Stalin and His Agabekov

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The White Guard emigres are celebrating a new victory. Another Soviet agent, Agabekov, has just entered their camp; he is now under the special protection of the agents of Tardieu. The boasts of the Whites are not groundless; a responsible collaborator of the GPU has joined them. He is preparing or has already prepared a book in which he discloses the activity of the GPU in the East. The model for this kind of book had been furnished by Bessedovsky. The private and clandestine matters that are unavoidably bound up with the class struggle of the workers' government against its imperialist foes are interwoven with these gentlemen's inventions and calumnies, tailored according to the tastes of their masters.

The White press has already given a lively account of the great service rendered to the Rumanian Siguranza [secret police] by yesterday's Stalinist, Bessedovsky, through his revelations about the Soviet government. Agabekov begins by supplying the address of the Soviet agency abroad.

Coming straight from Moscow to Constantinople, he spent the next few months preparing his denunciation. So this is not the case of an official who had lived abroad a few years and then "broke away" from his country. No, this is the case of someone who had met the test in Moscow and only recently was named to a new post. He had met the test twice: from the point of view of his special work and from the point of view of the party line. Had he not, Agabekov would not have been named to a post made available only by the death of Blumkin. This is the irony of Stalin's lot: having killed Blumkin, he found no one to replace him except Agabekov.

Now we have received firsthand confirmation of this. Agabekov has told the press that Blumkin was shot because he was a supporter of "Trotskyism," and that he, Agabekov, was summoned to Moscow because he was a firm supporter of the general line. He was brought into the situation both because of his special work and because of "Trotskyism." Stalinist experts like Menzhinsky, Yagoda, Trilisser (wasn't Yaroslavsky included?) did not find the slightest political blemish on Agabekov.

After they checked up on him and gave him his official instructions, he was sent to Constantinople to replace Blumkin, who had recently been shot by Stalin. Immediately after his arrival, Agabekov began to write a book, or rather a report, for the agents of world imperialism on the secret activities of the GPU and the Comintern in the East. As soon as he completed his book, he took it to Paris and placed himself under the protection of Tardieu's agents.

Stalin's trustworthy diplomat Bessedovsky, before jumping over the embassy fence to offer his services to the Rumanian Siguranza, disposed of all the documents and matters belonging to Rakovsky. Not only that. He also had a hand in the expulsion of Rakovsky. Christian Georgevitch Rakovsky was not sufficiently "reliable”: first he would not admit that genuine Russian socialism could be built by way of the kulak, and then he denied that the kulak could be eliminated in two years by way of the GPU. "Unreliable" and "inconsistent" Rakovsky has been placed under conditions that prevent him from continuing his revolutionary work, which he had conducted uninterruptedly for forty years, and expose him to physical harm. Death to Rakovsky! The green light to the Bessedovskys!

Beginning in 1924 the practice was instituted in the GPU and soon after that in the army that Communists not only had to fulfill their obligations to the party but also had to agree in every detail with the Central Committee. Subsequently this procedure was extended to the party and supplemented with the proviso that the Central Committee must agree in every detail with Stalin. Stalinist monolithism seemed to be 100 percent guaranteed. But now a breach has developed; without the right to think, to doubt, or to reason, the monolithic Stalinists have begun to jump directly from the heights of responsible posts into the French, British, and Rumanian secret services. In full battle array provided by Stalin and Bukharin against the Trotskyists, the centrists drag behind them an immense reactionary tail that beats them over the head. The Bessedovskys and Agabekovs constitute only a part of this tail. Degenerate Thermidoreans abroad have completely exposed themselves, for there is only a fence to separate them from their real master. And in the USSR? How many are there like Bessedovsky and Agabekov in every institution, in every region, in every district? Who can count them, when they themselves do the counting? Who will purge the party of them, when it is they who purge it of others? Who will perceive their "hesitations," when they never hesitate until they have betrayed?

The Left Opposition would not be worthy of its name if it were incapable of drawing all the necessary conclusions from the Agabekov case and explaining them to the Communist workers. Every member of the Comintern must be made to confront the fact that Blumkin, the irreproachable soldier of the revolution, was shot by Stalin for "Trotskyism," and that Agabekov, the loyal Stalinist chosen to replace Blumkin, sold himself to the imperialist police.

The Agabekovs constitute an enormous layer of the Stalinist bureaucracy; they are a natural product of the Stalinist regime. Functionaries can close their eyes to these facts. The revolutionary worker must discern the grave dangers that these symptoms indicate.