Dutt (British CP opposed Moscor scrapes the history barrel

which appeared (like all reviews in this journal, unsigned) in the 'Times Literary Supplement' for May 5. The review was in fact empty and lacking in any real knowledge or intelligent comment on MacFarlane's book, which is confined to the 1920s.

Obedient

However, Palme Dutt takes up only the accusation in the review that the British Communist Party was of all Communist Parties the most 'passively obedient to the will of Moscow', together with the reviewer's acceptance of MacFarlane's view of Dutt and Pollitt as nominees of the Comintern against the older leadership in the 1920s.

Interestingly, Palme Dutt has already told us in his own 'Daily Worker' review of MacFarlane that an authoritative mann will ardently expound the British Party's 'independence' from the Stalinist bureaucracy.

But we return to Dutt's own letter. One anniversary which has not been so well publicised this month is that of the opening of the first of the Moscow Trials, 30 years ago, in May 1936.

In these trials, scores of Old Bolsheviks were condemned to death or life imprisonment. No evidence was brought against them and they were convicted on the basis of confessions.

These confessions were flatly contradictory in many respects and in one celebrated case referred to a rendezvous (the 'Hotel Bristol' in Copenhagen) which had ceased to exist years before the alleged meeting of the 'conspirators'.

Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky and many others were 'proved' by these confessions to be implemented in a plot with Hitler and the Nazis to overthrow the Soviet regime, and to this end they were said to have organised sabotage and plots of assassination.

This mountain of lies, the sentences following it, the bloody deaths of thousands who never even got to the courtroom-all this was not only accepted but actually commended and glorited by the British Stalinist leadership, including Dutt himsell, in much the same terms as the much-heralded historian of the Party, Klugmann, faithfully condemned Tito and the "Titoites' in 1950.

Dutt chooses this 30th anniversary, of all times, to tell us in the literary supplement that the British Stalinists did voice their opposition to the Russians in the International and in Russia.

'Dissent'

He claims that the British Party, apart from dissenting on the colonial question in 1928, and criticising the deification of Stalin ('not that we were pposed to his political line ind leadership, Dutt says), at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, also took up the question of the 'conduct of the security organs.

1 HA HASS (SMIECH "Two years later, at a meeting of a delegation, headed by Pollitt and attended by other leading comrades, including myself, with the international leaders, we were in conflict again over raising questions concerning the conduct of the security organs; and this dispute proved so intense that soundings were made to find support among us for the replacement of the General Secretary; but we all made clear that we stood by Pollitt on this matter?

How many Party members outside the charmed circle at the King Street headquarters have been told anything about this? Why is Palme Dutt so coy, confining himself to the correspondence column of the "Times Literary Supplement'?

For many years, he and his colleagues condemned as "Trotskyist' and, by implication, accomplices of fascism, anyone who questioned 'the conduct of the security organs' in the USSR.

Every Communist Party member surely has the right to demand that Palme Dutt discloses exactly what these criticisms were.

After all, D. N. Pritt, in his autobiography, has recently said that he had no regrets for the whitewashing jobs he did for these same security organs. Come along Dutt, did you protest at the forced confessions, tortures, executions, without trial, the wiping out of a whole generation of the most outstanding fighters in the history of the proletariat? Or did you still agree with Stalin's 'policy and leadership', and decide to push aside your responsibility?

In fact the conduct of the British Stalinists in the 19361938 period (the reputed protest was in 1937), was nothing but base subservience to the Stalinist terror and Dutt's claim is a fraud, just like his reference to the Sixth Congress criticisms of the British Communist Party on the colonial question.

SANIN CABA PENT BARISLISE TrE BANKS LEEI THE On this issue, Dutt omits to mention that the Sixth Congress (1928) was the last at which such a discussion took place. British After this Congress party AILeI InIs the closed its mouth completely, and the dispute was entirely dropped.

It is only raised now, after 38 years, because Dutt is scraping the barrel to find an example of the British Party's 'independence'.

The active performance of the British Stalinists during the Moscow Trials has been fully documented by Brian Pearce in his article 'British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials' ('Labour Review' , March-April 1958).

Only a fraction of the material from Pearce's article is sufficient to produce real anger at Dutt's recent claim.

William Gallacher wrote in the 'Daily Worker' about the Trials:

'Here one sees the Soviet legal system as it really is, the most advanced, the most humane, in the world. ...

(Review of Dudley Collard 'Soviet Justice and the Trial ot Radek', "Daily • Worker', March 19, 1937.)

Remarkable feat Gallacher is dead and gone, but vollan, present general secretary of the Party, made his own contribution in a pamphlet called "The Development of Trotskyism from Menshevism to Alliance with Fascism and Counter-Revolution'.

In this publication he performed the remarkable feat of producing a list of the real Bolshevik Old Guard', ..to answer the argument that Stalin was attacking the old guard. His list included Rudzutak, Bubnov, Chubar, Kossior and Dutt dutifully drew the Stalinist political conclusions, so ruthlessly acted upon, in the pamphlet, "The Truth About Trotskyism'; pointing out that it was 'essential to... destroy the Trotskyist propaganda and influence which seeking to win a foothold withMoscow Trials has been fully documented by Brian Pearce in his article •British Stalinists in the labour movement, since these attempts represent in fact the channel of fascist penetration into the labour movement'. in Ane Daily threen Andrew writing In ine Daly vorker or red of February 5, 1937, said:

"The criminals have received their well-merited sentences.. .. Millions of people have had their eyes opened Trotskyism, The essence of These and many other similar articles appeared for some three years atter the early material of 1936, among which was a 'Daily Worker' editorial entitled 'Shoot the Reptiles!' (August 24, 1936.)

Ever since 1956, the Stalinist leaders have excused their silence on the great purges of Stalin on the grounds that they knew nothing about the 'abuses'.

Now Palme Dutt says they actually protested at the time. Thus another question arises: What were the political reasons for remaining silent then and for so long afterwards?

It is an inescapable conclusion that Dutt and his friends let the matter drop because these Stalinist methods defended their kind of politics.

They did accept Stalin's policy and leadership, and were therefore unable to challenge the Stalinist abuses.

Only Trotsky and Trotskyism have been able to do that proceeding from "the programme: Defence of the conquests of the October Revolution, against the imperialists,