[104-10173-10134.pdf — page 134]
- 5 -Nevertheless, abruptly in January of this year you forced an ultimatum upon me and subsequently forced the break in our relationship because I could not and would not, at your demand, devote the China Forum to policies which I could not and do not believe compatible with the interests of the Chinese revolution and the international proletarian revolution. I could not, at your demand, set aside the convictions to which I had literally been driven by the stinging lash of catastrophic events in China, Germany and the world over. Particularly my deep interest in Chinese events during the last three years made it impossible for me, finally, to give active support to policies and tactics whose disastrous effects were being a thousandfold confirmed for me by the tragic events of every swiftly-passing day. I could not ignore questions which strike at the roots of our work and the whole structure of our hopes for a revolutionary future.Despite the fact that these questions are rocking the entire International today, you denied my right to raise them in print. You demanded more. You demanded that I attack anybody who did so - primarily the people you call "counter-revolutionary Trotskyists" - the only people who are facing these problems today in a fearless revolutionary way! You demanded that the China Forum become a stereotype for the policies and vulgar factional slanders which I could neither then nor now be party to.In reply to my questions on China you simply quoted back at me the lies and half-lies I've been so used to reading in Inprecorr. You even declared: "For propaganda purposes a certain amount of exaggeration is necessary...." and went, on amazingly to say: "but we know the ture facts and we base our policies on them, not on these exaggerations!" A new slant on modern-day C.I. tactics! Facts, you say are curious things. They have to be turned around and around and arcund, and examined closely until their true nature becomes apparent. The trouble is you turn them so far and so quickly that they turn into something like a dizzily turning top of fancy - or at best wish-fulfilling misrepresentations!To my questione on Germany you quoted Heckert, Platritsky and the B.C.C.I.'s famous resolution declaring that the collapse of the German party and the slaughter of the German workers were based on the past, present and future correct policies of the C.P.C.! You declared I had no right to offer critical comment on the dangerously opportunistic foreign and domestic policies of the U.S.S.R. most notably on the entry of the U.S.S.R, on a straight nationalist basis into the disgusting corridors of imperialist intrigue. To the contrary, I was livingly, fawningly to foudle and hail the policies which have meant disaster in China, Germany and elsewhere and are rapidly loading the U.S.S.R. into the vacuum of nationalist isolation from the world-wide proletarian movement! This I was to do, to begin with, by publishing Stalin's face on the front page and columne of the customary penegyrice to his infallibility. Above all and before all, I was to take up cudgele against "counter-revolutionary Trotskyism". That was to be the main point of my reformation - to raise no questions myself and slander anybody else who did so.In reply to your demand that I submit to an editorial board in order that these editorial policies should be effectively put into practise, I offered (1) to continue publication strictly as before, meanwhile arguing out my differences with you in discussions on the side: (2) to throw the columne of the Forum open to a general discussion