Published: Socialist Appeal, Vol. II No. 12, 19 March 1938, p. 2.
Source: PDF supplied by the Riazanov Library Project.
Transcription/Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: This work is in the under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists’ Internet Archive/Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors, translators, proofreaders etc. above.
March 9, 1938
Mr. Bruce Bliven,
Editor,
The New Republic
Dear Sir:
I received your letter of February 24 after an absence from the city.
I did not ask you to reveal the source of any confidential information. I asked you to give the names of those Trotskyists who are alleged to have furnished affidavits to aid the deportation of Harry Bridges. Do you have such names? If so, let us have them please.
I assure you that we are deeply interested in this question and we intend to follow it up to the end. If some provocateurs have penetrated our organization, we want to know who they are so that we can get rid of them. You have made the accusation. We want you to tell us who they are.
I haven’t the slightest doubt that you will fail to make good on this second challenge. Your contemptible slander in your issue of February 23 had no basis in fact. You are now trying to cover yourself up by reference to “confidential source of information.”
In your letter of February 24 you protest against the reference to the New Republic as an organ of Stalinism. My dear Mr. Bliven, your rotten and cowardly conduct in this case is Stalinism.
|
|
Sincerely, |
Last updated on 18 April 2015