Letter to the International Secretariat of the ICL, December 15, 1935

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On the Postcard Amalgam

To the International Secretariat of the ICL

Dear Comrades:

1. Information from an absolutely reliable source indicates that the GPU is continuing to develop the amalgam with Fred Zeller’s postcard internationally. Thus, the Central Committee of the Norwegian CP has received orders from Moscow to keep T. and his friends under surveillance, because they are preparing — you understand — a terrorist attempt against (naturally) Stalin. Furthermore, the CC was declared in advance to be responsible for any disastrous consequences that might come of its possible negligence. The purpose is clear. Moscow wants to receive through this miserable CC information that can enable the GPU to gather material for its work of provocation. The CC seemed quite flabbergasted. It can be assumed that similar instructions were given by the GPU to all the Central Committees of the so-called Communist International.

2. Fred Zeller explained the foolish postcard to me in a letter just as I had explained it myself. It was only an enthusiastic prank. One would have to be an absolute idiot to believe that by means of a friendly and humorous postcard (in the style of the Latin Quarter) to a young Stalinist, Fred Zeller sought to incite him to penetrate the Kremlin in order to assassinate Stalin.

Nevertheless, I find the reaction of our comrades and friends against the disgraceful acts of the hirelings of the GPU (Duclos and Company) to be absolutely insufficient. Zeller’s own assessment (“the complete failure of Stalinist slander”) is too optimistic. The material means of the GPU are enormous. And stupidity is an abundant resource. We must respond vigorously and above all systematically.

3. It is necessary to create a special (nonpartisan) committee, making use of the information brought to light by the Yugoslavs [Tarov and Ciliga]. Cannot Souvarine be interested in this affair? Perhaps also Rosmer, and even Magdeleine Paz. (But not Raymond Molinier, who has his “ideas” on this question too, just as confused and unrealistic as ever. In practice, he has already sabotaged several campaigns against the amalgams). Zeller could appeal to each of them.

The aim of the committee: to develop an international campaign on behalf of the revolutionary political prisoners, beginning with Zinoviev and Kamenev, the two Yugoslavs, etc. Some time ago I received a draft of an appeal concerning Zinoviev and Kamenev, but without explanations. The text didn’t seem to me to be appropriate for its purposes (it had a long digression on Plekhanov, etc.). But an appeal is not the answer. What is needed is a committee that can develop a systematic campaign.

4. I make the following suggestion to this committee: By registered mail, Romain Rolland was sent my reply to his insinuations in L'Humanité Has he responded to it? Of course not. I can thus accuse him of publishing criminal slanders against Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others, and cite him before an ethics commission. Is such a course possible? I believe it is. Perhaps Marcel Martinet could be consulted about it, if he is not too ill. (Perhaps Louzon as well.) In any case, a public accusation against Romain Rolland as a slanderer of defenseless prisoners to me seems quite effective.

5. To return to the subject of the celebrated postcard. Is it true that the addressee was under GPU surveillance (and for what reason?), and that his mail was stolen by means of a skeleton key? (That is the familiar version around here.)

6. In Zeller’s article (“Reply to Slanderers,” in Revolution, no. 17), the following sentence occurs: “If L'Avant-Garde [the paper of the French Stalinist youth] persists in its campaign, I may be obliged to enlarge on this point.” Nothing must be left to speculation. It is necessary to persist even if L'Avant-Gardedoesn’t: F. Zeller is obliged to reveal everything.

7. For my part, I could present the committee with a document briefly summarizing my pamphlet on the Kirov affair (the responsibility of Stalin and Yagoda for Kirov’s assassination) and on the further development of the amalgams.

I call your attention to the fact that at least a week before I heard about this humorous postcard I wrote a pamphlet, at Fred Zeller’s urging, about why Stalin was victorious. I published the article — as I invariably do — with a date (November 12, 1935), in the most recent number of the Russian Biulleten, and ended it with the affirmation that Stalinism as a system must collapse under the pressure of the international revolutionary movement: “We want and look forward to no other revenge.” I believe that this article should be published by Revolution with an introductory note from the editors on the circumstances under which it was written.

8. There are some comrades who believe that it is more important to repeat endlessly the same arguments for workers’ militias than to bother about the Stalinist amalgam. This is wrong. You will not make any progress toward a militia without discrediting Stalinism, which is today the best assistant to fascism. Metallurgists say that phosphorus is the syphilis of iron. We must understand and proclaim that Stalinism is the syphilis of the workers’ movement.