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Special pages :
Letter to the editors of Le Peuple, January 9, 1934
| Author(s) | Leon Trotsky |
|---|---|
| Written | 9 January 1934 |
An Offer to Le Peuple
To the editors of Le Peuple:
The December 16, 1933, issue of your paper mentioned my opinions on the perspectives which are opening up before the Belgian Labor Party, and on the positions that the other proletarian political groupings should take toward it.
In his speech to your party congress, de Man mentioned my opinion of the âlabor plan,â with a reference to my appeal to back this plan (Le Peuple, December 23, 1933). In neither case are my real words quoted, and it is not stated when or where I uttered or wrote them. It is clear that the two quotations are false, if for no other reason than that at the time de Man gave his speech I had not yet had any occasion to say a single word about the labor plan.
If the editors feel that my opinion may be of interest to the Belgian workers who read Le Peuple â and the fact that someone quoted me on two occasions gives me some right to think this is the case â I am ready to express in the columns of Le Peuple my views regarding the labor plan and the political and economic problems connected with it. I think I would be able to do so adequately within the framework of two or three articles. Since such a critique can be of interest to your readers only if it is expressed with complete frankness, the proposal presupposes that you are ready to grant me complete freedom of expression.
Since we belong to two irreconcilable currents of political thought, you are not, of course, in any way bound to give any space to my articles. But neither was the Soviet government, of which I was then part, bound to give Vandervelde, on Soviet territory, in Moscow, the right to defend the terrorists who had carried out attacks against the representatives of Soviet power.Nevertheless we granted him that right on the basis that it was politically advisable. Perhaps you too will find it advisable, in place of quoting me incorrectly, to give me the chance to express myself in my own words before your audience.
L. Trotsky