Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials
§ 13. The accused in the first trial were charged with having organized and conducted a Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist center for the purpose of assassinating the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet state, with the. object of seizing power; and specifically with having organized the assassination, on December 1, 1934, of Commissar S. M. Kirov (ZK 37)
§ 14. The accused in the second trial were charged with having organized and conducted a reserve or parallel center,
the object of which was to direct criminal anti-Soviet, espionage, diversive and terrorist activities for the purpose of undermining the military power of the U.S.S.R., accelerating an armed attack on the U.S.S.R., assisting foreign aggressors to seize territory of the U.S.S.R. and to dismember it and of overthrowing the Soviet Power and restoring capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union. (PR 18.)
They were specifically accused of having conducted treasonable negotiations with representatives of foreign states; of having engaged in espionage on behalf of those states; of having organized and carried out wrecking and “diversive” acts; and of having organized and attempted to carry out terrorist acts against the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government (PR 18).
§ 15. In both indictments Leon Trotsky and his son, Leon Sedov, are definitely accused of having instigated and led the criminal activities with which the defendants were charged. In the “Report of Court Proceedings: The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Center,"[2] this accusation is stated as follows in the Definition of the Charge:
L. Trotsky and his son L. L. Sedov, both of whom are abroad, having been exposed by the materials in the present case as having directly prepared and personally guided the work of organizing in the U.S.S.R. terroristic acts against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and of the Soviet State, in the event of their being discovered on the territory of the U.S.S.R., are subject to immediate arrest and trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. (ZK 39.)
In the “Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center,"[3] it is stated as follows in the Definition of the Charge:
L. Trotsky and his son L. L. Sedov, now in emigration, once again convicted by the materials in the present case as the direct leaders of the treasonable activities of the Trotskyite centre, in the event of their being discovered on the territory of the U.S.S.R. are subject to immediate arrest and trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. (PR 19.)
§ 16. The argument most generally advanced in defense of the conduct of the Moscow trials is that they conformed to Soviet legal procedure; and that any impression of unfairness which they may have created abroad is due to differences between Soviet procedure and that of other countries.
In the opinion of the Commission, adherence to a given legal procedure is not the basic criterion in judging any trial. The basic criterion is fairness and honesty in the attempt to ascertain the truth. It is quite possible, as history has proved, for accused persons to be falsely convicted without departure from the letter of the law governing criminal trials. This question can be approached only in the light of what must be the theory of criminal procedure in any system of jurisprudence, namely: that its purpose is to enable the establishment of the ascertainable truth in any given case. Only in so far as any procedure fulfills this purpose is it justifiable; and only in so far as prosecutor and court conform to the spirit as well as the letter of a justifiable procedure can they be held to safeguard the right of accused persons to be convicted or acquitted on the basis of the truth concerning the charges against them.
§ 17. If the procedure in the Moscow trials had in fact conformed to Soviet law, the conclusion would in our opinion be inescapable that Soviet procedure is not designed to develop the ascertainable truth. In fact, however, the conduct of the trials violated Soviet law on criminal procedure in every important Point.
(I) The accused were convicted on the basis of their own confessions and those of self-inculpating witnesses, uncorroborated by any important documentary evidence.
The value theoretically attached to confessions in Soviet law is stated as follows by Professor M. S. Strogovich in a book entitled “Criminal Trials, a Textbook for Law Schools and Juridical Courses,"[4] edited by the State Prosecutor, A. Y. Vyshinsky, who conducted the case for the prosecution in each of the trials under review:
Under the system of formal proofs the admission of guilt by the accused was considered “the best proof extant,” “the sovereign proof of proofs.” Nowadays faith in the absolute correctness of the defendant’s admission has been in a large measure destroyed. The accused might be pleading guilty falsely (for example, in a desire to shield another person or, by pleading guilty to a minor crime, to evade the accusation of a grave crime). Therefore, the admission of the accused, like any other evidence, is subject to verification and evaluation in the sum total of the circumstances in the case.
The main significance of the testimonies of the accused consists in this, that they are the explanations of the accused regarding the facts and circumstances of the case investigated, and considered by the court explanations which are subject to verification and evaluation in accordance with the sum total of all the circumstances of the case.
In no measure whatever does it correspond to the principles of the Soviet criminal trial to re-evaluate the evidential significance of the testimony of the accused, to depend on it as the fundamental and most important proof. Such significance the testimony of the accused in a Soviet trial does not and cannot possess; the testimony of the accused, in particular his admission of guilt, like every other piece of evidence, is subject to verification and careful evaluation as a result of juxtaposing it with all the other evidence gathered in the case.
As was pointed out above (p. 36) the Fascist criminal trial fixes its course upon the admission of guilt by the accused, extorting this admission by all sorts of violence or torture (p. 44)
Not only did the case for the prosecution in both trials depend upon the testimony of the accused as the “fundamental and most important proof,” but the records of the trials abound in instances of that re-evaluation of this testimony which, according to Strogovich-Vyshinsky, in no measure corresponds to the principles of Soviet criminal trial. We cite the following examples:
RADEK: With regard to some of [the “Trotskyite” leaders] I was convinced from the very beginning that they had something in the back of their minds when they returned and, moreover, something was already apparent from certain symptoms. For instance, once when I was walking home from the offices of the Izvestia, I saw Smirnov on the Tverskaya with his former, if one may so express it, “Chief of Staff” – Ginsburg. Observing me, they turned down the Gnezdnikovsky Pereulok. And I immediately realized that something was in preparation, that something was brewing. But they did not come to me, and did not speak to me openly.
VYSHINSKY: In a word, you already at that period noticed that they were engaged in some underground preparatory work?
RADEK: I noticed that something was thickening, that sentiments were leading somewhere. But they did not speak openly, because, since the split with Trotsky in 1929 was connected with a great straining of personal relations between me and Trotsky, who regarded me as responsible, or one of those most responsible for the split of the Trotskyites, they feared to address me themselves and considered that this could be overcome only by relations between Trotsky and myself. And to all appearances they informed Trotsky, and, knowing of my frame of mind, requested him to take the first step so as to make it easier for them to approach me.
VYSHINSKY: Consequently, it may be formulated in this way: after you had noticed that something was brewing with Mrachkovsky and Smirnov, they in their turn noticed that something was brewing with you?
RADEK: They sensed that I was in a depressed frame of mind and that this frame of mind might crystallize into definite actions.
VYSHINSKY: That is, in other words, that you too, to some extent, represented soil for action of some sort?
RADEK: Yes.
VYSHINSKY: Now it is clear why your correspondence with Trotsky arose. (PR 86.)
On page 427 of the same record appears the following remarkable colloquy between the Prosecutor and the accused Hrasche:
VYSHINSKY: Tell the Court about your Trotskyism.
HRASCHE: I have never had anything to do with Trotskyism.
VYSHINSKY: Never had anything to do with it?
HRASCHE: I came in contact with it on the basis of my espionage and wrecking activities.
VYSHINSKY: Ah, I see! From espionage to Trotskyism, then, and not the other way about.
(2) We have remarked that such witnesses as were summoned to testify against the accused inculpated themselves by their testimony. Indeed, they were persons who themselves were already under arrest, who were brought into court under guard and might, one would think, more properly have been occupying seats in the defendants’ box. Under these circumstances it would be extremely difficult to preclude a suspicion of duress. And in these circumstances the following quotation from Strogovich-Vyshinsky under the chapter heading “Testimony of Witnesses” has a special significance:
The testimony of witnesses constitutes the principal evidence-material in the overwhelming majority of criminal cases. The specific weight of other proofs is considerably lower. Together with this, the evaluation of the testimony of witnesses presents the greatest difficulty.
In the bourgeois juridical theory for a long time complete credence was placed in the testimony of witnesses, bound by an oath, while the “inner conviction” of the judges was deemed an adequate guarantee against mistakes in the evaluation of testimony of witnesses. But life has to a considerable degree shattered this credence and practice has quite patently shown how frequently untruths are spoken, while even more frequently the witnesses who “merit confidence” are in error. (p. 39.)
... Often to be met with in court practice are instances of appraising the evidence of a witness according to the impression which the witness makes upon the court. Impressions are a basis which is quite flimsy and deceptive. A conscientious and honest witness may become confused and contradict himself in his testimony inasmuch as he becomes embarrassed and loses his head in the strange environment of a court, while a false witness who has learned his role by heart can give very seductive testimony because of its categorical and lucid character. (p. 40.)
(3) Even if corroboration of the testimony of one accused by that of other accused or of self-inculpating witnesses had sufficiently established the fact of conspiracy in the cases of those men who were actually tried, it would still be of dubious value as concerns the alleged roles of Trotsky and Sedov. That this is true not only in the jurisprudence of so-called democratic countries, but also in that of the Soviet Union, is evident in the following further quotation from Strogovich-Vyshinsky:
A special form of testimony by the accused is constituted by the so-called denunciation. That is to say, testimony by one of the defendants implicating another defendant or extraneous individuals and by virtue of this very thing mitigating the responsibility of the defendant himself. In the nature of things this is evidence of a witness inasmuch as in these instances the defendant gives evidence not against himself but with respect to actions of other parties. This form of evidence is the least meritorious. The low evidential value of denunciation flows from the fact that the accused, in denouncing another party, acts usually on motives of personal interest, desirous of shifting a share of his guilt upon another and thereby mitigating his own responsibility. (p. 45.)
In both trials the accused and witnesses who testified against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov denounced them as the alleged instigators and directors of the alleged conspiracy. Since no other evidence than these confessions was introduced against Trotsky and Sedov – except the Prosecutor’s alleged evidence of a confirmative “historical connection” – it is clear, in the light of the passage quoted above, that the testimony on which they were convicted belongs in that category which is held, under Soviet law, to be “least meritorious.”
(4) In view of the foregoing quotations the failure of the prosecution to introduce any important documentary evidence takes on special significance. We quote again from Strogovich-Vyshinsky:
... As we have already pointed out above (p. 44) the testimony of the accused is not the principal and central evidence in the case, and the general direction of the investigation must proceed along the line of collecting objective evidence, not at all orienting upon the testimony of the accused and not concentrating upon it. (p. 73.)
Moreover, the Prosecutor, in handling such documentary evidence as he did introduce showed very little regard for the principles of Soviet law governing material proofs as stated by Strogovich-Vyshinsky:
We shall not dwell here in detail on material proofs ... we shall merely point out that this or another object to be used as material proof, like any other piece of evidence, must be given a formulation according to court practice. It must be described in detail, the conditions and circumstances of obtaining it must be set down... . (p. 47.)
a. In the first trial, the Prosecutor presented to the accused Olberg, for identification, the Honduran passport with which Olberg had, according to his testimony, entered the Soviet Union (ZK 89). The “conditions and circumstances of obtaining it” were not set down in the published record. There is nothing to show whether it was attached to the record; but the indictment states that it “figures as an exhibit in the present case” (ZK 25). In his final speech Vyshinsky refers to an “Open Letter” of 1932 in which Trotsky,
in a fit of counter-revolutionary fury ... burst out ... with an appeal to “put Stalin out of the way.” (ZK 127.)
This letter, the Prosecutor says, “figured as an exhibit in this case.” He tells how it was obtained (“found between the double walls of Holtzman’s suitcase”); but the letter was not produced in court.
The passport of the accused Olberg proved nothing except that he had entered the U.S.S.R. as a Honduran citizen. It constituted no corroboration of his testimony that he was Trotsky’s emissary for terrorist purposes. As for Trotsky’s Open Letter, it is discussed in Chapter XXII of this report. It suffices here to state that it had been published outside the Soviet Union, in many countries and languages.
b. In the second trial several documents were produced in connection with minor defendants:
A notebook of the accused Stroilov containing the telephone number of one von Berg was shown him for identification of book and entry (PR 270, 271). There is nothing to show how the Prosecutor obtained it, or whether it was attached to the record. A statement from the Hotel Savoy (city not specified; presumably Moscow) was attached to the record, certifying that von Berg, a German merchant, had stayed at that hotel, December 1-15, 1930, and giving his telephone number (PR 271, 276). A book in a dark red binding was identified by Stroilov as his, and the address of one Wüster identified as his entry (PR 271). (Stroilov testified that he got in touch with Wüster at the end of March, 1931. – PR 265.) There is nothing to show how Vyshinsky obtained this book, or whether it was attached to the record. A black book which Stroilov identified as his diary, kept abroad in 1930-31, containing references to Berg, Wüster and one Sommeregger, was identified by him. The record does not show under what conditions it was obtained; but the Prosecutor states that it has been attached to the files as material evidence. (PR 272-3.)
A telephone and address directory of the German Reich containing Waster’s Berlin address was attached to the record. (PR 272, 276.)
Four entry-permit files, recording the entry and place of residence of certain Germans, were attached to the record. (PR 276-7.) The dates of entry, as read by the Court, were, October 24, 1929, November 30, 1930, September 11, 1930 or 1931, June, 1931, November, 1932, and April, 1935.
Twenty photographs were shown to the accused Stroilov and the accused Shestov, and ten to the accused Rataichak and the accused Hrasche, who identified certain Germans mentioned in their testimony. There is nothing to show whether or not these photographs were attached to the record.
Vyshinsky presented to the accused Knyazev a photostat of a letter from a Mr. X. Knyazev admitted that he had received this letter in August 1936, and that it had disappeared from his desk. Vyshinsky’s questions and Knyazev’s answers indicate that the letter informed Knyazev that Mr. X was coming to Moscow to work in a certain institution of his government, and would like to see him. (PR 382-3.) Vyshinsky did not state the conditions under which he obtained the photostat, and there is nothing to show whether or not it was attached to the record. The same is true of an original letter which Vyshinsky showed to Knyazev, and which the latter identified as a letter received from Mr. X in 1931. In this letter Mr. X apparently asked Knyazev to send him something. (PR 383.)
Vyshinsky showed to the accused Hrasche for identification a Czechoslovak passport of 1919; also a statement from the Austro-Hungarian Soviet of War Prisoners at Kiev, 1919, to the effect that Hrasche was an Austro-Hungarian subject; also a statement from the mobilization commission, 1919, saying that he was unfit for military service. The conditions under which they were obtained are not specified, nor is it apparent whether or not they were attached to the record. (PR 423-4.)
Vyshinsky also asked the Court to include in the findings of the case a report (source not indicated) about a train wreck at Shumikha station (date not specified; presumably October 27, 1935) which Knyazev had testified was caused by the “Trotskyist” organization (PR 369).
An official statement from the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs was put into the record, to the effect that the Kjellere (Kjeller) airdrome near Oslo is open to foreign planes the year round and that arrivals and departures are possible in the winter months (PR 443). (See §§ 135, 141.)
Such is the documentation in the case of the “Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center.” It has little bearing on the case. The documents indicating Stroilov’s contact with certain Germans antedate the formation of the alleged parallel center and even the alleged main center. They also antedate Stroilov’s alleged enlistment by Shestov for “Trotskyite” wrecking work at the end of 1931, after Shestov’s return from abroad (PR 243, 246). The same may be said of Mr. X’s letter of 1931 to Knyazev, who, according to his testimony, joined the alleged conspiracy in 1934 (PR 359-62). Both this letter and that of 1936 might be taken, assuming their genuineness, to corroborate Knyazev’s statements that he was in touch with Japanese agents; but they constitute no corroboration of his testimony to connection with an alleged Trotskyite conspiracy. The passport and other two documents shown to the accused Hrasche antedated the alleged conspiracy by some thirteen years. Moreover it should be noted that Hrasche stated that he had never had anything to do with Trotskyism (PR 427).
None of this documentary material is worth anything so far as concerns the existence of a “Trotskyite” conspiracy, or the alleged connection of these accused with such a conspiracy. And indeed no documentation supporting the charge of conspiracy was either shown to any accused for identification or attached to the records. Yet the accused, according to the testimony, had not hesitated to write and send at considerable risk of exposure letters concerning the most compromising of their alleged criminal activities. We may cite the alleged letter containing Trotsky’s terrorist instructions to Radek which, according to the witness Vladimir Romm, was mailed to him by Sedov at the office of the Soviet News Agency (Tass) in Paris (PR 138) – at the risk of its being opened by some substitute of the addressee. Also Smirnov’s admission that he communicated with Sedov by mail (ZK 83). Surely a conspiracy involving hundreds of people in the Soviet Union and abroad who freely exchanged letters concerning their criminal activities, must have yielded some conspiratorial document to a vigilant secret police. This assumption takes on weight from the statement of the Prosecutor that the “Trotskyites”
... again penetrated into Soviet offices ... concealing for a time, as has now been established beyond a shadow of doubt, their old Trotskyite, anti-Soviet wares in their secret apartments, together with arms, codes, passwords, connections and cadres. (PR 464.)
Moreover, although the Prosecutor argued that in cases of Conspiracy material evidence cannot be demanded, he was at pains to state that the prosecution had a number of documents to prove its case (PR 513). If this was so, it is strange that he did not produce them, since he was at such pains to produce documentary evidence of doubtful relevance to the cases of certain minor defendants – evidence which only serves to emphasize the total absence of any important or even highly relevant documentation.
(5) In the absence of material proofs, the Prosecutor was obliged to fall back upon what Strogovich-Vyshinsky call the “bourgeois” theory of “inner conviction.” In his summation in the second trial, he said:
In order to distinguish truth from falsehood in court, judicial experience is, of course, sufficient; and every judge, every procurator, and every counsel for defence who has taken part in scores of trials knows when an accused is speaking the truth and when he departs from the truth for some purpose or other. (PR 513.)
Yet Professor Strogovich in a book edited by the Prosecutor himself says:
... the theory of inner conviction of a bourgeois trial is in no way applicable to a Soviet criminal trial. The subjective, individualistic and idealistic character of the classic bourgeois theory of evidence runs sharply counter to the principles of the Soviet criminal trial. These principles can only be materialistic and dialectic. (p. 36.) [See also (2) above.]
(6) The failure of the prosecution to summon important witnesses was also in contravention of Soviet law as defined by Strogovich-Vyshinsky:
... 1) that to the court sessions must be called to give testimony witnesses indicting the accused or mitigating his guilt, also those witnesses who exonerate the accused, who speak in his favor; 2) that to the court sessions must be called witnesses whose testimony is contradictory to each other or to the testimony of the accused; 3) that to the court sessions must be called witnesses upon whose testimony was based the indictment presented to the accused. (p. 107.)
a. In the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial Paul Olberg is quoted in the indictment as having testified against his brother, Valentine Olberg (ZK 25). Paul Olberg was not called to the court sessions. N. A. Karev was quoted as having testified against Bakayev (ZK 33); Karev was not called to the court sessions. N. M. Matorin, “formerly Zinoviev’s private secretary,” was quoted as having testified against Zinoviev (ZK 34); Matorin was not called to the court sessions. In his summation the Prosecutor, addressing the accused Smirnov, said:
... You denied that you had received any instructions on terrorism, but you were exposed on this matter by Gaven, and you confessed; ... (ZK 158.)
The witness Yuri Gaven, obviously, from this passage, one of “the witnesses upon whose testimony was based the indictment presented to the accused” Smirnov, was not called to the court sessions.
b. In the Pyatakov-Radek trial the accused Radek answered in the affirmative Vyshinsky’s question whether he was confronted with Tivel, the former manager of his bureau, in the preliminary examination, and said:
He said partly what was true and partly what was not true, but I denied everything. (PR 134.)
Tivel was not called to the court sessions. Testifying about Prigozhin, whose terrorist activities he admitted having directed, Radek said:
His statement that he saw me in 1935 is untrue, ... (PR 97.)
Apparently Prigozhin also testified against Radek. Prigozhin was not called to the court sessions. Sokolnikov admitted that he was confronted with Kamenev (PR 167). The accused Kamenev was not called as a witness to the court sessions in the second trial. He had been shot, although the Soviet authorities were patently aware that they were shooting an important witness against the alleged “Trotskyite” center.
And so on. Radek, Serebryakov, and Sokolnikov, who were tried in January, had been accused in the August trial, in the published testimony, by Kamenev, Zinoviev, Evdokimov, and Reingold; Serebryakov and Radek by Kamenev. At the evening session of August 21, Vyshinsky stated that these three men, and Pyatakov also, were among those implicated by Zinoviev, Kamenev and Reingold (ZK 115). The accused in the first trial who had first implicated these principal defendants in the second were not called to the court sessions. They had all been shot immediately after the August trial.
§ 18. We cite the following further examples of what seem to us to have been wholly unnecessary defects in the conduct of the trials:
(1) The failure of the prosecution to make any attempt, so far as the records show, and so far as public knowledge goes, to obtain the appearance in court of the two alleged directors of the treasonable conspiracies described in the indictments and the confessions, namely, Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov; and its further failure to take into account evidence made public by Leon Trotsky through the world press, purporting to disprove the charges in so far as they concerned himself and Sedov, and the list of questions which Trotsky posed, also through the world press, to be put to the accused Pyatakov in connection with his testimony concerning his alleged flight to Oslo and his interview at Weksal, Norway, with Leon Trotsky.
(2) The failure of the prosecution to obtain from the governments of those countries in which Trotsky lived or sojourned, and to produce in court, the official records of his whereabouts and activities at those periods when certain accused, and the witness Vladimir Romm, alleged they saw him. Since Trotsky, during his exile, has been under constant police surveillance, such records undoubtedly exist and could presumably have been obtained upon request by the Soviet government. Also the failure of the prosecution to obtain and produce in court official records of the movements of those accused who testified that they had travelled from one country to another in order to visit Trotsky. These records would include: 1) the Danish police-record of Trotsky’s movements during his stay in Copenhagen, November-December, 1932; 2) the records of entry into Denmark of those accused who testified that they travelled from Berlin to Copenhagen to see him; 3) the French police-record of Trotsky’s movements at the end of July, 1933, when he was alleged to have met Vladimir Romm in the Bois de Boulogne; 4) the official record of Pyatakov’s alleged entry into Norway in December, 1935, and that of the arrival and departure of the special airplane which allegedly took him there.
(3) The failure of the Prosecutor to confront the accused Pyatakov, at the January trial, with Konrad Knudsen’s telegram informing the Prosecutor of official denials that any foreign plane landed in Norway in December, 1935; also that as Trotsky’s host he could state that no interview had taken place between Trotsky and Pyatakov.
(4) The failure of the Prosecutor and the Court to call the attention of the accused and witnesses to contradictions in their own testimony, or between their testimony and facts of general knowledge, or between their testimony and that of other accused or witnesses, on matters of great importance to the credibility of the alleged conspiracy. To be sure, witnesses are notoriously capable of making mistakes concerning dates, names, etc. But since in these cases establishment of the alleged fact of conspiracy rested wholly upon the confessions of the accused and witnesses, and since the interests of the accused were not safeguarded by counsel (the cases of those three accused who did avail themselves of their right to counsel can hardly be called exceptions), it would seem to have been the duty of the Prosecutor and the judges to ask questions which might have prevented that evidence, in the aggregate, from taking on an appearance of absurdity. The contradictions are extremely numerous, as we shall have frequent occasion to note. We refer our readers especially to Chapters IX and XVI of this report, on the two alleged centers. In our opinion, the contradictions dealt with in these two chapters alone refute, when taken together with the complete absence of relevant material proofs, the Prosecutor’s claim in the January trial that
In the course of the trial when one of the proofs was the evidence of the accused themselves, we did not confine ourselves merely to the Court hearing the statements of the accused; we did all we possibly could to verify these statements. And I must say that we did this here with all impartial conscientiousness, and with all possible care. (PR 513.)
(5) The Prosecutor’s systematic falsification of universally known facts of history for the purposes of his case against the accused and Leon Trotsky; also his editing, for the same purposes, of quotations which he cited as evidence. This report notes many instances of these methods. We refer our readers especially to Chapter XXV. Here we confine ourselves, in illustration, to one edited quotation:
In an article published during the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial (Izvestia, August 21, 1936), Radek said:
... In 1929, he, Trotsky, having persuaded the Trotskyist Blumkin to organize the transport of propaganda matter into the U.S.S.R., sent to his hotel his son Sedov with the mission to organize assaults on Soviet Trade Missions abroad to obtain the money needed by Trotsky for anti-Soviet work ... (PC, Exh. 11.)
Vyshinsky, in summing up during the second trial, quoted this passage, substituting for the words “sent to his hotel his son Sedov” the words “sent his son Sedov to Radek’s hotel.” (PR 485-6.) The change is senseless, of course, since Trotsky and Sedov saw Blumkin in Turkey, whereas Radek was, presumably, either in Siberian exile or in Moscow. But it enabled the Prosecutor to accuse Radek of having freely admitted receiving from Trotsky instructions to “organize assaults on Soviet Trade
Missions abroad,” and to say:
I think we cannot disbelieve this authoritative admission made before Soviet public opinion, not from the prisoners’ dock, but in the Soviet press. (PR 486.)
It is not without a significant bearing on the general nature of the trial that the defendant Radek did not defend himself against this falsification of his words by Vyshinsky.
§ 19. Because of all the foregoing considerations, we find that the records of the trials, far from establishing the guilt of Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov, inspire the gravest doubt. This doubt can be resolved only through an examination of the charges against them in the light of all available evidence.
§ 20. In both trials the Prosecutor imputed an evidential significance to the former political relations between Leon Trotsky and the principal accused. And indeed Trotsky’s past relations with these men, and his attitude toward them during the years of the alleged conspiracy, have an important bearing upon the credibility of the charges against him. We shall have occasion to discuss his relations with certain individual accused in examining the definitive charges against him. But since the most important of the accused in both trials belonged, with the exception of Sokolnikov (§ 24), in the political category known among Trotsky’s tendency as “capitulators,” it becomes necessary to examine his attitude, and that of his followers, toward the “capitulators” in general.
In the first place this political category must be defined; and this can best be done through a brief résumé of political alignments in Russia since 1922.
§ 21. During Lenin’s first illness in 1922, Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev formed, in the Political Bureau (Politburo), the most important executive organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (C.P.S.U.), a bloc which was known as the Troïka. From Lenin’s second illness, in 1923, this Troika became an openly recognized institution, and the controlling group of the Party. It was formed in opposition to Trotsky and his sympathizers. The struggle of Trotsky’s tendency, known as the Left Opposition or “Bolshevik-Leninists,” against the ruling majority of the Party dates from this period. The Troïka lasted until the 14th Congress of the C.P.S.U., in December, 1925. After that Congress Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin and formed a bloc with the Left Opposition. At the 15th Party Congress, in December, 1927, the Left Opposition, Trotskyist and Zinovievist, was expelled from the Party. The Zinoviev-Kamenev group “capitulated” to the ruling majority in the so-called Statement of the Twenty-Three, on December 18, but did not avoid expulsion. Some six months after the Congress, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their followers “capitulated” once more, renounced the Opposition program, acknowledged that they had been wrong and Stalin right, and were readmitted to the Party. Those former Trotskyist leaders who were tried in August, 1936 and January, 1937, had also “capitulated” and been reinstated, except Muralov, who had left the Opposition without formally renouncing it.
§ 22. It was contended by the prosecution in both trials that the “capitulators” had not been sincere in their declarations. Summing up in the first trial, Vyshinsky said:
... these people put masks on their faces, adopted the pose of repentant sinners who had broken with the past, who had abandoned their old erring ways and mistakes which grew into crime. (ZK 133.)
Summing up in the second trial, he said:
The Trotskyites went underground, they donned the mask of repentance and pretended that they had disarmed. Obeying the instructions of Trotsky, Pyatakov and the other leaders of this gang of criminals, pursuing a policy of duplicity, camouflaging themselves, they again penetrated into the Party, again penetrated into Soviet offices, here and there they even managed to creep into responsible positions of state, concealing for a time, as has now been established beyond a shadow of a doubt, their old Trotskyite, anti-Soviet wares in their secret apartments, together with arms, codes, passwords, connections and cadres. (PR 464.)
§ 23. These statements of the Prosecutor were warranted by some of the testimony. The accused Zinoviev is thus reported in the record of the first trial:
“Our differences with Trotsky after the Fifteenth Congress,” says Zinoviev, “when Trotsky used the word ‘treachery’ in relation to me and Kamenev, were really slight zig-zags, petty disagreements. We committed no treachery whatever against Trotsky at that time, but committed one more act of treachery against the Bolshevik Party to which we belonged.”
But it was precisely at that moment, says Zinoviev, continuing his testimony, that we were completely adopting, as our main line, double-dealing to which we had already resorted previously, which we had practised in 1926 and in 1927... . (ZK 71.)
The accused Reingold testified that Zinoviev and Kamenev
insisted upon every advantage being taken of legal possibilities for the purpose of “crawling on the belly into the Party” ... and of winning the confidence of the Party, particularly of Stalin. After this confidence had been restored, strictly secret terrorist work was to be carried on parallel with open work... . (ZK 56-7.)
The witness Loginov, in the second trial, said:
It was agreed with Pyatakov that if the struggle should assume a protracted character he himself would submit a statement to the effect that he had broken with the opposition and this was to be the signal for the filing of similar statements by us in the provinces. That is what we did; ... (PR 177.)
Pyatakov confirmed this statement “as regards the facts,” but denied a policy of “deliberate duplicity.”
The accused Boguslaysky attributed this policy of deliberate duplicity to Trotsky:
... In 1929 Smirnov had transmitted Trotsky’s directive to us, to the effect that while not laying down our arms, while not disarming ideologically, we were to disarm organizationally, to declare that we would put a stop to factional work, and return to the Party, while preserving in our declarations, as far as possible, something of the old Trotskyite ideas – which is what I. N. Smirnov and I actually did... . (PR 195.)
§ 24. Leon Trotsky testified that of the nineteen accused in the two trials who were known to him, two, Sokolnikov and Holtzman, never belonged to the Left Opposition, although Holtzman was a sympathizer in 1926-27. Sokolnikov had declared at the Fifteenth Congress that he had no differences with the Party, and was elected to the Central Committee by that Congress, which expelled the Left Opposition. Sixteen had belonged to the Left Opposition bloc and had been expelled.[5] Six of these – Zinoviev, Kamenev, Reingold, Bakayev, Pickel, Evdokimov – were of the Zinoviev faction. Two – Drobnis and Boguslaysky – adhered to an ultra-Left (Sapronov) group. Radek joined the Left Opposition only in 1926. (PC 75-127.)
He testified that these people had been his adversaries for years before the trials (PC 75). He denied that he had ever discussed with anyone, after the break-up of his bloc with Zinoviev and Kamenev, the possibility of organizing a united center between his followers and theirs, saying:
... My articles show that it is absolutely impossible. My appreciation of them, my total contempt after the capitulation, my hostility to them and their hostility to me, excluded that absolutely. (PC 88.)
Pages 75-134 of the record of the Preliminary Commission deal in detail with Trotsky’s previous relations with those of the accused in the Moscow trials who were known to him, and with his enmity toward the “capitulators” in general. In this testimony Trotsky maintained that since their capitulations he had had no communication with any of the “capitulators” among the accused, and that he, and the Left Opposition in general, had regarded them as enemies and had fought them consistently and publicly. He said:
... When friends are split, the antagonism is more bitter than between the ruling group and the Opposition as a whole. It is a historical and political law that the relationship between the Oppositionists and the capitulators was all these years more bitter than the relation between the Opposition and the Stalinists. (PC 132.)
§ 25. In support of this testimony he introduced in evidence a mass of material (PC Exhs. 7, 12, 14, Com. Exh. 3). Exhibit 7 is a list of eighty-four articles concerning the capitulations which appeared in The Militant (New York) from December 15, 1928, to June 6, 1936, and twelve books and pamphlets in which the same subject is dealt with, introduced under the general title, “The Struggle Against the Capitulators.” Excerpts from the articles in this list were read into the record of the Preliminary Commission. We have examined the materials listed, and find them as represented .The following further quotations will suffice to illustrate their general tone with regard to the “capitulators”:
The second point we wish to speak of here deals with the capitulators. The declaration establishes, with perfect justice and pitilessly, that these people have lost “any right at all to the confidence of the Party and the working class.” (Introduction to the Declaration of the Russian Bolshevik-Leninists. The Militant, New York, January 15, 1931.)
If one leaves aside the absolutely demoralized part of the capitulators of the type of Radek and Pyatakov, who, as journalists or functionaries, will continue to serve every victorious faction (under the pretext of serving socialism) , then the capitulators taken as a political group represent in themselves moderate intra-Party “liberals” who, at a given moment, rushed too far to the Left (or to the Right) and who subsequently took to the road of coming to terms with the ruling bureaucracy. (“The Expulsion of Zinoviev.” The Militant, New York, November 26, 1932.)
And so they have capitulated again. The Soviet press carries triumphant notices of it while the Tass spreads the news of the capitulation over the whole world. Yet it would be difficult to imagine a fact which would more cruelly compromise not only the capitulators themselves but also a regime which requires such sacrificial offerings... .
During the first capitulation, they might have still cherished illusions: “work in the Party,” “rapprochement with the Party,” “influence on the masses.” Today not a trace has remained of these illusions. Zinoviev and Kamenev are returning to the Party not from the Opposition but only – from exile to Moscow. Their return is needed by Stalin for the selfsame goal as the appearance of Bukharin and Rykov on the tribune during the May 1st demonstration: while the void around the “leader” is not filled up thereby it is at least masked. (“On Zinoviev and Kamenev,” May 23, 1933. Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 35, July, 1933; The Militant, New York, June 10, 1933.)
§ 26. The hostility of the Opposition to Radek appears from this and other material before us to have been particularly intense. According to Trotsky, this was due to the contempt of the Opposition for Radek’s character; and particularly to Radek’s having denounced and thereby caused the execution of a former Oppositionist, Blumkin, who had visited Trotsky in Constantinople. Trotsky stated that Blumkin, who had confidence in Radek, had informed him of his visit to Trotsky and that Radek had immediately denounced Blumkin to the GPU; whereupon Blumkin was shot. (PC 105-6.) We quote from a letter dated December 25, 1929, which appeared in The Militant, February 22, 1930:
... When Blumkin arrived in Moscow, his first act was to hunt up Radek ... whom he looked upon as a leader of the Opposition... . He could not yet bring himself to the realization that in Radek the Opposition already had an implacable foe, who, having lost the last vestige of moral balance, did not stop at any abomination... . Blumkin told Radek of the thoughts and plans of L. D. [Trotsky] concerning the necessity of secret struggle for their ideas. In reply, Radek, according to his own words, demanded of Blumkin that he immediately appear before the GPU and tell everything. Several comrades say that Radek threatened Blumkin with immediate denunciation if he did not do this. This is quite likely, considering the actual statements of this hysterical mass of putty... . Following this, according to the official version, Blumkin “repented,” presented himself to the GPU, and turned over the letter from Comrade Trotsky which he had upon his person. Not only that, he even demanded his own shooting.
In July, 1932, Trotsky replied in the Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 28, to an article by Radek which had appeared in the German newspaper, Berliner Tageblatt. The sub-title of Trotsky’s article is “A Light-Minded Man on a Serious Question.” We quote:
Lenin gave it to be understood quite unequivocally that serious statements might come from Radek only accidentally in the guise of rarest exceptions. With the passing years, matters have in nowise improved on this score. There is less hair on the head but there is more light-mindedness inside.
As further evidence of the mutual enmity between Trotsky and Radek after Radek’s capitulation, we have a letter (copy) written by Leon Trotsky on October 3, 1933, to the editor of the daily paper, Adelante, in Barcelona. Trotsky says:
I have received from Spain the announcement of the appearance of Adelante among whose contributors my name is cited along with those of Karl Radek and Preobrazhensky. Now absolutely no one has invited me to contribute to Adelante, and consequently I could not have given anyone my consent. As for Preobrazhensky, who is in exile, a misuse of his name can only hurt him. The not very respectable name of Karl Radek gives to this list an entirely fantastic and inexplicable character. In view of the above facts, I am obliged to request you to discontinue the misuse of my name. (Com. Exh. 3, 2.)
We have also a clipping from the newspaper Adelante containing a telegram to its editors, dated Moscow, November 3, 1933, and signed by Karl Radek and Preobrazhensky. It reads:
In No. 165 of October 5 of the paper La Batalla appeared an announcement of the publication of the daily Adelante in which our names figure in the list of contributors. The mention of our names as contributors to the daily Adelante was made without our knowledge and without our permission. We can never consent to contribute to a paper along with such renegades of communism as Brandler, Thalheimer, Trotsky, Souvarin, etc... . (Ibid. 3.)
Exhibit 12 of the Preliminary Commission, a post-card received from Russia by Leon Trotsky, tells of a group of Oppositionist exiles who met Radek at a Siberian railway station on his way back to Moscow after his renunciation of the Opposition, in 1929. (PC 527-8). In this post-card Radek is reported as saying of Trotsky:
I have completely broken with L. D. From now on we are political adversaries... . With the collaborator of Lord Beaverbrook we can have nothing in common.
Other quotations illustrating the relations between Radek and the Left Opposition will be found in the record of the Preliminary Commission (pp. 522-534).
We shall have occasion in Chapter XVIII to revert to Radek’s relations with the Left Opposition. We have dwelt upon the subject here because of the crucial importance of his testimony in the January trial, and because of the Prosecutor’s contention that
Radek is one of the most outstanding and, to do him justice, one of the most able and persistent Trotskyites... . He is one of the men most trusted by and intimate with the big chief of this gang, Trotsky. (PR 477-8.)
§ 27. The attitude of Zinoviev and Kamenev toward Trotsky after their capitulation is illustrated by a declaration made by them to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and to the Control Commission, February 13, 1932, which was read into the record of the Preliminary Commission:
Comrades Yaroslaysky and Shkiriatov have brought to our attention a document of L. Trotsky dated January 4, 1932, which is an ignoble invention on Trotsky’s part, pretending that we discussed with Comrade Stalin in 1924-25 the opportunity for a terrorist act against Trotsky, and that subsequently, when we went over to the Opposition, we told him of this discussion. All this is a perfidious lie, with the evident purpose of compromising our Party. Only a diseased mentality like Trotsky’s, thoroughly empoisoned with the thirst of making a sensation before bourgeois audiences and always ready to come out with the dribble and hate of the past of our Party, is capable of imagining such an ignoble lie. It is beyond question that never could we have discussed such a question, nor even made an allusion to it in the Party circles, and we never said any such thing to Trotsky.
All this has been invented by him from beginning to end, and that is one of the methods adopted in the infamous struggle that he is carrying on against the party of Lenin and its leadership, in the past as at present, for the profit and pleasure of counter-revolution. The statement from Trotsky pretending that in our Bolshevik Party one can be forced to make lying statements on this subject is the established procedure of a master blackmailer. (PC 113.)
§ 28. The question arises, of course, whether all these expressions of mutual enmity might not have been published for the purpose of cloaking the alleged conspiracy. In fairness, however, it must be taken into account that several of the above quotations from Trotsky appeared in his paper, the Bulletin of the Opposition, which, according to his own testimony, he made every effort to introduce into Russia. (PC 130, 265-6.) His testimony on this point is corroborated by other evidence in our possession, among it four photostatic copies of the Bulletin, greatly reduced in size for illegal introduction into the Soviet Union. One of the above quotations, that from the Bulletin No. 35, July, 1933, is from his article, “On Zinoviev and Kamenev,” which appears in one of these reduced copies. (Com. Exh. 4, 1.) It is at least questionable whether Trotsky would have considered it politically expedient to undermine the prestige in Russia of men in whose company he expected again to come to power. It should also be remarked that Trotsky’s public enmity to the “capitulators” considerably antedates the “new line” on terrorism alleged to have been proposed to Smirnov by Leon Sedov in 1931.
§ 29. Trotsky’s testimony concerning the enmity which existed between his tendency and the “capitulators” is corroborated by material presented to the Preliminary Commission showing the enmity of the Opposition within the Soviet Union toward their comrades who had yielded to the regime (PC 107-8, 119-20, 132; Exhs. 12,14). It is also corroborated in the testimony of Dr. Anton Ciliga and A. Tarov.
Dr. Ciliga (former member of the Politburo of the Jugoslav Communist Party – PC 131) testifies that he joined the Russian Opposition in the summer of 1928, after the break-up of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist bloc, and adhered to it until the latter part of 1932, when he left it with a group of comrades belonging to a more radical faction. He testifies in part as follows on the relations between the Trotskyists and the Zinovievists:
From the summer of 1928 until my arrest in 1930 I had several talks with Zinovievists among my acquaintances. Although they capitulated, they believed that Stalin was carrying out in essence the Opposition’s policy, in which they saw a justification for their capitulation. At the same time they took an extremely negative attitude towards Trotsky... . In spite of all their disagreements with the Stalinists, they considered both themselves and the Stalinists real “Leninists”; they did not have that opinion of the Trotskyist group. From all my observations in Russia I got a definite impression that for all the undoubted nearness of the Zinovievists and Trotskyists there existed between them a mutual distrust and hostility. (Com. Exh. 5.1-)
The “capitulators,” says Ciliga, could be divided into four categories: (1) Those who surrendered completely, even at the price of becoming GPU provocateurs; (2) those who definitely went over to Stalin but who refused to become provocateurs; (3) those who continued to maintain an interest in the ideological life of the Opposition, but refused to do any active opposition work (this group was the most numerous); (4) those who, to one degree or another, returned to Oppositionist activity. (Ibid.)
§ 30. A. Tarov (real name in our possession) testifies that he was born on November 7, 1898, the son of a mason; that he was a mechanic by trade; that he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and took part in the Civil War; that in 1923 the Party sent him to the Transcaucasian Communist University, from which he was expelled in 1925 as a Left Oppositionist; that in 1927 he was expelled from the Party for Oppositionist activities; that on September 19, 1928, he was arrested for Oppositionist work and after three months in prison was deported to Siberia. On January 22, 1931, he was again arrested, in exile, and sentenced to three years imprisonment, which he served in the isolator of Verkhne-Uralsk. At the end of his sentence he was deported to Andijan in Central Asia, and after five months escaped to Persia, where he was twice arrested and sent the first time to prison and the second time to Amadan, deep in the interior. He succeeded in escaping to Europe in 1937.
Tarov states that the Oppositionists who capitulated were called upon to betray their comrades, and were told that unless they did so, they would be accused of crimes, handed over to the GPU and executed.
In 1927, in Erivan, after such threats from Tatian, the secretary of the control commission, the capitulator Tonov (I do not remember his name exactly) went home and blew out his brains. (Com. Exh. 6.)
The incident, says Tarov, was published in the newspaper Kharurdeit-Ayastan, in an article by Tatian himself; but the issue was suppressed after about half the copies had been sold. Tarov says that
... the great majority of the capitulators abandoned the Opposition because they could not endure the bestial repressions of the GPU... . All the capitulators, without exception, in the beginning did not wish to slander the Opposition or to consider their convictions erroneous, “counter-revolutionary,” etc. They all began by pledging no longer to carry on factional work. Unemployment, arrests, deportations, executions, concentration camps, tortures in prison, were all applied to the Bolshevik-Leninist Oppositionists by the GPU agencies in the cruelest form, in accordance with the special orders issued by the head of the Central Committee. (Ibid.)
This pressure upon Oppositionists to capitulate, and upon “capitulators” to betray their fellow-Oppositionists had, says Tarov, the following result:
In the face of such cruel repression on the part of the GPU, the Opposition obviously could not tolerate the slightest wavering among its members... . The Opposition broke off all relations with the capitulators even before the latter decided to inform the GPU of their abandonment of the Opposition... . In the isolators we treated the capitulators still more firmly. At the slightest sign of vacillation we immediately expelled them ... from the common cells, and we requested that they be excluded from our daily exercises. (Ibid.)
The “capitulators,” Tarov testifies, were not released from jail at once. They were required to declare that the tenets of the Opposition were counter-revolutionary, anti-Communist, Menshevist, and that Trotsky was an “agent of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.” They were even kept in prison after their sentences had expired, forced to write dozens of statements, and subjected to repeated questioning.
The capitulators returned to their cells in a state of nervous collapse, cursing the GPU, cursing themselves, but finding no way out. For them there was no road back to the Opposition. The Opposition would invariably look upon them as spies and agents of the GPU and never tolerate living with them in a common cell... . Finally, his backbone was broken and the firm Oppositionist of yesterday was transformed in the hands of the GPU into a tool against the Opposition of the Bolshevik-Leninists. (Ibid.)
Tarov cites his own case in illustration of his statements that the GPU attempted to force “capitulators” to become informers and that the Opposition definitively broke with them. In 1934 he subscribed to Rakovsky’s telegram calling for the unity of all proletarian, Communist, and revolutionary forces against fascist aggression. He believed, he said, that in the face of the fascist menace the Central Committee would at least go halfway to meet Rakovsky’s telegram. But the GPU at once demanded that Tarov declare his convictions counter-revolutionary. When he refused he was dismissed from his job. The GPU demanded that he name the comrades with whom he had worked in the Opposition. When he still refused he was kept under constant surveillance by the GPU and deprived of correspondence with his wife and friends. The Oppositionists, on their part, would have nothing to do with him. He decided that the only way out of his situation lay in escape; and this he finally achieved. (Ibid.)
§ 31. In view of the fact that Trotsky had formed a bloc with Zinoviev and Kamenev after the break-up of their bloc with Stalin against him, it seems reasonable to assume that he might have joined them again in political opposition, had they renewed their opposition along a line in agreement with his own. But between an open political opposition and a secret terrorist conspiracy there is a world of difference. For the risky purposes of the latter, it is necessary to find accomplices upon whose loyalty one can place absolute reliance. And Trotsky, who had been fought by Zinoviev and Kamenev during the period of the Troïka, and repudiated by them at the 15th Congress, would appear to have had very little reason to trust them in an alliance as dangerous as an underground conspiracy. The same thing is true of such men as Radek, Pyatakov, and the other former Trotskyists who had also repudiated the Left Opposition.
If, on the other hand, one accept the testimony quoted above, and the contention of the Prosecutor, that the “capitulators” had returned to the Party in pursuance of Trotsky’s orders, the question arises, Why did several of the most important among them hold out against capitulation on pain of exile and imprisonment? Why did Rakovsky, one of Trotsky’s oldest friends, who was implicated in the January trial, hold out until 1934? Why did Muralov, Trotsky’s friend and one of the accused in the January trial, abandon the Opposition without formally capitulating? As a participant in the alleged anti-Soviet plot, Muralov would surely have found it advantageous to obey Trotsky’s alleged orders, and to cloak his anti-Soviet work, as his co-conspirators allegedly did, with the mantle of Party membership. Moreover, if Trotsky had really given such orders, why did not all his followers in Russia re-enter the Party, where they would certainly have been much more useful to him than in exile or in the political prisons of the GPU? If one assume that this order was known only to the leaders, then it would appear that Trotsky was deceiving not only the Party but his own followers, and thus senselessly wasting a great deal of potentially useful devotion to his cause. Such an assumption also implies what the confessions in both trials contradict: that the Trotskyist “leaders” of the conspiracy were attempting to carry out an extensive program of terrorism and sabotage without any rank-and-file support – unless one adopt another hypothesis which is also contradicted by the confessions: that the numerous terrorist and wrecking organizations all over the U.S.S.R were composed entirely of non-Trotskyite terrorists and wreckers.
Thus the contention that those Trotskyists who returned to the Party did so in pursuance of a deliberate policy of duplicity inaugurated by Trotsky himself is borne out neither by the evidence nor by any tenable theory. On the other hand, the evidence introduced in rebuttal indicates that capitulations were often due to repressions by the GPU; that “capitulators” were systematically pressed to become informers against the Opposition; and that Oppositionists were therefore obliged for the sake of their own safety to abstain from all relations with them and to regard them as enemies. It also indicates that mutual distrust existed between the Trotskyists and Zinovievists, even in exile and in political prisons, and constitutes a legitimate basis for doubting the probability of a new “Trotskyist-Zinovievist” bloc for the purposes of a terrorist conspiracy. We find that all this evidence warrants due consideration, in weighing the charges and confessions in the two Moscow trials, of Trotsky’s contention that he had regarded the “capitulators” in those trials as his political enemies from the time of their capitulations.
§ 32. Of the sixteen accused in the trial of the alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, five were in no way connected in the proceedings with the formation of the center, and only one of these claimed the slightest connection with its activity. Indeed, the indictment explicitly states:
The investigation has established that after the smash-up of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite center in connection with the murder of Comrade Kirov, L. Trotsky himself assumed the leadership of terroristic activities in the U.S.S.R. and began strongly to press forward the organization of the assassinations of Comrades Stalin and Voroshilov. For this purpose he took steps to restore the terrorist groups in the U.S.S.R. and to stimulate their activity by sending a number of his tried agents to the U.S.S.R. from abroad and also by using for this purpose persons belonging to underground Trotskyite organizations in the U.S.S.R. who went abroad ostensibly on official business.
The investigation has established that at various times the following accused persons were sent from Berlin to Moscow as such agents: V. Olberg, Berman-Yurin, Fritz David (Kruglyansky), Moissei Lurye, Nathan Lurye and several others... . (ZK 23.)
This statement, clearly implying that no organization was left in the U.S.S.R. to direct the alleged terrorist work, is remarkable in view of a passage in the testimony of the accused Kamenev:
Knowing that we [the united center] might be discovered, we designated a small group to continue our terroristic activities. For this purpose we designated Sokolnikov. It seemed to us that on the side of the Trotskyites this role could be successfully performed by Serebryakov and Radek. (ZK 67.)
It might be assumed, of course, that Trotsky did not know about the existence of the “reserve center”; but it seems unlikely that the main center would have kept its alleged instigator and director in ignorance of a precautionary measure so important as the formation of a directorate to continue its terrorist activities in case its own members were exposed. The indictment in the January trial alleged that the reserve center was formed “on the direct instructions of L. D. Trotsky” (PR 5). If this were so, then Trotsky must surely have considered that the “terrorist groups in the U.S.S.R.” could be much more easily “restored” by such well-known revolutionary figures as Radek, Sokolnikov and Serebryakov than by five obscure foreigners. To be sure, although the indictment says that these five people were sent “as such agents” (to “restore the terrorist groups in the U.S.S.R. and to stimulate their activity”) it also goes on to state that they had received instructions from Trotsky and Sedov to organize the assassinations of Soviet leaders. The latter instructions, of course, would not preclude the former, but the dates on which these five accused allegedly arrived in the Soviet Union would seem to do so.
The Kirov assassination took place on December 1, 1934 (ZK 11); and according to the indictment the smash-up of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist center followed this event. Yet the five people whom Trotsky allegedly sent to “restore the terrorist groups” after this smash-up all arrived in Russia well before that date. Olberg, David, and Berman-Yurin all testified that they received in 1932 instructions from Trotsky to go to Russia on terrorist missions, and left for Moscow in March, 1933 (ZK 87-8, 95-6, 113-14). In other words, they received these instructions from Trotsky at the very time that the alleged united center was formed according to the indictment. M. Lurye said that he also left Berlin for Moscow on March 4, 1933, with instructions from Maslow and Ruth Fischer to speed up the organization of terrorist acts against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet government (ZK 105-6). N. Lurye stated that he went to the U.S.S.R. on instructions from Moissei Lurye in April, 1932, for the purpose of carrying on terroristic work with the Trotskyites he had known in Germany (ZK 102). That is, he went there some months before the alleged formation of the united center. None of these defendants testified that he had any instructions to “restore terrorist groups.” Indeed, two of them, Fritz David and Berman-Yurin, expressly stated that Trotsky instructed them to work independently without contacts with other Trotskyites (ZK 95, 113). The one who testified to connection with the alleged center was M. Lurye, who said that he saw Zinoviev (ZK 106), and that from April, 1933,
Nathan Lurye’s group, which was organized by the fascist Franz Weitz, worked with the knowledge and indisputably with the consent of the center, and of Zinoviev personally. (ZK 107.)
§ 33. Of the other eleven accused, only three claimed to have had any direct communication with either Leon Trotsky or Leon Sedov. The accused Smirnov confessed that in 1931 he had an interview with Sedov in Berlin in which Sedov expressed his “personal opinion” that only the removal of the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet government could change conditions in the U.S.S.R. (ZK 17, 45, 79-80, 85), and that in 1932 he received terrorist instructions from Trotsky through Yuri Gaven (ZK 17, 42, 44, 80-85). The accused Dreitzer confessed that in the autumn of 1931 he had two conversations with Sedov in Berlin, having been instructed by Smirnov to ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the formation of a bloc with the Zinovievites (ZK 51-52); and that in October, 1934, he received from Trotsky a letter in invisible ink, containing instructions on terrorism and defeatism (ZK 22, 52). The accused Holtzman testified that he delivered to Sedov in 1932 a report and a secret code from Smirnov; that he had several conversations with Sedov and at his suggestion went in November, 1932, to see Trotsky in Copenhagen where he received from him verbal instructions to the effect that Stalin must be killed, and that:
for this purpose it was necessary to choose cadres of responsible people fit for this task. (ZK 101)
Such is the evidence of these three accused against Trotsky and Sedov. There is nothing in it indicating the attitude of either toward the formation of the alleged terrorist center. The record does not tell us how Trotsky answered Dreitzer’s queries on the subject of a bloc; we learn only that:
Sedov then told him that Trotsky’s instructions would be sent on later. (ZK 52.)
Nor does the record make clear the exact contents of the letter allegedly sent to Smirnov by Trotsky through Yuri Gaven, or how Gaven came by this letter. In the examination of Mrachkovsky, who claimed no direct communication with Trotsky or Sedov, it is stated that Trotsky in this letter (allegedly received in the autumn of 1932) approved the decision to unite with the Zinovievites, and that:
it was also at that time that he conveyed to them through his emissary, Gaven, that union must take place on the basis of terrorism. (ZK 42.)
The Prosecutor, curiously, did not ask Smirnov to corroborate this “approval of the decision to unite with the Zinovievites.” Instead he asked:
VYSHINSKY: Do you corroborate the testimony of Mrachkovsky that in 1932 you received a reply from Trotsky through Gaven?
SMIRNOV: I received a reply from Trotsky through Gaven... .
VYSHINSKY: You, Smirnov, confirm before the Supreme Court that in 1932 you received from Gaven the direction from Trotsky to commit acts of terrorism?
SMIRNOV: Yes. (ZK 42.)
Again, on page 82, Smirnov answers in the affirmative the following question by the Prosecutor about the alleged instructions through Gaven:
Did these instructions contain direct reference to the necessity of embarking on a terroristic struggle against the leadership of the Party?
There is nothing here about Trotsky’s attitude toward the formation of a united center. On page 83 of the record it is stated:
From the testimony of the accused it appears, however, that ... these negotiations for the organization of the bloc were conducted on the basis of the first instructions on terror received by Smirnov from Trotsky through Sedov in 1931.
Since, however, according to Smirnov, these instructions consisted only of Sedov’s “personal opinion” that terrorism was necessary, negotiations based on them can hardly be taken as indicating any direct and personal participation of Trotsky or Sedov in the formation of the bloc.
Thus there is, as we have said, no direct evidence of the attitude of either Sedov or Trotsky toward the formation of the bloc, or concerning their role, if any, in its formation. Therefore, the evidence which we quote below in discussing the formation of the alleged center is, in so far as it concerns Trotsky or Sedov, hearsay, uncorroborated by any direct evidence whatever.
§ 34. The date of the formation of the united center is given without exception in vague words, such as “summer” and “autumn” and “at the end of 1932.” Nevertheless, there is a fundamental contradiction in the testimony on this important point. The indictment explicitly states that it was formed “at the end of 1932” (ZK 11). Mrachkovsky said the same thing (ZK 42). The witness Yakovlev placed its formation in the “autumn of 1932” (ZK 70). The accused Dreitzer stated that in the autumn of 1932 Smirnov informed him that the bloc had been formed.
However, according to Dreitzer’s testimony, Smirnov had sent him as early as the autumn of 1931 to ask Sedov in Berlin Trotsky’s opinion about the formation of a bloc. (ZK 51-52.) Mrachkovsky said that the question of the necessity of uniting with the Zinovievites was raised in the second half of 1932 by Smirnov, and that Smirnov sent a letter to Trotsky through Holtzman at that time, putting before him the question of uniting. (Neither Smirnov nor Holtzman corroborated this testimony.) In the autumn, he stated, Trotsky’s letter approving this union was received. (ZK 41-42.) Ter-Vaganyan set two dates for the beginning of negotiations for the bloc and his own alleged instructions from Smirnov to act as his intermediary in these negotiations. In the morning session of August 21, he said that these negotiations began in the autumn of 1931 (ZK 110-11), after having already testified during the morning session of August 19 that they began “as far back as June, 1932” (ZK 45).
Zinoviev set the beginning of negotiations for the formation of the bloc, “on Trotsky’s instruction,” in the autumn of 1931 (ZK 72), and its actual formation in the summer of 1932 (ZK 44). Kamenev stated that at a meeting of the Zinovievite center in “our villa,” in the summer of 1932, Zinoviev reported that the union with the Trotskyites “was an accomplished fact” (ZK 66).
§ 35. From this welter of contradictions one may glean that the bloc was formed at two quite distinct periods: the summer of 1932 and the end of 1932. Naturally, the question arises, Why these two periods, and why did Prosecutor and Court accept both without question? The formation and activity of the alleged center is the central theme of the whole trial; certainly, therefore, precision on these points was of great importance in establishing proof that it existed; indeed, it would have afforded a more convincing refutation of Smirnov’s repeated denials that there was a center than the mere affirmations of other accused. How the contradiction weakens the record becomes evident when one considers the fantastic absurdity of the activity attributed in the various confessions to the accused Smirnov, whom the defendants accused of having been the prime mover in the conspiracy and “Trotsky’s principal representative and even deputy in the U.S.S.R.” (ZK 72.) We summarize this testimony:
In the autumn of 1931, after having received terrorist instructions from Sedov in Berlin, Smirnov began, “on Trotsky’s instructions,” negotiations with Zinoviev and others for the formation of a bloc with the Zinovievites and “Leftists” (ZK 72, 110-11), and sent Dreitzer to Berlin with instructions to see Sedov and ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the question of such a bloc. Dreitzer was told that Trotsky’s instructions would be sent on later (ZK 51-52). In the same period Smirnov instructed Ter-Vaganyan to begin negotiations for a bloc (ZK 110-11). In June of 1932, negotiations were begun for the formation of a bloc, with Ter-Vaganyan acting as intermediary between Smirnov and Zinoviev, and Kamenev and Lominadze (ZK 45). In the summer of 1932, at a meeting in Kamenev’s villa, Zinoviev announced that the bloc was an accomplished fact (ZK 66). Yet in the second half of 1932, Smirnov posed to the leading trio of the Trotskyite organization the question of a bloc with the Zinovievites and Leftists, and sent a letter to Sedov through Holtzman, asking Trotsky’s opinion on this question (ZK 21, 41-2). In the autumn of 1932, a letter was received from Trotsky approving the decision to unite, and at the same time Trotsky sent word through his emissary Gaven that the union must be on the basis of terrorism. After having received these instructions Smirnov instructed Ter-Vaganyan to bring about the formation of a bloc. (ZK 42.) The bloc was formed for the second time at the end of 1932 (ZK 11, 42). On January 1, 1933, Smirnov was arrested and sent to prison, whence, according to the Prosecutor, he continued to communicate with the Trotskyites by code (ZK 152-3), possibly on the question whether or not it would be advisable to form a Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc, and whether or not Trotsky could be persuaded to sanction it.
§ 36. It may be noted here that if the bloc was organized at the end of 1932 it must have been without the participation of Zinoviev and Kamenev, while Smirnov would barely have had time to participate in its organization before his arrest and his imprisonment which continued up to the time of the August trial. Zinoviev and Kamenev were expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in October, 1932, and exiled in November – Kamenev to Minussinsk and Zinoviev to Kustunay, Siberia. If they participated in the organization of the alleged united center, it must have been formed before their exile. It was Zinoviev and Kamenev who stated that it was formed in the summer of 1932. On the other hand, there is no direct evidence to connect Trotsky personally with the alleged “terrorist line” before his trip to Copenhagen in November, 1932.[6] Holtzman, on the other hand, allegedly saw Trotsky – at about the time of, or possibly a little after, the exile of Zinoviev and Kamenev. It may be noted that he was the only one of the eleven who made this claim. Yet in his testimony there is nothing about Trotsky’s attitude toward the proposed Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc, which, assuming that it was about to be formed at that time, must, one would think, have been uppermost in his own mind and that of Trotsky. The record does not show whether or not Holtzman knew the contents of the letter he conveyed to Sedov from Smirnov, which, according to Mrachkovsky, put to Trotsky the question of a bloc. If he did know, then assuming that its contents were as Mrachkovsky represented them, it might certainly be supposed that he would have spoken to Trotsky about the matter. Yet according to his account, the interview consisted of a verbal instruction from Trotsky to be conveyed to Smirnov, to the effect that Stalin must be removed by terrorist means and that responsible cadres should be chosen for the task – an instruction which, according to various accused, Smirnov had already received from Sedov more than a year before, and had been diligently carrying out ever since. It seems hardly worth the trip from Berlin to Copenhagen.
§ 37. The record is also contradictory concerning the duration of the center’s activities and of the period of suspension to which several accused testified. If one is to believe the indictment, it smashed up in connection with the Kirov assassination (ZK 23). Zinoviev, on the other hand, said that it functioned “actually up to 1936.” The defendant Reingold said that
there was an interruption in our terroristic activities between the autumn of 1932 and the summer of 1933 caused by the fact that Zinoviev and Kamenev were compromised in connection with the Ryutin case. In connection with that, in the beginning of 1933 ... Evdokimov passed on the instruction in the name of the united center to suspend terroristic work until Zinoviev and Kamenev had returned from exile, until they had declared their repentance, were reinstated in the Party and had gained a certain amount of confidence. (ZK 56.)
Yet according to the record,
In the spring of 1933 Mrachkovsky repeated to Dreitzer the instructions of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite center to expedite the acts of terror... . (ZK 52.)
Bakayev testified that after the exile of Zinoviev and Kamenev
it was resolved to suspend terroristic activities for a time. In the autumn of 1934 they were resumed. (ZK 60.)
Zinoviev said:
After our return from exile the first steps we took were directed toward liquidating, if one may so express it, the breakdown of our terroristic activities, the fiasco of the conspirators, and toward restoring confidence in order to be able to continue our terroristic activities later on. (ZK 73-74.)
Kamenev said:
The exile of myself and Zinoviev somewhat held up the execution of our terroristic plans. (ZK 66)
If one accept Mrachkovsky’s testimony concerning the formation of the center, and Bakayev’s concerning its suspension, it would appear that immediately after, or possibly even a little before, its formation its activities were suspended, and that very shortly after they were resumed the center, according to the indictment, smashed up. On the other hand, if one accept the summer of 1932 for its formation and the summer of 1933 for resumption of activities, it could have been active for three or four months in 193'2 and for approximately eighteen months after the summer of 1933. The student of the trial may combine the various versions to taste, without much concern to accommodate them to any specific crime, since the only actual crime attributed to the center was the assassination of Kirov on December 1, 1934. He will be more concerned about their bearing upon the credibility of the confessions in general, and upon the conduct of the trial.
§ 38. The first basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the trial of August, 1936, was the confession of the accused I. N. Smirnov that in 1931, while in Berlin on official business, he accidentally met Sedov and had an interview with him in which Sedov advanced the view that
it was necessary to change the old methods of struggle against the party and that the time had arrived to adopt terroristic methods of struggle ... (ZK 79);
that upon his return to Moscow he passed on this opinion to the Trotskyites; that in 1932 he received from Trotsky instructions on terrorism through Yuri Gaven, and though not in agreement with them communicated them to the Zinovievites through the accused Ter-Vaganyan, and also to the Trotskyites (ZK 85-6); that he wrote a letter to Trotsky and received a reply from him (ZK 84); and that “there was communication by mail with Trotsky’s son” (ZK 83). He did not state the nature of these alleged communications by mail, and the Prosecutor asked no questions about them.
§ 39. The accused Holtzman testified that in 1932, before his departure for Berlin, Smirnov gave him a report to be delivered to Sedov for Trotsky, a telephone number by which he might ring up Sedov, and a password which was: “I have brought greetings from Galya.” According to the record,
As Smirnov and Holtzman both admit, this report was to have been handed to Sedov personally for delivery to Trotsky. (ZK 99.)
The record, however, does not show that either Smirnov or Holtzman stated the contents of this report, or that Vyshinsky questioned either of them on that point. The record also states that
Further evidence establishes the fact that Smirnov also gave Holtzman a secret code for corresponding with Trotsky, for which purpose certain pages from the “Arabian Nights” were used. (ZK 99.)
§ 40. Leon Trotsky, testifying before the Preliminary Commission, stated that Smirnov had been his friend, and a member of the Opposition, had been expelled from the Party with the Opposition at the Fifteenth Congress, and had capitulated in November, 1929; and that he, Trotsky, had commented on this capitulation in the Bulletin of the Opposition in an article beginning, “On November 3rd there was printed in Pravda a miserable article by Smirnov and Boguslaysky” (No. 7, November-December, 1929). He further testified that after Smirnov’s capitulation he had had no direct communication with him, but that his son, Sedov, had met Smirnov on the street in Berlin in 1931. Trotsky said that his son thereafter wrote him that Smirnov was unhappy and without political orientation, and had given him information about old friends. (PC 88-9.) Trotsky denied that he had communicated with Smirnov through Gaven, whom he had not seen since 1926 (PC 225-6).
§ 41. Sedov testified before the Commission Rogatoire that from his adolescence he had known Smirnov, who was on friendly terms with his family, and that he had been closely connected with him in Opposition work; that after Smirnov capitulated in 1929 he had regarded him as a political adversary and had had no communication with him; that he did meet Smirnov accidentally in Berlin in July, 1931; that he did subsequently have an interview with him at Smirnov’s apartment during which he gave him two addresses and a telephone number, and suggested that Smirnov should take advantage of the trips of comrades to send him information on conditions in the Soviet Union; that Smirnov said jokingly that if anyone came to find Sedov he would present himself in the name of Galya, the little girl who had accompanied Smirnov at their first meeting. (CR 4.) Sedov’s testimony, and Smirnov’s, to the accidental nature of this meeting is confirmed by the deposition of Sedov’s wife, Jeanne Martin des Pallières, who, according to her own testimony and that of Sedov, was with her husband at the time of the meeting (PC Exh. 16, 1/18; CR 6). Sedov further affirmed that the defendant Holtzman did get in touch with him in Berlin around the end of September or the beginning of October, 1932, that in presenting himself he stated that he brought greetings from Galya, and that he brought a document for Trotsky from Smirnov which he had carried in a spectacle case (CR 16-18). He further testified that he saw Holtzman several times (CR 19).
§ 42. Thus there is agreement between Sedov on the one hand and Smirnov or Holtzman on the other, on the following points:
(1) The accidental meeting of Sedov and Smirnov in 1931, a second meeting at Smirnov’s lodgings, and the exchange of addresses and a telephone number on Sedov’s side and a password on the side of Smirnov;
(2) the meeting of Holtzman and Sedov in Berlin in 1932 and the delivery to Sedov by Holtzman of a communication for Trotsky; also several subsequent meetings.
On the nature of the conversation between Smirnov and Sedov there is complete disagreement. According to Sedov, this conversation dealt largely with economic conditions in the U.S.S.R. Certain political matters were also discussed, such as the defeat of the Right Opposition and the part played by Radek in the denunciation and subsequent execution of Blumkin. Sedov also testified that Smirnov missed no opportunity to emphasize his own complete lack of accord with the Left Opposition. (CR 6-7.)
Sedov further testified that the document delivered to him by Holtzman was an unsigned report on economic conditions in the Soviet Union, which he, Sedov, published in the Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 31, of November, 1932, p. 20 (CR 17). Neither Smirnov nor Holtzman, as we have already noted, testified on the contents of this report. Sedov said that in publishing it he affixed as a signature the syllable “Ko” which was an allusion to Trotsky’s having compared Smirnov, in polemicizing with him, to a bell-ringer (from kolokol – “bell”) (CR 17). We have examined this article and find it as represented. Sedov also testified that Holtzman in their conversations gave him information concerning the state of agriculture and industry in the Soviet Union and
also discussed facts and events bearing upon specific individuals, such as Ryutin, a Right-winger, and Zinoviev and Kamenev, who, he said, were no longer doing anything at all and were generally scorned. (CR 17.)
He called attention to the fact that the published record of the trial is silent on the subject of his discussions with Holtzman, and declared that the failure of the Prosecutor to question Holtzman concerning these conversations justified the assumption that Holtzman could say nothing in support of the accusations against him. He denied that he ever received from Holtzman the key to a cipher, and stated that the document which Holtzman delivered to him was written in holograph. (CR 18.)
§ 43. It is precisely as regards the accused Smirnov that the summarized record of the August trial is most unsatisfactory. Since Smirnov, even in the summarized report of his own testimony and that of other accused against him, appears to have been a most refractory witness, and since the role attributed to him is, as we shall see, of crucial importance to the claim that a conspiracy existed and that Trotsky was its instigator, it is precisely through a verbatim report of this testimony that the record would have gained most in the appearance of honesty. As it stands, the record shows that Smirnov repeatedly denied or attempted to deny the most important allegations of the prosecution – even those allegations which he had himself previously admitted. For example, on page 45 he denies Mrachkovsky’s testimony that he, Smirnov, had conveyed Trotsky’s instructions on terrorism to the Moscow Trotskyite center, and he repeats this denial on page 77. On page 80, he denies having anticipated that the center would take his information concerning his conversation with Sedov as Trotsky’s instructions. On page 84, he again denies having passed on these alleged instructions to the Trotskyite group. On page 81, he denies that the center existed, saying
I did not intend to resign. There was nothing to resign from.
On page 82, he denies having been the leader of the alleged Trotskyite organization. On page 86, he denies having been a member of the alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc.
The Prosecutor in his final speech dwelt at length upon Smirnov’s obdurate denials in a passage to which we shall pay particular attention in Chapter XXVI of this report. Smirnov, said Vyshinsky, had been the most persistent of the accused in his denials (ZK 153). This statement of Vyshinsky, taken together with further statements which clearly indicate that Smirnov confessed only under great pressure, and also with the highly questionable nature, hereinafter noted, of his own testimony against Trotsky and Sedov and of the other accused against him, justifies grave doubt, on the basis of the trial record alone, concerning the validity of his meager confession. And that doubt is not lessened by this further passage from the Prosecutor, which implies that Smirnov only became the “leader” of the “Trotskyite center” during the preliminary examination (or possibly in an unpublished section of the trial record):
[Smirnov] pleaded guilty only to being the leader of the Trotskyite underground counter-revolutionary center. True, he said this in a somewhat jocular way. Turning to Ter-Vaganyan, Mrachkovsky, and Dreitzer, he said to them: “You want a leader? Well, take me.” But you, accused Smirnov, were the leader... . (ZK 153-4.)
§ 44. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that this uncooperative attitude of the accused Smirnov accounted for the failure of the Prosecutor to ask him the most obvious and necessary questions. In later sections of this report we shall have occasion to note certain instances of this failure. We cite here the following examples:
(1) Vyshinsky made no attempt to elicit from either Smirnov or Holtzman (also a refractory witness, although apparently less so than Smirnov) any confirmation of Mrachkovsky’s testimony to the effect that the letter sent by Smirnov through Holtzman
informed Trotsky of the state of the Trotskyite organization and put before him the question of uniting with the Zinovievites. (ZK 42.)
(2) Vyshinsky did not, so far as the record shows, question Smirnov on the subject of the code which Holtzman testified Smirnov sent through him to Sedov, although certainly Smirnov, if he had sent such a code, would have been able to describe it, and his description would have added considerably to the weight of Holtzman’s testimony.
(3) The Prosecutor and several of the accused insisted that Smirnov continued as an active director of the united center even after his arrest on January 1, 1933 (ZK 54, 86, 152); and the Prosecutor in his final speech stated that a code was discovered by means of which Smirnov communicated from prison with his companions outside. This code was not introduced in evidence, nor was Smirnov questioned about it. It was simply mentioned, and that only once, in the Prosecutor’s summation.
Since Vyshinsky was at great pains to get the other defendants to confirm the conspiratorial role which Smirnov denied (ZK 38), it seems strange that he neglected to ask Smirnov himself questions which were clearly indicated by the testimony of the other accused, or by the statements of the Prosecutor himself. And his failure to do so casts further doubt upon the record in so far as concerns Smirnov’s own alleged part in the conspiracy, and the role which he imputed to Trotsky and Sedov.
§ 45. If the Prosecutor appeared to handle Smirnov rather gingerly when it came to seeking confirmation of the testimony of other accused, he was very diligent in securing their testimony to the rôle attributed to Smirnov in the alleged conspiracy, as well as refutation of Smirnov’s repeated denials of that role. And these witnesses accused Smirnov of a much more direct, active and important rôle than he would himself admit. We have already quoted Mrachkovsky’s testimony to the alleged contents of the letter sent by Smirnov to Sedov through Holtzman. Mrachkovsky also alleged that he himself
did everything with the knowledge of Smirnov, and that Smirnov knew the people with whom Mrachkovsky was preparing to commit terrorist acts. (ZK 43-4.)
Dreitzer testified that Smirnov had sent him to Sedov in 1931 to ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the formation of a bloc; also that Smirnov gave him direct instructions in 1932 to organize terrorist acts against Stalin and Voroshilov (ZK 51-2). Zinoviev affirmed that Smirnov was Trotsky’s personal representative and even deputy in the U.S.S.R.; also that in the formation of the alleged united center the leading role on behalf of the Trotskyites was played by Smirnov, and that he displayed more activity than anyone else. (ZK 53, 73.) Kamenev
fully confirms the leading part played by I. N. Smirnov in the Trotskyite part of the terrorist Trotskyite-Zinovievite center, ... (ZK 66.)
He also stated that, knowing Smirnov had been abroad and established contact with Trotsky, the Zinovievites were convinced that the terrorist instructions conveyed to them by Smirnov and Mrachkovsky “were the exact instructions of Trotsky” (ZK 66).
From these and similar statements it becomes clear that the alleged active participation of Smirnov in forming the alleged terrorist center is crucial for the charge that it existed; and that his alleged role as Trotsky’s representative is crucial for the charge that Trotsky participated in its formation and direction. This testimony would be more impressive if it were not so contradictory, as we have already pointed out (§ 35), as to make Smirnov’s alleged activity in initiating the conspiracy appear fantastically absurd. It must also be noted that while it may be taken as direct evidence against Smirnov, it has no value as direct evidence against Trotsky or Sedov. Whether or not the other accused believed or assumed that Smirnov was speaking for Trotsky is wholly irrelevant to the question whether or not he actually did so; and the question whether or not Sedov was an authority for them (ZK 80) is wholly irrelevant to the question whether or not Sedov gave Smirnov instructions on terrorism or, if so, whether those instructions came from Trotsky. Smirnov steadily denied that Sedov’s “opinion” on terrorism represented Trotsky’s instructions. Therefore, even where the accused or witnesses (as Safonova – ZK 76) state that Smirnov informed them that Sedov’s alleged instructions came from Trotsky, their testimony, being fourth-hand hearsay – what they say Smirnov said Sedov said Trotsky said – can not be considered worth anything in the face of Smirnov’s denials.
§ 46. On the question of the alleged conversation about terrorism in 1931, Smirnov’s was the only direct testimony produced against Sedov. It is, therefore, a matter of Smirnov’s report of this conversation against Sedov’s. While Sedov’s testimony belongs in the category known as self-serving, there is strong presumptive evidence in favor of his version, even in the record of the trial itself. There is agreement between Smirnov and Sedov that the purpose of the exchange of addresses and password was the sending of information from Smirnov to Sedov (ZK 79; CR 8). There is nothing in the evidence which indicates any understanding between them that the information was to be conspiratorial. And only hearsay evidence uncorroborated by either Holtzman or Smirnov contradicts Sedov’s testimony concerning the contents of the report he received from Smirnov through Holtzman. Sedov was actively interested in Trotsky’s paper (Bulletin of the Opposition), which dealt chiefly with Soviet affairs. According to both his testimony and that of Trotsky, it was becoming very hard to get information out of Russia (PC 38; CR 39). It is understandable, therefore, that he would take advantage of the opportunity to receive such information from Smirnov who, according to Sedov, although he had become an adversary, was not nearly so bitter as others. (CR 39.) It is more difficult to understand how Smirnov came to take the risk of such a connection. However, it does not tax credulity to assume that he was moved to do so by the fact that he had once been Trotsky’s friend, and Sedov’s (PC 89; CR 2-3), and a member of the Opposition, and still felt a certain sympathy with Trotsky and his point of view even though he had broken with both politically. This assumption is supported not only by Sedov’s statement, just quoted, but also by the striking fact that Smirnov alone among the principal accused did not in his final plea brand Trotsky with the stigma of fascism or counterrevolution. “Why did I take the counter-revolutionary path?” said Mrachkovsky. “My connection with Trotsky – that is what brought me to this.” “Thus we served fascism,” said Kamenev of himself, Zinoviev and Trotsky. “My defective Bolshevism,” said Zinoviev, “became transformed into anti-Bolshevism, and through Trotskyism I arrived at fascism.” (ZK 165-171.) Smirnov, on the other hand, is reported in a passage which is in startling contrast to these statements:
There is no other path for our country but the one it is now treading, and there is not, nor can there be, any other leadership than that which history has given us. Trotsky, who sends directions and instructions on terrorism and regards our state as a fascist state, is an enemy; he is on the other side of the barricades; he must be fought. (ZK 171.) [Italics ours.]
Finally, since Smirnov as a “capitulator” was regarded by both Trotsky and Sedov as a political adversary (PC 75; CR 3; also Chapter VIII of this report), it seems unreasonable to suppose that Sedov, in his first conversation with him after his capitulation, would incontinently urge the need of a new and terrorist line and insist that Stalin must be killed.
We are therefore convinced that Sedov conveyed to Smirnov no “opinion” or instruction on the necessity of terrorism against Soviet leaders, either on his own behalf or Trotsky’s.
§ 47. There remains the question of Trotsky’s alleged communication with Smirnov through Yuri Gaven. The failure to summon this witness, upon which we have already commented (§ 17, 6), constituted in our opinion one of the worst flaws in the procedure of the Court. In the absence of Gaven’s confirmation, Smirnov’s admission that he received through Gaven Trotsky’s instructions on terrorism remains unconfirmed by any direct evidence whatever. From Smirnov’s testimony it appears that this communication consisted of a letter from Trotsky as well as “verbal conversation” with Gaven (ZK 42).
It must be noted that a written instrument quoted as evidence but not produced in court is subject to perversion by the person purporting to relate its contents. Such an account, given from memory, constitutes at best the narrator’s interpretation of those contents, unverifiable by comparison with the instrument he purports to quote. Therefore the testimony of the person purporting to relate the contents of such an instrument is hearsay evidence as concerns those contents. Moreover, the use of such hearsay evidence to corroborate other testimony of the narrator, accompanied either by no explanation as to the instrument’s absence or by the mere statement that it was lost or destroyed, warrants doubt not only of the interpretation put upon it but even of its ever having existed. Such a suspicion becomes doubly justified where, as in the present instance, the person who allegedly delivered the instrument is not summoned to corroborate the testimony to its existence.
From the Prosecutor’s questions and Smirnov’s answers concerning Trotsky’s alleged communication through Gaven, it is not clear when Smirnov is giving the contents of the alleged letter and when he is relating Gaven’s alleged “verbal conversation.” We can only say, therefore, that as that testimony relates to the alleged letter it is hearsay, and subject, furthermore, to the suspicion indicated in the foregoing paragraph. As it relates to verbal instructions allegedly conveyed by Trotsky through Gaven it is double hearsay, being Smirnov’s testimony to what Gaven said Trotsky said.
In view of the nature of Smirnov’s testimony concerning this alleged communication, in view of the Prosecutor’s failure to call the witness Yuri Gaven, and in view of his further failure to make any attempt to secure Trotsky’s testimony, we consider that this testimony of the accused Smirnov as against Leon Trotsky is worthless
§ 48. On the basis of all the evidence and all the above considerations, we conclude that in so far as it applied to Smirnov’s confession of conspiratorial communication with Trotsky and Sedov, this statement of Vyshinsky in his summation was correct:
Smirnov himself did not utter a single word of truth here ... (ZK 134.)
§ 49. The second basis of the charge against Trotsky and Sedov in the August trial is the testimony of the accused Dreitzer. The record states (it is not clear whether this is Dreitzer’s testimony or not) that
Dreitzer was one of the most prominent Trotskyites. He had been the chief of Trotsky’s bodyguard. Together with Trotsky he had organized the counter-revolutionary demonstration [see § 229] on November 7, 1927. When Trotsky was in exile in Alma-Ata Dreitzer organized the communications between Trotsky and the Moscow Trotskyite center. (ZK 51.)
However, no evidence was presented in support of these allegations. Dreitzer testified that in the autumn of 1931 he
took advantage of a business trip to Berlin to establish contact with Trotsky at the instructions from I. N. Smirnov. Smirnov’s definite instructions were to ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the question of a bloc between the Trotskyites and the Zinovievites. In Berlin he twice met Sedov (Trotsky’s son), in a cafe in Leipzigerstrasse. Sedov then told him that Trotsky’s instruction would be sent on later. (ZK 51-2.)
He further testified that in October, 1934, his sister brought him from Warsaw a German cinema magazine which an agent of Sedov’s had given her, in which he “had no difficulty in discovering” a letter written in invisible ink in Trotsky’s own hand, instructing Dreitzer to carry out immediately terrorist acts against Stalin and Voroshilov.
Dreitzer at once passed the letter on to Mrachkovsky who, after reading it, burnt it for reasons of secrecy. (ZK 52.)
Although this letter, having allegedly been destroyed, could not be introduced in evidence, both Dreitzer and Mrachkovsky purportedly gave its contents, the former in part verbatim. (ZK 22, 43.) Mrachkovsky stated that he received the letter in Kazakhstan. (ZK 43.)
§ 50. Smirnov’s only admission concerning Dreitzer was that he received him in his apartment as an active Trotskyite;
however he allegedly discussed with him, not terrorism but “the general situation in the country.” (ZK 53.)
Therefore, Dreitzer’s is the only direct testimony that Smirnov instructed him to see Sedov in Berlin and ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the formation of a bloc. Indeed, it is the only testimony on this point in the published record of the trial, except for the statement that “Mrachkovsky fully confirms Dreitzer’s testimony.”
§ 51. Leon Trotsky testified that Dreitzer was of the younger generation and was an officer in the Red Army; that when he, Trotsky, left the Kremlin after his expulsion from the Party, Dreitzer was among the army officers who organized a bodyguard for him; that Dreitzer had been in the Left Opposition, was expelled with it at the Fifteenth Party Congress, and had thereafter capitulated; and that he, Trotsky, had never communicated with him in any way since 1928. Trotsky testified that Dreitzer had never been close to him and that he had even forgotten his name until reminded of it by his wife. (PC 89-90.) He denied that Dreitzer had established contact with him in 1931, or that he had ever heard anything from Sedov about Dreitzer. He denied that he had sent Dreitzer the letter written in invisible ink which Dreitzer testified he received. (PC 224.)
§ 52. Leon Sedov testified that he had never seen or known Dreitzer, although he knew that in 1927, shortly before Trotsky’s deportation, Dreitzer had been a member of Trotsky’s bodyguard, and that Dreitzer had been in the Left Opposition from 1923 or 1924. He denied that any meeting had ever taken place between them either in 1931 or at any other time. He also denied having sent the letter in invisible ink which Dreitzer alleged he had received from him, and pointed out that Dreitzer had failed to give exact details concerning the place of transmission of this letter or the identity of Sedov’s alleged agent. He also pointed out that Dreitzer would have had to develop the ink in order to discover the letter, and that elementary precaution would have dictated its being recopied in invisible ink before being sent on to Mrachkovsky, who was some 4,000 kilometers away,[7] in exile and therefore under the surveillance of the Soviet police. But if the letter had been recopied, said Sedov, Mrachkovsky would not have been able to recognize Trotsky’s handwriting, as he testified he did (ZK 43). Therefore, he argued, the letter was obviously a concoction, with the object of fabricating false proof against Trotsky and at the same time involving himself. (CR 25-6.)
§ 53. There is agreement between the trial record on the one hand and Trotsky and Sedov on the other, that Dreitzer had been a member of Trotsky’s bodyguard, although Trotsky and Sedov do not state that Dreitzer was the chief of this bodyguard. Dreitzer’s testimony to his alleged conversations with Sedov on Smirnov’s instruction is not only not confirmed by Smirnov himself, but it is denied by Sedov. Dreitzer’s testimony, corroborated by Mrachkovsky, that he received a letter from Trotsky in 1934, is denied by Trotsky, and by Sedov, through whose agent it was allegedly received.
§ 54. We have seen (§ 49) that according to Dreitzer the purpose of his alleged mission to Sedov in the autumn of 1931 was to ascertain Trotsky’s attitude on the question of a bloc between the Trotskyites and Zinovievites; and that his is the only testimony to this alleged mission (§ 50). It is pertinent to consider this testimony in relation to that of other accused on the formation of the alleged bloc. We have already noted (§§ 34-6) the contradictions in this testimony, as they bear upon the credibility of the alleged conspiracy. We shall confine ourselves here to those aspects of it which bear upon the credibility of Dreitzer’s confession.
According to both Zinoviev and Ter-Vaganyan, negotiations for the formation of a bloc were begun in 1931. Zinoviev stated that he conferred with Smirnov at that time concerning a union on the basis of terrorism, and that this was done on Trotsky’s instructions (ZK 72). Ter-Vaganyan stated that in the autumn of 1931 the Trotskyites began negotiations for union with the Zinovievites, “after Smirnov came back from Berlin,” and that the terroristic stand was clear “because the instructions had already been brought” (ZK 110-11). And during the examination of Smirnov, according to the record,
it appears ... that the formation of the bloc was the result of direct negotiations ... on the basis of the first instructions on terror received by Smirnov from Trotsky through Sedov in 1931. (ZK 83.)
If this testimony is true, then there does not appear to have been any reason for Smirnov’s sending Dreitzer to Sedov in order to ascertain Trotsky’s attitude toward the formation of a bloc.
On the other hand, Mrachkovsky is quoted in the indictment as having testified that Smirnov, in the middle of 1932,
put before our leading trio the question of the necessity of uniting our organization with the Zinoviev-Kamenev and Shatskin-Lominadze groups ... It was then decided to consult L. Trotsky on this question and to obtain his directions... . (ZK 21.)
During the trial Mrachkovsky stated that Smirnov raised this question in the second half of 1932, argued in favor of a bloc, and at that time sent a letter through Holtzman, putting the matter before Trotsky (ZK 41-2).
If Mrachkovsky’s testimony (which according to the indictment was “fully confirmed” by Dreitzer himself – ZK 22) is to be accepted as true, then it seems highly unlikely that Smirnov would have sent Dreitzer in the autumn of 1931 to put before Trotsky a question which he did not put before his fellow “Trotskyites” until more than half a year later, and concerning which he then questioned Trotsky in a letter sent through Holtzman.
Thus, taken in connection with either of the two foregoing accounts, the alleged mission of Dreitzer appears meaningless and improbable from the record itself. Nor does his testimony gain in appearance of credibility from his having “fully confirmed” Mrachkovsky’s testimony which, if his own story is to be believed, he must have known to be false. It stands, moreover, as a bare statement, unsubstantiated by the slightest detail concerning the means by which he got in touch with Sedov, or any information about their two alleged conversations beyond Sedov’s assurance that “Trotsky’s instruction would be sent on later.” We note that Holtzman, who really did convey a message to Sedov from Smirnov, was able to state how he got in touch with him, and the password by which he identified himself. It is reasonable to assume that if Smirnov had also sent Dreitzer to Sedov, he would have given him the telephone number and the password with which he supplied Holtzman.
§ 55. Dreitzer’s testimony concerning his alleged visit to Sedov is thus open to the gravest doubt on the basis of the trial record alone, without consideration of extrinsic evidence.
Its truth or falsehood obviously depends in the last analysis upon that of the charge against Smirnov, whose alleged agent he was. We have already stated (§ 46) our conclusion that Sedov never conveyed to Smirnov any “opinions” or instructions on terrorism either on his own behalf or on Trotsky’s. Therefore, Smirnov could have projected no “Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc” in pursuance of those instructions. Therefore, we find that Dreitzer’s testimony concerning his alleged mission from Smirnov to Sedov in 1931 is false.
§ 56. Concerning Trotsky’s alleged letter in invisible ink, the Prosecutor failed to ask the most obvious and necessary questions. The indictment states that Dreitzer handed this letter to Mrachkovsky (ZK 22). From Dreitzer’s testimony we learn that he received it in October, 1934, and “at once” passed it on to Mrachkovsky (ZK 52). But Mrachkovsky testified that he received it in December, 1934, while in Kazakhstan (ZK 43). Where did Dreitzer receive it? And if he handed it to Mrachkovsky “at once,” then why did Mrachkovsky receive it only in December? If Dreitzer did not hand it to Mrachkovsky but sent it to him, then by what means? Sedov correctly argues that Dreitzer would have had to develop the letter in order to “discover it.” Moreover, if he had not read it he could not have remembered its contents. Mrachkovsky, on the other hand, could not have recognized Trotsky’s writing unless he had received the original letter. But to send such a letter several thousand miles, and to an exile, must surely have been extremely dangerous.
No witnesses were summoned to testify on this important matter. Nor did Vyshinsky summon Dreitzer’s sister to tell what agent of Sedov’s delivered the letter to her, how he got in touch with her, how Sedov knew she was in Warsaw, etc. We are thus asked to believe two hearsay versions of the alleged contents of an incriminating letter which appears to have been twice transmitted under the most doubtful conditions. We refer our readers to § 47 of this report, which applies to this letter equally with that allegedly received by Smirnov. We should be justified in assuming from the record of the trial alone that this alleged letter to Dreitzer never existed. But since Dreitzer was allegedly connected with the “terrorist line” through Smirnov (ZK 51-2), it follows that if the testimony connecting Smirnov with that line is false as we hold it to be (§§ 46, 48) there remains no basis for the assumption that Dreitzer was drawn into a terrorist conspiracy by Smirnov, and consequently none for a belief that he was drawn into a terrorist conspiracy at all. Thus the doubt inspired by the record itself concerning the existence of the letter containing terrorist instructions which he allegedly received from Trotsky, is converted into certainty that such a letter never existed.
§ 57. On the basis of all the evidence we find that Dreitzer never acted as a go-between for Smirnov and Sedov for the purposes of a terrorist conspiracy; and that he never received from terrorist instructions om Trotsky through Sedov or anyone else.
§ 58. The third basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the August trial is the confession of the accused E. S. Holtzman. We have already considered in Chapter X of this report Holtzman’s testimony that he acted as an emissary from Smirnov to Sedov. On the basis of the conclusions stated in that chapter we find that Holtzman never acted as a liaison man between Smirnov and Sedov for the purposes of any terrorist conspiracy.
§ 59. Holtzman also testified that at Sedov’s suggestion he arranged to meet him in Copenhagen during Trotsky’s stay in that city in the autumn of 1932. According to Holtzman:
Sedov said to me: “As you are going to the U.S.S.R., it would be a good thing if you came with me to Copenhagen where my father is....” I agreed, but I told him that we could not go together for reasons of secrecy. I arranged with Sedov to be in Copenhagen within two or three days, to put up at the Hotel Bristol and meet him there. I went to the hotel straight from the station and in the lounge met Sedov. About 10 A.M. we went to see Trotsky. (ZK 100.)
Trotsky, he said, gave him terrorist instructions (§ 36) and told him he was preparing a letter for Smirnov, but since Holtzman was leaving that day would not write it. Since Trotsky could not put his instruction in writing, said Holtzman,
... I accepted it in verbal form and communicated the exact sense of it on my arrival in Moscow. (ZK 101.)
He did not state to whom he communicated the sense of it. But the passage just quoted follows a previous statement that Trotsky told him to deliver the alleged instructions to Smirnov and no one else. The Prosecutor did not ask Smirnov whether or not he received this message from Holtzman; and in his summation he himself misrepresented the record, apparently in order to discredit both Smirnov and Holtzman:
Holtzman ... said that he had received these instructions, but did not communicate them; and you think this can be believed. (ZK 158.)
During his conversation with Trotsky, Holtzman testified,
very often Trotsky’s son Sedov came in and out of the room. (ZK 100.)
And it was Sedov, according to Holtzman, who brought about the termination of the interview:
At that moment Sedov came in and began hurrying us to finish the conversation.... (ZK 101.)
§ 60. Leon Trotsky testified that he was in Copenhagen from November 23 to December 2, 1932; that he went there from Turkey at the invitation of the Social Democratic Students, for the purpose of giving a lecture on the Russian Revolution (PC 29); that he was accompanied by his wife, his secretary, Jan Frankel, a French friend, P. Frank, a German friend, Oscar (full name in our possession); that an American couple, the Fields, accompanied his party on the ship from Turkey to Marseille; that in Copenhagen his party occupied a villa of five or six rooms and lived strictly incognito; that his friends organized a guard of five or six persons for both day and night, and this guard controlled all visits to him so that it would have been impossible for anyone who wished to see him simply to walk into his room. (PC 135-9.) He testified that he did not know whether or not he ever knew E. S. Holtzman, since there were several Holtzmans in the Bolshevik Party, but that he had been in communication with no one of that name since his exile (PC g1). Since, however, E. S. Holtzman met his son Sedov in Berlin in 1932 and gave him, as he, Trotsky, subsequently learned, some factual reports about the situation in the U.S.S.R. which were published in the Bulletin, this, he said, might be interpreted as an indirect communication (PC 592). He denied that he had seen anyone by the name of Holtzman during his stay in Copenhagen (PC 139). He identified twenty-seven people who were with him or visited him during that period and stated that his only Russian-speaking visitor was one Senin (Sobolevitzius), one of two brothers who later organized a split in the Trotskyist organization in Berlin (PC 137-40).
Trotsky denied that his son, Sedov, was in Copenhagen at any time during his stay there, but affirmed that his son’s wife was there. His son, he said, was in Berlin at the time, and he was in daily contact with him by telephone. He declared that Sedov met him in Paris on December 6, 1932, having received a visa from the French government in consequence of a telegraphic request from Mrs. Trotsky to Herriot, the French Prime Minister. Trotsky testified that he then saw his son for the first time since Sedov’s departure from Prinkipo for Berlin in February, 1931. (PC 140, 145, 593.)
Trotsky also stated that the villa occupied by his party was that of a dancer, and that its furnishings were so peculiar that anyone visiting him must have been struck by them; yet not one of the accused in the Moscow trial who allegedly visited him in Copenhagen mentioned his surroundings (PC 172). He further called attention to the failure of these witnesses to mention the false report of the death of one of the leaders of the alleged terrorist conspiracy, Zinoviev, which appeared in the press at that time (PC 147).
§ 61. Trotsky’s testimony was fully corroborated by his secretary, Jan Frankel, who testified before the Preliminary Commission that he made the trip to Copenhagen with Trotsky and was constantly with him during his stay there, described the organization of the guard, and stated that no one could have seen Trotsky without his knowledge, since all decisions concerning the admission of visitors were made by Trotsky, Raymond Molinier and himself. He stated that Trotsky’s address in Copenhagen, a villa on Dalgas Boulevard, was known only to a Mr. Boeggild, since deceased, a Danish Social Democrat who had charge of the arrangements for Trotsky’s lecture; to the Chief of Police; and to Trotsky’s close friends.
Frankel said that Trotsky and his wife occupied one bedroom on the upper floor of the villa, and their daughter-in-law, Jeanne Martin des Pallières, shared the other with Lucienne Tedeschi. The remaining room, which was very small, was used by Trotsky as a study. Some visitors, he said, saw Trotsky alone, but before they entered they were first identified and announced, and in order to reach Trotsky’s study they were obliged to pass by the guard of five or six people on the ground floor. He said that Trotsky never left the house alone. One day, he testified, when it was thought that journalists had found out his address, Trotsky went to a little pension, accompanied by Raymond Molinier, Oscar, and Gérard Rosenthal. Frankel testified that he frequently talked by telephone to Sedov in Berlin during that period about Sedov’s attempts to get to Copenhagen. (PC 158-165.)
§ 62. Leon Sedov denied that he invited Holtzman to go to Copenhagen and declared that he himself had never been in Copenhagen in his life (CR 11). He stated that the passport for foreigners with which he had been provided in Berlin was good only from August 31 to November 1, 1932; that after that date he could not have left Germany with a regular visa from the Danish authorities, without a renewal of his permit to reside in Germany; that he did not secure this renewal until December 3, 1932, the day after Trotsky’s departure from Copenhagen; that on that same date he received a French visa, in consequence of a telegraphic request from his mother to the French Premier, Herriot; and that he went to Paris, where he met his parents. He stated that while his parents were in Copenhagen he was in daily communication with them by telephone from Berlin. (CR 12-13.) He presented his passport to the Commission Rogatoire which, after examining it,
acknowledged that what he had just said was clearly apparent from the data contained in the passport. (CR 12.)
Sedov also stated that
... there can no longer be any doubt whatever that the Hotel Bristol of Copenhagen was closed in 1917, and that no hotel of that name existed in Copenhagen in 1932. Some months after the trial there was talk of a mistake that had occurred and that the non-existent hotel had been confused with a pastry shop which apparently existed in Copenhagen in 1932. But it is obvious, in my opinion, that this attempt to correct the evident lie of Holtzman does not tally with his very clear statement that we met in the lobby of the hotel; pastry shops do not have lobbies. (CR 12.)
He further (CR 22) called attention to a passage in the record of the trial, also cited before the Preliminary Commission (PC 172), in which the defendant Olberg, whom he knew in Berlin and who was in a better position than other defendants to be informed concerning his comings and goings at that period, stated:
Before my departure for the Soviet Union I intended to go to Copenhagen with Sedov to see Trotsky. Our trip did not materialize, but Suzanna, Sedov’s wife, went there.... (ZK 87.)
Sedov called attention to the failure of the prosecution to make any attempt to clarify this irreconcilable contradiction between Olberg’s testimony and that of Holtzman (CR 22).
§ 63. Three witnesses testified before the Commission Rogatoire concerning Sedov’s alleged trip to Copenhagen and other matters connected with the charges against Trotsky and Sedov. Eugene Bauer,[8] a German physician living in Paris, testified that he belonged to the Trotskyite movement until 1934, when he “withdrew from it after a rather heated polemic” and joined the German Socialist Workers’ Party. He stated that at the time of Trotsky’s visit to Copenhagen he was on intimate terms with Sedov; and that he conversed with him daily in Berlin by telephone, from the time of Trotsky’s arrival in Copenhagen, concerning his own proposed trip to that city. Sedov having finally given up hope of going with him, Bauer said, he himself left for Copenhagen on December i with one Sobolevich (Sobolevitzius, Senin; § 60), who was at that time a comrade but has since become an agent of the GPU. He arrived in Copenhagen, he said, at 6 A.M. on December 2, and left at 11 A.M. with Trotsky for Esbjerg. He left Esbjerg for Berlin on the morning of December 3, and on his arrival there telephoned Sedov. The witness showed the sub-commission his German passport, which bore two stamps of the Danish police, one dated December 2, 1932, and another dated December 3, 1932, but no German stamps.[9] (CR 44.)
In a written deposition certified by the Special Committee, Bauer states that Sedov saw him off from the station in Berlin on the evening of December 1, and that he telephoned Sedov in Berlin on the evening of December 3. He also states that Sedov was not in Esbjerg during his stay there. (PC Exh. 16, S II/8.)
§ 64. Alexandra Pfemfert (Alexandra Ramm, Trotsky’s German translator – PC 95) testified that during the two or three years Sedov lived in Berlin he received his mail at the address of herself and her husband; that since his mail consisted chiefly of letters from his father, not a day passed without his coming to their home to get his letters or telephoning to find out whether there was any; that at the time of Trotsky’s stay in Copenhagen Sedov came not only once but even twice a day. She testified that the influential lawyer Cohn, who has since died in Palestine, made vain efforts to secure a visa for Sedov (see also Trotsky’s testimony – PC 138). She declared that she could state quite definitely that Sedov was able to leave Berlin for Paris only at the end of Trotsky’s stay in Copenhagen. (CR 48-9.)
§ 65. Franz Pfemfert testified that he lived for many years in Berlin; that immediately after the war he belonged to the Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1921 or 1922; that he then continued to adhere to the Spartacist movement, but belongs to no political movement at present. He fully corroborated his wife’s testimony summarized above. (CR 50.)
§ 66. B. J. and Esther Field of New York testified before the New York sub-commission that they had been members of the Communist League of America, which was part of the International Left Opposition to which Leon Trotsky belonged; that they joined this organization in 1931 and were expelled in 1934; that they went to Prinkipo in August of 1932 to work with Leon Trotsky, and remained there until the middle of November, when they left on the same ship with Trotsky for Copenhagen; that they did not go from Marseille to Copenhagen with Trotsky, but travelled separately and arrived in Copenhagen on November 23; that in Copenhagen they went daily to work at Trotsky’s house immediately after breakfast and remained there until eight or nine o'clock in the evening; that during the time they were in Trotsky’s house they saw no visitor by the name of Holtzman; and that they were sure Trotsky had no Russian visitors. They stated that they knew Senin (Sobolevitzius) visited Trotsky, but that Senin was a member of the German Trotskyite organization, and not a Russian. They testified that they met Leon Sedov in Berlin in June or July of 1932 and saw him frequently during their two weeks’ stay; that they saw Sedov’s wife in Copenhagen but that Sedov himself was not there; that Trotsky, to their knowledge, often talked by telephone with Sedov in Berlin during that period. (NY 3-29, 37, 51-58, 71-72.)
Mr. and Mrs. Field also testified that they stayed at the Grand Hotel during their sojourn in Copenhagen and that there was a candy store in the same street as that hotel but not adjacent to it, since there were shops between the entrance of the hotel and that of the candy store. Mrs. Field stated that this candy store was called “Bristol.” Mr. Field did not remember the name. (NY 8, 14-16, 54-5.) Mrs. Field was shown a copy of Soviet Russia Today, introduced before the Preliminary Commission (Exh. 16, II, Annex 3), in which appears what purports to be a photograph of the Grand Hotel and the Konditori Bristol in Copenhagen. The witness declared that the photograph appeared to her to have been tampered with, and did not properly represent the relation between the Grand Hotel and the Bristol Confectionery as she remembered it. She declared that the candy shop was farther from the hotel than it appeared to be in the photograph; also that there was a large sign over the Grand Hotel surmounted by a crown, and that this sign did not clearly show in the picture. She also called attention to a black spot on the photograph which she said covered up a café connected with the hotel. (NY 32-5.)
§ 67. The documentary evidence introduced before the Preliminary Commission and the Commission Rogatoire bearing on the testimony of those witnesses in the August trial who claimed to have seen Trotsky in Copenhagen, is very voluminous. Exclusive of numerous excerpts from the Danish press, Exhibit 16 – on Copenhagen – alone of the Preliminary Commission contains 67 documents accepted in evidence. And there are documents in other exhibits which bear in whole or in part on this testimony. Therefore, we are able to cite only the most important items. The same method will be followed in making use of other documentary material in this case. The material itself will be published in a subsequent volume.
§ 68. The most important documents in our possession bearing on Holtzman’s testimony are as follows:
(1) Two notebooks and one examination paper, bearing stamps and signatures of professors, showing Sedov’s presence at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin on November 25 and 27, 1932. Sedov testified that the examination took place on November 26, and that it was on the 27th that the paper was marked and the notation made of the grade given him (CR 14). These documents were shown by him to the Commission Rogatoire and were later introduced in evidence by Leon Trotsky. (PC 590; Exh. 16, S II/10, a, b, c.)
(2) Sedov’s attendance-book, bearing on its cover the printed title Belegbuch far Stud., Technische Hochschule, Berlin, and bearing on three separate pages the signature of Professor Han-ner, with a stamp, November 29, 1932; also on the seventh page a stamp, November 25, 1932, and an illegible signature (CR Exh. 15).
(3) Photostats of the pages of the passport shown by Sedov to the Commission Rogatoire, having on page 7 a permit to remain in Germany (Aufenthaltserlaubnis) dated August 31, 1932, and good until December 1, 1932; and on page 10 a renewal dated December 3, 1932, and good until January 2, 1933; also, on page 11, a permit to leave and return to Germany, dated December 3, 1932, and good until December 17, 1932; also, on page 13, a French visa dated December 3, 1932, and good for five days; also, on the same page, a stamp of entry affixed at the French border, dated December 4, 1932. (PC Exh. 16, II/1, a.)
(4) A holograph letter from Leon Trotsky to Leon Sedov, written on two pages from a small notebook, and beginning:
Dear Liovoussiatka, so it seems that we shall not succeed in meeting; between the arrival of the boat at Dunkerque and the departure of the boat from Marseille, there is just time to cross France. To wait for the next boat (a whole week!) will not, of course, be permitted us... .
The letter ends with the words:
Mother embraces you (she is still in bed; it is seven o'clock in the morning), she will probably write to you today. (Ibid., S II 9.)
Above the signature appears the date, 3/X11, 1932, and the words, kaiuta parokhoda (cabin on board ship).
(5) A postcard (holograph) from Natalia Sedov-Trotsky to her son, bearing the postmark “Esbjerg 3/12/32” and addressed to Frau F. Pfemfert at a Berlin address. (This postcard corroborates the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Pfemfert that Sedov’s mail was sent to their address-§§ 64, 65.) It begins:
My darling Levik: This morning papa sent you a brief note, written in haste, through Erwin.[10]
Mrs. Trotsky expresses her grief at having been unable to see her son in Copenhagen, and ends:
I would have so much liked to receive your letters. Where did you send them? ... I want to continue hoping that a “miracle” will occur and that we shall see each other. (Ibid., S II/13.)
(6) Six holograph letters by Leon Sedov to his mother at Copenhagen. Five of these letters were shown by Sedov to the Commission Rogatoire (CR 15), and the six letters were later transmitted to the Commission by Leon Trotsky. A letter to the Commission from Natalia Sedov-Trotsky states that some, if not all, of these letters were ultimately delivered to her, if not by mail then through comrades, and if not at Copenhagen then in Prinkipo. The fact that the letters which she received were in her son’s archives she explains with the statement that when she and her husband were expelled from France (PC 31-2) they left their archives in their son’s care.
These letters are dated November 21, November 26 (three), November 28, and December 2, 1932 (PC Exh. 16 SII/11, a-f). The first begins,
My dears! In about 36 hours you will find yourself but a few hours from Berlin; however, I cannot come to see you! The Germans have not yet given me permission for continued residence, without which I can neither have a Danish visa nor will I be able to return to Berlin.
One of the letters of November 26 contains the following passage:
If you are able to extend your visa, I hope to come to you in ten to fourteen days, perhaps earlier.
(7) A copy of a telegram from Natalia Sedov-Trotsky to Premier Herriot, dated Copenhagen December 1, 1932, requesting him to authorize a visa for her son so that he may meet her on her way through France; also a copy of a telegram from the French Foreign Office to the French Consulate in Berlin, dated December 3, 1932, authorizing the visa (Ibid., II/2, a, b).[11]
(8) Depositions of people who were in contact with Sedov in Berlin during Trotsky’s stay in Copenhagen. Among these is an affidavit (Prague) by Anna Grylewicz. Mrs. Grylewicz states that her husband, Anton Grylewicz, was the organizational leader of the Trotskyist group in Berlin, publisher of numerous pamphlets by Leon Trotsky and also of the Bulletin of the Opposition, on which Leon Sedov worked; that all correspondence relating to these matters was addressed to their home, which was also the office of the German group; that she and her husband were in daily contact with Sedov, either personally or by telephone; that during her husband’s absence in Copenhagen, from November 22 to December 1, 1932, Sedov called her up daily and she talked with him about the mail that had been received, therefore she knows that Sedov was in Berlin during the entire period of her husband’s absence; that several days after her husband’s return from Copenhagen, Sedov left for Paris, where he stayed for about a week. (Ibid., II/4.)
(9) Depositions of people who were with Trotsky during his stay in Copenhagen. Among these are the following:
(a) A statement by Raymond Molinier, editor, present political adversary of Leon Trotsky (PC 175, 190), certified by the Special Committee (§ 11, 6). Molinier says that he was charged with the arrangements for Trotsky’s sojourn in Copenhagen, and that on his way there he passed through Berlin to consult Sedov. At that time Sedov informed him that he was unable to go to Copenhagen. Molinier states:
I remember very well his refusal to go to Denmark illegally in view of his precarious situation in relation to the Prussian Social-Democratic authorities... .
Molinier says that he arrived in Copenhagen on November 19, 1932, and that he rented in his own name a furnished villa for Trotsky at 155 Dalgas Boulevard, belonging to an artist who was leaving Copenhagen for several months. He says that Trotsky was never alone in the house; that
during his entire stay comrade Jan Frankel and I were responsible for his security. In agreement with him we arranged all matters concerning all visits he would have to make and those he should receive. We therefore knew exactly the comrades having interviews with him and the visits he had; there was no kind of visit from anyone named Holtzman or from anyone unknown to us.
Molinier mentions the press report of Zinoviev’s death and says that several comrades asked Trotsky to give his opinion of Zinoviev. This he did in a brief talk
... in which he recalled Zinoviev’s services to the Russian Revolution, but dissociated himself quite definitely from Zinoviev’s zigzags during the Revolution and during the oppositional struggle in Russia.
He states that he took Trotsky and his wife for some drives and that he accompanied Trotsky on a visit to Stauning, president of the Social Democratic Council, to discuss his application for an extension of his visa. He corroborates Frankel’s statements concerning Trotsky’s activities in Copenhagen, his brief visit to a pension near the city, and the telephone conversations to Sedov in Berlin. Mr. Molinier says that he flew from Copenhagen to Le Bourget after Trotsky’s departure from Copenhagen, met him at Dunkerque and travelled with him to Marseille. He states that in Paris at the Gare du Nord they met Sedov, who also accompanied his parents to Marseille. (PC Exh. 16, I/19.)
(b) A deposition by Pierre Naville, journalist, of Paris, certified by the Special Committee, states that Naville was with Trotsky throughout his stay in Copenhagen, having met him at Esbjerg upon his arrival in Denmark, and that he returned with him to Dunkerque on the steamship “Bernsdorff.” The testimony of this witness confirms that of Trotsky, Frankel and Molinier concerning Trotsky’s life and activities in Copenhagen and the organization of his guard. He describes the house in detail, states that it belonged to a dancer, that it was full of knick-knacks and little pieces of furniture in frightful taste, and that no one would be able to forget the numerous photographs of the dancer on the walls of the rooms. The telephone, he says, was in the small vestibule of the villa, and over this telephone Trotsky and his wife had several conversations with Sedov in Berlin. He states that Bauer and Senin arrived on the morning of December 2, and that because the preparations for departure prevented a discussion Bauer accompanied Trotsky to Esbjerg. (Ibid., 16, I/2.)
The statements in this deposition are confirmed by the following people who were also with Trotsky during that period: Denise Naville, Julien (full name in our possession), Lucienne Tedeschi, Feroci, Gérard Rosenthal. All of these people were identified by Leon Trotsky in his testimony before the Preliminary Commission (PC 137).
(c) A deposition by Oscar (also known as Otto; identified
§ 55) certified by the Special Committee, in which he states he made the trip from Istanbul to Denmark with Trotsky as one of his secretaries. Oscar’s testimony corroborates that cited above. He says:
Since I was almost constantly in Trotsky’s house, I met every single visitor. Holtzman, Berman-Yurin and Fritz David were absolutely not among the visitors.... Sedov, Trotsky’s son, was not in Copenhagen.... I personally knew Sedov very well ... it is absolutely out of the question that Sedov could have been in Copenhagen without my knowing it. I met him only on the morning of December 6 in Paris at the Gare de Lyon, when he entered Trotsky’s compartment. Sedov travelled with Trotsky to Marseille. (PC Exh. 16, I/3.)
(d) The wife of Leon Sedov, Jeanne Martin des Pallières, in a deposition certified by the Special Committee, corroborates the testimony quoted above concerning Sedov’s failure to get to Copenhagen, and her own presence there; also concerning Trotsky’s life in Copenhagen, his activities, and the organization of his guard, and concerning Mrs. Trotsky’s telegram to Herriot. She says that when she arrived in Copenhagen she did not know the address of Trotsky and his wife, which was being kept secret, and had a long wait before she found a comrade who could conduct her to their house. She further testifies that she talked with her husband a couple of times from Copenhagen to Berlin. She states that at the end of Trotsky’s stay in Copenhagen she went to Paris, travelling by way of Hamburg with Lucienne Tedeschi. In Paris her husband joined her and they accompanied Leon Trotsky and his wife to Marseille and from there to the Italian frontier. (PC Exh. 16, I/18, a.) Her testimony that she went to Paris through Hamburg is corroborated by a postcard, stamped “Hamburg 3/12/32,” addressed to Mme. Martin des Pallières, in Paris, and signed “Jeanne” (Ibid., I/18, b).
(e) Jeanne des Pallières’ testimony concerning her trip to Paris from Copenhagen is corroborated by Lucienne Tedeschi in a deposition certified by the Special Committee. This witness also states that she several times obtained the telephone connection from Copenhagen to Sedov in Berlin for Natalia Trotsky. (Ibid., I/13.)
(f) Anton Grylewicz (identified in 6 above), in an affidavit (Prague) states that he was with Trotsky in Copenhagen from November 23 to December 1, 1932. He corroborates the witnesses quoted above concerning the method of introducing visitors to Trotsky, and states that during his stay in Copenhagen no one who spoke Russian visited Trotsky. Concerning Sedov’s absence he says:
Trotsky’s son, L. Sedov, was not in Copenhagen, a fact which I can confirm under oath. I was in the same house with Trotsky every day and I know that Trotsky as well as his wife and the wife of Sedov telephoned to Sedov every day. I myself twice took advantage of these conversations to speak with Sedov. My wife, who during my absence spoke directly or over the telephone with Sedov every day, communicated in many letters sent me at Copenhagen her conversations with him. (Ibid., I/4.)
(g) Gérard Rosenthal, Trotsky’s French lawyer (PC 137), in a deposition certified by the Special Committee, states that he accompanied Trotsky to Copenhagen and back to France. He corroborates the testimony quoted above concerning Trotsky’s life in Copenhagen, his guard, etc. Rosenthal, however, differs from other witnesses in that he does not mention Trotsky’s having used a small room on the second floor as a study. Instead he describes a bedroom where he says Trotsky remained most of the time. He corroborates the testimony given above concerning the absence of Sedov, whom he says he knew personally; also concerning the telegram sent to Herriot by Natalia Sedov-Trotsky. (Ibid., I/9.)
(10) Certified photographs, and print of the architect’s drawings, of the villa at 155 Dalgas Boulevard, Copenhagen-Frederiksberg; with a certification by the Frederiksberg Kommunes Tekniske Forvaltning that the plan correctly represents the villa as it was in 1932. This material confirms descriptions of the villa by various witnesses. (Ibid., S I/20, 21.)
(11) An affidavit (Copenhagen) by Alfred Kruse, assistant to the Central Tax Control, a department of the Danish Ministry of Finance. Mr. Kruse states that he offers his testimony in order to show how difficult it was even for Communists and persons intimately acquainted with Russian questions to get in touch with Trotsky during his stay in Copenhagen. He says that although during the early years of the war he had known intimately several members of the Bolshevik Party, especially Bukharin and Pyatakov, and had even twice travelled to Russia on secret missions for the Bolsheviks, his letter requesting an interview with Trotsky in Copenhagen remained unanswered; that he had great difficulty even in obtaining a ticket for Trotsky’s lecture and was able to hear it only because he finally secured a press card. In consequence of these difficulties, Mr. Kruse concludes that it was quite impossible to see Trotsky in Copenhagen without obtaining permission from the people who surrounded him; therefore there must be many such people who are in a position to confirm or deny Holtzman’s testimony that he saw Trotsky in Copenhagen. (Ibid., S I/22.)
(12) Documents bearing upon the question of the Hotel Bristol:
(a) An affidavit (Copenhagen) by Alfred Kruse (identified above) stating that he was born in Copenhagen and grew up in that section of the city where the Hotel Bristol was situated; that the Bristol was well known to foreign tourists; that when the Russian Imperial ships visited Denmark, the officers met in the restaurant of the Hotel Bristol, which must therefore have been well known in Russian pre-revolutionary official circles and was probably included in tourists’ handbooks; that the hotel was closed in 1917 and its premises transformed into offices. (Ibid., S II, Annex 6.)
(b) A photograph of the old Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen, from För og Nu, 1917, p. 337, with the original caption, which states that the Bristol was built in 1901-2, and that after 15 years it has gone out of business, and the building has been sold to the Absalon Insurance Company, which will transform it into offices. (Ibid., S II, Annex 5.)
(c) Soviet Russia Today, New York, March, 1937, having on page 7 what purports to be a radio-photograph of the Konditori Bristol and the Grand Hotel in Copenhagen. (Ibid., II, Annex 3.) This is the photograph shown to Mrs. Field (§ 66).
(d) Two photographs of the Konditori Bristol and the Grand Hotel, transmitted to the Commission by A. Vikelsoe Jensen of Copenhagen, which show a newspaper kiosk and two shops between the confectionery and the hotel, where the photograph cited above shows black; also, over the entrance to the hotel, a horizontal electric sign, “Grand Hotel,” and between two large windows an entrance to the café, which do not appear in the photograph from Soviet Russia Today. (Ibid., S II, Annex 7, b, c.)
These two photographs corroborate the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Field concerning the relation between the Grand Hotel and the Bristol Café or Confectionery. However, Jensen writes us that in 1932 the Confectionery was, as he remembers it, situated where the two shops are today.
(e) An affidavit (Copenhagen) by A. Vikelsoe Jensen, who states that he was a member of the Social Democratic Students’ group which invited Trotsky to Copenhagen. Jensen refers to a ground-plan of the Bristol Confectionery and the Grand Hotel which appeared in Arbeiderbladet (organ of the Communist Party, Copenhagen) on January 29, 1937, and which, he says, entirely misrepresents the relation between the two. He states that the entrance to the Confectionery was not immediately beside the newspaper kiosk shown between that entrance and the entrance to the hotel, but farther to the right, so that in order to reach the Confectionery it was necessary to go through shops at the right which were to be seen from the street. The two enterprises, he says, were conducted entirely separately, although the proprietor of the Confectionery was the wife of the proprietor of the hotel. There was at that time a door connecting the lobby of the hotel with the service-rooms of the Confectionery; but it was chiefly used by the personnel of the hotel, and only rarely by guests. According to the Hotel Inspector, he says, a normal person could never confuse the two concerns, and therefore no “Hotel Bristol” could result from such a confusion. In 1936, he states, the Confectionery was moved one house to the right, making room for three shops. (Ibid., S II, Annex 6.)
This affidavit appears to contradict Jensen’s letter, quoted above. If the café in 1932 occupied the place where the two shops are today, then in order for shops to have been situated between the entrance to the hotel and that to the café, as stated by both Jensen and the Fields, they must have occupied a space in front of the café.
§ 69. In our opinion, Trotsky correctly argues (PC 522) that the failure of the Prosecutor to question Holtzman on what passport he used to travel to Copenhagen, and how he obtained it, discredits both the trial and the Prosecutor himself. Holtzman, as a Soviet official, abroad on official business (ZK 98), could hardly have used his own passport without explaining his trip to his superiors. Moreover, if he had done so, then Vyshinsky, who introduced in evidence Olberg’s Honduran passport and Hrasche’s Czech passport of 1919, would surely have introduced Holtzman’s also, to show that he had really made the trip. If Holtzman used a false passport it was the Prosecutor’s duty to ascertain under what name he travelled, and what nationality he assumed. For as Trotsky argues,
Holtzman’s testimony could be verified immediately if we knew what passport he used in journeying from Berlin to Copenhagen. Can one imagine a court procedure in which the Prosecutor, under such circumstances, does not question the defendant about his passport? (PC 522.)
We also note the failure of the Prosecutor to remark the striking contradiction between Olberg’s testimony and Holtz-man’s concerning Sedov, a contradiction which could have escaped no Prosecutor in possession of his senses and at all interested in ascertaining the truth. As the record stands, one is almost forced to suspect that Holtzman, testifying the day after Olberg, placed Sedov in Copenhagen with the intent of indicating to the world that his testimony was false. Holtzman did not give Trotsky’s address or tell how he and Sedov went there; he said nothing of Trotsky’s surroundings or the people with him; and the Prosecutor asked him no questions. Nor did Vyshinsky ask Berman-Yurin and David, who both testified that they went to Copenhagen through Sedov, whether Sedov was there or not. Moreover, Vyshinsky did not ask Smirnov whether Holtzman delivered Trotsky’s alleged “verbal instructions,” and in contradiction of the record represented Holtzman as having denied that he did so. Thus even the record of the trial itself is far from convincing in this matter of Holtzman’s trip to Copenhagen – to which only Holtzman testified.
§ 70. The fact that there was no Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen in 1932 is now a matter of common knowledge. It would obviously, therefore, have been impossible for Holtzman to meet Sedov in the lobby of a Hotel Bristol. Yet Holtzman clearly stated that he arranged to “put up” at the Hotel Bristol and to meet Sedov there; and that they met in the lounge.
The Commission has already stated (§ 9) that having vainly solicited the participation of the Soviet government in its inquiry, it is obliged to regard the records of the trials as embodying the case for the prosecution. The speculations which have been widely circulated in the Comintern press and other publications friendly to the Soviet régime, to the effect that although there was no Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen Holtzman may really have meant the Bristol Café or Confectionery, are mere speculations and must remain so in view of the fact that the Soviet government, by executing Holtzman, has made it forever impossible for him to explain his falsehood. However, since they have been so widely disseminated and, with documents purporting to answer them, have been placed before us, we consider them here, even though they are not, strictly speaking, germane to the case for the prosecution, being in the nature of semi-official apologia.
There are the following possible explanations: (1) Holtzman might have arranged to meet Sedov in some hotel which he mistakenly remembered as the Bristol. (2) He might have arranged to meet him in the Bristol Confectionery. But if the English version of the record is correct, he arranged to “put up” at the Hotel Bristol – and one does not arrange to “put up” in a confectionery. Moreover, he stated that he met Sedov in the lounge. A plan showing the alleged relation in 1932 between the Bristol Confectionery and the Grand Hotel, from Rundschau (organ of the C.I.) No. 6, February, 1937, was introduced before the Preliminary Commission (PG Exh. 16, II, Annex 1). In this plan, which Rundschau offers in support of the theory that Holtzman referred to the Bristol Confectionery, the Confectionery has no lobby. This places one, as Trotsky argues (PC 520) in the position of having to decide whether the meeting took place “in the vestibule without the ‘Bristol’ or in the ‘Bristol’ without the vestibule.” (3) There is also the possibility that Holtzman confused the Grand Hotel with the Bristol Café. But such a mistake must have been bewildering to Sedov, who had never been in Copenhagen. Assuming he tried to meet Holtzman at a Hotel Bristol, he must have expressed surprise at finding him – one assumes after some difficulty – either in a “Bristol Confectionery” or a “Grand Hotel.” Under such circumstances, as Trotsky correctly argues, Holtzman could have made such an error only before the meeting. After the meeting, the confusion would have been impressed upon his mind and he could not, in the trial, have spoken of a meeting in the Bristol Hotel. (4) Rundschau’s theory is that of identification. It says that the “Café Bristol” has long been a meeting place for Danish and foreign Trotskyites, and draws from this the conclusion that to Trotskyites the name of the café must have been identical with that of the hotel. In the first place, the testimony we have quoted above indicates that the two establishments were clearly separate. In the second, it seems to us more probable that if the café were as well known to Trotskyists as Rundschau claims, they would not identify it with a separate establishment of another name. To illustrate, a great many foreigners are familiar with the famous Café de la Paix in Paris; but we doubt whether many of them know that it occupies the ground floor of the Grand Hotel and that the two even have the same address. One does not easily identify a well known café with a hotel of a different name even if they happen to be contiguous. Their uses are too different. But the identification of hotel and café in this case is obviously necessary to support the theory that Holtzman met Sedov in the Bristol Café, without at the same time invalidating his testimony that they met in a lounge.
It seems unlikely that Holtzman, as a Soviet official abroad on official business (ZK 98), a Soviet official moreover, whose “Trotskyite allegiance was kept a particularly profound secret” if the Prosecutor is to be believed (ZK 158), would have arranged to meet the son of Leon Trotsky in a notorious Trotskyite rendezvous, especially after having refused to travel with him “for reasons of secrecy.” It also seems unlikely that if the Café Bristol had been thus internationally known, it would have taken Rundschau five months to learn of its existence and its reputation.
§ 71. Thus the speculative rectification of Holtzman’s falsehood is not convincing. But of one thing we may be sure: Holtzman could not have met Sedov either in the Grand Hotel or the Bristol Confectionery unless Sedov was in Copenhagen. And the evidence proving that Sedov was not in Copenhagen during Trotsky’s sojourn is conclusive. First, we have his own statement and that of Trotsky that he was not in Copenhagen. Second, we have the testimony of four witnesses who state that they spoke with him daily in Berlin. Third, there is the testimony of those persons who either spoke with him by telephone from Copenhagen to Berlin or heard others do so. Fourth, there are his notebooks, exercise paper and attendance-book from the Technische Hochschule showing his attendance during that period. Fifth, there is his passport, which completely corroborates his testimony. Sixth, there are his letters to his mother, clearly showing that he was not with her. Seventh, there is Trotsky’s letter of December 3 to Sedov, indicating by its contents that Sedov had not met his parents in Copenhagen. Eighth, there is Natalia Sedov-Trotsky’s postcard, stamped Esbjerg, 3/12/32, indicating the same fact, and mentioning Trotsky’s letter. Ninth, there are the statements of people who were constantly with Trotsky, who knew Sedov, and who testify that they did not see him in Copenhagen and that he was not there. Tenth, there is the statement of the accused Olberg that he and Sedov had planned to go to Copenhagen together, but “our trip did not materialize.” And finally, there is Natalia Sedov-Trotsky’s telegram to Herriot, and that of the French Foreign Office to the Consulate in Berlin authorizing a visa for Sedov.
Even if we assume that Trotsky could have managed to see Holtzman without the knowledge of the friends who constantly surrounded him, the fact remains that Holtzman could not have been conducted to Trotsky by Sedov. But Holtzman is very precise in his testimony on this point, and also mentions Sedov’s frequent intrusions upon the conversation. He thus relegates the whole interview to the realm of the imaginary.
§ 72. We therefore hold the evidence to prove conclusively: (1) that Sedov was not in Copenhagen at the time of Trotsky’s visit to that city; (2) that Holtzman did not meet Sedov and go with him to see Trotsky; (3) that Holtzman did not see Trotsky in Copenhagen.
§ 73. The fourth basis of the charge against Trotsky and Sedov in the August trial is the testimony of the accused Valentine Olberg, who stated that he was a member of the German Trotskyite organization from 1927 or 1928; that his contact with Sedov began in 1930 and was arranged by Anton Grylewicz; that this contact was established by correspondence with Sedov, who passed Trotsky’s commissions on to Olberg. He testified that he met Sedov in May, 1931, when Sedov arrived in Berlin, and saw him frequently thereafter, either in a café on the Nürnbergerplatz or in Sedov’s apartment. (ZK 86-7.) He is quoted in the indictment as having testified during the preliminary hearings that he began active Trotskyite work at the beginning of 1930, that he was Trotsky’s emissary in Germany, that he maintained connections with the Soviet Union, using addresses which he had from Sedov. (ZK 23.) Olberg stated that:
The first time Sedov spoke to me about my journey was after Trotsky’s message in connection with Trotsky’s being deprived of the citizenship of the U.S.S.R.[12] In this message Trotsky developed the idea that it was necessary to assassinate Stalin. This idea was expressed in the following words: “Stalin must be removed.”
Sedov showed me the typewritten text of this message and said: “Well, now you see, it cannot be expressed in a clearer way. It is a diplomatic wording.” Sedov also said that it was necessary to send a number of people to the Soviet Union; it was then that Sedov proposed that I go to the U.S.S.R. He knew that I spoke Russian and he was sure that I could gain a foothold there. (ZK 87.)
He stated that not having definite citizenship he had difficulty about a passport, but was soon able to procure one in the name of Freudigmann; that before leaving for Russia he intended to go to Copenhagen with Sedov to meet Trotsky; that their trip did not materialize but that Sedov’s wife went, and on her return brought a letter from Trotsky agreeing to his trip and expressing the hope that he would succeed in carrying out his mission (ZK 87); that he went to Russia at the end of March, 1933, lived in Moscow for six weeks and then went to Stalinabad, where he obtained a position as teacher of history; but that
as he had no documents regarding military service, he was obliged to return abroad and went to Prague. (ZK 88.)
The purpose of his visit, he testified,
was to prepare and carry out the assassination of Comrade Stalin. (ZK 88.)
In Prague, Olberg said, he succeeded in procuring a Honduran passport (§ 17, 4a) through the aid of one Tukalevsky, “an agent of the fascist secret police,” with whom his younger brother Paul was connected. This arrangement, he said, was sanctioned by Trotsky, and the money for the passport, 13,000 Czech kronen, was provided by Sedov. Before going to Russia again, Olberg testified, he visited Berlin, where, on Tukalevsky’s advice, he saw one Slomovitz, whom he had known previously, and who told him that the German Trotskyists had come to an agreement with the fascists. (ZK 90.) (See §§ 194-201.)
In March, 1935, Olberg allegedly went again to Russia, but only on a tourist visa; therefore he had to return to Germany after a few days. Three months later, he testified, Sedov ordered him to make another attempt; and in July, 1935, he went again to Russia, remained in Minsk a short time and then went to Gorky, where
he soon obtained employment in the Gorky Pedagogical Institute, where he remained until his arrest. It was here, in Gorky, that plans were worked out for an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin. (ZK 90-1.)
Even before his arrival in Gorky, he said, he learned from Sedov that there was an underground Trotskyite movement in the U.S.S.R., whose leaders were Smirnov and Mrachkovsky. He also knew about Bakayev. (ZK 92.)
§ 74. Leon Trotsky testified as follows concerning Olberg:
He wrote me from Berlin – it was in 1929, I believe, or the beginning of 1930 – as many other young people from different countries, asking me information about the situation in Germany; and about the situation in Russia he also wrote. I answered the more or less serious letters I received. We had a correspondence over some months. All his letters are in my possession. I have copies of my answers also. During the sojourn of my son in Berlin – Leon Sedov – he came into relations with him and furnished me from time to time quotations from Russian books, Russian books from libraries, and some services. Then he wished to enter into collaboration with me as my Russian secretary. I needed a Russian secretary. I asked my friends in Berlin, Franz Pfemfert, the editor, and his wife, who is my translator in German, Alexandra Ramm, what was their opinion of the young man. They notified him to come and see them, and on that occasion, he made an absolutely negative impression. I have in my possession both letters. They describe him as a very doubtful young man, and maybe an agent of the GPU. (PC 94-5.)
Trotsky further testified that he never saw Olberg, and that all his relations with him were through political and theoretical correspondence (PC 95). Questioned about his communications with the Soviet Union he testified that his method was to write his opinions on post-cards and send them to trusts and known businesses; and that sometimes answers were received; that there were also three or four Russian comrades who helped to write postcards to friends of the Opposition in Siberia, containing general news; that articles from his Bulletin were also copied and sent in this way; that this method was used because post-cards were not so severely controlled as letters by the Soviet censorship; that it sometimes succeeded up to 1931, after which the control became so effective that communication became almost impossible. Trotsky testified that he never said anything to his friends in Russia that he did not say in his Bulletin; but that these communications were conspiratorial in the sense that the Soviet censorship did not approve them, and confiscated them. (PC 128-33; 264-6.)
§ 75. Leon Sedov, questioned by the Commission Rogatoire concerning the origin and development of his relations with Olberg, said:
In 1930, Olberg on his own initiative wrote Trotsky a letter, political in nature, from Berlin. As a result, from this date there was an exchange of correspondence between Olberg, Trotsky and myself... . Later, but still in 1930, Olberg asked Trotsky to employ him as secretary. Thereupon Trotsky wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Pfemfert asking them to secure information about Olberg. On April 1, 1930, these two comrades replied that taking all information into account, one must place no confidence in Olberg, because he might very well be an agent of the GPU. Naturally Trotsky took good care not to choose 01-berg as his secretary. Later, when I arrived in Berlin from Istanbul at the end of February, 1931, I met Olberg, and since I had to make some purchases of books for my father, turned to him for these purchases. (CR 20.)
Sedov denied that his relations with Olberg were ever intimate, although for some time he did not believe the fears of the Pfemferts concerning him were well founded:
I thought, rather, that we were dealing with a megalomaniac who was slightly psychopathic, and with whom there was no use having very close relations. (CR 21.)
He stated that he called on Olberg only for small so-called technical services, such as the purchase of books or the reading of proofs; that he never received him at his home, and was even careful not to give him his address; that the Pfemferts were his intermediaries in dealing with Olberg, and that Olberg wrote to him in their care. He pointed out that Olberg evidently did not know his wife’s name, having mentioned her in the trial as Suzanna, whereas her name is Jeanne. He stated that since his wife did not return from Copenhagen direct to Berlin, but instead went to Paris, Olberg’s statement that on her return she brought a letter from Trotsky was obviously a lie; that if Trotsky had wished to send Sedov a letter to Berlin, he would have given it to two friends who were going to Berlin directly; and that even if Trotsky had given such a letter to his wife, he, Sedov, would have received it in Paris and thus would have taken it to Berlin himself, “supposing always that such a letter ever existed.” (CR 21-3.)
On Olberg’s testimony that after Trotsky’s “message” in connection with his being deprived of Soviet citizenship Sedov had shown him a stenogram of this “message,” Sedov commented that it was extremely unlikely that he would have done so since this message, which was nothing else than Trotsky’s protest addressed to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, had been published in the Bulletin, No. 27, March, 1932.
On the question of Olberg’s relation to the Left Opposition, Sedov stated that
... Olberg, after having been refused admission into our movement, had joined a local group of the Wedding quarter in Berlin, composed – if I am not mistaken – of about fifty members, and known as the Landau group. In the autumn of 1930 this group was admitted collectively into our movement. Thus, as from this date, Olberg, although not admitted individually, belonged to our tendency. I hasten to add, however, that in April/May, 1931, the entire Landau group was expelled, and that when in February, 1932, Olberg applied personally for admission into our tendency, his application was turned down. (CR 21.)
Sedov testified that after a police raid on his home, the exact date of which he did not remember, he was obliged to go to the office of the Chief of Police and undergo a long examination, in the course of which he was struck with the fact that he was asked again and again about his relations with Olberg; and that this fact contributed to his decision, towards the middle of 1932, to have nothing more to do with Olberg. He denied that he had had anything to do with the purchase of Olberg’s Honduran passport. (CR 21.) He called attention to the implausibility of Olberg’s statement about Smirnov, Mrachkovsky and Bakayev (§ 73), saying that at that time (July, 1935) he, Sedov, could not have helped knowing that Smirnov had been in jail and Mrachkovsky in exile since January, 1933, and that Bakayev had been arrested in December, 1934. (CR 24.)
§ 76. Eugene Bauer (identified § 63) testified that Olberg
adhered to our movement in 1930, when the movement was organized in Germany.[13] At that time, like most of our adherents, Olberg was a member of the German Communist Party. In the beginning of 1931, the group to which Olberg belonged left our movement, and therefore Olberg was no longer with us after that period. At the end of 1932 he asked to come back to us, and I remember perfectly having talked with him and having had his request rejected. After that I heard nothing more of him until the time of the Moscow trial. As I remained in Berlin until July, 1933, I am in a position to exclude the possibility of Olberg’s having had up to that time any connection with our movement, and I believe I can also exclude the possibility of Sedov’s having had contact with him, because at the time of leaving Berlin, Sedov did not fail to indicate to me the persons, non-members of our movement, with whom he might have been in touch, and Olberg was not among them. If Olberg had been, I believe Sedov would have told me so. (CR 45.)
The witness declared that Sedov had not intervened with him to get Olberg’s application for re-admission to the party accepted, as he believed Sedov would have done had he had relations with Olberg, since he had done so with regard to other comrades. He denied that there had ever been the slightest connection between the German Opposition and the Gestapo. (CR 45-6.)
§ 77. Alexandra Pfemfert (identified § 64) testified that Trotsky, in view of many services which she and her husband had rendered him, naturally turned to them for all possible information concerning a certain Olberg who had applied for the position of his secretary; that she had never seen Olberg up to that time but when she met him her impression of him was most unfavorable; that he put too many questions, lacked tact, and appeared to have a most disagreeable, hysterical temperament (CR 47-8); that
either because Olberg wrote to Sedov on postal cards, or because Sedov frequently asked me to read him Olberg’s letters over the telephone, which I could read because they were written in Russian, it was possible for me to follow closely the correspondence between Sedov and Olberg, and I remember perfectly that many times Olberg asked Sedov to fix meeting places with him, owing to the fact that on Sedov’s explicit demand we had never given Olberg Sedov’s address; and it even happened that sometimes, when Sedov authorized me to do so, I informed Olberg by telephone at what time he could speak to Sedov by telephone at our house. That is why I do not remember his ever having tried to meet Sedov at our house; and certainly he must have understood that we wished to keep him at a distance. As for the contents of the letters and cards Olberg sent Sedov, I remember that it was a question of little matters such as the correction of proofs, etc. (CR 49.)
§ 78. Franz Pfemfert (identified § 65) stated that when Trotsky was exiled to Turkey he, Pfemfert, had placed his services, for purposes of information, etc., and his extensive archives at Trotsky’s disposal; that Trotsky often turned to him for information about persons and events, and did so in the case of Olberg. Pfemfert corroborated his wife’s testimony to their first meeting with Olberg, and added:
At that time, Olberg presented himself at our house, and I saw him for the first time. He told me that although he was employed in the Inprecorr[14] office, he sympathized with Trotsky and would like to become his secretary. Naturally, he put me a pile of questions, especially on the subject of the treatment he would receive... . I then wrote Trotsky that even if Olberg was not an agent of the GPU he was not the man he needed, that I begged him not to allow him to cross the threshold of his house. My wife also wrote Trotsky to the same effect... . (CR 50-51.)
§ 79. The most important documentary evidence in our possession concerning the defendant Olberg is as follows:
(1) Ten holograph letters in Russian from Olberg to Trotsky, dated January 10, 1930, to March 4, 1931, and six typewritten answers (copies) in Russian from Trotsky to Olberg, dated January 30, 1930, to April 27, 1930 (PC Exh. 8, 1/1-16). Olberg’s first letter begins:
The impossibility of elucidating the views of the Opposition on certain important problems impels me to turn to you with these lines ...
and goes on to weigh certain Oppositionist views as he understands them against the line of the official Communist Party, which he neither accepts nor rejects entirely. He ends, “With your aid I hope to elucidate the actual state of affairs.” (No. 1.) Trotsky answers in a letter which begins:
In your letter you pose a number of questions of principle which should be answered with whole treatises. But the point is that the Opposition has already written not a little on these questions in the past. I am quite uninformed as to what you have read of all that. It would be a good thing if you were to write me at least a little bit about yourself: Have you been long in the movement, where have you been in the last few years, what Oppositional literature have you read?
This letter ends:
Do you read the Russian Bulletin of the Opposition? There the answer is given to a number of the questions you have posed. In any case, for the sake of successful continuance of our correspondence I shall await from you information of rather autobiographical character. (No. 2.)
Olberg answers on January 28:
... I am a Latvian. Five years in the movement. Of these I spent the first three years in Latvia. Even then I could not accept Stalin’s theory of the possibility of Socialism’s victory in one country. Stalin’s Chinese policy seemed to me even then profoundly erroneous. I did not believe in the existence of “Trotskyism.” ... In the summer of 1927 I came to Berlin and began to seek the literature of the Opposition and about the Opposition. Reading Pravda convinced me of the Opposition’s correctness. I went to Maslow [see § 76 n.]... . The man who was then leader of the German Opposition pushed me away from it; ...
I read what the German Opposition has published. (In its German platform there is not a little which is wrong.) I followed the movement from the sidelines.
I have obtained the Bulletin from comrades and am reading it. In so far as I am in agreement with the Opposition on fundamental questions I expect to work with it... .
N.B. I forgot to say about myself that the last two years I have engaged in journalism. I wrote, by the way, in the Inprecorr. (No. 3.)
The correspondence continues with discussion of political questions, chiefly having to do with the internal situation in the German Opposition; of problems connected with the distribution of Opposition literature; of Olberg’s services to the Left Opposition. Trotsky suggests that Olberg’s knowledge of Russian would be very useful to the Oppositionists in Berlin (No. 4). Olberg, in discussing the disagreements among the Oppositionist factions in Berlin, says: “Naturally, being a new man, I am not told everything ...” (No. 7). He suggests that it might be feasible for one of the Germans to make a short trip to the Soviet Union in order to establish contacts (No. 9). Trotsky answers that this idea is quite correct, but
... for such an enterprise a comrade is needed with experience, careful, resourceful. It is not so simple to find the suitable person ... meanwhile it is necessary to use all kinds of amateur means for the transmission of data and documents. If the “open letter"[15] reaches the right person in one copy, it will make its own way from there on. (No. 10.)
Olberg’s letter of May 2, 1930 (No. 13) mentions in a postscript Trotsky’s last letter to Olberg, dated April 27, 1930 (No. 12). Thereafter he makes no mention of letters received from Trotsky. His letters up to that date, after the first, invariably acknowledge letters from Trotsky.
(2) Sixteen holograph letters in Russian from Olberg to Leon Sedov, dated March 1, 1930, to February 23, 1931, and one copy of a typewritten letter in Russian from Sedov to Olberg, dated July 11, 1930. (PC Exh. 8, II/1-16.) These letters deal almost exclusively with such matters as the publication and distribution of Opposition literature, Olberg’s services in this work, etc. Olberg suggests that a trip to the Soviet Union by one of the Germans or Frenchmen is essential to the distribution of the Bulletin in Russia (No. 2). He sends quotations from Kalinin, Stalin, Bukharin (No. 5). He expresses his willingness to write to the exiled comrades (Nos. 4, 6) (See § 74), informs Sedov that he has found it impossible to copy the whole of Trotsky’s Open Letter (see 1, n.) on a postcard, and that his wife has copied it on two postcards which are being mailed at different times (No. 4). Sedov’s letter to Olberg expresses his concern because he is not receiving mail, and asks him to check up on the Berlin addresses. He also reminds him of some quotations Olberg has promised to send him (No. 10).
(3) Documents concerning Olberg’s personal characteristics, his Honduran passport, and his past:
(a) A letter in German from Franz Pfemfert to Leon Trotsky, dated April 1, 1930. Pfemfert says:
... Olberg made the most unfavorable impression it is possible to conceive... . I had scarcely taken a seat in my workroom ... when he asked a few such tactlessly formulated questions that I had to answer with a few counter-questions: When did you come to Germany? (Answer: I have been living here for a long time.) What is your occupation? (Answer: I worked until January with the editorial staff of the Inprecorr.) I really already had enough. I was painfully impressed by the fact that a man who had just left the service (wholesale discharges for the purpose of rationalization) and therefore until now had been at least passively ... a Stalinist, was changing so quickly, and trying with all signs of a sensation-hungry journalist to explore confidential matters about T. and the Opposition in general.
... O. has no business there, because within twenty-fourhours he would prove himself an unbearable burden to you; certainly later too. Because he would work up his visit into “volumes,” if indeed he didn’t work it up into reports to the GPU. (PC Exh. 8, III/1.)
(b) Alexandra Pfemfert (§ 77) in a holograph letter in Russian to Trotsky, dated April 2, 1930, says:
... But, Lev Davidovich, when we heard talk to the effect that Olberg should go to see you, we were simply horrified. He is an intolerable fellow, tactless, disorderly, God forbid that you should have him in your house ... he will take to instructing not only you but the Lord God himself, if he had a chance to meet Him... . When he talks with a person he almost sits on his nose, grasps his arms ... in a word the most unsuitable aid... . (Ibid., III/2.)
(c) A letter from Franz Pfemfert to Trotsky, dated 5/4/30, corroborates Sedov and Bauer on Olberg’s connection with the Opposition:
... Concerning the Olberg episode. His shift to the Opposition is ... as follows: He bought Opposition pamphlets. There he found Grylewicz’s address. The latter referred him to Wedding (where he appeared as already “legitimized”). Then to K. L. [Landau; see § 75], and thus he was able in a few days to appear suddenly at the Conference – as a “delegate” with a “recommendation from Prinkipo.” This is something fearful. I asked L. [Landau] yesterday how he came to know O. and what ground he had for trusting him. Answer: I know nothing more about him than letter [sic] from Prink. and Wedding.
Tomorrow he, O., can already present himself with twenty names and the day after gain access to the most internal things. (Ibid., III/ 3.)
(d) A holograph answer to a questionnaire, and a supplement thereto, written by Olberg’s mother (name in our possession). The authenticity of these documents is attested in a covering statement by Dr. Salomon Schwartz of Vanves, France, which says:
Through the Parisian co-workers of the New York Commission of Inquiry, I have placed before the Commission some letters from Mrs. B – , the former Mrs. Olberg, mother of Valentine and Paul Olberg. Mrs. Olberg wrote these letters in answer to my inquiries (through her former husband, Paul Olberg, now living in Stockholm). For the authenticity of these letters I vouch in every way. (Ibid., S 111/6, c.)
Olberg’s mother states that her son first went to Russia in 1933, because he was about to be expelled from Germany as an undesirable alien; that he used the passport of a friend (name in the document), since he had only a Nansen passport with which he could go nowhere; that he received a Soviet visa through the Berlin Intourist; and that the money for this visa was paid by a relative (name in the document) to whom she bound herself to return it; that Olberg got a position in Stalinabad Center, Asia, as a teacher of history in the higher schools; that the bad climate, his wife’s illness, and his wish to legalize his status by obtaining a passport in his own name, made him decide to leave Russia; that in July, 1933, Olberg and his wife, on their way out of Russia, stopped to see her in Kemern, Lithuania, where at a family conference it was decided he should go to Prague and his wife to her relatives, that in Prague Olberg should live with his brother Paul, a student, for reasons of economy, and try to get Soviet citizenship; that his application for Soviet citizenship was refused; that a lawyer in Prague whose name she does not remember, but it was not Benda, as alleged in the trial, undertook to get him Honduran citizenship for which he did not have enough money to pay, and therefore the same relative came to his assistance once more; that after difficulties about a Russian visa Olberg at last received it, through the intercession of this relative with the Berlin Intourist,
with pay for his expenses and a stay of two weeks in Moscow. And so, for a second time Valentine Olberg journeyed to the U.S.S.R. again through Intourist on a visa paid for by [a relative].
She says that during this second trip he obtained a position in Gorky, and that she is sure he made no third trip to Russia, since she always heard from him weekly and had frequent letters from him and his wife from Gorky until January, 1936, after which date her letters to him were returned and she knew nothing more about him until she learned from the newspapers about the trial of August, 1936. She is sure that if he had left Russia after his second trip to that country she would have received letters from him from Europe or their correspondence would have been interrupted. (Ibid., III/6, a, b.)
(4) The deposition of Jeanne Martin des Pallières corroborates her husband’s testimony concerning the nature of his relations with Olberg. We have already cited (§ 68, 9, d, e) her testimony and that of Lucienne Tedeschi that she went from Copenhagen to Paris by way of Hamburg. Jeanne des Pallières states that she remained in Paris for several days after her husband had returned to Berlin. (PC Exh. 16, I/18.)
§ 80. There is agreement between the evidence in our possession and Olberg’s testimony in the Moscow trial on the following points:
(1) Olberg corresponded with Sedov and met him personally after Sedov’s arrival in Berlin in 1931.
(2) Olberg maintained connections with the Soviet Union in the sense that he undertook to write to exiled Oppositionists. (See § 79, 2.)
(3) Olberg went to Russia for the first time in 1933, on a passport which was not his own. He got a position teaching history in Stalinabad. He remained only a short time.
(4) Olberg went to Russia a second time on a Honduran passport.
(5) Olberg obtained employment in Gorky.
(6) Sedov did not go to Copenhagen at the time of Trotsky’s visit to that city in 1932.
§ 81. On all other points there is complete disagreement. The evidence introduced before this Commission shows that 01-berg’s contact with Trotsky and Sedov was not arranged by Anton Grylewicz, but initiated by Olberg himself in a letter to Trotsky. His own letters to Trotsky and Sedov indicate no intimate connection with either. His letters to Trotsky show that his testimony that he had been a member of the Berlin Trotskyist organization from 1927 or 1928 was completely false; on the other hand, the evidence shows that although he had been in Berlin “a long time” he was unknown at the beginning of 1930 not only to Trotsky himself but to the Trotskyists in Berlin. It shows that he never joined the Opposition as an individual and was officially connected with it only as a member of a group which was admitted collectively and then expelled. Sedov says he joined in the autumn of 1930. Pfemfert’s letter (§ 79, 3, c) shows that at least as early as April, 1930, he appeared at a conference as a “delegate,” and that Pfemfert feared he would soon gain full access to Opposition affairs. Sedov and Bauer agree concerning his expulsion from the Opposition with the Landau group, and his failure to obtain readmission as an individual. Olberg and his mother give quite different reasons for his first journey to Russia, and for his return; and Olberg’s mother corroborates Sedov’s testimony that Sedov had nothing whatever to do with procuring or paying for Olberg’s Honduran passport. His mother places Olberg’s employment in Gorky at the time of his second trip to Russia and discounts the possibility of a third trip. Bauer’s testimony that Sedov did not intercede for Olberg to get him readmitted to the Opposition, and did not, upon leaving Berlin,[16] mention Olberg as one of the people with whom he had been in contact appears to corroborate Sedov’s own testimony that he broke off relations with Olberg about the middle of 1932.
§ 82. Olberg’s confession in the August trial was uncorroborated by any other evidence than the passport which proved that he entered the Soviet Union as a Honduran citizen. It is impugned in its vital points by his own letters, by the testimony of Trotsky and Sedov corroborated by the Pfemferts, Bauer, and Olberg’s mother, and by other evidence cited above.
That Olberg was not “Trotsky’s emissary in Germany” is evident from his own letters, and from the testimony of Sedov, the Pfemferts, and Bauer. His statement that Grylewicz arranged his contact with Trotsky and Sedov appears to have been invented in order to lend credibility to this alleged confidential relationship. Had he told the truth, which was that he approached Trotsky in January, 1930, as a stranger to both Trotsky and the Opposition, the claim of a confidential relation dating from that time would have appeared doubtful to say the least. But when he said that the contact was arranged by Grylewicz, he gave an appearance of truth to his testimony that he had belonged to the German Opposition from 1927 or 1928, and created the impression that he possessed the confidence of its organizational leader.
In his testimony Olberg said that he met Sedov in May, 1931. Since Sedov arrived in Berlin in February of that year, the date of their meeting, if Olberg correctly stated it, would appear to indicate that their correspondence had established no very close relationship between them. We note also that Olberg placed the securing of his first passport (in the name of Freudigmann) before Trotsky’s trip to Copenhagen (November, 1932), whereas he gave the date of his departure for Russia as “the end of March, 1933.” If this sequence is correct, it indicates no very great promptness on his part in attempting to carry out the alleged instructions to prepare an attempt on Stalin’s life. We find his mother’s explanation of his removal to Russia more credible than Olberg’s; more especially since the record of the trial corroborates her testimony that he had no German citizenship. It is a matter of common knowledge that Communists were obliged to flee Germany after Hitler came to power; certainly a Communist without German citizenship would have found it difficult to remain.
While we are on this question of Olberg’s passport, we may note that according to his mother,
On my son’s first journey to the U.S.S.R. he utilized Fr.’s passport only to pass the frontiers. During his further stay in the U.S.S.R. he lived under his own name, V. 0. All the documents testifying to his irreplaceable need in the service were issued to him in his own name, V. O. (PC Exh. 8, S 111/6, b.)
The documents to which she refers were testimonials which he obtained before his first return from Russia
from the respective institutions of the indispensable nature of his work in the People’s Commissariat of Education.. .. (Ibid., s III/6, a.)
It appears from this that the Soviet authorities were aware during Olberg’s first stay in Russia that he was there on a false passport; yet they allowed him to hold a position and even gave him testimonials, in his own name, to the value of his work. This indicates an inexplicable degree of lenience; it also indicates that not all the real facts about the Russian phase of Olberg’s career were brought out in the trial, although it is difficult to believe that if the preliminary investigation was at all serious they were unknown to the Prosecutor.
The record states that on his second trip to Russia Olberg could not stay long because he had only a tourist visa. Yet the following colloquy indicates that his third trip, if he made one, was also made on a tourist visa:
VYSHINSKY: Did you obtain the Honduras passport after your second return?
OLBERG: The second time also I came on the Honduras passport.
VYSHINSKY: Did you come on a tourist visa?
OLBERG: Yes, but I had the Honduras passport.
VYSHINSKY: How were you able to get an extension of that passport the second time?
OLBERG: I managed that ... (ZK 91.)
Since Olberg alleged that he made three trips to the Soviet Union, obviously his third trip would be his second return, if the word return here means his return to the U.S.S.R. If it refers to his second return to Germany, as it appears to, since he obviously did not procure the passport after his second and last return to Russia, then the period indicated by the Prosecutor must have been the period after Olberg’s first trip to Russia on the Honduran passport. Olberg’s use of the word “also” indicates that he refers to his second trip to Russia as a Honduran citizen, and so does Vyshinsky’s question about how he got the passport extended a second time. The further exchange of question and answer clearly indicates that the second time he used the Honduran passport he had only a tourist visa. If Olberg’s second trip was fruitless because he had only a tourist visa and had to return to Germany after a few days, then it is peculiar that the Prosecutor did not ask him how he arranged to remain in Russia after a third trip under precisely the same conditions.
As regards the letter to Sedov from Trotsky which, according to Olberg, Sedov’s wife brought with her on her return from Copenhagen, one might assume that because of its alleged conspiratorial nature Trotsky entrusted it to her rather than to comrades returning direct to Berlin – although such caution would not have been at all in keeping with the general recklessness of Leon Trotsky’s conduct as represented by those of the accused who allegedly saw him or received communications from him. However, in that case she would surely have turned it over to her husband in Paris, and he would himself have brought it to Berlin. In fact, the evidence shows that Trotsky did send his son a letter by one of the two German comrades who were returning to Berlin, precisely as Sedov argued he would have done. The letter is the one in our possession, which was quoted in the preceding chapter (§ 68, 4). In this letter Trotsky states that he is writing at 7 A.M. In her postcard to her son, post-marked with the same date, Natalia SedovTrotsky says:
This morning papa sent you a little letter, written in haste, through Erwin. (§ 68, 5.)
Erwin is the first name of “Eugene Bauer” (§ 68, 5, n.). Bauer and other witnesses state that he accompanied Trotsky to Esbjerg, and Bauer states that he left Esbjerg on December 3, 1932, the date of Trotsky’s letter and his wife’s post-card. It is remarkable that Leon Sedov, who told the Commission Rogatoire about this letter from his father, stating that he had already transmitted it to the Commission (CR 12-13) failed to mention, when testifying later about Olberg, a fact so favorable to his Own case as the transmission of this letter from Trotsky through Eugene Bauer.
The passage in Trotsky’s Open Letter of 1932 in which, according to Olberg, Trotsky developed the idea that it was necessary to assassinate Stalin will be discussed in Chapter XXII of this report. Olberg’s testimony on the alleged connection of the Trotskyists with the Gestapo will be discussed in Chapter XXIV. It suffices to state here that Olberg falsified the Open Letter, and that his testimony concerning the Gestapo is controverted by the evidence in our possession.
§ 83. Summing up, the evidence in our possession shows that Olberg lied on the following points: 1) his connection with the Left Opposition; 2) the way in which he established contact with Sedov and Trotsky; 3) the reason for his first return from Russia; 4) the circumstances under which he obtained his Honduran passport; 5) the meaning of Trotsky’s Open Letter; 6) the alleged connection of the Trotskyists with the Gestapo.
These lies, on points vital to his testimony, sufficiently indicate that Olberg was anything but a credible witness. In the face of so much falsehood, it would put an extreme tax upon credulity to believe that he was in Russia as an emissary of Trotsky and Sedov for any purpose whatever. One might, of course, assume that he concealed his terrorist instructions from his mother, as indeed he probably would have done had he had such instructions. But his own discredited testimony and all the other evidence before us points to the opposite conclusion. His correspondence with Trotsky not only proves that Olberg lied about his connection with the Left Opposition; it also proves that Trotsky stopped writing to Olberg shortly after receiving adverse reports about him from the Pfemferts (§ 79, 1). Trotsky’s letters to Olberg furnish no basis for an assumption that he would have engaged Olberg for confidential missions of any kind; nor is it reasonable to assume that he would have entrusted such missions to a man about whom he had received such emphatically unfavorable reports as are contained in the letters of the Pfemferts. It is also unreasonable to assume that Sedov would have entrusted any confidential mission to Olberg, in view of these reports and of the nature of his own relations with Olberg as indicated in Olberg’s letters to him and described by himself, his wife and the Pfemferts. Much less, therefore, would it be reasonable to assume that either Trotsky or Sedov would have employed Olberg as agent in a terrorist conspiracy, assuming they had had any occasion to use such agents.
§ 84. We find, therefore, that Olberg’s confession is worthless as proof of the charges against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the August trial. On the basis of this conclusion, and of the evidence cited above concerning Olberg’s character, his relations with the Opposition, and in particular with Trotsky and Sedov, we find that Olberg never went to Russia with terrorist instructions from Trotsky and Sedov.
§ 85. The fifth and sixth bases of the charge against Trotsky and Sedov in the August trial are the confessions of K. B. Berman-Yurin and Fritz David (I. I. Kruglyansky). These two accused were closely connected in the trial, and no connection was established between them and the other accused. They were implicated in alleged terrorist acts only through their confessions that they went to Russia in pursuance of terrorist instructions from Trotsky himself. Therefore we consider them together.
§ 86. Berman-Yurin testified that he was “particularly trusted” by Trotsky (ZK 26); that he met Trotsky through Sedov, to whom Anton Grylewicz had introduced him in Berlin. Sedov, he said,
systematically tried to persuade me, and convinced me, that the fight against the Communist Party was a fight against Stalin. (ZK 93.)
At the end of 1931, he testified, Sedov asked him whether he knew a trusted and reliable German who could be sent to Moscow on an important mission. He named Alfred Kundt, a “staunch Trotskyite.” Kundt agreed to undertake the mission, and received two documents (whether from Sedov or BermanYurin is not clear) with instructions to establish personal contact with Smirnov in Moscow and hand them to him. One document, Berman-Yurin said, concerned Trotsky’s latest position on questions referring to the international situation, mainly Germany. The second, which he read very carefully, stated that
it was necessary to prepare to adopt resolute and extreme means of struggle, and that ... resolute people sharing Trotsky’s position had to be selected. Particular attention ... was to be paid to the Trotskyites who were members of the C.P.S.U., but who were not compromised as Trotskyites in the ranks of the Party. The organization was to be built up on the principles of strictest secrecy, in small groups, not connected with each other, so that the discovery of one group might not lead to the discovery of the whole organization. (ZK 93-4.)
Kundt, he said, left for Moscow in January-February, 1932.
A few days later it became known that he had been at the secret address, had handed over the documents, had received a reply as had been arranged, but had not met Smirnov as the latter was not in Moscow. (ZK 94.)
In November, 1932, Berman-Yurin said, Sedov for the first time spoke to him openly
about the necessity of preparing to assassinate the leaders of the C.P.S.U. Evidently, Sedov noticed that I was wavering and he said that Trotsky would be in Copenhagen shortly and asked me whether I would not like to go there and meet Trotsky. I, of course, expressed my agreement. (ZK 94.)
According to Berman-Yurin, he arrived in Copenhagen early in the morning, between the 25th and 28th of November, was
met at the station by Grylewicz and we went to see Trotsky. Grylewicz introduced me to Trotsky and left; I remained in the room alone with Trotsky. (ZK 94.)
Trotsky, he said, questioned him about his work in the past, and asked him why he had gone over to the position of Trotskyism, a question which he answered in great detail. Then Trotsky informed him that Stalin must be physically destroyed, and that people were needed who would agree to sacrifice themselves to this “historic task.” This ended the first conversation. Trotsky left to go somewhere and Berman-Yurin waited in the apartment for his return. That evening they continued the Conversation. He asked Trotsky how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism, and Trotsky answered that problems could not be treated in a dogmatic way; that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen; and that in addition to Stalin, Kaganovich and Voroshilov must be assassinated. He also said that a defeatist attitude must be adopted in case of “intervention against the Soviet Union”; that the Trotskyites must join the army but would not defend the Soviet Union. During this conversation, he said, Trotsky nervously paced up and down the room.
After I had given my consent he said that I must get ready to go to Moscow, and as I would have contact with the Comintern I was to prepare the terroristic act taking advantage of this contact... . that the terroristic act should, if possible, be timed to take place at a plenum or at the congress of the Comintern, so that the shot at Stalin would ring out in a large assembly. This would have a tremendous repercussion far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union and would give rise to a mass movement all over the world. This would be an historical political event of world significance. Trotsky said that I should not have contact with any Trotskyites in Moscow, and that I should carry on the work independently. I replied that I did not know anybody in Moscow and it was difficult for me to see how I should act under these circumstances. I said that I had an acquaintance named Fritz David, and asked whether I might not get in touch with him. Trotsky replied that he would instruct Sedov to clear up this matter ... (ZK 95-6.)
Berman-Yurin said that he went to Moscow in March, 1933, with instructions from Sedov to look up Fritz David; that he did so, and that they prepared the terroristic act together. They planned at first to carry it out at the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, for which David was to procure Berman-Yurin a ticket of admission. David failed to get the ticket; whereupon they decided to postpone the act until the Congress of the Comintern.
The Congress was to have convened in September, 1934. I gave Fritz David a Browning pistol and bullets to hide... . (ZK 96.)
Once more David failed to get a ticket for Berman-Yurin. It was decided that he himself should do the shooting. But he was unable to do so because he was sitting in a box with many people. In December David allegedly informed Berman-Yurin that an emissary of Sedov had been to see him and demanded to know why the act had not been performed. Again in May, 1936, Berman-Yurin said, David informed him that an emissary of Sedov, a German, had visited him and accused them of being inactive, irresolute and cowardly, and had demanded that they take advantage of any opportunity that might arise to assassinate Stalin. At the end of May Berman-Yurin was arrested and his terrorist activities were stopped. (ZK 96-7.)
§ 87. Fritz David testified that he established contact with Sedov in August, 1932; that in one of their conversations Sedov informed him that Trotsky “was to come to Europe and would like to see me”; that David travelled on a false passport (ZK 112). He did not tell how he learned Trotsky’s address in Copenhagen or the date on which he arrived there. He described his alleged conversation with Trotsky in terms practically identical with those used by Berman-Yurin, except that
Trotsky instructed me to behave in the U.S.S.R. in such a way as not to show any deviations from the general line of the Party, and when writing for the press to adhere strictly to the Party line, and under no circumstances to reveal the threads after the terroristic act was committed. (ZK 113-14.)
David stated that he arrived in the Soviet Union in March, 1933, and met Berman-Yurin, who had sought him out on Sedov’s instructions. He corroborated Berman-Yurin’s testimony about their terrorist plans and their failures – except that the reason he gave for the first failure was that Stalin did not attend the Plenum – and about the two messengers who sought him out to accuse them of insufficient activity and order them to speed up their terroristic act. The Prosecutor, in summing up David’s activity, said:
... you made preparations for an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin, timing it for the Seventh Congress in 1935. (ZK 115.)
§ 88. Leon Trotsky testified that he had never heard the names of K. B. Berman-Yurin and Fritz David (I. I. Kruglyansky) before he saw them in the news-reports of the trial (PC 94); and that he did not see them during his stay in Copenhagen (PC 138).
§ 89. Leon Sedov testified that he never met Berman-Yurin and up to the time of the trial never knew he existed; and that all Berman-Yurin had said about meetings between them was completely false. After the trial he learned that Berman-Yurin, known in Berlin as Stauer, had belonged to the official Communist Party (CR 17). He said he had read articles by Fritz David in Izvestia, but denied that he had ever known David and declared that David’s testimony about their alleged meetings was false (CR 18). He showed to the Commission Rogatoire the issue for October 11, 1936, of the Deutsche Volkzeitung, official Communist organ published in Prague, in which appeared on page 4 a communiqué announcing the expulsion from the Communist Party of Germany of a number of members for alleged relations with Trotskyists-Zinovievists. The first name on the list was that of Fritz David (Kruglyansky) of Berlin. The third name was that of Hans Stauer (Berman-Yurin) of Berlin. (CR 20.)
§ 90. Eugene Bauer testified that he never knew BermanYurin and never heard of him until after the trial, when he learned that Berman-Yurin belonged to the illegal Communist apparatus of Berlin, and had been employed at the Soviet Commercial delegation; that if Berman-Yurin had belonged to the Trotskyist movement he believed that he, Bauer, would have known of it. He stated that he had known Fritz David as a writer, but not personally; that it was common knowledge that David was an editor of the Rote Fahne[17]
... and a bitter adversary of our movement in the sight and knowledge of everyone. (CR 43-4.)
§ 91. We have already quoted (§ 61) the testimony of Trotsky’s secretary, Jan Frankel, concerning the conditions under which Trotsky lived in Copenhagen, the strict guard which was organized by his friends for his protection, and the impossibility of any visitor getting to see Trotsky without the knowledge of himself and Raymond Molinier, who arranged all visits, and of the members of the guard. Mr. Frankel stated that no one by the name of Berman-Yurin or Fritz David had asked to see Trotsky during his visit to Copenhagen, and that he, Frankel, had seen no such people. (PC 165-6.)
§ 92. Both Esther and B. J. Field (identified § 66) denied that anyone by the name of Berman-Yurin or Fritz David visited Trotsky in Copenhagen. (NY 12, 56.)
§ 93. We have quoted above (§ 68, 9) from the documents in our possession which bear on Trotsky’s conditions of life in Copenhagen, his activities and the visits he received. We therefore quote here only a few further passages concerning these two defendants:
(a) Anton Grylewicz (identified § 68, 8), in an affidavit (Prague) testifies that
A day or two before Trotsky’s lecture, my wife notified me from Berlin that Sch—, an engineer employed by a large Berlin concern, was coming; and I met him at the station. I would especially like to emphasize the fact that Sch— first went to my hotel with me. The claim made by Berman-Yurin, whom I do not know, that I met him at the station, is a complete invention. (PC Exh. 16, 1/4.)
The engineer Sch – , he says, was not brought into contact with Trotsky until a day or two after his arrival. At the present time Sch – is under arrest in Austria.
(b) Pierre Naville (identified § 68, 9, b) states:
If a Holtzman or a Berman-Yurin had been present at any time, I would have known or suspected it. (Ibid., I/2.)
(c) Erich Kohn, former leader of the Hamburg Left Opposition, states in an affidavit (Oslo) that the development of his views has separated him widely from Trotskyism and the Trotskyist organization. He says that he was in Copenhagen from November 25 to December 4, 1932, and until Trotsky’s departure was with him daily either in the same room or near by. He says:
Since during this time I came in contact with all Trotsky’s real visitors, I know that neither Holtzman, Berman-Yurin, nor Fritz David was among them. (Ibid., I/6.)
§ 94. There is nothing in the record of the trial to show why either Trotsky or Sedov should have “particularly trusted” either Berman-Yurin or David. The record itself indicates that they were members of the official Communist Party (ZK 95, 113). Nothing appears in the record which explains why Sedov, if he wanted a reliable man to send to Russia on a terrorist mission, would have addressed himself to a Stalinist whom he had met only a short time before rather than to a member of his own group such as Anton Grylewicz, its organizational leader, who had allegedly originally introduced him to Berman-Yurin (ZK 93), or Eugene Bauer, who, according to his written deposition (PC Exh. 16, S 11/12), was one of the leaders of the German section of the Trotskyists. For that matter, if Alfred Kundt, whom Berman-Yurin allegedly recommended to Sedov as a “staunch Trotskyite,” had been a member of the Trotskyist group, one might think that Sedov himself, being a member of the same group, would have been able to get in touch with him without a Stalinist intermediary. Another question which the record does not answer is this: If Sedov sufficiently trusted Berman-Yurin at the end of 1931 to permit him to read a conspiratorial communication to Smirnov and to select an emissary to take the risk of delivering it, why did he dare to “speak openly” to him only a year later – November, 1932, to be exact – about the necessity of preparing to assassinate the leaders of the C.P.S.U.?
We also note that the record is most unsatisfactory concerning the alleged terrorist communications which Kundt is supposed to have taken to Smirnov. His instruction allegedly was to make contact with Smirnov and deliver these communications in person. However, Berman-Yurin stated that Kundt went to the secret address, handed over the documents and received a reply but did not meet Smirnov as the latter was not in Moscow. The Prosecutor did not ask Berman-Yurin from whom this reply was received if not from Smirnov, or whether Kundt ever delivered it to anyone; nor did he, although Smirnov was sitting before him, address any question to him about these alleged communications. (ZK 93-4). Concerning the value of BermanYurin’s testimony to their contents we refer our readers to § 47 of this report.
Another pertinent question overlooked by the Prosecutor was the name used by David in his false passport; nor did he produce the official Danish record (which, it must be assumed, he could easily have procured) of David’s entrance into Denmark on such a passport. Still another question the Prosecutor did not ask Berman-Yurin was how Sedov’s emissary could have asked Fritz David in December, 1934, why Stalin had not been killed at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. The Congress did not take place until 1935, and Vyshinsky himself noted this fact.
According to Berman-Yurin, Sedov sent him to Copenhagen, there to meet Trotsky, precisely because Sedov, having spoken about the necessity for terrorism, noticed that Berman-Yurin was wavering on the new “terrorist line.” (ZK 94) Are we to assume that Sedov did not inform Trotsky of the reason why he was sending Berman-Yurin to see him? Surely, if we assume that Trotsky and Sedov were embarking on anything so dangerous as a terrorist campaign, we must suppose that Sedov would have warned Trotsky of Berman-Yurin’s state of mind. It seems, therefore, absurd to suppose that Trotsky would have instructed a “wavering” Stalinist to make a terrorist attempt on Stalin involving not the mere risk but the absolute certitude that it would cost him his life. For according to the record Trotsky insisted that Berman-Yurin and David should make an attempt on the life of Stalin at an international assembly, such as a Plenum or a Congress of the Comintern, so that it would “reverberate throughout the world.” Leaving aside the obviously absurd implication that unless Stalin were killed in an international assembly his assassination might pass unnoticed, it is a little hard to believe that Trotsky would thushave demanded the supreme sacrifice from two Stalinists whom he had never seen before, one of whom was wavering in his acceptance of the alleged terrorist line, and the other allegedly known to Sedov himself only since August of 1932. Certainly the record would not have suffered here if the Prosecutor had undertaken to establish the exact motivation of these two alleged Stalinist renegades. It would have gained considerably in the appearance of honesty if he had called their attention to their lack of agreement on a point as important as the reason for their failure to carry out their alleged plan to kill Stalin at the Thirteenth Plenum.
With regard to Berman-Yurin’s alleged request that Trotsky allow him to get in touch with “an acquaintance named Fritz David” in Moscow, it seems exceedingly strange that Trotsky, assuming that he had revealed to Berman-Yurin information as confidential and as dangerous as the supposed terrorist instructions, would have withheld from him the comparatively unimportant information that he already knew about David, who either had visited him or would visit him in Copenhagen. According to David, Sedov told him that Trotsky wanted to see him. Therefore, one must assume that even if David had not already been there, Trotsky was expecting him. Yet there is nothing in the record to indicate that Trotsky mentioned David’s visit to Berman-Yurin. Moreover, it may be noted that Berman-Yurin spoke as though Fritz David were already in Moscow, but the record states that both he and David went to Moscow in March, 1933. The Prosecutor did not question Berman-Yurin on this point. The record, therefore, does not show how Berman-Yurin knew that David was to be in Moscow.
We note, moreover, that Berman-Yurin’s testimony clearly indicates that he spent an entire day in Trotsky’s “apartment.” We hold that this would have been absolutely impossible without the knowledge of Frankel, Molinier, the Fields, and the other people who surrounded Trotsky during his stay, and who deny that Berman-Yurin was among his visitors
Before we leave this subject of Trotsky’s alleged terrorist instructions to accused in the August trial who claimed to have seen him in Copenhagen, we remark the validity of Trotsky’s comments upon the lack of details in their testimony which would have given that testimony an appearance of verisimilitude. None of them tells where or how Trotsky lived, how he went to see him, by what people he was surrounded; none mentions the peculiarity of the furnishings of the villa he occupied, of which there is ample evidence in the testimony before us; none mentions the press reports of the death of his alleged coconspirator Zinoviev, of which we also have ample evidence. On the other hand, such details as they do give are incorrect: Holtzman’s references to Sedov’s presence; his statement and that of Berman-Yurin that Trotsky paced the room during their conversations (the evidence of those witnesses who were with Trotsky shows that he received visitors in a very small room crowded with furniture, in which “pacing” would have been impossible). David furnished no details whatever concerning his own visit to Trotsky.
In view of all the considerations stated above, we hold the record of the trial to be completely worthless so far as concerns the connection of Berman-Yurin and David with Trotsky, Sedov and the alleged terrorist line. It is pertinent to note here the interesting fact that the three defendants, Olberg, David, and Berman-Yurin, although testifying that they received in November, 1932, Trotsky’s instructions to proceed to Russia on terrorist missions, did not, according to their own testimony, arrive in Moscow until March, 1933. Why this long delay in carrying out missions so urgent and important? Olberg’s mother states that her son went to Russia because Hitler’s rise to power in Germany made it impossible for him to remain there. We know from the record of the trial and from the record of their expulsion, cited above, that both Berman-Yurin and Fritz David were members of the official German Communist Party. It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that their departure for the Soviet Union was due to the same cause as that of Olberg, namely, the impossibility of safely remaining any longer within the borders of Nazi Germany.[18]
§ 95. On the basis of the record itself and of the evidence cited in this chapter and Chapter XII, we hold that neither Berman-Yurin nor David received terrorist instructions from Trotsky in Copenhagen, or saw Trotsky during his sojourn in that city.
§ 96. Two other defendants, Moissei Lurye and Nathan Lurye, who allegedly went from Germany to Russia for the purpose of committing terrorist acts, are not specifically mentioned in the verdict of the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial among those whose evidence is said to have convicted Trotsky and Sedov. However, since they are mentioned in the indictment (ZK 23) among the alleged agents who received directly from Trotsky and Sedov instructions to organize the assassination of Stalin, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and others, their testimony may properly be considered here.
§ 97. Nathan Lurye testified that he went to Moscow in April, 1932, on a special mission of the Trotskyite organization for the purpose of committing terrorist acts; that all his Trotskyite activities from 1927 onward had been directed toward sapping the power of the Soviet State; that the first person with whom he became intimate when he became a Trotskyite was Moissei Lurye, at the end of the summer of 1927. He stated that early in 1932 Moissei Lurye told him it was time to go to the U.S.S.R. and carry on terrorist work there; that he arrived in the U.S.S.R. with instructions to establish connections with the Trotskyites he had known in Germany and to carry on terrorist work together with them. In pursuance of these instructions, he established contact with Konstant and Lipschitz, members of a terrorist group to which a German engineer-architect, Franz Weitz, member of the German National Socialist Party, also belonged. Weitz, he said, had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Himmler, at that time chief of the Hitler Schutzstaffel and subsequently chief of the Gestapo, for the purpose of committing terrorist acts. Lurye testified that from September, 1932, to the spring of 1933 his group was engaged in preparing an attempt on the life of Commissar Voroshilov; that they frequently went to Frunze Street armed with revolvers; that they saw Voroshilov’s car going down Frunze Street but it was travelling too fast for them to fire. Therefore, they decided that that plan was useless and ceased watching Voroshilov’s car. They next turned their attention to the acquisition of explosives for the purpose of bombing Voroshilov in some street. In July, 1933, N. Lurye testified, he was sent to Chelyabinsk to work in his profession of surgeon. While there he tried to meet both Kaganovich and Ordjonikidze, who visited that city, in order to commit terrorist acts against them. In this he failed. In January, 1936, he went to Leningrad on a scientific mission. Passing through Moscow he met Moissei Lurye, who instructed him to make an attempt on the life of Zhdanov. He intended to do this during the demonstration on the first of May, and armed himself with a Browning revolver, medium size. However, although he succeeded in getting into the demonstration in the Uritzky Square, he marched by Zhdanov too far away to be able to shoot him. (ZK 101-5.)
§ 98. Moissei Lurye testified that he went to Moscow on March 4, 1933, with terrorist instructions from Ruth Fischer and Maslow which “were the instructions of Trotsky himself.” He testified that he had been connected with Fischer since 1924, and since 1925 in opposition work in the Zinoviev faction; and that he had been connected with Maslow since 1927. On arriving in Moscow, he communicated his instructions to Zinoviev’s former personal emissary in Berlin, A. V. Hertzberg, with whom he, Lurye, had been connected in Zinovievite work from November, 1927, until the end of 1931, and who “enjoyed the particular confidence of Zinoviev.” In the beginning of August, 1934, he gave Zinoviev detailed information about these instructions and about the activities of Nathan Lurye’s terrorist group. He had been connected, he said, with Nathan Lurye approximately from April, 1933, to January 2, 1936. He testified that he had instructed N. Lurye to make an attempt on Ordjonikidze’s life when the latter visited the Chelyabinsk tractor works, and that he had also instructed him to make an attempt on the life of Zhdanov; also that he had been connected with the Fascist agent, Franz Weitz. (ZK 105-8.)
§ 99. Leon Trotsky testified that he had never known or had any relations with M. Lurye and N. Lurye and saw their names for the first time in the published reports of the first trial (PC 94). Ruth Fischer and Maslow, he said,
are former leaders of the German Communist Party, and were my bitter adversaries. Then they became Oppositionists, Zinovievists. They capitulated after Zinoviev, and in the time indicated in these depositions they were absolutely antagonistic to me. (PC 225.)
§ 100. Eugene Bauer testified:
I was acquainted, not personally but from having heard him speak, with M. Lurye. At that time he went under the name of Alexander Emel.[19] The speech at which I was present was in fact directed against the Trotskyist movement, and Lurye has always been one of the extreme adversaries of that movement. (CR 45.)
§ 101. The most important documents in our possession concerning these two accused are as follows:
(1) A deposition by Eugene Bauer, certified by the Special Committee, in which Bauer states that he had never heard of Nathan Lurye, and that Moissei Lurye, as Alexander Emel, was occupied as a theoretician in the Communist Party of Germany; that M. Lurye had belonged in 1927 to the Zinoviev opposition but thereafter became loyal to the official party and from 1929 to 1931 played a certain role as theoretician, historian and propagandist; that he was one of the leaders of the propaganda section of the Communist Party of Germany, but that in the beginning of 1932 at the time of a little zigzag of the Party he was removed as a scapegoat; that he was not only not a Trotskyist but a specialist in the fight against Trotskyism. (PC Exh. 16, S II/8.)
(2) Concerning the identity of Nathan Lurye and of Konstant and Lipschitz, mentioned by him, we have an affidavit (New York) by Dr. Maria Blume, resident in Germany up to March, 1935, and now residing in New York City. In a letter to the Commission Dr. Blume informs us that she has never been a member of any political party; and that she submitted her affidavit in the interest of truth, and not from any motives of partisanship. In the affidavit she states that she knew Dr. Nathan Lurye in Berlin and was very well acquainted with his wife, Nekha Adunskaya, having been born in the same town in Russian Poland and later attended the same university in Germany; that Dr. Nathan Lurye, a Polish Jew by birth, studied medicine in Germany, graduated from the University of Berlin in 1926 or 1927 and later obtained a position in one of the suburban Berlin hospitals; that he worked there until the year 1931-32 when “like all other foreigners residing in Germany he was deprived by governmental decree of the right to employment”; that he, therefore, applied for work in the Soviet Union and left for that country at the beginning of 1932; that at the end of that year his wife joined him, and from her Dr. Blume learned that Nathan Lurye was employed as a surgeon in the Kremlin Hospital, Moscow.
Dr. Blume further states that Esther Adunskaya, Nathan Lurye’s sister-in-law, was married to a German worker by the name of Erich Konstant; that Esther and her husband, both of whom were Communists, left for the Soviet Union in 1925 or 1926, and their last address known to Dr. Blume was Gorodskaya 2/7, Apt. 89, Moscow. She states that Pavel Lipschitz was born in Russian Poland, attended the Technische Hochschule of Berlin and graduated as an engineer at the end of 1931; that like Nathan Lurye, he was deprived of the right to work in Germany; that he applied to the Soviet Embassy for work in the Soviet Union and went there in the beginning of 1932. She states that Nekha Adunskaya Lurye, Nathan Lurye, and Pavel Lipschitz were to her knowledge members of the Communist Party of Germany and did not display either privately or publicly any Oppositionist tendencies; that Pavel Lipschitz and the Adunsky family, being fellow-townsmen, maintained close relations. Dr. Blume concludes that out of her personal knowledge she is able to state that the relations of Nathan Lurye, Konstant and Lipschitz were primarily those of relatives and fellow-countrymen. (PC Exh. 9, I.)
(3) A photostat of an article by Alexander Emel (Moissei Lurye) from page 3077 in No. 96 of the International Press Correspondence (Inprecorr), November 15, 1932. In this article Lurye states that the bourgeoisie needs a better propagandist against the Soviet Union than the Social Democracy which the workers no longer believe, and that Leon Trotsky at the moment fulfills this function for the bourgeoisie; that the letters from the Soviet Union which appear in the Bulletin are widely reproduced in government journals, especially in such countries as Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Papen Germany; and that Trotsky enjoys a very peculiar sympathy on the part of the police of Pilsudski’s Poland, where his articles are made much of in the fascist press and the censor is always at his service. Such articles, he says, as “Trotskyism in the Light of Marxism,” cannot appear in Poland. They are completely forbidden by the censor. Only one word remains on the whole page: “Confiscated.” (Ibid., 2.)
§ 102. We note that neither of the Luryes offered any direct evidence of his alleged connection with Trotsky. Moissei Lurye testified that the instructions which he received verbally from Fischer and Maslow actually came from Trotsky. One must assume that if he received such instructions he took the word of Fischer and Maslow on this point; in other words, his testimony was hearsay. Nathan Lurye was even more vague. He testified merely that his terrorist instructions came from"the Trotskyite organization.” We note also that whereas Nathan Lurye stated that Moissei Lurye was the first person with whom he became intimate after he became a Trotskyite, and placed the beginning of their intimacy at the end of the summer of 1927, Moissei Lurye dated his connection with Nathan Lurye only from April, 1933. The testimony of M. Lurye follows in the record immediately after that of N. Lurye; yet no attempt of the Prosecutor to reconcile these conflicting statements is recorded.
We have quoted Bauer’s testimony to the effect that M. Lurye belonged in 1927 to the Zinoviev opposition but thereafter became loyal to the official party and played a certain role therein from 1929 to 1931. Lurye’s testimony indicates that he was engaged in Zinovievite work up until the time of his departure for Russia (ZK 106). Since Zinoviev had capitulated in 1928 and had been readmitted to the Party (§ 24) it may, of course, be quite logically assumed that Lurye’s theoretical, historical and propagandist work for the official Communist Party of Germany, an example of which we have quoted, was identical with Zinovievite work. On the other hand, if either of the Luryes had been engaged in Trotskyite work in Berlin it seems strange indeed that Nathan Lurye remained unknown to the Trotskyists and that Moissei Lurye was known to them only as an official Stalinist propagandist.
In the case of the Luryes, as in that of Berman-Yurin and David, the Prosecutor made no attempt whatever to establish any motivation for their alleged terrorist undertakings. Moreover, the nature of the preparations for terrorist attempts to which these two witnesses confessed are better calculated to excite mirth than to command credence.
§ 103. In view of all these considerations, and the evidence in our possession concerning these defendants, we find no basis whatever for the attempt in the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial to link Moissei Lurye and Nathan Lurye with Leon Trotsky or the Trotskyist movement, or with an alleged “terrorist line.”
§ 104. The Definition of the Charge in the “Report of Court Proceedings in the case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center” begins as follows:
The investigating authorities consider it established: 1) that on the instructions of L. D. Trotsky there was organized in 1933 a parallel center consisting of the following accused in the present case: Y. L. Pyatakov, K. B. Radek, G. Y. Sokolnikov, and L. P. Serebryakov, the object of which was to direct criminal, anti-Soviet, espionage, diversive and terrorist activities ... (PR 18.)
On Page 5 of the indictment it is stated that the investigation of the case of the united Trotskyite-Zinovievite center established that in addition to the united center
there existed a so-called reserve center, formed on the direct instructions of L. D. Trotsky, for the eventuality of the criminal activities of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc being exposed by the organs of the Soviet government. The convicted members of the united Trotskyite-Zinovievite center, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others, testified that the reserve center consisted of Y. L. Pyatakov, K. B. Radek, G. Y. Sokolnikov, and L. P. Serebryakov, all known for their past Trotskyite activities.
The preliminary investigation of the present case established that the so-called reserve center was actually a parallel Trotskyite center, organized and operating under the direct instructions of L. D. Trotsky, now in emigration. [Our emphasis.]
According to the indictment, therefore, the reserve center and the parallel center, both allegedly formed on Trotsky’s direct instructions, were identical.
§ 105. We have already pointed out (§ 33), in discussing the united center, that there is no direct evidence in the published record of the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial indicating the attitude of either Trotsky or Sedov toward the formation of that center or their role, if any, in its formation. This is equally true as concerns the reserve center. Indeed, the only one of the accused in that trial who mentioned that center was Kamenev (§ 32). Zinoviev mentioned Sokolnikov among the “so-called ‘individuals’ “ who approached Kamenev and himself (ZK 72); Reingold stated categorically that Sokolnikov was a member of the alleged united Trotskyite-Zinovievite center (ZK 54-5); and Evdokimov placed Sokolnikov among those who attended a conference in Kamenev’s apartment in the summer of 1934 at which it was decided to expedite the assassination of Kirov, but without stating in what capacity Sokolnikov was present (ZK 48). None of the accused mentioned Pyatakov in the published record; even the accused Kamenev, in telling who were the leaders selected for the reserve center, mentioned only Sokolnikov, Serebryakov, and Radek (ZK 67). Pyatakov’s name is mentioned only once in this record: by Vyshinsky. In a statement after the examination of the accused at the evening session of August 21 – the last session at which testimony was taken – Vyshinsky mentions Pyatakov among several people who have been referred to in the testimony of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Reingold as being involved in their criminal activities (ZK 115-16).
§ 106. So much for the reserve center and its members in so far as they figure in the record of the August trial. Although the indictment in the January trial expressly stated (§ 104) that the investigation in the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial established that this reserve center was formed on the direct instructions of L. D. Trotsky, this statement is nowhere borne out in the published record of that trial. Indeed, the accused Kamenev said:
Knowing that we might be discovered, we designated a small group to continue our terrorist activities. (ZK 67.)
Not only did he not say that this group was designated on Trotsky’s instruction; but it must be noted that nowhere in the record of the August trial does Kamenev claim any direct communication whatever with either Trotsky or Sedov. The versions of the origin of this center which were brought out in the testimony of the second trial also failed to establish the charge that it was instigated and its members selected by Trotsky. We consider first the testimony on this point by those two members of the alleged center who claimed direct contact with Trotsky, namely: Pyatakov and Radek.
§ 107. Pyatakov testified that in a letter from Trotsky which he received through the accused Shestov at the end of November, 1931, the second point was the “necessity of uniting all anti-Stalin forces” in order “to use every means to remove Stalin and his immediate assistants” (PR 32). Like all the accused in both trials who had occasion to mention this phrase, “remove Stalin,” Pyatakov interpreted it as implying violence. He testified that he devoted the interval between the end of November, 1931, and a trip to Berlin in the middle of 1932 “to restoring Trotskyite contacts and cadres,” especially in the Ukraine through Loginov and Livshitz (the first a witness and the latter one of the accused in the second trial) (PR 33-36). This testimony is especially significant in that it places Pyatakov’s activity not only before the formation of the reserve center but even before that of the main united center. On page 36 he testifies that he met with Sedov in Berlin in the middle of 1932, and began to
relate to him what I then knew about the activities of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization which were beginning to develop
– a statement which places the activities of a Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc before its date of organization as fixed in the indictment of the first trial and in much of the evidence in both trials, and also indicates that Pyatakov knew about the bloc and its activities even before he was informed about them. For on the very page he states that after his return to Moscow in the autumn of 1932, Kamenev
... very clearly and distinctly informed me about the Trotskyite-Zinovievite center which had been formed. (PR 37.)
Since the Prosecutor, who was in a position to attempt to secure a clarification of these apparent contradictions, did not see fit to do so, and since the Commission is obviously not in a position to make that attempt, we simply note them and pass on to Pyatakov’s further account of this interview with Kamenev which, he said,
was very important from the point of view of forming the reserve center, what became later the parallel Trotskyite center. (PR 36.)
Kamenev, said Pyatakov,
... mentioned the names of a number of people who belonged to the center and informed me that they had discussed the question of including in the center people who in general had been prominent Trotskyites in the past, such as myself – Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and Serebryakov, but they had come to the conclusion that this was inexpedient. As Kamenev said ... it was desirable, in case the main center was exposed, to have a reserve Trotskyite-Zinovievite center. He had been authorized officially to ask me whether would agree to join that center... . I gave Kamenev my consent to join the reserve center. (PR 37.)
§ 108. From this testimony of Pyatakov it appears, first, that the reserve center was at least in process of formation in the autumn of 1932, although the indictment places its organization in 1933; secondly, that it was being formed on the initiative of the main or united center; and, thirdly, that it was to be not a Trotskyite but a Trotskyite-Zinovievite center. But Pyatakov, on the very next page after this account, gives a second version. He states that in 1932 he had a conversation with Radek during which they discussed the
very great predominance of Zinovievites in the main center, and whether we should not raise the question of making certain changes in the composition of the main center. (PR 38.)
They decided that this could not be done, as it would give rise to unnecessary disputes in the Trotskyite underground organization. Then
The idea occurred to us that in addition to the main center ... we ought to have our own Trotskyite parallel center which could serve as a reserve center in case the main center was exposed, and which at the same time would carry on practical work independently in accordance with Trotsky’s directives and his lines... . Radek and I were disturbed by the thought that in the economic retreat after we had seized power the Zinovievite section of the bloc would go too far, and something had to be organized to counteract it. At all events, we then agreed to ask Trotsky’s opinion about this. (PR 38.)
Here we have a version in which the idea of a reserve center was cooked up by Pyatakov and Radek as a conspiratorial measure against the Zinovievites. Pyatakov goes on to say that
A little later (this was already in 1933), during one of my meetings with Radek, he informed me that he had received a reply from Trotsky, that Trotsky categorically urged the necessity of preserving complete unity as well as the bloc with the Zinovievites... . As for converting our center into a parallel center, he said that this would accelerate the gathering of forces and preparation of the necessary acts of terrorism and wrecking. (PR 38-9.)
Thus Pyatakov and Radek seem to have queried Trotsky about the formation of a parallel Trotskyite center, and Trotsky seems to have answered a query about the conversion of the “Trotskyite-Zinovievite reserve center” into a Trotskyite parallel center. For Pyatakov again formulates this alleged communication from Trotsky as follows:
In regard to converting the reserve center into a parallel center, he gave us his blessing. (PR 40.)
§ 109. The accused Radek “fully confirmed” this testimony of Pyatakov, and went into even greater detail about the reasons why he and Pyatakov thought it necessary, “while outwardly preserving the bloc to have our own organization to counterbalance it,” and why “we tried to apply the idea of a reserve center in the form of a parallel center” (PR 40-41). He stated that it was he who wrote the letter asking Trotsky’s opinion, and that he established communication through Vladimir Romm, who at that time was a Tass correspondent abroad. It is therefore pertinent to consult the testimony of the witness Vladimir Romm, who appears from the record of the trial to have served Radek and Trotsky not only in the capacity of liaison man but also in that of close confidant. Romm testified that in the autumn of 1932, when he was in Moscow, Radek told him that
in pursuance of Trotsky’s directives, a Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc had been organized, but that he and Pyatakov had not joined that center. Radek went on to say that the idea had arisen of creating a reserve, or parallel center, on which the Trotskyites were to predominate, in order to have a reserve center in the event of the functioning center being discovered. (PR 139.)
Here we have a third version – a parallel center not exclusively but merely predominantly “Trotskyite.” Since Radek seems to have had no secrets from his liaison man, we learn that the people whom Romm understood to be prospective members of this reserve or parallel center were Radek, Pyatakov, Sere-bryakov and Sokolnikov – that is, except for Pyatakov they were precisely those people whom Kamenev mentioned in the first trial as having been selected for the reserve center by the main or united center, and they were precisely (including Pyatakov) the people allegedly mentioned to Pyatakov by Kamenev (§ 107) as “people who in general had been prominent Trotskyites in the past,” and who had not been invited to serve on the main center because it was desirable “to have a reserve TrotskyiteZinovievite center,” in case the main center should be exposed.
After providing this significant information, which we shall discuss later, Romm went on to testify that it was clear to him that only Pyatakov and Radek were to write the letter which Radek had asked him to convey to Trotsky; that according to his understanding, this letter was to be a
request for directives concerning the idea of creating a parallel center... . Evidently, whether to create or not to create, and of whom it was to consist. (PR 140.)
One of the arguments advanced by Radek, said Romm, was “that the Zinovievites predominated in the functioning center.” Then comes the following colloquy:
VYSHINSKY: Hence, they had decided to organize such a center and only wanted sanction, or did they ask for advice on the question, how to decide?
Romm: My impression was that they had decided the question in the affirmative, that is to say, that it was necessary to do it, and that the letter would be written in order to obtain sanction.
VYSHINSKY: What was written in that letter, did you know?
Romm: Yes, because the letter was handed to me and then concealed in the cover of a German book before my departure back to Geneva in the autumn of 1932. (PR 140.)
Romm went on to state that at the end of July, 1933, he met Trotsky in the Bois de Boulogne, and that the purpose for which Trotsky met him was:
As far as I could understand, in order verbally to confirm the instructions contained in the letter I was taking to Moscow. He started the conversation with the question of creating the parallel center... . He agreed with the idea of the parallel center, but only on the imperative condition that the bloc with the Zinovievites was preserved ... (PR 141.)
From this version it appears that Pyatakov and Radek asked Trotsky neither about the idea of forming an independent Trotskyite parallel center nor about converting the reserve center into such a parallel center, but about the idea of creating a parallel Trotskyite-Zinovievite center on which the Trotskyites should predominate; and that Trotsky’s reply sanctioned not the conversion of the reserve center into a parallel center, but the creation of a parallel center “only on the imperative condition that the bloc with the Zinovievites was preserved.”
§ 110. A word here about dates: The only letter Romm mentioned having received from Radek for Trotsky in 1932 he placed in September (PR 143). Since he had already testified that the letter inquiring about the creation of a parallel center was handed to him in the autumn of 1932, we must assume that it was this letter which he received in September. We have already noted (§ 107) that Pyatakov would appear from his own testimony to have known about the existence and activities of the main center not only some months before the date of its organization as given in the indictment in the first trial but even before he himself had been informed about it. It now appears that Radek told Romm that a Trotskyite-Zinovievite center had been formed, criticized its predominantly Zinovievite membership, and in agreement with Pyatakov sent a letter to Trotsky asking his opinion about creating a parallel center – all a month or two before he himself learned that the main Trotskyite-Zinovievite center had been formed, and indeed even somewhat before he had himself “decided to return to the road of struggle.” For although Radek testified (PR 87) that Trotsky wrote him in February, 1932, that negotiations for a bloc were under way, he definitely placed his own decision to “return to the road of struggle” at “approximately the end of September or of October, 1932,” and his knowledge of the actual formation of the bloc at the end of October or beginning of November, 1932 (PR 87). At that time, he said, he had a talk with Mrachkovsky, and asked him, “Where and how do you intend to act?” Mrachkovsky inquired whether he had had a letter from Trotsky, and what he had decided. According to Radek:
I replied: ... I have decided to go with you. Then I asked him how they visualized the struggle, and what progress had been made in the matter of joining with the Zinovievites... . He replied quite definitely that the struggle had entered the terrorist phase and that in order to carry out these tactics they had now united with the Zinovievites and would set about the preparatory work. (PR 88.)
But the “preparatory work” of Radek and Pyatakov, if the record is to be believed, had already been done. With a wonderful prescience, they had perceived the danger lurking in the “predominantly Zinovievite” membership of the “functioning” united center, not only before either of them learned of its existence but even before it did exist, and hastened to ask for Trotsky’s “directives” about the creation of a Trotskyite parallel center, or possibly a center on which the Trotskyites should predominate, in order to counteract the influence of the Zinovievites. This unity in wisdom and in action is all the more impressive in that it took place, if one is to believe Radek’s testimony, some three months before they saw one another. In answer to a question from Vyshinsky, “Whom did you meet at that time ...” he says:
We agreed that we should meet as little as possible... . If it is a question of my meetings with my colleagues of the reserve center – Trotskyites – I saw Pyatakov in December, 1932, a second time at the end of 1933. . . . (PR 91-2.)
§ 111. It is interesting, in view of Radek’s own confirmation and elaboration of Pyatakov’s testimony about the parallel center, and his later confirmation of Romm’s testimony (PR 145), to note that according to his own testimony he learned not only about the main center but also about the reserve center and its proposed personnel from Mrachkovsky:
Later Mrachkovsky told me that since the struggle would be a very severe one and the sacrifices would be enormous, they would like to preserve certain cadres in the event of defeat, that is to say, in the event of arrest, and he said that “this is why we have not included you in the first center.” He said this in reference to me, Pyatakov, and Serebryakov.
VYSHINSKY: And did he speak to you about Sokolnikov? RADEK: He spoke to me about him later. At this juncture the talk was about Trotskyites... . (PR 88.)
This version, it will be noted, tallies with Kamenev’s and with Pyatakov’s first version of the formation and personnel of the reserve center; save that Kamenev did not mention Pyatakov, and Pyatakov placed Sokolnikov among those people whom Kamenev mentioned to him as having been prominent Trotskyites in the past (§§ 32, 105, 107). It also tallies with the versions given by the other two alleged members of the reserve or parallel center, which we shall now proceed to examine, pausing only long enough to note that Radek, as if to refute as completely as possible Romm’s testimony (which he later confirmed) about his and Pyatakov’s knowledge of the composition of the united center as early as September, 1932, answered as follows Vyshinsky’s query whether Mrachkovsky told him anything about Bakayev and Reingold:
When he later outlined the scheme of organization of the bloc, he named Dreitzer as the direct leader of the terrorist organization on our side, and Bakayev as the leader on the Zinovievites’ side. (PR 89.) [Italics ours.]
And on page 91 he says that he learned from Dreitzer about the Zinovievites. This testimony of Radek stands in the record between Pyatakov’s and Romm’s. It contradicts Pyatakov’s second version (confirmed by Radek) of the formation of the reserve or parallel center, and is contradicted by Romm’s version. Yet Vyshinsky, when Romm had finished, said:
Accused Radek, you have just heard Romm’s explanations. It seems to me that Romm’s statements tally with yours. (PR 145.)
§ 112. The other two members of the alleged parallel or reserve center, Serebryakov and Sokolnikov, explicitly denied having had direct communication with Trotsky (PR 42, 555). No attempt was made to impugn their testimony, and no evidence was introduced to show that they had had direct contact with either Trotsky or Sedov. According to Serebryakov, Mrachkovsky came to see him in the autumn of 1932 and told him that a Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc had been formed, and who its members were; also that the center had decided to create a reserve center in the event of its being exposed (PR 168). It is curious in this connection that although Kamenev (§ 32), Pyatakov (§ 107), Romm (§ 109), and Radek (§ 111) included Serebryakov among the members originally designated for the reserve center, and though all of these witnesses except Kamenev explicitly fixed 1932 as the year in which that center was planned, Serebryakov himself testified that he was invited to join it only at the end of November, 1933, by Pyatakov, when the two of them met in Gagri (PR 41). From this it would appear that Mrachkovsky’s purpose in informing Serebryakov a year earlier about the formation of the reserve center was merely that of indulging in a little conspiratorial gossip. However that may be, it should be noted that Serebryakov’s version of the formation of the reserve center coincides with that of Kamenev, and with Pyatakov’s first and Radek’s second version. Serebryakov did not state that Trotsky had given instructions for the formation of this center. On the contrary he said that “the center had decided” to create it.
§ 113. The accused Sokolnikov, fourth member of this alleged parallel or reserve center, not only claimed no direct contact with either Trotsky or Sedov, but expressly differentiated between himself and the members “of Trotskyite origin.” He said:
... between the members of the center of Trotskyite origin there were closer, more intimate and more trustful relations than there were with me... . (PR 159.)
His attitude on this point is independently confirmed. Although Pyatakov included Sokolnikov among those whom Kamenev mentioned to him as having been prominent Trotskyites in the past, Kamenev himself, in the first trial, set Sokolnikov apart from the “Trotskyites” in speaking of the projected reserve center (ZK 67). Zinoviev included him, with Smilga, among the so-called “individuals” who allegedly approached himself and Kamenev (ZK 72). Radek said of Sokolnikov that Mrachkovsky
... spoke to me about him later. At this juncture the talk was about Trotskyites. (PR 88.)
On page 107 Radek explicitly states that Sokolnikov “was representing the Zinovievite organization” – a statement which, if accepted, invalidates the claim of the indictment that the reserve center was a parallel Trotskyite center, and also Pyatakov’s second version, confirmed by Radek himself, of the formation of the parallel, or reserve, center.
Sokolnikov not only denied in his final plea that he was in communication with Trotsky (PR 555), but throughout his testimony he repeatedly stated that his knowledge of Trotsky’s directives came through Pyatakov and Radek; and on page 159 he speaks of
... a number of communications ... made to me in the name of Trotsky, who not only guided the parallel center, but also gave instructions to those members of the center with whom he had close relations.
Sokolnikov was explicit about the formation of the alleged reserve center. He testified that he learned from Kamenev about the personnel and terrorist aims of the united center. Vyshinsky asked him:
You accepted Kamenev’s proposal regarding the organization of the reserve center and regarding its composition, or did you discuss its composition?
Sokolnikov: Kamenev told me at the time – this was at the end of summer, 1932 – that he would conduct negsotiations on the formation of the reserve center. (PR 147.)
Thus, if we accept “the end of 1932,” as stated in the indictment in the August trial, for the date of organization of the united center, it would appear that Sokolnikov learned from Kamenev about the plan for a reserve center even before the united center was formed. There follows a series of questions and answers which illustrates the juridical quality of the trial:
VYSHINSKY: He would conduct negotiations? With whom – did he tell you?
Sokolnikov: No.
VYSHINSKY: And you did not bother to ask who else would be in it?
Sokolnikov: He told me in general terms that he would speak with Tomsky [referred to in these trials only as a member of the Right; not of either center]. But he did not say with whom personally he was going to speak besides.
VYSHINSKY: And what do you think, with whom could he have spoken?
Having thus consulted Sokolnikov’s thoughts about the intentions of the dead Kamenev, the Prosecutor leads him into a flat contradiction of his previous testimony:
SOKOLNIKOV: Regarding possible candidates for the center? Those were the same persons who were afterwards made members of the parallel center.
VYSHINSKY: But which of these candidates did Kamenev specifically name to you in that conversation?
Sokolnikov: I can not recall if he named all of them. VYSHINSKY: But whom did he name?
Sokolnikov: I recollect he named Pyatakov and Radek. VYSHINSKY: And they afterwards joined the center? Sokolnikov: Yes. (PR 147-8.)
On pages 150 and 158, Sokolnikov again mentions Kamenev as a source of information; and on page 167, in denying that he was a member of the united center, he refers to his confrontation with Kamenev and quotes him as follows:
Kamenev stated that he had had conversations with me in the summer of 1932, that they did not want to put me on the united center because they thought it necessary to reserve me ... so that I could be utilized in the event of the united center being exposed... . Kamenev said then that this was precisely why I did not go on the united center but was selected for the reserve center; and this corresponds with the facts.
Here we have again the Kamenev-Zinoviev version of the date of formation of the united center (§§ 34-8), and apparently also Kamenev’s version (at second hand) of the date of projection of the reserve center. Vyshinsky thereupon quotes as follows from what purports to be the testimony of Kamenev, as set forth in Vol. VIII, p. 45, of the preliminary hearings:
In conversations with Zinoviev we became convinced that it was necessary to create a leading group of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization in the event of our being exposed. It was precisely in this connection that I conducted negotiations with Sokolnikov and obtained his full consent. (PR 168.)
No word here, either from Sokolnikov or Kamenev, about instructions from Trotsky. We have remarked that Kamenev made no claim to having had contact with Trotsky or Sedov. Here it appears that the idea of the reserve center occurred to himself and Zinoviev, who also claimed no direct contact with Trotsky or Sedov.
§ 114. Thus we have, from the four members of the alleged reserve center, who might reasonably be supposed to have known how it was formed, two distinct versions of the way in which the center came into being. In one of these it was established as a reserve “Trotskyite-Zinovievite” center, and its members selected, by the united center; in the other, the idea of a parallel Trotskyite center “occurred” to Pyatakov and Radek, who wrote to ask Trotsky’s opinion about it. Vyshinsky made no effort to reconcile these mutually contradictory versions. In one it was formed in 1932; in the other it was projected in 1932 and a “conversion” was sanctioned by Trotsky in 1933. The witness Romm gave still another version (confirmed by Radek) in which Pyatakov and Radek asked Trotsky’s advice, not about a parallel Trotskyite center, but about a reserve center on which the Trotskyites were to predominate, and received his approval of that plan. It should be borne in mind that according to Romm’s testimony, his alleged conversation with Trotsky (§ 109) consisted of a verbal confirmation of the contents of the letter in which Trotsky was answering Radek’s query about forming a parallel center. The Prosecutor gave no sign of being aware that Romm’s version of this answer differed from that of Pyatakov,
“fully confirmed” by Radek. Nor did he take any note of the fact that Pyatakov’s version of it made it appear that Trotsky, having been asked one question, had answered another (§ 108). Let us assume, for the moment, that Pyatakov and Radek really asked Trotsky, not about the formation’ of a “parallel Trotskyite center,” but about the conversion of the “TrotskyiteZinovievite reserve center” into a parallel center; then a question arises which would certainly have been pertinent to the record: How did Pyatakov and Radek expect to be able to do this without offending the Zinovievites? Moreover, Pyatakov’s account (confirmed by Radek) of this answer from Trotsky implies the obvious question: Did Trotsky, in “giving his blessing” to the conversion, advise Radek how it could be done while preserving that “complete unity as well as the bloc with the Zinovievites,” the necessity of which he “categorically urged"?
§ 115. Another question arises, and that a basic one: What is meant by the “conversion” of the reserve Trotskyite-Zinovievite center into a parallel Trotskyite center? Does not the phrase imply changes in membership – that the Zinovievites on the center were to be dropped? But there is no indication that the membership of the center was ever changed. The indictment expressly states that the reserve center consisted of Pyatakov, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov, and Radek; and all versions of its initial membership bear out this statement, with these exceptions: Kamenev did not include Pyatakov (who according to the indictment and his own confession was a Trotskyite member); Sokolnikov did not include Serebryakov (a Trotskyite according to the indictment and his own confession); while Serebryakov stated that he joined the center in 1933, a year after he had been informed about it. Moreover, the witness Romm explicitly stated that he understood from Radek that the members of the parallel center were to be – Pyatakov, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov, and Radek! And it was those same four men who were tried in January, 1937, as members of the alleged Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center which according to the indictment was identical with the reserve center. Nowhere in the record of either trial is it alleged that there were others.
Thus we find that the reserve center and the parallel center were identical in membership from the beginning. What, then, was “converted"? Possibly it was a matter of withdrawing from connections with the Zinovievites and taking orders only from Trotsky? But Sokolnikov, according to Radek, represented the Zinovievites. And Sokolnikov explicitly stated that Kamenev, in the beginning of 1934,
informed me about the defeatist position taken by Trotsky... . Incidentally, one definite result of this conversation was that Kamenev warned me that someone might approach me with inquiries. (PR 148.)
On the same page Sokolnikov states that his work in the parallel center began only in the summer of 1935. Again, Pyatakov, in speaking of the efforts of the parallel center to convert itself into the main center in 1935, says:
In a word, we endeavored to carry out the decision of the main center which in 1934 had been transmitted to all the four members of the reserve center: By Kamenev to me and Sokolnikov, and by Mrachkovsky to Radek and Serebryakov. (PR 54.)
§ 116. Obviously that explanation does not hold. We therefore pass from questions which should have occurred to the Prosecutor and the Court to questions which conceivably may have occurred to them, and certainly must occur to anyone who honestly tries to understand the prosecution’s side of this case – which is the only side the records contain. Were there not possibly some political considerations involved in this matter of “conversion"? The consideration, for example, that the charges of treason, sabotage, and terrorism would be more effective politically against Leon Trotsky if he could be made to appear solely responsible; more especially since Zinoviev and Kamenev were dead and there were no prominent Zinovievites remaining to be discredited? But how to do this? Prominent “Trotskyites” were no longer numerous; and three of these, Pyatakov, Serebryakov, and Radek, had already been implicated in the alleged crimes of the united center. Sokolnikov too. To try Pyatakov, Radek, Serebryakov and Sokolnikov as the Trotskyite-Zinovievite reserve center would be to preserve the connection with the main center indicated in the August trial, and to involve them in all the alleged crimes of that center – and Trotsky. To try them as a parallel Trotskyite center formed and acting on Trotsky’s “direct instructions” would be to shift to Trotsky sole responsibility for their activities, and also possibly help to justify a great many activities of which the members of the united center appear to have died in ignorance – at least so far as the record of their trial shows. And the second date of formation – 1933 would be useful in linking Trotsky, through Romm, with the formation of the center. This could not be done earlier, for Romm was stationed in Paris and Geneva, while Trotsky, until July 17, 1933, was in Turkey.
We are not stating that these considerations were behind the strange “conversion” of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite reserve center into a parallel Trotskyite center. Indeed, it seems to us that if they had been, it would have been in the interest of the prosecution to see to it that the testimony to that “conversion” at least made sense. We only remark that some such considerations would have supplied a motive for this conversion which was no conversion – a motive, that is, for the prosecution. Since an analysis of the testimony sufficiently establishes that no actual conversion took place, there could obviously have been none on the part of the accused themselves.
§ 117. In none of this conflicting testimony, we repeat, is there the slightest evidence, direct or indirect, that Trotsky either instigated the formation of the alleged reserve or parallel center, or selected its members. At most his alleged role consisted in approving what other people had either done or suggested doing. And the nature of the evidence brought out by the Prosecutor, which we have analyzed above, leaves not the shadow of a basis for belief that he did even that much.
§ 118. Another “conversion” which seems to have taken place chiefly if not exclusively in the pages of the record, is that of the parallel center into an operating center. Pyatakov first mentioned this:
I met Sokolnikov much later, in the middle of 1935, when we spoke concretely about converting the reserve, or parallel, center into an operating center, since at that time the main center had been broken up and its members arrested and sentenced. Sokolnikov came to see me at the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry and said that it was time to become active as a certain lull had set in after the arrests. (PR 39.)
Later he said:
The characteristic feature of our criminal work in the period from the middle of 1935 to the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936 was that this was a period when the “parallel center” endeavored to convert itself from a parallel center into the main center and to intensify its work in accordance with the directives we had received from Trotsky, since at that time we had a number of meetings here with Sokolnikov and Tomsky... . Just then the new phase began. (PR 54.)
Pyatakov’s first version of this change would seem to indicate that up until the middle of 1935 the parallel center had not been operating – had really been a reserve center. This version was corroborated by the accused Sokolnikov, who stated that his work on the parallel center began in the summer of 1935, except for one commission in 1934 (PR 148). Later he spoke of meeting Pyatakov in 1935, “after the parallel center had commenced its activities” (PR 149). But in his final plea he said:
And later, in 1935 ... when the parallel center began to resume its work, ... (PR 552.)
It is impossible to tell what all this means: whether the parallel center became an operating center in 1935 – which certainly would imply that it had not operated before – whether it converted itself into the main center, or whether it resumed activities which had been discontinued. Pyatakov’s first statement, quoted above, is peculiar when juxtaposed with the following exchange of question and answer (“fully confirmed” by Radek) on the very next page:
VYSHINSKY: Hence, we can take it that the “parallel center” has been operating since 1933?
PYATAKOV: Yes.
VYSHINSKY: It was a parallel center precisely because it operated simultaneously with the main center?
Pyatakov: Yes. (PR 40.)
Certainly there is nothing in the testimony of Pyatakov, Radek, or Serebryakov which indicates either that the parallel center was inactive until 1935 or that it ever suspended activities, to resume them in that year. All three confessed to continuous activity, Radek from the autumn of 1932, Serebryakov from the autumn of 1933, and Pyatakov even from the date of his alleged meeting with Sedov in 1931 – a year before the alleged formation of the main center and two years before the date of formation of the reserve center as given in the indictment. Even Sokolnikov, although he spoke of the activities of the parallel center as having been “commenced” and “resumed” in 1935, testified to having had “connections” with terrorist groups before that date.
Just what was meant by the “conversion” of the parallel center into an “operating” center, or by the “commencement” or “resumption” of its activities, therefore, remains unclear; and the Prosecutor made no attempt to throw light on this question.
§ 119. What was meant by the intensification of activity which Pyatakov mentions in the second quotation above (§ 118) is implied in the quotation itself. Pyatakov went on to explain that in a conversation which he had with Sokolnikov “much attention was paid to the question of expanding the bloc... .” (PR 54). They decided, he said, that form must be given to their relations with the Rights, so as to organize the overthrow of the government in conjunction with them. Sokolnikov undertook to meet Tomsky, and did so, and he, Pyatakov, also had a conversation with Tomsky. In December Sokolnikov told him that “Tomsky had fully agreed to an organized joining of the bloc.” Whereupon Pyatakov told him of his own talk with Tomsky, in which the latter had said that
he considered it absolutely necessary to organize terrorist and all other kinds of work, but that he would have to consult his comrades, Rykov and Bukharin. This he did later, and then gave me a reply in the name of all three... . Radek had connections with Bukharin. (PR 55.)
Although Sokolnikov in his testimony confined himself to telling what he allegedly knew about negotiations with the Rights conducted by Kamenev, in his final plea he stated that in 1935
the Rights, as represented by Tomsky, who was empowered to do so by the whole central group of the Rights, gave their consent to joining the bloc. (PR 552.)
§ 120. If we turn to Radek’s testimony concerning his “connections with Bukharin,” we find that he did not mention any “negotiations” concerning the Rights’ joining the bloc. He testified only to “conversations about terrorism.” The first, he says, took place in June or July, 1934, after Bukharin came to work for Izvestia. At that time they conversed “as members of two centers which were in contact with each other” (PR 99). After the Kirov assassination, he said, two or perhaps three conversations took place at the end of December, 1934. They became convinced that “this murder had not produced the results the organizers had expected,” and
Already at that time we said to ourselves: either this act, the result of the tactics of individual terrorism, demands the cessation of terrorist actions or it demands that we go further and commit a terrorist act against a whole group. (PR 100.)
Thus Radek placed in December, 1934, the first discussions of “group terrorism,” which plays an important role in the testimony concerning the activities of the alleged center in 1935. Before this he had testified, concerning this “new stage” (PR 76) or “new expanded tactic” (PR 77), that he and Pyatakov had discussed whether they could carry it out; and in answer to Vyshinsky’s question, “Hence, in January, 1936, the question of expediency already rose among you?” he said:
This was not in January, 1936, all this refers to January, 1935. (PR 76.)
Pyatakov, too, testified to discussions of this question with Sokolnikov, Radek and Serebryakov, and later with Tomsky, but without mentioning an exact date. He stated that
We discussed the question of carrying out Trotsky’s directives to the effect that not scattered blows, but a concentrated terrorist blow was needed. (PR 71.)
But Pyatakov did not tell how or when they received these"directives” from Trotsky. Radek, however, made good the deficiency:
RADEK: I assert that not one of us is refuting the investigation material. It was testified that Trotsky’s directive concerning a group terrorist act arrived in January, 1936.
VYSHINSKY: Trotsky’s directives concerning terrorist acts, group terrorist acts, were received by you?
RADEK: They were... .
VYSHINSKY: Before that directive, were preparations for terrorist acts being made in our country?
RADEK: Before we received Trotsky’s directives we took our own bearings. (PR 74.)
Even before this, Radek, in reply to the Prosecutor’s question whether he had a conversation with Pyatakov about summoning Dreitzer, stated:
There was a talk in July, 1935. When we first gathered together after the murder of Kirov there arose the question that it was senseless killing single individuals... . Either abandon terrorism altogether, or start seriously organizing mass terrorist acts which would give rise to a situation bringing us nearer to power. (PR 72.)
And later he expatiated on the considerations which prompted the adoption of the idea of “group terrorism,” without, however, linking up these considerations with any “directive” from Trotsky, and added:
I discussed this question in July, 1935, with Bukharin, with Pyatakov and Sokolnikov. (PR 101.)
Pyatakov, on the other hand, in speaking about their efforts to “ascertain the available forces,” again explicitly stated:
I must say that all this was done in the course of carrying out the main directive of Trotsky, who demanded the execution of a group terrorist act... . (PR 73.)
Thus the record contains two separate and distinct versions of the phase of “group terrorism,” in one of which the idea occurred to Radek and Bukharin in December, 1934, more than a year before Trotsky’s “directive” was received, and was discussed between Radek and Pyatakov in January, 1935, exactly a year before this “directive” was received, and among Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and Bukharin in July, 1935, six months before the “directive” was received. In the other version, that of Pyatakov, the conversations about it and the efforts to “ascertain the available forces” all took place “in the course of carrying out Trotsky’s directive"—which according to Radek, who allegedly received it, arrived only in January, 1936.
Naturally the question arises, What communications from Trotsky did Radek allegedly receive in January, 1936? If we turn to page 57 we find that he is explicit on this point – except that he neglects to tell how he received the letters and Vyshinsky neglects to ask him. Before quoting him, we must remark that Vyshinsky places Pyatakov’s return from Berlin, after his alleged flight to Oslo, in 1936 (PR 77). Radek says:
I must say that there was no third letter in which it is alleged the conditions orally conveyed to Pyatakov were put in writing. Pyatakov is mistaken on this point. After his return two letters arrived simultaneously, but these referred precisely to wrecking and to the situation in the international working-class movement. These letters were in reply to the enquiry I sent in the autumn of 1934, but evidently, while in transit, they were delayed in London and arrived late, in January. (PR 57.)
These are the only letters which Radek mentions having received in 1936; in the passage quoted above he speaks about a “directive.” And certainly there is nothing here about “group terrorism.” Moreover, we may note that if these alleged long-delayed letters were in answer to an enquiry from Radek to Trotsky in the autumn of 1934 – he did not tell how he conveyed it – that enquiry, in order to concern “group terrorism,” must have antedated Radek’s own “first ideas” on this subject, which he definitely connected with his alleged conversations with Bukharin at the end of December, 1934. Vyshinsky, we note, never asked Radek how Trotsky’s “directive” was received.
If one accept Pyatakov’s version as true, then the alleged conversations about group terrorism must have taken place not in 1935 but in 1936, after the receipt of Trotsky’s alleged directive. But this hypothesis is excluded by the evidence. Pyatakov said that he did not meet Radek after January, 1936 (PR 69-70). Radek said that his last talk with Pyatakov, Sokolnikov, and Serebryakov was that in which they discussed the “directives” Pyatakov had brought from Trotsky in January, 1936, and that he did not see any member of the bloc after March (PR 121, 132). Moreover, he stated that after the receipt of these directives he did nothing to undo what had been done, but took no further steps (PR 132). Pyatakov stated that after that time both he and Radek “pursued an ostrich-like policy – we hid our heads in the sand, but did nothing of importance” (PR 69). Serebryakov said that he did not see either Radek or Pyatakov after January, 1936 (PR 171); he mentioned no conversation with Sokolnikov. The last conversations with Radek and Pyatakov to which Sokolnikov testified allegedly took place in January, 1936 (PR 152); he mentioned no conversation with Serebryakov. According to all four of the accused, their January conversations concerned Trotsky’s December “directives” to Pyatakov; therefore it is pertinent to mention that in no account of those alleged directives is there a word to be found about “group terrorism.” Moreover, it must be remembered that Radek explicitly stated that the directive on group terrorism was received by him in January, 1936.
On the basis of the record itself, then, it is clear: (1) that Trotsky’s alleged “directive” on group terrorism was received only in January, 1936, and that the accused Radek, who allegedly received it, made no mention of it in stating the contents of the two letters which he testified he received in that month, nor did he state how he received it; (2) that the members of the “center” did not meet after January, 1936; (3) that the alleged conversation about “group terrorism” therefore could not have taken place in July, 1936; (4) that all the alleged conversations on this subject, about whose dates the accused are explicit, took place in 1934 and 1935 if at all. Obviously, therefore, if a policy of “group terrorism” was adopted by this alleged center it was adopted independently of any “directives” from Leon Trotsky. In the opinion of this Commission, the nature of the evidence is not such as to inspire the belief that such conversations ever took place, that such a policy was ever adopted, or that such “directives” were ever received. Indeed, we consider that the shocking discrepancies which we have pointed out, when taken in conjunction with others either already discussed or hereinafter mentioned, entirely discredit the testimony given in the trials themselves in so far as it concerns the alleged complicity of Trotsky and Sedov in any anti-governmental activity which may have been taking place in the U.S.S.R. – and this quite apart from any evidence offered in rebuttal.
§ 121. In the case of the parallel center, as in that of the united center, account must be taken of the fact that most of the testimony is hearsay in so far as it concerns Trotsky and Sedov. The constant reiteration of references, occurring on almost every page, to Trotsky and Trotskyites, has the cumulative effect of concealing from all but the most cautious and analytic reader the quantity and quality of the evidence which, even in the prosecution’s own case, purports to implicate Trotsky and Sedov.
We have already shown that of the four alleged members of the parallel center only two claimed direct contact with Trotsky, namely: Pyatakov and Radek. So far as the record shows, Pyatakov’s contact with Trotsky consisted in one alleged letter from him in 1931 (PR 32), and one alleged interview with him in 1935 (PR 60-66); and that of Radek in six letters from him: February-March, 1932, August-September, 1933, April, 1934, December, 1935, and (two) January, 1936 (PR 56, 57).
Of the thirteen accused not members of the center, none claimed any direct contact with Trotsky. Of the five witnesses, one, Vladimir Romm, claimed to have met him at the end of July, 1933, in the Bois de Boulogne.
Thus three people among the seventeen accused and five witnesses testified to any direct contact with Leon Trotsky. Only one member of the center, Pyatakov, claimed direct contact with Sedov. He testified to two interviews with Sedov in the summer of 1931 and one in the summer of 1932. Of the other thirteen accused, one, Muralov, testified that he received three letters from Sedov (according to the accused Shestov, one of these was from Trotsky; but Muralov did not say so). (See § 163.) The accused Shestov testified to four meetings with Sedov in 1931. The witness Romm testified to five interviews with Sedov between the summer of 1931 and that of 1934. To sum up, three of the seventeen accused and five witnesses claimed contact with Trotsky; four claimed contact with Sedov; and five claimed contact with Trotsky or Sedov or both. Such of the others as claimed knowledge of Trotsky’s “directives” got it, their own testimony reveals, at second or third or fourth hand, as the following summary shows:
(1) The accused Serebryakov claimed to have had his information from Mrachkovsky, Pyatakov, and Radek, and to have received instructions from Pyatakov through Livshitz. He implicated the accused Knyazev, Mdivani (neither witness nor accused) and several others. (PR 41, 168-174, 354.)
(2) The accused Sokolnikov claimed to have had information from Kamenev, Radek and Pyatakov. He implicated the accused Muralov, the witness Loginov, Tomsky and Bukharin and Uglanov (neither witnesses nor accused), and several others. (PR 147-168.)
(3) The witness Loginov testified that he had all his information and instructions from Pyatakov. He implicated the accused Rataichak, Hrasche, and others. (PR 178-192.)
(4) The accused Livshitz got Trotsky’s “instructions” partly at fourth hand from Sedov through Pyatakov through Loginov, and partly at second and third hand through Pyatakov and Serebryakov. (PR 35, 118-19, 173, 174-5, 333-357.) He implicated the accused Knyazev, Turok, and others.
(5) The accused Boguslaysky testified that he got information on the center from Smirnov, and directives on wrecking work from Pyatakov and Muralov. (PR 192-201.) He implicated Shestov, Stroilov, Drobnis, and others.
(6) The accused Drobnis testified that he got information from Smirnov, instructions from Pyatakov, and certain information about other individuals from Shestov, though he did not claim that Shestov told him anything which came from Sedov or Trotsky. He implicated Muralov, Boguslaysky, Norkin, and Stroilov of the accused; also Rakovsky, Smilga and Safonova (a witness in the August trial). (PR 205-11.)
(7) The accused Stroilov’s sole connection with Trotsky consisted in having read at some unspecified date Trotsky’s “Life."[20] He was allegedly involved in conspiratorial work through a double blackmail practiced upon him, in reverse directions, in Germany and the Urals – in the latter by Shestov. (PR 247-257, and with respect to Shestov, also 238-9.)
(8) The accused Norkin allegedly received his information and instructions from Pyatakov and Rataichak. (PR 50-52, 279-292.)
(9) The German witness Stein implicated Shestov only (p. 293-98) among the accused, otherwise telling of sabotage on the part of German engineers.
(10) The accused Arnold testified mainly about his variegated career and various pseudonyms (PR 303-326), and also implicated Shestov (PR 326, 331) who in turn implicated Muralov (PR 330).
(11) The accused Knyazev implicated Livshitz (342-344); in other words his testimony is fourth-hand as far as alleged instructions from Trotsky and Sedov are concerned.
(12) The accused Turok allegedly had his instructions from Pyatakov, Livshitz, and Maryasin (neither an accused nor a witness). He implicated Knyazev. (PR 345-47, 362-70, 393-96.)
(13) The accused Rataichak allegedly had instructions from Pyatakov both directly and through Loginov. He implicated Hrasche, Pushin, and others. (PR 188, 408-33.)
(14) The accused Hrasche testified to having been a Czechoslovakian and later a German spy. He denied any connection with “Trotskyism” (§ 17, 1) and testified that he first learned during the trial about the existence of a “Trotskyite group.” (PR 430.) He implicated Rataichak, Norkin, and others.
(15) The accused Pushin implicated Rataichak and the witness Tamm. (PR 408-37.)
(16) The witness Tamm implicated Pushin only. (PR 440-41.)
(17) The witness Bukhartsev testified only regarding arrangements for the alleged flight of Pyatakov to Oslo. (PR 77-80.)
§ 122. This summary has an import. In the first place, it throws much light upon the procedure of the whole trial with respect to its aim to elicit the truth. In the second, it definitely establishes that the only testimony that has any standing with respect to the charges against Trotsky and Sedov is, in the first rank, that of Pyatakov and Romm, in the second rank, that of Radek and the totally unknown figure, Shestov, and in the third rank that of Muralov.
§ 123. The first basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the Pyatakov-Radek trial is the testimony of the accused Pyatakov, who claimed to have had three interviews with Leon Sedov and one letter from and one interview with Leon Trotsky. We consider first his testimony concerning Sedov.
Pyatakov testified that in the summer of 1931, being in Berlin, he was told by I. N. Smirnov (Chapter X) that Leon Sedov had a special message to him from Trotsky and very much wished to see him. He met Sedov, he said, in a café known as “Am Zoo,” where Sedov told him that
... Trotsky had not for a moment abandoned the idea of resuming the fight against Stalin’s leadership, that there had been a temporary lull owing partly to Trotsky’s repeated movements from one country to another, but that this struggle was now being resumed, ... Further, that there was being formed, or had already been formed – I cannot now recall – a Trotskyite center. It was a question of uniting all the forces capable of waging a fight against Stalin’s leadership. The possibility was being sounded of restoring the united organization with the Zinovievites.[21]
Sedov also said that he knew for a fact that the Rights also in the persons of Tomsky, Bukharin and Rykov, had not laid down their arms, that they had only quieted down temporarily, and that the necessary connections should be established with them too. (PR 22-3.)
Pyatakov testified that he consented to take part in the struggle; whereupon Sedov outlined the “new methods of struggle,” that is to say, “terrorism and wrecking.” According to Pyatakov, Sedov further said that Trotsky drew attention to the fact that a struggle confined to one country would be absurd and that the international question could not possibly be evaded.
Some weeks later, he said, Smirnov told him that Sedov wished to see him again; they met in the same place, and Sedov instructed Pyatakov to place as many orders as possible with two German firms, Borsig and Demag, where
the additions to prices that would be made on the Soviet orders would pass wholly or in part into Trotsky’s hands for his counter-revolutionary purposes. (PR 26-7.)
Pyatakov confessed that he afterwards placed “a fairly large number of orders” with those firms and paid them excessively at the expense of the Soviet government. (PR 27-8.)
In the summer of 1932, Pyatakov testified, he had a third meeting with Sedov in Berlin, and
began to relate to him what I knew about the activities of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization which were beginning to develop. (PR 36.)
But Sedov said he knew about that and wanted to hear what was being done in the provinces. So Pyatakov told him
... about the work of the Trotskyites in the Ukraine and in Western Siberia, about the contacts with Shestov, N. I. Muralov, and Boguslaysky who were in Western Siberia at that time. Sedov expressed extreme dissatisfaction, not his own, as he said, but Trotsky’s dissatisfaction with the fact that things were moving very slowly, particularly in regard to terrorist activities. (PR 36.)
§ 124. Leon Sedov testified that he had had no interview with Pyatakov since 1927; that Pyatakov was one of the first to leave the Left Opposition, and that later he allied himself with the Radek tendency, which was the most vicious in attacking the Left Opposition. Sedov said:
... sometime in May, 1931 or 1932, I espied Pyatakov on Unter den Linden. As soon as he saw me, he turned his back on me, but not before I had had time to hurl at him an insulting epithet such as “traitor” or some similar word. (CR 28.)
Sedov pointed out that the story about his alleged meeting with Pyatakov in Berlin had been first related by Drobnis[22] during the Novosibirsk trial, and called attention to the fact that as related by Drobnis this meeting was not between Sedov and Pyatakov only, but included Smirnov. (The report of Drobnis’s testimony about this alleged conversation appeared in Pravda, November 22, 1936. We have examined this report, and find it to be as Sedov represented it.) Sedov stated that when Leon Trotsky, then in Norway, learned of Drobnis’s statement, he wrote to his lawyer, Puntervold,
advising him that my mother recalled having received a letter from me in 1931 in which I recounted my chance meeting with Pyatakov in Unter den Linden, in the manner which I have explained above. My father’s lawyer thereupon wrote to me asking what I had to say about the conference of three mentioned by Drobnis. I replied denying this fairy-tale, but as the lawyer had not made the slightest reference to the Unter den Linden incident, it was my father who first recalled it to my mind in a letter from Norway, dated December 2, 1936. It was thus only on December 11 that I wrote to my father’s lawyer relating the incident to him. (CR 28-9.)
Sedov called the attention of the Commission Rogatoire to Pyatakov’s allegation that, according to Sedov, there had been a lull in the struggle due to Trotsky’s movements from one country to another (PR 22), and remarked that at that time Trotsky had not left Istanbul. As for the underhand dealings which he, Sedov, was supposed to have urged on Pyatakov in order that the Trotskyites might get a kickback on orders placed with Borsig and Demag, he denied that he had ever had any relations with those two firms or with any other German commercial or industrial firm. He further pointed out that when questioned about this matter Pyatakov was
extremely careful not to give the slightest detail regarding the way these dealings were to be manipulated so as to produce revenue for us. (CR 30)
He stated that
If we had had such resources at our disposal, we would not have had to lead such a difficult administrative life as it is evident that we did lead both from a consideration of our accounts, which were made public on many occasions, and from the irregularity with which our Bulletin made its appearance. (CR 30.)
He reaffirmed that he had had only one interview with Smirnov – that arranged at the time of their chance encounter in Berlin (Chapter X), and denied that Smirnov had acted as an intermediary between himself and anyone else. He remarked that Smirnov had never once during the first trial spoken of having acted as a go-between in arranging a meeting for Sedov with either Pyatakov or Shestov, and stated his conviction that Smirnov’s name had been used in the Novosibirsk and second Moscow trials precisely because he had already been condemned and executed. And of course, he remarked, an intermediary was necessary, since Pyatakov and Shestov could not have known Sedov’s address. He noted that Pyatakov, in speaking of their alleged meeting in 1932, did not tell how he, Sedov, had brought about this meeting, which he denied ever took place. (CR 30.)
§ 125. Sedov’s testimony to the exchange of letters through Puntervold about his meeting with Pyatakov is corroborated by that of Trotsky, who said:
... It was very difficult to prove a positive fact by a negative fact – that my son did not meet Pyatakov. I tried to use our internment – we could not communicate without the police, the Norwegian police, censorship. I wrote through the intermediary of the police to Puntervold, my lawyer, to ask my son – my wife remembered that he met him on the street under such and such conditions. Pyatakov turned his back to him. My son cried “Traitor!” Puntervold sent my son a question: “What was your meeting with Pyatakov?” Our son confirmed to Puntervold what I have stated. (PC 220.)
§ 126. Eugene Bauer stated that
It is perfectly true that our movement, from the administrative point of view, was always hard pressed. I remember perfectly having had to pay the editor of our Bulletin at the time of Trotsky’s trip to Copenhagen the entire sum of my salary, because it was the only way to get out our publication. Sedov always did what he could to help us administratively, but the results of his activity in this attempt were always quite inadequate, and never did I hear it said that Sedov could obtain, by means of a percentage or otherwise, large subsidies from German firms, as Pyatakov said at the time of the second trial. (CR 45.)
§ 127. We have the following documents corroborating the testimony of Leon Sedov and Leon Trotsky concerning the nature of Leon Sedov’s meeting with Pyatakov in Berlin:
(1) A holograph letter in German from Leon Trotsky to Michael Puntervold, dated November 26, 1936. In this letter Trotsky refers to the newspaper accounts of the testimony of the “witness” Drobnis in the Novosibirsk trial concerning an alleged conference of Pyatakov, Smirnov, and Sedov in Berlin, about which Pyatakov is supposed to have told Drobnis. He informs Puntervold that Mrs. Trotsky remembers having received in Kadikoy, Turkey, a letter from her son, who was studying in Berlin, in which he said that he had met “the redhead” (Pyatakov) on Unter den Linden; that he had looked him straight in the eye but that Pyatakov had turned away his face as if he did not recognize him. Trotsky states that it is very important that this version of his son’s meeting with Pyatakov has been put on paper before he and Mrs. Trotsky could possibly have received a single line about the Novosibirsk trial from their son. Puntervold will therefore be able, he says, to get a statement from his son about this meeting before he has written them about it or received anything from them. Then the two versions can be compared. (PC Exh. 19, 111/4.)
(2) A letter from Michael Puntervold, Attorney, Oslo, November 30, 1936, to Leon Sedov, as follows:
In the press-reports of the sabotage-trial of Novosibirsk there is a statement in the testimony of the engineer Drobnis to the effect that you had a conference in Berlin with Smirnov and Pyatakov. I would be very grateful to you if you would give me your statement on this as soon as possible, and as exactly as possible. (CR Exh. 13.)
(3) A holograph letter in French from Leon Trotsky to Leon Sedov, dated December 2, 1936. This letter chiefly concerns the theft of Trotsky’s archives in Paris. It ends as follows:
Mama has made a statement for Puntervold on your “meeting” with Pyatakov in Berlin (she remembers it better than I). You must give Puntervold your version in order that they may be compared. (CR Exh. 14.)
(4) Certified copies of two letters from Leon Sedov to Michael Puntervold, dated December 3 and 11, 1936. In the first of these letters Sedov denies the alleged meeting with Smirnov and Pyatakov. He says:
I hold it also to be absolutely out of the question that Smirnov himself had any political relations with Pyatakov, for to hold any political conversation with Pyatakov certainly meant to be denounced by him to the GPU. In this connection I may mention the role of K. Radek (who belongs in the same category with Pyatakov) in the shooting of Blumkin. Blumkin came to Radek and told him about his meeting with Trotsky in the year 1929 in Istanbul. Radek handed Blumkin over to the GPU, and Blumkin is known to have been shot. (PC Exh. 19, S 111/5.)
Sedov also calls attention to the fact that the official Soviet press, in commenting on this testimony of Drobnis, remarked that the alleged conference “took place under the wing of the Gestapo,” and points out that no Gestapo existed in the year 1931. (The Commission has verified this statement. See Pravda, November 23, 1936.)
In the letter of December 11, Sedov says that his father’s letter of December 2 has reminded him of the following incident:
One time in Berlin – I can not remember precisely whether it was in 1931 or 1932 (I think it was on the first of May as I went along Unter den Linden on the way to see the demonstration in the Lustgarten; however it could have been another demonstration, not absolutely that of May 1) – I met Pyatakov face to face. As he saw me he turned his back on me, as though he had not recognized me. If I am not mistaken, I threw at him sotto voce some term of opprobrium. (PC Exh. 19, S III/6.)
§ 128. Concerning Pyatakov’s testimony on his alleged meetings with Sedov, we note the following defects and false statements in the record of the trial:
(1) Pyatakov does not state how Trotsky discovered that he, Pyatakov, was ready for that “re-entry into the Trotskyite counter-revolution” which he dates from his first meeting with Sedov. At the time of that alleged meeting Pyatakov, a “capitulator” holding a high government position, was allegedly in Berlin as the head of a large group of Soviet officials, on official business (PR 21-4). It therefore seems unlikely that Trotsky would have instructed either Sedov or Smirnov (assuming he was in touch with him) to confide the “new line” to Pyatakov, without having first made very sure of his attitude. Yet from Pyatakov’s testimony it appears that Smirnov told him about this “new line” at their very first meeting in Berlin, and informed him that Sedov had a special message for him from Trotsky. It also appears that Sedov, at their first meeting, unhesitatingly revealed the whole alleged terrorist line to this “capitulator” in high office, and even hinted at treasonable relations with foreign powers (PR 23). A little more light on Pyatakov’s conversion to the policy of terrorism and wrecking would have made these apparent indiscretions of Smirnov and Sedov more convincing. And a credible motivation for this conversion would have made Pyatakov’s ready acceptance of terrorism and wrecking more convincing. According to Pyatakov, by 1931 he had developed
definite differences with the leadership of the Party on the grounds of the complete removal of Trotsky from the leadership and his banishment abroad, and because Kamenev and Zinoviev were not being given any leading Party and government work. (PR 26.)
Such grounds would be credible as motivation for opposition to the leadership; they are hardly credible as motivation for entering a treasonable conspiracy which might – and presumably did – cost Pyatakov his life.
(2) Pyatakov’s statement that Sedov in 1931 attributed the “temporary lull” in the fight against Stalin’s leadership to “Trotsky’s repeated movements from one country to another” is a patent falsehood, since it is a matter of common knowledge that Trotsky resided uninterruptedly in Turkey from the date of his exile from the Soviet Union to that of his trip to Copenhagen in November, 1932. Sedov, in 1931, could not have been unaware that his father had not left Turkey since his exile began.
(3) We have already pointed out (§ 107) that Pyatakov could not have informed Sedov in the summer of 1932 about the activities of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization if he, Pyatakov, learned of its formation from Kamenev only after his return from Berlin in the autumn of 1932.
(4) If Pyatakov actually placed “a fairly large number of orders” with Borsig and Demag at prices higher than the Soviet government was paying other foreign firms, nothing could have been easier for the Prosecutor than to substantiate his testimony on this point by presenting to the Court the records of those orders and orders to other firms, for purposes of comparison. He did not do so, and his failure to document this testimony throws grave doubt on the truth of Pyatakov’s statement.
Moreover, it was obviously in order for the Prosecutor to ask Pyatakov how he managed these operations in such a way as to conceal them from his chief, Ordjonikidze, and his other associates in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Surely Pyatakov could not have been the only person in the Commissariat who saw those orders. If they were passed by his associates and his superior, then it would appear that he had confederates. Neither the Prosecutor nor the Court showed the slightest interest in this important implication of Pyatakov’s testimony.
§ 129. Reference to the testimony of Smirnov in the first trial (Chapter X) bears out Sedov’s statement that Smirnov mentioned no such meetings with Pyatakov and Shestov in Berlin as Pyatakov and Shestov allude to. Smirnov admitted only one conversation with Sedov. Therefore the testimony of Pyatakov and Shestov is the sole basis in the record of either trial for belief that Smirnov acted as liaison man between themselves and Sedov. Nothing in Pyatakov’s testimony bears out the testimony of Drobnis in the Novosibirsk trial concerning a meeting of Pyatakov, Smirnov and Sedov. However, Pyatakov testified that he remembered a conversation with Sedov and Shestov on the enlistment of non-"Trotskyites” in wrecking work (PR 162). This testimony follows in the record a statement of Shestov that he had conversations on the same subject with Smirnov, Sedov, and Pyatakov, but that he conversed with them not together but separately (PR 160). Thus Pyatakov’s is the only direct evidence offered of his alleged meetings with Sedov. In view of the questionable nature of this evidence, and in view of the striking contradictions and falsehoods in Pyatakov’s testimony already noted in Chapter XVI, and others which will be discussed later, we hold his testimony concerning Sedov to be unworthy of credence on the basis of the record of the trial alone.
As for the letters cited above concerning Sedov’s meeting with Pyatakov on Unter den Linden, their value as evidence of the exact nature of that meeting is somewhat impaired by Sedov’s failure to recall it in his first letter to Puntervold. It may be argued that although Trotsky, in the letter to his son which was introduced in evidence, said nothing of the nature of this “meeting,” he might have sent another letter which was not introduced, in which he described the meeting in detail as his wife remembered it, in order that his son’s version might tally with hers. However, we note that in his letter to Puntervold, Trotsky appears quite certain that his son will bear out his wife’s version of this meeting; and that the letter to his son about it is dated December 2, whereas the letter to Puntervold is dated November 30. Had he written to Sedov describing the meeting in detail in order that his son might corroborate that version, it seems reasonable to suppose that he would have done so at least on the same date as his letter to Puntervold, if not before. But had Sedov received such a letter from his father before December 3, the date of his first letter to Puntervold, then surely he would have described the meeting in the letter of December 3. And if he had received such a letter immediately after his letter to Puntervold, then surely he would not have waited until December i i to “remember” the incident. Moreover, if he and Trotsky had “framed” this meeting, Sedov would certainly not have mentioned to Puntervold that he had been reminded of it by a letter from his father and even added, as he did, a postscript to his letter of the 11th, saying, “I have already written to my father about this on December 7.” It must also be noted that Trotsky was at that period living under close surveillance by the Norwegian police, a fact which both he and Sedov mentioned in their testimony. Moreover, Trotsky in his letter to Puntervold remarks that he will obtain from his police guard a receipt stating the day and hour when the letter is turned over to them. It would be absurd to assume that Trotsky would have attempted to arrange a frame-up with his son at a time when his correspondence was under censorship by the police of a government as inimical to him as was the Norwegian government from the time of the August trial until his deportation.
In view of these considerations, we hold that this exchange of letters has, in contradistinction to the record of the trial, every appearance of honesty; and that it constitutes important refutation of Pyatakov’s testimony concerning his alleged meetings with Sedov; refutation which, we repeat, is hardly necessary in view of the nature of Pyatakov’s testimony not only on this particular point but in general.
We have noted (§ 128, 4) the failure of the Prosecutor to document Pyatakov’s statement concerning orders to Borsig and Demag and to ask him how he concealed the graft from his superior and his associates. Sedov’s denial that the Trotskyists received money from such sources is corroborated by Eugene Bauer. It might reasonably be assumed that Sedov would deny such connections or such transactions; and even that Bauer would do so, since although he is no longer a member of the Trotskyite organization, such an admission would nevertheless bring him into discredit. The argument that Bauer may not have known about Sedov’s receipt of such funds is worth little if one accept the contention of the prosecution that Trotsky’s followers abroad were aware of his counter-revolutionary designs. In any case if large funds had been available for Trotskyite propaganda they would necessarily have been aware of it. Another and equally important question, however, is, Whom did Borsig and Demag represent in these transactions and whom did they think Sedov represented? We can hardly assume that they would undertake to turn over large sums to Sedov merely as a personal favor or that they would undertake as a private enterprise the unpromising task of helping a couple of revolutionary émigrés to overthrow the Soviet regime. Nor can we assume that the transactions took place “under the wings of the Gestapo,” since in 1931 the wings of the Gestapo had not fledged, nor was there any certainty that they would ever do so. It seems absurd to assume that German capitalists would have banked on Hitler, with or without the help of the Trotskyites, to overturn the Stalin regime in Russia before he had even succeeded in overturning the republican regime in Germany. And it seems equally absurd to suppose that Sedov and Trotsky would have done so. Moreover, such an assumption implies the question, How is it that both Sedov and Bauer, if the Trotskyites were in such excellent relations with Hitler, were both obliged to leave Germany after he came to power? There remains the possibility that Borsig and Demag were turning over large sums to Sedov in order to enable him to assist the government of the German Republic to undermine the Soviet regime. It was clearly the duty of the Prosecutor to clear up this question by querying Pyatakov concerning the basis of Sedov’s alleged collusion with the firm of Borsig and Demag. For it can hardly be assumed that Pyatakov acted blindly in a matter as dangerous as these alleged diversions of Soviet funds to Sedov and Trotsky. He must, therefore, have been in a position to clear up all the questions implied in his testimony to such diversions.
This Commission does not presume to determine whether or not Pyatakov did actually overpay the firms of Borsig and Demag, or, if so, for what purposes. Nor is this question germane to our inquiry, which concerns only the guilt or innocence of Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov. It does, however, concern us that Vyshinsky, through his failure to document Pyatakov’s testimony on this alleged diversion of funds, and his further failure to ask him the most obvious and necessary questions about it, left the record extremely vague not only as concerns the alleged benefit accruing to Trotsky and Sedov but even as concerns the diversion itself. As the record stands, we have only Pyatakov’s uncorroborated testimony to the alleged transactions with Borsig and Demag, and to Sedov’s connection with them.
§ 130. We have already stated (§ 129) our conclusion that Pyatakov’s testimony is unworthy of credence on the basis of the trial record, and our further conclusion that Sedov’s account of the nature of his meeting with Pyatakov is important as refutation of Pyatakov’s account of meetings of a conspiratorial nature between them. We note, moreover, that since Pyatakov testified that Smirnov first revealed to him the alleged terrorist line, and put him in touch with Sedov, his testimony can not be true if Smirnov’s testimony that Sedov proposed terrorism to him is false. We have already stated (§ 46) our conclusion that Sedov conveyed to Smirnov no “opinion” or instructions on terrorism. On the basis of that conclusion, and the considerations stated above, we hold that Pyatakov’s testimony to his alleged conversations with Sedov in Berlin is sheer fabrication. Therefore, we hold that Pyatakov’s testimony concerning excessive payments to the firms of Borsig and Demag, in so far as it concerns Trotsky and Sedov, is also false.
§ 131. Concerning his alleged contacts with Trotsky, Pyatakov testified that at the time of his second meeting with Sedov in 1931, he requested Sedov to get him “supplementary explanations” from Trotsky on the “question of wrecking activities,” and that Sedov told him he had already written to Trotsky and was awaiting a reply. In December, 1931, he said, the accused Shestov, on his return from Berlin, came to see him in his office in the Supreme Council of National Economy, and handed him a letter. (PR 29.) Shestov, questioned on this point, admitted that he went to see Pyatakov and handed him a letter which was one of two that he had received from Sedov in Berlin, secreted in a pair of shoes, after his, Shestov’s, return from a trip to England. He insisted that he had handed this letter to Pyatakov not in December but in the middle of November. (PR 29-32.) Pyatakov admitted that it might have been in the middle of November. According to his account of this letter, which was not introduced in evidence, Trotsky wrote about three “fundamental tasks.” The first was “to use every means to remove Stalin and his immediate assistants”; and “of course,” said Pyatakov, “ ‘every means’ was to be understood above all as violent means.” The second was to unite all anti-Stalin forces for this struggle. The third was to counteract all the measures of the Soviet government and the Party, especially in the economic field. (PR 32.) Vyshinsky asked Pyatakov, “What did you do with this letter or in connection with this letter?” and Pyatakov proceeded to tell what he allegedly did in connection with the letter, disregarding the question about what he did with it. (See § 47.)
§ 132. Since the truth or falsehood of Pyatakov’s testimony about the receipt of these “supplementary explanations” depends upon that of his testimony concerning a second conversation with Sedov, and since we have already stated (§ 130) our conclusion that no conversations took place between them, we therefore hold that this alleged letter from Trotsky is apocryphal; and this quite apart from consideration of the testimony of Trotsky or Sedov or the accused Shestov who allegedly delivered it and whose testimony concerning his own alleged connections with Sedov we consider in Chapter XX.
§ 133. Between Pyatakov’s testimony to this alleged letter from Trotsky and that to his next direct contact with him, he testified to a great many activities. We have already considered part of this testimony in Chapter XVI. We shall consider other parts of it in later chapters of this report. As regards his testimony to particular acts of sabotage and instructions to others to commit sabotage, we do not presume to state whether or not it is true. However, we repeat that the nature of his testimony in general is not such as to inspire confidence. We are, however, concerned with his testimony, and that of the other accused and witnesses, only in so far as it bears upon the charges against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov. Much of Pyatakov’s testimony concerns “instructions” allegedly conveyed to him by Radek, who supposedly had them from Trotsky, and is therefore hearsay evidence. We do not consider that part of his testimony here, since we are interested only in his testimony directly involving Leon Trotsky.
Pyatakov testified that at the end of 1935, following the alleged receipt by Radek of a long letter of instructions from Trotsky, it was decided that Pyatakov should take advantage of a forthcoming business trip abroad in order to see Trotsky, since both he and Radek were “very much disquieted” by the contents of this letter (PR 56, 58). Radek, he said, suggested that in Berlin he should apply to Bukhartsev, who “had connections with Trotsky,” to help him arrange this meeting. He arrived in Berlin on December 10, and
That same day or the next, I met Bukhartsev, who, taking advantage of a moment when nobody was about, told me that he had heard of my arrival a few days before, had informed Trotsky of it, and was awaiting news from Trotsky on the matter. The next day Trotsky sent a messenger, with whom Bukhartsev brought me together in the Tiergarten, in one of the lanes, literally for a couple of minutes. He showed me a brief note from Trotsky which contained a few words: “Y.L., the bearer of this note can be fully trusted.” The word “fully” was underlined, from which I gathered that the person Trotsky had sent was an agent of his. (PR 58.)
Pyatakov said that according to this messenger, whose name was either “Heinrich” or “Gustav,” Trotsky “strongly insisted” on having a talk with him, this insistence, as it later transpired, being due to the last letter Radek had sent Trotsky. (The last letter to Trotsky mentioned by Radek was allegedly sent in May, 1934; the last letter Romm testified he conveyed from Radek to Trotsky through Sedov was also allegedly sent in May, 1934 – PR 107, 143. Radek mentioned an “enquiry” which he allegedly sent Trotsky in the autumn of 1934, by unspecified means.) “Heinrich” or “Gustav” asked Pyatakov whether he was prepared to travel by airplane, and Pyatakov agreed although, he said, he knew he was taking a great risk “of discovery, exposure, and anything you like.” Whereupon the messenger arranged to meet him the next morning at the Tempelhof Airport. The next morning Pyatakov, according to his testimony, went directly to the entrance of the airdrome, where “Heinrich-Gustav” was waiting with a German passport which had been prepared for him. “Heinrich-Gustav”
... saw to all the customs formalities himself, so that all I had to do was to sign my name.
We got into an airplane and set off. We did not stop anywhere, and at approximately 3 P.M. we landed at the airdrome in Oslo. There an automobile awaited us. We got in and drove off. We drove for about 30 minutes and came to a country suburb. We got out and entered a small house that was not badly furnished, and there I saw Trotsky, whom I had not seen since 1928. It was here that my conversation with Trotsky took place. (PR 59-60.)
Pyatakov’s alleged conversation with Trotsky will be considered in Chapter XXIV of this report. Suffice it to state here that he related it with a memory for detail which is conspicuously lacking in his account of more concrete and mundane matters. If he really “signed his name” on the false passport, it would have been easy for the Prosecutor to verify his testimony by securing from the Norwegian government the record of his entry. But it seems unlikely that a Soviet Commissar would have travelled on a German passport issued in his own name, since to do so must have involved a certainty rather than a mere risk of exposure. If he travelled under an assumed name, it would have been equally easy for the Prosecutor to verify his testimony simply by ascertaining the name and asking the Norwegian government for the record of entry of a person bearing it. Pyatakov was not explicit on this point, and Vyshinsky asked no questions. We do learn, however, from Pyatakov’s answer to a somewhat belated question of the Prosecutor, that he gave his photograph for the passport, although he did not say when or to whom (PR 79). He did not state whether he saw anyone else in the small house in the country suburb, although he did say that no one else was present at the interview, which “was arranged very secretly by both of us” and lasted about two hours (PR 60). He did not even state how long he remained in Norway or how he returned to Berlin; we are obliged, indeed, to turn to the testimony of the witness Bukhartsev in order to learn that he returned at all.
§ 134. This witness, who stated that he was “the special correspondent” of Izvestia and at the same time a member of the Trotskyite organization, testified that
At the beginning of December, 1935, I learned that Pyatakov was coming to Berlin. A few days later a certain Gustav Stirner rang me up on the telephone. I had been put in touch with him by Radek... . He was Trotsky’s man... . When Gustav Stirner telephoned me I told him that Pyatakov was expected to arrive within a few days. He said that this was very interesting and that he would try and inform Trotsky of this, and that probably Trotsky would want to see him. (PR 78.)
A few days later, said Bukhartsev, Stirner telephoned again that Trotsky very much wanted to see Pyatakov. Stirner, he said, told him that he had connections in Berlin and would make the arrangements. Bukhartsev “imagined” these connections were with German government officials. Stirner said “that a special airplane would take Pyatakov to Oslo and back.” Bukhartsev testified that Stirner did not live in Berlin, but had given him as his address Oslo, General Post Office, poste restante. Bukhartsev did not see him after that. He did, however, see Pyatakov, who told him that “he had been and seen.” Pyatakov confirmed this statement. (PR 79-80.)
Thus we may gather that Pyatakov returned from Oslo and even that he returned in the same special airplane that took him there. We do not, however, learn anything about the identity of Gustav Stirner, who allegedly procured the plane, for Vyshinsky did not see fit to question Radek, who had allegedly put Bukhartsev in touch with this “agent” of Trotsky. We do learn that Trotsky’s prompt meeting with Pyatakov depended upon the fortunate chance that this “agent” happened to be in Berlin and to telephone Bukhartsev a few days after the latter had learned that Pyatakov was coming. Otherwise Pyatakov would presumably have had to wait until after he had seen Bukhartsev and the latter at his request had written to Stirner, poste restante, General Post Office, Oslo, and Stirner had consulted Trotsky. As it was, he was able to make his alleged flight “in the first half of December.”
§ 135. Pyatakov testified on January 23 concerning his alleged flight. At the evening session of January 27, the Prosecutor returned to the subject. In reply to his questions Pyatakov reaffirmed that he had landed at an airdrome near Oslo and said that he was too excited by the unusual nature of the journey to note whether there were any difficulties about the landing or the admission of the plane to the airdrome. Asked whether he had heard of a place called Kjeller, or Kjellere, he replied in the negative. Vyshinsky then declared that he had requested the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs to make an inquiry, since he “wanted to verify Pyatakov’s evidence from this side too”; and he asked to have the following official communication put into the record:
“The consular Department of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs hereby informs the Procurator of the U.S.S.R. that according to information received by the Embassy of the U.S.S.R. in Norway the Kjellere Airdrome near Oslo receives all the year round, in accordance with international regulations, airplanes of other countries, and that the arrival and departure of airplanes is possible also in winter months.” (PR 443.)
§ 136. Leon Trotsky testified that he met Pyatakov for the first time during the Civil War; that Pyatakov had been a member of the Left Opposition from 1923 to the end of 1927 and capitulated in February, 1928, and that he was the first Trotskyist to capitulate publicly (PC 116-17). He stated that the last time he saw Pyatakov was in 1927. He denied that he had seen Pyatakov in or near Oslo in December, 1935, or at any other place, or that he had seen him since 1927 or had any communication with him, either directly or through some intermediary. He denied that he had ever heard the name of Bukhartsev before the trial (PC 210-11). He also denied knowing anyone by the name of Gustav Stirner (PC 560).
Trotsky stated that from June, 1935, until his internment in 1936 he and his wife lived at Weksal, a village near the small town of Hoenefoss, Norway, about two hours from Oslo by railroad or automobile over a hilly and difficult road. They made their home with the family of Konrad Knudsen, a prominent member of the Norwegian Workers’ Party and a deputy to the Norwegian Parliament. On the ground floor of the house there were five rooms, three of which were occupied by the Knudsen family – Konrad Knudsen, his wife Hilda, his daughter Hjordis, and his son Borgar. The cook, a Norwegian woman, also lived in the house. Two rooms on the ground floor were occupied by Trotsky and his wife. For a time Trotsky’s secretary, Jan Frankel, also lived in the house. Then he left and was replaced by Erwin Wolf, who lived in the house of a neighbor. His workroom, Trotsky said, adjoined the dining room, which was used by both families; and visitors who came to see him were obliged to pass first through a vestibule out of which opened both the kitchen and the dining room, and then through the dining room. He testified that the Knudsen family, although not sharing his political views, were very friendly to himself and his wife, and concerned for his safety; that they arranged all communications for him and saw every one of his visitors. According to Trotsky, visits to him were arranged as follows: Everyone who wished to see him was told to visit the bookshop of Hjordis Knudsen in Hoenefoss, which was in the same house as the office of the labor paper edited by Konrad Knudsen. There, visitors were told at what time Mr. Knudsen would be able to take them to Weksal in his automobile. During his stay with the Knudsens, Trotsky said, he received in all not more than twelve or fifteen visitors, and there were no Russians among them (PC 206-11). He said that in that period he went to Oslo with the Knudsens three or four times, for a day; that he never made any trip alone and indeed could not possibly have done so because
... if I am on the street and recognized by the people I am absolutely helpless. I am surrounded by people, and especially in Norway – I don’t speak Norwegian – I must have some Norwegian people who can defend me. (PC 209.)
Trotsky stated that the only time in December, 1935, when he was out of the Knudsen house was a brief period from the loth to the 22nd, which he spent in a mountain cabin belonging to Knudsen, about an hour from Weksal but not in the direction of Oslo, accompanied by his wife, his secretary Erwin Wolf, Borgar Knudsen, and the Knudsen’s cook (PC 211-15). He took this trip, he said, in an unsuccessful effort to improve his health, which was very bad during that month (PC 222).
Trotsky read into the record two statements which he had given to the world press during the January trial (and which were widely published), putting to the Moscow Court specific questions to be transmitted to the accused Pyatakov. The first of these, issued on January 24, the day after Pyatakov’s testimony concerning his alleged flight, begins:
If Pyatakov had traveled under his own name, all the Norwegian press would have carried this information. Consequently he must have traveled under another name. All Soviet functionaries abroad are in constant telephonic and telegraphic communication with their embassies, commercial missions, and do not find themselves beyond the watch of the GPU for a single hour. How could Pyatakov have achieved this trip without the knowledge of the Soviet representatives either in Germany or Norway? (PC 215.)
Then follow precise questions concerning Trotsky’s appearance and surroundings. On January 27 Trotsky gave to the press a list of thirteen questions. Both these lists, he said, were based on the press-reports of Pyatakov’s testimony (PC 220). Certain questions concerning dates, hours, arrangements for the trip, and means of transportation are answered in the official record of the trial (§§ 133, 134), evening session of January 23, the day before Trotsky’s first list of questions was given to the press. The other questions were not put to Pyatakov by the Prosecutor. Among them are the following:
Did Pyatakov have a Norwegian visa? Did he pass the night in Oslo; if so, in what hotel? How did he succeed in disappearing from the eyes of Soviet officials in Berlin and Oslo? How did he explain his disappearance on his return to Russia? Whom did Pyatakov meet in Trotsky’s house? Did he see Trotsky’s wife? On what precise date did Pyatakov fly from Berlin to Oslo? What name did he use on his German passport?
Trotsky also introduced evidence to show that according to the official in charge of the Kjeller airdrome in Oslo, no foreign plane landed there during the month of December, 1935. Counsel for the Preliminary Commission brought up the question whether Pyatakov’s alleged flight might not have been arranged by German fascists in collusion with Norwegian fascists who were able to prevent the director of the airport from reporting the landing, and asked whether it would not be in the interest of the director, in such a case, to deny that the plane had landed. Trotsky argued that
The director of the airdrome affirmed that there is a military patrol day and night, for customs reasons. Now, is it a lie or is it true? If he is a fascist, the Government is Socialist in Norway. There are different parties. Their papers sent their representatives to the airdrome ... the fact is that the airplane must have remained from twelve to fifteen hours and there might have been other people at the airdrome. (PC 404-5.)
Questioned further whether if such an airplane did land, the Norwegian Government might want to deny it for diplomatic reasons, he said:
I believe the Norwegian Government would be glad to denounce me immediately, because they interned me for four months, if not longer, only for the benefit of the Soviet Government. And if they had no reason to conceal it, it would be the best justification for their civil measures against me, because the Government is severely attacked by its own parties... . If the Government could use any evidence in my sojourn which would implicate me in counter-revolutionary propaganda, it would be glad to present all the proofs. It is also the reason why the director of the airdrome who gave the deposition, when my Norwegian lawyer asked him for a formal deposition for the Commission, said: “I have said it already. I cannot give you that without authorization of the higher authorities. They prohibit me from giving it.” (PC 405.)
§ 137. The inquiry concerning the truth or falsehood of Pyatakov’s testimony to this alleged flight falls into three parts: First, were Trotsky’s conditions of life in Norway such that it would have been possible for him to arrange a meeting with Pyatakov which would be unknown to the people around him? Second, was he at any time during the month of December, 1935, ever in a position to receive a secret visit, or did he receive any Russian visitor with the knowledge of the people who were closest to him? Third, did Pyatakov, in the first half of December, 1935, fly to Norway, land at the airdrome near Oslo, proceed by automobile to a country suburb one half-hour from the airport, and there see Trotsky?
§ 138. Concerning Trotsky’s mode of life and his political preoccupations during his sojourn in Norway, the New York Sub-Commission took the testimony of four witnesses. A. J. Muste of New York City testified that for a brief time, as a member of the Workers’ Party of the United States, which was formed through a merger of the American Workers’ Party to which he belonged and the Trotskyist Communist League of America, he had belonged to the Trotskyist organization; that the Workers’ Party of the United States ceased to exist when the majority of its members voted for its dissolution and the entrance of its members into the Socialist Party; that he himself ceased connection entirely with the movement immediately after the trip to Europe in 1936 during which he saw Trotsky; and that he still holds a position which makes it impossible for him to belong to the Trotskyite organization (NY 44-7). He stated that he visited Trotsky at Hoenefoss near Oslo from June 28 to July 5, 1936; that he made the trip from Oslo to Hoenefoss by bus, leaving Oslo at about ten o'clock in the morning and arriving in Hoenefoss about noon. In Hoenefoss he was met by Mr. Knudsen, who took him in an automobile to Trotsky’s house. This ride, he said, took about fifteen minutes, and the direction was away from Oslo rather than toward it. Altogether, he said, the distance from Oslo to the house where Trotsky lived was about two hours and a half. His description of the house corroborates Trotsky’s. He stated that he and Mrs. Muste, who accompanied him, took their meals with the Trotskys and the Knudsens; that since the house was the home of the Knudsen family, its members were constantly present; that in order to reach Trotsky’s study it was necessary to pass through the Knudsen dining room, where there was usually someone of the family present. He said he could not see how it would be possible for anyone to enter the house and hold any conversation there unknown to others than Trotsky and his wife, since the rooms opened into one another and the doors were ordinary sliding doors with big openings in between. (NY 38-50.)
§ 139. Three other witnesses, Harold Isaacs, Max Sterling, and Viola Robinson, of New York, testified that they had visited Trotsky at Weksal. Their testimony concerning the distance from Oslo to Weksal, the way in which they were conducted to Trotsky’s house, and the conditions under which he lived, corroborates that of Trotsky and Muste. (NY 115-19, 134.47.)
§ 140. The most important documents in our possession bearing upon Pyatakov’s alleged flight to Oslo are as follows:
(1) An affidavit (Oslo) by Konrad Knudsen, signed also by his wife Hilda Knudsen and their daughter Hjordis Knudsen, stating that Trotsky and his wife were guests in the Knudsen home from June 18, 1935, to August 27, 1936, and that during this whole period, with the exception of a couple of brief interruptions for treatment at a hospital in Oslo, Trotsky resided with them, occupying with his wife a workroom and a bedroom whereas the dining room was shared by the members of both families; that they were thoroughly aware of all his visitors during this period; that no visitor could enter the house without the knowledge of the members of the household, and that Trotsky introduced them to all his visitors; that telephone calls were always received by the host or a member of his family and never by Trotsky or his wife; that the few times Trotsky was away from the house he left in Knudsen’s car and in Knudsen’s company; that it is therefore excluded in the opinion of the deponents that Trotsky could have met other people than those with whom they became acquainted; that his visitors were Czechoslovaks, German emigrants, Englishmen, Frenchmen and Americans, and that there were no Russians among them; that Trotsky received no visitors during the month of December, 1935; that he spent two days of that month at their but in the woods, and that this but was not generally known and no one would have been able to find him there. (PC Exh. 19, I/1.)
(2) An affidavit (Charleroi, Belgium) by Trotsky’s former secretary, Erwin Wolf, stating that he went to Weksal near Hoenefoss on November 15, 1935, to act as Trotsky’s secretary and watch over his personal safety, and remained there until July 24, 1936. Wolf states that his workroom, which was at the same time the dining room of the Knudsen family, was immediately next to Trotsky’s, and shut off from it by a thin sliding door which could not be locked. He says that it was an unbreakable rule of long standing never to leave Trotsky alone, since there was constant danger of an attempt on his life by white guards, fascists, or agents of the GPU. For this same reason no strange person was ever allowed to see Trotsky without first coming in contact with Wolf himself or with some member of the Knudsen family; nor was anyone ever admitted whose identity had not previously been ascertained. The rooms were so arranged that no one could enter Trotsky’s workroom without first passing through a vestibule which could be watched by the Knudsen family from the kitchen, and through Wolf’s workroom. He says:
In my statements to the Manchester Guardian of January 25, 1937, and the Daily Herald of January 29, 1937, I have already made it clear that Trotsky received no visit from a foreigner in the month of December, 1935, and that a secret visit to Trotsky was out of the question, since not only I myself but also the members of the Knudsen family knew every step of Trotsky’s. It is quite possible that a few Norwegians who visited the Knudsen family eventually spoke also with Trotsky, but those cases would have to do with acquaintances of the Knudsen family.
Wolf names four visitors who saw Trotsky in November: Walter Held (PC Exh. 19, 1/3), Fred Zeller from Paris, and two Canadians, Kenneth Johnston and Professor B. (Earle Birney, PC Exh. 19, 1/5). He says further:
I am above all in a position to state and to swear that Pyatakov’s alleged visit to Trotsky is a pure invention, for the latter was in fact under my constant guardianship in December, 1935. In this month I left Trotsky only twice: at noon on the 19th of December I went to Oslo... . I was home by nine or ten o'clock in the evening of the same day. The second time I left Trotsky, if I am not mistaken, on the 26th of December, at nine in the morning and returned at ten o'clock in the evening. I was skiing in the neighborhood. But both during my first and my second absence, Trotsky was together with the members of the Knudsen family, with whom he took his meals... . I must emphasize that both times I left Weksal not at the suggestion of Trotsky or his wife, but on my own initiative, and that Trotsky knew only the evening before that I would not be there on the following day.
Trotsky’s health, says Wolf, was bad during that month, and therefore Mr. and Mrs. Knudsen insisted that he go, over the Christmas holidays, to Knudsen’s hut. The initiative in this matter was taken by the Knudsen family, and it was they who, after a long resistance on Trotsky’s part, obtained his consent and fixed the date for the trip. Trotsky left Weksal in an automobile driven by Knudsen on Friday, December 20, 1935, at about noon. With him were his wife, Knudsen’s son Borgar, the cook Astrid, and Wolf. They drove first to Hoenefoss and then to the foot of the mountain Ringkollen. There a sleigh was rented, since Trotsky was too weak to make the climb on foot in the deep snow, and an auto could not make the trip up the mountain. Wolf describes in detail their stay at the hut. Among other things he says:
The next morning Borgar and I spent in chopping wood, making a fire and preparing breakfast, which was taken between half-past ten and eleven. After everything was in order again we went, Borgar and I, on skis to the nearby lake Oiangen which was frozen over and covered with 60-70 centimeters of snow. There we could see that not the slightest sign of an airplane was evident... . Since Pyatakov said in Moscow that he made the trip to Trotsky in an auto, it is clear therefore that on this ground alone there is not even a shadow of a possibility that his alleged visit could have taken place in the Knudsen hut, to which not even the most modern tank could have broken through – thick woods, steep cliffs, and so on. (PC Exh. 19 S I/8.)
(3) An affidavit (Oslo) by Borgar Knudsen states that he was with the Trotskys from December 20 to 22, 1935, when they and Erwin Wolf stayed at the Knudsen cottage; that a great deal of snow fell during those days so that it was impossible to leave the cottage without skis, and that since Trotsky had no skis he was not outside the cottage; that Trotsky received no visitors during those days and that no one could have visited him without his, Borgar Knudsen’s knowledge. (Ibid., II/ 7.)
(4) An automobile map of South Norway (by K. G. Gleditsch; published by H. Aschehoug & Co.), sent to the Commission by Konrad Knudsen, on which he has marked the route from the Kjeller airdrome near Oslo to Hoenefoss and Weksal; with a covering letter from Mr. Knudsen stating that the distance from Kjeller through Oslo to Hoenefoss and Weksal is at least eighty-six kilometers or sixty English miles, and cannot possibly be covered by automobile in less than two hours. Mr. Knudsen says that the roads in Norway have hills and sharp swings, and that the speed limit is 60 kilometers or 42 English miles an hour. (Ibid., S 11/8, a, b.)
(5) a. A letter to Leon Trotsky from Andreas Stoeylen, lawyer, dated Oslo, March 16, 1937, stating that he is enclosing the following documents: (1) copy of a letter of February 10 to Director Gullichsen, Kjeller airport; (2) a letter of February 14, 1937, from Gullichsen to Stoeylen; (3) Arbeiderbladet No. 24, Friday, January 29, 1937; (4) a letter of February 27, 1937, from Gullichsen to Stoeylen. (Ibid., 11/ 3.)
b. A certified notarized English translation of (1) above. Mr. Stoeylen requests on Trotsky’s behalf that Director Gullichsen provide him with four copies of a written statement confirming the fact that no airplane landed at Kjeller in December, 1935, as per Gullichsen’s statement in Arbeiderbladet of January 29, 1937. (Ibid., II/ 4, a.)
c. Original and certified, notarized English translation of (2) above, as follows:
Sir: In reply to your letter of loth inst. I beg to state that my statement published in Arbeiderbladet is correct, as no foreign aeroplane landed here in December, 1935. However, before I make the four declarations for which you have asked me I find I must confer with superior authorities. I have not been able to see the proper person hitherto, I am sorry to say, and as I am leaving for England this evening I cannot get the question settled before I return on Monday the 22nd inst. I will then take up the matter again.
Yours truly
(Signed) Gullichsen (Ibid., 11/4, b.)
d. Original and certified, notarized English translation of an article in (3) above, entitled “Pyatakov’s Strange Voyage to Kjeller.” The article reports an interview in which Director Gullichsen confirmed the fact that no foreign airplane landed at Kjeller Aviation Ground in December, 1935. Director Gullichsen, it says, before giving this information examined the customs register which is kept daily; and he added that it was out of the question that any airplane could land at Kjeller without being observed. He stated that the last foreign airplane to land at Kjeller before December, 1935, was a British plane coming from Copenhagen and piloted by the British aviator, Mr. Robertson, which landed on September 19, 1935; and that the first foreign airplane to land at Kjeller after. December, 1935, arrived on the first of May, 1936. (Ibid., II/5.)
e. Original and certified, notarized English translation of (4) above, as follows:
Sir: In reply to your letter of loth inst. and referring to my letter of 14th inst., I beg to state that I find that I cannot send you the four declarations for which you asked me.
I can only refer you to the interview published in Arbeiderbladet on the 29th/1 a.c.
Yours truly
(Signed) Gullichsen (Ibid., 11/4, c.)
(6) Extracts from the Norwegian press concerning Pyatakov’s testimony about his flight. Among these is a telegram from Konrad Knudsen to Prosecutor Vyshinsky, which appeared in Arbeiderbladet (Oslo) on January 29, 1937. Knudsen informs Vyshinsky that it has been officially verified on that day that in December, 1935, no foreign or private plane landed at the airport near Oslo; also that as Trotsky’s host he confirms that no conversation could have taken place in Norway between Trotsky and Pyatakov. (Ibid., II/ 1.)
There is also an article from Aftenposten (Oslo), January 25, 1937, entitled “Pyatakov’s Conference with Trotsky at Oslo Quite Improbable.” It states that both the Kjeller and Gressholmen airports have denied that any civil airplane landed there during December, 1935; that all Russian citizens entering the country must have visas and are placed under careful observation; that in case Pyatakov had a foreign passport there is no reason why he should not have been there, but the chief of the Central Office of Passports, Mr. Konstad, has declared that he considers it quite improbable. Trotsky’s host, Konrad Knudsen, it states, has declared that it is absolutely impossible that Trotsky could have received Pyatakov at that time. (PC Exh. 21.)
An article from Tidens Tegn, March 11, 1937, by Konrad Knudsen, discusses the theory advanced by that paper that Pyatakov landed on lake Oiangen while Trotsky was at the Knudsen cabin near there. Knudsen points out that the date of Pyatakov’s alleged flight (between December so and December 15) does not tally with the dates of Trotsky’s stay at the cabin. Moreover, Pyatakov said he drove half an hour and arrived at a suburb of villas, whereas
Oiangen is situated in the middle of a thick forest. At that time there was one meter of snow on Oiangen; I am not an expert on flying, but this much I know, that it would be impossible to land an airplane without skis, and no airplane which came from Berlin would have skis... . An automobile was waiting, said Pyatakov. It is, however, an absolute impossibility for an automobile to reach Oiangen in snow one meter deep. The roads are not open in the winter. When in addition we know that the cabin is near Oiangen – about ten minutes’ walk – how can it then be explained that he drove half an hour before he reached the place? ... Pyatakov did not remember much in court, but if he had landed on Oiangen in one meter of snow and had had to get through the snowdrifts in an automobile, he would have remembered that... . (PC Exh. 19, IV/6.)
§ 141. This Commission is obliged to note, first of all, the fact that Vyshinsky had in his hands, even before the accused were sentenced, Knudsen’s telegram informing him of the official denials that any foreign or private plane landed at Kjeller in December, 1935, and stating that Trotsky did not receive Pyatakov during that month. Since Pyatakov’s life and the lives of the sixteen other accused presumably hung upon the truth or falsity of his testimony, Vyshinsky’s failure to confront him with this authoritative telegram in court constitutes, in our opinion, criminal negligence. Indeed it provides strong justification for the widespread suspicion that the whole trial was a frame-up at which the Prosecutor himself connived.
We note also that Trotsky’s two lists of questions, which, as he pointed out in his final argument (PC 559), were highly pertinent to Pyatakov’s testimony concerning his alleged flight, must have been known to the Prosecutor well before the trial ended. A prosecutor interested in establishing the truth would surely have put such questions to Pyatakov without waiting for Trotsky to suggest them, since they were clearly indicated by Pyatakov’s testimony. However, since he did not do so, a decent regard for the truth would have forced him to confront Pyatakov with these questions after Trotsky had suggested them, especially since Pyatakov had implicated Trotsky, and the prosecution had offered Trotsky no opportunity to present his case. Trotsky’s questions concerning Pyatakov’s German passport were especially important (see § 133). And we know that the Prosecutor was not consistently indifferent on the subject of passports. He introduced in evidence during the August trial the Honduran passport of the accused Olberg; he produced for identification during the January trial the Czech passport of the accused Hrasche. He was not even entirely indifferent to the facts concerning Pyatakov’s German passport, for he not only asked Pyatakov whether he gave his photograph, but was also curious to know where Stirner obtained the passport (PR 79). Therefore his failure to ask the all-important question as to the name in which it was issued must be regarded not as an oversight but as a deliberate and discreditable evasion.
His introduction of the statement about the Kjeller airdrome (§ 135) did not compensate for this cynical disregard for the facts, although one must assume that he considered that it would set all doubts at rest. The article in Aftenposten (§ 140, 6) appeared on January 25. Vyshinsky introduced this statement on January 27, saying that he “wanted to verify Pyatakov’s evidence from this side too.” We are unable to regard a statement that an airport receives airplanes of other countries the year round and that arrivals and departures are possible in winter months, as verification of testimony to the effect that a given foreign plane landed at that port in a given month; more especially in face of a denial by the officer in charge that such a plane landed.
This statement introduced by Vyshinsky is in our opinion useful for only one reason: it indicates that the Prosecutor expected the Court and the public to assume that Pyatakov’s plane landed at the Kjeller airdrome. And indeed if it landed at an airdrome near Oslo it must have landed at Kjeller, since the ports of Gressholmen and Bogstad receive hydroplanes whereas Tempelhoferfeld, from which Pyatakov allegedly took off, is a field for land planes.
But if Pyatakov landed at Kjeller then he could hardly have seen Trotsky at Weksal, if one accept his own testimony that the drive to Trotsky’s house took only half an hour. There is incontrovertible evidence that the distance from Kjeller to Weksal can not be covered by automobile in less than two hours.
The map in our possession shows that the route from Kjeller to Hoenefoss leads through Oslo and that Mr. Knudsen has correctly represented the distance. In order to meet Pyatakov in a “country suburb” one half hour from the airport, Trotsky would have had to leave the Knudsen house and go to some other house in a “country suburb” near Kjeller. But we have his own testimony and that of his secretary and the Knudsen family, that he was not out of the Knudsen house during the first half of December. We also have the testimony of Trotsky’s correspondence, which is not unimportant in this connection.
Pyatakov testified that he arrived in Berlin on December io and saw Bukhartsev on that day or the next. On the day after he met Bukhartsev he allegedly met Trotsky’s messenger, and on the following day made his trip to Oslo. That would place his flight on the 12th or 13th of December. At the request of the Chairman of the Preliminary Commission (PC 222) Trotsky submitted his correspondence for those two dates to our permanent representative in Mexico, Otto Ruehle. We are informed that on December 12, 1935, Trotsky wrote two letters, one in German to the Norwegian politician, Olaf Scheflo, and a long letter in French to the editorial board of the Parisian paper, Révolution. The letter to Scheflo begins:
I am very sorry that the state of my health as well as that of my wife makes it difficult for us to travel to Oslo in these days... .
On December 13 Trotsky wrote two letters in French, one to the Politburo of the Bolshevik-Leninist organization in France, the other a long letter to Biline, a member of that organization. Assuming that he was able to elude the Knudsens and his secretary on one of those days in order to have a secret meeting with Pyatakov at a place thirty minutes from Kjeller, he must necessarily have devoted a considerable part of the day to the trip. It seems hardly likely, therefore, that he would have found time in addition to write long letters, if indeed he had been able to find the inclination on the day of an interview so unusual. We may add that it seems to us impossible that he could have made the necessary preparations, which would certainly have involved ordering an automobile by some means unknown to the people around him, or that he could have been absent from the house for at least six hours – four hours to go and return and two hours for the interview – without their having known it.
The theory that Pyatakov landed at some place other than an airdrome is hardly worth entertaining. He twice states that he landed at an airdrome – the first time “in,” the second time “near” Oslo (PR 60, 443). This is sufficiently explicit, and it must be assumed that Pyatakov was able to recognize an airdrome when he saw one. As for the theory that he landed on Oiangen while Trotsky was at Knudsen’s cabin near that lake, it does not, as Knudsen pointed out in the article quoted above, fit with his testimony in time, topography, distance covered, or means of transportation used. Therefore we should be obliged to reject it even if we did not have the testimony of witnesses who were with Trotsky at that time and who state that he did not receive Pyatakov at the Knudsen cabin.
There remains the possibility that the officials at Kjeller connived with Trotsky’s alleged agents in concealing the fact of Pyatakov’s landing. This theory presupposes a willingness of all people connected with the airport – customs officials, mechanics, and so on, to maintain silence about the landing of the plane and the servicing that must have been necessary before it took off again. Judging by the statement of Director Gullichsen that no foreign plane landed at Kjeller between September 19, 1935, and May, 1936, it is an unusual occurrence for a foreign plane to land at that airport in the winter months; and it is much more difficult to conceal an unusual incident than a common one. We therefore regard this theory as farfetched. But even if we assume that such a thing did happen, the fact remains that Pyatakov would not have been able to drive to Weksal in half an hour, and that Trotsky could not have met him elsewhere without the knowledge of the Knudsens and Erwin Wolf. And if we assume that Pyatakov was simply mistaken about the length of the drive to Weksal – such a slip of memory is not impossible – there remains the testimony of the witnesses we have quoted, who state that Trotsky’s living conditions precluded the probability of his being able to receive visitors unknown to the Knudsen family; and that of the Knudsens and Wolf that he received no visitors during December, 1935.
§ 142. We hold that the evidence concerning Pyatakov’s alleged flight in the record of the trial is open to the gravest doubt; that the Prosecutor’s silence, and that of the Court, in the face of published testimony impugning that evidence during the trial, warrants a suspicion of frame-up; that the doubt which the record inspires is converted by the evidence offered in rebuttal into certainty that no such flight took place. We therefore find that Pyatakov did not see Trotsky in December, 1935, and did not receive from him instructions of any kind; and that the disproof of Pyatakov’s testimony on this crucial point renders his whole confession worthless.
§ 143. The second basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the trial of January, 1937, is the testimony of the accused Radek. We have already noted (§ 121) that Radek claimed to have received six letters from Trotsky. Radek twice stated (PR 41, 543) that he burned these letters.
Radek answered in detail the Prosecutor’s “Tell us briefly of your past Trotskyite activities.” He stated that he had joined the Trotskyite opposition during the Party struggle in 1923 and belonged to it and to its leadership until the time of his exile in January, 1928; that in exile he adhered to the Trotskyite position until the time of his declaration to the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. in July, 1929 (see Chapter VIII), which was dictated by the conviction that Trotsky’s position with regard to the impossibility of building socialism in one country was false, that the accusation of Thermidorianism made against the Central Committee by the Opposition was unfounded, and that the Five-Year Plan was a program for a great step forward. None the less, he said, he returned to the Party with certain tacit reservations:
... I was convinced that in the future the development of the Five-Year Plan would either lead to the voluntary expansion of internal Party democracy, by the voluntary action of the Party leadership, or would be the cause of a split in the Party. (PR 82.)
He said that after his return to the Party he maintained his relations with his former Trotskyite associates, who, at the time when the struggle for the Five-Year Plan had become acute, began to flood him with information of the most pessimistic nature, “which most fatally affected my opinion of the situation in the country.” Here, he said, there
were those transgressions which would have justified my being brought to trial even if I had not belonged to the bloc... . For example, if you were to ask me about my responsibility for the murder of Sergei Mironovich Kirov, I must say that this responsibility began not from the moment I joined the leadership of the bloc, but from that moment in 1930 when a man with whom I had close relations – Safarov – came to me looking black in the face and tried to convince me that the country was on the verge of ruin, and I did not report this ... If I had told the Party about Safarov’s frame of mind, the Party would have got at the group of the former leaders of the Leningrad Young Communist League who later become the leaders of the assassination of Kirov. And so I declare that my responsibility dates not only from the time I joined the bloc, but that the roots of this crime lie in the Trotskyite views with which I returned ... and in the relations I had retained with the Trotskyite-Zinovievite cadres. (PR 83-4.)
This passage, we may note, is remarkable not only as an example of that identification of criticism of Party policy with criminal activity which characterizes the utterances of both the accused and the Prosecutor throughout both trials, but also because it appears to contradict the claim made in the indictment and the evidence in the August trial, that the leaders of the Kirov assassination were the “Trotskyite-Zinovievite Center” and in particular the defendant. Bakayev. Radek went on to state that in 1930-31 he
believed that the economic offensive was being conducted on too wide a front, that the material forces available (number of tractors, etc.) would not permit of universal collectivization, and that if this general offensive were not slowed down this would, as we defined it by a catch-phrase, “end like the march on Warsaw,” ... I thought it was necessary to hold back the offensive and to mass resources on definite sectors of the economic front... . I was scared by the difficulties and thus became a mouthpiece of the forces hostile to the proletariat. (PR 84-5.)
He testified that he first learned that preparations were being made for a united Trotskyite-Zinovievite center in a letter from Trotsky, which he received in February-March, 1932. The Prosecutor asked him two very pertinent questions: Did Trotsky know that Radek had returned to the Party; and
Why did he venture to write a letter containing fairly intimate political information to a Trotskyite who had returned to the Party? (PR 85.)
Radek answered the first question in the affirmative, and the second as follows:
... the Trotskyite leaders who maintained relations with me and who were at that time in communication with Trotsky, knew that I was in favor of holding back the offensive. (PR 85.)
He further testified that the “Trotskyite leaders” were afraid to speak to him openly about their activities because
... since the split with Trotsky in 1929 was connected with a great straining of personal relations between me and Trotsky, who regarded me as responsible, or one of those most responsible for the split of the Trotskyites, they feared to address me themselves and considered that this could be overcome only by relations between Trotsky and myself. And to all appearances they informed Trotsky, and, knowing my frame of mind, requested him to take the first step so as to make it easier for them to approach me. (PR 86.)
§ 144. The colloquy in which this passage appears is quoted in § 17, 1, of this report. Since this testimony of Radek purports to explain why Trotsky wrote him about the alleged conspiracy, it has an important bearing upon the credibility of his testimony to Trotsky’s alleged letter. Vyshinsky, from his questions, appears to have been interested in interpreting Radek’s testimony rather than in securing an explicit statement or in verifying his vague explanations. It would have been pertinent to ask him how he realized that “something was brewing” merely from seeing two people turn a corner. Instead, Vyshinsky says:
In a word, you already at that period noticed that they were engaged in some underground preparatory work?
And Radek, after answering that he “noticed that something was thickening, that sentiments were leading somewhere,” proceeds to explain why “they did not speak openly.” Vyshinsky did not ask how they could have known his frame of mind if they had not dared approach him. Nor did he ask any of the other accused whether or not he knew that Trotsky had been informed that “they sensed” that Radek was “in a depressed frame of mind” – not even Pyatakov, who had allegedly been in touch with Trotsky, Sedov, and Smirnov, and whose alleged conspiratorial activity began a whole year before the formation of the main center. Instead he re-formulated Radek’s vague statement in terms equally vague, and ended this fantastic exchange of question and answer with the astounding comment:
Now it is clear why your correspondence with Trotsky arose.
Evidently, if one wishes, one may take Vyshinsky’s word for it. But nothing in the colloquy makes it clear in the slightest degree.
The unsolicited letter from Trotsky, which we are to assume resulted from Trotsky’s learning in some unspecified way that Radek “was in favor of holding back the offensive,” was hardly characterized by discretion, if one accept Radek’s interpretation:
At the end of the letter Trotsky wrote approximately as follows: “You must bear in mind the experience of the preceding period and realize that for you there can be no returning to the past, that the struggle has entered a new phase and that the new feature in this phase is that either we shall be destroyed together with the Soviet Union, or we must raise the question of removing the leadership.” The word terrorism was not used, but when I read the words “removing the leadership,” it became clear to me what Trotsky had in mind. (PR 87.)
And again on page 92 Radek answers “Of course” to Vyshinsky’s
... of the necessity of removing; consequently you understood that terrorism was meant?
Thus Trotsky, in February-March, 1932, is alleged to have sent to a “capitulator” who had returned to the Party, with whom his own personal relations had been greatly strained, and with whom he is not alleged to have had any previous communication since the “split” in his faction which caused the strain, a letter which made it clear to that “capitulator” that Trotsky had in mind terrorism against the leadership of the Soviet Union, and in which he definitely stated that a bloc was being formed between the Trotskyites and the Zinovievites. We have already remarked on the recklessness of Trotsky’s conduct as represented in the records of these trials. This testimony of Radek offers a striking example.
§ 145. Radek testified that he received this first letter from Trotsky through Vladimir Romm (§§ 109-11, 114; Chap. XIX), an old friend of his whom he had known since 1922 and who, although never active in the Trotskyite opposition, “adhered to us on the Chinese question” (PR 93). He testified to five letters allegedly received from Trotsky after this first one: a letter in September, 1933, one in April, 1934, one in December, 1935, and two in January, 1936. He also mentioned a “directive” on group terrorism, allegedly received in January, 1936 (§ 120), but did not say how he received it or in what form. He stated that the letter of September, 1933, was received through Vladimir Romm (PR 545). He did not tell how the other four were received and Vyshinsky did not ask him. Romm testified that he delivered to Radek two letters from Trotsky: one in the spring of 1932, and another in August, 1933. (We note that Radek and Romm differ on the month in which this letter was received.) (PR 138, 142.)
Radek’s testimony on the contents of the letter allegedly received from Trotsky in August-September, 1933, consisted in confirming the conflicting accounts given by the accused Pyatakov and the witness Romm (§§ 108-11), and a remark in his last plea that he was dumbfounded because Trotsky in this letter allegedly spoke of wrecking work as something taken for granted (PR 545). His testimony on the contents of the alleged letters of April, 1934, and December, 1935, is discussed in Chapter XXIV of this report. That on the contents of the two letters allegedly received in January, 1936, has already been noted (§ 120). We turn now to his testimony on the letters he allegedly sent Trotsky.
The first of these neither Pyatakov, whose testimony concerning it he confirms and supplements, nor Radek himself dates exactly. It is from the witness Vladimir Romm (confirmed by Radek) that we learn it was sent in September, 1932 (§§ 108-11, 114, for discussion of this letter and its contents). The second letter he mentioned having sent Trotsky, both he and Romm placed in May, 1934 (PR 107, 142-3). Its contents are discussed in Chapter XXIV. He mentioned, as we have noted (§ 120), an “enquiry” sent to Trotsky in the autumn of 1934, but did not state in what form it was sent, by what means, or what it was about. Romm stated that he received from Radek a letter for Trotsky in September, 1933 (PR 142, 143), but did not state its contents; and Radek, beyond a general confirmation of Romm’s testimony, did not testify concerning this alleged letter. Nor did Vyshinsky question him about it.
§ 146. The accused Pyatakov twice mentioned a letter which, he implied, Trotsky had received from Radek just before Pyatakov’s alleged flight to Oslo in the first half of December, 1935 (PR 59-60). Testifying on his alleged conversation with Trotsky, he said:
Trotsky had already received Radek’s letter and he was particularly excited. (PR 60.)
Since the last letter Radek mentioned having sent Trotsky was that allegedly sent through Romm in May, 1934, one can hardly assume that Trotsky was still “particularly excited” about that letter; for Romm’s testimony indicates that it was delivered to Sedov in May, 1934, and it can hardly be assumed, therefore, that it was “delayed in transit.” Nor does it seem likely that Pyatakov would use the words “already received” of a letter delivered some eighteen months before the alleged interview. However, Radek did not see fit to mention this alleged letter, and the Prosecutor did not see fit to query him about it. Therefore, since Pyatakov’s is the only testimony which mentions it, and since we have already held that Pyatakov did not see Trotky and that his whole confession is worthless, it follows that this testimony about this letter is worthless.
§ 147. Leon Trotsky testified that he had known Karl Radek since 1909 or 19101; that he had no political relations with him before 1917; that Radek belonged not to the Russian but to the German Party[23]; that Radek in 1917 went with Lenin through Germany to Stockholm, where he remained as literary representative of the Russian Bolsheviks (PC 100); that he arrived in Russia after the October Insurrection, in 1917 (PC 593), and immediately joined the Bolshevik Party; and that he was active as a journalist. (PC 101.) He also said that Radek was active for a time in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, but the diplomats complained that it was impossible to say anything in his presence, because the next day it was known all over the city; therefore “We removed him immediately.” He became a member of the Central Committee, and in that capacity had the right to attend the sessions of the Politburo (the most important executive organ of the Central Committee – PC 351). Lenin, Trotsky said,
... organized our meetings of the Politburo somewhat secretly to avoid Radek, because we did, as you understand, discuss very delicate matters in the Politburo. His reputation in these matters is absolutely established. (PC 101.)
Trotsky stated that from 1923 to 1926 Radek hesitated between the so-called Trotskyites and the German Right Opposition, but remained in good personal relations with him. During that time he wrote a well-known article, “Leon Trotsky, Organizer of the Victory,” which appeared in Pravda of March 14, 1923. (PC Exh. 10. Excerpts from this highly laudatory article were read into the record of the Preliminary Commission, pp. 102-3.) In 1926, Trotsky said, Radek became a member of the bloc between the Trotskyites and Zinovievites (§§ 21, 24), was expelled with the Left Opposition at the Fifteenth Congress, was exiled to Siberia, and capitulated in 1929 (PC 105; PR 82). He stated that he had had no communication, either direct or indirect, with Radek since his own exile from the Soviet Union; that he had received no letters from him, and had sent him no letters through an intermediary (PC 116).
In his final argument, Trotsky said:
Radek’s outstanding characteristics ... are impulsiveness, instability, undependability, a predisposition toward falling into panic at the first sign of danger, and exhibiting extreme loquacity when all is well. These qualities make him a journalistic Figaro of first-rate skill, an invaluable guide for foreign correspondents and tourists, but utterly unsuited for the role of conspirator. Among informed persons it is simply unthinkable to speak of Radek as an inspirer of terrorist attempts or the organizer of an international conspiracy. (PC 523.)
He also quoted Lenin’s remark with reference to Radek’s “Lenin yields space to gain time,” uttered during the controversy over Brest-Litovsk at the Seventh Party Congress:
I return to what Comrade Radek said, and take this opportunity to emphasize that he has accidentally succeeded in uttering a serious thought[24];
and Stalin’s remark in 1924, at the Party Conference called shortly before Lenin’s death:
Most men’s heads control their tongues; Radek’s tongue controls his head.
“Who will believe,” asks Trotsky,
that I placed at the head of a grandiose plot an individual whose tongue controls his head and who is in consequence capable of expressing serious ideas only “by accident"? (PC 524.)
He also cites the progression of Radek’s public “calumnies against the Opposition,” culminating in “The ZinovieviteTrotskyite Fascist Gang and Its Hetman Trotsky” (PC Exh. 1 1) in August, 1936, and says:
This, in its turn, was nothing else but a prelude to Radek’s court testimony in January, 1937. Each succeeding step developed from the preceding one. This is precisely why no one would have believed Radek had he figured in the trial only as a witness for the prosecution. For his testimony against me to carry any weight, it was necessary to transform Radek into a defendant, suspending above him the Damocles sword of the death penalty. (PC 533.)
§ 148. We have already cited (§ 26) material introduced by Trotsky which fully corroborates Radek’s statement about the straining of personal relations between himself and Trotsky. According to Trotsky, this had to do not merely with Radek’s capitulation, but also with his denunciation of Blumkin (§ 26). From the time of this denunciation, said Trotsky, Radek was the most odious of all people to the Left Opposition, “because he was not only a capitulator but a traitor” (PC 108). There is nothing in all this evidence, or in Radek’s testimony, to inspire a belief that Trotsky would have resumed relations with Radek; much less that he would have urged terrorism upon Radek in a letter written before Radek had approached him, and even before Trotsky’s alleged co-conspirators had sounded Radek out. And Radek’s statement that the roots of his alleged crime lay in the “Trotskyite views” which he did not wholly abandon and the “Trotskyite contacts” which he had continued to maintain, is weakened by his own statement in his final plea, that he joined the “Trotskyite organization” not because of Trotsky’s “petty theories” or because he recognized his authority, but only because
there was no other group upon which I could rely in those political aims which I had set myself. (PR 542.)
Radek never stated what the aims were that he had set himself. Certainly to be in favor of “holding back the offensive” in order to avoid disaster does not sound like a criminal aim; nor does it sound like a convincing preparation for acceptance of the aim of removing the leadership through terrorism – an aim, be it noted, allegedly set by Trotsky, not by Radek.
In our opinion, therefore, neither Radek’s testimony as to his motivation in joining the alleged conspiracy, nor his testimony that it was an unsolicited letter from Trotsky which informed him of it and urged him to join, is convincing. It becomes incredible when one considers Trotsky’s own testimony and the materials he has submitted in its support. We now turn to the factual aspect of Radek’s testimony to his alleged communication with Trotsky.
§ 149. We have already remarked that Radek does not state by what means he received Trotsky’s alleged letters of April, 1934, December, 1935, and January, 1936 (four in all). We may add that if in Soviet law the conditions and circumstances in which a piece of material evidence was obtained must be legally set down (Strogovich-Vyshinsky, p. 47) then certainly one might expect that when a court accepts the testimony of an accused or a witness concerning material evidence which according to that testimony no longer even exists, it would at least demand that the prosecutor be careful to ascertain the conditions and circumstances under which the accused or witness learned about or came by the absent evidence – more especially when the testimony concerning it is as contradictory as in this case (see § 47).
The truth or falsehood of Radek’s testimony to the existence of five of the nine letters which allegedly passed between himself and Trotsky, among them Trotsky’s alleged letter which induced Radek to enter the conspiracy, depends upon the testimony of Vladimir Romm. If Romm was a reliable witness, then there would be good reason to assume that Trotsky did get in touch with Radek in February, 1932, by means of a letter sent through Romm, and that Romm did thereafter convey one more letter from Trotsky to Radek and three letters from Radek to Trotsky; although since the letters were not introduced in evidence, all testimony to their contents would still be hearsay evidence, and open to doubt (§ 47). If, on the other hand, Romm is found not to have been a credible witness, then his untrustworthiness impugns the testimony of Radek.
§ 150. Before we pass to the testimony of the witness Romm, we may remark that while in general it is of course impossible for the Commission to inquire into the truth or falsity of evidence concerning letters and “directives” received by unspecified means, we are able to gauge the quality of Radek’s testimony concerning Trotsky’s alleged letter of December, 1935. For according to both Radek and Pyatakov, it was their alarm over Trotsky’s dealings with foreign powers, of which this letter informed them, which caused them to decide that Pyatakov must endeavor to see Trotsky (PR 56, 58, 119-21). Radek was especially explicit and loquacious on this subject, setting forth in detail the considerations which the alleged letter inspired, and which convinced them that one of them must see Trotsky. If Pyatakov had not been sent abroad on business, said Radek, he himself would have taken advantage of an invitation to lecture in Oslo, in order to see Trotsky, so important was it that one of them should talk over the situation with him (PR 119).
We have already stated (§ 142) our conclusion that the testimony of Pyatakov concerning his alleged flight to Oslo and his alleged interview with Trotsky is false. It follows that the testimony of the accused Radek concerning this alleged journey and interview is also false. And if this testimony is false, then there is not the slightest reason to believe Radek’s testimony (or Pyatakov’s) concerning the alleged letter which caused the two of them to decide that Pyatakov must make the journey.
§ 151. The third basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the Pyatakov-Radek trial is the testimony of the witness Vladimir Romm. This testimony is important not only because that of Radek rests upon it, as we have said, but also because Romm was the only one of the seventeen accused and five witnesses, with the exception of Pyatakov, who claimed to have received instructions from Trotsky in person.
Romm testified that he had known Radek since 1922, and had been connected with him in 1926-27 in “joint Trotskyite anti-Party work” – thus confessing to a more active Trotskyite past than Radek ascribed to him. Romm said that he was a Trotskyite from the latter part of 1926 up to the time when he “temporarily left them about 1927,” and that he returned in 1931 after a conversation with Radek in which Radek told him that he must be prepared, if necessary, to take advantage of his position as a foreign correspondent, and to serve as a liaison man. Romm stated that he was Tass correspondent in Paris and Geneva. In the summer of 1931, he testified, he was put in touch with Sedov by Putna. In reply to Sedov’s question whether he was ready to serve as liaison man with Radek, he consented, he said, and gave Sedov his addresses in Paris and Geneva. Romm did not say how Sedov ascertained that it was safe to ask such a service, which obviously must have involved great risk. We can not assume that Radek had posted him, since this alleged interview took place half a year before Radek allegedly received Trotsky’s first letter. (PR 136-8.)
A few days before his departure for Geneva, said Romm, while he was in Paris, he received a letter posted in that city, addressed to him at the Tass office, and containing a short note from Sedov asking him to deliver to Radek an enclosed letter. He stated that he handed this letter to Radek when the latter visited Geneva in the spring of 1932 (PR 138), and in the subsequent conversation learned that the latter was from Trotsky, and
that it contained instructions about uniting with the Zinovievites, about adopting terrorist methods of struggle against the leaders of the C.P.S.U., in the first place against Stalin and Voroshilov. (PR 139.)
Romm testified that in the autumn of 1932 he went to Moscow on official business, saw Radek and had the conversation with him which we have already discussed (§ 109). Passing through Berlin on his way to Geneva he posted a book containing the letter he had received from Radek (§§ 109-10) to an address which Sedov had given him: poste restante at one of the Berlin post offices. The post office, he said, was Französische Strasse, but he did not remember the box-number. The next time he met Sedov was in July, 1933, a few days after his arrival from Geneva, when Sedov telephoned him and arranged to meet him in a café on the Boulevard Montparnasse. Sedov, he said, told him that he wanted to arrange for him to meet Trotsky. A few days later, Sedov telephoned him and arranged to meet him in the same café. From there they went to the Bois de Boulogne, where he met Trotsky. This meeting, he said, took place at the end of July, 1933. In addition to those “instructions” which we have already quoted (§ 109), Trotsky in this conversation, if Romm is to be believed, divulged to his liaison man some highly confidential and dangerous views about the need of terrorism, wrecking, diversion and defeatism.
At the end of the conversation, said Romm, Trotsky gave him Novikov-Priboi’s novel “Tsushima,” and told him that a letter to Radek was concealed in the cover. Romm took this book with him to Moscow and handed it to Radek upon his arrival there in August, 1933 (§ 109). Upon his return from his vacation at the end of September, 1933, Radek gave him a letter to Trotsky, concealed in the cover of a German book, which he handed to Sedov in Paris in November. He said he met Sedov again in April, 1934, and Sedov, on learning that he was soon going to Moscow, asked him to bring back from Radek a detailed report on the situation. He delivered this message, and in May, 1934, Radek handed him a letter concealed in an Anglo-Russian technical dictionary, which he said contained a detailed report from the active center as well as the parallel center about the development of political and diversive work. This book Romm handed to Sedov in Paris. (PR 141-3.)
Summing up, Romm said that in the spring of 1932 he handed Radek a letter from Trotsky in Geneva; he received a letter from Radek in September, 1932; he received a letter from Trotsky in July, 1933; he received a letter from Radek in September, 1933, and one in May, 1934. Thereafter, he testified, he was sent to America as a correspondent of Izvestia and carried no more messages. (PR 143-4.)
§ 152. Radek, asked whether he confirmed Romm’s testimony, stated that he did so except on one point. In Trotsky’s first letter, he said, the names of Stalin and Voroshilov were not mentioned, although the letter spoke about terrorism. (PR 145.)
§ 153. We note that Romm invests the struggle of the Left Opposition from 1923 to 1927 against the majority with the invidious character of “anti-Party work”; in other words, his phrase implies that the open and legal oppositional struggle of that period within the Party was criminal in nature. Moreover, Radek’s statement that Romm was not an active Oppositionist is borne out by Romm’s apparent ignorance of the nature of this struggle. Speaking of Radek, Romm said: “I was connected with him in joint Trotskyite anti-Party work.” And when Vyshinsky asked him, “What sort of work was that?” he could only repeat the phrase, “Trotskyite anti-Party work” (PR 136). Yet in spite of this apparent ignorance, we learn that his sentiments, after his conversation with Radek “in the autumn of 1930 and spring of 1931,” “influenced by the difficulties of socialist construction, once again flowed into the old Trotskyite channel” (PR 137). This explanation of his motive for risking his head appeared to be sufficient for the Prosecutor and the Court, but it is hardly sufficient for the person who knows that “the old Trotskyite channel” had nothing whatever to do with terrorism, wrecking, and defeatism, or even for the reader of the trial record who remembers Pyatakov’s testimony that Sedov outlined to him in the summer of 1931 (after Romm’s alleged recidivism) the “new methods of struggle: ... the forcible overthrow of the Stalin leadership by methods of terrorism and wrecking.” (PR 23.)
Thus nothing in Romm’s testimony indicates why he should have undertaken to further a terrorist conspiracy, and nothing in that of Romm or Radek indicates the slightest reason why Trotsky should have trusted him, not only with letters but with all the secrets of the alleged conspiracy; why, to use Trotsky’s own words, he should have
bared my innermost thoughts to a young man who did not even share my “defeatist” position. And all this on the basis of the fact that, in 1927, Romm supposedly agreed with Radek “on the Chinese question.” (PC 546.)
§ 154. Leon Trotsky stated that he did not know Vladimir Romm; that he had never heard his name before the trial; that he reads the newspaper Izvestia only occasionally by chance, and never the foreign correspondence, and that although he reads Pravda regularly he never even reads the foreign correspondence in that paper; that he never met anyone by the name of Vladimir Romm in Paris; and that he never gave any letter to Vladimir Romm for the purpose of having it conveyed to Radek; that he never received any letter through Vladimir Romm from Radek and that the testimony of both Romm and Radek to that effect was absolutely false. (PC 183-5.)
Trotsky testified that he left Turkey for France in the steamship “Bulgaria” on July 17, 1933, accompanied by his wife, his collaborator Jean van Heijenoort, two Americans, Max Shachtman and Sara Weber, and a German, Adolphe (pseudonym; real name in our possession). (PC 174.) The cause of his removal to France, he said, was a change of policy after the election of May, 1932, when a Radical government, headed by Daladier, came into office. The matter of a visa had been broached to the French government by Trotsky’s French translator in France, Parijanine. The government granted the visa on condition that Trotsky reside in Corsica, but his friend, Henri Molinier, an engineer, saw the higher officials and succeeded in persuading them to allow him to live for a certain time not in Corsica but in France itself. Molinier succeeded in getting permission for Trotsky to reside in one of the Southern Departments. Later the officials consented to allow him to remain in France. (PC 176-7, 181.)
Trotsky stated that he and his wife travelled under his wife’s name, Sedov, on passports for foreigners issued by the Turkish government (originals submitted to Otto Ruehle; photostats certified by him in our possession), and that their baggage was in charge of Max Shachtman and marked with his initials (PC 176, 196, 198). The ship arrived in the harbor of Marseille on July 24, 1933. He and his wife, however, did not go to Marseille but left the ship outside the harbor in a motorboat, in pursuance of arrangements made with the steamship company by Leon Sedov and Raymond Molinier (identified § 68, 9, a). This precaution was taken in order to conceal their movements. His son, who was in the motorboat, came aboard and handed a letter of instruction to van Heijenoort. Then Trotsky and his wife left the ship in the motorboat, in which, besides themselves and their son, were Molinier, two sailors, and an agent of the Sûreté Générale (name since changed to Sûreté Nationale). They landed at the small town of Cassis. The rest of his party proceeded to Marseille, where Shachtman remained to store the heavy baggage while van Heijenoort proceeded as far as Lyon with the small baggage, in order to give the journalists the impression that he was going to Paris. Sara Weber and Adolphe went to Paris from Marseille. This arrangement, Trotsky said, was unexpected by his party, who had supposed that they would all go together in the motorboat. (PC 176, 194.)
Upon arriving at Cassis, Trotsky testified, they found two automobiles awaiting them, in one of which were Raymond Leprince, not his political follower, and another Frenchman, Laste (full name in our possession), at that time his political follower but since his adversary. In the two cars Trotsky, his wife and son, Molinier, Leprince, and Laste started across Southern France toward Royan. Since Trotsky was suffering from lumbago and the movement of the car caused him great pain, they stopped overnight in a hotel in the small town of Tonneins. They arrived in St. Palais, near Royan, on the 25th at two or three o'clock in the afternoon at a villa, “Les Embruns,” which had been rented for them on July 18 in the name of Henri Molinier. Soon after their arrival a fire, caused by the sparks from a locomotive, broke out near their villa, burning the shrubbery around the house and a small summer house in the garden. Since a great many people gathered around the house, Trotsky went out and sat during the fire in the automobile, which was in the road. The incident, he said, was reported in the local press, but his name was not mentioned since he had not been recognized. Some months later, after he had been discovered at Barbizon, this incident of the fire, he testified, was reported in the Paris press. Trotsky said that he remained in St. Palais until October 9, 1933, in ill health and spending about half the time in bed and the rest in the house or walking in the garden, in the company of friends who visited him. Living with him were his wife, his secretary van Heijenoort, Sara Weber, Vera Lanis, the wife of Raymond Molinier, who was in the villa when they arrived, and until the end of July, Ségal, a business associate of Molinier, who was also there when they arrived; also, for more than a month, Laste, who had accompanied them to St. Palais. A young French comrade, Beaussier, also came to Royan and remained for more than a month, but not in the house. (PC 174-180.) (Trotsky here omits Adolphe – PC Exh. 18, VII/9.)
Trotsky further stated that the French police had the record of all his movements, since it had been arranged that he keep them informed by telephone; and that they were even informed by telephone of his overnight stay at Tonneins (PC 181). He had tried, he said, to obtain this record, but Henri Molinier, to whom he had written about it, replied that the officials refused to provide it as a matter of general policy, and specifically because Trotsky’s case was against the Soviet government (PC 190).
Trotsky also testified that because of his illness a doctor, a friend of his, was summoned to Royan from another country, since because of their incognito they feared to call in a local physician (PC 189). He stated that on October 9 he went, with his wife, Henri Molinier, and a young Frenchman named Meichler, to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, in the Pyrenees, where their daughter-in-law, Jeanne des Pallières, joined them. They stayed three weeks, and in the beginning of November went to Barbizon, near Paris, where they remained until April or May of 1934, when the local authorities, who were not aware of his identity, discovered through a slight accident that he was there. Being angry because they had been kept in ignorance, they provoked a scandal. A campaign was begun against him in the reactionary press and taken up by l'Humanité, official organ of the French Communist Party, which accused him of being in France to help the Radical Socialist Party, then in control of the government, to organize an invasion of Russia. Thereafter he was obliged to become nomadic for a time, since he was hunted by the fascist press. He finally settled near the village of Domêne, near Grenoble, in the Département de l'Isère, where he remained until he left for Norway. (PC 180-3.)
During his stay at St. Palais, Trotsky said, he received in all some fifty visitors. (PC 180.)
§ 155. Leon Sedov testified that he had never known Romm, and learned of his existence only at the time of the trial, since he rarely read Izvestia, preferring Pravda. He said:
Regarding Romm’s statements, I begin by emphasizing the implausibility of its having been Putna, military attaché of the Soviet Embassy in Berlin (and whom I did not know personally) who had the idea of sending an official journalist to me in order that he might get in touch with the enemies of the Stalinist régime. In any case there is not a word of truth in the story of my entering into contact with Romm; after which it is worth emphasizing that according to Romm I appear to have begun by allowing nine months to pass without doing a thing, and without profiting by his good services, and that after these nine months I could find nothing better to do than to send him by mail a letter from my father of the highest importance, which obviously one would not send by mail if one wished to send it – above all, not addressed to the Tass agency at the risk of its being opened by some substitute of the person for whom it was intended. (CR 34.)
Sedov testified that during the latter part of July, 1933, he was not in Paris; that having learned that his father was to arrive in France, he left Paris on July 14 with two friends to find a place where his father could stay in accordance with the agreement made with the French authorities. They went first to Noirmoutier, and afterwards to the island of Oléron, then to Royan, where they stopped at the Hotel de l'Univers. On the 18th they signed a lease for the villa “Les Embruns,” at St. Palais-sur-Mer, owned by a M. Pillet. On the 19th they left for Marseille, where they arrived on the loth, having slept at Toulouse. On the 21st they were in Marseille, where a third friend joined them. Sedov testified that since l'Humanité had appealed to the Marseille dock-workers to make hostile demonstrations against Trotsky, and since there was also danger of demonstrations by White Russians, they arranged for the ship to stop outside Marseille off Cassis-sur-mer, and to have Trotsky disembark in a motor launch. The owner of the launch, alarmed because they did not look like tourists, tried at the last minute to refuse to go, and it was only with some difficulty that they persuaded him. Sedov’s testimony concerning the trip from Cassis to St. Palais, their arrival there and the fire that broke out, corroborates that of Trotsky. He testified that from this date until October 9, 1933, Trotsky never left Royan and could not have done so had he wished because on his arrival at Royan he was ill with a lumbago so painful that in August it was necessary to summon a physician.
Sedov denied the meetings he was alleged to have had in November, 1933, and in April and May, 1934, with Vladimir Romm, and said that if he had really met Romm in April and May, 1934, it was unlikely that they would have failed to discuss his father’s having been forced to leave Barbizon just at that time, and the campaign against him in the press, nothing of which Romm mentioned in his testimony. (CR 37-9.)
§ 156. Max Shachtman, journalist, of New York, testified before the New York Sub-Commission that he is very close politically to Leon Trotsky; that he first met him in 1930 in Prinkipo; that at that time Shachtman was a member of the Communist League of America, a Trotskyite organization. He stated that he met Trotsky for the second time in Prinkipo in 1933; that he accompanied him on his trip from Prinkipo to France on the S. S. “Bulgaria,” which left Prinkipo about July 19 and arrived in Marseille on July 24. With Trotsky, besides himself, were Mrs. Trotsky, Sara Weber, Jean van Heijenoort, and the German émigré, Adolphe. He stated that the party travelled as “Max Shachtman and suite” in order to maintain Trotsky’s incognito as long as possible. Trotsky, he said, travelled under the name Leon Sedov. The night before the ship arrived at Marseille the commandant of the ship informed Shachtman that he had received a wire from the Minister of the Interior directing him to stop the ship a short way out of Marseille. There a motor launch provided with an official flag would approach the ship, and Trotsky and anyone of his suite would disembark in this motor launch. Trotsky, said Shachtman, was not certain what the arrangements would be. In the motor launch when it came alongside, he said, were Leon Sedov, Raymond Molinier, and a man in uniform. According to Shachtman, it was Molinier who came on board. Trotsky and his wife were rushed into the motor launch. The rest of the party proceeded to Marseille, where Shachtman remained for a few days to store the private belongings and library of Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky. The boxes, he stated, had all been marked with his initials by the Turkish authorities. He then went to Basle, and from Basle to Paris, arriving there on August 1. A day or two after his arrival he saw Leon Sedov, who told him what route his father had followed from Paris to Royan. He stated that he turned over the storage receipts for Trotsky’s belongings to Henri Molinier in Paris.
Asked about Trotsky’s health during this voyage, Shachtman testified that after they left Piraeus, in Greece, it took a turn for the worse, and he was confined to bed, unable to move. Mrs. Trotsky asked Shachtman to find out whether there was any way of getting medical assistance. He found that there was no regular doctor on board. Miss Weber had a mechanical device on the principle of an electric pad, with chemicals and a rubber bag, and this was applied to Trotsky’s back in an attempt to relieve him. When Trotsky left the boat, it was with a considerable physical effort, said Schachtman, that he held himself erect.
Shachtman testified that his friends in Paris told him that it was inadvisable for Trotsky to have many visitors, in order that his stay at Royan might be as quiet as possible, and therefore counselled him against going to Royan before a couple of weeks. Since his return ticket to the United States was expiring and his affairs in America demanded his return, he left Paris without going to Royan. Before he left, he wrote a letter to Trotsky expressing his regret that he was unable to see him again (photostat in our possession). (NY 82-102.)
§ 157. Sara Weber, of Orange, N. J., testified before the New York Sub-Commission that she worked for Leon Trotsky from June, 1933, to February, 1934, as his Russian-English stenographer and translator; that she made the trip from Prinkipo to France in 1933 with Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky on the “S. S. Bulgaria” which left Prinkipo on July 19 or 20 and arrived in Marseille on July 24. Her testimony concerning Trotsky’s leaving the ship in the harbor of Marseille corroborates that of Trotsky, Sedov and Shachtman. She testified that she went from Marseille to Paris with Adolphe, and remained there three or four days with Leon Sedov’s wife. On July 30 or 31 she left for Royan with Leon Sedov who had just arrived in Paris and was there for only one day.
Miss Weber’s testimony concerning Trotsky’s health on the voyage corroborates that of Trotsky and Shachtman. At Royan, she said, his health became continually worse, and it was necessary to call in a foreign physician. She remained at Royan from the time of her arrival until the end of Trotsky’s stay there, during which time Trotsky remained continuously at the villa. She was with him again in Barbizon from November 3 until February 7, when she left for Paris. (N. Y. 73-81.) Miss Weber stated that she saw all of Trotsky’s visitors at Royan during the time she was there, and mentioned a number of them by name. She stated that Trotsky’s correspondence did not come direct to Royan but was brought from Paris by courier. (NY 103-6.)
§ 158. Davis Herron of New York testified before the New York Sub-Commission that he is a writer without political affiliation; that he visited Leon Trotsky for the first time in Prinkipo in August, 1932, after a trip to Russia as a member of a delegation of the National Students’ League, an organization Stalinist in sympathy to which he belonged in 1931-32; that he visited Trotsky again at Royan in September, 1933, this visit having been arranged by Naville (identified § 68, 9, b), whose address Herron had from B. J. Field. Herron testified that he left Paris on the evening of September 11, and that the trip to Royan took one night; that he found Trotsky in bad health and spoke about it with his doctor, who was not French and whose name Herron did not know; that the doctor told him Trotsky had a nervous fever which came from overexertion, and expressed indignation because the French authorities would not allow him to go near Paris to a sanitarium for medical care. (NY 120-6.)
§ 159. Among the many documents in our possession bearing on the testimony of Vladimir Romm to the effect that he met Leon Trotsky in the Bois de Boulogne in the latter half of July, 1933, the most important are as follows:
(1) Six letters (certified copies) and two telegrams bearing on the attempt to secure permission for Trotsky to reside in France. The first of these is a letter from Trotsky to his French translator, Maurice Parijanine, dated April 30, 1933, expressing surprise at the receipt of a telegram from him, and doubt whether the French government will grant him a visa (PC Exh. 18, I/1). Another letter to Parijanine, dated June 7, 1933, states that he is enclosing an article intended for the French press, and remarks that
in case the reaction in France continues to affirm that Trotsky is an agent and an ally of German imperialism, my article will be a sufficiently convincing refutation of this idiocy in so far as it needs to be refuted. In following the French press, I have become convinced that it does not understand the real plans of Hitler; but a fortunate chance has enabled me to hit upon a very important document which unmasks him. (PC Exh. 18, I/3.)
A letter from Trotsky to Deputy Henri Guernut, dated Prinkipo, May 31, 1933, thanks him for having interceded in his behalf with the French authorities. A letter dated June 29, 1933, from C. Chautemps, then Minister of the Interior, to Deputy Guernut, reads as follows:
You have called my attention to M. Leon Trotsky, famous Russian exile, who for reasons of health asks authorization to sojourn in France and then to make his residence in Corsica. I have the honor to inform you that the order of expulsion which concerned this foreigner has now been withdrawn, and the interested party will obtain without difficulty whenever he shall demand it, a visa for France. (Ibid., I/5.)
A telegram from Henri Molinier to Trotsky, bearing the Buyuk-Ada-Istanbul stamp, and the date 7/7/33, and addressed to “Sedov,” reads as follows:
Provisional sojourn south definite sojourn Corsica stop continue inquiries. (Ibid., I/6.)
A letter of the same date from Trotsky to Henri Molinier discusses the alternative of a temporary sojourn in the South of France or a direct removal to Corsica, and says:
If you think that we could settle comfortably in some corner of the South, isolated enough to prevent the possibility of Stalinist scandals (or White Russian), that the temporary sojourn might assuredly transform itself into a permanent one, and that in consequence we could send the heavy baggage (books and archives) to the Continent, it would naturally be the most favorable solution, but it appears to me quite problematical and if I mention it, it is that the “analysis” may be complete. (Ibid., S 1/7.)
(2) A deposition by Henri Molinier, certified by the Special Committee, states that he was Trotsky’s representative in dealing with publishers and the press of France; that in 1933 he undertook, in agreement with Trotsky, all arrangements concerning the latter’s sojourn in France; that he went at once to the Sûreté Générale and was received by M. Cado, who sought to prescribe and regulate the conditions of Trotsky’s residence. Cado suggested Corsica. Molinier protested that Trotsky had a regular visa and should have the right to live where he pleased. After an argument,
M. Cado then abandoned his diplomatic attitude and declared peremptorily that the Sûreté was above all responsible for public order, that it believed the presence of Trotsky might disturb this order, and consequently demanded that Trotsky should reside only in such places as it approved... . Paris, the Seine, Seine-et-Oise, were forbidden, as also any working-class city; also the Riviera, because of the many White Russians... . Only the rural departments and cities of minor importance remained. The center of France was recommended.
After several days, I returned to suggest Royan as the first place of residence. M. Cado called my attention to the fact that Royan was very near the island of Oléron where there was a colony of Communist children, that he considered Royan to be the center of a too-important settlement, and so forth. I had to put up a fight and make it clear that the villa in question was far from the center and isolated, in order to obtain the wished-for permission to settle at “Les Embruns.”
It was arranged with M. Cado that the best way to avoid incidents was to organize a rigorous incognito. M. Cado declared that except for the director of the Sûreté Générale, he would keep the place of residence secret from everyone, functionaries and journalists, and that he would inform only the prefect of the department... .
Molinier states that he transmitted the necessary information about these conversations to those friends of Trotsky who were to meet him in Marseille, in order that they might inform Trotsky. He also insisted on being informed by them from day to day of the conditions of Trotsky’s journey, installation, and sojourn in order that he should be the first to know about any difficulty. He had an understanding with Cado that in case the latter should learn of any occurrence out of the ordinary he would inform Molinier immediately. He several times called the attention of Sedov and of Trotsky’s entourage to the inconvenience of visits to Royan, fearing that they might spoil the incognito. He states that he was thus called upon at this period to keep a daily and very careful watch over the activities of Trotsky and his friends, and can therefore
affirm in the most categorical fashion that Trotsky, as soon as he disembarked at Marseille, went at once by road to Royan and that he did not leave that city until the 9th of October as described below.
The statement of Vladimir Romm in the second Moscow trial to the effect that he met Trotsky in the Bois de Boulogne in July, 1933, is an absolute lie. Any movement of Trotsky from place to place at that time would have been known to me; all the more since the health of Trotsky during that period would not have permitted him to make without preparation such a journey, which would in fact have required an absence of several days, the use of an automobile, the mobilization of two or three friends to protect Trotsky, etc. – all of which could not have been done without my knowledge.
Molinier states that he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky and Meichler to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, having first obtained permission from Cado and arranged that the party should travel as a family under the name Meichler; that he was with the Trotskys until October 14, when he was obliged to return to Paris. On his arrival he asked Jeanne Martin des Pallières to join the Trotskys, which she did several days later. On October 30 or 31 Trotsky, his wife, Jeanne Martin and Meichler took a train for Paris. Molinier met them with his car at Les Aubrais-Orléans and took them to Barbizon (Seine-et-Marne), where he had rented a secluded villa for them, having previously obtained authorization for Trotsky to reside in Seine-et-Marne. He took the passports of Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky to the office of the director of the Sûreté, where visas were affixed.
Molinier states that he is attaching to his deposition various documents (among these is the receipt for the rent of the villa “Les Embruns”). (Ibid., VII/5.)
(3) Documents bearing on the location and leasing of the villa “Les Embruns” at St. Palais, near Royan. Among these are five postcards and one envelope addressed to Mme. Le-prince and one postcard to M. and Mme. Vallart, at Rosnysous-Bois, Seine, by Raymond Leprince from various points of the itinerary followed by himself, Leon Sedov, and Raymond Molinier, and postmarked as follows: Les Sables d'Olonne (Vendée), 16/VII/33; Royan (Charente-Inférieure), 18/VII/33; Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), 19/VII/33; Toulouse-Gare (Haute Garonne), 20/V11/33; Marseille-Gare (Bouches-du-Rhone) 21 and 24/VII/33; Marseille, 22 (the rest illegible). (Ibid., 11/5.) Also a statement by R. Roger, proprietor of the Hotel de l'Univers at St. Palais, dated March 26, 1937, and authenticated by the mayor of that town, that on the nights of July 16, 17 and 18, 1933, Messrs. Leprince, Molinier and Sildikov (sic) lodged in his hotel (Ibid., 11/2). Also a receipt for 4,500 francs in payment of rent for the villa “Les Embruns,” made out in the name of Molinier, dated July 18, 1933, and bearing the signature “Blancan” and the stamp of the “Agence Blancan, Ventes et Locations, St. Palais.” There is a statement by Mme. F. Renauleaud, 36 boulevard Thiers, Royan, and her daughter, L. Renauleaud, niece of the owner of the villa “Les Embruns,” M. Pillet, who had authorized her to rent it for him in 1933. This statement, authenticated by the Commissioner of Police at Royan, affirms that the villa was rented on July 18, 1933, to M. Molinier, who presented himself in the company of a blond young man with a foreign accent. (Ibid., V/3.)
(4) Documents concerning Trotsky’s arrival at Cassis and his trip to Royan. The first of these is a deposition by Natalia Sedov-Trotsky,.dated March 1, 1937, and presented to the Preliminary Commission in Coyoacán (PC 198). Mrs. Trotsky states that a provisional sojourn in the South of France was authorized for herself and her husband by the French government; and that they left it to their friends in France to select their place of residence. They did not learn until their arrival in France that they were to live at Royan. Their baggage, including their library, went with them, in Shachtman’s name, and his initials are still on the trunks (verified by the Preliminary Commission, PC 198). On board ship, she testifies, Trotsky became ill with a painful lumbago. By the time they arrived his condition had improved somewhat. Her testimony concerning their landing at Cassis and their trip across France corroborates that of Trotsky and Sedov. She names the three friends who accompanied her son. Upon their arrival at Royan, she says, they found awaiting them Vera Lanis and Ségal.
Mrs. Trotsky describes the fire which broke out soon after their arrival and states that she and her husband awaited the end of it in the automobile, which a neighbor had removed into the road. Trotsky’s health, she says, became worse after this incident; therefore, at the beginning of September a friend, Dr. H., came from abroad to treat him. By the end of September he had produced an improvement in Trotsky’s condition and advised him to go to the mountains for a rest. They went to Bagnères, where they remained until October 30, when they left for Barbizon. It was only in the middle of December that Trotsky was finally able to visit friends in Paris, where he spent a day. (Ibid., VII/I.)
Among these depositions are statements by Raymond Molinier (identified § 68, 9, a), J. Laste and Raymond Leprince (both identified § 151), certified by the Special Committee. Molinier and Leprince testify that they accompanied Leon Sedov in his search for a villa for Leon Trotsky and that having finally rented the villa “Les Embruns” they proceeded to Marseille to meet Trotsky. Laste states that he arrived in Marseille on July 21 where he met three other comrades. All of these witnesses describe their trip to Cassis and the renting of the motor launch for the purpose of meeting Trotsky’s ship. They describe in detail the trip from Cassis to Royan, including the overnight stop at a little village near Marmande, and the arrival at St. Palais. All mention the fire which broke out shortly after their arrival, and Laste describes it in detail:
It was the afternoon of July 25 towards four o'clock. The little train had just passed spitting smoke and flames in the midst of fields baked by the sun. I perceived a thick smoke and flames some 300 meters from the villa which seemed to be coming in our direction. I had hardly had time to inform Trotsky when the shrubbery in the garden began to burn. The suitcases, the automobile which was in the garden, were removed to the road with the aid of neighbors. At the end of an hour quiet was restored, thanks to the inhabitants of the surrounding houses, who had put out the fire with the aid of branches. The villa was intact but all the shrubs on the side toward St. Palais were reduced to cinders... .
Laste describes in detail the arrangement of the villa and the measures that were taken to assure Trotsky’s safety. He states:
The staff of the villa numbered four or five persons in addition to Trotsky and his wife. His son left the villa towards the beginning, to return several weeks later. Two comrades who had made the trip from Marseille to St. Palais left us for good. On the other hand, the comrades who came from Prinkipo and from whom we had parted at Marseille (a Frenchman, a German, and an American of Russian origin) rejoined us... . (Ibid., VII/8.)
Laste states that he remained at the villa for a month and that during that time Trotsky very rarely left the house. Raymond Molinier says:
It is absolutely false that Trotsky left Royan at any time from his arrival to the 9th of October, 1933. How could he have done so? It would have been necessary for some one to drive him to Paris, and only my brother and myself had automobiles; moreover, such a voyage could not have passed unnoticed, since it would have necessitated at least three days absence, given Trotsky’s precarious state of health. (Ibid., VII/6.)
Leprince states that during the time he remained at Royan, that is, from the latter part of July to the first part of August, he saw Trotsky daily. He testifies that he, Leprince, returned to Paris with Sedov and Ségal. (Ibid., VII/7.)
An article from the Petit-Marseillais of July 25, 1933, dated Cassis, July 24, and entitled “Trotsky’s Second Kidnapping,” describes the attempts of Trotsky’s friends to rent a motorboat at Cassis in order to meet the “Bulgaria,” and the reluctance of the boatman. It tells of Trotsky’s arrival in Cassis at nine o'clock in the morning and the immediate departure of his party in two automobiles. (Ibid., III/ 1.)
An affidavit (Charleroi, Belgium, PC Exh. 18, VII/g) by Adolphe, who accompanied Trotsky as one of his secretaries, corroborates the testimony already cited concerning the condition of Trotsky’s health, and the arrival at Marseille. A statement submitted to the Preliminary Commission by Jean van Heijenoort also corroborates this testimony, and states that when the ship was stopped Leon Sedov came aboard, gave van Heijenoort a letter, and then disembarked with his father and mother.
According to the indications in the letter left by Leon Sedov, the residence in France was to be entirely secret, and in order to throw off journalists and intruders it was agreed as follows: At Marseille I would leave the other friends who had made the trip with us from Turkey to France; I would set out for Lyon with the baggage, and at Lyon if the journalists had been lost I would go to Royan.
Van Heijenoort states that he left for Lyon with the baggage on the afternoon of July 24, that he spent the night at Lyon and proceeded to Royan the next day.
On arriving on the morning of July 26 I immediately re-encountered Trotsky. I did not leave the villa at St. Palais before the first days of September for a short trip to Paris. During all this period, Trotsky never discontinued living at the villa. He did not leave it except for short automobile trips of an hour or two at the most during the month of August. (Ibid., VII/2.)
(5) Documents concerning the fire at the villa “Les Embruns.” Among these is a statement by the chief of the St. Palais fire department, M. Soulard, and the corporal, Hervé André, authenticated by the mayor of St. Palais. These witnesses declare that on July 25, 1933, a fire broke out around three o'clock in the afternoon near the villa “Les Embruns” and threatened the villa; that it was extinguished around four-thirty; that at the time of this fire they noted the arrival by automobile of a gentleman who had come to live in the villa. They learned later that this gentleman was Trotsky. (Ibid., V/1.)
Mme. Renauleaud and her daughter (quoted above, No. 3) say that at the fire on July 25 they saw M. Molinier, who had just arrived with several people. In the automobile they saw an elderly gentleman whom M. Molinier declared to be his ailing father. The blond young man who accompanied M. Molinier on the day that the villa was rented was also present on this day. (Ibid., V/3.)
There is also a copy of a letter, dated 31 July, 1933, from A. Nougarède, director of the tramway company at Royan, to MM. Diot May Gibault et Cie, rue de Chateaudun 17, Paris. This copy is certified by M. Nougarède, whose signature is authenticated by the Royan Police Commissioner. The letter states that a fire took place on July 25 on the property of M. Pillet, and that investigation by the Royan police has indicated the responsibility of the tramway company. It requests that MM. Diot May Gibault & Company cover the loss. (Ibid., V/2.)
A clipping from the Journal (Paris), April 25, 1934, contains an article dated Royan, April 24, telling the story of the fire at “Les Embruns.” It mentions one of the new occupants of the villa who insisted upon remaining in the automobile, and whom M. Molinier declared to be his ailing father. The article says that this person was none other than Trotsky. It states that the occupants of “Les Embruns” lived surrounded by great mystery and remained until early in October. (Ibid., V/4.) The date of the fire is given as July 18. We have a deposition, dated March 26, 1937, authenticated by the Police Commissioner at Royan and signed by Albert Bardon, honorary notary and correspondent, and editor of the Royan paper La France. Bardon states that early in April, 1934, he published in his paper an article concerning Trotsky’s sojourn at St. Palais which was reproduced in the Journal of April 25, and that this article contained an important error in date.
In fact it placed the arrival of Trotsky at St. Palais on July 18, 1933, whereas he arrived in reality on July 25, 1933. This error arose from a confusion between the date on which the villa was rented and the date of the tenant’s arrival. On the other hand, the date of arrival coincided with that of the fire. (Ibid., V/5.)
(6) Depositions by two people who were at the villa “Les Embruns” when Trotsky arrived; certified by the Special Committee. The first of these is by Vera Lanis, wife of Raymond Molinier, who is at present Trotsky’s political adversary (PC 188). Vera Lanis states that she was entrusted with the preparation of Trotsky’s dwelling, “Les Embruns,” at Royan; that she left Paris around the 22nd or 23rd of July, and that she put the villa in order, being helped on the last day by Ségal; that she was present at the fire which took place on the day of Trotsky’s arrival, and that friends and neighbors, in extinguishing the fire, turned the kitchen upside down; that she remained continuously in the villa, helping with the housework, until the end of August; and that
I saw Trotsky several times every day and it is simply a fable to say that he left Royan, where he arrived on the 25th of July, during the month of July or August. I can state that he remained constantly in the house quite indisposed and that he almost never went out. If Trotsky had absented himself, I, who did the cooking and served at the table three times a day, would certainly have been aware of it. (Ibid., IV/3.)
Maurice Ségal states that he arrived at the villa on July 24, 1933, and assisted Mme. Lanis in putting it in order; that Trotsky arrived the next day around noon with his wife and several other people; that he, Ségal, remained several days at the villa, occupying a room on the ground floor with Leprince, and that he saw Trotsky daily; that he returned to Paris with Leprince and Sedov; that they had two mishaps en route, and that because of the resultant delay and uncertainty Sedov finished the trip by motor-bus. (Ibid., IV / 4.)
(7) Depositions of people who arrived at St. Palais after July 31, 1933. Adolphe, who states that he arrived in Royan from Paris on August 1 or 2, 1933, lists as follows the visitors received during this period:
Jakob Schwab, for four or five consecutive days. According to a remark made in one of my private letters in this period it was around the 16th to the 19th of August; de Kadt of the Dutch O.S.P.; a deputation of the Dutch R.S.A.P. with H. Sneevliet... . Smith and Jennie Lee of the English I.L.P. the 29th of August; and J. P. Schmidt of the Dutch O.S.P., if I am not mistaken. From the L.C.I. came E. Bauer, Witte, L. Lesoil, G. Vereecken, R. and H. Molinier; a tall Belgian comrade; W. Nelz, Walter Held; members of the French Communist League; J. Laste and Y. Craipeau, who also mounted guard; Beaussier, Gourbil of St. Palais-sur-mer, who came once with two other friends from the vicinity, one from Oléron and another, and who brought another time a sympathetic railway worker from Royan. From the German section there was Schmidt of Danzig, who for a certain time helped as secretary and as a member of the guard. A doctor came from [a foreign country] to give Trotsky medical treatment. From time to time the barber, Comrade Lhuillier, came from Paris to cut Trotsky’s hair and beard... . I also saw a chauffeur in the company of R. Molinier and a worker engaged at the time as a dishwasher in a Royan hotel. From Paris came a deputation of Jewish comrades; also Feroci. Writers: Malraux; also Parijanine. Also the German, Erde. I do not remember other persons but there were surely more. I forgot Sternberg of the S.A.P. (Ibid., VII/9.)
An affidavit (St. Moritz) by the doctor[25] who was summoned to treat Trotsky at Royan, states that he was at Royan from September 4 to September 17 or 18, 1933. It corroborates the testimony quoted above concerning the state of Trotsky’s health during his stay at “Les Embruns.” (Ibid., VIII/17.)
Pierre Naville, in a statement certified by the Special Committee, testifies that he visited Trotsky at Royan on September 9 or 10, 1933. Naville says that during July and August he was living in Paris and did not leave that city, and that he received during that period several letters from Trotsky. He gives extracts from these letters, dated July 31, August 17, 25 and 21. (Ibid., VIII/5.)
J. Gourbil of St. Palais-sur-mer, in a statement authenticated by the mayor of that city, says that several times he visited Trotsky at “Les Embruns,” and that
Anyone who saw the system of defense organized in July and August, 1933, at St. Palais, to protect the life of Trotsky, and who hears him accused of having conversed at that period on a bench in the Bois de Boulogne with an envoy of Radek, has the right to say that the peak of police inventiveness coincides with that of the ridiculous and the absurd. (Ibid., VIII/14.)
An affidavit (Amsterdam) by J. de Kadt of Haarlem, Holland, states that as a secretary of the Independent Socialist Party of Holland (OSP) he visited Leon Trotsky in the summer of 1933:
As it was quite impossible at that time to meet L. D. Trotsky in Paris, I had to travel to Royan where I arrived on August 24 and stayed in Trotsky’s house in the neighborhood of Royan till August 25.
As on August 27 and 28 there was an international conference of independent socialist parties and groups at Paris, it would have been of great importance to Trotsky to attend this conference in order to state himself his doctrines there and have the opportunity to meet some of the socialist leaders who were assembled there. It was, however, impossible for him to leave Royan... . (Ibid., S VIII/28.)
De Kadt states that he is not a Trotskyist and has never at any time adhered to any of the so-called Trotskyist organizations; that at this moment he is not a member of any party or political group; that he is an independent socialist writer and editor of the independent socialist magazine, De Nieuwe Kern.
An affidavit (Amsterdam) by H. Sneevliet of Amsterdam, Chairman of the Dutch Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (R.S.A.P.) and member of the Dutch Parliament since 1933, states that he visited Trotsky at Royan, France, August 18-22, 1933. Mr. Sneevliet’s deposition will be quoted in Chapter XXIV of this report. (Ibid., S VIII/26.)
Charles Andrew Smith of 81 Arcadian Gardens, London, England, Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Durham, states in an affidavit (London) that at the conclusion of a conference held under the auspices of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity in Paris on August 27 and 28, 1933, a suggestion was made that one of the national leaders of the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain should meet Leon Trotsky, then resident in the South of France, to discuss with him the international political situation; that the three national leaders of the Independent Labour Party at this conference were James Maxton, Archibald Fenner Brockway, and John Paton; that
It was explained to us in Paris that the said Leon Trotsky could not possibly come up to Paris to meet the said James Maxton, Archibald Fenner Brockway, and John Paton and others, as he would very gladly have done, not only because of the long journey involved in travelling from the South of France to Paris, but also on account of repeated threats against his life and of incitement in the fascist press of France to his assassination.
Smith says it was decided that he as a member of the National Administrative Council should visit Leon Trotsky. He left Paris on Monday night, August 28, 1933, and travelled overnight to Royan.
On arriving at the place of residence of Leon Trotsky at the place aforesaid, I found the same closely guarded and the said Leon Trotsky was constantly attended by armed followers who were obviously living in real apprehension of attack... .
He says that he had an interview of several hours with Trotsky on August 29, 1933, and that he returned to Paris that night. He concludes:
The whole circumstances of my visit to the said Leon Trotsky lead me to believe that at that time circumstances were such that it would seem to be highly improbable that during that month the said Leon Trotsky could have spent any time in Paris... . (Ibid., VIII/18.)
An affidavit (London) by John Paton of Welwyn Garden City, Stratfordshire, England, states that he was general secretary of the Independent Labour Party from 1927 to 1933; that he was in Paris on August 27 and 28, 1933, at a conference held under the auspices of the International Bureau for Revolutionary Socialist Unity, that he expected to see Leon Trotsky in Paris during this visit, but learned that it was impossible for Trotsky to leave the South of France; that he consequently visited Trotsky at Royan on August 29, 1933, with P. J. Schmidt, of the Independent Socialist Party of Holland. He says:
I had been informed that it would be necessary for me to undertake the long and troublesome journey to Royan aforesaid if I was to see the said Leon Trotsky, as I was informed that he never left his place of residence. All this information confirmed what I had already been told by J. de Kadt of the Independent Socialist Party of Holland whom I met in Paris and who had previously visited the said Leon Trotsky. I interviewed the said Leon Trotsky at Royan aforesaid on the 29th day of August, 1933. The said Leon Trotsky then remarked that he had to exercise great care in maintaining privacy and restricting his movements so that no excuse should be offered for seeking to turn him out of France. (Ibid., VIII/19.)
An affidavit (Amsterdam) by P. J. Schmidt of Amsterdam states that he travelled to Royan to see Trotsky in the company of John Paton, then general secretary of the I.L.P. Mr. Schmidt places the date of this visit to Trotsky on August 30 to 31, 1933.[26] (Ibid., S VIII/27.)
An affidavit (London) by James Maxton of London, member of the British House of Commons, corroborates the statement of Charles Andrew Smith to the effect that Maxton was obliged to return to England from the conference in Paris without visiting Leon Trotsky because Maxton was unable to spare the time to make the necessary trip to the South of France. (Ibid., VIII/20.)
(8) Five letters written by Trotsky to people in Paris at the end of July, 1933, of which two are dated July 30 and three July 31. Among these is the letter of July 31 addressed to Pierre Naville (see 7 above). (Ibid., VI/2-6.)
(9) Various documents illustrating Trotsky’s political preoccupations during his stay at Royan. The more important of these documents will be cited in later sections of this report.
§ 160. The testimony of the witness Vladimir Romm begins, as we have noted, with a lie – his identification of the Opposition of 1926-7 with “anti-Party work.” We have noted his apparent ignorance of the nature of Opposition activity; the want of any credible motivation for his having undertaken the dangerous tasks attributed to him in connection with the alleged conspiracy; his failure to state – and Vyshinsky’s failure to ask him – how Sedov learned that he was ready to risk his life by undertaking those tasks. Moreover the doubt inspired by Radek’s testimony concerning the contents of Trotsky’s initial letter (§ 144) naturally extends to the testimony of Romm that he delivered it, and to his own account of its contents. It seems to us incredible that Sedov would have sent such a letter as Radek and Romm described to the address of the Soviet news agency in Paris, where it might easily have been opened by someone else than Romm and thus have brought about the exposure of the alleged conspiracy. It also seems incredible – indeed preposterous – that Trotsky, upon arriving in France, would have hastened more than half-way across that country merely to confirm to a strange liaison man the contents of a letter he was sending to Radek. And Romm’s testimony about this conversation and the events that led up to it is open to serious doubt in view of the fantastic contradictions which we have pointed out in the testimony concerning the formation of the parallel center (Chapter XVI).
Romm’s testimony, therefore, is not convincing. Yet the Prosecutor’s sole attempt to secure corroboration of this testimony consisted in securing its confirmation by Radek, whose own testimony had contradicted in advance its most important points. Assuming that Romm told the truth, more convincing corroboration was available. This Commission, as we have already stated, holds that one of the outstanding defects in the procedure of the January trial was the failure of the prosecution to produce the French police record of Trotsky’s movements at this period, which it could presumably easily have obtained from the friendly government of France. We have quoted Trotsky’s statement that he attempted to obtain this record. Six separate attempts to secure it have been made on our own behalf, two of them by high French officials. The answer to each request was that the record is in the keeping of the director of the Sûreté Nationale, and for reasons of state cannot be given out. The Comité pour l'Enquête sur le Procès de Moscou has also vainly attempted to obtain possession of this record. Since the French government is on friendly terms and in quasi alliance with the Soviet government, it is reasonable to assume that if this record of Trotsky’s movements bore out the testimony of Vladimir Romm, the French government would not hesitate to reveal it; and that its refusal indicates unwillingness to embarrass a government with which it is in friendship and virtual alliance. Therefore we hold that the refusal of the French government to make this record public constitutes strong presumptive evidence that it does not bear out the testimony of Vladimir Romm.
The positive evidence that Romm testified falsely is impressive both in its mass and its cohesion. All parts of it – the testimony of witnesses, letters, telegrams, excerpts from the press, etc. – fit together into a record of Trotsky’s first months in France which establishes conclusively: (1) that Trotsky arrived in France on July 24, 1933; (2) that he disembarked from the “Bulgaria” by motorboat and landed at Cassis, from which place he proceeded direct to St. Palais, spending one night en route; (3) that he remained at St. Palais without interruption until October 9, 1933.
We hold that all this evidence proves conclusively that Leon Trotsky did not meet Vladimir Romm in the Bois de Boulogne either in the latter half of July, 1933, as stated by Romm, or at any time between July 24 and October 31, 1933. We hold that this evidence proves also that Leon Sedov was absent from Paris during the latter half of July, 1933, and did not return to that city before the very end of July or the first part of August (Miss Weber says on July 30 or 31; Shachtman and Le-prince say early August); and that he could not, therefore, have had with Romm both of the interviews to which Romm testified. But if Romm’s testimony about the first interview was false, there is no reason to believe his testimony about the second. Moreover, even if we assume that Sedov returned to Paris in time to see Vladimir Romm at the end of July, it is clear from all the evidence in our possession that he could not have gone with Romm to the Bois de Boulogne to see Trotsky, as Romm stated, since Trotsky did not leave St. Palais between the date of his arrival there, July 25, 1933, and October 9, 1933.
§ 161. We therefore hold that Romm’s testimony concerning his alleged meeting with Trotsky at the end of July, 1933, is false. And since his evidence on this crucial point is false, it follows that all his testimony concerning his alleged activities as a liaison man between Sedov and Trotsky on the one hand and Radek on the other is not worthy of credence. And since the testimony of Radek to conspiracy with Leon Trotsky rests primarily upon that of Romm and secondarily upon that of Pyatakov, which we have also held disproved, we hold Radek’s testimony to be also false. We therefore hold that none of the letters allegedly exchanged between Trotsky and Radek, whether through Vladimir Romm or by unspecified means, ever existed, and that all testimony to the contents of these alleged letters is sheer fabrication.
§ 162. The fourth basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the Pyatakov-Radek trial is the testimony of the accused Shestov. Shestov stated that his criminal activities began at the end of 1923, when as a student of the Workers Faculty of the Moscow Mining Academy he was an active advocate of the Trotskyite platform; that at the end of 1924 he “deceived the Party for the first time” by declaring at a Party meeting that he had abandoned Trotskyism; and that at the end of 1925 he “again began to fight the Party actively.” (PR 233.)
Here again we note the identification of political opposition with criminal activity.
At about the end of February, 1931, Shestov said, he was sent from Novosibirsk, where he was working, to Moscow on official business. At that time he was a member of the board of the Eastern and Siberian Coal Trust. Hearing that a group of directors, headed by Pyatakov, was to be sent to Berlin, he obtained permission to go, and was in Berlin at the beginning or in the middle of May. He asked Pyatakov, he said, whether his statement published in the press had been the result of a real renunciation of Trotskyism, or was a forced step. Pyatakov asked him whether he had read the latest literature on sale in Berlin (nature not specified), and advised him to get in touch with I. N. Smirnov. He did so, he said, and Smirnov told him that
the situation in the Soviet Union has sharply changed, and I must understand that an open struggle was impossible. The task of the Trotskyites now was to win the Party’s confidence and then to renew the attack with doubled and trebled force. (PR 234.)
Smirnov, he said, advised him to discuss with Sedov “the new and latest course.” He allegedly saw Sedov at the Nikolai restaurant, where Sedov, in response to his question, What were the specific tasks which Trotsky “placed before us Trotskyites,”
... said that his father held that the only correct way, a difficult one but a sure one, was forcibly to remove Stalin and the leaders of the government by means of terrorism. Then I remarked that this was partly true because we had really got into a blind alley. Therefore it was necessary either to disarm or to map out a new path of struggle. (PR 234.)
Thereupon, he said, Sedov, seeing that Shestov was being influenced by his words, advised him to get in touch with the firm of Frohlich-Klüpfel-Dehlmann, which was assisting, under a contract, in sinking mines in the Kuzbas (Kuznetsk Basin), saying that this firm was of help in sending mail to the Soviet Union; and if this firm did them a favor, they should reciprocate by furnishing it with certain information. In answer to Shestov’s protest, “You are simply proposing that I become a spy,” Sedov, he said, told him not to be squeamish; that if he accepted terrorism and undermining activity in industry, he, Sedov, could not see why he should fail to accept this also. Shestov said he told Sedov he would consult Smirnov and then give him “a reply one way or another.” At the end of the interview, said Shestov, they went to Berlin and entered the Baltimore restaurant, where Sedov introduced him to a Mr. Schwartzmann, a man dressed as a waiter, and told Shestov that when he wanted to get in touch with him Schwartzmann would convey the message. (PR 234-5.)
Turning back to pp. 160-162 of the record, we find that Sedov, apparently in this same conversation – at all events in a conversation in May, 1931 – appears to have informed Shestov of the line on undermining Soviet industry through wrecking and diversion and told him it was necessary to enlist “non-Trotskyite wreckers” for this purpose. Thus it appears that Sedov, whom according to Shestov’s testimony at this point he had never met before this conversation (on page 31 he testifies that he met Sedov in January, 1931, some five months before Shestov’s arrival in Berlin and one month before Sedov’s arrival), confided the “new line” on terrorism to Shestov at their very first meeting, appeared to take for granted his acceptance of sabotage, and even proposed that he “become a spy.” Such indiscretion seems daring, not to say foolhardy, when we remember that Shestov, according to his own testimony, was a Soviet functionary, and at that very moment was in Berlin on an official mission. One would think Sedov must have suffered considerable anxiety until he learned whether this hesitant Soviet functionary would consent to “become a spy” or decide that it was his duty to denounce the whole conspiracy to the GPU. Shestov, however, seems to have settled that matter in his own mind even before he talked with Smirnov. In the beginning of June, he said,
... after I had assimilated all that I had heard from Smirnov and Sedov, I arrived at the conclusion that it was too late to retreat. Smirnov and the others knew me as a convinced Trotskyite, the more so that personal association with Smirnov, Sedov and Pyatakov made us more intimate and I decided that I would be at the side of my leaders. (PR 235.)
About the middle of July, said Shestov, he met Smirnov, who asked him bluntly, “How is your mood?” He replied that he had no personal mood but did as Trotsky taught them – stood at attention and waited for orders. Smirnov then, he said, told him that a definite decision had been made “to get into power by organizing assassinations, by acts of violence against Stalin, his Political Bureau and his government; whereupon Shestov “agreed wholeheartedly to carry on this work.” He informed Smirnov of Sedov’s instruction to get in touch with the firm of Fröhlich-Klüpfel-Dehlmann, saying, “In that case I shall be a spy and diversionist.” Smirnov, he alleged, told him to “stop slinging big words like ‘spy’ and ‘diversionist’ about,” and defended the enlistment of German diversionists in the mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces. After this conversation, said Shestov, he consented to establish connections with the German firm. (PR 235-6.) Vyshinsky asked him:
VYSHINSKY: What year was that?
SHESTOV: That was about the middle of June, 1931.
VYSHINSKY: Did both meetings take place in 1931?
SHESTOV: Yes, in the spring.
VYSHINSKY: Did you stay in Berlin after that?
SHESTOV: I remained abroad until the beginning of November; I went to London. (PR 236.)
Thus Shestov places his conversation with Smirnov “about the middle of July,” “about the middle of June,” and “in the spring.” He testified that he had two more conversations with Sedov, in one of which he told him of his conversations with Smirnov and Pyatakov, and during the other received a pair of shoes containing letters for Pyatakov and Muralov (§ 131). In November, said Shestov, he left for the Kuznetzk Basin, but before his departure he met the director of Fröhlich-Klüpfel-Dehlmann, and made a deal by which that firm would undertake to maintain communications with the Trotskyite organizations in the Soviet Union and to organize wrecking and diversion together with the Trotskyites, in return for which services the latter would supply the firm with secret information and aid its representatives in diversionist work (PR 238). Shestov later testified that he left for England in the middle of November, 1931, after this alleged conversation, and that on his return trip he was in Berlin for about three weeks; that he met Sedov twice at the end of October and after that he left for the U.S.S.R. (PR 241.) On page 31 he testifies that on his return from England he went to Schwartzmann and told him he must see Sedov; that he met Sedov in the Baltimore restaurant and received the shoes with the letters. According to Shestov, a letter was secreted in each shoe; one letter marked “P” for Pyatakov; the other “M” for Muralov. He stated that he delivered the letter marked “P” to Pyatakov in the middle of November, 1931, in Moscow, having arrived there on November 7 (PR 30); and that upon his arrival in Novosibirsk he got in touch with Muralov and delivered the other letter to him. (PR 31, 241-2.) He placed his arrival in Novosibirsk between November 20 and 30. But Muralov testified that he received this letter in 1932. (PR 217.)
§ 162. Leon Trotsky testified that he never knew A. A. Shestov and that he first saw his name in the reports of the trial (PC 126).
§ 163. Leon Sedov testified that he had never known or met Shestov. He remarked that Shestov had been a witness in the Novosibirsk trial and that at that time while declaring that he had received terrorist directives from Pyatakov in 1931 he made no mention of Sedov. As authority for this statement, Sedov referred to the official report of the trial in Pravda, November 22, 1936, and also to an article in Pravda, December 24, 1936, signed by Roginsky, assistant prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. Sedov declared that this omission justified the conclusion that the allegations of Shestov in the trial of January, 1937, were a concoction invented after the Novosibirsk trial. (CR 30-1.)
Sedov denied that he was ever acquainted with the firm of Fröhlich-Klüpfel-Dehlmann, or that anything in Shestov’s testimony concerning him was true (CR 31). He further called attention to Shestov’s statement that he met Sedov in Berlin in January, 1931, and stated that at this date he was in Istanbul, as could be proved by his passport, and that he arrived in Berlin only on February 25, 1931. He also pointed out the contradiction between this statement of Shestov and his statement that he arrived in Germany in the month of May and at about the same time met Sedov; also the contradiction between Shestov’s statements that he went to Moscow early in November, 1931, and was in Novosibirsk by November 20-30, and his statement that he went to England in the middle of November, 1931. (CR 32.)
§ 164. We have already stated above (§ 130) our opinion that the testimony of Pyatakov concerning his alleged contacts with Sedov is fabrication. Therefore, we hold his corroboration of Shestov’s testimony implicating Leon Sedov to be worthless. Moreover, according to Shestov, he conversed with Pyatakov and Sedov separately. His is therefore the only direct testimony to his alleged meetings with Sedov; and as Sedov pointed out and the above résumé confirms, that testimony contains extraordinary contradictions concerning the dates of his meetings with Sedov and of his own movements – contradictions which appeared to disturb neither the Prosecutor nor the Court. We have, furthermore, verified Sedov’s statements concerning Shestov’s testimony in the Novosibirsk trial. In what purports to be an official verbatim report of that trial (evening session, November 20) published in Pravda November 22, 1936, Shestov said:
When I was in Berlin I received a direct directive from Pyatakov to carry on undermining terrorist work in the Kuzbas. He knew that I was a worker in the Kuzbas, and he said that I should rigidly coordinate my activity with the representative of the Trotskyite organization here in Siberia, Muralov.
In the January trial, on the other hand, Shestov said:
... I received exact instructions from Sedov, from Pyatakov, and Smirnov that my activities must be exclusively under the control of Muralov... . (PR 222.)
This statement is nowhere borne out in the reports of Shestov’s testimony in the Novosibirsk trial as they appeared in Pravda. There is no mention of either Sedov or Smirnov in that testimony, or in the quotations from Shestov in the indictment or the reference to him in Prosecutor Roginsky’s summation. Nor are they mentioned in the verdict. On November 22, a mention of the alleged meeting of Pyatakov, Smirnov and Sedov (§ 124) is interpolated in the purported record of Drobnis’s testimony; Shestov is not included. As reported, Shestov’s testimony implicated only Pyatakov and Muralov. His alleged connection with Sedov and Smirnov is first mentioned three days after the verdict, in Roginsky’s article (November 24), to which Sedov referred. But Roginsky, curiously, illustrated this alleged connection with the passage from Shestov quoted above, in which he mentioned only Pyatakov and Muralov. Thus Shestov’s alleged connection with Sedov and Smirnov appears to have been an afterthought on the part of the Prosecutor.
Shestov’s testimony concerning the supposed deal with Fröhlich-Klüpfel-Dehlmann is as questionable as that of Pyatakov about his dealings with Borsig and Demag. On whose behalf and for what purpose was this firm collecting secret information and conducting wrecking and diversive activities in the Soviet Union? That a foreign business firm might offer a Soviet functionary a quid pro quo to get contracts renewed (PR 239) or to secure preference over competing firms – this is understandable. But this is a very different matter from engaging in sabotage which, if discovered, would necessarily discredit that firm and result in its exclusion from the Soviet Union. For this sort of thing it must, one would think, have some political motive. What was it? Hardly the mere fact that the director of the firm was “Sedov’s friend” (PR 238). No business concern would be likely to engage in “diversive and criminal activities” on the basis of its director’s personal friendships, at great risk to its standing and its business. Did this firm believe that the “Trotskyites” would soon be in power and would thereupon award it large contracts? Shestov himself says the Trotskyites “had no support whatever among the workers and peasants” (PR 162); and surely if this firm “had their people ... in the Kuznetsk Basin” (PR 238) they must have been in a position to know this. Were they acting on behalf of the German government? At that time Germany was still a democracy in good relations with the Soviet government, and the Bruening government was in power. Was Bruening conspiring with the “Trotskyites” to displace Stalin? With what motives? All these questions were pertinent to the testimony of Shestov. The Prosecutor asked none of them.
The record is extremely contradictory concerning the letter which Shestov was supposed to have carried to Muralov in one of a pair of shoes. We have already noted those contradictions which concern the dates on which Shestov received and delivered this letter. More important, however, is the contradiction between Shestov and Muralov concerning the nature of this alleged communication. Muralov states that the letter was from Sedov and says:
I knew him very well, often met him in Trotsky’s apartment, and I knew everything about him, including his physical defect – a fact which Shestov confirmed, so I made sure that this letter was not a forgery. I recognized the handwriting. (PR 217.)
Before we proceed to Shestov’s version, we note Sedov’s testimony that in his youth, when Muralov knew him, it is true he squinted with one eye, but that at the time when Shestov allegedly met him in Berlin he had been completely cured of his defect. (CR 33.) If this is true, Shestov, we think, can hardly have “confirmed” a physical defect which Sedov no longer possessed.
As Shestov described the communication which he delivered to Muralov, it consisted of two letters, one from Trotsky and the other “a letter from the Foreign Bureau which I personally deciphered.” Shestov testified that Muralov requested him to decipher this letter, saying that its arithmetic made his eyes hurt, and “then gave me the letter and the code.” He did not say how Muralov and Sedov – who had not previously been in communication, if one is to believe Muralov’s testimony – had arranged this code; nor did the Prosecutor ask either him or Muralov. Nor did Shestov state in whose hand this long letter was written, or whether it was typewritten. (PR 242-3.) Vyshinsky asked no questions, although the contradiction between Shestov and Muralov was sufficiently important to warrant disbelief that the letter ever existed.
As we have noted, Shestov’s testimony is open to serious doubt on the basis of the record alone. And this doubt is increased by a comparison of his confession as witness in the Novosibirsk trial and his confession as accused in the January trial.
We have already noted that Pyatakov’s corroboration of Shestov’s testimony is worthless. Like Pyatakov, Shestov claimed that it was Smirnov who put him in touch with Sedov. We have held (§ 46) that Smirnov received no “opinion” or instructions about terrorism from Sedov in 1931 (the prosecution did not charge Smirnov with having discussed wrecking and diversion with Sedov). Therefore, Smirnov can not have introduced Shestov to Sedov for purposes of a terrorist conspiracy, or informed Shestov of an agreement reached with Sedov about terrorism and wrecking. Moreover, we have already pointed out (§ 132) that if Pyatakov did not meet Sedov there is no ground for believing that he received a letter from Trotsky as a result of such meetings – a letter which, as described by Pyatakov, alluded to them in the words, “I am very glad that you have followed my requests” (PR 32). But since Shestov testified that he delivered this letter, then obviously if no such letter was sent, Shestov knowingly lied. And if he lied about this letter there remains not the slightest basis for crediting either his testimony or Muralov’s concerning the letter which he allegedly received from Sedov for Muralov at the same time.
§ 165. In view of all these considerations we hold the testimony of the defendant Shestov concerning his alleged meetings with Sedov and his alleged services as go-between for Sedov and Muralov to be worthless.
§ 166. The fifth basis of the charge against Leon Trotsky and Leon Sedov in the January trial is the testimony of the accused Muralov. Muralov dated his “fall” back to 1923, when he signed the Declaration of the Forty-Six.[27] He remained in the Trotskyite organization, he said, until he was expelled from the Party and exiled to Western Siberia. Thereafter he continued to adhere to the Opposition platform submitted to the Fifteenth Congress. He answered in the affirmative Vyshinsky’s question:
And you continued to adhere to this up to the most recent time, and, remaining on these political positions, you waged the struggle? (PR 231.)
Thus the Opposition platform, which criticized the internal and foreign policy of the majority, is made to appear a basis for alleged criminal activity. (See §§ 181, 230 concerning this platform.)
Muralov stated that for eight months he denied “any part in underground work,” and explained that this was due to political motives, to resentment of his arrest, and to his attachment to Trotsky, which “began when he was People’s Commissar and I was commander of the Moscow Military Area” (PR 232). At last,
... I said to myself, almost after eight months, that I must submit to the interests of the state for which I had fought for twenty-three years, for which I had fought actively in three revolutions, when my life hung by a thread dozens of times. (PR 233.)
Muralov stated that when he was in Moscow he learned from Smirnov that he had been abroad and seen Sedov (Chapter X). Smirnov, he said, told him “about Trotsky’s new line about resorting to terrorism... .” On his arrival in Novosibirsk, he said,
... I arranged to meet Sumetsky and Boguslaysky and told them what Ivan Nikitich Smirnov had proposed, which I accepted as proper. (PR 216.)
He did not tell why he accepted terrorism as proper, and Vyshinsky did not ask him. He stated that “in the next year” he again saw Smirnov in Moscow and learned from him
... that there was something new, namely the program of economic terrorism... . Whose line is it? I asked. He said it was also Trotsky’s. (PR 217.)
Muralov also testified that he saw Pyatakov in Moscow in 1934 and 1935; that in 1934 Pyatakov told him about the agreement with the Rights and about the composition of the reserve center (PR 218); and that in 1935, after the assassination of Kirov, they discussed group terror (PR 224-7). He did not say that Pyatakov told him anything which came from Sedov or Trotsky.
Muralov testified that he received three letters from Sedov; that allegedly received through Shestov (§ 164); another through Seidman, a Trotskyite engineer, in 1932; and a final one in 1933. The one received through Seidman, he said, was really meant not for him but for Smirnov, and
... instructed us to accelerate terrorist acts against Stalin, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Kirov. (PR 218.)
That received in 1933, he said, informed him that “the old man is pleased with our activities” (PR 218).
Muralov stated that his communication with Sedov was maintained through Shestov. The letter of 1933, he said, was brought by a German specialist whom Shestov had commissioned. All his correspondence with Sedov, he said, was sent through Shestov. (PR 227.) Vyshinsky asked Shestov:
How did you establish connections with the German specialists working in the Kuzbas, what addresses did you use, why did they carry out your commissions? (PR 228.)
Shestov, in answering, did not state what addresses he used, and the Prosecutor did not press him for an answer on this important point. Nor did he ask either Shestov or Muralov what became of these alleged letters.
§ 167. Leon Trotsky testified that
Muralov was a member of the Central Control Commission, one of the heroes of the Civil War, and commander-in-chief of the Moscow Military District, my friend and my companion in hunting. We were in the best relations with him. He is not a political man. He is a soldier, a revolutionary soldier, and very honest, an exceptionally honest man. He abandoned the Opposition without any declaration, a written declaration. But he abandoned politics. He became a “spetz” [specialist] just as Pyatakov, and stayed in Siberia. He is an agronomist by profession. (PC 124.)
He stated that in 1931 and 1932 he had tried many times to communicate with Muralov, Rakovsky, and others, but was obliged to abandon the attempt because the control became very severe. Beginning with 1930, he testified, the GPU began to accuse people in relations with him of espionage, so that to communicate with him became very dangerous. Since 1931 or 1932, he said, he had not received any letter from Muralov or sent him any (PC 124). Questioned by his counsel on his statement that Muralov was an honest man, and asked whether he was honest in his confession concerning Sedov’s letter, he said:
His deposition is false, but I am absolutely sure that it was the false deposition of a simple soldier, to whom they stated after the assassination of all the others: “You are a friend of Trotsky. Now, you understand you cannot have Trotsky here. He is in exile.” They were threatening him: “Stalin is the chief of the state. We have Japan from one side, and Germany from the other. The activity of Trotsky is dangerous. Trotsky completely recognizes Zinoviev and Kamenev. You must confess. You will be shot.” He, as a soldier, confessed. (PC 341.)
Asked by counsel for the Commission whether he excluded the desire of the defendants unselfishly to serve the Party as a motive for confession, he answered:
... I can admit it for Muralov ... the psychosis of war is now the most important factor in the hands of the bureaucracy. Everything is explained by the war danger. People like Muralov and others read only the Soviet papers. They don’t know foreign languages. For years they read that I am abroad, acting against the Soviet Union, that I am in alliance with Lord Beaverbrook and Winston Churchill. Every one of them says, “It is false, but it is possible that everything is true.” He is not in connection with me and he is ... shaken in his confidence. That is from one side. From the other: “Stalin is the chief of the country. If we fight against Germany and Japan, we will fight under the leadership of Stalin. You are a friend of Trotsky, but you can’t invite him to come here. In the situation his activities are prejudicial to the defense of the Soviet Union.”
At the time he merely hesitates. He hesitated for one, two, three months. He hesitated for eight months. They showed him one deposition, one confession after another. Then this man broke down. He satisfied them in every way. (PC 395-6.)
Asked whether he thought Muralov believed the charges against him, Trotsky said:
I cannot admit that he accepted the accusation as it is, because he took upon himself the same false accusation. But my oppositionist activity, my critique against the ruling caste – it is possible that it seemed to him prejudicial to the defense of the Soviet Union. (PC 396.)
§ 168. Leon Sedov testified that Muralov was an old Bolshevik who remained his father’s friend until the latter’s exile; Sedov declared that Muralov was the only one of their former friends involved in either trial who – although he renounced political activity – had not made a public declaration renouncing their movement; that he had not seen Muralov since the end of 1927, and after the end of 1928 had had no correspondence with him. He denied that he had sent to Muralov any of the three letters which Muralov stated he had received from him, or that he had ever known the engineer Seidman who, Muralov said, had delivered the second letter. (CR 32-3.)
§ 169. We have already discussed (§ 164) the contradictions concerning the first of these alleged letters – contradictions which render its existence incredible on the basis of the record alone. As for the second, it seems odd that Sedov should have sent to Muralov, in Western Siberia, a letter meant for Smirnov, who would appear from the record of both trials to have been in Moscow in the year 1932, except for a possible sojourn abroad which is alluded to in the testimony of the accused TerVaganyan (ZK 109-10). Muralov’s testimony to the contents of the third letter is something of a curiosity, as the only instance in either trial record where Trotsky is represented as being in the slightest degree satisfied with the activities of the alleged conspirators, who were supposedly risking their reputations and their lives in carrying out his orders.
We have quoted (§§ 167, 168) Trotsky’s statement, corroborated by Sedov, that Muralov abandoned the Opposition, and politics, without making any written declaration. During the trial Muralov, in answer to a question from Vyshinsky, confirmed that he had continued “up until the most recent time” to adhere to the Opposition platform of 1927, and “remaining on these political positions ... waged the struggle” (PR 231). In the first place, as we shall have occasion to note in later chapters, the Opposition platform of 1927 provided no basis whatever for the alleged criminal activities which Muralov, prompted by Vyshinsky, based upon it. In the second place, if Muralov continued to adhere to this platform – and the ruling faction may easily have suspected that he did so, since he had not formally “capitulated” – then he must have been under constant surveillance by the Soviet police, like other exiled Oppositionists (§ 30). Therefore the conspiratorial activity to which he confessed would appear, for this reason alone, to have been improbable, and even impossible.
§ 170. Muralov’s testimony that Smirnov informed him of “Trotsky’s new line about resorting to terrorism” and about the new line on wrecking is obviously false if Smirnov himself got no such “line.” We have already stated (§ 48) our conclusion that Smirnov confessed falsely. Therefore we hold this testimony of Muralov to be false. Muralov’s testimony to the first and third of his alleged letters from Sedov depends upon that of the accused Shestov. We have already (§ 165) held the testimony of Shestov implicating Leon Sedov to be worthless. We hold, therefore, that the testimony of Muralov to these letters is also worthless. It follows, naturally, that his testimony to the second letter is worthless. In so far as his testimony to his alleged conversations with Pyatakov may be construed as involving Trotsky and Sedov, we hold, on the basis of our conclusions concerning the confession of Pyatakov (§§ 130, 142) that this testimony is also false. Moreover, in our opinion, the passage which we have quoted from Muralov (§ 166) concerning the motive for his confession lends plausibility to Leon Trotsky’s interpretation of that confession.
§ 171. This finishes our consideration of the definitive charges against Trotsky and Sedov in the Moscow trials of August, 1936, and January, 1937. Before proceeding to discuss the credibility of these charges in general, we return to the subject of letters quoted as evidence but not produced in court. In addition to what we have stated (§ 47) about the value of such evidence, we note once more the remarkable indifference of both Prosecutor and Court concerning the means by which several of the letters cited in the trials as evidence against Trotsky and Sedov were received, and what became of them thereafter. The Commission might assume that one such letter had been destroyed. It can not assume that all have been, or accept as credible the mere unsupported testimony of various witnesses to their contents; especially in view of the contradictions contained in that testimony, and also in view of the fact that one of these alleged letters (that “concealed in the double wall of Holtzman’s suitcase”) was a published document whose contents were falsified by the Prosecutor himself (§ 177).