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PARTISAN REVIEW
Finally, in the last session, Trotsky made a long, impassioned speech in
his own defense, accusing Stalin of betraying the revolution. It was the
climax of the hearings.
An American writer complained to me:
"It
is difficult for me to
believe that you entered into an alliance with fascism; but it is
equally difficult for me to believe that Stalin carried out such hor–
rible frame-ups ." I can only pity the author of this remark. One can
understand the acts of Stalin only by starting from the conditions
of existence of the new privileged bureaucracy-greedy for power,
greedy for material comforts, apprehensive for its positions, fearing
the masses, and mortally hating the opposition. Stalin, who was
once a revolutionist, became the leader of the new privileged
bureaucracy. The moral authority of the leaders of the bureaucracy
and, above all, of Stalin, rests in large measure upon The Tower of
Babel of slanderers and falsifications erected over a period of thir–
teen years. This Tower of Babel is maintained with the aid of more
and more terrible repressions. These gentlemen buy human con–
sciences like sacks of potatoes. Fortunately, not everybody can be
bought. Otherwise humanity would have rotted away a long time
ago. Here, in the person of the Commission, we have a precious cell
of unmarketable public conscience. All those who thirst for purifi–
cation of the social atmosphere will turn instinctively toward the
Commission. In spite of intrigues, bribes and calumny, it will be
rapidly protected by the armor of the sympathy of broad, popular
masses.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission! Already for five years–
I repeat, five years!-I have incessantly demanded the creation of
an international commission of inquiry. The day I received the
telegram about the creation of your sub-commission was a great
holiday in my life. Some friends anxiously asked me: Will not the
Stalinists penetrate into the Commission, as they at first penetrated
into the Committee for the Defense of Trotsky? I answered:
Dragged into the light of day, the Stalinists are not fearsome. On
the contrary, I will welcome the most venomous questions from the
Stalinists; to break them down I have only to tell what actually
happened. The world press will give the necessary publicity to my
replies. I knew in advance that the G.P.U. would bribe individual
journalists and whole newspapers. But I did not doubt for one
moment that the conscience of the world cannot be bribed and that
it will score, in this case as well, one of its most splendid victories.
Esteemed Commission! The experience of my life, in which there
has been no lack either of successes or of failures, has not only not
