Turkish: Lev Trotskiy’in suikastle katledilmesinin 73. yıldönümü üzerine

Bugün Lev Trotskiy’in, Stalin'in bir ajanı tarafından suikastle katledilişinin 73. yıldönümü. Bu vesilesiyle, Trotskiy’in öldürülüşünü anmak için, aşağıda 1940 yılında Trotskist basında yer almış olan iki haberin görüntülerini yayımlıyoruz. İlk fotoğraf, Amerika’daki Sosyalist İşçi Partisi’nin gazetesi Socialist Appeal’de, 1940 yılının Mayıs ayında gerçekleştirilen ilk suikast girişiminden kısa bir süre sonra yayımlanmış olan bir haber manşetine ait. Meksikalı ünlü duvar ressamı David Alfaro Siqueiros'un katıldığı bu suikast girişimi, Trotskiy’in korumalarından biri olan Sheldon Harte’in kaçırılması ve öldürülmesiyle sonuçlanmış olsa da başarıya ulaşamadı. Bizzat Harte’ın bir Stalinist ajan olduğu yıllar sonra, bu operasyondan sorumlu GPU ajanı olan Leonid Eitingon tarafından ifşa edildi. Harte’in ajan olduğunu gösteren, aralarında bizzat Eitingon’a ait 1999 yılında yayımlanmış olan aşağıdaki alıntının da yer aldığı, bir dizi kaynak bulunmaktadır.

"Operasyon sırasında Sheldon’ın bir hain olduğu ortaya çıktı. Giriş kapısını açmış olmasına rağmen, odaya girildiğinde ne arşiv ne de Trotskiy’in kendisi oradaydı. Baskına katılanlar ateş açtıkları zaman Sheldon onlara bütün bunları biliyor olsaydım, bir Amerikalı olarak bu baskında yer almayı asla kabul etmezdim dedi. Bu davranışı, onun hemen orada ortadan kaldırılması kararının alınmasına neden oldu. Sheldon, Meksikalılar tarafından öldürüldü. "[1]

Daha yakın bir zamanda, Eitingon ailesinin bir üyesi ve London Review of Books’un editörü olan Mary Kay Wilmers tarafından yayımlanan, Eitingon ailesine ilişkin bir anı kitabı hem Harte’in oynadığı rolü hem de onun, kendi suçlarını örtbas etmek isteyen Stalinist ajanlar tarafından daha sonra öldürülmüş olduğunu teyit etmektedir. Wilmers, saldırıya katılmış olan KGB ajanı Yosif Griguleviç’in Harte’la ilgili şu sözlerini aktarıyor:

"Onunla ne yapacaktık? Sonuç olarak, onu gizlemek ve daha sonra yasadışı olarak Meksika’dan çıkarmak zorunda kalacaktık. Kısacası, sonu gelmeyen sorunlarla karşılaşacaktık! Kendinizi Siqueiros'un yerine koyun. Siqueiros, Moskova'ya, Bob Sheldon’ın kendilerine ihanet ettiğini belirten bir telgraf gönderdi ve bu nedenle onu boş bir dere yatağında vurdular. Moskova bize haini vurmamızı emretti. Biz de emri yerine getirdik."[2]

Socialist Appeal, 1 Haziran 1940

Sosyalist Appeal’de, Trotskiy’e 24 Mayıs’ta yapılan saldırının hemen ardından, 1 Haziran günü yayımlanan, Stalin Trotskiy’i Neden Öldürmek İstiyor? başlıklı makale şu cümlelerle sona eriyordu:

"Bu süper-mafyanın oluk oluk akıttığı kan, Kremlin’deki korku içindeki iblisin başına musallat olmuş olan bu heyulayı, Trotskiy ve Trotskizm heyulasını ortadan kaldıramamıştır ve kaldıramayacaktır.

Çünkü, Trotskiy, Ekim Devriminin yaşayan güçlerini ve onların diriliş vaadini temsil etmektedir.

Trotskiy’in sesi, dünyanın dört bir yanındaki milyonlarca ezilen emekçinin özgün sesidir.

Trotskiy’in bayrağı, emperyalist savaşın akıttığı kana bulanmış kıtaların üzerinde dalgalanması gereken ve dalgalanacak olan dünya işçi devriminin bayrağıdır.

Stalin ve onun silahlı haydutları buna karşı hüküm süremezler ve süremeyecekler.

Dördüncü Enternasyonal, Trotskiy’le ya da Trotskiy’siz, bütün kararlılığıyla bunun sözünü vermektedir.”

Ne var ki, 73 yıl önce bugün, Stalin’in emrettiği ve Beria, Sudoplatov ve Eitingon tarafından uygulamaya konulan komplo, en nihayetinde, ilk girişimin başarısızlığa uğramasından sadece üç ay sonra, Trotskiy’in hayatına son vermeyi başardı. Ancak bugün bir avuç patolojik tarikat dışında, herkes Stalin’i tarihteki en iğrenç kişilerden olarak hatırlıyor? Öte yandan Trotskiy’in hatırası çok sayıda insana ilham kaynağı olmaya devam ediyor. Bu, düşüncelerin kaba kuvvet karşısındaki zaferinin bir kanıtıdır.

Socialist Appeal’in 24 Ağustos 1940 tarihli sayısı

[1] Christopher Andrew ve Vasili Mitrokhin: The Sword and the Shield: - The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books), 1999, s.87-88

[2] The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story, Mary-Kay Wilmers, Verso, 2010, s. 304.

Alex Steiner

21 Ağustos 2013

On the 73rd Anniversary of the Assassination of Leon Trotsky

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky by an agent of Stalin.  We are publishing below images from the Trotskyist press of 1940 to mark the occasion.  The first is a headline from the newspaper of the American Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Appeal, shortly after the first attempted assassination in May of 1940.  That attempt, in which the famous Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros participated, was not successful although it did result in the kidnapping and murder of one of Trotsky's guards, Sheldon Harte.  Years later, it was revealed by Leonid Eitingon, the GPU agent in charge of the operation, that Harte himself was a Stalinist agent.  There are a number of sources for this, including the following quote from Eitingon himself, published in 1999,

"During the operation it was revealed that Sheldon was a traitor. Even though he opened the gate to the compound, once in the room there was found neither the archive, nor Trotsky himself. When the participants in the raid opened fire, Sheldon told them that, had he known all this, as an American he never would have agreed to participate in this raid. Such behavior served as the basis for deciding on the spot to liquidate him. He was killed by Mexicans." [1]

Most recently a memoir of the Eitingon family published by a member of that family, Mary Kay Wilmers, who is the editor of the London Review of Books, confirms both Harte's role and his subsequent murder by Stalinist agents seeking to cover up their crime.  She quotes another participant in the attack, KGB agent Iosif Grigulevich, who, speaking of Harte, said,

"What were we supposed to do with him?  After all, we would have had to hide him and then illegally take him out of Mexico. In a word, no end of trouble! Put yourself in Siqueiros's shoes.  He had telegrammed to Moscow that Bob Sheldon had betrayed them and that was why they shot into an empty bed.  Moscow ordered us to shoot the traitor.  Which is what we did." [2] 

Socialist Appeal, June 1, 1940

An article in the Socialist Appeal of June 1, immediately following the May 24 attack on Trotsky,  with the title Why Does Stalin Want to Kill Trotsky? concluded thus,

"All the blood that has been shed by this super-mafia has not succeeded and will not succeed in exorcising the specter that haunts the cowering demon in the Kremlin, the specter of Trotsky and of Trotskyism. 

For Trotsky represents the living forces of the October Revolution and the promise of their resurgence.

Trotsky's is the authentic voice of the millions of downtrodden toilers throughout the world.

Trotsky's is the banner of the world worker's revolution that must and shall be unfurled across continents drenched in the blood of imperialist war.

Against these Stalin and his gunmen cannot and will not prevail.

To this, the Fourth International, with Trotsky and after Trotsky, stands firmly pledged."

Yet it was on this day 73 years ago, that the conspiracy authored by Stalin and carried out by Beria, Sudoplatov and Eitingon finally succeeded in ending Trotsky's life, just three months after the initial attempt failed.  But who now remembers Stalin as anything other than one of the most heinous individuals in history, other than a tiny number of pathological cultists?    The memory of Trotsky on the other hand remains an inspiration to many.  It is a testament to the triumph of ideas over brute force.

Socialist Appeal issue of Aug. 24, 1940

[1] Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin: The Sword and the Shield: - The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books), 1999, p.87-88

[2] The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story, Mary-Kay Wilmers, Verso, 2010, p. 304.

Alex Steiner
August 21, 2013

Defend Savas Michael Matsas against the Golden Dawn fascists!

Note:
We are reprinting below a translation of a press release about the upcoming trial   of Savas Michael Matsas, a long time leader of the Workers Revolutionary Party of Greece (EEK).  We urge all left and labor groups in Greece and internationally to express their solidarity with Savas Michael and oppose the vicious attempt to silence the voice of anti-fascists and socialists in Greece.  It is obvious that this case, initiated by the Golden Dawn fascists,  would never have gone to trial without the complicity of the right wing Samaras government and their "left" allies in the coalition.              

Savas Michael Matsas

A trial organized by the Nazi “Golden Dawn” in Greece

                    Savas Matsas, a Greek Jewish Marxist intellectual, and Secretary General of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece, will go on trial on September 3, 2013. He is being accused of “defamation” against the Greek openly Nazi party, the infamous “Golden Dawn”, for “instigation of violence and chaos” and “disruption of the civil peace” because, four years ago, in May 2009, the EEK issued a leaflet calling for participation in an antifascist demonstration protesting against a murderous attack by the Nazis against the immigrant communities in Athens that was made possible through the covert assistance of the local police in Greece.

         The events leading up to this trial are noteworthy enough to be described in more detail.

         In December 2008, an important youth revolt had shaken the entire country following the murder of a 15 years old adolescent, Alexandros Grigoropoulos by two police guards. The revolt continued for nearly two months, in what Dominique Strauss Kahn, head of the IMF at that time, had rightly described as “the first political explosion of the current world financial-economic crisis”. In the spring and summer 2009, the right wing Karamanlis government had launched a counter-offensive  to check the social unrest by organizing continuous pogroms by the police  assisted by the Nazi “Golden dawn”( then still a marginal far right  extremist group) targeting the immigrant communities  and the left. In the December 2008 revolt the immigrant workers played a rather secondary if not a marginal role in the events, with one great exception: during the revolt, on Christmas eve in 2008, a gang of thugs hired by the bosses – and never punished to this day – attacked a Bulgarian immigrant with acid, resulting in serious injuries to the woman, Konstantina Kuneva. She was apparently singled out for being an active trade unionist. Kuneva went on to become a symbol of the revolt and of the unity of all workers regardless of their national or ethnic origin. 

      It is not an accident that other female trade-unionists coming from abroad, like the Polish Monika Karbowska, were targeted later in 2009, arrested and made the subject of show trials.

        The police pogroms against immigrants reached a climax in the spring of 2009, in Athens, in the neighbourhood of Aghios Panteleimonas, where the “Golden Dawn” murder squads terrorised immigrants with the protection and collaboration of the local police. Left organizations had called for anti-fascist demonstrations. The EEK joined this mobilization and issued a leaflet calling for mass participation.  The leaflet signed by the EEK as a party was also published in the party newspaper NEA PROOPTIKI and featured on the party’s web site. This is the “crime” for which the General Secretary of the EEK is accused and put on trial.

      In May 2009, leading members of  the ‘Golden Dawn”, including Ilias  Panagiotaros, now a member of the Greek Parliament, and Themis Skordeli - a woman with shadowy connections to the underworld, accused of a murderous attack on an Afghan immigrant but who to this day has never been brought to trial - initiated a lawsuit against the entire spectrum of the Greek left, from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and SYRIZA to the extra-parliamentary left, ANTARSYA and EEK, all the immigrant associations, and independent personalities like the Dean of the National Technical University of Athens Constantinos Moutzouris.  The charge against Moutzouris was that he allowed an alternative web site, Athens.Indymedia, to broadcast from space on the campus.

      The lawsuit remained in limbo until late 2012, after the Greek elections of May and June 2012, when, the Golden Dawn was catapulted to Parliament from the margins of political life and the shadows of the State repressive apparatus. In November 2012, at the day celebrated nationally  for decades now as the  anniversary of the  1973 youth revolt in Athens National Technical University (the “Polytechnic”) against the military dictatorship of the colonels, the Greek Police, after  receiving orders from the judiciary,  began interrogations of all those accused in the Golden Dawn lawsuit of 2009. By June of 2013, from the dozens of the accused in the legal action of 2009, and interrogated in 2012, only Savas Michael(Sabetai) Matsas of the EEK was called to trial on September 3, 2013, together with the former Dean   C. Moutzouris.

       Simultaneously with this preposterous “legal” action, the Nazis have intensified a non-stop, vicious anti-Semitic and anti-communist campaign against the Secretary of the EEK, accusing him of being “an instrument of the World Jewish Conspiracy to foment civil war among Greeks to impose a Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece”.  Pictures of Savas Michael are presented combined with anti-Semitic insults and open death threats: “Destroy the Jewish vermin!”

       Although there is a powerful wave of solidarity for Savas Michael both in Greece and internationally, including the support of many Jewish people, the “official” leadership of the Greek Jewish community, the Central Israelite Council of Greece(KISE) has so far refused to make the slightest public statement on this vicious attack on a Greek Jew. The reason is obvious: they disagree with his political views. Even more sinister, the current Chairman of KISE, in a recent interview in the Jerusalem Post, defended the credentials of Adonis Georgiadis,  a vicious anti-Semite and  a fascist well known in Greece, who after being for years a leading member of the far right LAOS party, has jumped to the right wing New Democracy party and became a minister of Health in the Samaras government (where other notorious fascists are included: like Makis Voridis, personal friend of Jean Marie Le Pen and former  leader of the youth organization of the dictator Papadopoulos)! The “Judenrat” mentality and practices did not finish with the Third Reich.

       On August 29, a press conference is scheduled in the headquarters of the Union of Journalists in Athens (ESHEA) to present the facts behind this case, the political implications of this trial, and the solidarity campaign  that is gaining an increasing hearing throughout the world.

                                                                       August 2, 2013