"Ogonyok" denounces Trotsky-Bukharinite "murderers, spies, and wreckers" (1938).

THE SOVIET PEOPLE WILL NOT FORGIVE NOR FORGET THE BLOODY CRIMES OF THE BAND OF FASCIST KILLERS, SPIES AND WRECKERS
Ogonyok

Russkij tekst (original Russian text).

Translation copyright © 2001 by P.K. Volkov and the Cyber-USSR
first posted y10815
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A wave of popular anger and profound outrage engulfed the entire Soviet people when they found out about the monstrous crimes carried out by the “Right-Trostkyite bloc,” a group of filthy and cowardly fascist conspirators, spies, murderers and provocateurs. In all their voracious aspect, the heinous degenerates appear before the court of the people, accomplices of the fiend Trotsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda and other plotters of the “Right-Trotskyite bloc.”

This pack of bloody dogs wished to steal from the Soviet people all that they had achieved through decades of persistent and heroic struggle. These traitors to the Motherland wanted to dismember the Soviet country and sell it piecemeal to imperialist invaders. In a treasonable conspiracy with bourgeois nationalists, Trotskyite-Bukharinist traitors planned the forcible separation from the USSR of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Central Asian Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the coastal regions of the Far East. Acting according to plans, broadly conceived and worked out by the war offices of several foreign governments, the “Right-Trotskyite bloc” of fascist killers carried out their spying, wrecking, sabotage and terrorist activities in order to undermine the strength of our country, to call forth a military attack by imperialist aggressors against the USSR, and organize the defeat of the Red Army in the event of such an attack. They wanted to return the workers and peasants to the abhorrent past, to enslave the peoples of the USSR, to restore capitalism, to return the land to the landowners, the plants and factories to the capitalists -- such is the odious program of the Trotsky-Bukharinite fascist hirelings.

The trial of the “Right-Trotskyite bloc” raised the curtain that hid many of the counterrevolutionary crimes of Bukharin and Trotsky, perpetrated by them even in 1918, immediately after the October Revolution. To disrupt the peace of Brest, to overthrow the Soviet government, to arrest and kill Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov – such was the unspeakably monstrous plan of Bukharin and Trotsky dating from even the first months' existence of Soviet power.

In subsequent years, the Trotskyites and Bukharinists, remaining faithful to their counterrevolutionary aims, with savage hatred tried to thwart the building of socialism. It has been established by investigation that Trotsky has been a spy for one foreign intelligence service since 1921 and another since 1926. Several of the defendants were agents and provocateurs of the Tsarist secret police.

All the despicable activity of the Trotskyite-Bukharinists from beginning to end consists of a chain of monstrous betrayals and perfidy. They encroached on the peaceful labor of the workers, the peasants, the intellectuals; they encroached on the happiness and joy of our children. They wanted to turn our Soviet people into slaves of Capital.

The degenerates, killers, and spies miscalculated. The fearless, keen-eyed Soviet intelligence service, led by Stalinist Peoples’ Commissar N.I. Yezhov, spoiled all their plans, all the machinations of Trotsky, Bukharin, Rykov and their capitalist bosses, and unmasked the band of hired fascist killers and spies.

To betray the Motherland, to kill Kirov, to murder Gorky, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, to sell out to the fascists, to plot the murder of Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov – what a despicable perversion of human nature! Kirov, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev and dozens of selfless fighters for Communism – workers, Stakhanovites, and Red Army soldiers were killed by the sworn enemies of the working class. The enemies dared to murder the great Russian writer, the genius of word-painting, the ardent fighter for Communism Alexei Maximovich Gorky. They murdered this great writer and humanist because he loved the toiling masses and was devoted to his own class, to the Soviet people, to whom he committed his entire wonderful life.

The killers were caught red-handed. Fascism suffered yet another defeat. The exposure of the plot of the “Right-Trotskyite bloc” inflicts a severe blow on world fascism.

The enemies were unable to undermine the power of the Soviet government. The people, the party of Lenin and Stalin built a socialist society, a joyful creation, a prosperous life. The country’s well-being grows stronger. The combat effectiveness of the Worker-Peasant Red Army and the Soviet intelligence service are unshakable. Great is the anger of the Soviet people. Boundless is their hatred for the filthy killers, provocateurs and spies.

“If the enemy does not surrender, he will be destroyed.” – these words of Alexei Maximovich Gorky speak straight to our hearts. In the socialist homeland, on the hallowed Soviet land, as among all decent people in the world, there will be no place for the despicable reptiles, spies, saboteurs, those who encroach on the happiness and joy of the people, those who make an attempt on the freedom and independence of the great socialist country.

The Soviet court renders its verdict in the name of all the people. The scoundrels will get their just deserts. The entire Soviet people will rally even more closely around the party of Lenin and Stalin, and, without mercy, sweeping off the face of the earth the degenerates of the human race, and will continue its victorious progress forward to the bright future, to communism.