D. N. PRITT: ỌC FOR STALIN'S

In their obituaries last week to Denis Nowell Pritt, QC, the Tory papers presented a picture of a successful barrister with an eccentric attachment to the Soviet Union.

The Daily Telegraph' spoke of his "almost quixotic enthusiasm for the underdog, that led him into the bayways of communism'.

A famous defender of colonial leaders like Kenyatta against the oppression of British imperialism, his 'extreme Marxist beliefs' were depicted as a result of misguided liberalism.

In his autobiography, as in his life Pritt cultivated the image of an English gentleman, shrewd lawyer, but something of an innocent in politics.

And it is in considering this mask of innocence that the mystery of Pritt emerges. For this former Labour MP and member of Labour's National Executive Committee was much more than "fellow traveller' of the Stalinists.

Pritt never joined the Communist Party-and never explained why not. In his autobiography, he tells us how he started to, read Marxism in 1941, long after his devoted It was struggle, sle, and 1 gradually mastered it, and think I may fairly call myself a Marxist' (Vol. I, p. 292. He also refers to unspecified 'disagreements' with the CP 'about the war'. (Ibid. p. 299.)

As in other aspects of Pritt's career, it is precisely the appearance of innocence that is most suspicious. For in the period 1939-1941, Pritt actually emerged as one of the leading figures in British Stalinism, second only to R. Palme Dutt.

When the Stalin-Hitler Pact was announced on August 23, 1939, many CP members were shaken and confused. But not Pritt.

'As early as September 6; he writes, I came to the conclusion that I had studied the British press and the speeches the Soviet leaders sufficiently to get my. mind clear about the Soviet-German Pact; and I thought it useful to put my thoughts on record - for my own use or that of friends - and within a week I had ready a duplicated document, about 5,000 words in length, which I sent to a few friends for comment? (Ibid. p. 195.)

By the beginning of October, Pritt's book •Light on Moscow had been published by Penguin, giving the Stalinist 'justification' for the Pact. (An account of this book is given in 'Stalinism in Britain', by Robert Black 8-101, New Park PubIn this difficult time for the Stalinist leaders, Pritt played a vital role in selling. the new line to the rank-and-file CP members.

But it had been three years earlier, at the time first of the Moscow frame-up trials, that Pritt had made his biggest contribution to Stalin's cause. He writes about his second visit to the USSR (his first was in 1932, in a Fabian delegation) like this:

'While we were still in Moscow, indeed just as we were arranging to: go to Yalta, the announcement was made that Zinoviev, Kamenev and some 14 other people were to be tried for taking part in terrorist conspiracies against the government. My wife said that . ought to cancel my trip to Yalta and attend the trial; was a bit obtuse about it, no. realizing what. a "hullabaloo" would be raised in England about the case, for I combined a lawyer's belief in the proper behaviour courts with socialist belief that a socialist state would not try people unless there was a strong case against them; and I had not yet grasped how deep was the anti-Soviet feeling most Labour leaders. So I resisted, and said I was ve. My wife and wanted a holiday. My wife seeing all the things I didn't see, insisted, and asked what I thought the English press would say if they heard that an experienced British lawyer, had on the eve of the trial the! vere blackguarding; so 1 asked for a ticket to attend the trial. This took me a good deal of time and a good deal of effort to obtain.' (Ibid. p. 109)

And SO Pritt-unwillingly and by accident, he tells us— as Stalin's prosecutor Viers sky sat through the performance took the former leaders of Bolshevism through their rehearsed 'confessions'.

The trial had started on August 19, 1936. By August 25, the ' accused had been found guilty of plotting with Trotsky and Hitler, sentenced to death and shot. By early September Pritt's pamphlet The Zinoviev Trial'. reassurin the world of the authenticity of the trial, was written and printed.

When, in 1966, Pritt's autobiography blandly maintained its author's contentment with the trial, even after Khrushchev had made it clear that it was a monstrous fraud, many people were surprised. They should not have been.

For Pritt knew as much in 1936 as he did in 1966 that the trial was merely a means of slander and murder in "The Zinoviev Trial' he had written:

'It should be realized at the outset, of course, that the critics who refuse to believe that Zinoviev or Kamenev could possibly have conspired to murder Kirov, Stalin, Voroshilov, and others, even when they For it rave logical they difficulty. say themselves did, are they thus dismiss the whole case for the prosecution as a "frame-up" it follows inescapably that Stalin and a substantial number of other high officials, including presumably the judges and the prosecutor, were themselves guilty of a foul conspiracy to procure the judical murder of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and a fair number other persons.

By the time these words were written, Pritt was well aware of the large number of absurdities and inconsistencies in the 'confessions' (there was no evidence) none of which, of course, he mentioned in his pamphlet, or anywhere else. The most famous of these, is the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen, where the defendant Holtzman declared he arranged to meet Trotsky's son Sedov in 1932.

Apart from the fact that Sedov later proved that he was in Berlin at the time, the Danish social-democrat newspaper had pointed out on September 1, 1936, that the Hotel Bristol had been demolished in 1917. (See Shachtman, 'Behind the Moscow Trial'. New Park Publications.)

Published in the same month as a verbatim trial appeared Pritt. And most serious omission to the Hotel Bristol! . (See mises and the Moscow Trials, 'British StaliTrials AnthoDIAL-A-BOSS Some management genius in the United States has come with a new scheme to cut industrial disputes.

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