Trotsky's Reply to Stalin

Semi-Monthly Organ of the Opposition Group in the Communist Party of A m erica “Ic it necettary that every member of die Party should study calmly and with the greatest objectivity first the «.tv*,.,... „r .. , ,, opinion, and then the development of the struggles within the Party. Neither the one nor the other r a bTdone untoTtfo The wde. me publish«!. He who takes somebody's word for U i, a hopeless idiot, who can be «fopomd o f^ i* a ^ p k g ^ o f^ h T d !”_ u S MILITANT V O L 11. No. 7. NEW YORK. N. Y.,_APRIL_1,_1 ->29. PRICE T CF.NTS TROTSKY’S REPLY TO STALIN To the Central Committee of the Communist formed the vanguard of the proletariat into a rear awarded the “historical right” to Stalin. guard of Pilsudski; which in China carried out Party of the Soviet Union! If this blind, cowardly, incompetent policy of to the end the historical line of Menshevism To the Executive Committee of the Communist In adaptation to the bureaucracy and the petty bour and thereby helped the bourgeoisie to demolish, geoisie had not been followed, the situation of ternational! to bleed and to behead the revolutionary proletar the working masses in the twelfth year of the dic iat; which weakened the Comintern everywhere Today, December 16th, the representative of the tatorship would be far more favorable; the mili and squandered its ideological capital . Council of the G.P.U. Volinsky, transmitted the tary defense far firmer and more trustworthy; following ultimatum to me orally: To cease political activity would mean to sub the Comintern would be in quite a different posi "The work of your own colleagues in the coun mit passively to the blunting and the direct falsi tion and would not have to retreat step by step try” — he declared almost literally— "has lately as fication of our most important weapon: the Marx before the traitorous and bribed social democracy. sumed an open counter-revolutionary character. ist method, and the strategical lessons we acquired The conditions under which you live in Alma Alta The incurable weakness of this apparatus re give you full possibilities to direct this work. On action in the Party, despite all its apparent pow this ground the Council of the G. P. U. has de er, lies in the fact that it does not know what cided to demand of you the categorical promise Comrade Trotsky to the it is doing. It is carrying out the command of to discontinue this work, or else the Council will the enemy classes. There can be no greater his be obliged to change your conditions of existence in the sense of a complete isolation from political American Opposition torical curse for a faction that arose out of the life. In connection with this the question of chang Revolution and is now undermining it. ing your place of residence is also raised." We are able to announce that the Com munist Opposition in the United States has The great historical strength of the Opposition, I declared to the representative of the G. P. U., finally succeeded in getting into direct con despite its momentary weakness, lies in the fact that I would only give him a written answer to a nection with comrade L. D. Trotsky, who is that it feels the pulse of world historical pro written formulation. My refusal to give an oral now living in exile in Pera, the foreign quarter cesses, that it clearly perceives the dynamics of reply to the G. P. U. was called forth by exper of Constantinople! We have just received class forces, that it foresees the future and pre iences of previous times; my words would be mali a letter written by comrade Trotsky to the pares for it consciously. Te renounce political ciously distorted in order to mislead the working United States stating that he has largely over activity would be to renounce the preparations for masses o f the U . S. S. R. and the whole w orld. come his malarial affliction, is in fairly good the coming day. Nevertheless, irrespective of the further steps * * * health and has not the slightest intention of to be undertaken by the G. P. U., which after all The threat to change my conditions of existence plays no independent role in this mater but only dying despite the ardent wishes of the ene mies of Bolshevism. In a very early issue we and to isolate me from political activity carries out technically the old decision of the sounds as though I am not separated by narrow Stalin faction which I have known for some expect to present to our readers a message from comrade Trotsky to the American Com 2500 miles from Moscow and by 150 miles time, I consider it necessary to submit the follow from the nearest railroad and by approxi ing to the Central Committee of the Communist munists. We are further assured of regular contributions from comrade Trotsky to the mately the same distance from the border of the Party of the Soviet Union and the Executive Com desolate Western provinces of China, where the mittee of the Comintern: Militant and we intend to publish a new article by him in every issue of our paper. tierccst malaria shares its dominion with leprosy To demand that I renounce my political activity and pestilence. As though the Stalin faction, is to demand that I abjure the struggle for the in Long life to comrade Trotsky, die living leader of world Bolshevism! whose direct organ is the G. P. U., had not done terests of the international proletariat, a struggle everything in its power to isolate me not only from I have been conducting without interruption for political life, but from any other form of life as thirty-two years, that is, during my whole con in struggle under the leadership of Lenin and well. The Moscow newspapers arrive here only scious life. The attempt to represent this activi with the aid of this method. after a delay of ten days to a month, sometimes ty of mine as "counter-revolutionary” emanates It would mean to be reconciled passively—by more. Letters get to me only in exceptional cases, from those whom I accuse before the internation bearing the responsibility for them-—to the theory after they have lain around for two or three months al proletariat of trampling under foot the basic of the Kulak's growing into Socialism, to the myth in the drawers of the G. P. U. and the Secretariat teachings of Marx and Lenin, of injuring the his about the revolutionary mission of the colonial of the Central Committee. torical interests of the world revolution, of break bourgeoisie, to the slogan of the "combined wor Two of my closest co-workers since the civil ing with the traditions and the heritage of the kers’ and peasants' parties” for the East, a slogan war, comrades Scrmouks and Posnansky, who ac October, of the unconscious—and therefore the w hich breaks w ith the foundations o f class theory, companied me voluntarily to my place of exile, more dangerous—preparation for the Thermidor. and finally to that which is the crowning point of were arrested immediately upon their arrival, To renounce political activity would mean to all these reactionary fables and many others, the thrown into a cellar with common criminals, and give up the struggle against the blindness of the theory of socialism in a single country, the great then sent away to the remotest corners of the present leadership which heaps upon the objective est crime against revolutionary internationalism. North. A letter from my hopelessly sick daugh difficulties of socialist construction ever greater The Leninist wing of the Party has endured ter, whom you expelled from the Party and kept political difficulties that arise out of the opportun blows since 1923, that is, since the unprecedented from all work, took seventy-three days to get to ist incapacity to conduct a proletarian policy on defeat of the German revolution. The force of me from the hospital, so that my answer found a large historical scale. these blows has increased w ith every successive de her no longer alive. Another letter on the serious It would mean the renunciation of the struggle feat of the international and the Russian proletariat illness of my second daughter, whom you also ex against the stifling regime in the Party which as a result of the opportunist leadership. pelled from the Party and drove from all work, reflects the growing pressure of the enemy classes Theoretical understanding and political exper I received a month ago from Moscow, forty-three upon the proletarian vanguard. ience teach us that a period of retreat, of retro days after it was mailed. Telegraphic inquiries It would mean to be passively reconciled to the gression, that is, of reaction, can take place not about health hardly ever reach their destination. economic policy of opportunism, a policy which only after bourgeois revolutions, but also In a similar or far worse position arc thousands of undermines and destroys the foundations of the after proletarian revolutions. For si x years the best Bolshevik-Leninists. whose services to the proletarian dictatorship, which hampers the ma we have lived in the U.S.S.R. under conditions October revolution and to the international prole terial and cultural growth of this dictatorship and of growing reaction against the October, and with tariat are infinitely greater than the services of at the same time deals heavy blows at the alliance it the clearing of the road for the Thermidor.

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