ZECHS ADD THEIR BIT ON
Brussels
Literary productions in which ref-~ erences are made to Leon Trotsky, generally within the context of the "new criticism" offered on this subject by the school of Stalinism, continue to appear in Eastern Europe. The latest, according to a report in the Austrian press, is a book written by two faculty members of the department of philosophy at the University of Prague, History of the International Labor Movement (actually this is primarily a history of the Communist International ).
The authors, Vladimir Kasik and Vladimir Suchopar, are reported to go into some detail in describing Trotsky's warning to the party of the danger of the apparatus bureaucrats taking over the party. They tend to agree also with Trotsky's view that the Communist parties were largely responsible for failing to prevent the rise of fascism in the thirties.
After these left-handed tributes, lowing statement:
"I don't like the way the army went about it. If they had asked Howard, I believe he would have told them anything they wanted to know. I don't think he has done anything wrong, either. He has the right to think and say what he wants, just like any other citizen." —
The Emergency Civil Liberties Committee is providing the services of the eminent constitutional attorneys, Leonard B. Boudin and Victor Rabinowitz, as Pfc. Petrick's civilian counsel.
Friends of Pfc. Petrick have formed a provisional defense committee to publicize the case and to raise money to pay the legal costs involved. The committee, the "Provisional Committee to Aid Pfc. Howard Petrick," urges support from every quarter.
The committee feels that a vigorous defense effort at this point may help the army to reconsider its entire approach to this case.
Statements of support and contributions should be sent to the committee at P.0.Box 562, Cooper Station, New York, N.Y., 10003.
Additional information on the case may also be obtained by writing there.
"NEW CRITICISM" OF TROTSKY
the authors then cite as "proof" that Trotsky was defeated "democratically" by a majority of the Soviet party, the fact that many of Trotsky's followers ultimately capitulated to Stalin's bureaucratic terror. In particular, they point to Radek and Piatakov who surrendered to Stalin in the late twenties.
This display of free choice loses some of its luster when we remember that both these men were liquidated not very democratically by Stalin in the Moscow frameup trials of the thirties. These trials, the authors admit, had "grave results upon the masses of the world" and were responsible for the bad relations between "Communists and Socialists in the West." It is not clear from the review whether the authors make a forthright condemnation of the trials as frameups.
The authors analyze the "cult of the personality" and give evidence of the contempt with which the working class was regarded by the so-called practitioners of the "cult," and the near disaster it brought the country.