Document

A few days ago, the OGPU arrested an illegal Trotskyist organization for anti-Soviet activity. 150 people were arrested, including: Mdivani, Pankratov, Globus, Drobnis, Kavtaradze, Voronsky, Gaevsky, Grinshtein and others. During a search, anti-Soviet illegal literature was confiscated. The arrested people, as elements hostile to the proletarian dictatorship, are subject to strict isolation.

Comment:

L. D. Trotsky recorded brief remarks about this article as he was being deported to exile in Turkey. He noted: "... we learned of new arrests -- of several hundred people, including a hundred and fifty members of a so-called 'Trotskyist center.' Among the published names were those of Kavtaradze, former chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia; Mdivani, the former trade representative in Paris; Voronsky, the party's best literary critic; and Drobnis, one of the most heroic figures of the Ukrainian revolution. All of them were central figures in the party, men who helped organize the October Revolution."