Leon
Trotsky: Answers to Journalists' Questions
December
3, 1932
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 338 f.]
Am
I satisfied with the result of my trip? Completely. Wasn't I
expecting to spend a longer time in Denmark? Yes. I had hoped that
after my talk I would be able to stay a few weeks in order to secure
medical treatment for my wife and me. However, the refusal of the
Danish government was not unexpected. I am very far from illusions
about democracy, consequently also from disillusion.
The
opportunity for me to visit Denmark came about not in any way through
principles of democracy (right of asylum, freedom of assembly, etc.),
but by a play of political interests. The left circles of the
students and the working-class youth expressed the wish to arrange my
lecture in Copenhagen. The Social Democratic government found it all
the more inconvenient to refuse because at present there is an
undoubted shift to the left in the working class. As agreed, I kept
my lecture strictly historical and scientific in character. But the
government evidently found that eight days were more than enough to
meet the interest in the ideas which I stand for.
My
informed friends told me that the main opposition to my being granted
the opportunity to stay and get medical care (apart from the court
circles, the fascists, the leading circles of the Social Democracy,
etc.) came from agents of the Soviet government I am unfortunately
not in a position to be able to refute this report. I should like
only to emphasize that it is not a case here of the interests of the
Soviet state or of the Russian people, but of the special interests
of Stalin's faction. On November 27, Tass informed the world by radio
that a secret "conference of Trotskyists" of the Western
European countries had met at Copenhagen. It is difficult to call
this report anything but a false denunciation. It is a denunciation,
because it is a call for police repressions against my political
co-thinkers It is a false
denunciation, because no conference was called in Copenhagen at all.
The
Danish authorities are very well aware of what really took place. My
friends in various countries of Europe were extremely worried by the
campaign in the European reactionary press. They saw this campaign in
connection with the recent disclosures in the left press about the
terrorist act being prepared against me by the organization of
General Turkul. Some two dozen of my co-thinkers arrived from the six
countries nearest Denmark. After the completely peaceful outcome of
my talk, they all went home, apart from one or two who decided to
accompany me back.
How
is one to explain Tass's unheard-of radio report, or the behavior of
certain Soviet agents on the question of my visa? Above all by the
internal situation in the USSR. The rumors about the forthcoming
"collapse of Soviet power" assiduously spread — for the
umpteenth time — by a certain section of the press are completely
ridiculous and fantastic. But it is utterly indisputable that
Stalin's personal position has been shaken once and for all. The
errors of his policy are now clear to all. In the party the tendency
to reestablish a collective and more competent leadership is very
strong. Hence the new wave of repressions against the so-called
"Trotskyists." My friend Rakovsky, former chairman of
people's commissars of the Ukraine, subsequently Soviet ambassador in
London and Paris, has had his three years' banishment extended for
another three. All this is officially motivated by the Left
Opposition's ("Trotskyists'") supposed carrying out of
"counterrevolutionary" activity against the Soviet
republic. My talk in Copenhagen, my radio speech to America, my
interview for the sound film, enabled me to formulate our real
attitude to the Soviet republic, which has not changed from 1917.
Hence the exceptional efforts of the group now ruling in Moscow to
expel me from Western Europe The fact that the Stalin faction has
found numerous allies and accomplices on this path is fully in
accordance with the nature of things.
If
I am not coming away from Copenhagen with any new ideas of the nature
of bourgeois democracy, I am nevertheless taking back the best of
memories of the friendliness and hospitality of the Danish people. I
could adduce some absolutely exceptional examples in this field,
which are perhaps impossible in any other country in Europe. …
You
ask about the condition of my life in Turkey? There are not a few
false conceptions circulating on this score I did not of course come
to Turkey voluntarily. But it is not true that the Turkish government
is subjecting me to any restrictions. My wife and I chose Prinkipo
Island for climatic considerations. We have more than once met with
attention and cooperation from the Turkish government.