In a French Communist party Political Bureau communiqué dated February 17 and published the following day in L'Humanité, we find the following sentence by Czechoslovak Communist party leader Gustav Husak in answer to a question from Roland Leroy, a member of the French Political Bureau sent to Prague: "The time of prefabricated trame-up
• trials has delinitively passed."
Historic words! Husak was speaking only of Czechoslovakia, but despite him, his words have a bearing on the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European workers states. So
"time of prefabricated frame-up trials" did exist!
This is the first time a Stalinist leader has made such a confession. In his report to the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist party, Khrushchev denounced the repression unleashed by Stalin, especially since that repression hit some old Stalinists. But he didn't question the trials themselves. In the "histories" of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet Union published since then, the Moscow trials are not mentioned.
We repeat: this is the first time a leader of a Stalinist party - a leader who was returned to power through the intervention of the Soviet army in his country-has acknowledged that the trials were prefabricated frame-ups, and that there had been a whole period during which the leaders of the workers states carried out such March 13, 1972
measures in the name of socialism.
The confession is overdue, but it is impossible to have any faith in the assertion that such times have copamm
HUSAK: Considers frame-ups less desirable-or less convincing-than in past.
passed. First, because Husak spoke only of Czechoslovakia, but also because even there people have recently been arrested, prosecuted, and con-
No vote of thanks is due the Political Bureau of the French CP for getting this confession out of Husak. The CP leaders addressed themselves to him not because of concern for proletarian morality - for many years they sanctioned such trials without reservation - but in order not to be hindered in their policy of class collaboration in France. They "recorded" Husak's words, but didn't make the slightest effort to find out the real situation in Czechoslovakia so far as arrests and trials are concerned. And they never dared take a similar step with regard to the Soviet leadership.
In the matter of freedom of opinion in the workers states, no confidence whatsoever can be placed in the Stalinist leaders. But Husak's confession is a sign of the ever increasing weakness of these leaders -it shows that today they are obliged to plead their own innocence.
More than ever, campaigns and actions must be multiplied to win the release of all prisoners (whether in prisons or in "psychiatric asylums").
Thus will socialist democracy's day of triumph be prepared-and those who committed so many crimes in the name of socialism will be compelled to account for their deeds before people's courts.
New Honor for Nixon
A new entry in the U.S. 1972 National Society Directory is Claude "Moosehead" Tramar. The directory lists "socially prominent" persons who "are among the leaders of their communities."
Claude is distinguished from all the other socially prominent individuals by the fact that he is a dog.
The publishers of the directory said they didn't know how Claude's name got into the book. That wasn't what puzzled us. We were wondering if Claude objected to being listed in the same book with Richard Nixon.