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From Labor Action, Vol. 10 No. 13, 1 April 1946, p. 4-M.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the ETOL.
Readers will recall that the Revolutionary Communist Party, English section of the Fourth International, recently addressed a letter to the British government, asking for representation at the Nuremberg trial
Representation was desired so as to be able to question the prominent nazis on trial there, with whom Trotsky, the famous revolutionary leader, was accused of conspiring by the Russian prosecution in the Moscow frame-up trials in 1936, 1937, and 1938.
Readers will likewise recall that the famous Dewey Commission absolved Trotsky of these slanders.
Representation at the Nuremberg Trial was denied by the British government. The reason is not far to seek. The British government is not interested in rehabilitating the memory of a famous Marxist who was a pitiless enemy of everything for which British capitalism stands.
Furthermore, Britain is not anxious to cross Russia unnecessarily in the mortal chess game she is now, along with the United States, playing with Russia. For Trotsky was the hated enemy of the Russian bureaucracy as well. And in the fight against Trotskyism – that is to say, against revolutionary socialism, the hope of mankind – the Russian bureaucracy can never make a concession.
The Socialist Appeal, the Trotskyist organ in England, recently welcomed the impending repeal of the Trade Disputes Act, passed by the British government in 1927 in reprisal against the well-known general strike of 1926. Of the action against the bill by the labor government, the Socialist Appeal said: “There are few measures that the Labour Government takes to which we Trotskyists give wholehearted support. The Repeal of the Trade Disputes Act is one of them.’’
The Trotskyists, interestingly enough, were the only labor group ever prosecuted under this act. Four comrades were jailed as a result of their role in furthering a strike aimed against the war-time Bevin plan for the conscription of mine labor.
As the elections approach, our French comrades are being subjected to increased harassing by the French government, acting upon provocations caused by the Stalinists, wjo fear the significant influence shown by the French party in previous elections.
La Véritè (Truth) was recently seized by the police for appearing as a non-authorized journal. La Vérité, the first resistance organ to appear under the occupation, is the only labor paper denied publication in France today.
The seizure by the police was preceded by attacks against sellers of the paper by Stalinist thugs, who also made an attempt on the party headquarters.
Such attacks are witness to the actual and potential strength of the French party, which can only increase as the Gouin government demonstrates its inability to cope with the continuing economic crisis in France.
The coordinated international campaign against Trotskyism which has been unleashed by the Stalinists has borne fruit in Belgium also.
As a result of a Stalinist pressure campaign carried on in its press, necessary signatures for the placing of our party on the ballot in Brussels were invalidated.
At Charleroi, however, where the Belgium party ran candidates. 1,109 Trotskyist votes were secured in this densely populated working-class area.
The comrades conducted a model campaign, funds for which were over-subscribed. A sound truck was used for the first time in the history of the organization and 50,000 pieces of literature were distributed. A mass meeting of 600 at Gilly was the largest held by any party there.
The capitalist courts of Belgium have just acquitted two collaborators whose names were a stench in the nostrils of all Belgian workers during the occupation.
They are Bologne and Destexhe. They turned over to the Gestapo the names of numerous Stalinists, Trotskyists, and other militants during the war.
Trotskyist families, whose sons or husbands were taken by the Gestapo as a result of these denunciations, were not permitted to testify at the trial.
Capital, whether it worked for Hitler or not, knows who its friends are – and its enemies.
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