Typed Letter to A.J. Muste, September 18, 1935 ["Nothing In Common With the Decadent Comintern"]

1935. Original typed letter, unsigned - likely a retained file copy. 48 lines (ca 600 words) on single side of a sheet of typewriter bond; signed in type, "With warmest revolutionary greetings / Yours, / L. Trotsky." Paper toned, ragged at edges with a few tears into margins; complete and Good. Docketed in pencil "P.C." at upper right, below date.

Letter with excellent content, addressed to A.[Abraham] J. Muste, at this time the co-Chair (with James P. Cannon) of the Trotskyist Workers Party of the United States. Trotsky comments on the role of the Workers Party in the Fourth International; requests that copies of The New International (the WPUSA's theoretical organ) be forwarded to Fenner Brockway in London; and briefly notes organizational activities in Spain. In a postscript, Trotsky criticises the actions of Hugo Oehler, a WPUSA member, for his poorly-considered remarks regarding the French federation. A rare original document; however this is a known letter, published in Volume 14 of Trotsky's Collected Writings (NY: 1979). Provenance: once in the inventory of University Place Books, New York; to us via The Chatham Bookseller (which acquired a portion of the University Place inventory in the mid-1980s). (Inventory #: 82876)