October-December 1975

by Cliff Slaughter

October 23

October 23, 1975
To: Joseph Hansen
United Secretariat
Socialist Workers Party

Dear Comrades,

We have received no reply from Joseph Hansen to our letter of June 21, 1975, sent in response to his rejection of the International Committee’s proposal for a parity commission to investigate urgent questions of security in the Fourth International. The United Secretariat remains completely and irresponsibly silent.

Since our letter, the demand for a parity commission has become all the more imperative. This follows publication of an interim report on “Security and the Fourth International” which was commissioned unanimously by the Sixth International Conference of the International Committee of May 19 to 24, 1975. (See the 19-part series of articles published in Workers Press, August-September, 1975.)

New facts have been unearthed about the scope and activities of the GPU network, based in Paris, which penetrated the Fourth International, Trotsky’s household in Mexico, and the Socialist Workers Party of the United States. This network was responsible for the murder of Trotsky on August 20, 1940, his son Leon Sedov in Paris on February 14, 1938, as well as early leaders of the Fourth International, Rudolf Klement and Erwin Wolf.

This interim report concluded with two articles—“The Role of Joseph Hansen and Pabloite Revisionism” and “We Accuse Joseph Hansen and the Socialist Workers Party” (Workers Press, September 8 and 9, 1975). There has been no response whatsoever from the SWP or the United Secretariat. The only sign of acknowledgement appeared in Intercontinental Press, October 13, 1975, in an article which said, in passing, that Workers Press had “buried” Hansen in “slander” over recent months. The “slander” accusation by Hansen can be swiftly put to rest—by his agreement to accept a parity commission enquiry along the lines we have suggested.

In view of the fundamental security and political questions raised by this newly-published material, the International Committee insists that its proposal for a commission, composed of an equal number of members from the IC and the United Secretariat, begin immediately the most detailed and comprehensive investigation into all questions of security and provocations in the Fourth International. This investigation must now be extended to cover the very founding days of our movement.

Security is not only an organizational question, but above all a fundamental political question of the struggle of the world party of socialist revolution against the capitalist state, against the intelligence and repressive agencies of the imperialist powers, and against the Stalinist bureaucracy, the main counter-revolutionary force in the world arena, dedicated since its inception to the liquidation of the Fourth International.

The training of revolutionary cadres for the revolutionary struggles of today cannot be carried out without a relentless fight to establish the historical continuity of Trotsky’s life and death battle against the Stalinist bureaucracy.

When Hansen lyingly accuses the Workers Revolutionary Party of being led by police agents and provocateurs, but then rejects a security investigation which would hit decisively at the Stalinists and their agents in our movement, what role is he playing? Why has he hitherto insisted on covering up the great historical questions concerning the murder of the founder of the Fourth International and his closest collaborators? What is the responsibility of those, like Hansen, who have criminally neglected these questions and now refuse to take them up?

The preliminary findings of the IC’s investigation demand that Hansen give answers. The IC’s proposal for a parity commission is directed towards getting these answers and educating the cadres of the Fourth International.

The urgency for the establishment of a parity commission follows the exposure of the unbroken chain of events which began with the planning of Leon Sedov’s death in 1936. The center of this Stalinist intrigue was Mark Zborowski, who now lives in San Francisco and works as director of the medical anthropology department at Mount Zion Hospital.

Zborowski, adopting the party name “Etienne,” infiltrated the Left Opposition in France during the 1930s and wormed his way into the confidence of Sedov. He was behind the theft of Trotsky’s priceless archives from the Nicolaevsky Institute in 1937 and he tipped off the GPU about the name of the hospital where Sedov was a patient and where he was eventually murdered.

In September 1938 Zborowski attended the founding conference of the Fourth International, his reports finding their way directly to Stalin in the Kremlin. Outside the conference he mixed with American Trotskyists like the late James Cannon and arranged the meeting between SWP member Sylvia Ageloff and Jacques Mornard, real name Ramon Mercader, Trotsky’s assassin.

Zborowski was suspected by Trotskyist leaders and supporters in Paris but he avoided detection by playing his friends and adversaries off against each other in personality wrangles. He was positively identified as a GPU agent by NKVD chief General Alexander Orlov, when he defected from Spain to the United States in 1938. Lola Estrine, Mrs. David Dallin, was in Mexico when Trotsky received the Orlov letter. She told him she thought the letter was “a GPU hoax.” On her return to Paris she immediately told Zborowski of the existence of the letter.

Throughout this period, and until the 1950s, Lola Estrine was Zborowski’s closest political confidant and staunchest defender. We are told that the same “Comrade Lola” has recently been invited by the SWP to write the foreword to a republishing of Sedov’s works by Pathfinder Press.

Lola Estrine travelled to the south of France after the fall of Paris in May 1940 to arrange for a false affidavit to be sworn to enable Zborowski to enter the United States. When he disembarked in Philadelphia she was there to shepherd him through immigration, to bring him to New York, to find him accommodation and get him his first job. Using her political connections, Zborowski immediately resumed his GPU spy role in the Fourth International and the Socialist Workers Party. From 1943 his controller was Jack Soble, known in the German Left Opposition as Senin, another lifelong GPU agent devoted to the destruction of the Fourth International.

Details of the murderous activities of this pair emerged in testimony that they gave at Senate hearings and in New York District Court trials between 1955 and 1958. But not a word appeared in the SWP weekly journal The Militant, apart from one heavily plagiarised article by Joseph Hansen (April 9, 1956).

The following questions demand answers. What is known in the SWP leadership of the relations between Zborowski and the SWP and the Fourth International after his arrival in the United States in 1941? When he left the Fourth International and the SWP, what investigation took place? Did not his departure throw new light on the security investigation into “Etienne” which had been dropped before the war? Was any inquiry made into his connection with Sylvia Franklin, James P. Cannon’s secretary, who was a GPU agent? Or with Floyd Cleveland Miller, Stalinist agent who penetrated the SWP’s maritime section during World War Two? If any inquiry took place, was the International informed? In his testimony Soble said he had 10 anti-Trotskyists under his control. Six have been named; who are the other four?

Furthermore, how are you to account for the fact that throughout the gravest crisis of world Stalinism, following the East German uprising of 1953 and particularly the “secret speech” of Khrushchev and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the SWP’s failure to make any political gains from this crisis went along with a total inability to utilise the testimony of Soble, Zborowski, and others to strike powerful blows against Stalinism and build the Trotskyist party? Instead, you favored “regroupment” and concluded that a series of basic reforms by the bureaucracy could be equivalent to a political revolution in the USSR (see the letter of the Socialist Labour League Central Committee to the SWP National Committee, January 1961, in Trotskyism versus Revisionism, Volume Three).

When we go back even further, to the assassination of Trotsky, we find the same questions are raised. Here is the biggest “security” question of them all, the attempt of the GPU to politically and physically destroy the Fourth International. Your own role, Comrade Hansen, is central here. The questions that arise from the evidence require you to stand before a parity commission. Comrade Gerry Healy, whom you have viciously slandered, has already declared his willingness to accept the proposal.

In relation to the Trotsky assassination: what was the role of Trotsky’s guard, Robert Sheldon Harte? This has always been unclear, but our investigations have opened up the possibility of a clarification at last. How is it that Harte had in his possession a dictionary signed by Siqueiros, the Stalinist organiser of the first attempt on Trotsky’s life? How is it that he had a picture of Stalin on the wall of his New York apartment? What was the origin of the large sum of money he left in his will? What is the significance of the fact that his father, on a Departmental passport, was given special protection when visiting Mexico on the grounds that he was personally associated with J. Edgar Hoover? Of these and many other new questions in relation to Harte, you have seen the indisputable documentation in our Workers Press articles. Do you agree to a commission of investigation on this matter? If not, why not?

You, Joseph Hansen, were politically responsible for Comrade Trotsky’s security on behalf of the SWP’s Political Committee.

According to Comrade Robins, chief guard, there was, under your direction, complete neglect of any weapons training by the guard until he took responsibility for this. He also questions your account of the actual moment at which Trotsky’s assassin was apprehended. What is the meaning of these discrepancies?

Our investigations also disclose matters of which the SWP leadership was presumably already well aware, but certainly did not inform the international movement.

We refer to the report sent to the State Department by Robert McGregor, US Consul in Mexico City, on September 1, 1940. This relates a visit you made to him in which you asserted that Trotsky’s assassination had been engineered from the United States. It also quotes you as saying that in 1938 you were approached by a GPU agent who tried to recruit you and that you maintained relations with this agent for three months.

Comrade Hansen, you have written many articles and memoirs claiming to give a full picture of the circumstances surrounding Trotsky’s assassination. You even wrote a detailed supplementation of the facts as given by Isaac Deutscher, in your introduction to Trotsky’s My Life. Yet at no time did you mention the GPU’s attempt to recruit you. Nor did it enter into the political preparation of the comrades responsible for guarding Trotsky either before or after the Siqueiros raid. The international movement has never been informed, and we have had to take this material from the US Government’s archives. We have the extraordinary position where the US State Department has known of your “operation” of playing along the GPU, according to you with Trotsky’s agreement, but our own movement has been kept in ignorance. What is the answer to these questions, and this question of Sheldon Harte? We do not yet know, but we do know that an independent investigation by the IC and the United Secretariat, with Hansen’s collaboration, is politically imperative. Do you agree? If not, why not?

These are not, we repeat, dead historical questions. The Cointelpro documents reveal the extensive infiltration operation of the FBI against the SWP. No one can doubt the implications of the billions of dollars spent on the CIA. And the Stalinist bureaucracy, in crisis equally with imperialism, will always strive to liquidate our movement.

We repeat also that to reject such an inquiry, or to remain silent, while throwing around accusations of “police agents” against sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, is political irresponsibility of the worst kind. You are playing the role of preventing the cadres of our movement from getting to grips with the most urgent political questions of the preparation for power. To continue Trotsky’s fight against Stalinism, to take up the threat which was criminally let drop by the SWP leadership, is an absolutely necessary and urgent task. Only those who consider that the Stalinist bureaucracy is no longer counter-revolutionary, that capitalism cannot be overthrown by the proletarian revolution, and that the Fourth International cannot be built, will stand in the way of the parity commission we propose. We demand an answer.

Cliff Slaughter,
Secretary,
International Committee of the Fourth International

by Harold Robins

December 23

December 23, 1975
National Committee,
SWP

Comrades,

I urge you to publicly repudiate the inexcusable and politically criminal response by Joseph Hansen in the November 24, 1975 issue of Intercontinental Press, where Comrade Hansen absolutely rejects the proposal for an “Inquiry Into the Assassination of Leon Trotsky,” proposed by the International Committee of the Fourth International.

In support of their proposal, the comrades of the International Committee have made available to Trotskyist circles serious evidence hitherto covered over or buried during the course of developments of the last three and a half decades. Much of this newly published material has been found in official US Government records. One of the primary considerations for every serious comrade and organization requires periodic reviews of threats to Trotskyist organizations from bourgeois and petty bourgeois class enemies. Political conflicts always find expression in “security” experiences, evaluations and practices. Can the forthright rejection of an investigation of the “Assassination of Leon Trotsky” be justified by any Trotskyist organization, especially since the SWP never made any effort to document the recollections of the comrades who served in Trotsky’s bodyguard?

There has been and there is an obvious spread of assassinations as an instrument of political confrontation. It is inconceivable that any ostrich policy can prevail in any organization characterizing itself as “Trotskyist.”

The role of the Kremlin gangsters and disruption cadres runs like a poisonous thread throughout the entire history of revolutionary struggle of Trotsky and Trotskyists fighting to end societies based upon special privilege.

The role of labor spies, of the frame-up of trade union militants, and the hounding to the death of social opponents of capitalism at the hands of the capitalist and pre-capitalist states runs back throughout the entire course of class societies. Always—without any exception—the question of “security” necessarily had to be on the agenda for rebels and revolutionaries. Comrade Hansen’s views take a diametrically opposite “line.” Can you continue to go along with that policy?

Ever increasing numbers of nationalist and political movements are resorting to terrorism and disruption ranging from the Palestinian commando gangs of killers, to the killers in Northern Ireland, to the bands of assassins operating these days in Argentina, Lebanon, etc., and there is sound reason for expecting such terrorist movements to spring up everywhere due to two major factors, the contracting economic character of world and national capitalist societies. There a revision of the national income undermines previously prevailing social relations. And combined with this trend there remains the “crisis of leadership”—the vacuum being filled by counter-revolutionary assassinations of working class leaders and militants which tend to disorient revolutionary movements precisely as Comrade Trotsky had pointed out in his famous report on the 3rd Congress of the Communist International to the Moscow party meeting in June 1921. Every lesson of contemporary as well as ancient history conflicts 180 degrees in direction from the viewpoint presented in Comrade Hansen’s essay. The logic of political conflict is inextricably but not mechanically tied to a parallel logic on security for revolutionary Trotskyists.

Summarizing his political diatribe, Comrade Hansen writes:

In echoing such charges, the nameless and faceless “International Committee” follows a path, we can see, that converges with that of the assassins of Leon Trotsky.” To echo the famous exclamation of Trotsky, we too say, “Nothing less is charged!”

And evidence which purports to back up this amalgam advanced by Comrade Hansen? It is not to be found anywhere in his 14½ pages of small type. Are we supposed to accept that as “gospel truth or revelation”—this amalgam of Stalinism with the International Committee?

When I first joined the Communist League of America in 1928, the “Militant” used to carry a quotation from Lenin in an upper corner of the front page where Lenin wrote that, “Anyone who takes somebody’s word for something is a fool—and is easily dismissed with a simple wave of the hand.” Of course neither the “Militant”—and certainly not the “Intercontinental Press”—think it worth while to revive Lenin’s pithy opinion on faith—blind faith.

Marxists are distinguished from all sorts of petty bourgeois idealist schools by their method which among other things relates phenomena and causation. In political language we ask, what class interests are served by this amalgam completely devoid of any evidence whatsoever? Do such methods foster the rise in the cultural-revolutionary level of the working class? Such a question in this and in every political matter is absolutely required by serious comrades.

Again, if the International Committee is “nameless and faceless” then how come Comrade Hansen names names and discusses political “faces”? He names Gerry Healy and he names Cliff Slaughter. From those two easily verified facts we find that there are names of the “nameless” ones. What the hell use are such oratorical tricks to any movement that calls itself Trotskyist?

To charge that Comrade Healy is “paranoid” because he has raised the matter of security is also a political matter which has a tradition in the years of the Marxist movement since 1847. Everyone knows that Marx characterized a vast number of political opponents he ran into in the working class movement, often as petty bourgeois in their methods and criteria and often Marx charged such opponents with being paid agents of one or another autocratic, or bourgeois democratic government. The record shows us that Marx was denounced with terms synonomous to that used by Comrade Hansen in his characterization of Comrade Healy. In every case Marx turned out to be absolutely correct in characterizing people such as Lord Palmerston, Herr Vogt, Proudhon and Mr. Bakunin. Marx was right, and proved it. His opponents and detractors without exception turned out to be wrong. In the same tradition the reactionaries put out their forgeries such as the infamous “Zinoviev Letter” in Britain in the General Strike period of the mid 1920s, and there were the equally infamous forgeries known as the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” To bring such characterizations up to date permit me to call your attention to Comrade Trotsky’s last paragraph in his statement on Sheldon Harte where Trotsky points out the role of the political allies of the Stalinist assassins who cried that Trotsky suffered from a “persecution mania”—“always crying that Stalin sought to murder him!” Have you comrades forgotten so soon? And now we have Hansen on matters of security—and ignoring the fact that the SWP and its members and contacts have been hounded from the very beginning by the FBI and other governmental agencies—and still in the face of murder of SWP members (in Detroit) in frame-up and imprisonment of leaders and militants among its trade unionists many many years ago—all this is waved aside by Comrade Hansen who rejects the proposal for an investigation into security practices by the SWP and particularly rejecting the proposal for an “Inquiry Into the Assassination of Leon Trotsky”!

The last booklet written by Trotsky was released about 2 days after his death. Nowhere in the list of Comrade Trotsky’s works translated into English do we find the title of that booklet. When I left Mexico, Comrade Natalia Trotsky gave me an autographed copy as a gift—in August or early September 1940. The booklet cover reads as follows (I will send you a photocopy if you wish):

LEON TROTSKY
los
GANGSTERS
de
STALIN

Comrade Trotsky chose that title. Much of the material in that booklet has been republished under other titles. Who authorized the deletion of the title of this work by L.D. ? Who?

Who authorized the repression of three letters by Comrade Trotsky addressed to Farrell Dobbs dealing with Trotsky’s demand that the SWP begin publication of an internal bulletin for a “Trade Union Discussion” and in these letters—suppressed by someone in authority—Comrade Trotsky insisted that Comrade Robins’ article on the Crisis in the Auto Union be published and answered? Nor are these the only instances where political letters written by Comrade Trotsky just prior to this assassination were repressed and have not been published by the SWP to this day.

In the above items the point of censorship of Trotsky’s works are raised here, to indicate that an “Inquiry” is not at all a simple matter of a “Yes, Yes, and No, No.” Serious comrades should re-open the matter of the circumstances not only of repression by SWP leaders of Trotsky’s political letters etc.—but as the last chief guard, selected by Comrade Trotsky after the May 24, 1940 assassination attempt on his life had failed—as the last chief guard I can testify to many, many matters which require a review. I shall very briefly point to a few such items here.

On notable errors and “twistings” in Hansen’s account of events in Mexico, 1940. What class interests are served?

On page 1643 the following very peculiar account of a politically significant specific event is described by Hansen:

For several days, as a matter of fact, ( ??) the Stalinists succeeded in disorienting the police hunt. (!!!) Two of Trotsky’s secretaries were held for two days in jail for “questioning.” Two friends of the Trotsky household, one a refugee from Germany, were held for four days in Guadalupe prison. The chauffeur of Diego Rivera was arrested. The house of Frida Kahlo, former wife of the painter, was searched. Seamlessly, ( ??) the GPU was forging ahead with its campaign of moral assassination. ( ??)_

The record will show that I was there but the SWP never made any effort to find out how the police drive—by the secret service of the Mexican bourgeois-democratic state—made a turnabout and abruptly stopped hounding Trotskyists and some who had been close to us. Why was there a sudden turn in police policy?

The only “expert” on such matters now connected with the SWP is Comrade Hansen—and he wasn’t there at the time. He came to Coyoacan a bit later. Jake Cooper was there, Walter was there, I was there—all of us with Comrade Trotsky, while Comrades Otto and Charlie were held incommunicado in Guadalupe by orders of Col. Sanchez Salazar, the chief of the secret service of the bourgeois-democratic state. And Comrade Joe, when he arrived, never made any effort to get my impressions of the developments. Never.

It may be surmised that the secret police were hunting Trotskyists, etc., but not Stalinists. Comrade Hansen says that the GPU was “forging ahead with its campaign of moral assassination.” What that “moral assassination” turned out to be we are not informed by Hansen. And how does Joe explain this peculiar police policy of arresting Trotsky’s guards and holding them incommunicado? Why shouldn’t a leading political representative of the SWP tell his readers the “what,” the “why” and the “wherefore”?

Since Comrade Hansen doesn’t see fit to tell, permit me to give you some of the answers to questions ignored and minimized (“moral assassination”) by Comrade Hansen.

To slur over the policy of the secret police of the bourgeois-democratic state of Mexico is to ignore the fact that our two secretary-guards were being held incommunicado while the chief of the secret police was trying to compel them to sign a statement he had concocted asserting that they had participated on Trotsky’s orders in the May 24, 1940 attack on Trotsky and his household (where the Stalinists kidnapped and murdered a guard, Sheldon Harte) as a matter of—publicity seeking! Nothing less!

An additional purpose was served by holding Comrades Otto and Charlie incommunicado—rather two important, additional reasons for Col. Salazar’s policy in the matter.

The only fluent speaking Spanish conversationalists among the guards were Otto, Charlie and Walter. Walter was recuperating from a severe illness. Evelyn Reed at that time was neither a party member nor a member of the household—despite what Comrade Hansen asserts in this connection. Comrade Trotsky had assigned Otto and Charlie to full time investigations among Spanish refugee Poumists and Anarcho-syndicalists to get from the refugees the names of known GPU killers from Spain then resident in Mexico. In jail, and held incommunicado, they were unable to carry out that vital information gathering task. It is worth noting that the data brought to Comrade Trotsky by those two devoted comrades comprised the list of GPU assassins which Trotsky demanded the police pick up for interrogation. That was how the police—the “secret service”—were able to get on the trail of the assassination gangsters of Stalin. This has never been told in print. Never!

The police, i.e., the secret police, sent one of their reliable agents to the Trotsky household. He told me that he was asked by his chief to go through Sheldon Harte’s things to see what he could find. He was very tense, and his attitude was very hostile.

I strongly felt that the secret service agent was sent to bring me in to join Charlie and Otto in jail. Since Walter had just been brought back by Evelyn, if I was taken off that would leave only two guards with Comrade Trotsky. In a few days they would drop, from lack of rest. To give some idea of the long hours of duty that all the guards carried on uncomplainingly—Comrade Jake told me that he had lost six pounds in the two weeks since he joined the guard.

Leaving the secret service officer in Bob’s room—telling him I would return in a moment—I went to Comrade Trotsky’s office, knocked on the door and told him the situation as I saw it. I suggested that since he had to make the final decision on what to do, it was my firm conviction that I should refuse to submit to arrest and that we should prepare to fight off any new assault from the GPU gangs. By that time in my service as a guard I had been shooting at the police range. There the Mexican pistol team and the secret service agents were accustomed to practice with hand guns. My score as a marksman was a top one.

Comrade Trotsky told me he agreed with me. That I should not submit if the secret service agent tried to arrest me. But he asked me to try to avoid a fight. He went on to say that he intended to call the President of the Republic to serve notice that he, Trotsky, was calling a news conference in order to expose the “auto-assault” frame-up attempt of the Stalinists and the role of the secret service in arresting Trotsky’s secretaries. Trotsky made it clear to me that he felt he had to warn Cardenas that he could no longer remain silent, and this despite his “gratitude to the Mexican nation for granting him asylum and refuge.”

I returned to Bob’s room. The agent informed me that his chief had instructed him to bring me in for “questioning.” When I informed him that I would not submit, he tried to convince me to go with him while I easily convinced him to leave without me. Then I reported back to Comrade Trotsky, after that back to guard duty.

In all the time I was a guard—for almost a year—I only twice interrupted Trotsky when he was in his study. This incident brought about the first interruption I have described. An hour later—perhaps an hour and a half—there was a phone call from the “Secretary of the President of the Republic” for Mr. Trotsky. My wife answered the phone, then called me, and I knocked on Trotsky’s door for the second time in my term of service with him. I mention this matter of interrupting since it came up in a discussion over Sheldon Harte initiated and raised by Comrade Trotsky, half a day after Harte was kidnapped by the Stalinist assassination gang.

As a result of that phone call to President Cardenas Comrade Trotsky held his press conference but did not refer to the frame-up attempted by the head of the secret police (of the bourgeois-democratic state—in this specific instance, in Mexico).

Why did Comrade Trotsky omit mention of this vital matter? Two main reasons were pertinent to the peculiar conditions of time and place.

Comrade Trotsky informed me that President Cardenas immediately intervened to abruptly bring a halt to the frame-up attempt by Col. Salazar. The account given me by Comrade Trotsky follows: President Cardenas, upon learning about the shenanigans going on, ordered the chief of the National Police, General Nunez (who ranked higher in the state machinery than Col. Salazar) to call Salazar on the matter at once. Salazar was to be instructed to immediately release General Trotsky’s (Cardenas’ term when referring to Trotsky) secretaries; and to immediately return them safely to General Trotsky; General Nunez was to see to everything personally. Salazar was to apologize to both secretaries and to Mr. Trotsky, in General Nunez’s presence.

And President Cardenas’ orders were carried out within the hour. I was present as the party of top level police officials arrived at Avenida Viena, 19, in Coyoacan. I called Comrade Trotsky and then I witnessed Salazar’s apologies to both Otto and Charlie, who refused to accept the protestations of the secret service chief.

At this Comrade Trotsky chuckled. Charlie had said something to the effect that he would be pleased to discuss the matter further in some quiet alley with the Colonel.

Then Salazar apologized to Trotsky for his “mistake” and for the “inconvenience” he had caused. To my astonishment at that moment, Comrade Trotsky chuckled and then embraced Salazar—General Nunez and our comrades looking on all the time. The entire party had met in the street in front of the wooden garage doors (not steel doors as Hansen for some reason asserts in his writings on the Coyoacan setup). Everyone then entered into the patio, Trotsky leading the way. After a short visit, the government official departed.

Why did Trotsky conduct himself as he did in this matter? Why didn’t he react in the same manner as Charlie and Otto—and I felt as they did.

Nevertheless, I am sure without any doubt whatsoever that Comrade Trotsky, despite his diplomatic chuckles, felt as strongly as the rest of us. But Comrade Trotsky was a refugee with tenuous legal permission to live only in Mexico. Every socalled “free, democratic government” without exception refused refuge to this much feared leader of two great Russian working class revolutions. To the ruling classes everywhere, Trotsky was the only outstanding, unquestionably competent leader of the revolutionary fight of the international working class. As such, he was being hounded to the death by class enemies. For Comrade Trotsky it was tactically politic to make the best of the rotten situation since it resulted in the reestablishment of the earlier status quo of political functioning. Had he reacted as we did, or as demonstratively as Comrade Charlie did, he would have had to face the consequences—the unknown matter of the support that the cornered rat of a secret service chief would possibly be able to muster in his own support. Naturally the question posed by this situation was—should Trotsky press, justifiably, for punishment for Col. Salazar for his frame-up attempt? Would such a course turn out to be like trying to straighten out tangled flypaper?

As a leader—and I came to admire Comrade Trotsky more and more as I worked (and disputed) with him—as a leader, it was his role to make correct decisions in such emergencies—decisions that would permit maximum future functioning with a minimum of entanglements if such could possibly be avoided. None of us realized the scope of such a situation until the opportunity to observe the contrast between our subjective reactions and Trotsky’s sound objectivity—his subjective reactions had to be subordinated to the objective necessities.

In Comrade Trotsky’s autobiography, in My Life he wrote somewhere that when one chooses a place in the ranks of the Marxist proletarian revolutionary organizations, one must be able—here I quote from memory—“to be able to subordinate one’s subjective interests to the objective needs” of the historical movement for the interests of the world working class. In the instance described above, it was precisely that objective view which distinguished the levels of operation of Comrade Trotsky from our subjective viewpoint of righteous indignation and reaction. Here I must say that despite numerous disputes on issues with Comrade Trotsky, I never, but never, found him difficult to work with. Some of those disputes resulted in sharp emotional reactions on either side or on both sides. They were always settled by one or another of us changing a point of view on an issue. I have never had the benefit of working near and with such a great teacher, a more serious and devoted revolutionary, or a wittier one. Only Alfred Rosmer could handy witticisms on a sort of par with with Trotsky.

I call attention to the matter of so-called “difficulties of working with Comrade Trotsky” which I have heard about and read in the writings of one comrade or another. That was not my reaction at all when working with Leon Trotsky. It seems to me that in this as in other matters it should be the rule in such matters—to “examine the contents of one’s formulas” such as “difficult to work with.” Not to call upon such comrades to explain the detailed content is to permit a snide slur to denigrate an exemplary, selfless, devoted and most competent of revolutionary leaders. Comrade Hansen, and others, should be queried on the details of such charges. That promises to be a most illuminating inquiry.

The matter of the loyalty of Comrade Sheldon Harte has been raised and discussed in this dispute. An Inquiry may possibly bring about much greater clarity than exists now on this score. The various pieces of evidence indicate a serious conflict that is unavoidable in arriving at a decision.

Comrade Trotsky raised the matter of his surprising Sheldon Harte in Trotsky’s bedroom—uninvited—and absolutely none of us ever would think of doing that. Nevertheless, although I may turn out to be wrong, I am of the opinion that it was Sheldon Harte who fired his revolver after he was captured—and this awakened me. My calls of “Bob, Bob” brought about the situation where the bogus policeman standing by the big eucalyptus tree near the guards’ rooms—then turned back to face in my direction firing his submachine gun at my doorway and at me in it. This chatter of the submachine gun awakened Trotsky and Natalia, saving their lives during the May 24, 1940, assassination attempt. Accident often determines things.

This significant detail too has never been published by our movement—police records and Comrade Hansen’s account have given a limited view to the various writers dealing with the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

In trying to introduce us to some major considerations in the use of the Marxian dialectic, Comrade Trotsky wrote—and told us during discussions—that for formulas generalizing about situations or conditions (and every formula is a generalization more or less) any formula whose content is not stated and clearly understood, serves to cover over content (with words). “One must learn to examine every day the political formulas we use,” wrote Trotsky (during 1940). Without such examination, formulas instead of serving as instruments of development, often become obstacles for development and work of revolutionary comrades.

In arbitrarily summing up the political and security matters raised in this letter that relate to the assassination of Leon Trotsky and to assassination attempts and preparations by Stalinists and by the bourgeois-democratic states—more than Mexico is involved here—it would be the task of an “Inquiry” into these matters to pose and expose the following matters:

Who sponsored each guard sent to Mexico from the US?

On what basis—on what evidence (including personal and political motivations of the members of the guard) were the proposed guard-nominees finally selected by approval of the Political Committee of the SWP?

In my own case, Comrade “Usick”—John G. Wright—was my sponsor. I guess that Comrade Jake was sponsored by the leading comrades in Minneapolis. What about the others?

The question arises: was the bourgeois-democratic state of Mexico seriously interested, and to what extent, in protecting Trotsky’s life and in related matters of tracking down the various members of the May 24, 1940, assassination apparatus?

This assassination gang included a certain well known painter, Pujol, who took refuge in the United States where he travelled publicly in Stalinist circles although he was known to have participated in the murder and kidnapping of Sheldon Harte. There is reason to question whether the assassination gang members were ever brought to trial for murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, etc. So far as the bourgeois-democratic government of the US was concerned, it was not at all interested in interfering with any gangsters who engaged in assassination attacks of Trotsky—or on any Trotskyist leader such as Trotsky’s son, Leon Sedov. The comrades of the International Committee, instead of being denounced by Comrade Hansen, should be extolled for exposing the role of the bourgeois-democratic tolerance of and for GPU operatives who came to the US to continue their murders and disruption of the revolutionary Trotskyist movement.

President Cardenas made an out of character, limited, political move in providing a country of residence for Leon Trotsky. Cardenas, in the depths of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s, came into power at a time when Mexico’s “surplus value” was being drained out of the Mexican economy by American ranch owners, and railroad bond owners who controlled Mexico’s railways and oil extraction industry. By confiscation this surplus value was transformed into capital for Mexico’s use. Confiscating for Mexico those American owned sources of surplus value created in Mexico, President Cardenas faced a serious threat, as Cuba had in 1934, from American bourgeois-democratic imperialism. Under the circumstances, Diego Rivera’s request to Cardenas for asylum for Trotsky came at a favorable moment for the Trotskyists. We were enabled to obtain three more years of life for Trotsky and education of a first-rate significance for some of us as a result.

It was Marx’s view, and Lenin’s view and Trotsky’s view that “we must teach the workers not to place the slightest trust in the bourgeois-democratic state.” In adopting the “21 Points” for admission to the Communist International in 1920, Comrades Lenin and Trotsky demanded that only the revolutionists fight against bourgeois democratic illusions, but they must also seriously take security measures in face of sly and murderous attacks on revolutionary working class fighters and leaders.

So far as Comrade Hansen’s 14½ pages of polemic are concerned, neither of these two prevailing conditions seem to have the slightest pertinence re capitalist democracy. So far as President Cardenas was concerned, aiding this outstanding fighter against imperialism was a splendid demonstration designed to win the support of the masses in Mexico and elsewhere. While Cardenas seized the ranches of the Hearsts and other American capitalists, he did not take action against the big property holders in his own political party. For all that President Cardenas, when judged on the record, was unquestionably a rare progressive bourgeois.

Noting Comrade Hansen’s meticulousness in avoiding any political discussion of the role of the capitalist democracies where the GPU murders of Trotskyists occurred, or where GPU known murderers were permitted to operate against Trotskyists—how do you comrades explain this significant omission by Comrade Hansen? Comparing Comrade Joe’s studied blindness with the policy in such political security matters by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, isn’t the difference in this political area obvious to you?

Her (Sylvia Franklin’s) husband was a GPU operator, say the comrades of the International Committee. We are given to understand that that is the testimony of the GPU sub-chief, Jack Soble.

Hansen responds to this data by saying that Comrade Cannon, who never knew about Jack Soble’s testimony, stated that the charge of being a GPU agent was a slander by Budenz against Sylvia Franklin. And besides, says Hansen, she was a hard worker. The question is for whom? It is clear that Comrade Cannon did not have available the evidence reviewed by the comrades of the International Committee.

Wasn’t there a problem of some Stalinist postal worker who was caught pilfering mail from abroad directed by the National Office to special mail drops? Comrades Joe and Reba Hansen would know about such matters which occurred during World War Two when a complaint of mail pilfering was made to the postal authorities who caught the Stalinist in the act. How did that Stalinist know the several names whose mail he regularly pilfered? Doesn’t that tell us something about security and the need for an “Inquiry”? Or do you continue to go along with Comrade Hansen’s policy?

Among those pretty regularly working in the National Office were Franklin, Reba Hansen, Rose Karsner and Sylvia Bleeker (Pioneer Publishers).

If Comrade Joe is correct along with Comrade Cannon, why not a public commendation to Sylvia Franklin for her hard work and tell us--for whom? Why not? Why did she suddenly depart from our ranks? Are the circumstances top secret today?

About 10 days before the May 24, 1940 attack on Trotsky by the GPU killer squad, Comrade Trotsky called a special meeting of the comrades of the guard. The meeting lasted about 8 to 10 minutes. Comrade Trotsky reported that the Stalinist press and the press under the influence of the CP of Mexico had been carrying on a hysterical campaign of vilification of Trotsky which had reached a climax--all this, to justify the assassination of Trotsky to the readers of that press.

The entire top leadership of the Mexican CP had been removed, he told us. By whose direction? We were not informed by the Stalinist press. Who replaced the leading cadres? We were not informed at that time by the CP press.

Trotsky went on to tell us to review all of our security arrangements. We must expect an assault soon, he said. It would most likely be carried out by the assassination apparatus of the GPU either working by itself, or, in cahoots with the Nazi killer squads, perhaps with the active participation of similar squads from the bourgeois democratic countries. Or with the toleration of some of the capitalist secret police squads, all of whom sought the death of Trotsky because of the coming crisis arising out of World War Two, Trotsky explained, referring to the Hitler-Coulondre discussions at the time of the outbreak of World War Two.

While one could not say precisely what form the attack would take, Trotsky explained, one must judge such matters to the best of one’s abilities and evaluate one’s enemies and their modes of operation. With Stalin, one must anticipate that the timing of the attack would coincide with the occurrence of some major catastrophic event—“so that the newspapers headlines would bury the story of the assassination of Trotsky.” We must review and change our routines as a matter of increasing security, Trotsky advised us.

All of us overlooked the openings near the police casita. As a result of that reorientation we made the following changes in the routine of the guards. Instead of the yard lights shining on the grounds of the patio, leaving the top of the walls dark, they were directed to shine on the top of the walls. Interesting? Anyone who stuck his head up under the newly changed set-up would immediately shine brightly in the spotlights.

Guards on duty were no longer permitted to sit in the guards’ room and read while on guard duty. This change was particularly drastic since the guards used to sit and read all through the night when on guard duty. Interesting?

Under the old set-up, the guard coming on duty to relieve another, would walk through the street door at every change of shift, walk all around the walls of the house and then return to be let in by the guard ready to go off duty. The hours set for regular change of guard shifts were scrambled and changed. There was no more opening of the outside door for a tour of the outside. Interesting?

Instead of the lights shining on the reading guard at night the entire patio was very dimly lit up with the reflection of the spotlights shining on the walls. The guards by that time were vastly improved in their skills with the revolver. From the character of the changes introduced after this warning from Comrade Trotsky, one may wonder why the previous regimen had been installed and maintained over the years. No “inquiry”? Comrade Hansen writes that he had set up the regimen for the guards. There is no reason to doubt him in this matter. He was the direct representative of the Political Committee of the SWP responsible for overseeing the functioning of the guards. The cost of maintaining the guard was borne by contributions from the comrades of the SWP and some sympathizers.

After Trotsky’s talk to the guards, in an effort to get 24 hour a day information regarding important news developments going on during the Nazi blitzkrieg into France, I arranged with a person who claimed—and showed credentials—from a leading American press service (United Press) to get an interview with Trotsky if the press agency would telephone us of any sudden breakthrough in the news of the ongoing battles in France.

On the morning of May 24th, 1940, the newspapers reported that the Nazi armies had cut in two the French-British forces and had reached the English Channel. We got no call from the United Press. They got no interview from Trotsky. We did get the attack from the GPU assassination squad which Comrade Trotsky had predicted. The circumstances in every major respect coincided with Comrade Trotsky’s evaluation, to wit: the assault came at a time when a major breakthrough in the fighting filled the front page of the newspapers. The Stalinists were mistaken in believing that their murder attempt would be buried in a back page—it got page one treatment.

Secondly, it became crystal clear after things quieted down that the Stalinists’ GPU murder squad were under orders to avoid if possible hurting any of the guards in the Trotsky household. The secret service and the Mexican press were prepared beforehand with stories about so-called complicity of the guards who went through the attack unhurt. No attempt was made to kill the guards in their rooms as they slept and it was easy!

The differing fate of Sheldon Harte was weighed by Comrade Trotsky at a meeting with the guards later that day. “If Sheldon can recognize his captors, or if he was one of their creatures,” Trotsky said, “we shall never see him alive.” I was called on to identify his body when it was removed from the lime pit which preserved it in magnificent condition about a month later.

The history of bourgeois democratic governments in adapting to the patterns of the tsarist and Hohenzollern secret police methods of penetrating all dissident organizations of critics of any kind is too well known to require elaboration. The question of ignoring security measures to limit the effectiveness of those police state measures in a worldwide set-up where the state, the employers, and the trade union leaderships work ever more closely together is a worldwide requirement. But not according to Joe Hansen when one judges by his essay on Comrade Healy’s so-called “paranoia.”

What do you think? Where do you stand on the matter of reviewing past experiences and past mistakes? Do you stand for corrections—or lemming-like policies, comrades?

Fraternally,
Harold Robins