6 to Trotsky as: not no his of the SOCIALIST APPEAL December 18, 1937 The Commission also finds that since the wit. Trotsky or Sedov toward the formation of the He testified that he made two trips to the sonesses were people who were brought into court center, or concerning their role, if any, in its viet Union on this passport in 1935.
under arrest and who inculpated themselves by the terrorist center was the assassination of bearing on Olberg testimony: formation. The only actual crime attributed to The Commission has the following documents their testimony, the following passage from Kirov in December, 1934, after which the cen Ten holograph letters in Russian from Strogovich Vyshinsky is especially pertinent: ter, to the indictment and some of the Olberg to Trotsky dated Jan. 10, 1930, to March witnesses, broke up The Commission, after 4, 1931, and copies of six typewritten answers In bourgeois juridical theory for a long time com analysis of the trial record, finds testimony in Russian from Trotsky to Olberg dated Jan.
plete credence was placed in the testimony of witnesses, sealed by oath, while the inner conviction participation in it so contradictory as to throw 30, 1930, to April 7, 1930. This exchange of cor: of the judges was deemed an adequate guarantee against mistakes in the evaluation of testimony of doubt upon the credibility of the confessions respondence proves: That Olberg had not been a member and of the whole record of the trial.
witnesses. Impressions are a basis which is quite of the Left Opposition from 1927 8, and was not flimsy and deceptive. a false witness who has learned his role by heart can give very seductive The Definitive Charges Against Leon a member of the Left Opposition at the time that his correspondence with Trotsky began.
testimony because of its categorical and lucid charTrotsky and Leon Sedov.
b) That Olberg contact with Trotsky acter.
Much of the new documentary evidence ob and Sedov was not initiated through Anton Gry.
The Commission finds that the testimony on timony given at the trials by accused and wittained by the Commission focuses upon the tes lewicz, but directly by Olberg himself, in a letter which Leon Trotsky and his son Leon Sedov nesses claimed to have acted as Trotsky emis: was in no sense confidential, but entirely polic) That Trotsky connection with Olberg were convicted belongs in the category of de saries or agents in terrorist activities against tical; and that he wrote him nothing that he nunciation, which Strogovich Vyshinsky define the leaders of the Soviet Union. In the Zino: might not have said to any political sympathizer viev Kamenev trial the chief witnesses on this with whom he was point were Holtzman and Olberg.
closely associated. Fifteen holograph letters in Russian testimony of one of the defendants implicating another defendant or extraneous individuals and by a) Holtzman.
from Olberg to Leon Sedov, dated March 1, 1930, Feb.
3, 1931, and one copy of a typewritten virtue of this very thing mitigating the respon In the Zinoviev Kamenev trial, the accused letter in Russian from Sedov to Olberg dated sibility of the individual himself.
Holtzman testified that on Sedov invitation he July 11, 1930. These letters deal almost excluwent to Copenhagen during Trotsky stay there sively with such matters as the publication and a category of evidence characterized by Stro from Nov. 23 to Dec.
2, 1932. He affirmed that distribution of Opposition literature, Olberg govich Vyshinsky as the least meritorious. by previous arrangement he met Sedov in the services in this work, etc.
The Commission gives further quotations from with him to see Trotsky. The Commission has Trotsky dated Berlin, April 1, 1930, and one letter from Franz Pfemfert to Leon Strogovich Vyshinsky which show that the Proevidence secutor in the Moscow trials did not adhere to tol in Copenhagen in 1932, and that Sedov was translator) dated April 2, 1930, informing the principles of Soviet criminal procedure as not in Copenhagen during his parents stay Trotsky that they have met Olberg, who makes stated in an official text book edited by himself.
Among additional defects in procedure there, but was in Berlin, He could not leave a very bad impression upon them, and warning return without renewal of Commission cites the failure of the Court to ficial permission of ap against employing Olberg as his secreA holograph statement by Olberg mother he could not receive a Danish visa. He saying that her son went to Russia for the first the charges published in the world press by take into account the evidence in refutation of which had expired, and without Leon Trotsky and others during the course of Trotsky left Copenhagen, and on that same day many as an undesirable foreigner; that he used the trials; the failure to produce the existing received a French visa good for five days which the passport of a friend, since he had only a French police record of Trotsky whereabouts enabled him to meet his parents in Paris on their Nansen passport with which he could go no where; that he received a Soviet visa through the at the time of his alleged meeting with Romm The outstanding documents in the Commis Berlin Intourist, paid for by a relative name in Paris.
sion possession on Holtzman testimony are in the possession of the Commission. that he The Commission holds to the generally ac as follows: left Russia again in 1933, and went to Prague.
cepted principle that adherence to procedure cise sheet bearing signatures of professors and remember undertook to get him a Honduran Two class books and one separate exer In Prague a lawyer whose name she does not could not make the accused guilty, if the char stamps dated Nov. 25 and 27, showing passport, for which he did not have money to ables the establishment of the ascertainable schule in Berlin on those days; Sedov atten assistance. These facts directly contradict 01truth is it justifiable; and only in so far as pro dance book at the Technische Hochschule also berg testimony.
and secutor and court conform to the spirit as well bearing snowing and stamps of Nov. 25 c) Other Defendants.
his attendance on those days.
as the letter of a justifiable procedure can they The passport of Leon Sedov, showing the be held to safeguard the rights of accused per renewal 3, 1932, of his permit to remain dence bearing on the testimony of other accused The Commission has in its possession evi.
sons. But the violation of Soviet legal principles in Germany, good until Jan.
2, 1933; also a percutor tended, in the Commission opinion, to dated Dec. 3, 1932, and good for five days of this evidence it finds the testimony of these auto procedere the time Soviet Court and Prosessorite od ud me be to, Germany. dated bei setoons namelis: tsinlerimplicatiei rotskap mand also a French Yurin, David, and and Lurye. On the basis visa cast initial doubt upon the validity of both a stamp of entry into France dated Dec. 4, accused to be worthless.
trials. letter from Leon Trotsky to Leon Se The Pyatakov Radek Trial: The Par: The Capitulators.
dov written on board ship as Trotsky was leavallel or Reserve Center.
Denmark, and dated 12 32, expressing his The Commission, after detailed examination two trials who were known to him, two had Trotsky testified that of the 18 accused in the conheciment at not having seen his son in of the testimony concerning the alleged reA postcard from Natalia Sedov Trotsky serve or parallel center, which was involved 1926 7, the remaining 16 had been expelled with from the port of embarkation in Denmark, in the January trial, concludes Cham wasne over the end eviit from the Communist Party, and all had capi expressing her grief over their failure to meet dençe, direct or indirect, that Trotsky either tulated to the ruling faction except Muralov, in Copenhagen.
instigated the formation of the alleged reserve who withdrew from the Opposition without a Six holograph letters from Leon Sedov or to his parents during their stay in Copenhagen, Commune declares: We formal declaration. He introduced in evidence discredit the center or selected its members. The material showing that great bitterness has ex Dec. 1932.
isted between the Left Opposition and these capitulators, who were regarded as renegados. to Prime Minister Herriot of France dated Co and Sedov in any anti governmental activities telegram from Natalia Sedov Trotsky as it concerns the alleged complicity of Trotsky The Commission finds that his attacks upon penhagen Dec. 1, 1932, requesting that her son which may have been taking place in the them were introduced into the Soviet Union be allowed a visa in order to meet his parents whenever possible, and considers it doubtful in France. Also a telegram from the Minister whether, if he had been conspiring with them, lin, Dec. 3, 1932, authorizing the visa.
Definitive Charges Against Leon of Foreign Affairs to the French consul in BerTrotsky and Leon Sedov.
he would have attempted to undermine their Only two persons in the second trial, Pyatakov prestige with the Russian masses. It finds also b) Olberg and Vladimir Romm, testified to having seen that these attacks considerably antedate the The accused Olberg in the Zinoviev Kamenev Trotsky personally; and on these two points beginning of the alleged conspiracy. It finds trial testified that he had belonged to the Trot the Commission possesses conclusive evidence that the mutual enmity between the capitulators skyist Left Opposition since 1927 8; that he was to the contrary.
and the Opposition should be given due consiput in contact with Leon Sedov in 1930 in deration in weighing the testimony of the accus in by Anton Graposition. and that Sedov Bulletin of the (editor of Trotsky a) Romm.
ed against. Leon Trotsky, The witness Vladimir Romm, alleged liaison passed on Trotsky commissions to him by man between the accused Radek and Leon Trotcorrespondence. that he met Sedov in May, 1931, sky, testified that at the end of July 1933, he The Zinoviev Kamenev Trial: The when Sedov arrived in Berlin. Olberg stated that met Leon Trotsky in the Bois de Boulogne Trotskyite Zinovievite Terrorist Cemier. he left for the Soviet Union in 1933 as a trusted (Paris. and that Trotsky purpose in meeting agent of Trotsky with instructions to prepare him was to confirm the contents of a letter he was The indictment in the trial of August, 1936, for an attempt on the life of Stalin. Having sending Radek, containing instructions regard explicitly states that the Trotskyite Zinovievite only a tourist visa, he could not remain long. He ing terrorism and wrecking. Romm alleged that Terrorist Center was formed at the end of left, therefore, and went to Prague, where, ac it was Leon Sedov who conducted him to Trot1982, but the confessions contain fundamental cording to his testimony, he finally obtained sky. Upon this crucial part of Romm testicontradictions on this point. The trial record through a fascist agent, Tukalevsky, a Honduran mony hangs the credibility of his whole deposiof.
29, 1932, on 1932