Leon
Trotsky: Yes or No?
A
First Answer on the Blumkin Murder
March
1, 1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 2, 1930, New York 1975, p. 120-122]
The
official Communist press, as we assumed, has for several weeks tried
to maintain silence on the question of the murder by Stalin of
Comrade Blumkin. But this conspiracy of silence has finally been
broken, at least at one point. The Vienna Rote
Fahne
[The Red Flag] has entered into a polemic with the Social Democratic
press on the question of Blumkin. It is obvious that the social
democracy could not pass over such an exceptional opportunity to
touch up its own reputation. The international party of Noske,
responsible for the death of Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and thousands of
the best worker revolutionaries, would of course have to grasp
thirstily at the shooting by the Stalinists of an irreproachable
revolutionary. It is not this aspect of the matter that interests us
at present
Irrespective
of the plots, intrigues, and slanders of the social democracy, each
revolutionary worker is faced with the question: Is it true that
Stalin shot Comrade Blumkin because he visited Trotsky in
Constantinople and tried to pass on letters from him to his
cothinkers in Moscow? If it is true, then what are people who by such
deeds besmirch the name of communism to be called? Only this question
is of importance. For it is clear what a terrible blow such bloody
treachery by the official leadership must be to the revolutionary
prestige of Soviet power, not in the ranks of the bourgeoisie or the
"sympathizing" intellectuals, lawyers, journalists, and
writers, who travel magnanimously at Soviet expense to festivals and
resorts — but rank-and-file revolutionary workers. That is why the
question of Blumkin's fate must be fully resolved.
What
in essence does the Vienna Rote
Fahne
say? It calls the report of Blumkin's shooting "a clumsy lie any
ass can see through at first glance." This looks like a very
decisive refutation. And we would be fully ready to welcome the firm
and categorical tone of Rote
Fahne.
Actually, the fact in itself is so monstrous that the first and most
natural reaction of any revolutionary is not to believe it, to reject
and condemn it as slander.
Unfortunately,
however, the refutation later becomes considerably less categorical.
And not by chance. Rote
Fahne
piped up only on February 19, i.e., six weeks after the news had not
only got into the bourgeois and Social Democratic press, but had even
been posed in the form of a direct question in the Communist
Oppositional press. In these several weeks Rote
Fahne
should have been able to get information, could not help getting it.
But after such a categorical beginning, Rote
Fahne
in subsequent lines imperceptibly shifts its denial. The "slander"
now is that Blumkin was shot "merely because he was a
Trotskyist, that legendary Blumkin." This imperceptible shift *
in emphasis is a kind of careful insurance for the paper and at the
same time takes the moral weight away from the refutation. The
Stalinists' Vienna paper is clearly leaving the door open for two
versions: the categorical denial of the fact itself, i.e., of the
murder of Blumkin by Stalin, and the admission of the fact, but in a
different, as yet unprepared, light."
Why
does Rote
Fahne
call Blumkin "legendary"? What does this rotten hint of
mockery mean? Does Rote
Fahne
doubt the existence of Blumkin (that is, his former
existence) altogether? Does Rote
Fahne
doubt that Blumkin was an irreproachable revolutionary, who had
dozens of times proved his exceptional courage and heroic devotion to
the proletariat? Does Rote
Fahne
doubt that Blumkin was shot? Or does the doubt concern only whether
he was shot for passing on a letter of Trotsky's? It is unclear from
the article; and this lack of clarity is deliberate. Rote
Fahne
is merely waiting for the version that will finally be selected by
Stalin.
The
latter is meanwhile preparing his version from a distance. The rumor
has been spread through certain Soviet papers that some "Trotskyists"
in Siberia sabotaged the railways at the time when troops were being
sent against Chiang Kai-shek, by derailing trains, etc. This is now
Stalin's third attempt to amalgamate the Opposition with the
counterrevolutionaries. The first two collapsed shamefully. The third
will certainly do likewise. If Stalin has nevertheless decided to
repeat his despicable experiment, that is only because he still needs
some kind of version or explanation for the shooting of Comrade
Blumkin.
Rote
Fahne
finishes its article with a panegyric to Stalin as the "beloved
disciple of Lenin." We know that such panegyrics are now a
necessary condition for retaining the post of editor, secretary,
people's commissar, stenographer, or president of the Comintern. But
all the same we consider that the editor of Rote
Fahne
has been all too careless in linking the Blumkin case with Stalin's
characteristics and his relations with Lenin.
The
fact is that Lenin spoke against Stalin's appointment as general
secretary, expressing a fear that "this cook will prepare only
spicy dishes." Of course in 1922 Lenin did not yet see dishes
quite as spicy as the shooting of Blumkin.
The
fact is that in his testament Lenin mentioned Stalin's disloyalty
and his inclination to the abuse
of power,
and for that reason recommended that Stalin be removed from his
responsible post.
The
fact is that even after the testament, on March 6, 1923, Lenin broke
off in writing all personal and comradely relations with Stalin —
as a result of his disloyalty and treachery.
This
was the state of affairs seven years ago, when the position of
general secretary had a strictly subordinate character, and when all
power was concentrated in the hands of the Politburo headed by Lenin.
Now the position has radically changed. The rule of the apparatus has
led to the personal dictatorship of Stalin. The role of party opinion
has been reduced hundreds of times. Stalin's disloyalty has proved to
be armed by unheard-of means against his own party. The Blumkin case
throws light on this new position with terrible force.
Yes,
the shooting of Blumkin is being used by our class enemies, and above
all by the social democrats. But whose is the responsibility? It
belongs to those who have created this horrifying affair, i.e., to
the murderers of Blumkin. They surely understood that the Opposition
would not be silent For silence would mean unbridling the Stalinist
bureaucracy and preparing tens and hundreds of crimes like the
Blumkin case.
That
is why we declare to all official editors, secretaries, and other
functionaries: We shall not let you evade an answer by covering
yourself with polemics against bourgeois and social democratic
newspapermen. We shall make you give the workers an answer about what
has taken place. We shall compel you to answer the question: Do you
or do you not take upon yourselves the responsibility for Blumkin's
murder? Yes or no?