I've read Com. Ermler's screenplay (The Great Citizen). It is indisputably well put together politically. Its literary merits are also indisputable.

There are errors, however.

The struggle between the two programs, the two aims, should be the screenplay's center and high point: one program is for the victory of socialism in the USSR, the elimination of all remnants of capitalism, the independence and territorial integrity of the USSR, antifascism and rapprochement with nonfascist states against the fascist states and against war, for the policy of peace; the other program is for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and the undoing of the socialist achievements, against the independence of the USSR and for the dismemberment of the USSR for the benefit of the fascist states, for rapprochement with the most powerful fascist states against the interests of the working class and to the detriment of the interests of the nonfascist states, for the exacerbation of the military threat and against the policy of peace.

The situation must be presented in such a way that the struggle between the Trotskyites and the Soviet government looks not like a struggle for power between two coteries, of which one “is lucky” in this struggle and the other is “unlucky,” which would be a crude distortion of reality, but as a struggle between two programs, the first of which corresponds to the interests of the Revolution and is supported by the people and the second contradicts the interests of the revolution and is rejected by the people.

However, it follows from this that the screenplay will have to be redone, making it more contemporary in its content, reflecting all the main things that were revealed by the Piatakov-Radek trial.