Written: 27 March 1929.
First Published: The Militant, Vol. II No. 9, 1 May 1929, pp. 1 & 6.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2020. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
Dear Comrades:
I write to you in order to tell you again that Stalin, Yaroslavsky and Bros. are deceiving you. They say that I made use of the bourgeois press in order to carry on a struggle against the Soviet Republic, in whose creation and defense I worked hand in hand with Lenin. They are deceiving you. I used the bourgeois press in order to defend the interests of the Soviet Republic against the lies, trickery, and perfidy of Stalin and Company.
They ask you to condemn my articles. Have you read them? No, you
have not read them. They are giving you a false translation of
separate small fragments. My articles have been published in the
Russian language in a special booklet in exactly the form in which I
wrote them. Demand that Stalin reprint them without abbreviations or
falsifications. He dare not do it. He fears the truth more than
anything else. Here I want to give the fundamental contents of my
articles.
1. In the resolution of the G.P.U. as to my banishment it states
that I am conducting “preparations for an armed struggle
against the Soviet Republic.” In Pravda (No. 14, February 19,
1929) the statement about armed struggle was omitted. Why? Why did
Stalin not dare repeat in Pravda what was said in the resolution of
the G.P.U. Because he knew that no one would believe him. After the
history of the Wrangel officer, after the exposure of the agent
provocateur sent by Stalin to the Oppositionists with the proposal of
a military plot, after all that, no one will believe that the
Bolshevik-Leninists, desiring to convince the Party of the
correctness of their views, are preparing an armed struggle. That is
why Stalin did not dare print in Pravda what was stated in the
resolution of the G.P.U. of January 18th. But if that is true, why
introduce this obvious lie into the resolution of the G.P.U.? Not for
the U.S.S.R. but for Europe, and for the whole outside world. Through
the T.A.S.S. agency Stalin systematically and daily cooperates with
the bourgeois press of the whole world, propagating his slander
against the Bolshevik-Leninists. Stalin can in no other way explain
this banishment and his innumerable arrests, except by accusing the
Opposition of preparing an armed struggle. With this monstrous lie he
has done enormous harm to the Soviet Republic. The whole bourgeois
press has discussed the fact that Trotsky, Rakovsky, Smilga, Radek,
I.N. Smirnov, Beloborodov, Muralov, Mrachkovsky and many others who
built the Soviet Republic and defended it, are now preparing an armed
struggle against Soviet power. It is obvious how such an idea must
weaken the Soviet Republic in the eyes of the whole world. In order
to justify his repressions, Stalin is compelled to compose these
monstrous legends, doing incalculable harm to the Soviet power. That
is why I considered it necessary to appear in the bourgeois press and
say to the whole world: It is not true that the Opposition intends to
wage an armed struggle against Soviet power. The Opposition has waged
and will wage a ruthless struggle for Soviet power against all its
enemies. This declaration of mine has been printed in tens of
millions of newspaper copies in all the languages of the world. It
will serve to strengthen the Soviet Republic. Stalin wants to
strengthen his position at the expense of the Soviet Republic. I want
to strengthen the Soviet Republic by exposing the lies of the
Stalinists.
2. Stalin and his press have for a long time been propagating all over the world the statement that I declare that the Soviet Republic has become a bourgeois state, that the proletarian power is wrecked, etc. In Russia many workers know that this is a vicious slander, that is founded on falsified quotations. I have exposed these falsifications dozens of times in letters which have been circulated from hand to hand. But the outside bourgeois press believes them, or pretends to believe them. All these counterfeit, Stalinist quotations appear in the columns of the newspapers of the world as a demonstration of the assertion that Trotsky considers the fall of the Soviet power inevitable. Thanks to the enormous interest of international public opinion, and especially that of the broad popular masses, in what is being created in the Soviet Republic, the bourgeois press, impelled by its business interests, its desire for circulation, the demands of its readers, was compelled to print my articles. In those articles I said to the whole world that Soviet power, in spite of the incorrect policies of the Stalin leadership, is deeply rooted in the masses, is very powerful, and will outlive its enemies.
You must not forget that the overwhelming majority of the workers in Europe, and especially in America, all still read the bourgeois press. I made it a condition that my articles should be printed without the slightest change. It is true that certain papers in a few countries violated this condition, but the majority fulfilled it. In any case all the papers were compelled to publish the fact that, in spite of the lies and slanders of the Stalinists, Trotsky is convinced of the deep inner power of the Soviet regime, and firmly believes that the workers will succeed by peaceful measures in changing the present false policy of the Central Committee.
In the spring of 1917 Lenin, imprisoned in Switzerland, employed a
“sealed train” of the Hohenzollerns in order to get to
the Russian workers. The chauvinist press attacked Lenin, going so
far as to call him a German agent, and address him as Herr Lenin.
Imprisoned by the Thermidorians in Constantinople I employed the
bourgeois press as a sealed train in order to speak the truth to the
whole world. The attacks of the Stalinists against “Mr.
Trotsky,” stupid in their intemperance, are nothing but a
repetition of the bourgeois and Socialist Revolutionary attacks upon
“Herr Lenin.” Like Lenin I regard with contempt the
public opinion of the philistines and bureaucrats whose spirit Stalin
represents.
3. I told in my articles, distorted and falsified by Yaroslavsky,
how, why, and under what circumstances I was banished from the
U.S.S.R. The Stalinists are propagating rumors in the European press
to the effect that I was permitted to leave Russia at my own request.
I exposed this lie. I told how I was sent over the border forcibly
after a preliminary agreement between Stalin and the Turkish police.
And here I acted not only in the interests of my own personal defense
against slander, but first of all in the interest of the Soviet
Republic. If the Oppositionists really desire to leave the borders of
the Soviet Union, that would be understood by the whole world as a
sign that we consider the situation of the Soviet government
hopeless. We have not the shadow of such a thought. The Stalinist
policies have dealt a terrible blow not only to the Chinese
revolution, the English working class movement, and the whole
Comintern, but also to the inner stability of the Soviet regime. That
is indisputable. However, the situation is not the least bit
hopeless. The Opposition in no case intends to fly from Soviet
Russia. I categorically refused to cross the border, proposing
instead that they should imprison me. The Stalinists did not dare
resort to that measure; they were afraid that the workers would
insistently demand my liberation. They preferred to make a bargain
with the Turkish police, and they transported me to Constantinople by
main force. This I explained to the whole world. Every thinking
worker will say that if Stalin through T.A.S.S. daily feeds the
bourgeois press with slanders against the Opposition, then I was
obliged to publish a refutation of these slanders.
4. In tens of millions of newspaper copies I told the whole world
that it was not the Russian workers who exiled me, nor the Russian
peasants, nor the Soviet Red Guards, nor those with whom we conquered
the power and fought shoulder to shoulder on all fronts in the civil
war. It was the bureaucrats who exiled me, people who have got the
power into their hands and converted themselves into a bureaucratic
caste bound together by a solidarity of privilege. In order to defend
the October Revolution, the Soviet Republic and the revolutionary
name of the Bolshevik-Leninists, I told the whole world the truth
about Stalin and the Stalinists. I reminded them again that Lenin in
his maturely considered testament described Stalin as disloyal. That
word is understood in all the languages of the world. It means an
untrustworthy or dishonest man who is guided in his activities by bad
motives, a man whom you cannot trust. That is how Lenin characterized
Stalin, and we see again how correct Lenin’s warning was. There
is no worse crime for a revolutionist than to deceive his party, to
poison with lies the mind of the working class. And that is at
present Stalin’s chief occupation. He is deceiving the
Comintern and the international working class, attributing to the
Opposition counter-revolutionary intentions and activities in
relation to Soviet power. Exactly because of his inward inclination
to that kind of activity, Lenin called Stalin disloyal. Exactly for
that reason Lenin proposed to the party that Stalin should be removed
from his post. So much the more necessary now, after all that has
happened, to explain to the whole world in what consists Stalin’s
disloyalty – that is, his perfidy and dishonesty in relation to
the Opposition.
5. The slanderers (Yaroslavsky and the other agents of Stalin) are raising a great noise on the subject of American dollars. Otherwise it would hardly be worthwhile to stoop to this rubbish. But the most vicious bourgeois newspapers take satisfaction in spreading Yaroslavsky’s dirt. In order to leave nothing unclear I will therefore tell you about the dollars.
I gave my articles to an American press agency in Paris. Lenin and
I, dozens of times, have given interviews and written expositions of
our views on one question or another to such agencies. Thanks to my
banishment and the mysterious circumstances of it, the interest in
this matter throughout the world was colossal. The agency counted on
a good profit. It offered me half of the income. I answered that I
personally would not take a cent, but that the agency should deliver
at my direction a half of its income from my articles, and that with
this money I will publish in the Russian language and in foreign
languages a whole series of Lenin’s writings (his speeches,
articles, letters) which are suppressed in the Soviet Republic by the
Stalinist censorship. I will also publish with this money a whole
series of important party documents (reports of conferences,
congresses, letters, articles, etc.) which are concealed from the
Party only because they clearly demonstrate the theoretical and
political bankruptcy of Stalin. This is that “counter-revolutionary”
(according to Stalin and Yaroslavsky) literature which I intend to
publish. An accurate account of the sums expended in this way will be
published when the time comes. Every worker will say that it is
infinitely better to publish the writings of Lenin with money
received in the form of an accidental contribution from the
bourgeoisie than to propagate slanders against the
Bolshevik-Leninists with money collected from the Russian workers and
peasants.
Do not forget, comrades: the “Testament” of Lenin remains as before in Russia a counter-revolutionary document, for the circulation of which you are arrested and exiled. And that is not accidental. Stalin is waging a struggle against Leninism on an international scale. There remains hardly one country in the world where at the head of the Communist Party today stand those revolutionists who led the party in the days of Lenin. They are almost all expelled from the Communist International. Lenin guided the first four Congresses of the Comintern. Together with Lenin I drew up all the fundamental documents of the Comintern. At the fourth Congress, in 1922, Lenin divided equally with me the fundamental report on the New Economic Policy and the Perspectives of the International Revolution. After the death of Lenin, almost all the participants, at any rate all without exception of the influential participants of the first four Congresses, have been expelled from the Comintern. Everywhere in the world at the heads of the Communist Parties stand new, accidental people, who arrived yesterday from the camp of our opponents and enemies. In order to adopt an anti-Leninist policy, it was necessary first to overthrow the Leninist leadership. Stalin has done this, relying upon the bureaucracy, upon new petty-bourgeois circles, upon the state apparatus, upon the G.P.U., and upon the financial resources of the State. This has been carried through not only in the U.S.S.R., but also in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Belgium, in the United States, in the Scandinavian countries – in a word, in almost every country in the world. Only a blind man could fail to understand the meaning of the fact that the closest colleagues and comrades-in-arms of Lenin in the Russian Communist Party and the whole Comintern, all the leaders of the Communist parties in the first hard years, all the participants and leaders of the first four Congresses, almost to a man, have been removed from their posts, slandered, and expelled. This mad struggle with the Leninist leadership was necessary to the Stalinists in order to carry through an anti-Leninist policy.
When they were pounding the Bolshevik-Leninists, they reassured the Party by saying that it would now be monolithic. You know that the Party is now more split-up than ever. And this is not the end either. There is no salvation on the Stalinist road. You can adopt either an Ustrialovist – that is a consistently Thermidorian policy – or a Leninist policy. The Centrist position of Stalin inevitably leads to an accumulation of enormous economic and political difficulties and to the continual decimation and destruction of the party.
It is still not too late to alter the course. It is necessary abruptly to change the policy and the party regime in the spirit of the Opposition platform. It is necessary to put an end to the shameful persecution of the best revolutionary Leninists in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in the whole world. It is necessary to restore the Leninist leadership. It is necessary to condemn and root out the disloyal, that is, untrustworthy and dishonest, methods of the Stalin apparatus. The Opposition is ready with all its force to help the proletarian kernel of the party to fulfil this vital task. Rabid persecution, dishonest slanders and government repressions cannot dim our loyalty to the October Revolution or to the international party of Lenin. We will remain true to them both to the end – in the Stalinist prisons, in exile and in banishment.
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With Bolshevik greetings, |
Last updated on: 23 October 2020