CHAPTER IN SOVIET HISTORY
By L. Couturier
=, {@he- following review has been translated from the October issue of the Paris Trotskyist publication, l'Internationale. The book::is available only in French. ] -.
Les Procés de: Moscou. (the. Moscow Trials], presented by Pierre Broué,
Julliard, col Llection Archives, Paris. 500 pp. 5.00 French francs.
"the trials “¥Svealed that. the Trotskyist and Bukharinist monsters; .at the behest.of their bosses in the capitalist intelligence services, had undertaken the task of destroying the Soviet-Party and State. . . No doubt these -pygmies of the White Guards, whose.strength could be compared only to that of a miserable gnat, considered themselves -~ what a laugh! -- in charge of:.the country. - « The Soviet court icondemmed the Bukharinist and Trotskyist monsters to be shot,"
This amiable prose runs for:a number of pages in the first (1938) edition of the History of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the U.S,S.R.
. Then a second, post-Stalinist, version was published in which the things attributed to the "pitiful fascist lackeys" are reduced to a few lines, enigmatically alluding to "the massive repression of the ideological enemies of the Party when they were srushed politically." - However, the ‘sensitive reader is inimediately reassured by the affirmation that "victims of the unjustified repressions were fully rehabilitated in 1954 and 1955,"
Pierre Brouéts book.is intended for the reader who has not been brain-washed. Since the works of Trotsky, Sedov and Victor. Serge on the Moscow trials are now hard to find, Pierre Broué, in 300 packed but readable pages, gives the general public an opportunity to follow the trials as they unfolded and to understand the machinations involved, He does it, moreover, in a very lively way, offering copious extracts from the verbatim court records, Thus we see some of the defendants like Krestinsky or Bukharin at times fiercely denying some apparently minor point -- only in the very next session to apologize. Briefly their rebel spirit, eroded, smothered, cut to pieces by years of compromises, abrupt switches and political opportunism, would unexpectedly reappear, bringing them to deny this or that accusation. These flashes never lasted because they were the dying gasps of broken men. The unbroken got no trial to "legalize" their assassination,
It 1s impossible to read the defendants! last declarations without feeling deeply moved -- particularly those of Radek and, above all, Bukharin trying to philosophize about the transformation of a Communist into a traitor, and making declarations with double meanings clear enough so that posterity might be able to judge the worth of their confessions, When they attack Trotsky -- some were close to him =-- one can feel a kind of despair and admiration for this man who never buckled: "You have to be a Trotsky not to give up your arms," cries Bukharin,
Pierre Broué recalls, very opportunely, that in 1935 Stalin, getting ready to strike, promoted young men who were just becoming known: Malenkov is in Stalin's personal secretariat; Khrushchev and ahdanov, newly elevated to the Central Committee, are charged with explaining to the public that one of Stalin's oldest friends, the Georgian Yenukidze, had been expelled because he had "degenerated politically."
Khrushchev had not yet dreamed about building his famous Leninist nucleus in the party.
This book should be read by militants in the French Communist
party. Let them transpose, change the names, read "Paris" for "Moscow, "and imagine the PCF.1in-power before Stalin's death. On. the Séene ‘would appear Marty, confessing to have been a staol pigeon since 1939; Prenant, swearing that he had faked his experiments; and Tillon,. minutely describing ,.preparations for the assassination of Maurice Thorez., The firing aquad ;would be heard and the militant would see:himself drawing up a motian:congratulating the ;Céntral Committee for having saved the country from these mad dogs.'.
The only ones who can shrug at this are those who never voted for a "motion of confidence" when<a. "black sheep" was being expelled. Are there many such in the French. Communist party?”
A. report trom Zambia on the ‘Afriean People's ub:
Democratic. Union of Southern Africa and.-the: struggle Mae
for freedom against:: -the Verwoerd regime.’
Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK.’ l'éditeur),