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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. II No. 1, 1 January 1938, p. 6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
PARIS, France. – The clandestine arming of the French fascist parties has never been a secret for anyone. The participation of the heads of the army in this enterprise has also been quite obvious. As to the complicity of the “People’s Front” government in this conspiracy against the working masses, that has been just as patent, if not quite as avowed. Patent, because the arms depots have been exposed many times for more than a year (particularly by the Socialist Populaire and the Communist L’Humanité) without any government action; because the Sureté National (the federal police) has been kept well-informed in the matter, thanks to its stoolpigeons, spies and provocateurs – without any intervention, on the part of the ministry; because fascist propaganda and organization have been developing in the army with the support of Daladier, the Minister of Defense.
Pozzo di Borgo, Duseigneur, La Rocque and the others have been and still are preparing their forces without any restraint behind the backs of Daladier, Blum, Dormoy and Co. just as Franco, Mola and the others prepared themselves under the , benevolent eyes of Companys, Azana, Caballero and Co.
All the “revelations” about the conspiracy show that the government, with the knowledge of the Socialist and Communist leaders, has tried to canalize fascist activity in continuing to play off one force against another as a balance for itself, a sort of game which can only result in the worst kind of catastrophe for the working class. At the same time, the Pozzo di Borgo-LaRocque trial has displayed before the eyes of the public some Punch-and-Judy secrets: the Radicals secretly subsidized La Rocque; Blum and Salengro (the Socialist Minister of Interior who committed suicide about a year ago) negotiated with La Rocque regarding the organization of the P.S.F. (French Social Party – the newly formed fascist party of La Rocque) subsequent to the pseudo-dissolution of the Croix de Feu (La Rocque’s military organization) etc.
However, there is one organization which holds that these forced revelations about fascist conspiracy are of interest only if they can be made to compromise the revolutionary organizations of the proletariat: that’s the G.P.U. It is obvious that the facts revealed on different occasions by L’Humanité were brought to its attention, partially at least, by the G.P.U. But there is only one thing that interests the G.P.U. and its French lackeys: how to compromise, the Fourth International.
In spite of all their strong desires, the agents of Stalin have not succeeded in linking the P.O.I. (the French party of the Fourth International) either to the “Etoile” bombings or to the first investigation of the “Cagoulards,” the so-called “Hooded Ones.” The provocateurs are now once more taking up the charge in two articles which must be immediately unmasked.
Their first attempt: In L’Humanite of November 21, one of its editors writes: “One finds (in the conspiracy) the Trotskyist provocateurs, headed by Trotsky”. This sheet writes thus without the slightest attempt to justify such a statement. Pure calumny! In what role are they found? On what occasion? Under which circumstances?
In reality, although no Trotskyists are to be found mixed up in the fascist conspiracies, the agents of the G.P.U., on the other hand, are not, probably, entirely absent from such a framework. It has already been proven that the leaders of the White Russians (Skobline, Kondratiev) and some elements in the Gestapo, as well as in the French and Czechoslovakian police, are members of the counter-revolutionary police of Stalin. Why shouldn’t it have its men among the French fascists?
Their second attempt: Ce Soir (the Stalinist evening paper in Paris) of November 30 writes:
“The aim of this military organization (fascist groups in the South-West of France) thus appears to be very clear. It was a matter of provoking an armed uprising in South-Western France in support of an uprising prepared in Catalonia by the ‘Fifth Column’ as well as by the P.O.U.M. elements and the anarchists.”
For the G.P.U., the P.O.U.M. represents the “Spanish Trotskyists.” Ce Soir launches forth with this dastardly calumny of the P.O.U.M. at the very moment when the attempt to implicate the P.O.U.M. in an espionage trial in Spain has entirely collapsed. The G.P.U. does not give up its aim very easily. To implicate revolutionists in counter-revolutionary enterprises controlled and fostered by the government – with the classic police technique of the bourgeoisie – there is the aim!
It must also be remarked that Stalin’s agents find themselves in good company with La Rocque, in pursuing this aim. Here is a statement made by the latter at the Lyons Congress of the P.S.F. (Petit Journal, November 29):
“If the safety of the country and the defense of the republican institutions (!!) demand it, he together with his collaborators will unmask the enterprises of the anarchists and the Trotskyists, associated with others, for the purpose of making France the charnel-house of their savagery.”
Once more, by denouncing the enterprises of the provocateurs in advance, their failure will be assured.
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