Issuing body: Conference for the Fourth International (Geneva, July 1936)
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To the Public Opinion of the Workers of the Whole World
The fate of the Soviet Union is close to the heart of every class-conscious worker. There, 170 million human beings are carrying out the greatest experiment in social emancipation in history. The destruction of the new regime would deal a terrible blow to the future development of humanity. But it is precisely for this reason that it is necessary to adopt an honest — that is, critical — attitude toward the complex processes and contradictory phenomena that can be observed in the life of the Soviet Union.
The most alarming symptom of internal life in the USSR is undoubtedly the severe, permanent repression that strikes, in most cases, not the partisans of capitalist restoration but the revolutionaries who have come into conflict with the ruling caste. Numerous reports have appeared in the world press in recent months concerning cases of extremely severe repression against oppositionist members of the ruling party, and also against foreign communists who cannot count on the protection of their country's embassy. The prisons have already proved inadequate. Concentration camps have been set up on a scale far greater than during the civil war. Prisoners are responding more and more to unbearable persecution with individual or collective hunger strikes, or with suicides. Numerous tragic facts have been confirmed by trustworthy persons, ready to appear before a tribunal to substantiate their evidence. Every critical mind refuses to reconcile these facts with the official claim that a socialist society has been "finally and irrevocably" established in the USSR.
On 5 June, Pravda, the principal newspaper of the USSR, announced that the Central Committee of the ruling party had adopted a draft of a new constitution, "the most democratic in the world."
The editorial commenting on this very important decision simultaneously announced a new and more terrible repression against the oppositionists. This question is so important that we consider it necessary to reproduce word for word the statement of Pravda as the direct mouthpiece of the ruling circles. Having stressed the "fantastic victories of socialism" expressed in the new constitution, the newspaper at the same time calls for "increased vigilance" against the "class forces hostile to socialism." It would, however, be mistaken to think that this refers to defenders of the restoration of the monarchy, the nobility, or the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, through a series of decrees and in the corresponding paragraph of the new constitution, the inequality of citizens based on their social origin has been abolished. According to the official explanations, socialist society has become so strong that it no longer needs to fear people of noble or bourgeois origin. Pravda explains, concerning the "class forces hostile to socialism" against which stricter measures are necessary: "The struggle continues. Too weak to launch a direct attack, the remnants of the counter-revolutionary groups, the White Guards of every stripe, especially the Trotskyists and Zinovievists, have not abandoned their positions, spying, sabotaging, and carrying out terrorist acts. In the future we shall continue to strike down and crush with a firm hand the enemies of the people, the Trotskyist reptiles and furies, however skillfully they may disguise themselves."
These words speak for themselves. While publishing the "most democratic constitution in the world," the ruling group of the Soviet Union simultaneously promises to "destroy" the partisans of a particular current of socialist thought, accusing it of crimes such as "espionage," "sabotage" (?), and "terrorist acts." The accusation is quite evidently a hallucination. It is worth no more than the accusations levelled against the heretics of the Middle Ages of causing epidemics and drought, or the accusations against the Jews of using Christian blood. But this does not erase the terrible reality of the threat of destruction.
The so-called "Trotskyist" movement is international in character and publishes books and newspapers in no fewer than fifteen languages. This movement can be regarded in various ways. One may sympathize with it, or, on the contrary, condemn it. But every class-conscious worker, every serious person, can convince himself, on the basis of irrefutable documents, that it is a revolutionary grouping whose task is the emancipation of the workers. Thus, during the events of June 1936, the bourgeois press of Paris unanimously condemned the "Trotskyists," accusing them of setting off strikes, while the Comintern press accuses them of attempting artificially to stimulate a revolution. Can one believe for a single moment that one and the same movement, led by the same people and the same ideas, fights in every capitalist country to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie, yet in the USSR attempts to restore capitalism by relying on "espionage," "sabotage," and "terrorist acts"?
Every disinterested friend of the USSR — that is, every friend of the toiling masses — must say to himself: the official explanations are completely and manifestly false. While openly preparing the physical destruction of its ideological opponents, the ruling group cannot find a single serious word to explain or justify such repression. Can such a state of affairs be endured passively and in silence?
We declare to world public opinion that it is not true that the "Trotskyists" and "Zinovievists" are fighting, or could fight, for the restoration of capitalism; it is not true that they have, or could have, the slightest connection with espionage intrigues or the terrorist acts of the counter-revolution; it is not true that their activity is, or could be, directed against socialism. But, on the other hand, it is an undeniable truth, as is proved by the entire literature on the question, that the "Trotskyists" oppose the policy of the Soviet ruling group, that they oppose the growing social inequality in the USSR, that they oppose the restoration of an officer caste, and, above all, that they oppose the absolute power and unlimited privileges of the bureaucracy. It is not the Soviet proletariat that punishes the "class enemies," but the Soviet bureaucracy which, in the struggle to preserve its power and its privileges, is destroying a group that seeks to express the protest and discontent of the toiling masses.
We take full responsibility for the words we use, which can be verified without difficulty at any moment; the Soviet government need only give an impartial international committee the opportunity to inquire on the spot into the alleged or real crimes of the Trotskyists, the Zinovievists, and the other oppositional groups. We ask for nothing more.
Every workers' organization, every progressive social group, every honest newspaper, every friend of the workers has an interest in the complete and definitive clarification of this burning question. It is necessary to clear up a series of endless tragedies. It is necessary to obtain an inquiry. It is necessary to discover the whole truth. In the workers' organizations, in meetings, in the press, it is necessary to demand that an impartial commission, empowered to undertake whatever is needed, be sent to the USSR to investigate the real causes of the repression with which the bureaucracy threatens the revolutionaries, both Trotskyist and Zinovievist, as well as the representatives of other movements. If the Soviet bureaucracy has nothing to hide from the world working class on this question, it must satisfy such a demand.
(Translated from Documents of the Fourth International)