2 The Trials, MOSCOW TRIAL TRIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT Democracy and Communism Socialist Appeal 402 Stalin Directs Blows At Revolution Itself; Trial Testimony Crumbles At First Touch Organizers of October IS FORCED TO NEW EXTREMES BY CRISIS Trials Arouse Protests From Labor Abroad Trotsky Reviews Elements of New Trial; Cites Efforts To Gag Him Among all the criminal and tragic results of the Moscow trials, there is perhaps none graver than the doubt which they cast in the mind of the masses everywhere upon the whole meaning and ideal of socialism and communism.
How all of the vultures pounce upon this new trial to exploit it in such a way as to extend and deepen this doubt! How all the weaklings, the cowards, the tired radicals, the sweet and treacherous liberals, find VOL. II. No. 11.
March 12, 1938 comfort in using the trial as an excuse for their own capitulation to reaction!
The liberal New York Post sums up for them, well understanding the jewel which Stalin has handed them. On the day of the opening of the trial, its leading editorial was headed: The Moral Bankruptcy of Bolshevism. The Post, of course, does not care in the least how many revolutionists Stalin kills off. It cares, however, a great deal for the chance to utilize what Stalin does to attack the whole conception of communism.
Find a Defense for Democracy The editorial draws its pious lesson: The Rus.
sian experience will help Americans to stick to the liberal way, to set their faces firmly against all isms. against all short cuts to Utopia. Every day it repeats VERNATIONELL its lesson. Every dispatch from Russia deepens and broadens our American love of our wise old democratic system.
In the Post columns, the disillusioned socialdemocrat, Eugene Lyons, backs up the editors: Disgusting moral putrescence is the inevitable end proKrestinsky Repudiation Throws Glaring Light duct of the theory on which the Bolshevik seizure of European Socialist Press On Methods of Documentary power rested from the beginning.
Rejects Charges As The same theme echoes and re echoes throughout Totally False Evidence Entirely Absent the press, from reformists to the New York Times.
They are not slow at following up a lead, these wellThe organized international By MAX SHACHTMAN skilled hypocrites.
labor movement has rejected the It is democracy vs. dictatorship. they tell us.
Moscow charges and confesWords seem to lose all force and meaning when it comes And what is this democracy which they put up as sions as false from beginning the only alternative to Stalinist dictatorship?
to describe the latest horror visited upon the Soviet Union to end. Protests against the im.
Their democracy is, of course, only the polite pending judicial murder of the and the international labor movement by the Stalinist word for the tyranny, exploitation, unemployment, last surviving Old Bolsheviks murder machine. The Trial of the 21 seems to call less starvation, insecurity, wars of capitalism. Their ad have gone to Moscow from many for a political analyst or an historian than for an alienist vice is simply to bow down to imperialism: that is, quarters.
to bow down to perpetual exploitation, to ever increas On March the Labor and So.
or expert in psychopathology. Yet, for all its apparent ing social misery, to the wars and the fascism in which cialist International and the inlumacy and ghastliness, there is method in it clumsy, ternational Federation of Trade DIEGO RIVERA alone imperialism can eventuate.
stupid, dastardly method, but method nevertheless.
Unions wired a protest to Mos1. The trial is calculated to al These Are NOT The Methods of Communism! cow. Recalling that the previous trials had left world opinion Jay the seething discontent of service, with delays in payment the Soviet masses by finding of wages, etc. for the purpose They lie and deceive, these moralistic hypocrites completely unconvinced of their scapegoats for the ruinous ef of causing wide, organized disThey tell us the same lie that Stalin tells us that he veracity, the telegram stated. We consider it our duty once fects of the policy followed by contentment with the Soviet Govis the heir to Lenin and the representative of the comthe Stalinist regime itself.
The ernment.
more to call the attention of the munist revolution. We hurl back that lie and that Soviet Government to the prebureaucracy wants to escape the Are the masses deprived of deception, from whatever mouth it comes The following are the first tutes the highest power of the ly. Now Pletnyev has been thrown has committed by shifting the sugar and butter and crgs? Are responsibility for the crimes it such elementary necessities The trials are the direct negation of everything judice caused by these trials and to the cause of the of the daily statements issu Soviet government.
into a trial of. the political blame for all evils upon the de. the peasants without industrial for which Bolshevism, Communism, stands and strugworkers of the world.
ed to the press by Leon After the death of Lenin, Ry opposition. One of the following fendants and their alleged ac products for long periods of gles. The methods of the trials are the contradiction The answer, the Leaders Sign Trotsky in Coyoacan in conof the methods of the Bolsheviks.
kov Whis the official head of the hypotheses may account for this complices.
nection with the new Mos.
government for more than five either the accusations of sexual time? Are state funds embezzonly possible answer to the trials, is the reassertion The telegram was signed by cow trial.
Finding Scapegoats led by bureaucrats whose person.
years. From 1918 Bukharin was delinquency were advanced una of the aims and methods of Lenin, of Trotsky, of the Sir Waiter Citrine, president of the editor of the central organ of inst him only in order to extort al lives are one long orge! Are October Revolution.
the Walter Schevenels, By Leon Trotsky In the days of Carism, the the consumers the party, Pravda. and from the necessary confessions from reaction sought to duck the swindled?
despoiled and The answer of the Post and Lyons is to doom man its secretary general, Louis de During February of last year 1926 the official head of the Com him ox Pletnyer is actually blocks of the enemy and dissatise Again the answer is, YES! And kind forever to enslavement. The never ending shame Broucker, head of the Second Inof the supporters of Stalinism is to give their answerternational, and Friedrich Adler at the time of the second Mos. murist International. Later, af guilty of sadism but hopes to died masses by whipping up a it is not the counter revolutionCOW trial (Piatakov Radek) ter his fall into disfavor, he be carn mercy through confessions its secretary.
came the editor of Izvestia. directed against the Opposition. who, according to the Black vented these stories because they a new plausibility pogrom spirit against the Jews ary Trotskyists who have in which was supposed to correct Our answer to the Post and to Lyons, as to StaIn Paris on March le Popu the bad impression of the first Rakovsky was the head of the We shall, perhaps, have the ope Hundred gangs, were really res refuse to believe in the monsUkrainian government and later portunity to o verify this hypothe lin, is to proclaim again the great and deathless ideal laire, Socialist Party organ, des trial (Zinoviev Kamenev. ponsible for all the suffering of trous official lie about an idyllic of the socialist revolution and the communist society cribed the confessions as pure stated in the press: Stalin re ambassador to London and Paris, sis during the trial.
the people. Under the Stalinist socialism which all the Stalinwhich alone can and will fulfill the needs and aspira lies and the indietment as a ro sembles a man who tries to sa Krestinsky, the predecessor of How could Stalin come to this despotism, the place of the Jews ist sheets from Pravda to the Stalin as secretary of th Cen provocation against world public tions of mankind.
ministrative Committee of the He will be forced to stage fur party, afterward ambassador to Socialist Partyunanimously ther judicial frame ups one after for several years. For almost four elements. Statinis con Mensheviks. Pascist spies, and dictment that these facts are tural question is composed of kists, Bukharinists, Zinovievists, ists. It is from Vyshinsky inThe Trials and the cffect. The paper also published a denial by Theodore Dan, Rus been prepared during more as Stalin most trusted hench press. 3) The agents of the Co. Under Nicholas the Bloody. the It is not the retrime. you see, but The third Moscow trial has stood at the head of the He does not read the foreign body save the ruling clique itself make the senpegoats reponsible.
implicated by the confessions think, more elaborately then the Kamenev trial in its entirety. In him only his victories over pu blood of good Christians. Under such commodities as sugar, but.
sian Menshevik leader, who was protracted period and, one must man and cooked up the Zinoviev. wintern in all countries report to scap murder and drinkeed of the hapless defendants who as a German agent. He called previous ones. The international the list of the accused there are blie opinion. 4) Informed people Stalin the Bloody, the scape ter, eks, tobacco, etc. deliber the. dislocated planning the indictment an odious docu preparation has been going on no fewer than six former mem do not dare to reveal the truth to ment.
during the past few weeks before bers of the Central government. Stalin. Thus he has unconscious of spilling the blood of good to the villages, mulded account goat Trotskyists are accused Medieval Sorcery the eyes of the whole world. The ately delayed dispatch of goals In the midst of the horror a. From the beginning, the revol.
notorious article of Stalin (Feb.
ly become a victim of his own Bolsheviks. The system and its and thus facilitated steeling and Stalin Alone Unaccused The Swedish Social Democratic 14) about international revolupolities. He is forced to drink roused by the newest and most utionary Marxists have said that frightful of the Moscow Trials, the defense of the conquests of organ, the Sozialdemokraten, on tion, striking many with its sud of the nine people who were salt water in order to quench his aims are identical.
This faet pierces through the and encouraged the cheating and squandering of State resources very text of the official indict robbing of consumers.
revolutionists will not overlook the October Revolution must rest the same day denounced the denness, has as its objective the members of the Political Bureau thirst.
its ominous significance as a fundamentally upon the inter medieval sorcery of the Mos creation of a more favorable at during Lerrin lifetime, e. actua! February 28, 1938.
ment itself.
symptom of the terrible danger national working class and upon cow trials and recalled Prosecu mosphere within the ranks of rulers of the fate of the Eight Ministers Are wages poor? Are they Stalin National Policy in which the Soviet Union now the extension of the socialist re tor Vishinsky White Guard the working class for the future there remains only one unaceuspaid irregularly? Are taxes in. Is there growing discontent itself adds immeasurably to that workers can be relied upon to Swedish Confederation of Labor workers that if he is shooting states, and in addition the aceu members of the central Soviet down the living standards of the sian peoples who make up the defend the Soviet regime and the save an interview expressing the the whole revolutionary genera sations revert back to 1928 and government sitting on the de masses els the standardi ve Soviet Union and who are rebeldanger, How the trial greases the ways social and economic relations esta same views tion, it is exclusively in the in even to 1918. The Russian White fendants bench. Today after more ruble a horrible legal fiction that ling against the bureaucratic terests of the international refor imperialism! What arguments blished by the Revolution.
volution.
does Stalin give to the imperialist His article does not emigres have more than once ac precise study of the names see leaves deep scars on the purchas centralism of the Moscow authorbandits, hungrily looking toward Basis For Advance have any other purpose.
the vast territories and riches of other Bolshevik leaders of hav. counting the author of these lines, realities, which can no longer be temptuous of the cultural and Stalinism is the destroyer of Sedoff Death Second Step the Soviet Union as potential the revolution, and its regime the ing achieved the October Revolu there are eight former Soviet mi concealed or denied, which were political aspirations of the Ukraifields for exploitation!
The death of my son, Leon Se tion at the orders of the German nisters including the former head the inevitable product of the pionians, Georgians, General Staff. At the present of the government, Rykov, doft, which continues to remain time Stalin is trying fully to con liey followed by Stalin covern Uzbeks and others, and of their War Would Be Crusade history. But so mighty were the wrapped in mystery should, until firm this accusation.
Bukharin, devoid of administrament have they resulted in rights to autonomy guaranteed The trial makes it possible for that even Stalinism has not yet tive capacity, never became a widespread discontent among the by the Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet sidered as the second act of pretendencies, these the the precised Beat asime member of the Politica which threatens the very foun course there is on Constitution? Of the propagandists of imperialism succeeded in wiping them out.
to picture a war against the So. The economic and social relations Piet Union as a crusade to wipe still stand, ready to make pos: disintegrate the American Com to force into silence an informed Rykev, former leaders of the the time of Zinovie fall into In another abortive attempt to cessary at no matter what cost who are known to me fall into Bureau and as the head of the dations of the bureaucracy pow tuation. The same Stalin whom out a vicious and incredibly desible a great leap forward toward mittee for the Defense of Leon and courageous accuser.
Lenin, outraged and infuriated, praved tyranny, as a holy war socialism once Stalinism Grinko and the Ruble Right Opposition; the third lead disfavor (1926. he occupied a podenounced far back as 1922 The third set in the prepara er of this group, Tomsky, former sition considerably higher than for the deliverance of the So thrown and the workers them principal agency in spreading the for his out and out Great Rusviet people. Already this arguselves again in control of their truth about the Moscow trials, tombwase the dattempter de Mil president of the Soviet Trade that of a minister. All these peo tiongea nawemphatid these The answer to all ques. siar nationalistic campaign ment is being carefully prepared own society, against the Georgians and parin the bourgeois press through In the face of the trials, all great deal of money on long dis other Mexicana sentence ostale to suicide. From 1923 the Right except the humiliation and the dis The Stalinist regime? No; it has Bolsheviks, like Mdivani and o out the world.
The system of the trials is be ly because of the trials, the re induce Committee members to eve of the third trial just as the concilable struggle against the a scapegoat that must suffer for kudzhava, whom Lerin ardently ing pictured to the minds of the volutionists throughout the world resign Kirov Once More its crimes. The former Com defended and whom Stalin now masses as inseparable from the defend the remaining conquests The Stalinist spokesmen are trial (August, 1936. Such are Tomsky, shoulder to shoulder about which we will speak in the accomplices worked me into silence after the first Trotskyists. Rykov, Bukharin and missar of Finance, Grinko, is lists as Georgian bourgeois na Soviet Union itself.
Apart from the other crimes, made to assert that he and his tionalists (he executed them and In this work, the propagandists all of their enemies. They have telling the Committee members the main ingredients of the pre with Stalin, carried on the whole future, the new defendants are. to weaken the Soviet ruble. secret trial. of the revolution against any and a story to the effect that the their friends last year, after a of imperialism are ably seconded not and will not turn over that Committee, without authorizaparation!
campaign of destroying the Left also accused of the murder of to weaken the financial power of How does the regime answer by the friends of the Soviet defense to imperialism.
The accusation against the 21. Opposition. b) The second group Kirov. recall that Kirov, a Len the to dislocate Soviet the sentiments and grievances of Union, who, defending the system Deliverance To Slavery appeal to the United States go defendants is once again publish is composed of those accused who ingrad agent of Stalin, was killed economy, cause dissatisfaction the nationalities? By terrorizof the trials, likewise picture them as inseparable from the Soviet The deliverance proposed by to the present trial. This story trial in order to take public opi belonged to the Left Opposition on December 1, 1984, by Nikolaev, among the population with the ing them; by the scarcely con Union itself.
nion imperialism is the deliverance of has no basis in fact.
nawares and Result of Realism the Soviet people into the clutches The only statement issued by from abroad.
timely delivery of refutations who, however, had already kone anyone, apparently on personal Government, dissatisfaction with identical with a fascist plot to of capitalist exploitation, into the Committee, upon authorizaover to Stalin by 1927, and Ra grounds, and in any case, as was taxes, with bad savings bank dismember the Soviet Union.
results of the hard headed Sta zied search for profits in the de an appeal to the Russian people! The present trial for surpasses (c) The third group insofar as American workers vernment camp four years ago, tion of agents. Immedialinist realism. so much praised caying capitalist order. and friends of by the lovers of the status quo as Let this new trial not turn us to save the lives of the 21 de the trial of Radok Piatakov in know it consists either of active tely after the murder of Kirov, The trial is calculated to upon the pernicious illusion of a against the utopian dreams of aside but be a clarion summons: fendants, and condemning the the importance of the accused Stalinists or non political spe supposedly come from abroad in the revolutionists. Stalin meth for the unyielding, uncompromis. new trial as a frame up, on the and approaches the Zinoviev. cialists.
order to commit terrorist acts, serve the new oscillation in So bloc of the democracies and ods, isolating the Soviet Union ing revolutionary defense of the basis of the report of the Inter Kamenev trial. In the list of The Case of Pletnyev were shot without trial. viet foreign policy and to dis the League of Nations against diplomatically, ever more grave Soviet Union against the trai national Commission of Inquiry. the accused there are no fewer Although the names of the 104 tract attention from and cover the fascist aggressors. All his ly weakening its internal econo tors who stage this unbelievable New York newspaper trans than seven former members of The name of Professor Plet were not published, it is known up the calamitous bankruptcy of hopes were staked upon cementmie and social structure, at the trial, and against imperialism ferred some of the names from the Central Committee of the nyev sheds a singular light upon that among them were Bulgarian, the Stalin Litvinor course of the ing an alliance with France, Eng moral basis for the defense of the is in the use to which it can be excerpt from this press release, kharin, Rykov, former member of was arrested on a charge of sex. tionist members of the Commu the class line and reliance on the acainst Germany and Japan.
Soviet Union by the masses in put toward the final destruction which was issued without signa the Political Bureau, e. the in. Jual delincuenxe. Chna whals Solat Intan Jew was Defense of the in Attempt To Break hente dentistim recortes Trotsky Defense conquest or the revolutions Committee Fails th one or the direct martie Bankruptcy Abroad