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Formal MD Thesis Requirement

All students at Yale School of Medicine engage in research and are required to write an MD thesis during medical school. The only exceptions are students who have earned a PhD degree in the health sciences before matriculation and students enrolled in Yale’s MD/PhD program. The YSM MD Thesis is under the governance of the EPCC, which meets regularly to recommend rules, regulations, and deadlines.

Deadlines/Important Dates

Thesis approval process, thesis awards, required formatting and components of the md thesis, examples for reference section formatting, avoiding the risk of copyright violation and liability when submitting your md thesis, instructions for submitting a thesis to the yale medicine thesis digital library, thesis depositors declaration form, evaluations of advisor, student evaluation of thesis advisor.

• Yale School of Medicine Digital Thesis Depositor’s Declaration Form
• Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form

Thesis Deadlines for the 2023-2024 Academic Year

Md students:.

The Office of Student Research, in conjunction with the Dean’s Office, has established the following deadlines for theses submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in May 2024. The deadlines ensure that (1) students have sufficient time to complete their theses; (2) that there is sufficient time for rigorous departmental review and subsequent revision by students before final approval. These deadlines are strictly followed. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their theses well before the Class of 2024 Thesis Deadlines provided below. This timeliness will provide students, advisors, and sponsoring departments sufficient time for useful review and revision. It should be recognized by all concerned that the integrity of the thesis requirement and effective, rigorous review requires adherence to these deadlines. OSR will hold periodic “Thesis Check-in Sessions” via zoom for the Class of 2024 and will send periodic reminder emails with more detailed instructions as these deadlines approach.

*Students missing the August 4th, January 19th, and/or March 29th deadlines will be referred to the Progress Committee to ensure they receive adequate support to make progress towards this graduation requirement. Students missing the January 19th and/or March 29th deadlines will be ineligible for thesis prizes at graduation.

Extensions beyond the above thesis deadlines will be granted only for special circumstances and must have the approval of the student’s thesis mentor/advisor, academic advisor, and the Departmental Thesis Chairperson . Students seeking an extension for the January 19, 2024, deadline must submit a Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form to their Academic Advisor, and the Departmental Thesis Chair, for approval. Students missing the August 4th, January 19th, and/or March 29th deadlines will be referred to the Progress Committee to ensure they receive adequate support to make progress towards this graduation requirement. In the event of an extension, if granted, the following ABSOLUTE Class of 2024 Thesis Extension Deadlines will apply:

*All late theses require an extension. The student must submit the Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form before January 19, 2024.

MD/MHS Students:

Consistent with degree requirements, MD/MHS students must present their thesis to their three-person committee prior to the January 19th deadline. Students are encouraged to start arranging the date of this committee meeting in the fall to avoid unanticipated delays.

MD/PhD Students:

A different process applies to students in the MD/PhD program. For students enrolled in the combined MD/PhD Program, the dissertation submitted to and approved by the Graduate School will satisfy the MD thesis requirement. Therefore, MD/PhD students who have already defended their dissertation and received their PhD should provide this information to OSR via email as soon as possible.

To ensure compliance with YSM graduation deadlines, MD/PhD students in the class of 2024 who have not defended and submitted their dissertation to the Graduate School by the October 1, 2023, deadline will need to submit a copy of their dissertation directly to OSR via the MD/PhD Box Upload Link by March 15, 2024. OSR will convene a committee to review the dissertation, obtain feedback, and provide approval for graduation. Please note that MD/PhD students must also defend and submit their dissertation to the Graduate School no later than March 15, 2024, to meet the Graduate School spring degree deadline for conferral of the PhD degree. MD/PhD students who have not yet defended their dissertation should provide this information to OSR. If there are any questions about the process, please contact the MD/PhD Office.

Financial support is not provided for writing the thesis.

Thesis Preparation and Approval

Preparation for thesis submission begins in the summer of the fourth year with the OSR leadership. At this time, timeline and practices are distributed via email and reviewed with students in class meetings. Because thesis approval is a lengthy process involving three levels of review, students are encouraged to manage their time well and start writing their first draft early in the fall semester of their final year of medical school. A suggested timeline is provided below.

July : Thesis deadlines are distributed via email to all students in the graduating class and an informational session is held. Students should be on track to complete their thesis research by mid-fall. Any student anticipating a challenge in this regard should contact the OSR as soon as possible. All students expecting to graduate in May of a given year must, provide the OSR with information regarding their thesis title and mentor/advisor. Students will receive an email from the OSR containing a Medtrics link requesting this information. The OSR will contact all thesis mentors/advisors to confirm this role and to provide information and expectations regarding the thesis process.

August – December : Students should be finalizing research and writing their thesis draft. As the semester progresses, activities should shift from the data generation/analysis to the writing of the actual thesis. Students should do their best to complete the first draft of the thesis by mid-late December. Because students are also involved in the residency application and interview process, they are discouraged from starting new projects at this time.

December – January : This period is devoted to reviewing and editing of thesis draft that is ultimately approved by their thesis mentor/advisor and submitted by the student to the Thesis Chair of their sponsoring department. The YSM thesis mentor/advisor will be asked to complete a thesis assessment that evaluates the student’s mastery of YSM’s research-related educational objectives and provides formative summative feedback to the student.

January – March : The Departmental Thesis Chair coordinates thesis review by external reviewers. An “external reviewer” is defined as an individual who is not directly involved in the project. This individual may be a Yale faculty member internal or external to YSM or may hold a faculty appointment at an outside institution. This reviewer is required to complete a thesis assessment and provide formative summative feedback, as well as recommendations for any required changes, to the thesis. Departmental Thesis Chairs review assessments, notify students of departmental approval, and transmit these approvals to the OSR.

March : Theses and their associated assessments undergo school-level review by the OSR. Students receive YSM approval of their thesis along with summative feedback obtained during the review process. Students incorporate any required changes into their thesis and upload to the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library/Eli Scholar via the ProQuest platform (see below).

April : The OSR confirms that theses have been deposited into the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library and the registrar receives the names of students who have completed the thesis requirement.

The central role of the medical student thesis is to assess student’s performance on the YSM’s research-related educational objectives. As such, all students are expected to produce an excellent piece of scholarly work. In recognition of these achievements, the OSR has worked to develop an award process that celebrates the wonderful research being done by our students without creating a competitive atmosphere surrounding the thesis. Hence, thesis awards are based on competency-based assessments submitted by thesis mentors/advisors and reviewers during the approval process, and internal review of the final thesis that was deposited into the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library. Consistent with all other graduation prizes, YSM MD Thesis Awards will remain confidential until they are announced in the YSM Commencement Program on May 20, 2024. While some departments may elect to confer thesis “honors” based upon their own internal review, this recognition is distinct from YSM graduation prizes and is not under OSR’s purview.

Read about the required formatting and components for the thesis .

See helpful examples for reference section formatting.

Read about avoiding the risk of copyright violation and liability when submitting your MD Thesis.

Learn more about submitting a thesis to the Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library .

Learn more about the Thesis Depositors Declaration Form.

Learn more about evaluating your experience with your thesis advisor .

Apply for a Thesis Extension

Read about the required formatting and components for the thesis.

Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

Learn more about the journal or submit a manuscript.

PhD Thesis Guide

This phd thesis guide will guide you step-by-step through the thesis process, from your initial letter of intent to submission of the final document..

All associated forms are conveniently consolidated in the section at the end.

Deadlines & Requirements

Students should register for HST.ThG during any term in which they are conducting research towards their thesis. Regardless of year in program students registered for HST.ThG in a regular term (fall or spring) must meet with their research advisor and complete the  Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review Form to receive credit.

Years 1 - 2

• Students participating in lab rotations during year 1, may use the optional MEMP Rotation Registration Form , to formalize the arrangement and can earn academic credit by enrolling in HST.599. 
• A first letter of intent ( LOI-1 ) proposing a general area of thesis research and research advisor is required by April 30th of the second year of registration.
• A second letter of intent ( LOI-2 ) proposing a thesis committee membership and providing a more detailed description of the thesis research is required by April 30th of the third year of registration for approval by the HST-IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP).

Year 4 

• Beginning in year 4, (or after the LOI-2 is approved) the student must meet with their thesis committee at least once per semester.
• Students must formally defend their proposal before the approved thesis committee, and submit their committee approved proposal to HICAP  by April 30 of the forth year of registration.
• Meetings with the thesis committee must be held at least once per semester. 

HST has developed these policies to help keep students on track as they progress through their PhD program. Experience shows that students make more rapid progress towards graduation when they interact regularly with a faculty committee and complete their thesis proposal by the deadline.

Getting Started

Check out these resources  for finding a research lab.

The Thesis Committee: Roles and Responsibilities

Students perform doctoral thesis work under the guidance of a thesis committee consisting of at least three faculty members from Harvard and MIT (including a chair and a research advisor) who will help guide the research. Students are encouraged to form their thesis committee early in the course of the research and in any case by the end of the third year of registration. The HST IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP) approves the composition of the thesis committee via the letter of intent and the thesis proposal (described below). 

Research Advisor

The research advisor is responsible for overseeing the student's thesis project. The research advisor is expected to:

• oversee the research and mentor the student;
• provide a supportive research environment, facilities, and financial support;
• discuss expectations, progress, and milestones with the student and complete the  Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review Form each semester;
• assist the student to prepare for the oral qualifying exam;
• guide the student in selecting the other members of the thesis committee;
• help the student prepare for, and attend, meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• help the student prepare for, and attend, the thesis defense;
• evaluate the final thesis document.

The research advisor is chosen by the student and must be a faculty member of MIT* or Harvard University and needs no further approval.  HICAP may approve other individuals as research advisor on a student-by-student basis. Students are advised to request approval of non-faculty research advisors as soon as possible.  In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the research advisor may not also be the student's academic advisor. In the event that an academic advisor becomes the research advisor, a new academic advisor will be assigned.

The student and their research advisor must complete the Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review during each regular term in order to receive academic credit for research.  Download Semi Annual Review Form

*MIT Senior Research Staff are considered equivalent to faculty members for the purposes of research advising. No additional approval is required.

Thesis Committee Chair

Each HST PhD thesis committee is headed administratively by a chair, chosen by the student in consultation with the research advisor. The thesis committee chair is expected to:

• provide advice and guidance concerning the thesis research; 
• oversee meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• preside at the thesis defense; 
• review and evaluate the final thesis document.

The thesis committee chair must be well acquainted with the academic policies and procedures of the institution granting the student's degree and be familiar with the student's area of research. The research advisor may not simultaneously serve as thesis committee chair.

For HST PhD students earning degrees through MIT, the thesis committee chair must be an MIT faculty member. A select group of HST program faculty without primary appointments at MIT have been pre-approved by HICAP to chair PhD theses awarded by HST at MIT in cases where the MIT research advisor is an MIT faculty member.**

HST PhD students earning their degree through Harvard follow thesis committee requirements set by the unit granting their degree - either the Biophysics Program or the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

** List of non-MIT HST faculty approved to chair MIT thesis proposals when the research advisor is an MIT faculty member.

In addition to the research advisor and the thesis committee chair, the thesis committee must include one or more readers. Readers are expected to:

• attend meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• attend the thesis defense; 

Faculty members with relevant expertise from outside of Harvard/MIT may serve as readers, but they may only be counted toward the required three if approved by HICAP.

The members of the thesis committee should have complementary expertise that collectively covers the areas needed to advise a student's thesis research. The committee should also be diverse, so that members are able to offer different perspectives on the student's research. When forming a thesis committee, it is helpful to consider the following questions: 

• Do the individuals on the committee collectively have the appropriate expertise for the project?
• Does the committee include at least one individual who can offer different perspectives on the student's research?  The committee should include at least one person who is not closely affiliated with the student's primary lab. Frequent collaborators are acceptable in this capacity if their work exhibits intellectual independence from the research advisor.
• If the research has a near-term clinical application, does the committee include someone who can add a translational or clinical perspective?  
• Does the committee conform to HST policies in terms of number, academic appointments, and affiliations of the committee members, research advisor, and thesis committee chair as described elsewhere on this page?

[Friendly advice: Although there is no maximum committee size, three or four is considered optimal. Committees of five members are possible, but more than five is unwieldy.]

Thesis Committee Meetings

Students must meet with their thesis committee at least once each semester beginning in the fourth year of registration. It is the student's responsibility to schedule these meetings; students who encounter difficulties in arranging regular committee meetings can contact Julie Greenberg at jgreenbe [at] mit.edu (jgreenbe[at]mit[dot]edu) .

The format of the thesis committee meeting is at the discretion of the thesis committee chair. In some cases, the following sequence may be helpful:

• The thesis committee chair, research advisor, and readers meet briefly without the student in the room;
• The thesis committee chair and readers meet briefly with the student, without the advisor in the room;
• The student presents their research progress, answers questions, and seeks guidance from the members of the thesis committee;

Please note that thesis committee meetings provide an important opportunity for students to present their research and respond to questions. Therefore, it is in the student's best interest for the research advisor to refrain from defending the research in this setting.

Letters of Intent

Students must submit two letters of intent ( LOI-1 and LOI-2 ) with applicable signatures. 

In LOI-1, students identify a research advisor and a general area of thesis research, described in 100 words or less. It should include the area of expertise of the research advisor and indicate whether IRB approval (Institutional Review Board; for research involving human subjects) and/or IACUC approval (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee; for research involving vertebrate animals) will be required and, if so, from which institutions. LOI-1 is due by April 30 of the second year of registration and and should be submitted to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518. 

In LOI-2, students provide a description of the thesis research, describing the Background and Significance of the research and making a preliminary statement of Specific Aims (up to 400 words total). In LOI-2, a student also proposes the membership of their thesis committee. In addition to the research advisor, the proposed thesis committee must include a chair and one or more readers, all selected to meet the specified criteria . LOI-2 is due by April 30th of the third year of registration and should be submitted to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518.

LOI-2 is reviewed by the HST-IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP) to determine if the proposed committee meets the specified criteria and if the committee members collectively have the complementary expertise needed to advise the student in executing the proposed research. If HICAP requests any changes to the proposed committee, the student must submit a revised LOI-2 for HICAP review by September 30th of the fourth year of registration. HICAP must approve LOI-2 before the student can proceed to presenting and submitting their thesis proposal. Any changes to the thesis committee membership following HICAP approval of LOI-2 and prior to defense of the thesis proposal must be reported by submitting a revised LOI-2 form to HICAP, c/o tanderso [at] mit.edu (Traci Anderson) . After final HICAP approval of LOI-2, which confirms the thesis committee membership, the student may proceed to present their thesis proposal to the approved thesis committee, as described in the next section.

Students are strongly encouraged to identify tentative thesis committee members and begin meeting with them as early as possible to inform the direction of their research. Following submission of LOI-2, students are required to hold at least one thesis committee meeting per semester. Students must document these meetings via the Semi- Annual PhD Student Progress Review form in order to receive a grade reflecting satisfactory progress in HST.ThG.

Thesis Proposal and Proposal Presentation

For MEMP students receiving their degrees through MIT, successful completion of the Oral Qualifying Exam is a prerequisite for the thesis proposal presentation. For MEMP students receiving their degrees through Harvard, the oral qualifying exam satisfies the proposal presentation requirement.

Proposal Document

Each student must present a thesis proposal to a thesis committee that has been approved by HICAP via the LOI-2 and then submit a full proposal package to HICAP by April 30th of the fourth year of registration. The only exception is for students who substantially change their research focus after the fall term of their third year; in those cases the thesis proposal must be submitted within three semesters of joining a new lab. Students registering for thesis research (HST.THG) who have not met this deadline may be administratively assigned a grade of "U" (unsatisfactory) and receive an academic warning.

The written proposal should be no longer than 4500 words, excluding references. This is intended to help students develop their proposal-writing skills by gaining experience composing a practical proposal; the length is comparable to that required for proposals to the NIH R03 Small Research Grant Program. The proposal should clearly define the research problem, describe the proposed research plan, and defend the significance of the work. Preliminary results are not required. If the proposal consists of multiple aims, with the accomplishment of later aims based on the success of earlier ones, then the proposal should describe a contingency plan in case the early results are not as expected.

Proposal Presentation

The student must formally defend the thesis proposal before the full thesis committee that has been approved by HICAP.

Students should schedule the meeting and reserve a conference room and any audio visual equipment they may require for their presentation. To book a conference room in E25, please contact Joseph Stein ( jrstein [at] mit.edu (jrstein[at]mit[dot]edu) ).

Following the proposal presentation, students should make any requested modifications to the proposal for the committee members to review. Once the committee approves the proposal, the student should obtain the signatures of the committee members on the forms described below as part of the proposal submission package.

[Friendly advice: As a professional courtesy, be sure your committee members have a complete version of your thesis proposal at least one week in advance of the proposal presentation.]

Submission of Proposal Package

When the thesis committee has approved the proposal, the student submits the proposal package to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518, for final approval. HICAP may reject a thesis proposal if it has been defended before a committee that was not previously approved via the LOI-2.

The proposal package includes the following: 

• the proposal document
• a brief description of the project background and significance that explains why the work is important;
• the specific aims of the proposal, including a contingency plan if needed; and
• an indication of the methods to be used to accomplish the specific aims.
• signed research advisor agreement form(s);
• signed chair agreement form (which confirms a successful proposal defense);
• signed reader agreement form(s).

Thesis Proposal Forms

• SAMPLE Title Page (doc)
• Research Advisor Agreement Form (pdf)
• Chair Agreement Form (pdf)
• Reader Agreement Form (pdf)

Thesis Defense and Final Thesis Document

When the thesis is substantially complete and fully acceptable to the thesis committee, a public thesis defense is scheduled for the student to present his/her work to the thesis committee and other members of the community. The thesis defense is the last formal examination required for receipt of a doctoral degree. To be considered "public", a defense must be announced to the community at least five working days in advance. At the defense, the thesis committee determines if the research presented is sufficient for granting a doctoral degree. Following a satisfactory thesis defense, the student submits the final thesis document, approved by the research advisor, to Traci Anderson via email (see instructions below).

[Friendly advice: Contact jrstein [at] mit.edu (Joseph Stein) at least two weeks before your scheduled date to arrange for advertising via email and posters. A defense can be canceled for insufficient public notice.]

Before the Thesis Defense 

Committee Approves Student to Defend: The thesis committee, working with the student and reviewing thesis drafts, concludes that the doctoral work is complete. The student should discuss the structure of the defense (general guidelines below) with the thesis committee chair and the research advisor. 

Schedule the Defense: The student schedules a defense at a time when all members of the thesis committee will be physical present. Any exceptions must be approved in advance by the IMES/HST Academic Office.

Reserve Room: It is the student's responsibility to reserve a room and any necessary equipment. Please contact imes-reservation [at] mit.edu (subject: E25%20Room%20Reservation) (IMES Reservation) to  reserve rooms E25-140, E25-141, E25-119/121, E25-521. 

Final Draft: A complete draft of the thesis document is due to the thesis committee two weeks prior to the thesis defense to allow time for review.  The thesis should be written as a single cohesive document; it may include content from published papers (see libraries website on " Use of Previously Published Material in a Thesis ") but it may not be a simple compilation of previously published materials.

Publicize the Defense:   The IMES/HST Academic Office invites the community to attend the defense via email and a notice on the HST website. This requires that the student email a thesis abstract and supplemental information to  jrstein [at] mit.edu (Joseph Stein)  two weeks prior to the thesis defense. The following information should be included: Date and time, Location, (Zoom invitation with password, if offering a hybrid option), Thesis Title, Names of committee members, with academic and professional titles and institutional affiliations. The abstract is limited to 250 words for the poster, but students may optionally submit a second, longer abstract for the email announcement.

Thesis Defense Guidelines

Public Defense: The student should prepare a presentation of 45-60 minutes in length, to be followed by a public question and answer period of 15–30 minutes at discretion of the chair.

Committee Discussion:  Immediately following the public thesis presentation, the student meets privately with the thesis committee and any other faculty members present to explore additional questions at the discretion of the faculty. Then the thesis committee meets in executive session and determines whether the thesis defense was satisfactory. The committee may suggest additions or editorial changes to the thesis document at this point.

Chair Confirms Pass: After the defense, the thesis committee chair should inform Traci Anderson of the outcome via email to tanderso [at] mit.edu (tanderso[at]mit[dot]edu) .

Submitting the Final Thesis Document

Please refer to the MIT libraries  thesis formatting guidelines .

Title page notes. Sample title page  from the MIT Libraries.

Program line : should read, "Submitted to the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, in partial fulfillment of the the requirements for the degree of ... "

Copyright : Starting with the June 2023 degree period and as reflected in the  MIT Thesis Specifications , all students retain the copyright of their thesis.  Please review this section for how to list on your title page Signature Page: On the "signed" version, only the student and research advisor should sign. Thesis committee members are not required to sign. On the " Accepted by " line, please list: Collin M. Stultz, MD, PhD/Director, Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology/ Nina T. and Robert H. Rubin Professor in Medical Engineering and Science/Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

The Academic Office will obtain Professor Stultz's signature.

Thesis Submission Components.  As of 4/2021, the MIT libraries have changed their thesis submissions guidelines and are no longer accepting hard copy theses submissions. For most recent guidance from the libraries:  https://libguides.mit.edu/mit-thesis-faq/instructions  

Submit to the Academic Office, via email ( tanderso [at] mit.edu (tanderso[at]mit[dot]edu) )

pdf/A-1 of the final thesis should include an UNSIGNED title page

A separate file with a SIGNED title page by the student and advisor, the Academic Office will get Dr. Collin Stultz's signature.

For the MIT Library thesis processing, fill out the "Thesis Information" here:  https://thesis-submit.mit.edu/

File Naming Information:  https://libguides.mit.edu/

Survey of Earned Doctorates.  The University Provost’s Office will contact all doctoral candidates via email with instructions for completing this survey.

Links to All Forms in This Guide

• MEMP Rotation Form (optional)
• Semi-Annual Progress Review Form
• Letter of Intent One
• Letter of Intent Two

Final Thesis

• HST Sample thesis title page  (signed and unsigned)
• Sample thesis title page  (MIT Libraries)

The Quintessence of Basic and Clinical Research and Scientific Publishing pp 769–781 Cite as

Writing a Postgraduate or Doctoral Thesis: A Step-by-Step Approach

• Usha Y. Nayak 4 ,
• Praveen Hoogar 5 ,
• Srinivas Mutalik 4 &
• N. Udupa 6  
• First Online: 01 October 2023

678 Accesses

1 Citations

A key characteristic looked after by postgraduate or doctoral students is how they communicate and defend their knowledge. Many candidates believe that there is insufficient instruction on constructing strong arguments. The thesis writing procedure must be meticulously followed to achieve outstanding results. It should be well organized, simple to read, and provide detailed explanations of the core research concepts. Each section in a thesis should be carefully written to make sure that it transitions logically from one to the next in a smooth way and is free of any unclear, cluttered, or redundant elements that make it difficult for the reader to understand what is being tried to convey. In this regard, students must acquire the information and skills to successfully create a strong and effective thesis. A step-by-step description of the thesis/dissertation writing process is provided in this chapter.

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Nayak, U.Y., Hoogar, P., Mutalik, S., Udupa, N. (2023). Writing a Postgraduate or Doctoral Thesis: A Step-by-Step Approach. In: Jagadeesh, G., Balakumar, P., Senatore, F. (eds) The Quintessence of Basic and Clinical Research and Scientific Publishing. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1284-1_48

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Writing a thesis

A thesis is a written report of your research, and generally contains the following chapters: introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion. It will also have a list of references and appendices. Check with your faculty/department/school for degree-specific thesis requirements. You may also find it helpful to look at published theses (in your department) to see how they are structured. (Internationally, the ‘thesis’ may be referred to as a ‘dissertation’).

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Medical Dissertation Writing: What Makes a Quality Dissertation

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STM Report: an Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Publications

This report provides a good sense of how scientific journals are ranked and assessed and how the process of submission and publication works. 

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Selecting a thesis topic: A postgraduate’s dilemma

Rajiv k. saini.

Department of Psychiatry, Command Hospital (EC) Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Mohan Issac

1 Department of Psychiatry, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

K. J. D. Kumar

2 Department of Psychiatry, Military Hospital, Pathankot, Punjab, India

Suprakash Chaudhury

3 Department of Psychiatry, D. Y. Patil Medical College, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India

Rachit Sharma

4 Department of Psychiatry, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India

Ankit Dangi

5 Department of Psychiatry, Command Hospital, Panchkula, Haryana, India

It is said that well begun is half done. Choosing a thesis topic and submitting a research protocol is an essential step in the life cycle of a postgraduate resident. National Medical Commission of India mandates that all postgraduate trainees must submit at least one original research work (dissertation), one oral paper, one poster, and one publication to be eligible for final year examination. It is the duty of the faculty to ensure that trainees take active interest and submit their theses on time. However, their journey is often marred by multiple challenges and hurdles. The literature was searched from year 2000 onwards till 2011 using Pubmed, ResearchGate, MEDLINE, and the Education Resources Information Centre databases with terms related to residency training, selecting thesis topic, challenges or hurdles, and conversion of thesis into journal article. Existing literature on the subject matter is sparse. Current article advocates promotion of ethical and original research during postgraduation and proposes a checklist for residents before submission of their proposals.

INTRODUCTION

Residency is an extremely important period in the life cycle of a modern medical graduate. During this period, a resident learns to practice and acquire proficiency in a subject under guidance of a teacher. Along with acquiring new skills, it is also expected that they learn to critically analyze clinical scenarios and reach a rational conclusion. They are also expected to formulate and conduct original research which is submitted in form of a dissertation or thesis. Research work by a postgraduate should eventually translate into a scientific publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal, which helps in dissemination of thesis findings to the community and scientists. It is essential toward furthering medical knowledge, clinical practice, and the progression of science.[ 1 ] The National Medical Commission has stated the aims of completing this task as “Writing the thesis is aimed at contributing to the development of a spirit of inquiry, besides exposing the candidate to the techniques of research, critical analysis, acquaintance with the latest advances in medical science and the manner of identifying and consulting available literature.”[ 2 ]

CHOOSING THE TOPIC

The most intriguing question while conducting research is “How do I choose the right topic and will I be able to find the right answer?” Starting off with fire in the belly gives the best chance of seeing one’s work through. So, it is important to choose something that entices one’s mind and promises a gratifying result. Existing literature on the topic suggests that the journey of choosing the right topic is often marred by multiple challenges and dilemmas at various stages of this tumultuous journey. There are constraints of time, availability of resources, and support network.[ 3 ]

Therefore, students must remain open to suggestions from within and outside their minds. It is also important to allow the research area to simmer inside their mind for some time so that they can analyze various facets of the chosen area. It is at deeper layer of learning where higher order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation reside. This then justifies the longer period it takes to arrive at a meaningful thesis title as it represents the highest order of cognitive reasoning referred to as “create” stage.[ 2 ] Short of this, novice researchers operate at lower order and remain “copy-paste” type of researchers.[ 4 ]

Lord “Dhanwantri” also known Physician of Gods brought “ Amrit ” elixir of life after “Samudra Manthan,” which was the result of intensive deliberations.[ 5 ] A systematic stepwise approach for answering any research question offers the best chance of finding the right answer. Succeeding paragraphs in this article shall delve into an enriching scientific journey toward zeroing onto a suitable thesis title.

Area of interest

A journey into an area of one’s interest is bound to be fulfilling. It is a good idea to review one’s past works and experiences, which may be intriguing. A frank and one-to-one discussion with the guide further helps in unravelling novel ideas. Starting with an open and fertile mind promises novel ideas and helps to sustain long-term interest and enthusiasm.[ 6 ] Tendency to merely replicate similar studies should be avoided as they fail to ignite the zest for newer information.[ 7 ] Think about why you got into your field of study. Consider what you like to read about in your free time, especially things related to your field.

From general to specific

A dissertation topic in medicine needs to be captivating and must intrigue the reader to look closer into the research work.[ 8 ] At the outset, it is a good strategy to just define a broad area and a dissertation topic need not be very specific or restrictive. The defined general area must be studied thoroughly and all its facets analyzed in detail. Look for gaps in knowledge which offer an avenue for research. For example, while studying factors responsible for relapse in alcohol dependence, doing a research on employment status of the spouse may be a good idea as it may not have been studied as extensively as other factors. It is needless to say that the student must first be familiar with the disease and all the variables which define its long-term trajectory. Medical science is an evolving field . There are factors of significance that can crop up during course of the study. Therefore, some scope for minor modifications must be kept for unexpected spinoffs. Most of the institutional review board permit minor revision of the protocols though they adhere to their own standards to safeguard interests of the patients. Authors conducted a survey and found that out of 184 submitted, 96 (52%) received requests for minor revision of research protocols. The acceptance resulted in further refinements in research methodology and outcomes.[ 9 ] Therefore, while submitting any protocol, some scope for minor change with probable reasons must be endorsed so that there are no complications while submitting final draft. After discussion with the guide, a suitable title can be given to the research proposal. Selection of the title should be such that it reflects the gist of the whole research and must attract attention of the reader. The title has a long shelf life and may be the first (and many a times, also the only) part of an article that readers see or read. Based on their understanding of the title, readers decide if the article is relevant to them or not.[ 8 ]

Do not bite more than you can chew

The average time allotted for completion of the MD/MS/DNB thesis is 2 years. It may be further reduced due to administrative delays like allotment of thesis guides and selection of topic. It is safe to assume that it takes around 1 month to finalize and submit the protocol and 2 months to write, print, and submit the complete thesis. That leaves just around year and nine months for actual and adequate data collection. All these facts must be kept in mind to ensure genuineness of data.[ 10 ]

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush

Modern medical science thrives on multispecialty approach, and it is not uncommon that students may end up with a research topic involving more than one department or more than one facility of the institution. Studies conducted during Covid pandemic are perfect examples owing to multiple facets of the illness in terms of prevention, pathophysiology, and long-term sequele.[ 11 ] A realistic check for the available resources in terms of infrastructure, availability of study materials, and support from affiliated departments must be done before finalizing the research topic. It is highly unlikely that your thesis is the first or the last research work in a particular area. Negotiating with other department/institution to regularly avail their facilities is often challenging. It is because of the difference in timing, priorities, work culture, and administrative barriers. One way to deal with it is to have a co-guide from that facility/institution. Dissertation reviewers have noticed that students often select topics that become unmanageable during course of their study. It can lead to development of stress and uncertainty about findings at the time of analysis. It was found that institutional support in terms of guidance, access to other departments, and statistical guidance improved overall performance of students and led to timely submission of thesis for publication in journals.[ 12 ]

Avoid controversy

Getting into controversy during initial years of residency is bound to raise stress levels and may dissuade the worker from continuing the research work. Field of medicine is fast evolving on the wheels of technology. Moral and ethical boundaries are slowly getting blurred. Many a times, laws are not revised and many laws are land specific. Therefore, it is a sound practice to familiarize oneself with existing laws and to take care that they are not violated. Central Drug Standard and Control Organization is the regulatory authority responsible for clinical trial oversight, approval, and inspections in India. It functions under Director General of Health Servicesand part of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The information is available online on their website and it is updated regularly. It is a good idea to visit the website and familiarize oneself about the existing laws before undertaking any research work. The website also gives information about National Ethical Guidelines for biomedical and health research involving human participants. Similarly, informed consent needs to be spelt out quite clearly and should be devoid of incomplete information or concealment of vital health related information. It is now mandatory that all research proposals be vetted by institutional ethical committee prior to submission to the university.[ 13 - 15 ]

Conformation with national health policy

Young medical professionals can contribute immensely by their research designs and valuable inputs in ratifying existing health-related measures or to suggest further refinements. This concept must always be kept in mind while formulating any research designs. Researchers of today are planners for tomorrow and their work is reflection of their goal toward health of the nation. In a comprehensive report, it was found that merely 0.5% of the 4230 thesis citations were quoted in policy decision.[ 16 ] The figures may be even lower for this country. The figures are abysmal compared to the magnitude of the research undertaken in centers of higher learning. The success of National Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Program in India owes credit to sound scientific inquiries beginning in 1956. Despite stiff opposition and cultural bias, the program gained strength and helped in significantly reducing burden of iodine deficiency disorders.[ 17 ] The findings led to significant policy change and legislation supporting sale of only iodized salt in the country.

Scope for publication

Any research work is considered futile if it does not reach the stage of publication in a reputed journal. A genuine research must eventually translate into a research article. It has become increasingly difficult to translate thesis into a scientific publication in an indexed journal due to stringent standards and peer review. In a retrospective analysis of 85 theses, it was found that the conversion rate to peer-reviewed publication was 32.5%. The most common reasons for not publishing were a lack of originality and poor design. The authors further encouraged publication of full length articles as it helped residents in long term.[ 18 ] Originality of research, sound methodology, and analysis of data besides cogency in manuscript writing have been defining factors that promote acceptance of an article in a reputed journal.[ 19 ] Lure of quick publishing in a predatory journal can be damaging in the long run. Young and inexperienced authors publishing in a predatory journal must be aware of the damage of their reputation, of inadequate peer-review processes and that these journals might get closed any time for variety of reasons. Such publishing harms the scientific community in the long run, and hence such an approach is best avoided.[ 20 ] It is prudent practice to check whether an intended journal is predatory or not from the https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/or Beall’s list (https://beallslist.net/). Similarly, increasing the score by “salami” publication is unethical and should be avoided.

Familiarization with research methodology

Imagine you are gifted a do-it-yourself kit to build a plane which can fly. It is meant for an age group of 18 years or more and should take 1 h to assemble. It has all the wheels, gears, levers, motors, wires, motherboard, etc., required to assemble it into a functioning plane. The kit also has a manual. How long should it take to assemble? 60 min? Now imagine trying to assemble without the manual. It may be extremely difficult if not impossible to assemble the plane and is surely bound to take much longer. Research methodology is exactly like a manual for research. A major confounding factor in medical research is student’s conceptual understanding and comfort level with research methodology.[ 21 ] Findings indicate that there were noticeable differences in perspectives regarding what constitutes research methodology and its utility at least during the first year of residency.[ 21 ] Familiarizing with basic research methods is now mandated for all the medical postgraduates before they submit their research proposals, and free certificate online courses are available on their website. Writing a thesis during MD/MS and DNB courses, without having a correct research methodology planning, is practically impossible. Some of the prominent causes of rejection of submitted manuscripts are poor methodology, small sample size, and poor statistical analysis.[ 22 ] Furthermore, postgraduate students choose research methodology based on a number of factors such as familiarity with a method, methodological orientation of the primary supervisor, the domain of study, and the nature of research problems pursued. Participants reported key challenges that they faced in understanding research methodology include framing research questions, understanding the theory or literature and its role in shaping research outcomes, and difficulties in performing data analysis.[ 23 ]

Motivation level of the researcher

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former president of India, quoted that “Dream is not that you see in sleep but it is something that doesn’t let you sleep.” No research work will reach its logical conclusion till the time a researcher has strong motivation to pursue it. Another factor that defines sustained interest in thesis topic is motivation. As described by David Langford, there exists a continuum from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation.[ 24 ] Extrinsic motivation basically refers to a situation wherein the students are ordered (to study). As we move along this continuum, the quality of learning improves consistently with the maturing of the relationship between teacher and student. The culmination of the relationship occurs when the teacher becomes an enabler while the student becomes an active self-learner (intrinsic motivation). The process involves a definitive element of mentorship. In traditional Indian context, Gurukul envisages a firm and enduring relationship between “Guru” (teacher) and “Shishya” (student). Vedas in ancient times were combined with prepared commentaries in the form of “Upanisads.” The term upanisad refers to “Sitting down near a teacher in order to learn.” Though many students have inherent intrinsic motivation, a dynamic “Guru” can really shape the “Shishya.” Though the concept is old, it still remains relevant in modern times because learning medical practice is both art and science and best habits are still passed on to the next generation by trained and experienced teachers.[ 25 ]

WHAT CAN HELP POSTGRADUATE THESIS SELECTION?

The authors of this article put their minds together to devise a questionnaire that can act as a checklist for the residents before they actually submit their draft proposal for submission [ Table 1 ]. The checklist contains 10 questions and the responses can be marked from strongly disagree to strongly agree on a five-point likert scale. The checklist can be self-administered and the responses will give an insight into the lacunae. The residents can gradually work on these lacunae so that they feel at ease during the fantastic journey of scientific research and publication.

Postgraduate thesis topic selection questionnaire

Note: Rate your responses after regular intervals while preparing your research proposal and work on areas that feel difficult

Choosing thesis topic and submitting the protocols is an important milestone in the career of a postgraduate resident. However, its importance cannot be undermined from the fact that it is usually the first scientific pursuit of a medical graduate. Challenges and hurdles are expected but can be overcome with sustained and systematic effort. The authors of this article reviewed the literature concerning this topic and found some key areas which a resident must familiarize with before finalizing their research topic. The postgraduate thesis selection questionnaire can further act as a checklist to facilitate the process.

Financial support and sponsorship

Minds United for Health Sciences & Humanity Trust, IToP STEPS program grant.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

Minds United for Health Sciences & Humanity Trust, IToP STEPS program grant for financial support and motivation.

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Joseph Redman

The british stalinists and the moscow trials, (march 1958).

From Labour Review , Vol. 3 No. 2 , March–April 1958, pp. 44–53. Joseph Redman was a pseudonym of Brian Pearce. Transcribed by Ted Crawford. Marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL) .

‘Foreigners little realize how vital it was for Stalin in 1936, 1937 and 1938 to be able to declare that the British, American, French, German, Polish, Bulgarian and Chinese communists unanimously supported the liquidation of the “Trotskyite, fascist mad dogs and wreckers” ...’ – W.G. Krivitsky, I Was Stalin’s Agent (1939), p. 79.

‘These apologists for Stalin will one day regret their hasty zeal, for truth, breaking a path through every obstacle, will carry away many reputations.’ – L.D. Trotsky, Les Crimes de Staline (1937), p. 62.

TWENTY years ago there took place the trial of Bukharin and twenty others, the third and largest of a series of three historic State trials in the Soviet Union. Like the fraction of the iceberg that shows above the water’s surface, these trials were the publicly-paraded fraction of a vast mass of repressions carried out in 1936-38 by Yagoda and Yezhov under the supreme direction of Stalin. It is not the purpose of this article to examine the trials themselves or to discuss their causes and consequences for the Soviet Union and the international working-class movement. Its purpose is merely to recall how the leaders and spokesmen of the Stalinist organization in Britain reacted to the trials and what some of the effects of their reaction were in the British working-class movement, so that lessons may be learned regarding the political character of the organization and the individuals concerned.  

The First Trial

The first of the three great ‘public’ trials took place in August 1936. Immediately upon the publication of the indictment, the DW came out with an editorial (August 17) accepting the guilt of the accused men: ‘The revelations ... will fill all decent citizens with loathing and hatred ... Crowning infamy of all is the evidence showing how they were linked up with the Nazi Secret Police .. .’ This instantaneous and whole-hearted endorsement of whatever Stalin’s policemen chose to allege at any given moment was to prove characteristic of the British Stalinist reaction to each of the successive trials.

The prototype of another statement which was in re-appear regularly throughout this period figured in the DW ’s editorial of August 22: ‘The extent and organization of the plot, with its cold-blooded killings of the leaders of the international working class, has shocked the Labour and socialist movement of the world.’ In reality, of course, the effect of trial was to compromise the Soviet Union in the eyes of many workers and to play into the hands of the most Right-wing sections. Accordingly, a third ‘keynote’ had to be sounded right from the beginning, with the headline in the DW of August 24 to the report that the International Federation of Trade Unions had asked the Soviet authorities to allow a foreign lawyer to defend the accused: Citrine Sides with Traitors . On the other hand, any expression of approval for the trial by a bourgeois newspaper or other ‘source’ was to be eagerly seized upon and publicized during these years, and already in this issue we find The Observer quoted, in a special ‘box’, as saying: ‘It is futile to think the trial was staged and the charges trumped up.’ [1]

With the minimum of delay the implications of the trials for current politics began to be drawn, especially with regard to Spain. The DW leader of August 25 affirmed that ‘Trotsky ... whose agents are trying to betray the Spanish Republic by advancing provocative “Left” slogans ... is the very spearpoint of counter-revolution’, and next day J.R. Campbell had an article comparing Zinoviev to Franco. At the same time, a programme of rewriting of the history of the Bolshevik Party and the October Revolution was launched with an article by Ralph Fox in the DW of August 28, entitled Trotsky Was No Great General , followed by another on September 1: He Was Always a Base Double-Crosser . [2] A Communist Party pamphlet The Moscow Trial , by W.G. Shepherd, carried the retrospective smear campaign further, telling readers that in October 1917 ‘the organization leadership was not, as is sometimes supposed, in [Trotsky’s] hands ... He was a bad organizer.’ The main point of this pamphlet, however, was squarely to identify ‘Trotskyists’ with police agents.

Shepherd based himself in his defence of the trial upon the declarations of D.N. Pritt, KC, (‘None can challenge either Mr Pritt’s integrity or his competence to understand the significance of court procedure and the value of evidence’), and indeed the importance of these cannot be exaggerated in assessing how this trial and its successors were ‘sold’ to the Left in Britain.

Mr Pritt made two principal contributions to the propaganda for the August 1936 trial. He wrote the preface to the pamphlet The Moscow Trial, 1936 , a report of the proceedings published by the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee (secretary, W.P. Coates). This report omitted from the testimony of Holtzman, one of the accused, his reference to a meeting in a non-existent ‘Hotel Bristol’ in Copenhagen, a slip in the ‘libretto’ which had been widely remarked upon. (Compare p. 49 of this pamphlet with p. 100 of the English version of the Report of Court Proceedings. Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre , published in Moscow, 1936.) ‘Once again’, wrote Pritt, ‘the more faint-hearted socialists are beset with doubt and anxieties’, but ‘once again we can feel confident that when the smoke has rolled away from the battlefield of controversy it will be realized that the charge was true, the confessions correct, and the prosecution fairly conducted ... But in order that public opinion shall reach this verdict ... it must be properly informed of the facts; and it is here that this little book will be of such value.’ Pritt also wrote a pamphlet of his own, The Zinoviev Trial , in which he dealt with the suspicion some sceptics had expressed that the confessions might not be entirely spontaneous – might, indeed, be influenced by torture or intimidation of some sort. The abjectness of the confessions was ‘sufficiently explained when one bears in mind the very great differences in form and style that naturally exist between one race and another ... In conversations I have held in Soviet prisons with accused persons awaiting trial on substantial charges, I have not infrequently been struck by the readiness with which they have stated to me in the presence of warders that they are guilty and cannot complain if they are punished.’ And anyway, after all, accused persons often plead guilty when they see ‘the evidence against them is overwhelming’. True, no evidence was actually produced at the trial other than the confessions of the accused; but ‘it is no part of the duty of the judicial authorities to publish reports showing exactly how they have conducted preliminary investigations of which the persons who are at once most interested and best informed, viz., the accused, make no complaint.’ Actually, ‘one can well imagine that the Soviet Government, so far as concerns the point of view of properly informing foreign criticism, would much have preferred that all or most of the accused should have pleaded Not Guilty and contested the case. The full strength of the case would then have been seen and appraised ...’

What strikes one most forcibly in re-reading today the literature of the first trial is the complete silence of the British Stalinists about some of the most contradictory and question-begging of its features. Not only the famous Hotel Bristol – the even more famous Café Bristol was not ‘discovered’ until February 1937 – but many other, less ‘technical’, points were passed over. Molotov was conspicuously missing from the list of the ‘leaders of party and State’ whom Zinoviev and Co. were accused of plotting to murder – and from the ceremonial list of these leaders included by Vyshinsky in his closing speech – though he was the nominal head of the Soviet Government at the time. (Alexander Orlov, a former NKVD officer, tells us in his book The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes (1954), p. 81, that the dictator, who wished to frighten Molotov a little, personally struck out his name from the list of ‘intended victims of the conspiracy’!) [3] Nor did they refer back later on, when Kossior and Postyshev were put away as ‘Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalists’, to their presence among the leaders whose deaths had allegedly been demanded by Rudolf Hess, through Trotsky. Nobody questioned the consistency of accusing Trotsky of being a fascist while stating (Smirnov’s last plea, Report of Court Proceedings , pp. 171–2) that he regarded the Soviet Union as ‘a fascist State’. Nobody suggested that it was somewhat premature of N. Lurye to get himself sent into Russia by the Gestapo in April 1932 ( ibid. , pp. 102–3); or that Trotsky had shown curious tactlessness in choosing five Jews – Olberg, Berman-Yurin, David and the two Luryes [4] – to collaborate with the Gestapo. That Holtzman testified to meeting Trotsky’s son Sedov in Copenhagen whereas Olberg said Sedov had not managed to get there ( ibid. pp.87, 100) excited no surprise. Above all, the complete unconcern of the Prosecutor about these and other contradictions and oddities in the confessions, which he made no attempt to sort out, was matched by a corresponding unconcern among the British Stalinists. [5] Like Vyshinsky, too, they gave no sign of finding it suspicious that the treasonable intrigues of these Trotskyites’, dating from 1931, had been carried on exclusively with Germany, no role having been played, apparently, by Britain, France, Poland or Italy. (As Trotsky observed, there ‘terrorists’ might make an attempt on Stalin’s life, but never on Litvinov’s diplomacy.)

Jack Cohen, in those days responsible for the political education of communist students, contributed to the party monthly Discussion for September 1936 a piece on Heroes of Fascism and Counter-Revolution in which he asserted that in 1933 Trotsky had issued a call for ‘terroristic acts to “remove” the party leaders’, in an article in the Weltbühne which actually speaks not of terrorism but of a workers’ revolution against the bureaucracy. (Neither Cohen nor any of the other Stalinists ever quoted, of course, from Trotsky’s numerous writings condemning terrorism as useless and harmful, as ‘bureaucratism turned inside-out’, such as The Kirov Assassination [1935].) Pat Sloan, of the Friends of the Soviet Union (now British-Soviet Friendship Society), wrote in the New Statesman of September 5: ‘I do not see what was unconvincing in the Moscow trial.’ [6] Walter Holmes, in his Worker’s Notebook in the DW of September 4, told of a conversation with ‘members of the Labour Party’ who reassured him: ‘What are you worrying about? ... Everybody in our party has got enough sense to know they ought to be shot.’ Reg Bishop, however, admitted in Inprecorr of September 5 that Labour was not quite so solidly convinced on this point: ‘The Labour Daily Herald vies in venom and spite with the Daily Mail ... It is pathetic to see men like Brailsford and Tom Johnston failing to see through the tricks prepared for them by Trotsky to cover up his tracks.’ Douglas Garman, in the New Statesman of September 12, demanded: ‘If ... they were innocent, why should they have confessed at all?’ (The editor replied: ‘We say that confessions without independent corroborative evidence are not convincing.’) [7] Ivor Montagu, in Left Book News for October, pooh-poohed suggestions that torture, whether physical or moral, or promises of pardon in return for perjury, could have anything to do with the confessions, and gave some historical background in which he quoted Lenin’s criticisms of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, while saying nothing of his criticisms of Stalin. R. Page Arnot, in the Labour Monthly for October, wrote: ‘Trotskyism is now revealed as an ancillary of fascism ... The ILP is in great danger of falling into the hands of Trotskyists and becoming a wing of fascism. Let the members of the ILP look to it.’ Pat Sloan, again, in the October number of Russia Today specially devoted to the trial, had a new explanation for the confessions: ‘These were men who, in their desire for publicity, had never refused an opportunity to speak to a large audience.’ From the same inspired pen came an argument, in Controversy of December, worthy of the confidence men of South Sea Bubble days: ‘The Soviet Government does not intend to broadcast to the whole world all the evidence of activities of Hitler’s agents it could broadcast.’ (Though well-informed about the secret archives of the Soviet intelligence service, Sloan was, at this stage, a bit shaky on the topography of Denmark’s capital: ‘Anyway, are we sure there’s no Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen? The denial, I believe, comes only from Norway.’)

Towards the end of 1936 and beginning of 1937 there were two trials in Germany of real Trotskyites for real subversive activity. In Danzig, Jakubowski and nine others were given severe hard-labour sentences for issuing leaflets declaring that ‘the defence of the Soviet Union remains an unconditional duty for the proletariat’, and in Hamburg a group of fifteen, which included a Vienna Schutzbund member and a worker who had fought in the 1923 uprising, suffered similarly for similar activity. There were no confessions and there was plenty of material evidence. No report of these cases appeared in the DW or other Stalinist publications. It is curious that Nazi propaganda in this period alleged that in spite of appearances the Fourth International was a secret agency of the Third, operating on the basis of a division of labour. Accounts of a conference (at Breda) between representatives of the two Internationals were spread by Goebbels, just as Stalin told the world of Trotsky’s talks with Hess. [8]  

The Second Trial

Already during the period of the first trial, as we have seen, King Street’s concern for ‘working-class unity’ was subordinated to the paramount need to attack anybody and everybody in the Labour movement who expressed doubt regarding the justice of the verdict. This became still clearer when the second trial was launched, in January 1937. The DW of January 25 carried the headline: The Herald Defends Spies and Assassins , and a leader Enemies of the Working Class , which declared: ‘It is for the working class of Britain to deal with those who in this country constitute themselves the defenders of the Trotskyites and thereby assist fascism and strike a blow at socialism all over the world.’ On January 29 the paper attacked the New Leader for ‘playing into the hands of the enemy’ because it had called for an independent inquiry into the trial such as Pritt and others had organized in connexion with the Reichstag Fire trial in 1933. Arnot was the DW ’s reporter at the second trial: he assured readers that the only pressure which had been brought to bear on the prisoners was ‘the pressure of facts’ (January 27).

The campaign to justify Stalin’s purges and to make the utmost political capital out of them was raised to a higher level and put on a more organized basis than hitherto by John Gollan, in his address to the enlarged meeting of the national council of the Young Communist League held on January 30–31. The historical ‘rewrite’ adumbrated by Ralph Fox was undertaken more thoroughly and at some length by Gollan. The address was published as a. duplicated document under the title The Development of Trotskyism from Menshevism to Alliance with Fascism and Counter-Revolution . Gollan showed how Lenin’s chief assistant in building the Red Army was not Trotsky but Stalin, how Trotsky had advocated that industrialization be carried out ‘at the expense of the peasant masses’ (saved by Stalin) etc. etc. This remarkable assemblage of half-truths and untruths concluded with a list of ‘the real Bolshevik Old Guard’, in which figure the names Rudzutak, Bubnov, Chubar, Kossior and Postyshev, all shot or imprisoned by Stalin shortly afterwards. Harry Pollitt went one better than this in his list of ‘the real Old Guard’ who ‘are still at their posts’, by including the name of ... Yezhov, whom hardly anybody – probably not Pollitt himself – had even heard of until his sudden elevation in September 1936 to be head of the NKVD following Yagoda’s fall! This exploit occurred in a pamphlet called The Truth About Trotskyism , published at the end of January. Another gem from the same source is Pollitt’s comment on the confessions of the accused: ‘The evidence produced in the Moscow trial is not confessions in the ordinary sense but statements signed in the way depositions are signed in any British court ...’ [9] The main point of the pamphlet, made in a contribution by R.P. Dutt, was to show that it was ‘essential to ... destroy the Trotskyist propaganda and influence which is seeking to win a foothold within the Labour movement, since these attempts represent in fact the channel of fascist penetration into the Labour movement’. In addition to the Gollan address and the Pollitt-Dutt pamphlet the DW brought out a special supplement on the trial in its issue of February 1 (‘Keep It Always’), in which, after the ritual statement ‘everywhere in the British Labour movement the scrupulous fairness of the trial, the overwhelming guilt of the accused, and the justness of the sentences is recognized’, readers were urged to send protests to the Daily Herald regarding its sceptical attitude thereto. A statement by the central committee of the Communist Party published in this issue emphasized that ‘the lead given by the Soviet Union ... requires to be energetically followed up throughout the whole Labour movement, and above all in Great Britain ...’

From this time onward one can say without exaggeration that the fight against ‘Trotskyism’ became one of the main preoccupations of the Communist Party, diverting the energies and confusing the minds of its members and disrupting the working-class movement more and more. [10] R.F. Andrews (Andrew Rothstein) now came well to the fore, as might be expected, with a series of articles in the DW . ‘The criminals have received their well-merited sentences ... Millions of people have had their eyes opened to the inner essence of Trotskyism’ (February 5); ‘Trotsky ... a malignant, avowed and still dangerous criminal’ (February 9); ‘ Herald – Shameful Blot on Labour’, i.e., for doubting the justice of the verdict (February 15). [11] A mere pamphlet such as Pritt had devoted to the Zinoviev trial was now realized to be inadequate and a whole book, Soviet Justice and the Trial of Radek (1937), was published, the work of a fresh legal talent, Dudley Collard, though not without an introduction by Pritt (‘The impression gained from Mr Collard’s description will, I think, enable many who were puzzled by the first trial not merely to convince themselves on the genuineness of the second, but also to derive from that a conviction of the genuineness of the first’). This pathetic effort contains such propositions as (p.52): ‘I have read some statement to the effect that no aeroplanes flew from Germany to Norway in December 1935. It seems hard to believe that this is so ...’ Here the reference is to the statement issued by the Oslo airport authorities that no foreign aeroplanes landed there in December 1935, contrary to Pyatakov’s confession that he had landed there on his way to visit Trotsky. (Attempts were later made to explain that perhaps Pyatakov’s memory was at fault and his aeroplane had actually landed on a frozen fiord; but, alas, this version was incompatible with the accused man’s account of his journey by car from the aeroplane to Trotsky’s dwelling.) After a display of quite extraordinary gullibility, Collard came to the conclusion (p. 79) that ‘the court was more merciful than I would have been!’ That was sufficient to ensure his book the maximum boost treatment throughout the Stalinist movement. William Gallacher, reviewing Collard in the DW of March 19, wrote: ‘Here one sees the Soviet legal system as it really is, the most advanced, the most humane in the world ... It is a book which once read must make any normal human being resolve that never again under any circumstances will he have truck with Trotsky, his followers or any of his works.’ Harking back to one of the mysteries of the first trial, the DW gave a sizable bit of its valuable space in the issue of February 26 to a plan of the Grand Hotel, Copenhagen, allegedly showing that one could enter a café said to be called the Café Bristol through this hotel – though how Holtzman could have proposed to ‘put up’ at this café still remained unexplained! [12] The egregious Arnot, in an article on The Trotskyist Trial in the Labour Monthly for March, quoted Lenin on MacDonald to show how workers’ leaders can degenerate (but did not quote Lenin on Stalin!), took a swipe at Emrys Hughes (‘a middle-class Philistine’) for an article in Forward critical of the trials, and opened up with all guns against the Manchester Guardian . Principled political criticism of the Liberals was ‘out’ in this epoch of Popular-Frontery, but here was something more important. The Guardian had stated that, in the course of the waves of repression sweeping over the Soviet Union in the wake of the second trial, ‘the Polish communists ... have suffered heavy casualties under the Stalinist persecution’. As is now admitted, almost the entire leadership of the Polish Communist Party was in fact liquidated by the NKVD in this period, and the party itself dissolved. This was the buffoonery that Arnot wrote at the time: ‘They have not “suffered heavy casualities”; there is no “Stalinist persecution” ... At one time the Trotskyists complained that the condemnation of their errors was a sign of anti-Semitism. Now, apparently, the condemnation of their crimes is to be presented as “the assault on the Polish Virgin” ...’

At this time the Stalinists were putting forth determined efforts to capture the Labour League of Youth, for which they published a paper called Advance . The March issue of this journal carried an article, We Have Our Wreckers, Too! by Ted Willis, later to win fame as author of The Blue Lamp , but then the leading Stalinist youth-worker. ‘The recent trial and sentences on the Terrorists in Moscow were of particular interest to the members of the League of Youth for an obvious reason. That being the fact that, for the last year we have been blessed (is that the right word?) with a tiny group of people in the League who style themselves Trotskyists ... Turn them lock, stock and barrel out of the Labour movement!’ Fittingly, at the same time as Ted Willis was making his debut in this field, John Strachey, then the top Stalinist publicist in this country, was telling readers of Left News that he believed that

The psychological student of the future will look back on the long-drawn-out incredulity of British public opinion over the Moscow trials of 1936 and 1937 as one of the strangest and most interesting psychological phenomena of the present time. For it will be clear to such a student that there were no rational grounds for disbelief. The fact is that there is no answer to the simple question: ‘If these men were innocent, why did they confess?’ ... Before the inexorable, extremely prolonged, though gentle, cross-examination of the Soviet investigators, their last convictions broke down.

Major contributions to the fight against Trotskyism now came thick and fast. Stalin’s speech at the February-March plenum of the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party, setting out his thesis that the further the Soviet Union progressed the more intense became the class struggle and the greater was the need for security work, was published in full in the DW (‘Especially in Britain do we require to pay heed to his words regarding the danger of the rotten theory that because the Trotskyists are few we can afford to pay little attention to them ... This is a report to be carefully read and studied, not once but many times’ – March 31). At the second National Congress for Peace and Friendship with the USSR, Pritt soothed the anxieties of those who had doubts about the course of justice under Stalin. ‘I do happen to know that, when you are arrested in the USSR ... there are very elaborate rules of criminal procedure to see that your case will be proceeded with promptly and to ensure that there shall be no delay in having it put forward’ (Congress Report, p. 51). In Left News for April, Ivor Montagu reviewed, under the heading The Guilty the official report of the second trial, together with Collard’s book. A feature of this article was its misquotation from The Revolution Betrayed , designed to show that Trotsky prophesied the defeat of the Soviet Union in war with Nazi Germany. (Montagu gives: ‘Defeat will be fatal to the leading circles of the USSR and to the social bases of the country.’ Trotsky actually wrote ‘would’, not ‘will’, and made plain in the following paragraph that he considered the defeat of Germany more probable:

Notwithstanding all its contradictions, the Soviet regime in the matter of stability still has immense advantages over the regimes of its probable enemies. The very possibility of a rule by the Nazis over the German people was created by the unbearable tenseness of social antagonisms in Germany. These antagonisms have not been removed and not even weakened, but only suppressed by the lid of fascism. A war will bring them to the surface. Hitler has far less chances than had Wilhelm II of carrying a war to victory. Only a timely revolution, by saving Germany from war, could save her from a new defeat. ( The Revolution Betrayed , chapter viii , section 5)

Montagu also referred to Trotsky as ‘perhaps the star contributor to the Hearst Press on Soviet affairs’. In fact, Trotsky always refused even to receive a representative of the Hearst Press, and anything they published over his name was lifted’, often with distortions, from other papers. (Lenin had had occasion in July 1917 to remark regarding a similar slander by the Menshevik Montagus of those days: ‘They have stooped to such a ridiculous thing as blaming the Pravda for the fact that its dispatches to the socialist papers of Sweden and other countries ... have been reprinted by the German papers, often garbled! ... As if the reprinting or the vicious distortions can be blamed on the authors!’)

In Challenge of May 27 Gollan asserted ‘the absolute necessity ... of once and for all ridding the youth movement of all Trotskyist elements as a pre-condition for unity’, thus subordinating the urgent need for workers’ unity to the requirements of the NKVD.  

Between the Second and Third Trials

The case of the Generals – a sort of intermezzo between the second and third trials – gave the British Stalinists fresh occasion to display their ‘loyalty’ and quarrel with other sections of the working-class movement on its account. This was a secret trial, without confessions, but no matter: the first announcement of the case was greeted by the DW with a leader stating that ‘thanks to the unrelaxing vigilance of the Soviet intelligence service, a further shattering blow has been given to the criminal war-making elements who seek to undermine and destroy the Socialist Fatherland of the international working class’ (June 12). On June 14 the paper announced: Red Army Traitors Executed . The leading article affirmed, as usual, that ‘the workers of Britain will rejoice’, but nevertheless Pollitt, in a special statement published in the same issue, had to rebuke the Herald for getting ‘so hot and bothered’ about this trial. In a statement congratulating the Soviet Government on the executions, published in the DW of June 16, the central committee welcomed, on behalf of the British workers, ‘the wiping out of the bureaucratic degenerates associated with fascism ...’ Arnot proclaimed ( DW , June 18) his conviction of the reliability of the official account of the crimes of Tukhachevsky, Gamarnik, Eidemann and the others: ‘That it is a true story no reasonable man can doubt.’ Montagu added his stone next day ( A Blow at Fascism ) and called for heightened vigilance against ‘such agents in the working class movement elsewhere and working to the same end’. Pat Sloan’s Russia Today (July) hastened to identify itself with the executioners: ‘No true friend of the Soviet Union ... can feel other than a sense of satisfaction that the activities of spies, diversionists and wreckers in the Soviet Army have been given an abrupt quietus ... All talk about the personal struggle of the “dictator” Stalin is rubbish.’ Dutt pitched into Brailsford for his doubts ( On Which Side? , DW , June 21) [13] and Jack Gaster denounced the ‘slanders’ of the Herald at a Hyde Park meeting ( DW , June 22).

About the middle of 1937 it began to be known in the West that a truly gigantic, unprecedentedly sweeping wave of arrests was engulfing many who hitherto had been regarded as secure and loyal pillars of the Stalin regime. This put the British Stalinists in a quandary. When Mezhlauk, for instance, was appointed to succeed Ordzhonikidze as Commissar for Heavy Industry, he was headlined in the DW of February 27 as an Old Soldier of the Revolution . When he was arrested a few months later they could thus hardly dispose of him in the traditional way as ‘never an Old Bolshevik’. So they ignored the arrest, and dealt similarly with the many similar cases that now poured out of the tape-machines. A photograph of Marshal Yegorov appeared in the DW of July 14; when he was arrested shortly afterwards, nothing was said. A photograph of Marshal Bluecher was published in the issue of February 25, actually after his arrest! (At the same time, the wretched Daily Herald came in for another pasting in the DW of October 8 for having published a report of the murder by NKVD agents in Switzerland of Ignace Reiss, an NKVD man who had tried to break with Stalin.)

Perhaps the most revealing instance of the methods of the British Stalinists in dealing with the arrests which they knew about but dared not admit to their dupes is provided by the case of the Lost Editor. When the Soviet official History of the Civil War , Vol.I, was first announced as a forthcoming publication, in the DW of March 11, the list of editors, headed by Stalin and Gorky, included the names of Gamarnik and Bubnov. General Gamarnik having allegedly committed suicide as an exposed accomplice of Tukhachevsky ( Entangled with Enemies of USSR, Took Own Life – DW , June 2), his name had of course disappeared from the advertisement of the book published in Russia Today of November 1937. But though Bubnov had been arrested as an enemy of the people in time for his name to be removed from the title-page of the book before it reached the shops, it was still to be seen on the fly-leaf! When Rothstein reviewed this work in Russia Today of February 1938 he cannily listed the editors as ‘Joseph Stalin, Maxim Gorky and others’. The arrest of Bubnov was a particularly hard blow for the British Stalinists, since they had made special use of his name as that of an Old Bolshevik still in favour. Perhaps resentment at his inconsiderateness in getting arrested was the reason why the DW did not report his return to Moscow in 1956, as an old, broken man, after nearly twenty years in prison. [14]

Particularly worthy of being rescued from oblivion, among the achievements of ‘working-class journalism’ in this period, is an article in the DW of August 20 by Ben Francis, the paper’s Moscow correspondent, in praise of the wonderful work being done by Zakovsky, in charge of security in Leningrad. Around this time, as Khrushchev described in his famous ‘secret speech’ ( Manchester Guardian pamphlet version, The Dethronement of Stalin [1956], p. 15), Zakovsky was having prisoners brought before him after torture in order to offer them their lives in return for their agreement to make a false confession (‘You, yourself’, said Zakovsky, ‘will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare for you a ready outline ... You will have to study it carefully and remember well all questions and answers which the court might ask’).

An example of the contempt into which the trials were bringing both the Soviet authorities and the British Stalinists is provided by the article by ‘Y.Y.’ (Robert Lynd) in the New Statesman of June 26. On the ascription of all shortcoming in Soviet industry to Soviet sabotage, he wrote that, apparently, ‘wherever there is a screw loose in Russia it was Trotsky who loosened it’, and he summed up the King Street theory of the trials thus: ‘Stalin can do no wrong. He will give these men a fair trial, but, as a matter of fact, they would not be put on their trial at all unless it were certain that they were guilty. Therefore, even without knowing the evidence, we know that they are guilty.’ [15] Desperate in their concern to keep the other point of view from their dupes, the Stalinist editors of Left Review refused to publish an advertisement of The Case of Leon Trotsky , being the report of the examination of Trotsky, regarding the statements affecting him made in the trials, carried out by the Commission of Inquiry headed by John Dewey. This was revealed in a letter in the New Statesman of November 6 from the publisher, Mr Frederick Warburg. Replying for Left Review in the next issue of the New Statesman , Randall Swingler explained that ‘there is a line at which criticism ends and destructive attacks begin, and we regret that this line separates us both from Dr Goebbels and from Leon Trotsky’. [16] This spot of publicity compelled the publication of a review of the book in the DW of November 17, in which J.R. Campbell claimed that it gave ‘added confirmation to the Moscow trials, which showed Trotsky as a political degenerate, an ally of fascism, a vile maniacal enemy of socialism and peace’. A letter from Charles van Gelderen pointing out some glaring inaccuracies in Campbell’s article was refused publication in the DW ; it appeared, however, in the (London) Militant for December.

The political consequences of all this pernicious nonsense were well summed up in an article by H.J. Laski in the New York Nation for November 20:

There is no doubt but the mass executions in the Soviet Union in the last two years have greatly injured the prestige of Russia with the rank and file of the Labour Party. They do not understand them, and they feel that those who accept them without discussion are not satisfactory allies. I do not comment on this view; I merely record it. In my judgment. the executions undoubtedly cost the supporters of the United Front something like half a million votes in the Bournemouth Conference.

The year 1938, which opened with the final disappearance of the slogan: ‘Workers of all lands, unite!’ from the masthead of the DW , was to see even further feats of genuine sabotage of workers’ unity by the Stalinists under the banner of anti-Trotskyism. Communist speakers refused to appear on the same platform with ILP speakers at ‘Aid Spain’ meetings. All remnants of shame and caution were cast aside in this truly maniacal campaign. Thus, in Discussion of January, Pat Sloan wrote: ‘Masses and leaders are united; the people adore “our Stalin”. Stalin respects the masses as no other political leader of today respects the masses ...’ In Controversy of the same month the same propagandist declared himself unfamiliar with and unready to accept as genuine Stalin’s statement of November 6, 1918, on Trotsky’s role in the October Revolution (Stalin, The October Revolution , published in the Marxist-Leninist Library by Lawrence and Wishart in 1936, p.30), which had been mentioned by a contributor, and proceeded to withdraw from the battle on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to continue a controversy with someone as unscrupulous ... Trotskyism ... is incompatible with historical truth’. [17] Dutt, in the DW of January 21, quoted some remarks of Lenin’s about Bukharin (also, incidentally, Dzerzhinsky and other ‘Left Communists’ who died in the odour of Stalinist sanctity) as though they referred to Trotsky. R. Osborn (Reuben Osbert, the psychiatrist) brought out a book, The Psychology of Reaction (1938), in which he tried to identify fascism and ‘Trotskyism’ psychologically (‘A knowledge of the psychology of fascist leaders is at the same time a knowledge of the psychology of the Trotskyists’) and this was reviewed enthusiastically by John Strachey in Left News for February. (Strachey offered as his own view that ‘Trotskyists’ were recruited mainly from ‘insufficiently sensitive’, ‘inhuman’ types).  

The Third Trial

Now came the third and last of the great ‘public’ trials – the Trial of the Twenty-One, bigger and more fantastic than any of the foregoing, with Bukharin, Rykov, Rakovsky and Krestinsky in the leading roles. The British Stalinists (who had made extensive use of the writings of Bukharin and Rykov in the anti-Trotskyist campaign of 1925-28, presenting them as great Marxist thinkers and statesmen) did not flinch. [18] The DW leader of March 2 declared: ‘Soviet justice will prove itself once again as the unsleeping sword on behalf of the working class and the peoples of the world against their enemies.’ Eden having been replaced by Halifax, British agents now found their place in the legend alongside the German ones, and R. Page Arnot, in his dispatches from the Moscow court-room, solemnly explained how Rakovsky had been in British pay since 1924 and Trotsky since 1926. As before – Stalin still retaining confidence in the Franco-Soviet Pact – it appeared that none of the accused had had any contact with France, even in the years when French imperialism was heading the anti-Soviet forces in the world. Even so far back, it seemed, the cunning ‘Trotskyists’ had foreseen what the pattern of diplomacy would be at the time of their trial.

Furthermore, Trotsky had been a German spy since 1921; though why he should wish to link up with an impoverished and defeated State such as Germany was then, or why, indeed, being at the height of his authority in Russia at that time, he should have troubled to make such connexions at all, was never explained. The British Stalinists knew their place better than even as much as to comment on these oddities. (Arnot confined his observations to such safe remarks as: ‘Vyshinsky ... is always a credit to his calling’) [19] As before, however, certain ill-conditioned elements in the Labour movement gave trouble. The DW had to devote a leading article on March 7 to – Brailsford Again . (‘They did not confess of their own accord. They held out to the last until they realized the Soviet authorities had complete proof of all their crimes, and then admitted only what could not be denied.’) The central committee of the party published in the DW of March 8 its routine, required declaration kicking the accused (‘Every weak, corrupt or ambitious traitor to Socialism’), denouncing ‘the fascist agent Trotsky’ and expressing ‘full confidence’ in Yezhov, ‘our Bolshevik comrade’. William Wainwright, in Challenge of March 10, really went to town on the trial: ‘This is more than a trial. It is a fight between the forces of war and the forces of peace.’ After the ritual bit of historical untruth (Trotsky ‘was not one of the leaders of the rising. Stalin was’), Wainwright went on to allege that the accused wanted to let the fascists into Russia. ‘Just as Franco did in Spain ... Let us be glad that this trial has taken place, that these men will be sentenced ... Let us in our youth organizations clean out those ... who support those whose crime is against the people.’

The DW leader of March 11, dealing with the ILP’s appeal to Moscow not to execute the convicted men, was entitled: ‘Degenerates Appeal for Degenerates’. In Inprecorr of March 12, Reg Bishop welcomed the publication in certain bourgeois papers of articles accepting the genuineness of the tria1 [20] , while at the same time deploring that at the most recent meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party a resolution had been moved condemning it. The resolution was defeated, true; ‘but it is a deplorable thing that it should even have been mooted in a responsible Labour gathering’. The New Statesman ’s attitude had been unsatisfactory, too; but then, that was ‘mainly read by intellectuals’. Albert Inkpin, secretary of the World Committee of Friends of the Soviet Union, had a letter in the March 12 issue of the offending weekly, telling the editor that ‘all fascists and reactionaries’ would applaud his doubts about the trial. (Replying, the editor declared that it was rather the picture of nearly all the founders of the Soviet State being spies and wreckers that was likely to give pleasure to the enemies of the USSR. Besides, if the New Statesman had ventured to suggest such a thing, not so very long before, the FSU would certainly have jumped on them. ‘What Soviet hero dare we praise today? Who is tomorrow’s carrion?’)

Harry Pollitt himself, in the DW of March 12, told the world that ‘the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress’, the article being illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Yezhov, that Old Bolshevik shortly to be dismissed and die in obscurity. Forces from the cultural field also joined in the battle on this occasion. Jack Lindsay put a letter into Tribune of March 18 affirming that ‘surely the strangest thing about the Moscow trials is the way that critics find them “psychologically” puzzling ... That is the one thing they are not ... The cleavage between the men who trusted the powers of the masses, and the men who trusted only their own “cleverness” had to come. And naturally persons with “individualistic” minds can’t understand! Naturally they get scared and see themselves in the dock.’ So there! Sean O’Casey contributed a lamentable article in the DW of March 25 ( The Sword of the Soviet ) containing such statements as: ‘The opposition to and envy of Lenin and Stalin by Trotsky was evident before even the Revolution of 1917 began.’ (O’Casey cannot but have known how little cause Trotsky had to ‘envy’ Stalin before 1917 and would have been hard put to it to show how such envy made itself ‘evident’!).

Rather unkindly, in view of the efforts of Messrs Lindsay and O’Casey, Russia Today for April dismissed the victims as ‘almost all middle-class intellectuals’. The same issue carried an article by Kath Taylor describing the anger of Russian workers at the revelations of sabotage made in the ‘Bukharin’ trial. Now they realized, she wrote, why ‘they waited hours long in the food queues only to find the food almost unfit to eat when they got it home ... Now we knew why our wages had been held up, and the reasons for many other things that had made life so hard at the most difficult moments.’ [21]

Let us conclude our quotations with one from John Strachey, who wrote in the DW , appropriately enough on April 1, that ‘no one who really reads the evidence, either of the former trials or of this one, can doubt that these things happened’, and assessed the conviction of the wretched victims as ‘the greatest anti-fascist victory which we have yet recorded.’

1. This was the issue with the editorial headed: Shoot the Reptiles! Commenting on it, the New Statesman of August 29 remarked prophetically: ‘Those who shoot them today may be themselves shot as reptiles at the next turn of the wheel.’ (This was to be the fate of Yagoda, head of the NKVD at the time of the first trial, shot in 1938.) It was presumably by an oversight that the DW never quoted the verses which graced the August 29 issue of the Paris White Guard paper Vozrozhdenye following the announcement of the executions after the first trial.

2. Fox did not live – he was killed in Spain a few months later – to reflect on the fate of two of the persons whom he named in this article as examples of how there were still plenty of Old Bolsheviks around and loyal to Stalin: ‘Bubnov, Stasova and Krestinsky continue to hold important and honourable places in the leadership of the Soviet State.’

3. As soon as Molotov had made up his quarrel with Stalin, defendants began confessing to plots against him so far back as 1934 (Muralov, Shestov, Arnold, in the trial of January 1937) of which nothing had been said in the confessions of August 1936. Trotsky commented: ‘The conclusions are absolutely clear: the defendants had as little freedom in their choice of “victims” as in all other respects.’

4. It was Moisei Lurye, incidentally, writing under the pseudonym ‘Alexander Emel’, who wrote in Inprecorr (German edition), November 15, 1932, that ‘in Pilsudski’s Poland Trotsky enjoys the particular sympathy of the political police’. Cf. J. Klugmann: ‘The secret police of the Polish dictatorship were specially educated in Trotskyism ... ( From Trotsky to Tito [1951], p. 82)

5. Contrast the earnest efforts of Christian apologists to reconcile the contradictions and differences between the various Gospels. Anyone approaching the study of the August 1936 trial for the first time is recommended to notice the following points. Ter-Vaganian stated that the terrorist group was formed in autumn 1931 and Zinoviev that it began in summer 1932, while Mrachkovsky made it date from the end of 1932. In November 1932 Kamenev and Zinoviev had been banished to the East and were not allowed back until the middle of 1933. Smirnov was in prison from the beginning of 1933 onwards, so could hardly have participated effectively in the plot to kill Kirov (December 1934). Berman-Yurin dated the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in September 1934 (it took place in July–August 1935), and explained that a plot to kill Stalin at a Comintern executive meeting failed because David, the assassin-designate, was unable to get a pass to enter the hall, whereas David said the plot failed because Stalin did not attend the meeting. A number of persons whose alleged testimony was quoted in the indictment or in court (Radin, Schmidt, Karev, Matorin etc.) were never produced either as witnesses or as accused at this or any later trial. Trotsky’s appeal (to the central executive committee!) in his Open Letter of March 1932 to ‘put Stalin out of the way’ ( Report of Court Proceedings , p. 127) was actually an appeal to them to ‘at last put into effect the final urgent advice by Lenin, to “remove Stalin”,’ i.e., a reference to the document known as Lenin’s Testament , as may be seen from the Bulletin of the Opposition in which this Open Letter quite openly appeared.

6. Contrast the sceptical mood of many Soviet citizens reflected in the story which was current in Moscow during the trial: Alexei Tolstoy, upon being arrested and examined, had confessed that he was the author of Hamlet ...

7. The example of Galileo, who ‘confessed’ and repudiated his own discoveries under the mere threat of torture, seems never to have been discussed in Stalinist writing on the trials; nor that of the numerous ‘witches’ who, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, went to their deaths confessing to having had communication with the Devil; nor even that of the Duke of Northumberland who in 1553 confessed to Catholicism even on the very scaffold, in the delusive hope of a pardon from Queen Mary. Krivitsky ( op. cit. p. 212) remarks that ‘the real wonder is that, despite their broken condition and the monstrous forms of pressure exerted by the Ogpu on Stalin’s political opponents, so few did confess. For every one of the 54 prisoners who figured in the three “treason trials”, at least 100 were shot without being broken down.’

8. At the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal the Soviet representatives conspicuously refrained from asking Hess about his alleged anti-Soviet negotiations with Trotsky. In March 1946 a number of prominent British people, including H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Julian Symons and Frank Horrabin, signed an appeal to the Tribunal asking that Trotsky’s widow be allowed to interrogate Hess in order to clear her husband’s name, or that at least the Allied experts examining Gestapo records make a statement showing to what extent they had found confirmation of the story told in the Moscow trials. No action was taken on these requests, and to this day no evidence of Nazi-Trotskyite’ negotiations has been published.

9. Pollitt also wrote in this pamphlet: ‘The bold Trotsky, eh? Wants an international court of inquiry. His tools are left to face it out. Why doesn’t he face it with them? Why doesn’t he go to Moscow?’ Neither here nor anywhere else in Stalinist publications was it ever revealed that Trotsky repeatedly demanded that the Soviet Government bring extradition proceedings against him – which would have necessitated their making a case in a Norwegian or Mexican court.

10 . Anti-Trotskyism eventually became for a time the chief activity of J.R. Campbell, as is reflected in Phil Bolsover’s article, in the DW of April 2, 1938, The Man behind the Answers , describing Campbell at work preparing his Answers to Questions feature: ‘And if you see sometimes a grim, but not unhappy, gleam behind those horn-rimmed spectacles that are lifted occasionally to survey the busy room, you’ll know it’s ten to one that Johnnie Campbell is dealing with some Trotskyist or other. One of his sharper joys is to take an artistic delight in dissecting the sophistries, the half-truths, the complete falsehoods of the breed; laying bare the poverty of their creed for all to see. “Give him a Trotskyist and he’ll be happy for hours”, someone once said.’

11. Around this time died Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Commissar for Heavy Industry. Under the headline Stalin bears Coffin of “Bolshevism’s Fiery Knight” , the DW of February 22 reported the funeral: ‘As Stalin stood with his hands sorrowfully crossed, a wave of the people’s love and loyalty swept towards him. Beside him stood Zinaida Ordzhonikidze, Sergo’s wife ...’ An article about the dead man which appeared next day was headed: Health Shattered by Trotskyist Wrecking . On August 12 a leader headed Foul Lies denounced the Herald for carrying a story that Ordzhonikidze had killed himself and that his brothers has been arrested. (‘All Labour men and women [should now]> protest .against the anti-Soviet line of this most scurrilous rag in the newspaper world.’) Russia Today for September, under the heading Another Daily Herald Slander , declared that ‘we are able to state definitely there is not a word of truth in this assertion’. In his secret speech of February 25, 1956 ( The Dethronement of Stalin [1956], p. 27) Khrushchev said: ‘Stalin allowed the liquidation of Ordzhonikidze’s brother and brought Ordzhonikidze himself to such a state that he was forced to shoot himself.’ When Khrushchev and Bulganin came to Britain in the warship Ordzhonikidze , Walter Holmes published in his Worker’s Notebook ( DW , April 16, 1956) a note on the man after whom the ship was named: ‘Ordzhonikidze died in 1937, when many of his assistants were being arrested on charges of spying, sabotage etc. There were rumours that he had been driven to suicide ... It has now been established that Sergo Ordzhonikidze was suspicious of Beria’s political position. After the death of Ordzhonikidze, Beria and his fellow-conspirators continued cruelly to revenge themselves on his family ...’

12 . The extreme concern shown to shore up Holtzman’s evidence is explained by two facts – his was the only statement giving anything like precise details of time and place, and it furnished the basis for all the rest of the story. Concentration on the place where Holtzman allegedly went also served to divert attention from the fact that the person – Sedov – whom he had allegedly met there had been able to prove conclusively, by means of his student’s attendance card and other documents, that he was taking an examination in another city at the time!

13. Returning to the attack on June 8, Dutt wrote with characteristic scorn of ‘liberal intellectual waverers who are incapable of facing the hard realities of the fight against fascism’.

14. Even nearer the bone than the Bubnov case was that of Rose Cohen, a British Communist Party member since 1921, one-time office-manager of the Labour Research Department and member of the Party’s colonial bureau, wife of Petrovsky-Bennett, the Comintern’s nuncio in Britain. While working in Moscow on the staff of Moscow Daily News she was arrested as a spy and never heard of again. An earlier (and unluckier) Edith Bone, her case was never mentioned in the Stalinist press. For details, see Fight and Militant (London) of June 1938 and subsequently.

15. William Rust was perhaps the most honest of the British Stalinists in the matter of admitting that there was nothing whatever to go on beyond the confessions. In his review, in the DW of March 1, 1937, of the verbatim report of the second trial, he wrote: ‘Of the treason and the actual negotiations with the fascist governments there is, of course, no documentary proof ...’ Desperate for ‘documentary proof’ of some sort, the DW of November 10 published a block showing. side by side, the symbol used by a ‘Trotskyist’ publishing firm in Antwerp – a lightning-flash across a globe – and the Mosleyite ‘flash-in-the-pan’. The caption supplied read: ‘Similarity with a significance.’ (During the second world war the five-pointed star was used as an emblem in various ways by the Soviet, American, Indian and Japanese armies).

16. J.R. Campbell defended in the DW of April 11, 1938, that paper’s refusal of advertisements for ‘Trotskyite’ publications: ‘It would be senseless for the Daily Worker to give a free advertisement to opposition political tendencies.’ With this may be compared Walter Holmes’s Worker’s Notebook of November 27, 1936, in which he reproduced a letter from Mr Warburg telling how the Observer had refused an advertisement for John Langdon-Davies’s book Behind the Spanish Barricades , and commented: ‘We agree with Messrs. Secker and Warburg about the grave character of this censorship of advertisements.’

17. Sloan came back to the pages of Controversy in the March issue to denounce Stalin’s words as ‘an unscrupulous misquotation by Trotsky’, to defend the Communist Party’s refusal to allow republication of John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook The World (‘It is a little naïve. I think, to ask communists to popularize an inaccurate account of the internal affairs in Bolshevik leadership in 1917’). and to declare regarding the victims of the trials: ‘It is a good thing they have been shot. Further, if there were more of them, then more of them should have been shot.’

18. J.R. Campbell, closely associated in his time with the Bukharin-Rykov trend, wrote firmly in the DW of March 17, after the executions: ‘It is enemies of socialism and peace who have perished. We should not mourn.’ Lawrence and Wishart brought out a book about the trial – The Plot Against the Soviet Union and World Peace – by B.N. Ponomarev, in which this Soviet authority made it plain that one of the chief criteria for people’s political reliability was ‘their attitude towards ... the struggle against Trotskyism’ (p. 186). (Ponomarev is a member of the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party, working with Suslov in the department concerned with relations with other Communist Parties, and in this capacity recently received. e.g., a delegation from the Australian Communist Party, according to Pravda of January 5, 1958.)

19. One really might have expected some comment on the statement made through Rakovsky that Trotsky had put the British imperialists up to the Arcos raid in 1927, arranging through ‘a certain Meller or Mueller ... the discovery of specially fabricated provocative documents’ ( DW , March 7). After all, the line of the Communist Party had always been that the Arcos raid had produced nothing to justify the charges made against the Soviet agencies in this country. No mention of Rakovsky’s statement at his trial is made in the detailed account of the Arcos Raid in the History of Anglo-Soviet Relations by W.P. and Zelda Coates published by Lawrence and Wishart in 1944. Yet in their book From Tsardom to the Stalin Constitution (1938) Mr and Mrs Coates had declared their belief in the genuineness of the confessions ... In his dispatch printed in the DW of March 9, Arnot quoted without comment an alleged statement by Trotsky in 1918: ‘Stalin – Lenin’s closest assistant – must be destroyed’. It would indeed have been hard for Arnot to comment acceptably, for in 1923 he had written for the Labour Research Department a short history of The Russian Revolution , in which he showed how far Stalin was from being ‘Lenin’s closest assistant’ in 1918, and who in fact occupied that position! Much was made, by Arnot and others, in connexion with all three trials, of the alleged fact that some of the accused had at one time or another been Mensheviks, but no mention appeared of Vyshinsky’s having been a Menshevik down to 1920.

20. All through the period 1936–38 Walter Holmes had kept up a running fire in his Worker’s Notebook in the DW of quotations from bourgeois papers directed against the ‘Trotskyists’. Perhaps his best bag was one from the Times of Malaya which he published on August 7, 1937, reporting the formation of a bloc between Monarchists and Trotskyists’.

21. Compare eyewitness Fitzroy Maclean’s account of the trial in his Eastern Approaches (1949). Zelensky, former chairman of Gosplan, “confessed’ to having put powdered glass and nails into the butter and to having destroyed truckloads of eggs. ‘At this startling revelation a grunt of rage and horror rose from the audience. Now they knew what was the matter with the butter, and why there were never any eggs. Deliberate sabotage was somehow a much more satisfactory solution than carelessness or inefficiency. Besides. Zelensky had admitted that he had been in contact with a sinister foreigner, a politician, a member of the British Labour Party, a certain Mr A.V. Alexander, who had encouraged him in his fell designs. No wonder that he had put ground glass in the butter. And nails! What a warning, too, to have nothing to do with foreigners, even though they masqueraded as socialists.’ Doubtless taking his cue from the inclusion of A.V. Alexander in the dramatis personae of the ‘Bukharin’ trial. Arnot went even further in attacking fellow-socialists in his Labour Monthly article of May 1938 than he had ventured to do previously: he now wrote of ‘H.N. Brailsford and ILP leaders, whose position as dupes of Trotsky or agents of Trotsky is still to be examined.’

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Last updated: 24 February 2020