Clear the accused in the Moscow Trials
1987 1987-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 13 →
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The following statement demanding that the names of the accused in the Moscow Trials be cleared was published in England earlier this year. Socialist Action, together with other organizations in the United States and Canada, is gathering signatures of prominent personalities to add to the list.
The signature campaign, which is expected to get underway in the coming months, has already produced the following names: Milton Wolpin, Ralph Schoenman, Mya Shone, Susan Weissman (U.S.); Carl Birchard, John Boyd, Ross Dowson, Cy Gonick, Harry Kopyto, Norman Penner, Rick Salutin, and Jesse Vorst (Canada).
If you'd like to add your name to this statement please contact Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110; or the Moscow Trials Campaign, 46, Princes Way, London, SW19. Financial support to help promote this appeal should be sent direcily to the Campaign in England.
It is now over 50 years since the infamous Moscow Show Trials. It is astounding that at a time when the Soviet government is at pains to emphasize its concern with "human rights" and proclaims the need for glasnost (openness), the accused in these trials, with a few exceptions, are still considered guilty of being paid agents of Nazism, and other crimes.
Among these men were numbered several who played outstanding roles in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The reputations of founders of the Soviet state like Zinoviev, Radek, Trotsky, and Bukharin were besmirched or expunged from the history books.
Today, no one doubts that the "confessions" at the trials-the sole basis for the prosecution—were utterly false. Seven defendants in the third trial, Krestinsky and others, have been both judicially rehabilitated and politically exonerated. So have the military leaders, Tukhachevsky and others, whose military trial in 1937 was held in secret. But the admittedly false evidence against these men was inseparable from the charges against all the other accused.
None of the accused, of course, is alive today. Many were executed immediately after their trials. Others died in prison or camps. Leon Trotsky, the chief accused in all three of the trials, was murdered in exile in 1940. restored, their families compensated, and their graves marked.
Signed by: Tariq Ali; Sydney Bidwell, member of Parliament/MP; Paul Boateng; Sam Bornstein; Fenner Brockway; Raymond Challinor; Jeremy Corbyn, MP; Terry Davis, MP; Meghnad Desai; Tamara Deutscher; Linda Douglas; Peter Fryer; Mildred Gordon; Reg Groves; Eric Heffer, MP; Tom Kemp; Walter Kendall; George Krasso; Eddie Loyden, MP; Oliver MacDonald; lan Mikardo, MP; Stan Newens, MP; Brian Pearce; Felix Pirani; Al Richardson; Frank Ridley; Cyril Smith; Harry Wicks; David Winnick, MP; Charlie van Gelderen.