Written: 15 July 1931.
Source: The Militant, Vol. IV No. 20, 22 August 1931, p. 1.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2013. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
Pravda, No. 180 of July 2, publishes an article by Yaroslavsky under the heading: A New Assistant of Pilsudsky. According to this paper, I am supposed to have written an article for the Kurier Codzjenny of Warsaw against the Five Year Plan, against the Soviet power, etc., and this article or some other – Yaroslavsky is not very exact – is supposed to have made the rounds “of a considerable part of the bourgeoisie press of America, of England, of Poland, of Rumania” ... Leaving aside the political and other commentaries of Yaroslavsky I confine myself strictly to the material side of the affair.
I have given no article at all to the Kurier Codzienny, I have no relations of any sort with this journal and I learned of the very existence of the journal from Yaroslavsky’s article. The article published under my name in the Kurier is a forgery which differs in no way from the famous “Zinoviev letter” and other similar documents. From the information of friends, the Kurier continues to publish counter-revolutionary articles attributed to me.
I know absolutely nothing of what “a part of the bourgeois press of America, of England, of Poland, of Rumania” publish under my name. I have given no article to any journal of these countries on the Five Year Plan. Thus, in this case too it is a question of a forgery or what is most probable of a reprint of the article in the Kurier.
The Manchester Guardian is the only bourgeois journal to which I have given an interview on the Five Year Plan. This interview is devoted to showing the enormous historical importance of the Five Year Plan and of the necessity of collaboration between England and the U.S.S.R. This interview therefore pursues an aim directly opposed to that which is attributed to me by the forgers who have long ago established themselves in Warsaw, Riga and other places.
By Yaroslavsky’s article, Pravda leads millions of readers into error. I believe that Pravda is obliged to publish my denial – out of respect for the millions of workers of red soldiers and sailors, of peasants, of students and of other citizens of the U.S.S.R. deceived by it.
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Kadikoy, July 15, 1931 |
L. TROTSKY |
Last updated on: 13.1.2013