I Stake My Life!

Trotsky’s address to the N.Y. Hippodrome Meeting was delivered by telephone from Mexico City
for the opening event of the Dewey Commission on the Moscow Trials on February
9^th, 1937. Transcription from a pamphlet issued in Great Britain by the Workers’
International League, presumably in 1942.

Dear Listeners, Comrades and Friends:

My first word is one of apology for my
impossible English. My second word is one of thanks to the Committee
which has made it possible for me to address your meeting. The theme
of my address is the Moscow trial. I do not intend for an instant to
overstep the limits of this theme, which even in itself is much too
vast. I will appeal not to the passions, not to your nerves, but to
reason. I do not doubt that reason will be found on the side
of truth.

The Zinoviev-Kamenev trial has provoked in
public opinion terror, agitation, indignation, distrust, or at least,
perplexity. The trial of Piatakov-Radek has once more enhanced these
sentiments. Such is the incontestable fact. A doubt of justice
signifies, in this case, a suspicion of frame-up. Can one find a more
humiliating suspicion against a government which appears under the
banner of socialism? Where do the interests of the soviet government
itself lie? In dispelling these suspicions. What is the duty of the
true friends of the Soviet Union? To say firmly to the soviet
government: it is necessary at all costs to dispel the distrust of
the Western world for soviet justice.

To answer to this demand: "We have our
justice the rest does not concern us much," is to occupy one-self,
not with the socialist enlightment of the masses, but with the
policies of inflated prestige, in the style of Hitler or Mussolini.

Even the "Friends of the U.S.S.R.," who
are convinced in their own hearts of the justice of the Moscow trials
(and how many are there? What a pity that one cannot take a census of
consciences!), even these unshakable friends of the bureaucracy are
in duty-bound to demand with us the creation of an authorised
commission of inquiry. The Moscow authorities must present to such a
commission all the necessary testimonies. There can evidently be no
lack of them since it was on the basis of those given that 49 persons
were shot in the "Kirov" trials, without counting the 150 who
were shot without trial.

Let us recall that by way of guarantees for
the justice of the Moscow verdicts before world public opinion two
lawyers present themselves: Pritt from London and Rosenmark from
Paris, not to mention the American journalist Duranty. But who gives
guarantee for these guarantees? The two lawyers, Pritt and Rosenmark,
acknowledge gratefully that the soviet government placed at their
disposal all the necessary explanations. Let us add that the "King’s
Counsellor" Pritt was invited to Moscow at a fortunate time, since
the date of the trial was carefully concealed from the entire world
until the last moment. The soviet government did not thus count on
humiliating the dignity of its justice by having recourse behind the
scenes to the assistance of foreign lawyers and journalists. But when
the Socialist and Trade Union Internationals demanded the opportunity
to send their lawyers to Moscow, they were treated—no more and no
less—as defenders of assassins and of the Gestapo! You know of
course, that I am not a partisan of the Second International or of
the Trade Union International. But is it not clear that their moral
authority is incomparably above the authority of lawyers with supple
spines? Have we not the right to say: the Moscow government forgets
its "prestige" before authorities and experts, whose approbation
is assured to them in advance; it is cheerfully willing to make the
"King’s Counsel" Pritt a counsellor of the G.P.U. But, on the
other hand, it has up to now brutally rejected every examination
which would carry with it guarantees of objectivity and impartiality.
Such is the incontestable and deadly fact! Perhaps, however, this
conclusion is inaccurate? There is nothing easier than to refute it:
let the Moscow government present to an international commission of
inquiry serious, precise and concrete explanations regarding all the
obscure spots of the Kirov trials. And apart from these obscure spots
there is—alas!—nothing. That is precisely why Moscow resorts to
all kinds of measures to force me, the principal accused, to keep my
silence. Under Moscow’s terrible economic pressure the Norwegian
government placed me under lock-and-key. What good fortune that the
magnanimous hospitality of Mexico permitted me and my wife to meet
the new trial, not under imprisonment, but in freedom! But all the
wheels to force me once more into silence have again been set into
motion. Why does Moscow so fear the voice of a single man? Only
because I know the truth, the whole truth. Only because I have
nothing to hide. Only because I am ready to appear before a public
and impartial commission of inquiry with documents facts and
testimonies in my hands, and to disclose the truth to the very end. I
declare: if this commission decides that I am guilty in the slightest
degree of the crimes which Stalin imputes to me, I pledge in advance
to place myself voluntarily in the hands of the executioners of the
G.P.U. That, I hope, is clear. Have you all heard? I make this
declaration before the entire world. I ask the press to publish my
words in the farthest corners of our planet. But if the commission
establishes—do you hear me? that the Moscow trials are a conscious
and premeditated frame-up, constructed with the bones and nerves of
human beings, I will not ask my accusers to place themselves
voluntarily before a firing-squad. No, eternal disgrace in the memory
of human generations will be sufficient for them. Do the accusers of
the Kremlin hear me? I throw my defiance in their faces. And I await
their reply!

***

Through this declaration I reply in passing
to the frequent objections of superficial sceptics: "Why must we
believe Trotsky and not Stalin?" It is absurd to busy one’s self
with psychological divinations. It is not a question of personal
confidence. It is a question of verification! I propose a
verification! I demand the verification!

Listeners and friends! Today you expect from
me neither a refutation of the "proofs," which do not exist in
this affair, nor a detailed analysis of the "confessions," those
unnatural, artificial, inhuman monologues which carry in
themselves their own refutation. I would need more time than the
prosecutor for a concrete analysis of the trials, because it is more
difficult to disentangle than to entangle. This work I will
accomplish in the press and before the future commission. My task
today is to unmask the fundamental, original viciousness of
the Moscow trials, to show the motive forces of the frame-up, its
true political aims, the psychology of its participants and of its
victims.

The trial of Zinoviev-Kamenev was
concentrated upon "terrorism." The trial of Piatakov-Radek placed
in the centre of the stage, no longer terror, but the alliance of the
Trotskyists with Germany and Japan for the preparation of war, the
dismemberment of the U.S.S.R., the sabotage of industry and the
extermination of workers. How to explain this crying discrepancy?
For, after the execution of the 16 we were told that the depositions
of Zinoviev, Kamenev and the others were voluntary, sincere, and
corresponded to the facts. Moreover, Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded
the death penalty for themselves! Why then did they not say a word
about the most important thing: the alliance of the Trotskyists with
Germany and Japan and the plot to dismember the U.S.S.R.? Could they
have forgotten such "details" of the plot? Could they themselves,
the leaders of the so-called centre, not have known what was
known by the accused in the last trial, people of a secondary
category? The enigma is easily explained: the new amalgam was
constructed after the execution of the 16 during the course of
the last five months, as an answer to unfavourable echoes in the
world press.

The most feeble part of the trial of the 16
is the accusation against old Bolsheviks of an alliance with the
secret police of Hitler, the Gestapo. Neither Zinoviev, nor Kamenev,
nor Smirnov, nor in general any one of the accused with political
names, confessed to this liaison; they stopped short before this
extreme self-abasement! It follows that I, through obscure, unknown
intermediaries, such as Olberg, Berman, Fritz David and others, had
entered into an alliance with the Gestapo for such grand purposes as
the obtaining of a Honduran passport for Olberg. The whole thing was
too foolish. No one wanted to believe it. The whole trial was
discredited. It was necessary to correct the gross error of the
stage-managers at all costs. It was necessary to fill up the hole.
Yagoda was replaced by Yezhov. A new trial was placed on the order of
the day. Stalin decided to answer his critics in this way: "You
don’t believe that Trotsky is capable of entering into an alliance
with the Gestapo for the sake of an Olberg and a passport from
Honduras. Very well, I will show you that the purpose of his alliance
with Hitler was to provoke war and partition out the world."
However, for this second, more grandiose production, Stalin lacked
the principal actors: he had shot them. In the principal roles of the
principal presentation he could place only secondary actors! It is
not superfluous to note that Stalin attached much value to Piatakov
and Radek as collaborators. But he had no other people with
well-known names, who, if only because of their distant pasts, could
pass as "Trotskyists." That is why fate descended sternly upon
Radek and Piatakov. The version about my meetings with the rotten
trash of the Gestapo through unknown occasional intermediaries was
dropped. The matter was suddenly raised to the heights of the world
stage! It was no longer a question of a Honduran passport, but of the
parcelling out of the U.S.S.R. and even the defeat of the United
States of America. With the aid of a gigantic elevator the plot
ascends during a period of five months from the dirty police dregs to
the heights on which are decided the destinies of nations. Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Smirnov, Mrachkovsky, went to their graves without knowing
of these grandiose schemes, alliances, and perspectives. Such is the
fundamental falsehood of the last amalgam!

In order to hide, even if only slightly, the
glaring contradiction between the two trials, Piatakov and Radek
testified, under the dictation of the G.P.U., that they had formed a
"parallel" centre in view of Trotsky’s lack of
confidence in Zinoviev and Kamenev. It is difficult to imagine a mere
stupid and deceitful explanation! I really did not have confidence in
Zinoviev and Kamenev after their capitulation, and I have had no
connection with them since 1927. But I had still less confidence in
Radek and Piatakov! Already in 1929 Radek delivered into the hands of
the G.P.U. the oppositionist Blumkin, who was shot silently and
without trial. Here is what I wrote then in the Bulletin of the
Russian Opposition which appears abroad: "After having lost the
last remnants of moral equilibrium, Radek does not stop at any
abasement." It is outrageous to be forced to quote such harsh
statements about the unfortunate victims of Stalin. But it would be
criminal to hide the truth out of sentimental considerations…

Radek and Piatakov themselves regarded
Zinoviev and Kamenev as their superiors, and in this
self-appreciation they were not mistaken. But more than that. At the
time of the trial of the 16, the prosecutor named Smirnov as the
"leader of the Trotskyists in the U.S.S.R." The accused
Mrachkovsky, as a proof of his closeness to me, declared that I was
accessible only through his intermediation, and the prosecutor in his
turn emphasised this fact. How then was it possible that not only
Zinoviev and Kamenev, but Smirnov, the "leader of the Trotskyists
in the U.S.S.R.," and Mrachkovsky as well, knew nothing of the
plans about which I had instructed Radek, openly branded by me as a
traitor? Such is the primary falsehood of the last trial. It appears
by itself in broad daylight. We know its source. We see the strings
off-stage. We see the brutal hand which pulls them.

Radek and Piatakov confessed to frightful
crimes. But their crimes, from the point of view of the accused and
not of the accusers, do not make sense. With the aid of terror,
sabotage and alliance with the imperialists, they would have liked to
re-establish capitalism in the Soviet Union. Why? Throughout their
entire lives they struggled against capitalism. Perhaps they were
guided by personal motives: the lust for power? the thirst for gain?
Under any other regime Piatakov and Radek could not hope to occupy
higher positions than those which they occupied before their arrest.
Perhaps they were so stupidly sacrificing themselves out of
friendship for me? An absurd hypothesis! By their actions, speeches,
and articles during the last eight years, Radek and Piatakov
demonstrated that they were my bitter enemies.

Terror? But is it possible that the
oppositionists, after all the revolutionary experience in Russia,
could not have foreseen that this would only serve as a pretext for
the extermination of the best fighters? No, they knew that, they
foresaw it, they stated it hundreds of times. No, terror was not
necessary for us. On the other hand it was absolutely necessary for
the ruling clique. On the 4^th of March, 1929, eight years
ago, I wrote: "Only one thing is left for Stalin: to attempt to
draw a line of blood between the official party and the opposition.
He absolutely must connect the opposition with attempts at
assassination, the preparation of armed insurrection, etc."
Remember: Bonapartism has never existed in history without police
fabrications of plots!

The Opposition would have to be composed of
cretins to think that an alliance with Hitler or the Mikado, both of
whom are doomed to defeat in the next war, that such an absurd,
inconceivable, senseless alliance could yield to revolutionary
Marxists anything but disgrace and ruin. On the other hand, such an
alliance—of the Trotskyists with Hitler—was most necessary for
Stalin. Voltaire says: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary
to invent him." The G.P.U. says: "If the alliance does not exist,
it is necessary to fabricate it."

At the heart of the Moscow trials is an
absurdity. According to the official version, the Trotskyists had
been organising the most monstrous plot since 1931. However, all of
them, as if by command, spoke and wrote in one way but acted in
another. In spite of the hundreds of persons implicated in the plot,
over a period of five years, not a trace of it was revealed: no
splits, no denunciations, and no confiscated letters, until the hour
of the general confessions arrived! Then a new miracle came to pass.
People who had organised assassinations, prepared war, divided the
Soviet Union, these hardened criminals suddenly confessed in August,
1936, not under the pressure of proofs—no, because there were no
proofs—but for certain mysterious reasons, which hypocritical
psychologists declare are peculiar attributes of the "Russian
soul." Just think: yesterday they carried out railroad wrecking and
poisoning of workers—by unseen order of Trotsky. Today they are
Trotsky’s accusers and heap upon him their pseudo-crimes. Yesterday
they dreamed only of killing Stalin. Today they all sing hymns of
praise to him. What is it: a mad-house? No, the Messieurs Duranty
tell us, it is not a mad-house, but the, "Russian soul." You lie
gentlemen, about the Russian soul. You lie about the human soul in
general.

The miracle consists not only in the
simultaneity and the universality of the confessions. The miracle,
above all, is that, according to the general confessions, the
conspirators did something which was fatal precisely to their own
political interests, but extremely useful to the leading clique. Once
more the conspirators before the tribunal said just what the most
servile agents of Stalin would have said. Normal people, following
the dictates of their own will, would never have been able to conduct
themselves as Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Piatakov and the others did.
Devotion to their ideas, political dignity, and the simple instinct
of self-preservation would force them to struggle for themselves, for
their personalities, for their interests, for their lives. The only
reasonable and fitting question is this: Who led these people into
a state in which all Human reflexes are destroyed, and how did he do
it? There is a very simple principle in jurisprudence, which
holds the key to many secrets: is fecit cui prodest; he who
benefits by it is the guilty one. The entire conduct of the accused
has been dictated from beginning to end, not by their own ideas and
interests, but by the interests of the ruling clique. And the
pseudo-plot, and the confessions, the theatrical judgment and the
entirely real executions, all were arranged by one and the same hand.
Whose? Cui prodest? Who benefits? The hand of Stalin! The rest
is deceit, falsehood, and idle babbling about the "Russian soul"!
In the trials there did not figure fighters, nor conspirators, but
puppets in the hands of the G.P.U. They played assigned roles. The
aim of the disgraceful performance: to eliminate the whole
opposition, to poison the very source of critical thought, definitely
to entrench the totalitarian regime of Stalin.

We repeat: The accusation is a premeditated
frame-up. This frame-up must inevitably appear in each of the
defendants’ confessions, if they are examined alongside the facts.
The prosecutor Vyshinsky knows this very well. That is why he did not
address a single concrete question to the accused, which would have
embarrassed them considerably. The names, documents, dates, places,
means of transportation, circumstances of the meetings—around these
decisive facts Vyshinsky has placed a cloak of shame, or to be more
exact, a shameless cloak. Vyshinsky dealt with the accused, not in
the language of the jurist, but in the conventional language of the
past-master of frame-up, in the jargon of the thief. The insinuating
character of Vyshinsky’s questions—along with the complete
absence of material proofs—this represents the second crushing
evidence against Stalin.

But I do not intend to limit myself to these
negative proofs. Oh, no! Vyshinsky has not demonstrated and cannot
demonstrate that the subjective confessions were genuine, that
is to say, in harmony with the objective facts. I undertake a
much more difficult task: to demonstrate that each one of the
confessions is false, that is, contradicts reality. Of what do my
proofs consist? I will give you a couple of examples. I should need
at least an hour to lay before you the two principal episodes: the
pseudo-trip of the accused Holtzman to see me in Copenhagen, to
receive terrorist instructions, and the pseudo-voyage of the accused
Piatakov to see me in Oslo, to get instructions about the
dismemberment of the Soviet Union. I have at my disposal a complete
arsenal of proofs that Holtzman did not come to see me in Copenhagen,
and that Piatakov did not come to see me in Oslo. Now I mention only
the simplest proofs, all that the limitations of time permit.

Unlike the other defendants, Holtzman
indicated the date: November 23-25, 1932 (the secret is simple:
through the newspapers it was known when I arrived in Copenhagen),
and the following concrete details: Holtzman came to visit me through
my son, Leon Sedov, whom he, Holtzman, had met in the Hotel Bristol.
Concerning the Hotel Bristol, Holtzman had a previous agreement with
Sedov in Berlin. When he came to Copenhagen, Holtzman actually met
Sedov in the lobby of this hotel. From there they both came to see
me. At the time of Holtzman’s rendezvous with me, Sedov, according
to Holtzman’s words, frequently walked in and out of the room. What
vivid details! We sigh in relief: at last we have, not just confused
confessions, but also something which looks like a fact. The sad part
of it, however, dear listeners, is that my son was not in Copenhagen,
neither in November 1932 nor at any other time in his life. I beg you
to keep this well in mind! In November, 1932, my son was in Berlin,
that is, in Germany and not in Denmark, and made vain efforts to
leave in order to meet me and his mother in Copenhagen: don’t
forget that the Weimar democracy was already gasping out its last
breath, and the Berlin police were becoming stricter and stricter.
All the circumstances of my son’s procedure regarding his departure
are established by precise evidence. Our daily telephonic
communications with my son from Copenhagen to Berlin can be
established by the telephone office in Copenhagen. Dozens of
witnesses, who at that time surrounded my wife and myself in
Copenhagen, knew that we awaited our son impatiently, but in vain. At
the same time, all of my son’s friends in Berlin know that he
attempted in vain to obtain a visa. Thanks precisely to these
incessant efforts and obstacles, the fact that the meeting never
materialised remains in the memories of dozens of people. They all
live abroad and have already given their written depositions. Does
that suffice? I should hope so! Pritt and Rosenmark, perhaps, say
"No"? Because they are indulgent only with the G.P.U.! Good: I
will meet them half way. I have still more immediate, still more
direct, and still more indisputable proofs. Actually, our meeting
with our son took place after we left Denmark, in France, en route
to Turkey. That meeting was made possible only thanks to the personal
intervention of the French Premier, at that time, M. Herriot. In the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs my wife’s telegram to Herriot,
dated the first of December, has been preserved, as well as Herriot’s
telegraphic instruction to the French consulate in Berlin, on
December 3^rd, to give my son a visa immediately. For a
time I feared that the agents of the G.P.U. in Paris would seize
those documents. Fortunately they have not succeeded. The two
telegrams were luckily found some weeks ago in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Do you understand me clearly? I now have copies of
both telegrams at hand. I do not cite their texts, numbers and dates
in order not to lose any time: I will give them to the press
tomorrow.

On my son’s passport there is a visa
granted by the French Consulate on December 3^rd. On the
morning of the fourth my son left Berlin. On his passport there are
seals received at the frontier on the same day. The passport has been
preserved in its entirety. Citizens of New York, do you hear my voice
from Mexico City? I want you to hear every one of my words, despite
my frightful English! Our meeting with our son took place in Paris,
in the Gare du Nord, in a second-class train, which took us from
Dunkerque, in the presence of dozens of friends who accompanied us
and received us. I hope that is enough! Neither the G.P.U. nor Pritt
can ignore it. They are gripped in an iron vice. Holtzman could not
see my son in Copenhagen because my son was in Berlin. My son could
not have gone in and out during the course of the meeting. Who then
will believe the fact of the meeting itself? Who will place any
credence in the whole confession of Holtzman?

But that isn’t all. According to
Holtzman’s words, his meeting with my son took place, as you have
already heard, in the hall of the Hotel Bristol. Magnificent…But it
so happens that the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen was razed to its very
foundations in 1917! In 1932 this hotel existed only as a fond
memory. The hotel was rebuilt only in 1936, precisely during the days
when Holtzman was making his unfortunate declarations. The obliging
Pritt presents us with the hypothesis of a probable "slip of the
pen": the Russian stenographer, you see, must have heard the word
Bristol incorrectly, and moreover, none of the reporting journalists
and editors corrected the error: Good! But how about my son? Also a
stenographer’s slip of the pen? There Pritt, following Vyshinsky,
maintains an eloquent silence. In reality the G.P.U., through its
agents in Berlin, knew of my son’s efforts and assumed that he met
me in Copenhagen. There is the source of the "slip of the pen"!
Holtzman apparently knew the Hotel Bristol through memories of his
emigration long ago, and that is why he named it. From that flows the
second "slip of the pen"! Two slips combine to make a
catastrophe: of Holtzman’s connfessions there remains only a cloud
of coal-dust, as of the Hotel Bristol at the moment of its
destruction. And meanwhile—don’t forget this!—this is the most
important confession in the trial of the sixteen: of all the old
revolutionaries, only Holtzman had met me and received terrorist
instructions!

Let us pass to the second episode. Piatakov
came to see me by airplane from Berlin to Oslo in the middle of
December, 1935. Of the thirteen precise questions which I addressed
to the Moscow tribunal while Piatakov was yet alive, not a single one
was answered. Each one of these questions destroys Piatakov’s
mythical voyage. Meanwhile my Norwegian host, Konrad Knudsen, a
parliamentary deputy, and my former secretary, Ernin Wolff, have
already stated in the press that I had no Russian visitor in December
1935, and that I made no journeys without them. Don’t these
depositions satisfy you? Here is another one: the authorities of the
Oslo aerodrome have officially established, on the basis of their
records, that during the course of December 1935, not a single
foreign airplane landed at their airport! Perhaps a slip of the pen
has also crept into the records of the aerodrome? Master Pritt,
enough of your slips of the pen, kindly invent something more
intelligent! But your imagination will avail you nothing here: I have
at my disposal dozens of direct and indirect testimonies which expose
the depositions of the unfortunate Piatakov, who was forced by the
G.P.U. to fly to see me in an imaginary airplane, just as the Holy
Inquisition forced witches to go to their rendezvous with the devil
on a broomstick. The technique has changed, but the essence is the
same.

In the Hippodrome there are undoubtedly
competent jurists. I beg them to direct their attention to the fact
that neither Holtzman nor Piatakov gave the slightest indication of
my address, that is to say, of the time and the meeting place.
Neither one nor the other told of the precise passport or the precise
name under which he travelled abroad. The prosecutor did not even
question them about their passports. The reason is clear: their names
would not be found in the lists of travellers abroad. Piatakov could
not have avoided sleeping over in Norway, because the December days
are very short. However, he did not name any hotel. The prosecutor
did not even question him about the hotel. Why? Because the ghost of
the Hotel Bristol hovers over Vyshinsky’s head! The prosecutor is
not a prosecutor, but Piatakov’s inquisitor and inspirer, just as
Piatakov is only the unfortunate victim of the G.P.U.

I could now present an enormous amount of
testimony and documents which would demolish at their very
foundations the confessions of a whole series of defendants: Smirnov,
Mrachkovsky, Dreitzer, Radek, Vladimir Romm, Olberg, in short, of all
those who tried in the slightest degree to give facts, circumstances
of time and place. Such a job, however, can be done successfully only
before a Commission of Inquiry, with the participation of jurists
having the necessary time for detailed examination of documents and
for hearing the depositions of witnesses.

But already what has been said by me
permits, I hope, a forecast of the future development of the
investigation. On the one hand, an accusation which is fantastic to
its very core: the entire old generation of Bolsheviks is accused of
an abominable treason, devoid of sense or purpose. To establish this
accusation the prosecutor does not have at his command any material
proofs, in spite of the thousands and thousands of arrests and
searchings. The complete absence of evidence is the most terrible
evidence against Stalin! The executions are based exclusively on
forced confessions. And when facts are mentioned in these
confessions, they crumble to dust at the first contact with critical
examination.

The G.P.U. is not only guilty of frame-up.
It is guilty of concocting a rotten, gross, foolish frame-up.
Impunity is depraving. The absence of control paralyzes criticism.
The falsifiers carry out their work no matter how. They rely on the
sum-total effect of confessions and…executions. If one carefully
compares the fantastic nature of the accusation in its entirety with
the manifest falsehood of the factual depositions, what is left of
all these monotonous confessions? The suffocating odour of the
inquisitorial tribunal, and nothing more!

***

But there is another kind of evidence which
seems to me no less important. In the year of my deportation and the
eight years of my emigration I wrote to close and distant friends
about 2,000 letters dedicated to the most vital questions on current
politics. The letters received by me and the copies of my replies
exist. Thanks to their continuity, these letters reveal, above all,
the profound contradictions, anachronisms and direct absurdities of
the accusation, not only in so far as myself and my son are
concerned, but also as regards the other accused. However, the
importance of these letters extends beyond that fact. All of my
theoretical and political activity during these years is reflected
without a gap in these letters. The letters supplement my books and
articles. The examination of my correspondence, it seems to me, is of
decisive importance for the characterisation of the political and
moral personality—not only of myself, but also of my
correspondents. Vyshinsky has not been able to present a single
letter to the tribunal. I will present to the commission or to a
tribunal thousands of letters, addressed, moreover, to the people who
are closest to me and from whom I had nothing to hide, particularly
to my son, Leon. This correspondence alone by its internal force of
conviction nips the Stalinist amalgam in the bud. The prosecutor with
his subterfuges and his insults and the accused with their
confessional monologues are left suspended in thin air. Such is the
significance of my correspondence. Such is the content of my
archives. I do not ask anybody’s confidence. I make an appeal to
reason, to logic, to criticism. I present facts and documents. I
demand a verification!

***

Among you, dear listeners, there must be not
a few people who freely say: "The confessions of the accused are
false, that is clear; but how was Stalin able to obtain such
confessions; therein lies the secret!" In reality the secret is not
so profound. The inquisition, with a much more simple technique,
extorted all sorts of confessions from its victims. That is why the
democratic penal law renounced the methods of the Middle Ages,
because they led not to the establishment of the truth, but to a
simple confirmation of the accusations dictated by the inquiring
judge. The G.P.U. trials have a thoroughly inquisitorial character:
that is the simple secret of the confessions!

The whole political atmosphere of the Soviet
Union is impregnated with the spirit of the Inquisition. Have you
read Andre Gide’s little book, Return from the U.S.S.R.?
Gide is a friend of the Soviet Union, but not a lackey of the
bureaucracy. Moreover, this artist has eyes. A little episode in
Gide’s book is of incalculable aid in understanding the Moscow
trials. At the end of his trip Gide wished to send a telegram to
Stalin, but not having received the inquisitorial education, he
referred to Stalin with the simple democratic word "you." They
refused to accept the telegram! The representatives of authority
explained to Gide: "When writing to Stalin one must say, ‘leader
of the workers’ or ‘chieftain of the people,’ not the simple
democratic word ‘you’." Gide tried to argue: "Isn’t Stalin
above such flattery?" It was no use. They still refused to accept
his telegram without the Byzantine flattery. At the very end Gide
declared: "I submit in this wearisome battle, but disclaim all
responsibility." Thus a universally recognised writer and honoured
guest was worn out in a few minutes and forced to sign, not the
telegram which he himself wanted to send, but that which was dictated
to him by petty inquisitors. Let him who has a particle of
imagination picture to himself, not a well-known traveller, but an
unfortunate Soviet citizen, an oppositionist, isolated and
persecuted, a pariah, who is constrained to write, not telegrams of
salutation to Stalin, but dozens and scores of confessions of his
crimes. Perhaps in this world there are many heroes who are capable
of bearing all kinds of tortures, physical or moral, which are
inflicted on themselves, their wives, their children. I do not
know…My personal observations inform me that the capacities of the
human nervous system are limited. Through the G.P.U. Stalin can trap
his victim in an abyss of black despair, humiliation, infamy, in such
a manner that he takes upon himself the most monstrous crimes, with
the prospect of imminent death or a feeble ray of hope for the future
as the sole outcome. If, indeed, he does not contemplate suicide,
which Tomsky preferred! Joffe earlier found the same way out, as well
as two members of my military secretariat, Glazman and Boutov,
Zinoviev’s secretary, Began, my daughter Zinnia, and many dozens of
others. Suicide or moral prostration: there is no other choice! But
do not forget that in the prisons of the G.P.U. even suicide is often
an inaccessible luxury!

The Moscow trials do not dishonour the
revolution, because they are the progeny of reaction. The Moscow
trials do not dishonour the old generation of Bolsheviks; they only
demonstrate that even Bolsheviks are made of flesh and blood, and
that they do not resist endlessly when over their heads swings the
pendulum of death. The Moscow trials dishonour the political regime
which has conceived them: the regime of Bonapartism, without honour
and without conscience! All of the executed died with curses on their
lips for this regime.

Let him who wishes weep bitter tears because
history moves ahead so perplexingly: two steps forward, one step
back. But tears are of no avail. It is necessary according to
Spinoza’s advice, not to laugh, not to weep, but to understand!

Who are the principal defendants? Old
Bolsheviks, builders of the party, of the Soviet state, of the Red
Army, of the Communist International. Who is the accuser against
them? Vyshinsky, bourgeois lawyer, who called himself a Menshevik
after the October revolution and joined the Bolsheviks after their
definite victory. Who wrote the disgusting libels about the accused
in Pravda?…Zaslaysky, former pillar of a banking
journal, whom Lenin treated in his articles only as a "rascal."
The former editor of Pravda, Bukharin, is arrested. The pillar
of Pravda is now Koltzov, Bourgeois feuilletonist, who
remained throughout the civil war in the camp of the Whites.
Sokolnikov, a participant in the October revolution and the
civil war, is condemned as a traitor. Rakovsky awaits
accusation. Sokolnikov and Rakovsky were ambassadors to London. Their
place is now occupied by Maisky, Right Menshevik, who during
the civil war was a minister of the White government in Kolchak’s
territory. Troyanovsky, Soviet ambassador to Washington,
treats the Trotskyists as counter-revolutionaries. He himself, during
the first years of the October Revolution, was a member of the
Central Committee of the Mensheviks and joined the Bolsheviks only
after they began to distribute attractive posts. Before becoming
ambassador, Sokolnikov was People’s Commissar of Finance. Who
occupies that post today? Grinko, who in common with the White
Guards struggled in the Committee of Welfare during 1917-18 against
the Soviets. One of the best Soviet diplomatists was Joffe,
first Ambassador to Germany, who was forced to suicide by the
persecutions. Who replaced him in Berlin? First the repentant
oppositionist Krestinski, then Khinchuk, former
Menshevik, a participant in the counter-revolutionary Committee of
Welfare, and finally Suritz, who also went through 1917 on the
other side of the barricades. I could prolong this list indefinitely.

These sweeping alterations in personnel,
especially striking in the provinces, have profound social causes.
What are they? It is time, my listeners, it is high time, to
recognise, finally, that a new aristocracy has been formed in the
Soviet Union. The October Revolution proceeded under the banner of
equality. The bureaucracy is the embodiment of monstrous inequality.
The Revolution destroyed the nobility. The bureaucracy creates a new
gentry. The Revolution destroyed titles and decorations. The new
aristocracy produces marshals and generals. The new aristocracy
absorbs an enormous part of the national income. Its position before
the people is deceitful and false. Its leaders are forced to hide the
reality, to deceive the masses, to cloak themselves, calling black
white. The whole policy of the new aristocracy is a frame-up. The new
constitution is nothing but a frame-up.

Fear of criticism is fear of the masses. The
bureaucracy is afraid of the people. The lava of the revolution is
not yet cold. The bureaucracy cannot crush the discontented and the
critics by bloody repressions only because they demand a cutting down
of privileges. That is why the false accusations against the
opposition are not occasional acts but a system, which flows
from the present situation of the ruling caste.

Let us recall how the Thermidoreans of the
French Revolution acted toward the Jacobins. The historian Aulard
writes: "The enemies did not satisfy themselves with the
assassination of Robespierre and his friends; they calumniated them,
representing them in the eyes of France as royalists, as people who
had sold out to foreign countries." Stalin has invented nothing. He
has simply replaced royalists with Fascists.

When the Stalinists call us "traitors,"
there is in that accusation not only hatred but also a certain sort
of sincerity. They think that we betray the interests of the holy
caste of generals and marshals, the only ones, capable of
"constructing socialism," but who, in fact, compromise the very
idea of socialism. For our part, we consider the Stalinists as
traitors to the interests of the Soviet masses and of the world
proletariat. It is absurd to explain such a furious struggle by
personal motives. It is a question not only of different programmes
but also of different social interests, which clash in an
increasingly hostile fashion.

***

"And what is, your diagnosis?"—you
will ask me—"What is your prognosis?" I said before: My speech
is devoted only to the Moscow trials. The social diagnosis and
prognosis form the content of my new book: The Revolution
Betrayed: What Is the U.S.S.R. and Where Is It Going? But in two
words I will tell you what I think.

The fundamental acquisitions of the October
Revolution, the new forms of property which permit the development of
the productive forces, are not yet destroyed, but they have already
come into irreconcilable conflict with the political despotism.
Socialism is impossible without the independent activity of the
masses and the flourishing of the human personality. Stalinism
tramples on both. An open revolutionary conflict between the people
and the new despotism is inevitable. Stalin’s regime is doomed.
Will the capitalist counter-revolution or workers’ democracy
replace it? History has not yet decided this question. The decision
depends also upon the activity of the world proletariat.

If we admit for a moment that Fascism will
triumph in Spain, and thereby also in France, the soviet country,
surrounded by a Fascist ring, would be doomed to further
degeneration, which must extend from the political superstructure to
the economic foundations. In other words, the débacle of the
European proletariat would probably signify the crushing of the
Soviet Union.

If on the contrary the toiling masses of
Spain overcome Fascism, if the working class of France definitely
chooses the path of its liberation, then the oppressed masses of the
Soviet Union will straighten their backbones and raise their heads!
Then will the last hour of Stalin’s despotism strike. But the
triumph of Soviet democracy will not occur by itself. It depends also
upon you. The masses need your help. The first aid is to tell them
the truth.

The question is: to aid the demoralised
bureaucracy against the people, or the progressive forces of the
people against the bureaucracy. The Moscow trials are a signal. Woe
to them who do not heed! The Reichstag trial surely had a great
importance. But it concerned only vile Fascism, that embodiment of
all the vices of darkness and barbarism. The Moscow trials are
perpetrated under the banner of socialism. We will not concede this
banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to be
too weak to establish socialism over the earth, we will hand the
spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the
offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions, and
parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be
severe. It will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and
spiritual calm, let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more
convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all
those for whom the word socialism is not a hollow sound but
the content of their moral life—forward! Neither threats, nor
persecutions, nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our
bleaching bones, the truth will triumph! We will blaze the trail for
it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be
happy, as in the best days of my youth! Because, my friends, the
highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but
the preparation of the future.

See also:

• Not Guilty — Dewey Commission Report at Wellred Books