‘MOSCOW PURGES FRAME-UPS’—SEROV
By Brian Pearce
1958The NewsletterBrian Pearce Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
On December 21 Pravda published an article on the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet security service, written by General Serov himself, who is at present in charge of this service.
Reviewing the history of his organization, Seroy mentioned as outstanding achievements in its work. the Shakhty trial of 1928, the ‘Industrial Party’ trial of 1930, the Menshevik trial of 1931 and the Metro-Vickers trial of 1933.
When he came to the anti-Trotsky trials of 1937-38, however, Serov declared that these were frame-ups organized by ‘provocateurs and conscienceless careerists’, in the setting of Stalin’s dictatorship.
Now, one need not necessarily accept Serov’s view of the trials he justifies: if, however, he says the trials of 1937-38 were frame-ups there would seem to be good reason to take his word for it.
At any rate, such a statement, coming from the head of Soviet security, must be of considerable interest to communists everywhere. Yet, to my knowledge, no report of this article has appeared in the Daily Worker. And, after all, this was no ‘secret speech’ but an open declaration in a public newspaper.
A number of members were expelled from the Communist Party in 1937-38 tor saying what Serov has now said in Pravda.
Does King Street not owe them an apology?
And is it not appropriate for Communist Party members now to reopen the whole question of the British Stalinist leaders’ attitude to their own past words and deeds? -By Our Industrial Correspondent