Introductions

• • Introductions
  • Part One: The Commission of Inquiry
  • Part Two: The Basis of Inquiry
  • Part Three: The Moscow Trials
  • Part Four: The Credibility of the Charges
  • Part Five: Final Considerations
  • Appendices

Add another subpage

Read the help page for usage.

 

Preface by Pierre Broué (2005)

Under the title of Not Guilty, the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the accusations launched during the Moscow trials against Trotsky was published in 1938. The Commission completed its task in New York on 21 September 1937, when it appointed a commission of three members (John Dewey, President, Suzanne La Follette, Secretary, and also Benjamin Stolberg) to write the unanimously approved final report.

The conclusion of the report is very brief:

22. We therefore find the Moscow trials to be frame-ups. We therefore find Trotsky and Sedov not guilty.

In reality, between the time that Trotsky fought to persuade his comrades to struggle for the formation and then for the activation of the Commission of Inquiry and the moment when the commissioners signed their definitive report, the situation was changing. The Popular Front continued to peddle the debilitating illusion of a so-called struggle between the “democracies” and “fascism.” Many people still see the Spanish Civil War through these spectacles. In reality, however, this was a genuine revolution, which Stalin did not want and which was therefore derailed by the Stalinists. The defeat of the Spanish Revolution was the prelude to the Second World War which broke out just one year later.

Nobody yet knew, or even suspected, that war would break out shortly after the conclusion of the treaty of alliance between Hitler and Stalin in 1939. The real Soviet accomplices of Hitler’s Germany were not those unfortunate people who were accused of treason, tortured and persecuted, and finally executed in Moscow. The real accomplices of Hitler were the leaders of the country that they had loyally served and who repaid them by murdering them in the cruelest possible manner, having first charged their victims with the very acts of treason of which they themselves were guilty!

Only in the course of the last few years has light finally been shed on some of the murky circumstances of these trials, such as the nonappearance before the Soviet tribunal of men accused of being links in the chain of traitors supposedly preparing crimes against the Soviet Union. A careful examination of the declarations of the witnesses and of those of the accused who were supposed to have accused others, and a comparison of the charges made against the accused enable us to clarify a number of hitherto unresolved questions.

I have used some of the results of this research in my recent book Communistes contre Staline to clarify the fate of those unfortunates who were executed during the interrogation for having refused to collaborate with their tormentors. These include the historian Prigozhin and the veteran Communist Yuri Gaven. The latter had written to Trotsky from Berlin, where he was receiving medical treatment. It was there that he met Trotsky’s son, Leon Sedov. For this he was shot ... on a stretcher.

The reader will follow with passionate interest the way in which, brick by brick, the entire edifice of false accusations is demolished. The alleged “confessions” of just one man would send many others to their death. But the Commission of Inquiry completely destroys the entire basis of the charges.

To cite just one instance: the Commission of Inquiry proved that Piatakov’s alleged journey to Oslo in December 1935 was a material impossibility. Therefore, all of the accusations made by him fall of their own accord, as do the statements of the witness Boukhartsev, the “confessions” of I.N. Smirnov, of Karl B. Radek, of Chestov, of Muralov, of Vladmir Romm and others. Today, practically nothing remains of all these lies, except, perhaps, a sense of shame on the part of a few former disciples and enthusiasts of the Stalinist school.

We now know that there were a large number of prisoners who were held “in reserve,” only to be shot when they refused to confess. Some traces of them remain, despite all the odds. On the other hand, both the prosecution and the accused quoted from letters, for whose existence no one can produce the slightest evidence and which probably never did exist! As a matter of fact, it would have been sheer madness to have sent letters from abroad to the USSR giving details of terrorist plots, and moreover through the normal postal services. Yet this is what Trotsky was accused of doing!

Two years ago I took part in a debate in the Trotsky Museum (now called the Museum of Exile) in Mexico City. The subject was the importance of the Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky and the Commission of Inquiry in contemporary history. It was quite interesting. One of the participants, Thomas R. Poole, the author of a very good work about the “Counter-Trial” drew pessimistic conclusions. In his opinion, “the totalitarian apparatus triumphed over those who upheld the truth and were completely isolated.”

At the end of his work he writes: “It was Stalin who won, even if Trotsky had right on his side.” How curiously short sighted are those who cannot see the wood for the trees! Thomas Poole typical of the kind of investigator who has been so immersed in the detail that he is not capable of grasping its meaning or else reading into it things that are not there.

For the 100th anniversary of the birth of Trotsky, which took place exactly thirty-eight years to the day before the October Revolution, the Leon Trotsky Institute published a special issue entitled “The Moscow Trials around the World” which is concerned to large extent to what we have called “The Missing Trials” – in other words, to the murders of people such as Juliet Stuart Poyntz, Andres Nin, Grylewicz, who were liquidated without even the pretence of a trial – and the attempts to imitate the Moscow Trials which were made in other countries. Our summary ended in the following terms:

“It is the fighting spirit of Trotsky which led and inspired the organised resistance to this terrifying and powerful machine. We dedicate this issue to him, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, and suggest the following phrase of Trotsky, pronounced at the time of the struggle, as a fitting epitaph: ‘The highest degree of human happiness is not to be found in the present, but in the preparation of the future.’ There is no doubt that Trotsky’s struggle against the Moscow Trails was an essential part of that struggle for the future of mankind.”

Preface

The Commission of Inquiry, at its session of September 21, 1937, drew up and signed the findings which appear as the Introduction to this volume. It appointed an editorial committee – John Dewey, Suzanne La Follette, and Benjamin Stolberg – to write its final Report in accordance with these findings. The Report which forms the present volume of its publications has been approved by all the ten members of the Commission.

The actual writing of this Report, and most of the painstaking research required in verifying the wealth of documentary material and other evidence submitted to the Commission and in weighing these against the charges and testimony in the trial records, has been done by Suzanne La Follette.

We, as the other members of the editorial committee, wish to express our deep sense of indebtedness to Miss La Follette. And we do so the more gladly because we believe that in acknowledging our own obligation to her we speak for all those who want to know the truth and are not afraid of it.

The importance of this task, it seems to us, can hardly be exaggerated. And to its performance Miss La Follette has brought unwearied industry and rare intellectual integrity.

John Dewey

Benjamin Stolberg

Explanatory note

In this volume, the records of the hearings of sub-commissions are, except for that of the Preliminary Commission, quoted from the unpublished transcripts. The records of sub-commissions and the documents in the case will be published in a subsequent volume.

The records of our sub-commissions are referred to as follows:

Preliminary Commission: PC

Commission Rogatoire: CR

New York Sub-Commission: NY

The Preliminary Commission, the Commission Rogatoire, and the Commission received documents in evidence. Several exhibits contain many documents, divided into categories determined by their bearing upon the subject-matter of those exhibits. These categories are indicated by Roman numerals, and the documents within these sub-divisions by Arabic numerals – e.g., PC Exh. 18, III/1. Where a document is in more than one part, or where several documents are closely related, the several parts or documents carry the same number, with letters added – e.g., PC Exh. 19, II/4, a. Documents submitted to the Commission which logically belong in exhibits submitted to the Preliminary Commission have been added to those exhibits and identified as supplementary by the addition of the letter S – e.g., PC Exh. 18, S VIII/26. The listing indicates that document number 26 is a supplementary document in category VIII of Exhibit 18 of the Preliminary Commission. In referring to the records of the trials of August, 1936, and January, 1937, we have used the initials of the popular titles, as follows:

Zinoviev-Kamenev trial (August, 1936): ZK

Pyatakov-Radek trial (January, 1937): PR

Following is a list of other abbreviations used in the report:

C.P.S.U.: Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

C.C.: Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

C.C.C.: Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

C.E.C.: Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union C.I.,Comintern: The Communist International

E.C.C.I.: Executive Committee of the Communist International.

GPU: The Soviet Secret Police.

Summary of Findings

Conduct of the trials

Independent of extrinsic evidence, the Commission finds:

(1) That the conduct of the Moscow trials was such as to convince any unprejudiced person that no effort was made to ascertain the truth.

(2) While confessions are necessarily entitled to the most serious consideration, the confessions themselves contain such inherent improbabilities as to convince the Commission that they do not represent the truth, irrespective of any means used to obtain them.

The charges

(3) On the basis of all the evidence, we find that Trotsky never gave Smirnov any terrorist instructions through Sedov or anybody else.

(4) On the basis of all the evidence, we find that Trotsky never gave Dreitzer terrorist instructions through Sedov or anybody else.

(5) On the basis of all the evidence, we find that Holtzman never acted as go-between for Smirnov on the one hand and Sedov on the other for the purposes of any terrorist conspiracy.

(6) We find that Holtzman never met Sedov in Copenhagen; that he never went with Sedov to see Trotsky; that Sedov was not in Copenhagen during Trotsky’s sojourn in that city; that Holtzman never saw Trotsky in Copenhagen.

(7) We find that Olberg never went to Russia with terrorist instructions from Trotsky or Sedov.

(8) We find that Berman-Yurin never received terrorist instructions from Trotsky in Copenhagen, and that BermanYurin never saw Trotsky in Copenhagen.

(9) We find that David never received terrorist instructions from Trotsky in Copenhagen, and that David never saw Trotsky in Copenhagen.

(10) We find no basis whatever for the attempt to link Moissei Lurye and Nathan Lurye with an alleged Trotskyist conspiracy.

(11) We find that Trotsky never met Vladimir Romm in the Bois de Boulogne; that he transmitted no messages through Romm to Radek. We find that Trotsky and Sedov never had any connection with Vladimir Romm.

(12) We find that Pyatakov did not fly to Oslo in December, 1935; he did not, as charged, see Trotsky; he did not receive from Trotsky any instructions of any kind. We find that the disproof of Pyatakov’s testimony on this crucial point renders his whole confession worthless.

(13) We find that the disproof of the testimony of the defendant Pyatakov completely invalidates the testimony of the witness Bukhartsev.

(14) We find that the disproof of Vladimir Romm’s testimony and that of Pyatakov completely invalidates the testimony of the defendant Radek.

(15) We find that the disproof of the confessions of Smirnov, Pyatakov and Radek completely invalidates the confessions of Shestov and Muralov.

(16) We are convinced that the alleged letters in which Trotsky conveyed alleged conspiratorial instructions to the various defendants in the Moscow trials never existed; and that the testimony concerning them is sheer fabrication.

(17) We find that Trotsky throughout his whole career has always been a consistent opponent of individual terror. The Commission further finds that Trotsky never instructed any of the defendants or witnesses in the Moscow trials to assassinate any political opponent.

(18) We find that Trotsky never instructed the defendants or witnesses in the Moscow trials to engage in sabotage, wrecking, and diversion. On the contrary, he has always been a consistent advocate of the building up of socialist industry and agriculture in the Soviet Union and has criticized the present regime on the basis that its activities were harmful to the building up of socialist economy in Russia. He is not in favor of sabotage as a method of opposition to any political regime.

(19) We find that Trotsky never instructed any of the accused or witnesses in the Moscow trials to enter into agreements with foreign powers against the Soviet Union. On the contrary, he has always uncompromisingly advocated the defense of the U.S.S.R. He has also been a most forthright ideological opponent of the fascism represented by the foreign powers with which he is accused of having conspired.

(20) On the basis of all the evidence we find that Trotsky never recommended, plotted, or attempted the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. On the contrary, he has always uncompromisingly opposed the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and its existence anywhere else.

(21) We find that the Prosecutor fantastically falsified Trotsky’s role before, during and after the October Revolution.

Conclusions

(22) We therefore find the Moscow trials to be frame-ups.

(23) We therefore find Trotsky and Sedov not guilty.

John Dewey, Chairman

John R. Chamberlain

Alfred Rosmer

E. A. Ross

Otto Rühle

Benjamin Stolberg

Wendelin Thomas

Carlo Tresca

F. Zamora

Suzanne La Follette, Secretary

John F. Finerty, Counsel, Concurring.

New York, September 21, 1937.