Avenida Londres 127
Coyoacán, D. F.
Mexico
21 May 1937
Dear Comrade Sumner,
I am sincerely grateful to you for your friendly and very informative letter. I can very well understand the obstacles you have to overcome, but it is beyond doubt that every new month will see the situation change in your favour. The only difficulty was to begin the investigation; now the truth will reveal itself almost as automatically as a natural force. All these ladies and gentlemen, including such political old wives as Brailsford and Fenner Brockway, will soon notice that the ground is becoming hot under them, and they will try to join the camp of the truth to avoid being definitely compromised. We can, openly and with full assurance, predict our victory over the masters of frame-up and their agents of the first and second degrees. The shift which is now occurring in the United States will undoubtedly influence your situation in England favourably.
Please transmit my respectful greetings to your mother and my best wishes to all our friends in England.
Fraternally yours,
Leon Trotsky
* * *
15 April 1938
Dear Comrade Sumner,
I haven’t written you for a long time but you understand the reasons. We received your cable and your letter and both Natalia and I warmly appreciate your friendly feelings…
I don’t know whether you have been informed about the trip of Comrade Cannon to Europe and in the first line to London. It is possible that Comrade Shachtman will also go with Cannon. I ascribe great importance to this trip especially for things in England. Cannon and Shachtman are our best comrades in the States, with a wide outlook and with serious organisational experience. One of their tasks is to meet all the English groups who belong or wish to belong to the Fourth International and to try to normalise the situation among these groups in order to help the crystallisation of a genuine British section of the Fourth International. I hope that you and your group will give Cannon and Shachtman your full cooperation in their task.
I doubt that they can remain in London for more than a week, possibly less. It is absolutely necessary to use this time as well as possible. The best procedure it seems to me would be to enter now into connection with the other groups and even to establish a technical committee with the purpose of arranging the meeting of the American friends with each of the British groups separately, and then with all of them together. You will surely receive in time a communication specifying the precise day of arrival of the American friends in London. I should be very glad to have a note from you about the preparation for the discussions with C and S and also later about the results of these discussions.
I receive your publications. Thanks. But I write today only on the ‘C-S’ trip. Best greetings from Natalia and me to you and all friends.
Yours fraternally,
Trotsky
Coyoacán, D. F.
LT: joe 61-18
—
P. S. – I have received a letter from Frank Maitland in the name of the ‘Revolutionary Socialist Party’. He wished to publish my article upon Spain as a pamphlet and is ready to do it in cooperation with one of our British groups. The evolution of his party, he writes me, is totally in the direction of the Fourth International. Are you in connection with them? I am writing to Maitland today.
* * *
29 June 1938
Dear Comrade Sumner,
I received your edition of my Spain pamphlet with your excellent introduction. It was really a good revolutionary idea to create one’s own printing shop.
We received Leon’s letter to you which turned out to be his last letter. I don’t remember whether I answered you at that time. Natalia was very touched by your attention.
I wrote you about Cannon’s and Shachtman’s trip to Europe and especially to England and the plans connected with this trip. Did you receive this letter? You never answered me on this matter.
My warmest greetings to you and to your friends.
Endnotes
[1] The following three letters were written by Trotsky to Hilary Sumner-Boyd, the then secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist League. The third of these letters (29 June 1938) was thought to be missing until it was rediscovered in May 2018. In this letter, Trotsky mentions receiving an English edition of his pamphlet on Spain and praises the accompanying introduction. This introduction was written by Ralph Lee and Ted Grant, leading members of the Workers’ International League, a predecessor organisation to the International Marxist Tendency. Whilst the first two letters were published in Trotsky’s Works, the third one never appeared. It was clearly suppressed by the leaders of the US Socialist Workers Party, especially James Cannon, for factional reasons. For a full explanation and for Grant’s introduction see Lessons of Spain, International Marxist Tendency, 2019.