Letter to the President of Mexico
Editor's Note: The letter printed below is, we think, self-explanatory.
It was signed by more than 200 prominent liberals, trade union leaders,
writers, educators, clergymen and political leaders, including the editors
of
PARTISAN
REVIEW.
We regret that considerations of space prevent us
from printing the full list of signers.... We might add that the New York
daily press, with the exception of the
N. Y. Times,
failed to print a single
line on the story, despite the eminence of the signers and despite energetic
publicity efforts. Fortunately, however, the letter seems to have produced
a considerable effect in Mexico City, where the local Stalinist apparatus
has
been forced for the moment to slacken its persecution of the refugees
in question. But although the weapon of slander
has
broken in the hands
of the Mexican Communists, the danger of a CPU-inspired attack on
the
lives of one or more of these refugees still remains. Continued support
from this country will be their best protection.
Excmo. Sr. Don Manuel Avila Camacho
Presidente de Ia Republica de Mexico
Mexico, D. F.
Your Excellency:
New York, February 9, 1942
We trust you will not think us presumptuous
if
we call your attention
to a campaign of slander that has been initiated against certain refugees
in your country. These refugees, of widely varied political faiths, are united
only in being opponents of the Communist International and of Fascism.
Outstanding among them are: Marceau Pivert, Victor Serge, Julian Gerkin,
Gustave Regier, and Grandiso Muniz.
Against these individuals a slander campaign has been initiated by
Mundo Obrero, mouthpiece of the Mexican Communist Party. This cam–
paign has since spread with increasing violence
to
other sections of the
press. The Communists have been able
to
prevent these refugees from
getting any aid or publicity for their reply to the fantastic charges made
against them.
It is alleged that the persons in question are "agents of Hitler,"
"shock troops of the Nazi Fifth Column," "gangsters," "spies," and "sabo–
teurs." On the basis of thes'3 charges a group of deputies sympathetic to
the Communist International has introduced into the Chamber of Deputies
a resolution demanding that these refugees be either expelled from Mexico
or put into a concentration camp.
These charges--suddenly whipped up months after these refugees
were granted asylum in your country-are without any foundation in fact.
It is a matter of pubfic record that all of these men have for years been
~ctive
anti-fascists. Specifically:
.
Marceau Pivert, now actually charged with having "collaborated with
the French fascist group, Croix de Feu," was once the secretary to Leon
Blum and was the former secretary of the P.S.O.P., a Socialist organization
of workers and intellectuals now working against Hitler in France.
Victor Serge, now called "an agent of Otto Abetz," is a left-wing
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