28 August 1936

1. It is essential to use the trial of the Trotskyist-Zinovievite terrorist gang for the political liquidation of Trotsky and Trotskyism as a fascist agency that, in capitalist countries, masking itself with radical phrases, disorganizes the workers' movement and, in the USSR, organizes terrorist acts against the leaders of the country of socialism. The bureau in Paris is to take leadership of this campaign in its hands, using the arrival of Communists from many countries to the Brussels Peace Congress.

The Brussels Peace Congress took place between 3 and 6 September 1936. It was organized in Paris by the International Bureau for the Preparation of the Congress for Universal Peace.

It is essential that Thorez and Pollitt instruct each of the groups of Communist delegates from different countries in Brussels on how to conduct this campaign.

2. It is essential to inform public opinion as broadly as possible about the results of the trial, which has indeed shown that:

a) Trotsky and Zinoviev, nourishing unrestrained hatred toward the party, lacking any ideological or political program to counterpose against the party, lacking any support among the masses, promoted terror as the only method of struggle against the party leadership. All of their counterrevolutionary, bandit activities were aimed at reaching personal, mercenary goals—to force their way to power at any cost;

b) Trotsky and his gang, mixed together with the Gestapo spies, subversives, and agents, were preparing attempts on the lives of com. Stalin and other outstanding leaders of the USSR;

c) they killed com. Kirov, treacherously hiding themselves behind the physical executor of this brutal act—Nikolaev;

d) they acted in concert with the Gestapo, i.e., German fascism, the worst enemy not only of the German but the working class of the whole world. They cultivated the practices of the fascist guards, who, as is well known, had eliminated all the Gestapo agents after the Reichstag fire;

The German Reichstag was set on fire on 27 February 1933. A former CP Holland member Marinus van der Lubbe was accused of setting the fire. Dimitrov was among those tried for complicity in the fire.

e) Trotsky's and Zinoviev's terrorist activity was closely linked to their goal of the USSR's defeat in case of aggression by the German and Japanese imperialists against it. They set for themselves the goal of contributing to the imperialists' victory over the workers and peasants of the USSR.

All this was proven and confirmed at the trial by the confessions of the accused in the presence of the representatives of the international press.

3. Along with this, Trotsky and his supporters are playing a role in wrecking the workers' movement in capitalist countries:

a) with their foul and dastardly campaign against the USSR, against the Bolshevik Party and its leaders, they are trying to undermine the trust of the international working class in the USSR and turn the masses toward the fierce enemies of the workers—the fascists;

b) they are the enemies of working-class unity, enemies of the rallying of the masses into a solid anti-fascist front. They disperse the workers' movement into small and minuscule groups trying to weaken the working class and facilitate the victory of fascism;

c) in Spain, their adventurist policies are pushing the revolutionary people toward defeat and are facilitating the intervention of German and Italian fascism;

d) wherever Trotskyism entered a mass workers' organization, it either attempted to destroy them or did destroy them from within (French Socialist Party,

The French Socialist Party was officially called the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO (French abbreviation). The party was created in 1905.

Belgian “Young Guard,” trade union organizations, as, for example, leftist teachers' union in France, etc.);

e) everywhere Trotskyists are mixed together with the police agents. This is the case in Greece, in China, where Trotskyists are serving the Japanese elements, in the countries of Latin America, etc. In Poland, the police reprint Trotsky's books in order to confuse the ranks of the workers' movement. In Norway, a few days before the trial, fascists staged a search of Trotsky's house in order to create the impression among the workers that Trotsky is the victim of fascist prosecution and thereby to help to keep him afloat politically.

It is no accident that the fascist press, “Volkischer Beobachter”

Volkischer Beobachter—newspaper of the Nazi party.

in particular, comes to Trotsky's defense, thus revealing once again his role as a zealous champion of the fascist plans;

f) having established, in the “underground,” connections with the secret agents of different countries, Trotsky openly contributes to the newspaper of the American fascist newspaper trust “Hearst,” which is the foulest disseminator of slander against the USSR and the workers' movement in the whole world;

g) Doriot, Trotsky's comrade in arms in France, is a rabid enemy of a united front with the Soviet Union. He fights for an alliance of Republican France with Germany. Since the dissolution of the Croix de Feu,

Croix de Feu (Cross of Fire) was the largest fascist group in France. It emerged in 1927 as an organization of veterans. In 1935 it was renamed the French Socialist Movement of the Cross of Fire. It was disbanded by a government decree of 18 June 1936.

he is organizing a new fascist party and creating militant fascist organizations.

4. The struggle against Trotsky and Trotskyism, the vanguard of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, which carries out the directives of fascism to penetrate the working masses, should be the cause not only of Communists but also Socialist parties, every worker organization, every democratic organization, every honest politician, struggling against fascism. The struggle against fascism [should read: Trotskyism] is an integral part of the anti-fascist struggle of the international proletariat.

“To defend base terrorists means to help fascism,” wrote com. Dimitrov. He who directly or indirectly defends Trotsky and his terrorist gang in fact serves German fascism and contributes to the realization of its plans, helps Generals Franco and Mola and other rebel generals in Spain, [and] is an enemy of the Spanish workers and peasants fighting fascism.

5. Based on com. Dimitrov's article “Defending Base Terrorists Means Helping Fascism,”

This article by G. Dimitrov was published in the August 1936 issue of the Kommunisticheskii Internatsional.

it is essential to repulse the reactionary leaders of the Second International,

Second International—International Union of Socialist Parties, formed in 1889. It almost ceased to exist after the outbreak of World War I but was recreated in 1919 as a union of Social Democratic parties. In 1923, after merging with the so-called Second and a Half International, it was reorganized as the Labor and Socialist International.

who, at the moment of the creation of the united front of the international proletariat around the heroic struggle of the Spanish people, are trying to undermine the unification movement with their defense of the terrorists.

Everywhere, Socialist workers who hate fascism and are ready to fight it approve of the verdict of the Soviet Union. The Spanish Socialist and Republican parties, which are carrying out an armed struggle against fascism, enthusiastically welcome the verdict [passed on] the Trotskyist-Zinovievite terrorist gang. The defense [of that gang] offered by the reactionary leaders of the Second International is a hostile demonstration against the USSR and international communism. When fascists in France attacked Blum,

On 13 February 1936 members of the Royal Youth and of the youth wing of the extreme right-wing movement Action Franćais attacked Léon Blum as he was driving home from the Parliament.

Communists of all countries came forward in Blum's defense against the fascist scoundrels. The reactionary leaders of the Second International are siding with the fascist scoundrels who killed com. Kirov and are prepared to assassinate com. Stalin, [who are] against the land of the Soviets, against com. Stalin and Kirov. Let workers judge the behavior of Communists and reactionary Socialist leaders by their deeds.

6. The campaign against Trotsky has to parallel the mobilization of the sympathies of the working masses toward the Soviet Union, the VKP(b), and the leader of the international proletariat, com. Stalin, who, because of his selfless service to the international working class, is so hated by the world bourgeoisie and its fascist agents. The international working class has to form a wall of steel around the USSR, to shield its great leader from the vile intrigues of the class enemy, to surround their Stalin with an impenetrable wall of love and self-sacrifice.

7. All of the activities of the Trotskyist agents revealed at the trial point to the necessity of raising Bolshevik vigilance in every area of struggle.

Trotskyists, following their teacher's example, are seeking to penetrate the ranks of Communist Parties and carry out their provocations from within.

Bolshevik vigilance in the selection of cadres, in particular to the leading organs, has to nip in the bud any possibility for activities by the agents of Trotskyism and those assisting them.