The Young Broz 27
of putting trustworthy people in positions of responsibility, Gorkić chose peo-
ple about whom only second-hand information was available. This was how
careerists and provocateurs had infiltrated the ranks. Moreover, the CC did not
remove those who were under threat of arrest soon enough and, consequently,
when under “pressure” they betrayed their comrades. Among the culprits re-
sponsible, Walter mentioned first of all Gorkić himself, stating that he was
too prone to trust people when they showed they were willing to collaborate.
In order to right what had gone wrong, he proposed that no more than two
members of the Politburo should be in charge of selecting the cadres. They
should make sure that posts of responsibility were covered by mature comrades
who were ideologically trustworthy and had experience in the field. All the
older communists living in Moscow should therefore be sent home, since they
were known to the masses and had contacts both with the Social Democrats
and the “petit bourgeois” groups. They would be invaluable in the establish-
ment of a common antifascist popular front. He went so far as to include in the
list two comrades who had been expelled from the party, even daring to criti-
cize the disorganization within the Comintern itself, and stated that matters
that should have been confidential were widely known. Gorkić had proposed
that in resturcturing the party two men be kept abroad. Walter opposed this,
believing that one would be sufficient, for if two centers of power were formed,
one at home and one in exile, they would hinder each other. Only Gorkić
should stay abroad with a small technical staff and one comrade who was not
a member of the CC. The latter should be in charge of the Proleter, the party
organ. While this paper, Broz’s first on organizational questions, was not with-
out critical remarks regarding his comrades, it did not sound like a denuncia-
tion but rather an attempt to stress the shortcomings of Gorkić and Broz’s own
political experience. It was widely circulated among the IKKI leaders and con-
firmed their impression that Comrade Walter could be trusted.^106
On 16 October 1936, the day this paper was delivered, Walter left for Vienna
with a passport in the name of a Yugoslav subject called Ivan D. Kisić and $200
in his pocket.^107 Years later, he would remember Dimitrov and Pieck with grat-
itude, as they had helped him “to disappear from Moscow in time.” Because of
the Stalinist purges the situation there was becoming exceedingly dangerous.
Especially terrible were those nights in the Hotel Lux when arrests were being
made: “Women’s cries, children’s laments, to make one’s hair stand on end.”^108
In the Austrian capital he found the party in total disarray because some weeks
before the police had succeeded in arresting almost the entire leadership. After
a week, Walter continued his journey to Yugoslavia, this time with new duties
that enlarged his field of action. His task was to lead, restructure, and strengthen