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Then Vyshinsky announced : "Leon Trotsky and his son Sedov, having
been exposed by the evidence in the present case and having directly and
personally guided terrorist acts against the Soviet State, are subject to
immediate arrest and trial." By the time the trials were over, of those
who had once composed the Central Committee of the Communist
Party in the USSR, only Stalin and Trotsky were left. Vyshinsky brought
forth the ultimate charge: Trotsky had plotted to assassinate Stalin and
bring Germany and Japan into a war against the USSR.
Nineteen thirty-seven was an elegiac time for liberals and leftists in
America-especially, of course, for Trotskyists . The poet Delmore
Schwartz mused sadly:
It is nineteen thirty-seven now.
Many great dears are taken away.
Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
But for himself, Trotsky was as full of defiance as ever, and indeed his
branch of the Party, rather than being crushed by the Soviet charge, was
somewhat invigorated, especially now that Trotsky was safe in Mexico .
They were ready for a counterattack against Stalin .
Almost immediately, the French Trotskyists formed a "Comite pour
l'Enquete sur Ie Proces de Moscou" to defend Trotsky. Soon after, the
Americans formed the "Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky."
Both groups demanded that an international tribunal be formed that
would "hear" Stalin's charges and allow Trotsky to defend himself,
while he still remained in the security of exile. Obviously, there was no
real thought of his returning voluntarily to Moscow for a trial.
Almost at once, wrangling between Andre Breton and Andre Mal–
raux broke out in the French group, and no decision could be reached
concerning membership on an appropriate tribunal.
So, it was left to the American group to offer Trotsky the hearing that
he demanded . The leaders of the American Committee, including the
sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross and George Novak, realized that a
tribunal consisting entirely of Trotsky sympathizers could scarcely
expect credibility on the international stage. What they needed was a
group, and especially a chairman, who had an international reputation
for fairness, one whose integrity could be accepted by liberals, Soviet
sympathizers, and intellectuals everywhere. No wonder that, encour–
aged by the Marxist philosopher Sidney Hook, their hopes soon fas–
tened upon Hook's dissertation advisor, the seventy-eight-year-old
