Letter to Generous Friends

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August 3, 1940

Dear Mr. ...

My old friends, during their visit here and later in their letters, have communicated to me that your friendship is indefatigable. This fact is one hundred times more precious now, when the chauvinistic epidemic created by the war dominates even honest liberal friends and removes them from us – who are incorrigible revolutionaries.

Thanks to the efforts of the North American friends, our peaceful suburban house is now being transformed, week by week, into a fortress – and at the same time into a prison. Not in the modern manner, it is true, but rather like a prison in medieval times. My young friends, who have the difficult and risky job of being guards are hopeful that, thanks to the reconstruction now under way, the assailants will not escape a second time as easily as they did the first.

My wife, Natalya, and I send you our warmest greetings and hope – in case your plans make it necessary or possible for you to come to Mexico – that we will have the pleasure of meeting you, and of showing you our “fortress”.

With cordial greetings and thanks, I am,

Sincerely yours,

L. TROTSKY


August 3, 1940.

Dear Mr. Kay:

The only thing I know about you, through my friends Jim Cannon and Farrell Dobbs, is that you are a very sure and generous friend. There are not many such friends in these times of war fury; of nationalistic tendencies and red-baiting.

We live here, my family and my young friends, under the permanent threat of a new “blitzkrieg” assault on the part of the Stalinists and, as in the case of England, the material aid comes from the States.

During the past two months the house has been undergoing transformation into a kind of “fortress”; in a few more weeks we will be very well protected against new “blitzkrieg” assaults.

Please be assured of my friendliest thanks and best wishes.

Sincerely yours,

L. TROTSKY