk. their Congress that the Stalinist faction, in the THE PRISONS FOR ported Oppositionists at Tomsk, the followfood allotments ile diminished (Narym, struggle against the Opposition, is employOPPOSITIONISTS ing facts are to be found: At Solorky, a region of the North, etc. The term of de ing an ever increasing system of represThe most monstrous and absurd ac few dozens of our comrades are imprisoned. portation as rule is not limited for any sion. In the face of the class enemies, uncusations have been flung at the Opposition, One of them commenced a prolonged hun body and it happens after a year and a der the conditions of a heavy economic and continue to be flung without being ger strike in order to that half or yea hat a new three years crisis and of the enormous efforts of the supported by any proof. The socalled political régime be applied to him. Ile was are added on the simple excuse of having proletariat, the apparatus has employed the ideological struggle conducted against the thrown into the hole. When he left it, corresponded with deporte comrades. But state resources for the aims of the fac Opposition, which never went beyond swind he tried to send a protest to the center, in the most atrocious persecutions strike those tional struggle; in fighting against the OpIer maneuvers has now reached an un which he revealed the arbitrary and mon who are to continue in the deportation the position, the apparatus distracts the attenprecedented persecution. This persecution strons régime in solitary. This protest struggle against the bureaucrncy. the local tion of the from real enemies has become a savage repression which has was intercepted. Some time later, this Soviet organizations and the party. For of the revolution. By its intolerance for long ago lost every shreyl of legality and comrade was conducted much further and having revealed the rottenness in the conscious revolutionary thought, the appar is now entirely aimed at the liquidation of he has not returned. The official version of Chebokarsk (Chuvachia. the atus is destroying the cadres of the party.
the Opposition, without even recoiling be of the Solovky administration was the fol colony of the Bolshevik Leninists was sub In associating itself thoroughly 8th the fore the party and the working class, lowing: Killed in an attempt at flight. mitted to a pogrom. group of comrades general proposals of the Opposition, exbrings to the attention of the Congress. The acts of physical destruction of the who discovered a nest of former White pounded in the document signed by com(1) in the old prisons which served under Bolshevik Leninists are carefully hidden by guards of Koltchak in the district rades Rakovsky, Muralov, Kasparova and czarism for the imprisonment of revolution the nevertheless, the Opposition and the local sections of the party (city of Kossior (removal of paragraph 58, return of ists. the Bolshevik leninists are now lan has succeeded, back in the spring of 1928. Kamen. Siberia) were transferred to Trotsky from exile, the readmission guishing. At the beginning, they chose as in revealing the circumstances that prointo the party of all the Oppositionist Boltheir point of control for the isolation of the voked the death of comrade Butov, who Their declarations and protests, adshevik Leninists, etc. the Kask colony Leninist wing of the party the central died after a prolonged hunger strike. The dressed to the Central Committee and the poses before the Congress the following deprison of Tobolsk, but when it overflowed, death of Butov was a heroic protest against remained without a response. The mands: they added to the system of isolating the the provocation framed by the postal isolation deprives the deportees of THE DEMANDS OF THE Bolsheviks the prison of Upper Urals which with the object of calumniating the Opposi political relations, even of correspondence OPPOSITIION was far from adapted to receiving political tion. In November 1928. comrade Haenri with relatives is not assured of an excepprisoners. At present, the Oppositionists chsen, worker in the Red Triangle fac(a) the congress should elect an intion. For a good remuneration, the vestigation committee on all the activity in prison are divided in the prisons of ev tory, was cruelly beaten to death. The floods the deportees with paid agents who, ery corner of the In the sin medical certificate notas wounds on the of the and the ainst the under the mask of Oppositionists, provoke gle solitary prison of Upper Urals there body and the appearance of strangulation.
Bolshevik Leninists, especially on the ac amalgams (Barnaul, Ichim. tivity of the secret council. to demand are more than 150 men. Many Bolsheviks of the and the all material do their common law term in the Chellabinsk prison wher fori only the esconcerning the repression; to name an investigation committee on all the activity caped and second offense prisoners had to of the and the 11. towards serve. At the Tomsk station, in the solitaries of Viatka. of Siuzsal and Sverdlovsk, they (Continuerl from page 2)
Kramberys and Obermeiers. They remain, the Bolshevik Leninists to ask for the maare also Bolshevik Leninists. For some time in the party a régime which is the inevit but the workers do not. The movement terial the and the have connow, finally, Oppositionists have been sent able accompaniment of an untenable policy pays heavily for the Weismans and those cerning the repression to demand of the into the central prison of Alexandrovsk, into that only a bueaneratie apparatus enn en who make them what they are: the upper commission to inquire into the conditions the Ural solitary, that is, into the prisons force because it would not be tolerated unlayer of apparatus men. The Food Work of exile and imprisonment of the Bolshevikthat served exclusively for criminals and der conditions of workers democracy. ers Industrial Union, with blunder after Leninists.
in which there is no political régime. The The Weismans make their way to the blunder to its record, blunders conceived (2) to determine the personal culpaterms of imprisonment of all the comrades top because they have one qualification: by the Fosters and faithfully executed by bility of all those who bear a responsibility are arbitrarily fixed. the rule being three unquestioning obedience to the higher au the Weismans, has lost heavily in member in the assassination of comrades Butov, years, but in certain isolated cases it ranges thorities and readiness to jam any decision ship. The workers most frequently reply Haenrichsen, Blumkin. Rubinovitch, Silor, from five to six years. In the political down the throats of the workers concerned. to bureaucratism with a hopeless passivity. and the excesses of Solovsky: to turn over solitaries the old prison régime prevails They adopt a new decision for self critic Many have returned to the of the guilty to party and state justice.
which gives the prison administration the ism and against bureaucratism every six Others, reacting from osterian bureaucra. 3) as an immediate measure, to free monopoly of a limitless autocracy. Cases months cynically and without giving it a tixm and mechanical control, are seeking all the Oppositionists from common law are known where complaints addressed to second thought, because they know it is only refuge in the which, significantly prisons and the Solovsky correction prison; the Central Control Commission and to the for the record. The workers never con enough is now making a measure of head unt la final clarification, to cease all decollegium of the were withheld sulted by the Stalinist apparatus about the way among the cafeteria workers, the for portation into the concentration camps, to and not remitted to the addressee, or they leaders that are handed down to them in mer stronghold of the Left wing. The transform to normal conditions the deporwere returned with the address of the a new edition every other week. They are Weismans of the second class and the Weis tation and imprisonment. To free completeC. erased (Urals. often the told to accept and keep their mouths shut. mans of the first class cannot carry on with ly the sick comrades an give them the prisons are submitted to the gauntlet (Up They are not allowed a single worst about impunity to the movement. Whatever Midas possibility of curing themselves immediately.
per Urals, Sverdlovsk, etc. to iey douches this whole procedure, not to speak of hav tonched turned to gold under his fingers. 4) to prohibit categorically the Upper Urals. to the threat of being shot, ing any control over their officials. And the whatever is touched by these bureaucrats, from interfering la the internal party which fortunately was not carried out Weismans know that they are under no trained in incompetence and irresponsibil strurgles, and to suppress the system ac thanks to the revolutionary consciousness control from below. It is precisely this ity, crumbles into dust.
cording to which the members of the Poliof the Red soldiers (Tobolsk. They had condition. the essence of bureancratism. The which has been in tical Bureau are subjected to police sur.
medical assistance refused to the badly ill which gives the Weismans the opportunity constant crisis since its inception, must be veillance. Tomsk. Uralsk, etc. suffered imprison to conduct themselves as they do. And there put under the control of the revolutionary (5) to publish the complete results of ment under conditions which condemned will be no Weismans only when the work militants, those fighters in the ranks which this inquiry to prohibit secret sentences them to physical extermination (for ex ers destroy the roots from which these foul it still has in goodly number, who can guide and the secret destruction of the Bol hevikample, at Upper Uralsk, where the prisoner blossoms of Stalinism flourish and ro son Leninists.
its destinies intelligently and successfully.
does not have a space equal to that of a the atmosphere of the movement.
The other method, the method of the Weis(Signed. The Kansk Group: Artomb. continual raids applied to the Men And is all well now that he is shifted mans and Obermeiers and Johnstones, has ranovsky. BardunalZa sheviks, the Social Revolutionists, the White out as the convenient goat for the system been given more trials than it ever deserved.
ovsky. Zaichuk. KumainGuards, until the arrival of our comrades of bureaucratism? Not at all, not at all. It has yielded eloquent results. Weisman skala. Micho lov. Romasko, in solitary (Suzdal. There is no essential fference between the case has but served illuminate them Razovenos. Suiviteler SovAt the time of the Sixteenth Congress, removed Weismans and the remaining in a harsher brilliance.
ki, Fortuskin, Smith.
Narym.
The Case of Weisman and Bureaucratism Very to