Leon Trotsky: Letter to Jan Frankel

December 24, 1935

[Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 14, New York 1979, p. 630 f., title: “Letters About Anton Ciliga”]

Dear Friend:

As I have already written to the new arrival [Ciliga], it is absolutely necessary to build a broad-based organization to help revolutionaries imprisoned in the USSR. Couldn’t we interest Willi Schlamm in chairing such a committee in Prague? Perhaps there are also other candidates? For the Bolshevik-Leninists, perhaps Weiss, as a former provincial deputy, could participate. It is a matter of winning over a few “representative” figures who have connections with the democratic press. At the same time, similar work should be carried out in Paris. It goes without saying that the initiative should be transmitted to all other countries immediately. It is of the highest importance to make a correct start, so that the thing does not appear as a factional maneuver.

Comradely greetings,

L. Trotsky