Letter to the Editors of Biulleten Oppozitsii, Lutte Ouvrière, and Quatrième Internationale, October 22, 1938

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Dear Comrades,

All the articles I write for the workers' press are intended, in France, for your three publications. No other publication may reprint my articles without your permission. I do not doubt that you will gladly give that permission to every honest organ of the workers' press that wishes to reprint my articles so as to acquaint their readers with them. But I protest firmly against the reprinting of my articles by organs which use them for ends directly opposed to those for which they were written. Thus, La Commune, with which you are acquainted, systematically reprints my articles not only without my permission but even against my direct prohibition. La Commune is a publication devoid of any ideological foundation whatsoever, of any principled standard. It reprints my articles not to make use of the ideas in them, but only to use them to conceal the lack of any ideas of their own and to confuse the reader. In connection with the tragic fate of Rudolf Klement the truly adventurist physiognomy of La Commune was fully exposed. They are not allies and not honest opponents but cursed foes of the Fourth International, who stop at nothing to cause it harm.

I utterly refuse to give La Commune a single line written by me. The same applies to La Verite, whose very name is stolen. I request you, if they reprint my articles again, to bring to court for literary theft the publishers of La Commune and La Verite. These gentlemen must be talked to in the language they understand.

With comradely greetings,

L. Trotsky