Greetings to People's Front Conference

Scan page 11

12 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1989 On March 11-12, the delegation of U.S. Trotskyists who traveled to Moscow attended the founding conference of the Moscow People's Front, the largest unofficial political group in that city.

Greetings to this conference were presented on behalf of Socialist Action and the delegation itself. The following are excerpts from these greetings.

GREETINGS FROM SOCIALIST ACTION We come here today to present congratulations and warmest fraternal greetings from Socialist Action in North America to you, our comrades of the People's Front of the Soviet Union on the occasion of your founding Congress.

Socialism, as a vision of justice and the most complete workers' democracy, has suffered incalculable harm at the hands of Stalin and the bureaucratic dictatorship he imposed on the peoples of the Soviet Union.

It is not just the blood of countless millions of people and the physical liquidation of the Bolshevik leaders which has stained the revolution. It is the false association of socialism with autocracy, privilege, corruption, crude chauvinism, and open sabotage of self-determination for oppressed nations within the Soviet Union.

There is an awesome responsibility to restore socialist democracy, workers' control of production, freedom for ideas, and democratic control of planning by working people in their factories, farms, and social institutions and in all elected bodies.

Now as in the past this is an international task. We in North America salute you and offer full participation and solidarity in our common struggle.

GREETINGS FROM THE DELEGATION We come to Moscow on behalf of the families of Leon Trotsky and Victor Serge, two of the seminal figures of the 20th century. They have been honored throughout the world as men who have shaped the moral, intellectual, cultural, and political life of our era....

It was, however, the people of your country who produced them. The working people of Russia gave rise to these great men. Who then can deny that it is long overdue for Leon Trotsky and Victor Serge to be restored to the peoples of the Soviet Union to whom the belong?

We come here in the conviction that the day has arrived when working people in the Soviet Union will once again read, discuss, organize and, yes, fight openly for the ideas of these men, ideas forged in the furnace of revolutionary conviction. Leon Trotsky and Victor Serge. embody the never-ending battle against exploitation, oppression, political enslavement, and, under its infinite disguises, the rule of the lie.

Thus, comrades, we come to you on behalf of the families of two of your own great leaders whose ideas must be heard here, no matter the consequences for those who have usurped power. We call out for the restoration of their good name, for the recovery of their rightful role in your history•..• Thank you comrades for the warmth of your reception. We salute you on behalf of Leon Trotsky and Victor Serge, who embody the best of your past and who remain, we feel certain, not only an integral part of your present valiant struggle, but beacons of a glorious future.

MAY