4 SOCIALIST APPEAL AUGUST 24, 1940 APPEAL Natalia Why the GPU Used This Do Men Enlist Method To Kill Trotsky In The Army Voluntarily. The Written Heritage 10.
11.
Police Hold GPU Agents For Previous Attack Goodbye, Old Man SOCIALIST Natalia Sedov Trotsky shares with us and VOL. IV No. 34 Saturday, August 24, 1940 with the workers of the entire world the loss of a PubMehed Weekly by the great leader. But non can share with Natalia SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN. Sedov the loss of Trotsky the man, the companion, At 116 University Place, New York, the comrade, the friend of nearly 40 years Telephone: Algonqula 8647 She stood by Trotsky side in the years of Editorial Board: exile, the years of war, of revolutionary triumph, FELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN and on into the final decade of exile, of hardships, persecutions.
General Manager: She bore Trotsky two sons. These too she lost RUTH JEFFREY to the vengeful lust of the monster in the Kremlin.
Sergei, a scientific worker, was swallowed in 1937 Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for alx months. into the maw of the GPU in the Soviet Union. Leon Foreign. 00 per year, 50 for six months. Bundle orders: cents per copy in the United States; cents Sedov, devoted collaborator of his father, met in per copy in all foreign countries. Single coples: cents. a Paris hospital in 1938 a death in which the hand of the GPU was plainly discernible. Only Seva, a Reentered as second class matter December 4, young grandson, survives with her.
1939, at the post office at New York, under the Act of March 1879.
When Stalin assassins stormed their home in May, Natalia shielded Trotsky body with her own. When the murderer this time struck him Fight with the Socialist Workers down she was first to reach Trotsky side. And by his side she remained steadfastly until the end.
Party for: Trotsky has left in our hands the banner of the struggle he so valiantly led. He has also passed JOB AND DECENT LIVING FOR EVERY WORKER.
on to us the trust of his devoted companion. He OPEN THE IDLE FACTORIES. OPERATE bade us guard and cherish her well. In his last THEM UNDER WORKERS CONTROL. hours he spoke of her: Take care of her. She has TWENTY. BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL been with me many years.
PUBLIC WORKS AND HOUSING PROGRAM This trust, like the first, we shall fulfill. Neither THIRTY. THIRTY 30. WEEKLY MINIMUM we nor anyone can fill the void in the life of NaWAGE 30 HOUR WEEKLY MAXIMUM FOR talia Sedov. But all that warm solidarity and deALL WORKERS ON ALL JOBS.
voted care can do shall be done to soften the jagged 30 WEEKLY OLD AGE AND DISABILITY anguish that today is hers.
PENSION. EXPROPRIATE THE SIXTY FAMILIES. ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED. PEOPLE REFERENDUM ON ANY AND ALL WARS. NO SECRET DIPLOMACY.
Leon Trotsky was best known to the world at AN INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY.
large as a man of action. As the film of his life WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS AGAINST unreels in review, he can be seen struggling with VIGILANTE AND FASCIST ATTACKS.
the Russian workers against Czarism until he leaps 12. FULL SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EQUALITY FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE, to the chairmanship of the Petrograd Soviet in 1905; tirelessly mobilizing the masses, as orator and journalist, until he prepares them for the October insurrection; organizing, commanding, and bringing to victory the Red Army; and finally fighting against internal and world reaction for the defense of the international Socialist revolution.
Leon Trotsky shone that rare and brilliant light Trotsky was all this and much more. He was of genius that from time to time illuminates the not simply an agitator, political leader, warrior somber vista of human struggle.
and statesman; he was no less brilliant as a pamphAs organizer,. warrior, writer, he long since leteer, biographer, historian, man of thought and ined that small band of have led, letters. Like Lenin, he mirrored and incarnated each in his own time and sphere, the advance of within himself the Marxist ideal of the unity of striving men toward a better estate.
thought and action.
Trotsky the revolutionist cannot ever die. His Bernard Shaw, no poor judge, once called him life of devotion and leadership in the fight for hu The Prince of Pamphleteers. He himself, when man emancipation shall remain forever an exquestioned as to the nature of his profession, styled ample, an inspiration and an endless source of in himselt, not without irony, a journalist. Had Fisstruction. His written works fill scores of volumes, tory permitted, he once confessed, he would have and with those of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, conpreferred to devole his entire life, and not simply stitute a veritable encyclopedia of revolution, its the enforced intervals granted him in exile or in history, its lessons, its program.
prison, to creative literature.
His talents, the world admitted, were equal to But Trotsky the man has, indeed, left us for this aspiration. His gifts of expression, his force ever. The quality of his genius is left to us in tan of logic, his psychological insight, and whiplash gibles that we know and can touch and can use irony extorted admiration even from his foes.
and can pass on to those who shall follow us in What a novelist was lost to literature, sighed many the path of struggle for the world socialist revo a devotee of belles lettres, upon reading the porlution. But the quality of his manhood is bound to traits of the individuals who appear in his History become more elusive, as those that knew him and of the Russian Revolution.
worked by his side in their turn disappear from the scene and their knowledge of him gives way Whatever pure literature might have lost, the to inevitable legend world of human culture gained by Trotsky marriage to Marxism. man of broadest culture and For who in the distant tomorrow will be able of delicately discerning taste, his interests had a to evoke that glinting spark with which Leon Trot universal circumference. He wrote sheaves of arsky ignited the hearts of millions of men? Books ticles and essays on many diverse topics in art, will tell of his deeds and men will know what he science, manners, morals, housing, sports and milidid but they will never grasp the living, breathing tary technique, among other matters.
reality of the man he was.
In whatever direction his interests radiated, He was a man of his age who comprehended they were united in a single center. He wrote alwithin the breadth of his intelligence and his viways from the standpoint of the Socialist revolusion all that his age offered, of literature, of tion. This was the height upon which he stood and science, of art, and of strife. From his towering viewed the march of humanity through past, preheight he could look down upon his enemies and sent and future. Marxism was the scientific metraducers with the thorough understanding that thod animating and guiding all his expression in his superior vision of the future afforded him.
thought and action.
But all his powers of hand, heart, mind, and Scanning the many volumed row of Trotsky collected works, we can single out his summary muscle, were planted firmly among the conflicts and aspirations of men whose cause was his. Nothof the lessons of the 1905 Revolution, Results ing, indeed, in men, was alien to him. His loyalty and Perspectives. his exposition of The Permanent Revolution. such works as Communism to them was comparable only to the loyalty he inspired in them.
and Terrorism explaining to the workers the significance of the October Revolution and defending He was no paragon, our Old Man, as we for so it against its traducers; and his monumental His long affectionately called him. He had his own tory of the Russian Revolution. At his death he quota of faults, else he could never so well have was engaged in completing biographies of Lenin understood the failings of others, even though he and Stalin.
seldom sympathized with them. But these were the tiny things in him that enabled us to recognize Just as Trotsky drew upon the classical work in him a kindred manhood.
of Marx and Engels, so the present and prospec.
tive generations of socialist revolutionaries will In all the personal qualities important in a turn to his works for indispensable knowledge, man, honesty, conviction, fearlessness, utter lack guidance, and inspiration.
of calit, loyalty, Trotsky the human being was the equal of Trotsky the organizer, the warrior, the fighter with pen and sword. Not the least of the How the jackals are snarling around the dead qualities he leaves as something real in the memo lion! We refer to the capitalist press comment on ries of those who knew him was his scrupulous re Trotsky. Such voluntary or involuntary admiragard for the total equality of women with men and tion that creeps into the columns of reporting or his understanding of the relationship between the obituaries is more than nullified (they hope)
women and men exemplified in the perfect love by the vicious editorials. They can scarcely conand comradeship of his 40 years of life with Na ceal their glee that the man who symbolizes world talia Sedov.
revolution is dead.
This was Trotsky the man we shall also reBut many a capitalist editor suspects that his member with ever re kindling warmth as in the glee may be short lived. These educated capitimes that lay ahead we fight on for the world sotalists know perhaps better than the others what a cialist revolution symbolized for so long and so heritage Trotsky has left. Like the legendary completely by Trotsky, the revolutionist.
phoenix, from his ashes he will be re born. And because of this premonition all the more venomously Goodby, Old Man.
do they snarl at his dead boly.
The desperate method employed the reporters that it became the of dying riddled by bullets.
this time by Stalin GPU in its lead of their stories in the MexiElectrified Door successful attempt to kill Trotsky can dailies.
El Ercelsior reported: By ALBERT GOLDMAN can only be understood in the El Universal published an ac. Even though on arriving at light of the obstacles barring the count which said: Trotsky residence we encount If there is one proposition that is utterly fantastic way to a repetition of such an The residence is completely ered fewer difficulties than the and completely false, it is the one propounded by armed assault as that which took changed. Every kind of precau last time we visited it, we can some of the opponents of the Burke Wadsworth conplace on May 24th and nearly tion has been taken against a say that this was due precisely succeeded.
scription bill to the effect that the United States possible new attack. Whoever to the fact that the defenses of the should continue to rely on the volunteer system for The assassin assignment was passes through the main door re house have been enlarged. The suicidal one. There was hardly mains shut up in a cage until. great wooden door which previ getting soldiers because that system is a democratic any possibility open to him of es after a series of electrical andously gave access to it has been one.
cape. But only that method sound signals, lights, etc. the vis converted now into a resistant We are not, of course, primarily interested in could Stalin now hope to strike itor is permitted to enter the steel door, to which are connected showing the weaknesses of the arguments of the opTrotsky. That is why, from garden. This cage system look electrical batteries, whether to ponents of the Burke Wadsworth bill. We also oppose among the many GPU agents em much like those used by lion tam open it electrically or in order that bill, for totally different reasons than those ployed on any number of plansers in a circus, with the difference to electrocute the incautious per advanced by most of the other opponents, and our for the assassination, the GPU that the sides open electrically. son who dares to come near it, chief had to find one or more shafts are levelled primarily at those who favor the We also noticed that the walls we do not know.
bill.
agents who could be compelled to that surround the garden have Moreover the visitor, once carry out this assignment. been elevated to an approximate through this door, finds himself Nevertheless, when those who oppose the conIf not from other sources, then height of six or seven meters. locked in a small enclosure, and scription bill advance the idea that the government from the public press in Mexico, Harte Memory Preserved it requires one of the guards to should continue the policy of voluntary. enlistment the GPU knew that there was On of the walls of the open another fron door before one because it is democratic we are compelled to stato no hope of murdering Trotsky cage there is a plaque which says: can breathe the pure air of the very clearly and very definitely that they are either by a direct onslaught on his In memory of Robert Sheldon garden and contemplate the res fakers or fools.
house. That was clear from the Harte, 1915 1940. Assassinated Idence itself.
John Lewis is one of those loud mouths who reports in the press on August by Stalin. But once in the garden, the 7th, the first interview with In strategic places in the garmakes the following propositions: that we should visitor immediately observes that Trotsky since the assault on the den there are two pill boxes and the defenses have been extended oppose the Burke Wadsworth bill and that we house on May 24th.
a blockhouse, in which Trotsky to the whole house. He views a should first try the policy of voluntary enlistment Although the occasion of the guards are day and night pro blockhouse of cement, and then, and if that policy doesn furnish the army with the prese visit was a statement by tecting him against any surprise on top of the walls and at the necessary number of mon then conscription should Trotsky on new aspects of the whatever.
corners or more strategic places, be resorted to search for those of the assassins By these various means, any he sees two pillboxes, as well as The second proposition in reality shows that Lewis who have not been apprehended body who enters may know for some masons who are at work and others like him, who have come out for the Mayet, and on the latest develop certain that he cannot get out loney amendment providing that voluntary enlistments in the war, the re fortifica without the permission of those adding masonry to heighten the ment be tried first, are not interested in democracy, tion of the house so impressed within, or risk imminent danger surrounding walls.
as they claim to be.
For if conscription is undemocratic before volun.
tary enlistment proves inadequate, it remains undemocratic after that policy has been tried out and found wanting. The real democrats. if consistent, should oppose the conscription bill regardless of the fact that a sufficient number of people failed to volunteer.
As the assassin of Trotsky is form of the police uniforms used Julia Serrano and her associate Hunger Drives The Volunteers being questioned by the Mexican to disguise the assailants, the in the attack preparations Ana But is voluntary enlistment democratic? There is police, the latter already have in weapons employed, and the find. Maria Lopez, formerly a steno a certain plausibility to the contention that it is and their hands a group whom the ing of the body of Harte in the grapher in the Communist Party in all probability many workers will yield to that Mexican police have formally cellar of the house admitted to district headquarters, as one of argument.
charged with being participants have been one of the gang hang the persons from whom they reWho, however, volunteers to join the army or in the May 24 attempt to kill outs it was established that the ceived instructions and to whom navy? Exact figures are not at my disposal as to the Trotsky, and some of whom have assault was first planned in de. they often reported in the headconfessed and thereby made clear tail with the aid of two women quarters of the Stalinist control social composition of the volunteers, but if anything is certain it is that the vast majority of those who the responsibility of Stalin GPU spies. These, Ana Maria Lopez led Electrical Workers Union in as the organizer of the crime and Serrano wife, Julia, estab. Mexico City. Julia made the di volunteer to serve in the armed forces are of workConfessions of nine of the par. lished themselves in the neighborrect statement that Siqueiros had ing class origin. The volunteers come from the poorer ticipants in the May 24 assault hood of the Trotsky home, became told her that the pay of 25 pesos classes. They are mainly youth who have no jobs, who were publicly released in Mexico intimate with the five Mexican a day which she and Ana Lopez become terribly disgusted and downhearted when on June 20 and June 27 by Gen. police assigned by the government were receiving from Camacho, they tramp the streets for days looking for a job eral Jose Manuel Nunez, chief of to guard the Trotsky residence, one of the four missing directors and finding none. Their family surroundings are pro.
Mexican police.
and secured detailed information of the attack, was coming from bably not of the best, because poverty and jobless.
Even more important than the on the internal routine and living the Communist Party.
ness are not condueive for a healthy family life.
arrest of these ise. General Nu habits of the home HERNANDEZ ONE OF In desperation the less youth joins the armed nez ther, made dear, was the ar ASSAILANTS HARDENED BY THE ASSAILANTS rest and formal charging of GPU WORK IN SPAIN forces. One of his reasons might be that he hopes Hernandez admitted that he David Serrano, member of the to learn some trade which will more likely give him All the men who participated was first induced to join the at Political Buro of the Communist a job after his enlistment period expires. Nine times in the assault were stalinist vet tempt by Siqueiros, and that siParty of Mexico, as a principal erans of the Spanish Civil War. quelros and the three other miss out of ten he either does not learn a trade or if he in the crime.
does he can get a job anyway after he gets out of One leader of the gang was Davia ing assailants organized and led THE ATTACK AND THE Alfaro Siqueiros, a Stalinist of the actual assault. Hernandez MURDER OF BOB HARTE fifteen years standing, colonel made his confession after direct If there is a son of the more well to do who wants in the Stalinist forces in Spain evidence his implication in the to join the armed forces, he does not volunteer. Ha On May 24, 27 desperate agents and president of the Union of crime was produced by the police obtains an appointment to West Point or Annapolis of the GPU blasted their way with Mexican ex combatants in Spain. Including his sachel containing and comes out from these institutions as an officer machine guns into Trotsky sleep Siqueiros, for whom the police one of the stolen police uniforms ready to lord it over every private.
ing quarters and riddled his bed have combed Mexico, has been and a revolver taken from one What democracy is there in a system where job.
with a stream of sluge.
missing since the night of the of the police overpowered at the By miraculous chance, Trotsky crimd, and there is a strong pos time of the attack. Hernandez is lessness, hunger and despair are the real recruiting sergeants?
and his loyal wife, Natalia, essibility that the GPU has long the author of an article, recently caped. For years Trotsky had since silenced his mouth perma. published in Lombardo Toledano As Democratie As All Capitalism foreseen this eventuality, as one nently, as well as the mouths of monthly magazine Futuro.
by one his closest associates and all on the inside of the attempt which viciously attacked Trotsky Voluntary enlistment is democratic only on the his two sons and daughters were who could be reached before the Among the other actual partiet surface; when placed under a Marxist examination struck down by Stalin, by one police got to them.
pants in the attack named in the it is found to have merely the veneer of democracy.
means or another. At the first Missing with Siqueiros are three confessions are Luis Arenal, In this respect it is similar to a great many of the sound of disturbance, the couple other Spanish Civil War veterans known in this country for his so called democratic institutions functioning under threw themselves into a dark cor Bought by the police and described former contributions to the New the capitalist system.
ner while one of the gunmen, mis in the confessions as additional Masses, Stalinist weekly: the taking the bunched bed clothing directors of the attempted assas police name him as the murderer How often does one hear the enraptured 4th of for the living forms of his in sination. They are Jesus, broth of Bob Harte July orator proclaim the great principle of equality tended victims, tore the bed to er of Siqueiros, Juan Zuniga Ca.
The four subsequent arrests before the law which is supposed to represent the pieces with spitting lead.
very basis of our democratic institutions.
macho and Antonio Pujol. Sev. and confessions of the chauffeurs When the attackers withdrew eral foreign GPU agents, whose which drove the attackers cars Let us assume even that His Honor on the bench it was discovered that Robert descriptions are known and who merely confirmed and added de is an individual of the greatest integrity who will Sheldon Harte, young American have been named as the behind tails to the previous admissions give justice to the poor and rich alike without fear guard of Trotsky, was missing the scenes organizers, are also inist head of a Mexico city chauor favor. That is of course a very violent assumption At first, the Stalinist press at being sought by the police.
tempted to explain away the aswhen one thinks of the Tammany judges and other David Serrano feurs association, seized after well known was named and identified as one judges dominated by the corrupt political machinos.
sault by smearing the revolutionary character of the missing Stalinist leader in Mexico, a mem of the participants, first densed But even assuming that justice will loe meted out Harte, and alleging the attempt ber of the Political Central Com. and then admitted his complici though the heavens fall, what follows?
mittee of the Mexican Commun. ty. He corroborated the evidence to be a fake affair, cooked up by list Party and believed to be the of the previous confessions and Imagine two individuals arrested for a minor of Trotsky for publicity.
fense and fined a hundred dollars a piece. One is a But the discovery of the body official GPU representative on that then implicated three of his colof the tortured and murdered body, has been designated by leagues, Ramon Gomex Castaneda, worker making twenty five dollars a week and the other an executive of some kind making ffteen Harte and the arrest and confes. Louis Mateos Martinez, a Com: Ernesto Bucio Gomez, and Jose thousand dollars a year. The latter simply writes a Siong ot nine of Trotsky assall munist Party member and one of Vazques Marinez. Castaneda rev.
check for the hundred and is out; but how about the ants. have proved to the hilt, or the confessed assassins, as the in: ealed that he had received 350 all the evidence of Stalin polit dividual who had assigned Marti: pesos, a large sum of money in worker? He must either stay in jail or else depend Scal history and methods had not nez to secure the police uniforms Mexico for his part in the Trotsky on his friends or on the loan shark to raise the fine.
already done so. Stalin respon for the attempt. They had met attack and Harte murder.
There is formal equality before the law. Both sibility for the assault.
in Serrano home for this purUNLIMITED FUNDS, rich and poor were fined an equal amount, but the pose.
real inequality is tremendous.
POLICE ANNOUNCE ARRESTS Serrano, when arrested by the STALINIST LAWYER The Negro in the South has the formal right to AND NINE CONFESSIONS The organization of the attack.
Mexican police, denied his con vote but how about his actual right? He simply has On June 20, the Mexican police noctions with the crime and dec. involving months of preparation, no vote.
announced the arrest of 30 Stalin lared himself one of those in the expensive cars and weapons, and The capitalist system is shot full of these formal ists and the securing of full conually carrying out an investigapant was possible only for an or Communist Party who were ac large pay offs of each partieldemoeratie rights which cannot be enjoyed by the fessions from four of the murder June 27, another police tion to establish the facts in the sanization like the GPU with tre Worker because of the real inequalities existing under mendous command of material announcement added four more attack. When this statement was resources and trained personnel.
that system. Serrano It is true that no one compels any individual to which was still further supple he was already linked to the crime enlist in the armed forces of the United States, but mented by a ninth confession on by Martinez confession, as well five bands, one under the com in actuality that right not to enlist becomes meanJuly 23. Every detail of the as those of Nestor Sanchez Her mand of Siqueiros, the others led ingless to a youth who beholds the alternative of crime, its Instigators, prepara nandez and Julia Barradas de Ser by unknowns identified in the con fessions as foreigners.
joblessness and hunger.
tions, participants and their ac ano, Serrano wife.
How closely the Stalinists are a former Communist linked with this crime is further tions, were thus fully known To insist upon voluntary enlistment as an alterweeks ago every fact but one: Party employee who confessed to indicated by the fact that Pavon native to the Burke Wadsworth conscription bill, who was the internal secret agent being one of the two women as Flores, a lawyer and member without at the same time insisting that every youth of Stalin through whom the ori signed to spy on the Trotsky home the Central Committee of the volunteering should be offered as an alternative a degina! entrance into the Trotsky and seduce the police guard for Mexican Communist Party, bas cent job with a decent wage attached to the jo, is residence was secured? That in Information, reported that Serra: been assigned to represent Ser: to be expected from demagogues like Wheeler and al question has very likely been no had visited her and their child, rano and Martinez Vandenberg; but no one interested in the labor move.
answered with the seizure of Jac. Sovietina, the day preceding the Those now held by the police. ment should give the least support to such a proposal.
ques Monrod, the latest and most attack. Serrano had stated that including Serrano and Martinez successful of Stalin agents.
he had had no connections with If there is a worker who is elass conselous enough are shortly scheduled to go on From these confessions and her for the previous five or six trial for the murder of Harte and to see the necessity of getting military training he backed by the material evidence months.
should not volunteer for that purpose. He should dethe attempted assassination of uncovered by the police in the Siqueiros was named by both Trotsky.
mand that he be given military training by his union.
the army.
gang Julia