We refute Gollan's anti-Trotskyist slanders. Part two

PAGE TWO THERE ARE many December

documents available proving collusion between Nazi and Soviet leaders, but they exclusively involved mem. bers of the Stalinist government.

With the collapse of the Third Reich, all the files and archives that escaped the final holocaust were captured either by the Western Allies or the Soviet forces.

Many of these documents have, of course, since been published.

We refer, in the context of Gollan's accusations, particularly to those relating to two periods: that of the early years of Hitler's rule, during which Trotsky's plot with Hess was alleged to have taken shape, and the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, from August 23, 1939 to June 22, 1941.

What did Radek say of this first period in his evidence to the court in the second Moscow Trial?

I received three letters from Trotsky: In April 1934, December 1935 and January 1936. In the letter of 1934 Trotsky put the question in this way: the accession of fascism to power in Germany had fundamentally changed whole situation.

'It implied war in the near future, inevitable the more that the situation was simultaneously becoming acute in the Far East. Trotsky had no doubt that this war would result in the defeat of the Soviet Union. This defeat, he wrote, will create favourable conditions for the accession to power of the bloc' (Collard, p.156).

So, according to the carefully-scripted evidence Radek, Trotsky had joined forces with the Third Reich no later than 1934. At the time of the second Trial (January 1937) Stalin was angling, through the counter-revolutionary tactic of the 'People's Front', for an alliance with French and British imperialism against a possible threat from Nazi Germany (though this did not prevent Stalin from keeping the other option open of an alliance with the Nazis against the "western democracies').

Diplomacy

The trials had therefore to be subordinated to, and in fact based on, the diplomacy of the Kremlin, all the more so when the defendants were charged with acting in unison with foreign powers to bring down the Soviet government.

Radek's job at the second Trial was to give a pro-Western, anti-Nazi face to Soviet foreign policy.

This he did by counterposing Trotsky, who allegedly sought an alliance with the Nazis, to the Stalinist government, which was allegedly resolutely opposed to such a policy.

Only this factor can possibly explain the following statement by Radek:

'In the autumn of 1934, at a diplomatic reception, a diplomatic representative of a central European country who was known to me, sat down beside me and started a conversation ... He said "Our leaders ... know that Mr Trotsky is striving for a rapprochment with Germany. Our leader [i.e. Hilter] wants to know, what does this idea of Mr Trotsky's sıgnıty! Perhaps it is the idea of an emigré who sleeps badly! Who is behind these ideas?"

It was clear I was being asked about the attitude of RADEK VYSHINSKY In exile in Coyoacan, Mexico, Trotsky dictated his biography of contemptuous attitude towards ideas'.

the bloc. ... If this representative . . . was consequently a representative who had been commissioned to ask me ... I told him that realistic politicians in the USSR understand the significance of a German-Soviet rapprochement and are prepared to make the necessary concessions achieve this rapprochement. This representative understood that since I was speaking about realist politicians it meant that there were realist politicians and unrealist politicians in the USSR: the unrealist politicians were the Soviet government while the realist politicians were the Trotskyite-Zinovierite bloc' (emphasis added— Collard, pp.161-162).

Radek, still acting in his capacity as Stalin's spokesman on toreign attairs (prior to his arrest he had headed the foreign department of 'Isvestia'), presented Trotsky as the advocate of a pro-Nazi course, and Stalin as the opponent of such a turn.

But the Nazi archives tell a different story.

First let us examine 'Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series C Volume II' (H.M.S.O. 1959), which cover the period October 15, 1933 to June 13, 1934, by which time the alleged alliance between Trotsky and the Nazis was supposed to be well under way, according Radek's testimony: at the second Moscow Trial:

Radek: "The question of defeat was a practical issue for us at that time.' Vyshinsky: "This was in April 1934?

Radek: 'Yes' (Collard, p.166).

Who really was for an alliance with Hitler?

The documents in question cover a period when the Soviet government was officially hostile to Hitler and his regime, yet behind the scenes, vastly different state of that Gollan and company hope to obscure by their slanderous diversions aimed at Trotsky's collusion with the leaders of the Third Reich.

An example of the real relations existing between leading Moscow Stalinists and the Nazis is given in a note from the Nazi Ambassador in Moscow to his State Secretary Bulow, dated November 3, 1933:

'The leave-taking from me took place in a decidedly friendly and cordial manner. I was given a gift by Chief of Protocol Florinsky at the direction of Kalinin and Yenukidze ... in the torm of a valuable jade bowl; for my wife I was given a Viennese snuffbox ... I was informed at the same time that except for Brockdorff-Rantzau no ambassador had ever been honoured with a present' ('Documents', p.76).

Tortured

But this was not the end of the prize-giving. It is not known if these Stalinist leaders gave Dirksen a gift, or even a message, to take back to the thousands of communists headed into the Third Reich's concentration camps, constantly humiliated and tortured by the German Ambassador's Nazi sadists, but Dirksen does record the following detail, which has a topical interest in view of the recent funeral accorded in Moscow to a 'great Communist leader':

'I was also surprised by a present that Voroshilov, who is in Turkey at the moment, had given to me: a desk set in black lacquer decorated with "palech" painting in the old Russian traditional style' ('Documents', p.77).

November 1933 was also the time of the Leipzig 'Reichstag Fire Trial', a frame-up organized by the Nazis in February 1933 to provide the pretext for an anti-communist terror. The trial of communists in Leipzig was the result.

This did not prevent the Moscow Stalinists inviting Nazi diplomats to the official 'celebration' of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Nazi Chargé d'Affaires Twardowski sent the following telegram to Berlin on a small incident that took place at the 'At the reception on the occasion of the celebration of the Revolution [which the Nazis hated more than any other event in world history] I was asked repeatedly by the Russians in a non-official capacity when the Leipzig Trial expected to end' (p.96).

Any 'anti-Nazi' propaganda was a front.

All the time the Kremlin worked for a deal with Hitler, with leading Stalinists, such as Voroshilov, right at the heart of the negotiations.

On January 11, the Nazi Ambassador in Moscow sent the following telegram to Berlin:

'Yesterday I had an hourlong conversation with War BY

Commissar Voroshilov, whom I had asked for appointment. The conversation was conducted in a very frank, decidely friendly tone. ... We were far from having hostile intentions toward the Soviet Union. [!] Voroshilov welcomed this attitude, which was quite in accord with his views...

'General impression of the conversation: Voroshilov, who belongs to the circles closest to Stalin, and is one of the most influential personages in the Soviet Union, is basically for the best German-Russian relations. I also gained the unmistakable impression that with him personally there is the will and the desire to be effectual in this direction. ..? (pp. 338-339).

A further communication, of January 23, 1934, makes the same point again:

'Our friends-I am thinking particularly of the Red Army and its chief, the powerful Voroshilov, but also of many others—are entirely willing in spite of every dissatisfaction with the German regime to work for good German-Russian relations. ..? (p. 409. Emphasis added). call collusion between Nazi and Soviet leaders, there are many other instances which can be cited of Stalinist-Nazi collaboration on every planeeconomic, political, cultural, diplomatic and personal.

Nazi diplomats numbered Voroshilov among their friends. And like all good friends, they must be invited home to dinner:

'Yesterday evening at a dinner at my home Krestinsky and Voroshilov spoke about Litvinov's proposal. ..? (Telegram, March 29, 1934, p. 686).

in 1934, was not Trotsky, but Voroshilov, who was the leading advocate of an alliance between the Nazi regime in Germany and the Soviet government.

And, as everyone knows, Voroshilov did not speak for himself, but for his mentor, Gollan's charge of collusion between Trotsky and Hitler rebounds directly back into the Stalinist court even when applied to the years which preceded the Hitler-Stalin Pact This most cynical of all phases of Stalinist diplomacy has been well documented from the Nazi side by the publication in 1948 of the main materials from the Nazi Foreign Office Archives by the US Department of State.

Nothing has yet been forthcoming from the Soviet side, and the reasons are all too obvious.

If the : documents selected for publication by the US government present a distorted view, with the aim of discrediting the Soviet government, then the remedy is in the hands of the Kremlin to restore the balance by publishing their documents.

In the meantime, we can use only such material as is available, none of whose authenticity has been challenged by the Kremlin.

Take the text of Stalin's reply to Hitler's letter asking permission to send the Nazi Foreign Minister to Moscow to conclude the Pact:

'August 21, 1939: To the Chancellor of the German Reich, A. Hitler. I thank you for the letter. I hope that the German-Soviet non-agression pact will mark a decided turn for the better in the political relations between our countries. The people of our countries need peaceful relations with each other. The assent of the German government to the conclusion of a non-aggression pact provides the foundation eliminating the political tension and for the establishment of peace and collaboration between our countries' ('Nazi-Soviet Relations': p. 69, emphasis added).

Precisely what collaboration Stalin had in mind with Hitler was to emerge more clearly in a few weeks.

During the banquet that followed the signing of the pact of August 23, 1939, the Nazi diplomat Hencke recorded the following touching scene:

"Toasts: In the course of the conversation, Herr Stalin spon-

Apart from the Pact itself, which is an open and direct example of what Gollan would The Nazis set fire to the eichstag eft and Come mist Party in orde terror. relations between our countries. The people of our coun tries need peaceful relations with each other. The assent of the German government to the conclusion of a non-aggression taneously proposed a toast to the Fuhrer, as follows: know how much the German nation loves its Fuhrer; 1 should like to drink to his health"' (p. 75).

thank you for your letter. I hope the German-Soviet non-aggression pact lien 1. to r. Ribbentrop, Stalin Molotov] will mark a decided turn for the better in political relations between our countries ... for the establishment of peace and Collaboration! ..? (Our emphasis.)

That Pact, sealed Stalin's toast to Hitler, loved by the German ni ation', launched the war on P oland. On September 8, 1939, Molotov sent the following telephone message to the Nazi Embassy in Moscow:

I have received your communication regarding the entry of German troops into Warsaw. Please convey my congratulations and greetings to the German Reich government. Molotov' (p. 89).

Finally, as a last example of Stalinist-Nazi collaboration, we quote from the Secret Supplementary Protocol to the Pact of August 23, concluded in Moscow on September 28 after the defeat of Poland. The text speaks for itself:

‹The undersigned plentipotentiaries, on concluding the German-Russian Boundary and Friendship Treaty, have declared their agreement upon the following: Both parties will tolerate in their territories no Polish agitation which affects the territories of the other party.

"They will suppress in their territories all beginnings of such agitation and inform each other concerning suitable measures for this purpose.

'For the Government of the German Reich: J. Ribbentrop. By authority of the government of the USSR. W. Molotov' (p. 107).

The original of this agreement exists and can still be inspected in the collection of captured Nazi archives. It has never been denied by the Soviet government.

We think these documents provide ample evidence for supporting the view that leading Stalinists in the Soviet government acted in direct collusion with leading Nazis in the German government, against the interests of the working class and the Soviet Union.

Gollan's slanders have been torn to shreds many years ago, but the crisis which drives him and his fellow Stalinists to repeat them now is unprecedented.

The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists. have both the great privilege and historical responsibility of denouncing these new attempts on the part of the Stalinists to slander and politically discredit Trotsky and Trotskyism.

No other so-called "Trotskyist' tendency will answer this challenge.

Groups like the 'International Marxist Group' are too busy proving the British Party to be in transition away from Stalinism to notice Gollan's attacks on the founder of the movement to which they so hypocritically claim allegiance.

When we carry on the fine tradition of the founders of Trotskyism by answering the slanders of the Gollans, we do so not because we have any illusions that old-guard Stalinists are going to change, but in order to educate and arm the youth politically against the Stalinists.

Young workers must know that it was not Trotsky and the Fourth International that plotted the defeat of the working class and the Soviet Union with Hitler.

It was Stalin, helped by those such as Gollan within the British labour movement.

Gollan charges our movement with being in the pay of We answer that under the rule of the Nazis German Trotskyists went to their deaths together with the militants of the Third International, from whom they were separated only by the criminal and counter-revolutionary policies of Stalin.

It is fitting now to recall the fate of three of our German comrades:

Weinder Scholem:

Central Committee member the German Communist International under Lenin and Trotsky, and one of the first to rally to • the International Left Opposition.

He was arrested by the Gestapo, and, after imprisonment Sichtenburg, Esterwegen, Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, was shot by the SS in 1940, the year of Stalin's great friendship with Hitler.

Edward Kolischer:

A delegate to the Soldiers' Council in the German Revolution of 1918, later to serve on the Red Army staff under Trotsky.

He represented the Austrian Communist Party on the Executive Committee of the Communist International and soon joined the Left OpposiAfter the rise of Austrian clerical fascism, Kolischer carried on work in the underground, and was finally arrested by the Nazis in 1938.

First an inmate of Buchenwald, he was taken to the death camp Auschwitz, where he was beaten to death in 1942.

Finally there was Fritz Reuter:

An old German Left Oppositionist, who with his comrades heeded Trotsky's warnings on the dangers of the Stalin line in Germany, which declared the Social Democrats, and not Hitler, to be the main enemy.

Walled off from the rank-and-file workers by a barrage of slander (of the type Gollan now dredges the Stalinist sewers) out, Comrade Reuter's warnings went unheaded, and the German working class plunged to its doom. GOLLAN VOROSHILOV Together with the militants of all the workers' parties, Fritz Reuter was rounded up in a Gestapo raid and dragged through Buchenwald to Dachau, where he died of tuberculosis.

These and many more Trotskyists, murdered by the Nazis together with thousands of Communist Party workers, fought Hitler to the end.

Gollan, in charging the Trotskyist movement with being a creature of the Third Reich, vilely slanders their memory• Stalinism not only ensured that Hitler came to power (for reasons that are all too obvious after a study of the material we have reproduced on Stalin-Hitler relations),, but Gollan, by implication, slanders those who gave their lives in a struggle against him.

Gollan's outburst in Leeds was no chance remark.

It reflects his long training in the utterly corrupt counterrevolutionary politics of Stalinism.

The British Stalinists try vainly to recreate the myth of Stalin and slander Trotsky, as do their friends in the Soviet Union.

Try as they might they are doomed. As Trotsky, in his moving valediction to the speech in 1937 on the Moscow Trials, said:

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 lifeforward! 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!' THE FRENCH Communist Party is now going ahead with preparations for its 49th Congress in 1970, the year of the 50th anniversary of the Party.