Dear Comrades,
Congratulations on the current issue of Red Weekly (14 August). The articles on Portugal are excellent. I do think, however, that it is just a little 'opportunist' to publish the extract from the History of the Russian Revolution as Trotsky's views on 'Press Freedom' and not his later article on the same subject.
After all, the situation in Russia in February 1917 was not exactly comparable to that in Portugal. There was an alternative to the Provisional Government in existence, the Soviets, fully representative of the Russian proletariat. Also, please note the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet closed up the monarchist press.
But this action by the Soviets, representatives of the whole working class, cannot be compared with the action taken by one tiny group of workers — the typographical workers in the Republica plant. The latter is an expression of syndicalism — which always appears to be more revolutionary than Marxism, but in fact turns into its opposite at the moment of crisis. It is very important that we fully understand this difference and do not blur the issues.
Apart from that, congratulations on a really fine issue. — GEORGE CUNVIN, London.