Letter to Joseph Vanzler, April 6, 1940

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Rivera’s Wild Denunciation

Dear Comrade Vanzler:

I send you an incredible document: an interview given by Diego Rivera to La Prensa about the Fourth International and me personally. The political content is as follows: Trotsky looks for a reconciliation with Stalin, he justifies the aggression on Finland, Stalin has given the order not to attack Trotsky anymore, etc. But not this is interesting. The center of the interview is the following sentence:

“Trotsky will support Stalin in his attitude toward Finland today in the congress of the Fourth International which is now taking place in New York and for the session of which Trotsky already sent his representative the Spanish-Mexican, M. Grandizo.” I quote verbally and I enclose the Spanish text of the interview.

The statement is a wild denunciation and a false one. There is no congress of the Fourth International in New York (possibly Rivera with his confused mentality confounded the convention of your party with the congress of the Fourth International).

As far as I know, Grandizo is the real name of a Mexican Marxist whom I met several times under his political and literary name, Munis. He was never my “representative.” He left as I learned yesterday during my absence from Mexico City. I was on a short vacation trip in the Vera Cruz region. The denunciation is thus, I repeat, completely false, but it remains nevertheless or even more a wild denunciation.

If a congress of the Fourth International were really being held in New York in secrecy (because our press didn’t mention such a congress), then Rivera’s statement could only signify an attempt to provoke a repressive action from the American police against this (nonexistent) congress.

More directly the statement is aimed at provoking police measures against Grandizo as my alleged representative.

Not necessary to say that the whole statement if taken seriously by the Mexican authorities could be prejudicial to my sojourn in the country.

I can’t enter into polemics here with Diego Rivera because this is just what he wishes in order to throw into the press hundreds of similar affirmations, one more fantastic and absurd than the other. But I believe that the American section of the Fourth International from one side and Grandizo from the other should make a public statement in the most sharp and pitiless form on the denunciation and the denunciator. I believe even that it could be done in the name of the convention if it is still going on because Rivera is an important enough figure for such a kind of “attention” from one side and his statement concerns the convention under the name of the congress of the Fourth International from the other. If the convention is over, the statement could be made in the name of the National Committee and immediately communicated to the representatives of the Mexican press. You will agree, I hope, that a very energetic measure is necessary, otherwise Rivera, in the role of my ex-friend, will throw into circulation the most wild inventions and calumnies because he seems to be definitely demoralized by his own political treason.

Not necessary to add that I didn’t give him the slightest pretext for his ignominious statement: since his desertion I never mention his name and neglected completely a series of less important falsehoods and provocations.

Leon Trotsky