[Militant No. 345, 4th March 1977, p. 9]
Dear Comrade
May I enjoy once more the courtesy of your columns for a quick off-the-cuff reply to Lynn Walsh’s criticisms in his article “Trotsky and the Chinese Revolution 1925-27”, which I have just read in your current issue?
Obviously this line of argument will get us nowehere. The onus is on those alleging the affiliation of the KMT to the Comintern to provide independent confirmation of it – and this they cannot do. An examination of Lynn’s secondary sources – e.g. Degras (of Chatham House), Brandt (of St Antony’s) and Trotsky’s great biographer Isaac Deutscher – in this connection shows that they simply paraphrase Trotsky’s version without offering any independent confirmation. Deutscher, in an unusual slip, even adduces from Trotsky’s remarks that Chiang Kai-shek was actually a member of the Comintern Executive (“The Prophet Unarmed”, p. 360), which ‘Militant’ (December 17) was “prepared to admit” was never the case.
I hope that ‘Militant’ readers will read my Cogito article for themselves, alongside your subsequent material in ‘Militant’ and ‘Militant International Review’, as well as going back to the original sources, so that they can make up their own minds in the most informed way whether I am guilty of still unspecified “fabrications” (i.e. lies made up by me) for which I should pay the £5 forfeit that you claim for your Fighting Fund.
Yours fraternally
Monty Johnstone
British Communist Party
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