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| Title | World voices on the Moscow trials |
| Alternative Title | World voices on the Moscow trials: a compilation from the labor and liberal press of the world |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | Pioneer Publishers |
| Place of Creation (TGN) |
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| Date | 1936? |
| Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Extent | 64 pages: 1 illustration; 20 cm |
| Original Item Location | DK266.3.A45 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304404~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | In Copyright: This item is protected by copyright. Copyright to this resource is held by the creator or current rights holder, and the resource is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without permission of the copyright owner. Users assume full responsibility for any infringement of copyright or related rights. |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 46 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | uhlib_2774257_045.jpg |
| Transcript | 16 Friedrich Adler on Pritt The foregoing cable aroused a great deal of comment after it was published in London. Pritt followed it with a long article on September 3 also in the London News-Chronicle. Then he wrote a preface to a pamphlet on the Moscow Trial published by the "Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee." He later sent two letters to the Manchester Guardian which were published on September 21 and October 9. His most important statement is contained in a 3 9-page pamphlet entitled The Zinoviev Trial. In his pamphlet, The Witchcraft Trial in Moscow, Friedrich Adler gives an extensive criticism of Pritt's arguments. Since the essence of Pritt's point of view is contained in his first cable of August 27, we reprint only that dispatch and only those parts of Adler's criticism which pertain to it. We refer our readers to the several articles of Pritt and to the more extended criticisms in Adler's pamphlet. The first series of statements made by Pritt were bound to produce the greatest astonishment, since he drew all his conclusions solely from what the spectator sees in court and did not make the slightest reference to the fact that there might also be problems which lie behind the scenes—in the preliminary investigation. . . . Pritt untiringly repeats how "courteous" the President of the Court and the Public Prosecutor were in their treatment of the defendants. They are not interrupted even when they speak at great length. . . . These first statements of Pritt's are based upon the tactics of regarding the Moscow trial as if it had taken place before a normal English court. In England the stress in legal proceedings really is placed upon the main proceedings in open court; here everything must appear. Criminal procedure on the Continent is very different, but inquisitorial jurisdiction is positively the extreme opposite of an Englsh crminal trial. Here the stress is laid upon the preliminary investigation; at the proceedings in open court only the results of this investigation, the finished confessions, are made known. . . . Pritt's thesis is that if the defendants plead guilty, the court is not obliged to produce further proofs by documents or witnesses. The plea of guilty suffices as a basis for the verdict. . . . . . . The supporters of Leo Trotsky in Western Europe have set everything in motion in order to hold a "counter-trial to prove the innocence of Leo Trotsky and his supporters." We are so convinced that fictitious confessions formed the basis of the charge that the great expenditure of time and money necessary for arranging a counter-trial seems to us to be superfluous. . . . We feel obliged to ask him (Pritt) whether he would be willing to participate in the examination of a very easily verifiable complex of facts of decisive importance for the veracity value of the confessions, namely, the interrogation of Leon Sedov, Trotsky's son . . . whom the indictment 44 |