Writers' Trial — Controversy Continues in Morning Star

The discussion .in the Cormunist Party's daily paper, the Morning Star, which was sparked off by an editorial criticising the way the Soviet authorities handled the writers' trial, has continued, Several points of interest have arisen, It would appear that the editorial represented a thought-out line taken by the leadership of the Co: munist Party. This is indicated by the fact that well-known Communist Party writers such as Maurice Dobb (one of the party's main philosophers) and Margot Heineman, are pitchine in on the side of the editorial. Of special significance is the letter by John Hostettler, one of the party's main legal experts, in which he rakes a systematic exaninetion of hcw the Sovict authorities have broken the USSR's legal procedures in the conduct of the trial. (Editorial note: because of its special interest we have reproduced Mr. Hostettler's letter). Mr. Hostettler is no oppositionist -— at the last party congress he was elected to be in charge of the appeals machinery of the CPGB, a post alweys reserved for the loyalest of the loys. The discussion has widened out to include theore tical auestions and the thorny problem of socialists' attitude towards the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union itself, Chris Chapman, of Sheffield, raises the point that because the Soviet Union has been in existence for 50 years "it should be possible for criticism of the Soviet Union to be published within that country without causing any effect on the stability of the state." Several writers point out that it is wrong to assume that the writers had connections with the CIA and NTS just because the Soviet authorities claim this to be so, In an extremely interesting letter, Brian Blain, of North London, replying to a point made by a Corrunist Councillor in South Wales, Bill Waters, dismisses the idea that the Central Committee of the CPSU would prevent injustices happening. He adds:"They certainly haven't in the past, and the international Cormunist movement is still paying a heavy price in disunity of the Left for those terrible years of the '30s and '40s." He concludes: "Surely the most obvious fact is that if there were real freedom of expression in the USSR, the ground would be cut completely from under the feet of the NTS and CIA..." Hyman Levy, who left the Cormunist Party in 1957 after the disclosures about the treatment of Soviet Jews, argues that the trial can only be explained "in the existence of an internal struerld....between those seeking to retain intact the apparatus of internal power that was deemed necessary at the earlier stage of Soviet strugple and those who...are strivine to replace the outdated apparatus, and its outdated bureaucracy, by one capable of expressing the new socialist freedom," Charles Swain, of Cardiff, seeks a "principled theoretical basis for the assertions made on either side." He notes that the "withering away of the state idea of Marx and Engels dcesn't seem to be starting, and no provision for any expression of political opposition, either now or in any prograrme for the future, seems to occur to the leaders of the USSR," By contrast, those defeddine the Soviet Union's leaders, rerely reiterate that the Morning Star is helping reaction by criticidne the Soviet Union, It is strange that the leaders of the CPGB are now havinr levelled at their head the very charge that they made arainst those «ho stood out against the Moscow trials. There is an important lesson here.