Confessions of a GPU Spy

The International Committee of the Fourth International obtained the secret testimony of GPU agent Sylvia Franklin before a New York Grand Jury in 1954 and 1958.

Franklin worked in the SWP’s national office between 1938-1947 as the personal secretary of James P. Cannon, the then leader of the American section of the International Committee. To this day, the SWP have defended Franklin as an “exemplary comrade”. The evidence presented in these documents are irrefutable confirmations that the SWP leadership lied to its membership and the workers movement to protect agents of the Soviet secret police who had participated in the preparations for the assassination of Leon Trotsky, founder of the Fourth International, on August 20, 1940.