I admit that I never heard of Mauritz Hallgren before, but are we to believe Wiki, he was a relatively well known journalist in the United States during the 1930's. A "liberal", he was a member of several Communist (Stalinist) front organizations. For some reason, he also joined the anti-Stalinist Trotsky Defense Committee, but resigned from it during the Moscow show trials.
This pamphlet, gleefully published by the American Communist Party, contains his letter of resignation. It's essentially a rehash of all the Stalinist arguments against Trotsky and the Trotskyists. The defendants in the Moscow trials must be guilty, why else would they confess their crimes? Trotsky's call for a new revolution in the Soviet Union is unrealistic, can only be carried out with the aid of foreign intervention, and thus plays into the hands of the Nazis. And why haven't Trotsky come up with any evidence for his innocence? After all, he had several weeks (sic) at his disposal! He could have used the Hearst press! Trotsky is therefore probably guilty, too.
Really?
I don't know much about Mr Hallgren, so I can't say whether he was an honest dupe, under pressure from his "comrades" or even a Stalinist plant. Many honest people, after all, were taken in by the "promise" of Soviet Communism around this time. Millions, actually. It's also obvious that Trotsky and his supporters often took impossible, sectarian positions (such as opposition to Roosevelt or political opposition to the Spanish People's Front).
Still, it's obvious in hindsight that Hallgren, perhaps, should have waited more than a couple of weeks for Trotsky, Felix Morrow and John Dewey to come up with their version of the story...
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