New book now available!
1989 1989-11Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 6 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 6
had fought to get the Central Committee to grant this permission. Nevertheless, the Central Committee refused this permission, and my father was left in an impossible situation.
At that time he was working on the Concessions Committee. This was for foreign economic concessions in the Soviet economy. Trotsky was the chairman of that committee and my father the deputy chairman. He was giving lectures at Moscow University at the same time he was working as deputy chairman. But when he was not allowed to go for treatment and the illness was becoming worse, he was left in an impossible position and he could not even rise from the bed.
He was an extremely courageous man, and if he had felt that there was any hope that he could recover and re-enter the political fight, he would have done so. But he did not have any such hope. He understood this both as a political person and as a physician. He had been educated and trained as a physician.
On Nov. 16, 1927, he ended his life by suicide. He left a letter addressed to Trotsky. It's a major political document, and there he explained the reasons for his action. He asked that his action be seen not as a weakness, not as giving in, but as the only act of political protest left to a person placed in this impossible situation. The GPU [Stalin's secret police] stole this letter. Over the course of two full days the GPU refused to give the letter back to my family and to Trotsky.
When rumors and talk about this letter circulated throughout Moscow, reaching even the ears of foreign correspondents, they handed over a photocopy of the letter to Rakovsky. And so none of us were ever able to see the original letter.
The funeral for my father turned into a maAncollection of essays in dejense of socialist democrac Edited by Ceilinamore Essays by Nolkov Pierre Broue Susanne soon, Nan Wenstein. Paul Siegel, Raph Hanute bigniew Kowalewski, Gerry Foley, Hayden Perry Md Carl Finchor To order, send $9.95 (includes handling) to Walnut Publishing Rm. 308, San Francisce $1 for Co., 3. , CA 9 Walnut Publishing new book "Gorbacher's USSR: Is Stalinisn Dead" (208 pages with photos) analyzes current events in the Sovie Union against the backdrop of the struggle for socialist democracy waged by Leon Trotsky and his supporters against Josef Stalin in the 1920s and '30s.
postage 135 Arm ·110.
----- pull-quotes -----
Gorbachev's USSRI Is- Stallinism Dead?