Letter to the PB and the Presidium of the CCC, November 9, 1927

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

For an Inquiry into the Attacks on Oppositionists

To the Politburo and the Presidium of the CCC:

We formally demand an immediate and rigorous investigation, and the calling to account of the guilty, in connection with the numerous irregularities, brutalities, and pogromist actions committed during the anniversary demonstration of November 7, 1927.

1. We have already written to you about the fact that a group consisting primarily of military personnel — and not just rank-and-file Red Army men — burst into the apartment of a member of the Central Committee of the AUCP(B), Comrade Smilga, after breaking down the door, and forcibly removed a red banner with portraits of Lenin, Zinoviev, and Trotsky.

At the same time attempts were made from the roof, by using a rake, a plank, etc., to tear down a placard with the slogan “Carry Out the Testament of Lenin.” Glass in the window was broken in the process.

Before the doors of the apartment were broken down, GPU agents and other individuals repeatedly knocked and demanded to be let in to take down the placards. The owner of the apartment, Comrade Smilga’s wife, was forced to take her children to another apartment. The housebreakers stationed themselves at all the doorways and staircases, checked the papers of all people entering or leaving, and assumed authority over them. It would not be difficult to establish the identity of all those guilty of breaking into Comrade Smilga’s apartment. One of the organizers of the assault, according to evidence in our possession, was a certain Lashuk, head of the military school of the CEC. We can indicate a large number of witnesses who saw, and could easily identify, the {housebreakers, several of whose names are known even now.

2. A second attack was organized against the balcony of the Hotel Paris. Several comrades were standing on that balcony, including Smilga, Preobrazhensky, Griunshtein, and Alsky. Here the organizer of the fascist group was the not unknown Boris Volin, whose moral profile needs no commentary. After bombarding the balcony with potatoes, pieces of ice, etc., the attackers burst into the adjacent room, forced the above-named comrades off the balcony with blows and kicks, and then detained them, that is, held them in effect under arrest in one of the rooms of the Hotel Paris for several hours. A number of Oppositionists were beaten. Comrade Trotskaya was knocked down. The blows were accompanied by ugly swearing that was all the uglier because some of the attackers were drunk,

3. As the automobile carrying Comrades Kamenev, Muralov, and Trotsky was going down Semyonov Street, an enigmatic incident occurred which could be investigated without much effort if there were a will to do so. As the automobile passed the rows of demonstrators it was greeted by the shouts and applause of the majority, accompanied by whistles of insult from an insignificant minority. Coming toward that automobile, along the same path beside the demonstrators, was an automobile carrying Comrades Budenny, Tsikhon, and others. Quite obviously each of these automobiles had the same right to be there. After the automobile with Comrades Kamenev, Muralov, and Trotsky had left the column of demonstrators behind, four shots overtook it — they could be heard one after the other. Gunshots during the anniversary demonstration were so unexpected that those in the automobile supposed at first that these sounds had some other origin (blowouts, firecrackers, etc.). But several figures could be seen chasing after the automobile. The driver slowed down. Onto the running board on one side jumped a fireman (a chief) and on the other side, two suspicious types who immediately grabbed at the wheel. The fireman burst out swearing in gutter language. Several others came running to back him up, and they tried to carry matters to the point of physical violence. Only the group of demonstrators who had by then reached the automobile restrained them. Between his teeth the fire chief had a whistle made of horn, the kind used by the gangs of fascist whistlers. The whistle was snatched away from the fireman by one of those in the automobile and can be presented as evidence in an investigation of the affair. In the crowd it was said that police had fired the shots. However, none of the police came over to the automobile, nor did they make any inquiries of us. There should be no difficulty in establishing the identity of those who fired and those who pursued the automobile (in plain sight of Budenny and Tsikhon).

4. In various parts of the procession Oppositionists were jumped and beaten. Most often such attacks were accompanied by Black Hundredist shouts, more specifically, shouts of an anti-Semitic nature — regardless of the nationality of the person being beaten. In a point-by-point repetition of what was seen in July 1917, when Bolsheviks were beaten on the streets of Leningrad, the most energetic and determined behavior was shown by the most Black Hundredist elements. A large number of Communists who suffered such beatings are known to us. On the basis of their testimony and the testimony of witnesses it should be possible to identify the guilty parties without difficulty. There was nothing in these actions that had the slightest resemblance to violence on the part of the crowd. On the contrary, all these acts were committed behind the backs of the crowd, when there were only a few onlookers, and the forces used were small groups, the leading part being played by official or semiofficial persons who, as we have said, should not be hard to find.

We must ask, Do you intend to conduct a formal, open, and impartial investigation into these hoodlum attacks against Oppositionists or those suspected of being Oppositionists, some of which we have described, although there were many more we have not mentioned? There is no need to explain the importance of this question for our country’s further internal development. In the event that we receive no reply from you we will take such measures to shed light on this whole affair as follow from the interests of our party, our revolution, and the international working class movement