Articles and reports, including a letter from Trotsky, concerning the Marxist Workers Group of Bulgaria, taken from the Militant and the Communist League’s international internal bulletin between 1930 and 1932. After a series of armed revolts and urban guerilla campaigns promoted by the Comintern’s leadership in the mid-1920s, the relatively large and implanted Bulgarian Communist Party was annihilated by repression; imprisoned, murdered, and exiled. In the moderate liberalization of the late 1920s, the Party reemerged as the Workers Party, in legal conditions curtailing open Communist campaigning. In these conditions a small dissident group emerged around Stefan Manov, ‘Osvobodiennie’/’Liberation,’ produced a manifesto and made contact with the International Left Opposition.

Dossier on The Marxist Workers’ Group, Osvobodienne, the Bulgarian Left Opposition, 1930-32.

‘Opposition Group in Bulgaria’ from The Militant. November 15, 1930.

The International Secretariat of the Left Opposition informs us:

On October 19, 1930, a group of former members of the Bulgarian Communist Party (legal and illegal) adopted a resolution approving a manifesto issued by a group of Bulgarian comrades recently, which gives a Marxist evaluation of the revolutionary labor movement in the country, the situation in the international Communist movement, and condemning the theory and practises of the “third period.” These comrades decided, further, to “constitute themselves into a central Marxist workers’ group ‘Osvobodenie’, taking as their base the ideas of the Manifesto of the International Left Opposition.”

The resolution also sends its revolutionary greetings to the victims of the bourgeois repression in Bulgaria and all other countries, and to the valiant comrades of the Bolshevik-Leninist Opposition in the Soviet Union and its leaders, comrades Trotsky and Rakovsky. The formation of this group in Bulgaria marks another forward step of the Left Opposition in a country where the collapse of the Centrist leadership has virtually stripped the movement of its power. The Bulgarian Opposition group is the second to be constituted in the Balkans, the first being the Left wing group in Greece. Our hearty salute and wishes for victory!

‘The Bulgarian Left Opposition’ from the Communist League International Internal Bulletin. March, 1931.

The heavy defects of the revolutionary movement have scattered the best forces of the Communist Party in Bulgaria for years. The weaknesses and mistakes of 1923, the adventuristic crimes or 1925 and the stupidities of the Molotov-period in the Comintern resulted in Bulgaria in the complete destruction of the revolutionary mass movement and the discouragement of the best representatives of this movement. The Communist movement of Bulgaria is at present very weak and has no influence at all upon the political and social life of the country: The slogans of the Kolarovs and the Demidovs are followed only by a small sect in Sofia, which cannot, will not, exercise its influence upon the proletariat and the peasantry.

The old militants of the C.P.B. those who have been spared by the white terror have long ago left the movement. The entire policy and tactic of the Comintern in Bulgaria was altogether too un-Marxist and too counter-revolutionary for these fighters, who went through the school of Rakovsky and the Russian revolutionists, to swallow in silence the incoherent and stupid policy of the Comintern. The luckless experiences of the Comintern in Bulgaria were more than sufficient for these comrades to draw the balance sheet and to sharply criticize the activities of the Comintern after Lenin’s death. But they lacked the experiences of the Communist parties of the other countries.

After groping about for a long time, hindered by the strict fascist censorship, the comrades discovered that a Bulletin of the Russian Opposition and Opposition publications exist in France. They find in these the confirmation of their analysis concerning the mistakes of the Comintern. Their agreement with the views on the situation in the U.S.S.R. and in the entire world brought them nearer to the international center of the Left Opposition.

…is published in this issue of the Bulletin, our comrades decided to organize themselves into a group and to declare their adherence to the International Bureau of the Left Opposition.

The young Bulgarian Opposition has already issued a manifesto to the Bulgarian Communists in the form of a pamphlet, in which they submit the Comintern policy in Bulgaria since 1923 to merciless criticism. The serious and profound analysis of this manifesto testifies to a firm Marxist schooling. Despite its local character, it has an international importance, for the tragedy of the Bulgarian Communist Party, equal to that of the German Party in 1923, is at the same time the tragedy of the Comintern.

This manifesto as well as the basic ideas of the International Opposition form the fundament of the Bulgarian Opposition. Its constituent meeting, which took place in the presence of a representative of the International Secretariat, has adopted a basic resolution, which serves as the basis of their organization, “Osvobodiennie”. In this resolution, our comrades greet especially the two leaders of the International Opposition, Trotsky and Rakovsky, whose teachings have remained dear to all Bulgarian Communists.

The young organization, “Osvobodiennie”, is still weak. Nevertheless its manifesto is being read and has aroused a lively discussion among the workers and peasants in Sofia and in the provinces.

Especially in the prisons, among the most advanced militants, the manifesto has received a good reception.

No doubt, the expelled militants or those who have left the illegal party and have regarded the stupid policies of the Labor Party of Bulgaria with suspicion, will join the Left group, “Osvobodienne”.

Our comrades intend to found more: “Osvobodiennie” groups in the provinces in the near future. Favorable conditions exist for our work there.

‘Resolution of the “Osvobodienie” Group’ from the Communist League International Internal Bulletin. March, 1931.

The undersigned former members of the C.P.B. (legal and illegal) considering on October 19, 1930:

(1) The manifesto issued by a group of comrades, in which the revolutionary labor movement of Bulgaria since June 9, 1923 the day of the bourgeois coup d’etat up to the present day, has been evaluated and which ends with an appeal to all the ranks on the basis of Marxism with the aim of “ideological clarification” and the “rebirth of the organization” of the proletariat and the movement which has fallen into complete decay because of the great tactical mistakes, despite the favorable objective conditions for proletarian struggle.

(2) In view of the fatal weakness of the Bulgarian labor movement, a reflection of the general decline of the international labor movement since 1923, which is due to the adventurist tactics of the leading group of the Comintern, which has zig-zagged from right to left and back again and which has led the proletariat from one defeat to another as, for instance, in Germany, in Bulgaria, in China and elsewhere. The Stalinist leadership was incapable of applying correct tactics to the now conditions of struggle and to link up the proletarian vanguard with broad layers of the working class by means of the tactic of the united front.

(3) The Stalinist mistakes have led to the famous policies of the “third period”, which called the situation immediately revolutionary and threw the working class into adventures, without taking into account objective conditions and the

(4) In view of the fact that the policies of the third period have found their expression in the field of organization in the bureaucratization of the Comintern apparatus and of all its sections, in the disappearance of all criticism and democratic centralism, which has made impossible control by masses,

Decide:

(1) To endorse fully the ideas expressed in this manifesto.

(2) To constitute ourselves as a centralized Marxist workers’ group “Osvobodienie”, which will take as its basis the manifesto of the International Left Opposition and will consider it its duty to propagate these views in the country at the same time supporting all correct actions of the Bulgarian Labor Party.

(3) To greet all the victims of bourgeois repression in Bulgaria and other countries; who patiently endure in their readiness to sacrifice for the proletarian cause.

(4) To send our warmest fighting salutations to the brave comrades of the Bolshevik-Leninist Opposition in Russia, who under the leadership of our masters, Trotsky and Rakovsky, are obstinately struggling against the crimes of Stalinism and for the recuperation of the revolutionary international movement.

The resolution is signed by the members of the “Osvobodienie” group.      

‘Letter to the Marxist Workers Group’ by Leon Trotsky from the Communist League International Internal Bulletin. March, 1931.

Dear Comrades:

November 29, 1930.

I have only today found an opportunity to inform you about a few reflections on the subject of your manifesto. I appreciate very much your exposure of the zig-zags in the Stalin-Bukharin policies in Bulgaria; you have revealed the complete identity of the general line “in Bulgaria with that same line in Russia, in China, etc.” Under the various longitudes and in different forms, opportunism and adventurism, succeeding and complementing one another, have revealed everywhere the same essential features. As for myself, two important facts have been disclosed to me by your manifesto: the opportunist electoral bloc in 1926 and the upward swing of the trade union movement in the same year. It would be very useful for you to make a short historical expose for our international press with a study of the minute details and the concrete conditions in which these two stages took place.

Finally, allow me to express in all frankness several doubts as well as a few objections. It is possible that in one case or the other I will be knocking on open doors, that is to say, I will raise objections to points of view and tendencies which you do not at all uphold and which unfortunate wording in the manifesto wrongly attributed to you. If that is so, all the better. In politics a certain amount of scolding from one side or the other is far better than indifference and negligence.

(1) You justly condemn the tactic of individual and mass terror when it is applied in conditions other than those of mass revolution. But I believe that you attach to your judgment an excessively moral and pathetic character. You speak of the “inglorious epoch of the Russian social revolutionaries”. I, for my part, should not have expressed myself in that manner. In the tactics of the Social Revolutionists there was indeed, an adventuristic element which we condemned, but we never spoke of an inglorious epoch, even in regard to the heroics of individual terror, although we warmed against policies of this sort. The Social Revolutionists Party became inglorious after it had given up the revolutionary struggle altogether and made a bloc with the bourgeoisie.

(2) On Page 6 you speak of the adventurism of the “illegal communist party”, and on Page 8 you speak of the “joy of the workers” when they witnessed the rebirth of the labor party as “the legal political organ of the workers’ movement”. These two quotations give the impression that you condemn every sort of illegal organization in general, opposing to it legal forms as the only form of organization fitting for a mass movement. It is evident that such a point of view is entirely wrong, and I do not at all doubt that you do not share it. It is quite possible that you were tied down in this question by the censorship. Of course, we must take this into account. But if the censorship can restrain us from saying that which we have in mind, it cannot in any case force us to say that which we have not in mind, especially when it is so basic a question as that of the correlations between legality and illegality in the revolutionary movement.

(3) For the cams reasons I consider it sufficient to characterize the attempted assassination in April as indiscreet, but it is superfluous to add into the bargain that it was “monstrous and criminal”. We cannot in any case make concessions of this sort to bourgeois public opinion, despite all the reservations we may make as to the revolutionary usefulness of those terrorist acts. On this point, I would advise you to read the letters of Engels to Bernstein and the correspondence between Engels and Marx (on the questions of the attempts on the life of Napoleon III, etc.).

(4) On page 7 you put the blame for the decomposition of the trade union movement on Pastoukhov and on Dimitrov, placing yourselves on neutral territory between the two. Here, too, it is only a question, I hope, of an unfortunate formulation and not of a principle deviation. Pastoukhov is an agent of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, our class enemy. Dimitrov is a confused revolutionary who combines proletarian aims with petty bourgeois methods. You say that the one as well as the other want to be the “sole rulers” of the trade union movement. Every socialist or communist tendency wants to have a maximum of influence in the trade union movement. When your organization will become a force you, too, will be accused of claiming the role of “absolute rulers” of the trade union movement–and I wish you with all my heart to merit as soon as possible such an accusation. It is not question of the tendency for one group or the other to try to gain influence in the trade unions (that is inevitable), but of the content of the ideas and the methods that each brings into the trade union movement. Pastoukhov tends to the subordination of the trade union movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. The Dimitrovs are opposed to that, but by their false policies they assure, in spite of themselves, the success of Pastoukhov. We cannot put them all on the same level.

(5) I cannot see clearly how the successes of the liquidationist group, “Newy Pont”, can consolidate the Marxist group, “Osvobodenie” (Pago 13).

(6) On Page 14 you write that your task does not consist of creating “a sort of new political workers’ group” which will compete with the Labor Party. You counterpose to that the creation of a Marxist group with purely ideological tasks. It is possible that this hazy formulation is also conditioned by considerations the censorship. At any rate, a Marxist group which wants to influence the part and the entire labor movement cannot be anything but a political grouping. It is not an independent party that competes with the official party, but it is an independent faction which gets itself the tack of taking a part in the life of the party and of the working class.

Those are all my objections. I shall be very pleased to hear that you have made progress in the immediate task that you have set yourselves of a Weekly.

Communist greetings,

L. TROTSKY   

‘The Red Movement in Bulgaria’ by XX from The Militant. January 9, 1932.

On June 21 last, the C.P. of Bulgaria obtained a big parliamentary victory. This victory is distinguished in part by the complete defeat of “Democratic Unity” (Zgovor), and in part, by the great number of votes that the illegal C.P.B. received.

The C.P. received 166,000 votes, while the socialist party received only 25,000 votes. The C.P gained 32 seats, the S.P. got only 5 seats.

We can all still recall that in consequence of the election, the Tsankov-Liaptchev government resigned and made place for the bourgeois opposition parties, the so-called “people’s” bloc led by Malinov.

It could be foreseen that the proletariat had little to expect from the “democratic” people’s bloc, by the fact that the latter did not promise even in the period of the election campaign, that it would abolish the notorious law “for the protection of the state” in case it came into power, nor grant a general amnesty or bring any sort of relief to the starving native proletariat in the field of social legislation.

In recalling the number of votes the C.P. obtained in the elections of April 22, 1924 (206,540) and those of the S.P. (22,404), we must admit that the loss of votes by the C.P. is relatively greater than that by the S.P.

The aim of these lines is to analyze the profound causes of this loss, as well as those for the decrease in the influence of the C.P. in general.

On the basis of a detailed and objective analysis of the situation of the C.P. of Bulgaria, we first want to declare that the loss of influence by the party is to be ascribed to the thoroughly false line and policies of the C.I. and therefore we permit ourselves to speak primarily of the general framework of the defeat of the Bulgarian proletariat in 1923, and in connection with that, to scrutinize the entire policy of the C.I. from the critical point of view of Marxism-Leninism. Despite the official optimism, it is nevertheless a regrettable, a disagreeable and disquieting fact that the influence of the C.P. has been declining in practically all the capitalist countries, and that the proletarian masses are not being won over to Communism. In the eyes of the present leadership, this statement is regarded as “Trotskyism”, “deviation to the right”, posing a lack of confidence. in the revolution. The simple mention of this fact suffices to merit the designation of “renegade”. Nevertheless, we need above everything, a thorough analysis on our own part, in order to find the causes of this stagnation, or rather, this decline. The causes must be revealed and uprooted; this is the fundamental condition for the success of the proletarian revolutionary movement. The decline in the influence of the Communist parties of the capitalist countries, their inability to secure the support of the proletarian masses, all this is all the more deplorable and disquieting because it occurs not in a period of ebb, but in a period of general radicalization for the working class. In other words: precisely at the moment when the objective conditions for the victory of the revolution are maturing, the subjective factor is lacking and falling behind the possibilities that the situation offers.

Only open and pitiless criticism can serve as a remedy. The absence of it indicates the sickness. The only means of putting a stop to the disintegration, is the clearing of the road for criticism, In the first half of its history, the C.I. showed almost exclusively its positive side.

Under Lenin, the International gave the growing parties their clear and principled position. It elaborated the general principles of Communism, the fundamental lines of strategy, of Communist tactics and organization. Lenin was able to profit by the experiences in the struggles of the western parties, he was able to interpret them in a broad theoretical sense. He did not think it possible to invent the tactics for the other parties from the center, nor to outline and prescribe them to the smallest details.

The negative side became more and more apparent in the second half of the existence of the C.I., after 1923, after the death of Lenin and after the revolutionary waves in central and western Europe had calmed down. Then we witnessed the era of “Bolshevization”. It consisted in the attempt to boist methods, forms and tactics artificially and schematically upon the European movement, completely neglecting the peculiarities in the class relationships of different countries as well as the necessity of adapting the proper general Communist principles to them.

This crisis in the C.I. was accentuated and prolonged by the formation of a bureaucratic regime inside the leadership which eliminates and is still eliminating mechanically every opportunity that arises and fails to profit by the experiences of the non-Russian struggles. Linked directly with this is the habit, now become deep-seated, to make the Russian factional struggles a general criterion for the tactical questions in the other parties, and to transpose them uniformly on the other parties.

The causes for the crisis are naturally not only of a personal character, although personalities play a role in them, and are not at all to be neglected. The absence of a man of Lenin’s scope in the Russian party, counts, no doubt. But there are, of course, deeper roots to the matter.

It is responsible first of all, for the penetration of bureaucratism into the Russian party and its transportation to the other parties.

On the other hand, we must consider the difficulty of the sections of the C.I. in working out special ways and means of the proletarian revolution and its preparation in the different countries, which has been increased by the bureaucratic ally entrenched preponderance of the Russian party in the leadership of the C.I. that no longer corresponds to the moral preponderance of its leadership in international questions.

The inability to draw the lessons of the experiences characterizes the crisis of the Bulgarian Communist Party as well as that of the entire movement o the C.I. It is not a crisis of the movement itself, but of its leadership. The criticism of the past mistakes will result in the condemnation of the leadership responsible for these mistakes. The lack of a healthy, creative criticism which the present leaders fear, is accompanied by a deplorable moral stagnation, which under the mask of loyalty and under the mantel of mechanical discipline, sows disorder. As a consequence, instead of the mistakes being corrected, they create new mistakes. In order to justify intellectual and political shortcomings, all regard for truth has been sacrificed. Theories are built up not on the basis of vital facts, but for the purpose of covering up mistakes committed through ignorance or through empirical experimenting.

On the basis of these lines, which deal more or less with the International, we intend to speak, in our next article, of the crisis in the Bulgarian C.P.

–XX.

‘In Bulgaria’ from The Militant. January 30, 1932.

On the afternoon of October 11, 1931, a bloody dispute took place in the courtyard of Philippopel Prison among the political prisoners–all of them comrades who have fought and suffered for the cause of the proletariat. This quarrel, called forth by factional differences, of opinion and by reciprocal insults the sentiments of the deeply shook working-class circles.

The press of Stalin’s tools–Echo, Workers’ Action, etc., was filled with declarations and protests of prisoners of the Stalinist faction. Our excellent comrades, at the head of whom stands the noble and steadfast D. Gatchev, sentenced to death like so many other Oppositionists, were treated in these declarations as a horde of bandits, as a gang of Fascists, enjoying the approval of the prison warden, against whom punishment and removal were demanded. The followers of Stalin, who has not desisted from shooting, imprisonment and deportation of people of the rank of Leon Trotsky and Christian Rakovsky, are all alarmed over the incidents in the Philoppopel Prison. They are calling for the intervention of bourgeois justice and are confiding to it the decisions of inner-party disputes.

In this, just as all the other lackeys in the rest of the world, they are treating their opponents of the Opposition as traitors, or as tools of the bourgeoisie and of Fascism. They have neither the courage nor the ability for a free and honest struggle to compare both methods; that of Lenin and that of Trotsky which assured the proclamation and the entrenchment of the revolution in Russia, and on the other hand, that of Stalin and Molotov, who are subjecting all the acquisitions of the great Russian revolution, both the ideological, as well as the organizational ones, to an international danger by enfeeblement, destruction and demoralization.

More than that; the political prisoners, poisoned by the Stalinist opium, who ate nevertheless our comrades, in the same class and in the same struggle, go as far as to issue–before the whole working class of the country, before the entire world proletariat–in the Stalinist press, which would find not a single word of fraternal conciliation, and reciprocal toleration, this declaration: “it will be impossible to prevent new attacks upon us, bloody conflicts are inevitable.” And since the Stalinites are in the majority, it is quite apparent that a new bloody attack is being organized against our comrades, which is already now prepared psychologically and justified in advance.

Whom do these tragic quarrels serve? Comrades on both sides, come to your senses! Can’t you sum up sufficient moral strength to rise above these altogether too primitive methods of struggle, of application for a judgment from the authoritatives of our class enemies? Are you going to show yourselves incapable of rising to the level of proletarian ethics? Can you not find the strength for this by respecting the views of your comrades, which are inspired by a sincere and deep effort to find the straightest way to the social liberation of the proletariat.

Osvobojdenie is not publishing any provocatory articles as the political prisoners at the Philoppopel penitentiary claim. (See the Echo, No. 227).

The tragedy of Philoppopel Prison must arouse the conscience of the proletariat so that the Stalinist action will one day be forced to cease identifying itself with the proletariat and to realize that highest law which rules the normal development of the proletarian struggle is the principle of inner-party democracy which allows for the broadest and most fruitful development of the idea of the freedom of the proletariat. In the name of this inner-party democracy, the political prisoners of the Left Opposition of the Philoppopel penitentiary, have brought us their first sacrifices. Let hope that these will be the last sacrifices, and that the opponents will once more be united fraternally before the common class enemy.

‘The Stalinists in Bulgaria Use Violence against Oppositions in the Prisons’ by D. Gatcheff from The Militant. February 20, 1932.

We are bringing below the document of comrade D. Gatcheff, incarcerated in the Philipoppel Prison in Bulgaria, mentioned in the February 6th issue of The Militant. It speaks highly of the revolutionary quality of our Bulgarian comrades, whose splendid morale should serve as an example and as an inspiration to all Communists, and to the Left Oppositionists in particular.

To the District Attorney of the Phillipoppel Court, Petition of the Prisoner Dmitri M. Gatcheff, sentenced to long imprisonment, a member of the International Left Opposition under the leadership of the brave comrade Trotsky and Rakovsky, against G. Ognianoff, T. Nikoloff, Boris Dimitroff, etc.

Mr. District Attorney:

I should never have desired or tolerated your interference into our factional disputes. You are a representative of the power of the bourgeois class against which we are fighting and for which we want to substitute the power of the working class. We are a faction in the labor movement hostile to your class Justice and to your class itself of which you are one of the representatives. But in the moment in which my opponents of the other faction turn to you and demand justice from you, I am forced to bring the truth, in the first place, before the working class and then also to the attention of your tribunal. At any rate, the responsibility for this interference on the part of our class enemy into our internal disputes, rests upon my opponents.

For a long time there have been existing several factions within the labor movement; the Right the Centrist and the Left. Of late, the approach of decisive struggles between the classes has brought about an aggravation of the factional disputes.

The Left faction in Bulgaria, as it exists at present, came to the fore towards the end of 1928. The opponents of our faction, incapable of conducting an ideological struggle and of withstanding our tactics, resort to personal at tacks, provocation and threats, employing all the means unworthy of a revolutionist. They have more than once published all sorts of stupidities about us, for which they have never brought any proof. We have answered all these provocations in a firm and disciplined manner, by pursuing our course, the course of the Marxist Left Opposition.

They have threatened our friends that they would throw them out from the third floor windows of the Central Prison. They have spat into their plates to deprive them of the meagre nourishment granted by the class enemy. They have attempted to get two of our friends killed at the hands of paid assassins. (At the Haskovo Prison) they have crushed the skull of one of our friends. They have made attacks upon the lives of our friends in the prisons of Silven, Vidin, etc. They have stolen letters directed to us…That has become a system with them. They murder our friends in Russia, in the fatherland of the workers and pea sants. They imprison, they sentence to deportation Bolshevik-Leninists like Trotsky, Rakovsky, Muralov and others. They have shot upon our friends in China and elsewhere. I must emphasize that all these deeds have not been committed by the Communist party but by one of the factions and that is the Centrist faction, which is only a bureaucratic and paid apparatus, with Stalin as its head. They act without the knowledge or the desire of the Communist party and in this manner they stab a knife into its heart and into the heart of the working class.

Ever since my arrival here, these filthy affairs have also begun with regard to myself. I have more than once challenged them to make public their “accusations” and to counterpose the two points of view. They have always avoided this and have been continuing their attacks.

On the 11th of this month, after some similar quarrels and provocations, I met G. Ognianoff. I told him that they would remain cowards and rogues as long as they would not adopt an open declaration. Upon this, T. Nikoloff and G. Ognianoff almost simultaneously fell upon me with the cry, “Traitor!”. Nikoloff beat me with a stick over my head, Ognianoff struck me in the right eye with his first. This was the cause of the entire scuffle. The result was: One of our comrades. was wounded in the head, myself in my ear, and one other also on the head. On their side: Two wounded and several suffering lighter injuries. That is the whole truth, the rest is pure invention.

In No. 16 of the Russian Bulletin, comrade Trotsky, condemning the attack against members of the Left Opposition in Canton, states: “We will never employ terroristic methods in the factional struggles within the labor movement. It is the task of the Left Opposition to take special care with regard to this. Firmness, will power and discipline are indispensable!” Yes, we are fighting against the system of provocation, terrorism and cold blooded murder within our ranks. Can we also make use of this? No and never! We can never employ provocations, terrorism and murder against our comrades. But once we are attacked, we must defend ourselves for we are not dogs. Our factional opponents are at present playing in the role of the thief who cries: “Stop thief!” They are organizing more attacks. They are employing more provocation and they tell stories of threats and provocations coming from us. We declare that we shall answer all their threats and provocations as we have in the past, with firmness and discipline.

We shall not employ the same weapons as they do, and accuse them of being connected with the management of the prison, but we shall tell the working class that they are being tolerated by this management–and that when they raise their hands against us they are acting unconsciously as a tool of the bourgeoisie.

Stalin himself is unconsciously a tool of the Ramsins when he shoots Opposition fighters, when he exiles them, throws them into prison. And the Ramsims are the conscious instruments of French and international Imperialism. History also has its logic and that is the logic of the class struggle.

I protest not only against the situation, that my opponents remain “free” (i.e. they are in the regular prison), which permits them to hunt up witnesses and to continue the slanders against us–I protest against the fact that we, who have been wounded and beaten without any guilt on our part, are condemned to solitary confinement and subjected to an insufferable regime. Is it possible that for the necessary enjoyment of sun and air only 30 to 40 minutes are to be granted to us in the day?

I shall furnish you with sufficient evidence that the responsibility does not rest upon my shoulders without attempting to throw it on anyone else. The working class alone will judge who is really guilty and it is to it that I address myself. D. GATCHEFF