GOLDMAN: I would like to make a statement for the record, if the Commissioners will allow me: “In the afternoon session of April 16th – that is, yesterday – Commissioner Beals asked me –”
STOLBERG: That is Trotsky’s statement?
GOLDMAN: It is the statement of Trotsky I am reading.
“– if I knew Borodin personally. My answer was in the negative. Actually I knew him only through his activity in China. Mr. Beals asked me if I had not sent Borodin in 1919 to Mexico with the mission of fomenting revolution. Completely taken aback by this question, which, so it seems to me, does not have the slightest basis even in the official Stalinist calumny, the verification of which is one of the tasks of the Commission, I, in my turn, asked Mr. Beals from what source his information came, and whether or not it has been published, Mr. Beals replied that it was from Borodin, without mentioning the persons to whom Borodin gave the alleged information. Then I answered that my advice was to tell the informant that he was a liar. It was after that that I understood that the informant was Mr. Borodin himself. This information naturally changes nothing in my answer. Mr. Beals’s informant is a liar. The falsehood which he has utilized has a definite purpose – to compromise my situation in Mexico. I am anxious to repeat in writing with the necessary precision: 1. I have never had personal relations with Borodin. 2. I knew him only through his activities in China; 3. I have attacked him openly as the most harmful man in the Chinese revolution (see my writings on China). 4. I have never concerned myself with questions of Mexican politics, and I have never sent anybody to Mexico. I do not even know if somebody was really sent to Mexico in 1919 and if it was Borodin. At that time I was entirely absorbed in the Civil War.
“Having given great importance to the question and its obvious purpose, which is not to examine the Moscow accusations but to throw upon me through other means new suspicions in the eyes of Mexican public opinion, I immediately ask the Commission to throw light on the source of Commissioner Beals’s information. If he has received this information directly from Borodin, then where and when? If he received this information through a third person, through whom and when? I expect that through an investigation into these questions, which involve Mr. Beals’s personal honor, a new amalgam will be discovered, a new amalgam created with the purpose of preventing me from unmasking the judicial crimes in Moscow.
“If Mr. Beals himself is not consciously and directly involved in this new intrigue, and I will hope that he is not, he must hasten to present all the necessary explanations in order to permit the Commission to unmask the true source of the intrigue.”
TROTSKY: We can immediately make copies for the press.
DEWEY: With reference to Mr. Trotsky’s statement just read, I simply wish to say that the Commission in private session formally expressed itself as aware of the complete impropriety of Mr. Beals’s question. After I read a letter received from Mr. Beals, I hope Mr. Trotsky will realize the difficulties which the Commission is now under in conducting the inquiry of Mr. Beals, which Mr. Trotsky has very properly requested of us. The letter is as follows:
Mexico, DF.
April 17, 1937.
Dr. John Dewey
Chairman of the Commission to Inquire into the Charges Against Leon Trotsky.
Coyoacan, DF.
Dear Dr. Dewey:
Kindly accept my irrevocable resignation from the Commission. This step is for the best interests of Mr. Trotsky, the Commission and myself.
The important purpose, among others, for which I became a member of the Commission, namely: to give Mr. Trotsky the opportunity which every accused person should have, to present his full case to the world, has been fulfilled to the extent possible with the present arrangements. Unfortunately, I do not consider the proceedings of the Commission a truly serious investigation of the charges. For this and other reasons, my further participation in the work of the Commission, now that the sessions have been completed, would not prove fruitful.
Sincerely yours,
CARLETON BEALS.
I wish to make, on behalf of the Commission, a brief statement: In expressing the regret of the Preliminary Commission at Mr. Beals’s resignation, I wish to say that Mr. Beals has been given full opportunity to ask questions. We are especially sorry that he is not here this morning to continue his personal cross examination.
I wish to repeat the statement made at the opening meeting, that the Commission is to be judged by the way in which it conducts its hearings and by the public record. We regret that Mr. Beals has prejudged the case, not only before the full Commission has begun its inquiries, but even before the Preliminary Commission has completed its investigations. The statement of Mr. Beals that the sessions have been completed is an obvious error.
I wish to emphasize the fact that these hearings are preliminary, and that the investigation will be continued by the full Commission. The record will be public, and this sub-commission gladly refers to public opinion the decision whether the investigation into the charges made against Mr. Trotsky is fair, serious and complete.
Incidentally, I wish to remark that it has been understood from the beginning that each member of the Commission has the right to submit an independent or minority report to the full Commission.
GOLDMAN: On behalf of Mr. Trotsky and myself, I would like to state that, of course, we are even more interested in having as members of the Commission persons who are absolutely impartial but who do not agree with Mr. Trotsky’s viewpoint – more than anxious. These are the type of people we want on the Commission. Of course, we could not possibly want people on the Commission who are friends of the accusers in Moscow and accept the accusations as true. But, on our part, we would say that Mr. Beals would be perfectly welcome in his attitude or disagreements politically with Trotsky. As far as the Commission is concerned, we have nothing to do with the composition of the Commission. Here you can examine and cross examine Mr. Trotsky in order to attempt to break down Mr. Trotsky’s testimony. There will be the full Commission and sub-commissions in other countries in which to continue such examination. Not only do we extend this invitation to Mr. Beals, but we extend this invitation to everyone who believes in the monstrous charges of Moscow.
DEWEY: All I need say on Mr. Goldman’s statement is that it has already been done and is in the record that we have asked a very considerable number of official representatives of the Communist Party, both in the United States and Mexico, to be present and participate fully in the cross examination of Mr. Trotsky.
Everybody has understood, of course, that Mr. Goldman has made the statement he has just read, on his own account.
GOLDMAN: And Mr. Trotsky’s account.
DEWEY: And Mr. Trotsky’s account. It is their statement, and not ours. For the purpose of the record I wish to say that as soon as possible copies of Mr. Beals’s resignation and my own brief statement will be given to the press. I wish to read into the record a letter just received:
THE SOCIALIST PARTY
Of the United States of America
549 Randolph Street
Chicago. Ill.
April 13, 1937.
John Dewey, Presiding Commissioner, Avenida Amberes 65.
Mexico City, Mexico.
Dear Dr. Dewey:
In behalf of the Socialist Party of the United States of America I wish to extend to you our earnest well wishes in the pursuit of the truth in this important inquiry now being conducted under your auspices.
The Socialist Party has endorsed the work of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky and is very anxious that the work of this committee will bring to light the necessary information which will permit us and all other working-class forces to come to a just conclusion.
In behalf of the party we salute your efforts and hope that they will come to successful fruition.
Fraternally,
ROY E. BURT (Signed)
Executive Secretary.
FRANK N. HAGER.
DEWEY: I have a certain number of questions to ask Mr. Trotsky in connection with the first Section of these questions, I wish to offer for the record the pamphlet of M.J. Olgin, entitled: Trotskyism, Counter-Revolution in Disguise. I offer this so that there may appear in the record the basis for questions which I might wish to ask.
FINERTY: Mr. Chairman, before you do that may I make a correction on the record? Yesterday, in questioning Mr. Trotsky, I stated that Sokolnikov was one of the two who had not asked clemency, as the basis of a question to Mr. Trotsky. I find that I was in error. The two who had not asked clemency were Radek and Pyatakov. Pyatakov was shot and Radek not. On that basis the deductions from my questions will have to be weakened.
DEWEY: A complete answer to my questions would take up a good deal of time. To economize time, I suggest, while you cannot literally confine your replies to “yes” and “no,” that you make them as brief as possible, and then submit to the Commission documentary material which you present in support of your answers. Will that be satisfactory, Mr. Trotsky?
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: Between 1923 and 1927, is it not true that you had full opportunity to present your ideas of policies you regarded proper, to the Party organization?
TROTSKY: No; it is not true. It is false. I will prove it by many documents.
DEWEY: You referred earlier to the fact that one of the conditions of membership in the Bolshevik Party was the acceptance of disciplinary rules and regulations. Will you state the nature of these regulations?
TROTSKY: Full freedom in discussion, and discipline in the execution of decisions. That is the rule.
DEWEY: What did you commit yourself to in agreeing to submit to the disciplinary regulations?
TROTSKY: Yes?
DEWEY: What did you commit yourself to? What did your acceptance of the disciplinary regulations involve with respect to your actions?
TROTSKY: My actions were never directed against the decisions of the Central Committee of the Party.
DEWEY: I have not made my question quite clear. I want to know more specifically the nature of these disciplinary rules in controlling your action or the action of any member of the Bolshevik Party, because of your membership in it. Did you commit yourself – this is merely an example – did you commit yourself to take any course in opposition to the decisions of the Party?
TROTSKY: I can only repeat that I criticized decisions, or a number of decisions, before the decision in the Party; that I criticized them in the Central Committee after they were accepted by the majority, but I never acted practically against the decisions, and that is what I consider Party discipline.
DEWEY: Were these rules and regulations on Party discipline definitely formulated?
TROTSKY: In the sense I indicated: Freedom of discussion before a decision; practical discipline in the execution after the decision. It is the main rule of discipline.
DEWEY: Now, I would like to ask you whether you – whether the preparation and circulation of typewritten documents, mimeographed, and so forth, was not a violation of the regulations of Party discipline?
TROTSKY: No; because the prohibition of discussion in such important questions was a violation of the Party statutes which assured to the Party members the freedom of discussion. Our action was a legitimate protest against this Bonapartist violation of the Party statutes.
DEWEY: That is, Mr. Trotsky, do you accuse the other side of violating the regulations of Party discipline?
TROTSKY: Absolutely. By a coup d’état in the Party.
FINERTY: In that connection, can I ask a question? Did the right of criticism extend to the right of criticism after a decision as well as before, so long as you conformed to the decision?
TROTSKY: Yes; because the Central Committee is not the highest body. There is a Party Congress. Every Party member can appeal now to the Party Congress – by such means and by writings.
FINERTY: In the meantime he must conform to the decisions of the Central Committee?
TROTSKY: Totally correct.
DEWEY: I would like to ask a similar question about the seven – I think it was – banners that were carried by members of the Left Opposition in the parade, or procession, in November 1927 – the alleged insurrection or attempt at insurrection. Was that a violation of the regulations of Party discipline?
TROTSKY: No. You must excuse me – in the deposition I mentioned seven placards, but I find out there were only five. We found the texts of them, and we present them to the Commission. Only five of them. They were absolutely not in contradiction with the rules of conduct of the Party. We had the possibility every time, as I mentioned, of participating – all the Party organizations, the workers and the members, with their own placards.
DEWEY: One more question about that, or two more. Suppose the situation had been reversed, would your group not have favored the expulsion from the Party of those persons and groups that used tactics which you used?
TROTSKY: You know the first thing I would do? It is to expel from the Party all the demoralized people such as Vyshinsky, Yagoda and others who are the enemies of the working class and who are working now only for their personal material interest. Not persons with different opinions from mine. That is a different thing. Not I myself would expel them. I would convoke a conference of workers: “You may select between honest and dishonest people in the Party.” I mean, workers from the factories, without ambitions for a career. I am sure they would make a good selection.
GOLDMAN: Mr. Trotsky, if I am not mistaken, Dr. Dewey referred to the time of 1926, not the present moment.
TROTSKY: So?
DEWEY: Yes.
TROTSKY: Excuse me. I am sure it would be impossible for us to exclude people with similar slogans. It depends on the slogan. If they would be slogans: “Long Live Capitalism! Down with Socialism!” we would say: “You must go from the Party, because it is a Socialist party.” But our slogans: “Long live Socialism! Long live Worker’s Democracy! Long live Lenin’s Teachings!” In that sense, I say no. What are the slogans of my adversaries? What were the charges at that time?
FINERTY: I think it would be informative, Dr. Dewey, if we have the five slogans – if he stated what the texts of the slogans were.
DEWEY: I understand that the texts of the slogans are to be submitted to us.
TROTSKY: They are translating them, and they can be submitted immediately.
DEWEY: Perhaps you can tell us orally.
GOLDMAN: May I be permitted to formulate a question somewhat in the nature of what Dr. Dewey asked, but a little different? Let us assume, Mr. Trotsky, that in the period of 1925-1927, the Left Opposition would have been in the majority. Would the Left Opposition have expelled the Stalin faction because of their beliefs?
TROTSKY: No.
FINERTY: Would they have expelled them if they had displayed similar placards implying that you had betrayed Socialism, that you had betrayed the Socialist state, and so forth?
TROTSKY: The explanation can be given through the statement that the bureaucracy feared the echo of these slogans, not myself. We could not have these fears, because they were directed against the bureaucracy in the interest of the masses. May I read them? They were very short: I. “Fulfill Lenin’s Treatment!” 2. “Turn the Fire on the Right – Against the Nepman, the Kulak and the Bureaucrat!” 3.. “For Genuine Workers’ Democracy!” 4. “Against Opportunism, Against Splits – For the Unity of the Party of Lenin!” 5. “For the Central Committee of Lenin!”
DEWEY: I understood these placards were seized. Did I understand you to say that these placards were seized?
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: I have forgotten whether or not I asked if the persons carrying them were arrested?
TROTSKY: Yes; many of them were arrested.
FINERTY: Take your second slogan, your second placard: “Turn the Fire on the Right – Against the Nepman, the Kulak and the Bureaucrat!” Do you think that the bureaucrats might have interpreted that as a threat of individual terror?
TROTSKY: No; it was a quotation from Stalin’s speech in the last Congress. He said: “Fire against the Left,” against us. There was ―
FINERTY: In other words, your second placard was paraphrasing Stalin’s own speech?
TROTSKY: Yes.
GOLDMAN: You mean to say, Mr. Trotsky, that the GPU was against fulfilling Lenin’s testament?
TROTSKY: I believe so, because they concealed the testament in spite of the insistence of Lenin’s widow on publishing it. They didn’t publish it.
DEWEY: You have denied that you acted against the regulations of Party discipline. If it had been true that you and your group had acted contrary to the disciplinary rules, is there any logic to the statement that that was simply the first step which led to more serious acts of disloyalty? That is hypothetical.
TROTSKY: No, Dr. Dewey. Because even in the Bolshevik Party, with its very severe discipline, Lenin first emphasized that the essence is more important than the form; that the ideas are more important than the discipline; that if it is a question of fundamental importance, we can break the vows of discipline without betraying our ideas.
STOLBERG: Mr. Trotsky, in this connection – I am rather hazy about it, but did not Zinoviev and Kamenev, in 1917, write an article in a Menshevik paper, an opposition paper, to the effect that they were against the insurrection? That was a very important issue at that time, wasn’t it?
TROTSKY: Yes.
STOLBERG: Now, Lenin then called them down.
TROTSKY: Yes, as traitors.
STOLBERG: It was felt that it was a breach of discipline, yet they honestly did not believe that the insurrection was advisable. Isn’t that somewhat of an analogy?
TROTSKY: It was an important question in the history of the Party. All depended on that. In that very hot moment, Lenin proposed to expel them. We, the majority, refused Lenin that expulsion. And he was, two days after the insurrection, very well satisfied with our decision.
DEWEY: I wish to ask you a few more questions on the different phases of the Party struggle. On page 193 of the Opposition Platform, contained on page 193 of The Real Situation in Russia, English translation, I find the following: “A split in our party, a formation of two parties, would mean enormous danger to the revolution. We, the Opposition, unqualifiedly condemn every attempt whatsoever to create a second party.” On page 194: “We will struggle with all our force against the formation of two parties ...”
I am not going to question you on that, but I want to ask you whether you changed your mind upon that point at some subsequent time.
TROTSKY: Two parties in embryo were created by our expulsion, by the split committed by the bureaucracy. That is the first answer. The second answer: In spite of that, we tried to consider ourselves as a fraction of the Party, not as a second Party. Only in 1933 we changed our mind; that it is impossible to reform the old Party, that it is necessary to create a new one.
DEWEY: On page 267, of The Revolution Betrayed, English translation, I find the following, which comes in connection with the criticism of some statements of Stalin: “In reality, classes are heterogeneous; they are torn by inner antagonisms, and arrive at the solution of common problems not otherwise than through an inner struggle of tendencies, groups and parties.”
TROTSKY: What page?
DEWEY: On page 267.
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: Now, when you wrote that, then you had become convinced of the necessity of different parties?
TROTSKY: The development of the Russian proletariat consisted in the struggle among three parties, the Menshevik, the Social Revolutionary and the Bolshevik. The Bolsheviks won the overwhelming majority during the Civil War, and in spite of that we permitted the existence of other parties. Only when the Civil War began, when the most decisive elements of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries took part in the Civil War on the other side of the barricades, we prohibited them. It was a military measure, not as a permanent step.
FINERTY: May I ask, in that connection, whether anything in the Constitution in the Soviet State, the Soviet Union – anything in the Constitution of the Soviet Union itself forbids more than one party?
TROTSKY: No. It is so in the new Constitution.
FINERTY: That is, before the Constitution of the Soviet Union as organized originally?
TROTSKY: Originally, yes.
FINERTY: It was possible to have more than one?
TROTSKY: We had four parties, or five. One was the Anarchists.
FINERTY: The new Constitution prohibits more than one Party?
TROTSKY: Yes.
FINERTY: Directly?
TROTSKY: Yes, directly.
STOLBERG: You mean, the other parties had a right to participate in the soviets?
TROTSKY: Yes.
STOLBERG: Did they – but they had no right of participation in the Government, in the administration?
TROTSKY: We had the Lefts, who were. Naturally, the Government must be, more or less, a homogeneous body. But we had, from the victory until July 1918, a coalition with five or six Social Revolutionaries.
STOLBERG: You considered it was a mistake in July?
TROTSKY: There was a military insurrection, a genuine military insurrection with guns, seizing of administration houses, and bombardment at the Kremlin by cannon. It was in July, against the Brest-Litovsk peace. They killed the German Ambassador Mirbach.
STOLBERG: You mean, the Social Revolutionaries did?
TROTSKY: Yes; all the Left members of the Government and the organizer were arrested.
STOLBERG: The July insurrection activities of the Left Social Revolutionaries were a few months after you had thrown them out of the Government. They were thrown out in March?
TROTSKY: It was seven or eight months after the creation of the Soviet Government.
STOLBERG: I mean, your Coalition Government began in November. You had two Social Revolutionary members, hadn’t you, in the Council of People’s Commissars?
TROTSKY: Not two. I believe six or seven, even.
STOLBERG: These members either resigned, or were thrown out in March. They didn’t stay in your coalition until July?
TROTSKY: Not in March; later, I believe. I am not totally sure, now.
STOLBERG: What I want to get at is – whether the insurrection on their part – they claimed that since you would not permit them to function within the Government after they were suppressed, they had to resort to insurrectionary methods. Was there ―
TROTSKY: They had their paper until the insurrection. They had meetings after their resignation from the Government.
STOLBERG: You didn’t force their resignation?
TROTSKY: No.
STOLBERG: They resigned themselves?
TROTSKY: Yes, absolutely.
DEWEY: On the same page, 267, I find the following statement: “An example of only one party corresponding to one class is not to be found in the whole course of political history”. Isn’t that statement in complete contradiction with the idea of a single-party dictatorship?
TROTSKY: Yes; as a normal status, it is a complete contradiction. We never said, Mr. Chairman, that the single party as an absolute expression of the class is a normal status. We answered to the critics: “We are in a civil war, it is not a measure of democracy, but a measure of civil war.” It was our honest answer.
DEWEY: When the Party, not merely you but the Party, used the expression, “dictatorship of the proletariat,” what was included in the term “proletariat”? Is it the proletariat in the very strict sense of the word?
TROTSKY: No. Our conception is, that by the abolition of private property the proletariat, as the vanguard of the toiling masses, becomes naturally the leading class of all the nation, with the exclusion of the conscious exploiters, speculators, and so on. All the petit bourgeoisie can only gain from the ruling work of the proletariat. In this sense – for the first time the proletariat won the confidence of the peasants and petit bourgeoisie and could establish its proletarian dictatorship.
DEWEY: You were charged with opposing Lenin by wishing to exclude the petit bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the intelligentsia from membership in the dictatorship, from the Party, and from the dictatorship of the proletariat. Is that a correct statement?
TROTSKY: It is a pure invention, amongst more others.
LAFOLLETTE: Many others.
TROTSKY: Many others. I proved that with quotations from writings, I hope, with absolute correctness.
DEWEY: And did you not assert that after the first stages of the revolution had been accomplished in collaboration with the petit bourgeoisie, the peasants and the intelligentsia, the proletariat would come into conflict with the great masses of peasants and petit bourgeoisie?
TROTSKY: Yes; it was my own opinion. It is in the Marxian tradition, especially concerning Russia. Lenin repeated that a hundred times: “We can accomplish with the peasants, all the peasants, the democratic revolution, but when we attempt to set up Socialism, we will have the majority, or a great part, of the peasants against us.” I believe that Stalin, practically, gave that prophecy the most terrible expression during the collectivization. Under him the collectivization was accomplished with the extermination of millions of peasants.
DEWEY: You were charged with desiring to accelerate, to hasten, the collectivization of the agrarian elements by means of force.
TROTSKY: By means of what?
DEWEY: Force.
TROTSKY: It is contrary to the truth, Dr. Dewey. The contrary is true. I attacked Stalin for his policies of violence in collectivizing the peasants.
DEWEY: Many of the accused in the Moscow trials asserted in their confessions that they had no political program whatsoever. I mean, in these latter years. That they were simply desirous of obtaining power. I won’t ask you what you thought of that. It is charged against you and the Left Opposition, the so-called Trotskyites, that during the Revolution, you naturally developed the attitude and habits of revolution and that therefore, psychologically and morally, you could not help but continue revolting, if I may say so, against whatever government was in power. Now, I won’t ask about that. But that leads on to the accusation that since the early years your work, and that of your faction, has been purely destructive, that you have not engaged in constructive work, or shown a desire in any way to engage in constructive work.
TROTSKY: The Party considered that the creation of the Red Army was a constructive work. In 1920, when our railroads were absolutely destroyed, Lenin asked me to accept a second portfolio, of the Peoples’ Commissar of Railroads. After his insistence, I accepted. I can present to the Commission the most favorable expressions from Lenin during the Party Congress on my activity as chief of transport. That is one evidence. Lenin asked me to create a Commission, to be president of the Commission. I worked in that function for some time, not without success. When our furnishing of coal became intolerable, Lenin asked me to go to the Don Basin as president of the Commission. I worked for some time in the Don Basin. Lenin declared: “After the activity of Comrade Trotsky, the situation in the Don Basin became better,” Dnieprostroy – if you care, I can quote more.
LAFOLLETTE: Go ahead; it is important.
TROTSKY: The first five-year plan was introduced by me in the railroad economy. Lenin declared that it was the most brilliant example of leadership. It was his own expression. Dzerzhinsky, who was my successor as chief of the railroads, declared that the five-year plan of Trotsky in the railroads – it was in 1920-1921 – was the lesson for us. And so on.
FINERTY: Mr. Trotsky, was there an official plan for the railroads, and is there a record of it?
TROTSKY: The plan was No.1042. It became very famous. There were placards, pictures, and so on, of Plan No.1042.
FINERTY: Have you a copy of that plan available in your files?
TROTSKY: It was the plan for the re-establishment of locomotives and wagons and roads, for five years, with proposals for every month and every line. It was elaborated in conference with engineers.
FINERTY: Is there an official report on the plan and its execution?
TROTSKY: Yes; in the Soviet Congress and the Party Congress there are quotations from Lenin and Dzerzhinsky. I will present all these things.
FINERTY: Will you file with the Commission – these reports?
TROTSKY: I will present my new book. It is an old book. But it appears now in New York. It is polemical, and is entitled The Stalin School of Falsification. These documents are in this book and will appear in the next days, the next weeks, I hope. All the sources are indicated.
DEWEY: This is contained in the bibliography you presented?
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: So it will be in the record.
TROTSKY: I don’t know.
DEWEY: It is not necessary to enter that again on the record.
TROTSKY: This book has been published in Russian for a long time. Now it appears in English.
DEWEY: In the Thirteenth Party Conference of 1924 ―
TROTSKY: Pardon?
DEWEY: In the Thirteenth Party Congress ―
TROTSKY: In 1926, the Thirteenth.
DEWEY: Well, it is the Thirteenth, anyway.
TROTSKY: The Thirteenth was in 1925.
DEWEY: You know the date better than I do. There was a resolution passed requiring new members from workers of the bench. I suppose that means people actually laboring?
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: In the pamphlet published later, the English translation of which is The New Course, did you not directly or by implication criticize this resolution?
TROTSKY: Not the resolution itself, but its tendency and execution. There was, I believe, at one time – there was a tendency to eliminate the revolutionary workers from the Party and to attract to the Party the old disciplined workers, the old-time workers who were very often religious and docile to the old bosses. They became now the best supports of the bureaucracy – a totally social alteration In the Party.
GOLDMAN: A social change.
DEWEY: We will now take a short recess.
DEWEY: I will ask Commissioner Stolberg to ask any questions he wishes.
STOLBERG: Mr. Trotsky, why were you silent about the Menshevik trials?
TROTSKY: I must recognize that I took the trials seriously. It was a great error. I was in Prinkipo – it was in 1931 – absolutely isolated from any political milieu. I had no illusions about the justice of the Soviet Union at that time, but on the other hand I knew that the Right Wing Mensheviks, such as Maisky, the present ambassador in London, such as Vyshinsky, the prosecutor, such as Troyanovsky, the ambassador in the United States – they genuinely took part in the struggle in the Civil War against us. I admitted that it was possible to know about a plot of such a kind as was discovered. I didn’t study the trial at that time. I was very busy with my history of the October Revolution, and I admitted that the trial was more or less correct. It was a great error on my part.
STOLBERG: Mr. Trotsky, didn’t you once disavow Max Eastman’s statement that there was such a thing as Lenin’s testament.
TROTSKY: Yes.
STOLBERG: Why did you?
TROTSKY: The question was at that time not to disavow it, but his action in publishing it.
STOLBERG: Did you deny there was such a thing as a testament?
TROTSKY: Yes; officially it is not a testament. It is a letter to the Party. It is not what in a juridical – everybody who is acquainted with it calls it a testament; but in a juridical sense, a testament is another thing. Hitler can make a testament for his party, to give over the honor to another. Lenin did not have the feeling that he was the permanent chief of the Party and that he could indicate his successor. In that sense, it was only advice. But the letter – we all became acquainted with it as a testament.
STOLBERG: Did you deny the possibility of the paper?
TROTSKY: I did not deny there was a document, a letter from Lenin, but as a document which could be officially named a testament – in that sense I made a denial. Eastman published this document without consulting me and the others, and by these means he sharpened terribly the inner struggle in the Soviet Union, in the Politburo, which was the beginning of the split. We tried on our side to avoid a split. The majority of the Politburo asked me, demanded of me, to take a position toward this. It was a very diplomatic document I signed at that time, in that sense, that it was not a testament, and that I had never had any connection with Eastman and so on, at that time. Eastman, I must say, is my friend, but he is not a member of our organization, he is not a disciplined militant of the Party. He is more or less of a freelance. It is his right, but it is my right as a disciplined member of the organization to disavow him when it is necessary.
STOLBERG: I don’t think, Mr. Trotsky, that the record will be clear as to whether or not you ever denied the existence of such a document, whether you called it a testament or letter.
TROTSKY: I admit that my denial had a diplomatic nature, imposed upon me by the inner situation of the Party. If you ask me, Mr. Commissioner, if it was the most clear truth I have declared in my life, I would answer “No.” It was not the genuine truth. It was an equivocal document. That I must recognize. It was imposed on me. I am a political man. It was imposed upon me by the situation. It was not a lie, but it was not the full truth.
STOLBERG: In other words, you did that from the point of view of Party discipline?
TROTSKY: Yes.
STOLBERG: Now, looking back, do you think – I just want your opinion – do you think that you delayed too long, from your point of view, the organization of the Left Opposition, and that that was one of the errors made? That as a diplomat you were not very good?
TROTSKY: I am ready to discuss this question, but I am afraid it will be very difficult to discuss it here. How to stop too sharp a division – it signified provoking a definite split. The bureaucracy at that time was hesitating. Everybody was afraid of the possibility, if there was a split in the Party, of an immediate civil war at that time. Our programs were not sufficiently clear to the masses. I remained very cautious, and when I consider the whole situation I believe it was correct, because I could not have a victory even by the most courageous, by the most risky policy. I could not have a serious victory because of the situation in the world arena, the defeats after defeats of the proletariat in the various countries.
STOLBERG: The next question I did not phrase in my own mind very clearly. This is the gist of it: In your indictments of the German leaders of the Second International and of the Second International itself, there is a tone of almost personal blame. Now, the Second International in the European West was, of course, the expression of social conditions. I mean, it was not only personal deficiency on the part of the leaders, but it expressed in a certain way the whole tendency within the labor movement itself, as well as the whole economic structure of Germany; we might say, the stabilization of capitalism. In this sense, do you think that the activities of the Third International are to be blamed, with the whole situation as it is both abroad and in Russia? I don’t know whether my question is clear.
TROTSKY: Yes, it seems to me that I understand it. It seems to me that this appreciation is fatalistic. Naturally, everything is caused by objective factors. Nothing falls from the heavens. It is caused by material factors. And every historical interest has two answers.
STOLBERG: Two sides?
TROTSKY: I will say two answers. One side tries to pull to one side, and the other pulls to the other side. When you say that the leaders of the Social Democracy with their politics represented historical necessity, I answer: I, with my criticism, am also a part of historical necessity.
FINERTY: May I ask a question, Dr. Dewey? Mr. Trotsky, you have just stated, in connection with the article on Lenin’s testament, that in your statement on that testament you equivocated for political reasons, that you were, after all, in political life. The question will inevitably arise. Therefore, I am asking how far the present situation might require you to equivocate with the truth?
TROTSKY: I can say that never in my life did I take the interest – take the contrary of the truth. If you will, in plain words, a lie. I believe, in our society, which is very contradictory, that the conventional rules of conduct in family, society or corporation – everybody from time to time is obliged not to say the truth. I committed it sometimes. I believe the question can be decided only by comparison of the lies I was obliged to give, and the truth. I believe that in the balance my truths are more heavy than the lies. It seems to me so, in the more important questions, the decisive questions, in the questions upon which depend the actions of many people, of friends, of their fate – it seems to me that I never committed such crimes.
FINERTY: You will concede, Mr. Trotsky, that the Commission will have the right to judge, among other things.
TROTSKY: Absolutely.
FINERTY: – their judgment, among other things, on the possibility that political necessity might affect your statements.
TROTSKY: It is, gentlemen, the justification of the Commission. The Commission does not consider me an angel. The Commission must verify the testimony from my side. I am only too glad that this is possible, that you will verify it.
DEWEY: I want to ask you a few questions regarding the question of the international revolution. Taking now, for the purpose of questions, the general revolutionary position for granted, has not the idea of the world revolution, the international revolution, been proved false by the course of events?
TROTSKY: I don’t believe, Mr. Chairman, that it is proved false. On the contrary, the situation in Spain, the situation in France, the international relations between the nations, the danger of war – it is the danger of the destruction of our culture, all of civilization – it seems to me to prove that the socialist revolution is inevitable, and salutary for mankind.
DEWEY: Well, somewhat in support of my first question, I want to ask whether the proletariat of different countries is sufficiently international-minded to support your thesis? Even events prove that upon the whole they are national, rather than international-minded.
TROTSKY: I am not of the opinion that the proletariat can be raised under the capitalist system, to a very high international Socialist level. That is why I condemn terrorism, that it does not give the possibility of educating the proletariat in such a sense. By its destruction, its decline, by its rottenness, at this time, capitalism pushes the workers to revolution. Even the last war – in that situation, I find the importance for the existence of a revolutionary party that can appreciate the situation and give leadership to those masses pushed by the destruction of capitalism.
DEWEY: Well, taking the position of your answer for granted for the purpose of questioning, is there any reason to suppose that a series of proletarian revolutions are going to take place simultaneously in close connection with each other?
TROTSKY: No; it is not assured before. It depends upon the historical situation. In Europe the nations are more connected with each other. Australia is far away; America is a world by itself. I can predict the following ―
LAFOLLETTE: Sequence?
TROTSKY: Sequence in insurrection. I believe that in Europe the revolution in France would immediately, if it moves on in any way, exercise or provoke a revolution in Hitler Germany. If it is the other way, the revolution in Germany will provoke one in France.
DEWEY: Naturally, you can predict, but unless you have very good reasons for anticipating simultaneous revolutions, or in entirely close connection, is not the whole theory of the world revolution without any basis?
TROTSKY: I can suppose that if in one or two important nations the revolutions are victorious, then the resistance of the ruling classes in the other nations will almost totally disappear, and we can win all the best elements of the intelligentsia and the middle classes – even the best elements of the capitalist class will see that Socialism is not destruction and that the revolution must be accomplished. For the revolution will become less and less violent, less and less bloody, after the first successes.
DEWEY: Do you think the failure of the German revolution was entirely or even chiefly the fault of the Social Democracy?
TROTSKY: Yes; it is my conviction.
DEWEY: Wasn’t it in a very considerable part due to the belief of the German people that the revolution was being stimulated by foreign elements, by Russian elements?
TROTSKY: No; it was only the accusation of the reactionary elements, the bourgeois elements. We did not stimulate the German revolution. The German revolution was stimulated by the October Revolution as a historical event. But at that time we had no influence on the Social Democracy.
DEWEY: But does not the very existence of the Comintern, at least, create the impression that these revolutions are being stimulated and fomented from the outside?
TROTSKY: When you read the history of revolutions, in every revolution the world ruling class accused the revolution of being in essence from abroad.
DEWEY: I don’t mean that; I mean even among the masses of the people.
TROTSKY: Not of the revolutionary masses, because they were very enthusiastic for the revolution and wished for it. But the Social Democracy stifled them by violence.
DEWEY: Do you think that there is a very good reason for believing that any revolution in any country which would create the feeling that it was being promoted by non-nationals, outside countries, whether the Third International or the Fourth, would create a very great resentment in the population of that country?
TROTSKY: Even trade unions have their international organizations. The American trade unions did not participate, but now they are split, and I believe that we can foresee that a part of them will adhere to international organizations of trade unions.
For the working class of all countries, an international evaluation is totally natural. The same on a political basis. It is only a question whether the international organization will try to handle the national sections in a bureaucratic way, or only to help them by advice, by experience, good experience, and so on.
DEWEY: Mr. Trotsky, there is no analogy with an international trade-union organization, because they are not committed to proletarian revolution.
TROTSKY: But they are committed to strikes, for example. The bourgeoisie accuses everybody, even the reactionary workers, that strikes are provoked from abroad. Strikes – what is it to strike? A strike is an embryo social revolution.
FINERTY: We have had sympathetic strikes in the United States and France.
DEWEY: On page 211 of The Revolution Betrayed you say: “An international general staff could arise only on the basis of the national staff of several proletarian states; so long as that is impossible, an international staff would inevitably turn into a caricature.” I am not questioning you on that. I want to know if the same principles do not apply with even greater force to the economic side of the union of the proletariat in different nations. Until you have got several proletarian states, is there any basis for assuming, even assuming, the probability of a union on the economic side, any more than there is on the military side?
TROTSKY: Yes, if I understood you well – that strikes could be provoked in any country by the leaders of another country. The strike is a natural thing in the life of the workers in any country. Trade unions arise from the strike movement. An international evaluation is possible only on the basis of international trade unions. The same with the possibility – the same for the general staff. To have an international staff, you must have international states. I believe the analogy is totally correct.
DEWEY: Perhaps I could put my meaning more clearly this way: Is there any economic basis in the different countries for a world revolution?
TROTSKY: I believe that a good economic basis is necessary for a good world revolution, and I hope that it will be created – the world economy. For the revolution it is sufficient, as the Russian example shows, to have national reasons for the revolution. We accomplished our revolution without asking all the other nations if they agreed with us or not. And then our revolution gave a certain example for the German workers, the Austrian-Hungarian workers, and they also had revolutions, but not victorious. A new situation will provoke new revolutions in other countries.
DEWEY: You do think, that for the present there is no good economic basis – for the present?
TROTSKY: For the revolution?
DEWEY: For the world revolution.
TROTSKY: I believe that the economic reasons have existed for a long time. I believe they have existed since 1913, so far as I can give dates. In 1914 – because the war – the World War was an expression of the impossibility for capitalism to develop itself without bloody degeneration, violence and catastrophe. If the proletariat could have accomplished the revolution in 1913, we would have avoided the last war and the next war. It is only the weakness of the parties, the weakness of the vanguard of the proletariat – it is that which procured to humanity the last war, made possible the carrying through of the last war.
FINERTY: I just want to ask this, Mr. Trotsky: Assuming that by some means or other you could have simultaneous Socialist revolutions, successful Socialist revolutions in all the present capitalist states – has anyone worked out a world economy – that is, any harmonious commercial and economic relations between these Socialist states?
TROTSKY: I am sure. The Soviet Union gives us an example that the economy disturbed by competition is now organized in a planned economy. It gives great successes in spite of the bureaucracy. If we imagine the same possibility in the world arena – and why not? – then the scientists, engineers and the leaders of the trade unions will in a conference, in a world conference, establish what we have, what we need, the productive powers, the natural resources, and the creative forces of humanity, of mankind. Then they will begin cautiously, not by an economic catastrophe, but more and more planned change in the efforts between the different nations; by a plan, not by war which must introduce merchandise in a foreign country, but on a scientific basis. It is absolutely possible, absolutely possible.
STOLBERG: I want to ask this question: Am I right in assuming that you believe that the Communist International should grant almost complete autonomy to the Communist Parties?
TROTSKY: The Communist International?
STOLBERG: Should grant complete autonomy to the national sections? Well, is it or is it not true that the Italian Socialist Party, when it was considering affiliation to the Third International, received from Lenin certain demands which were quite centralized, rather than permitting autonomy?
TROTSKY: Here I must again insist ―
STOLBERG: I personally think the Comintern made a mistake.
TROTSKY: It is not my opinion. I must again insist upon the necessity of giving the concrete content of centralization and autonomy. If we say absolute autonomy, it is not necessary to create an international. If every section lives its own life, without consulting the others, without submitting to democratically established decisions, it is not necessary to create an international. On the other side, if the international creates a central body which commands the national sections, it is not necessary to have intelligent people. It is sufficient to have robots in the national sections. Between these two extremes is the real policy, between the two extremes. We can discuss with you, Mr. Commissioner, if in this or the other question there was too much centralization or too much autonomy, if I can speak so. It is a concrete question, a concrete analysis.
STOLBERG: Do you think that the fact that world economy is unevenly developed means that revolutions which occur will have a Thermidorian tendency because of the unevenness of development? That actually happened in Russia, in your opinion?
TROTSKY: Until today, mankind has not succeeded in rationalizing its history. That is a fact. We human beings have not succeeded in rationalizing our bodies and minds. True, psychoanalysis tries to teach us to harmonize our body and mentality, but until today without great success. But the question is not if we can reach the absolute perfection of society. The question is, for me, whether we can make great steps forward. Not to rationalize the character of our history, because after every great step forward mankind makes a small detour, even a great step backward. I regret it very much, but I am not responsible for it. (Laughter) After the revolution, after the world revolution, it is possible that mankind will become tired. For some, a part of them, a new religion can arise, and so on. But I am sure that in general it would be a very great step forward, as the French Revolution. It finished with the Bourbons, but everyone analyzes this victory by the teaching of the lessons of the French Revolution.
DEWEY: I have a very few questions along the line of the question I asked you the other day, quoting your passage about iron necessity developing the bureaucracy in Russia, considering the backwardness of the country and the lack of revolution, successful revolutions, in other countries. I want to ask you what reason there is for thinking that the dictatorship of the proletariat in any country will not degenerate into the dictatorship of the secretariat.
TROTSKY: It is a very good formula. I must answer that even the dictatorship of the secretariat now in Russia is a very important progress in comparison with the dictatorship of the Tsar. That is the first thing. It signifies that on the eve of the October Revolution, if anybody could have predicted to me the consequences, I would still have accepted it. Because Russia had only the choice between the Kornilov régime and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Secondly, just because the dictatorship of the secretariat is caused by the backwardness of the country and its isolation, the answer is that the more civilized countries, and not isolated, will have a more sound and more democratic dictatorship and for a shorter period.
LAFOLLETTE: May I interrupt? You have planned economy, and how can you avoid having a lot of bureaucrats; how can you avoid having a dictatorship of the secretariat?
TROTSKY: I must repeat the answer suggested to me by Commissioner Otto Ruehle: What is the distinction between administration and bureaucracy? The difference is fundamental. The administration has a certain function. In America you name administration also government, if I am correct. But we don’t apply this name for government, as administration. I have in my mind the administration of a workers’ cooperative, the administration of a good, sound trade union, or the best sometimes that we can find; but they are not bureaucrats, if it has a sound relation between the members and the leaders.
FINERTY: Mr. Trotsky, just taking your own example, is there such a good sound trade union that, in any case, the so-called administration has not degenerated into an autocracy?
TROTSKY: Yes.
FINERTY: Have you any of these in Russia?
TROTSKY: For a certain time; for some years.
FINERTY: Do you know of any in America?
TROTSKY: I proclaim that I don’t intervene in American politics if the Commission permits.
DEWEY: It is a very simple matter. My opinion is that we don’t confine the word “administration” simply to the government. There is government administration, and there is administration of this and that and the other thing. It is a very minor point. It is merely regarding the use of the word “administration.”
STOLBERG: In your book, The Revolution Betrayed, you insist that a new class is developing in Russia. You called it a caste. You do not speak of the class struggle – you speak of social antagonisms, and so on. Is that because you accept the Marxian concept of the division into classes only in the sense in which they differ functionally, in reference to the means of production? Or do you believe that under Socialism there can be no valid practical basis for classes in the sense that no group can exploit another group? Because you say a caste might become a class if capitalist measures are really introduced. My question is: Can a caste become a class simply because through every means of political and cultural administration it exploits a great many people?
TROTSKY: I answered a simple question in this manner, that the social organism of the Soviet Union is unique. We don’t have other examples. That is why it is very difficult to apply our notions, our sociological notions based upon the past, to the new formations. But I tried to do it with the necessary correctness. My idea is, that the ruling caste in the Soviet Union is an intermediary body – between the small bureaucracy and the new ruling caste. It depends upon the events on a national as well as an international scale, whether this intermediary body will desire also to smash away the present basis and will be transformed into a new ruling class. The tendencies exist.
STOLBERG: Yes; but your conceptions of a ruling class –
TROTSKY: It is the forms of property. When they introduce an inheritance of their privileges, it will be the new ruling class.
STOLBERG: Do you believe Socialism is inevitable?
TROTSKY: In so far as human progress in general is inevitable. By a cosmic catastrophe our basis for Socialism can be destroyed. In that general sense of world determinism, it is not inevitable. But in the sense of human progress, it is inevitable.
STOLBERG: I would like to ask one more theoretical question – or do you have other questions to ask, Doctor?
DEWEY: Go ahead.
STOLBERG: The class struggle, in the Marxian sense, is generated by the dialectic. The thesis today is capitalism; then it creates the working class – that is, the antithesis – and finally the Socialist revolution which is the synthesis. That is the Hegelian conception. Now, how will this dialectic work in the classless society in which there will be only the thesis and no antithesis?
TROTSKY: I hope, and my every hope is, that this perspective, that the course of thesis and antithesis will arise in our new Socialist society, but not on a material ground – on the appetites, the human appetites – but on the ground of our ideological interests, of the arts, the sciences, philosophy and so On. It will be an interestless ―
FINERTY: You mean “disinterested”?
TROTSKY: – permanent fight of human beings on this new, very high level.
DEWEY: I want to ask another question along the same line. On page 59 of The Revolution Betrayed you say: “The power of the democratic Soviets proved cramping, even unendurable when the task of the day was to accommodate those privileged groups whose existence was necessary for defense, for industry, for technique and science.” Now, can you confine that to a backward country, or does not that same situation arise, but even more so, in a very advanced industrial country?
TROTSKY: It depends upon the material level. I believe that the more or less educated man or woman has no desire to have two or three cutlets in a day if assured of a daily cutlet. Then I have the possibility to read, to learn to write, to speak, to discuss. In that sense, in a country, in a developed country, technicians and intellectuals would not ask for a better nourishment than the workers.
It is not necessary. I hope the workers will have the best nourishment that is possible. It is possible economically, absolutely. Statistically it is so. In that sense, only in a backward country like Russia, in the first period, we were obliged to give certain privileges to the more skillful workers and intellectuals.
DEWEY: Taking it in terms of contradictions of the dialectic, aren’t there many more contradictions and conflicts in an advanced country than in a backward one? Are they not in not only more, rather much more, inner conflict with each other? Isn’t it pure theory that there is only one thesis and one antithesis?
TROTSKY: The contradictions in a backward country such as Russia are most terrible. Everybody is hungry, and shows that the other has more.
INTERPRETER: Sees.
TROTSKY: Yes, sees – I must follow my ideas with my English together. It is most degrading and humiliating. It is the basis of the gendarme and the bureaucrat. He distributes and never forgets himself. The best parts are for him. It is the basis of privilege. The privileged bureaucracy can become a new ruling class. That is why the reaction is possible in Russia.
DEWEY: The emphasis of my question was on the other side of the matter. In a more advanced country, where even the bourgeois democracy exists, are not the conditions such as to increase the number of conflicting tendencies instead of crystallizing them into two opposing forces? I ask that because that is the way I personally see the situation. But I would like your answer.
TROTSKY: We have now, because of the retreat of the Socialist revolution, much disappointment. But the more progressive elements among the workers and intellectuals of the different countries must not lose hope in Socialism. The situation in the capitalist countries becomes impossible and intolerable. We can say there is a certain psychosis among the most advanced elements, especially in Europe. A victory in Spain, for example, could give a new turn to the mentality of the progressive elements in France. I believe it is possible. It is an unstable equilibrium, the mentality of the whole society, caused by the disorientation of the Socialist revolution. There is necessary a certain push – success. A success is the answer in Spain, to give a new orientation to the best elements of the toiling masses and intellectuals.
DEWEY: One more question on quite a different point. Do you think it is possible or probable that in your criticisms of the failure of the present régime to develop industry progressively, you fail to take into account the very great divergence of finance and technique into the channels for the defense of the country?
TROTSKY: Yes?
DEWEY: Is my question clear?
FINERTY: Restating what you said earlier this morning, in reply to Dr. Dewey, would you think that the two-party system in Russia or the Soviet Union, would have a tendency to restrain the bureaucracy?
TROTSKY: The two-party system?
FINERTY: Yes; make democratic control more possible?
TROTSKY: I believe it is a bit of an abstract question in the sense that we cannot introduce two parties under the dictatorship of the Stalin oligarchy. It is necessary to prepare the arena for two parties – I don’t know, maybe three or four. It is necessary to smash away the dictatorship of Stalin. It can only be done by an upheaval of the people. If this upheaval – if this new political upheaval is successful, the masses, with these experiences, will never permit the dictatorship of one party, of one bureaucracy.
FINERTY: Let me put it this way: If in 1927, either under the theory of the Communist Party itself, it had been possible to tolerate the Opposition, or there had been a provision for two parties, instead of one, would it have prevented the development of the present bureaucratic government?
TROTSKY: Now, when you consider the situation from a historical point of view, we can say that we had two parties in the cadres of the official Party. There were two parties, one to which I belonged, and the other which was guided by Stalin. We tried to continue this situation, to control them by our criticisms, and we demanded that they give us the possibility to criticize them. But they did not permit it. They abolished us. It is the situation. Our intention was to have some substitute for the two parties, and even the substitute was stifled.
DEWEY: I take it as well known that there has been a very great diversion of national finances and both quantity and quality of technical service into the military, in the need for the defense of the nation.
TROTSKY: Yes.
DEWEY: Now, in your criticism of the present régime, have you taken that fact into account?
TROTSKY: Every time, Mr. Chairman. I underline and recognize the necessity of this expense, but I underline that this is a factor which shows to us the international dependence of the Soviet Union. It is one side of the theory of Socialism in one country. It is a positive proof for a negative fact, also in this case (laughter) – the proof that it is impossible to create Socialism in one country, because the isolation of this country creates a tremendous expense.
FINERTY: I also assume it would be part of your answer that if there had been a proper support of the Chinese and German revolutions, they would not need the enormous army they now have?
TROTSKY: No; not now. I accuse Stalin that by his false policy in China he provoked the greatest military danger and the necessity to create a great army in the fight on the East.
DEWEY: I think this closes the examination of Mr. Trotsky, by both his lawyer and our lawyer.
FINERTY: May I make a reservation in that respect? I think, Mr. Trotsky – I think that it should be understood by Mr. Goldman and Mr. Trotsky, that either this sub-commission or any future Commission has the right to examine Mr. Trotsky further if need develops, in the opinion of the Commission.
TROTSKY: I have the same hope, the same wish. I consider this a preliminary investigation.
FINERTY: This is to be treated as a preliminary investigation.
DEWEY: I am very glad that Mr. Finerty brought out that point, because what we all referred to as the examination of this particular Commission at this particular time – it is quite likely that, either by this Commission or some other, it may be resumed later.
GOLDMAN: Before closing the testimony, I would like to refer the Commission to a book. I don’t want to introduce it into evidence, but I simply want to refer the Commission to it. It is The Defense of Terrorism, by Leon Trotsky, and published in London.
TROTSKY: It is not a different book from that which was written in 1919.
GOLDMAN: The date of publication does not appear. I think it is last year.
TROTSKY: It is 1935 or 1936. See the preface.
DEWEY: When was that originally written?
TROTSKY: In 1919, under the title of Communism and Terrorism.
DEWEY: It is already in the record through the bibliography, is it not, Mr. Goldman?
GOLDMAN: I don’t know.
DEWEY: If it is not, then it should be in the record.
GOLDMAN: Then I want to introduce a document which is entitled, A Series of Amalgams, which is nothing but a series of excerpts from the writings of different Oppositionists, or different people showing the beginning of the system of amalgams up to the final conclusion – I should not say conclusion – up to the last amalgam in the January trial. I will introduce that into evidence, and also furnish the Commissioners with some copies. Mark this document Exhibit No.33.
DEWEY: While the Commission has concluded the inquiry on this particular occasion. I wish to state that on resuming at the afternoon session there will be an opportunity for the representatives of the Mexican labor organizations to cross examine Mr. Trotsky. I will make that statement at the opening of the afternoon meeting. But I wish to give time for preparation.
GOLDMAN: Lest there be any impression that the proceedings are concluded, I understand that the proceedings will not be concluded until Mr. Trotsky has had an opportunity to make his closing remarks. Counsel and the Chairman of the Commission will also have an opportunity, if that is necessary.
DEWEY: It is correct. My intention was simply to inquire if there were any questions from the representatives of the Mexican labor organizations. Mr. Goldman will have an opportunity to make any further closing remarks. Mr. Trotsky will have an opportunity.
GOLDMAN: The title of the book I just referred to, The Defense of Terrorism, might be misconstrued. I have in my hand the sub-title to it. It is a defense not of individual terrorism, but the terror of the revolution, mass terror.
TROTSKY: Even the title is by the publisher. My title was Communism and Terrorism. But Kautsky wrote a book in connection with terrorism, and to avoid mistakes or errors, I changed the title.
DEWEY: It will be on the record. The session is now ended. We will resume this afternoon.
Last updated on: 3.4.2007