Telegram
from the ECCI Secretariat to Smeral and Herfurt in Paris demanding the
intensification of the propaganda campaign in connection with the Trotskyist
center trial.
[29 January 1937]
Rec[eived] 29/I 1000
To
Smeral,[i]
Herfurt[ii]
-- Paris
It
is necessary to intensify, in every way possible, the explanatory campaign in
connection with the trial. Influence systematically the Popular Front press.
React skillfully and opportunely to the campaigns of the enemy press. Pay
special attention to the "Committee of Aid to Political Prisoners"
and its Trotskyist-anarchist environment. Inform [us] regularly on the most
important stages of the campaign.
Secretariat.
RGASPI,
f. 495, op. 184, d. 23. Outgoing telegrams for 1937 to Paris, l. 108.
Telegram
in French, typewritten. Handwritten original (l. 108 ob.) written in Russian by
G. Dimitrov.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Bogumir Smeral (1880-1941). A member of the Czech Social Democratic Party in 1897-1920. One of the founders of the CPCz in 1921. In 1921-1929 and 1936-1941, he was a member of that party’s CC. He was a member of ECCI in 1922-1935, and of the ECCI Presidium in 1922-1931. In 1926-1929, he was a member of the ECCI Political Secretariat. Between 1935 and 1941, member of the ICC. In 1936-1938, he worked in Paris in the Universal Unification for Peace (Rassemblement universel la paix).
[ii] Herfurt (real name -- Willi Münzenberg) (1889-1940). A member of the CPG from its founding. In 1927-1938, member of the CC CPG. He was the organizer of the Workers’ International Relief (Mezhrabpom) and its many publications. After 1933, he worked in Paris as a publisher and coordinator of the Comintern’s Popular Front campaigns. In 1939, he was expelled from the CPG. In October 1940, Münzenberg’s body was found hung in a forest near the French town of St. Marcellin.