JAY MARTIN
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who declared themselves liberals brought Dewey to the conclusion that
Amer-ican liberalism had become corrupted by the contamination of
communism, and loyalty, above all, to the Party.
In
early May he wrote:
Unwillingness to face the unpleasant is the standing weakness of
liberals. They are only too likely to be brave when affairs are going
smoothly and then to shirk when unpleasant situations demand
decision and action. I cannot believe that a single
genuine
liberal
would, if he once faces the alternatives, hold that persecution and
falsification are a sound basis on which to build an enduring
Socialist society.
Dewey continued to see himself as a true liberal-but to doubt the
claims of professed liberals. On May
10,
in speaking to a large audience
at Mecca Temple in New York City, and a little later during a radio
speech, he expressed his fears:
One more word. I have spoken thus far of rather political issues. I
hope the time is not yet when the cause of elementary justice may
not be mentioned. I have all my life, today more that ever, dis–
agreed with the type of political thought represented by Trotsky. I
disagreed ten years ago with the political thought of Sacco and
Vanzetti. That did not prevent me from resisting to the last the
hounding of those two martyrs who died for a crime never proven
against them. As an American who believes that no man shall be
convicted without an opportunity to defend himself, I could not,
despite my pressing personal duties, refuse when asked to serve on
the commission which gave Trotsky, our political and philosophi–
cal adversary,
a
chance to speak in his own behalf. That is a motive
which, I feel sure, is as valid today for many Americans as it was in
the days of our struggle against the persecutors of Sacco and
Vanzetti.
Very quickly Dewey and his co-commissioners worked through the
transcripts of the hearings and prepared a large volume containing the
evidence they had examined. When published, the title of that book was
a ringing "NOT GUILTY!"
The evidence of history confirms that the commission judged cor–
rectly; Trotsky was certainly not innocent-but of Stalin's charges he
was not guilty. The materials released from Khrushchev's time after
opening the Soviet archives following the breakup of the USSR demon–
strates conclusively that the Moscow trials were frame-ups.
