Scan barcode
A review by kevin_shepherd
Trotsky in New York, 1917: A Radical on the Eve of Revolution by Kenneth D. Ackerman
4.0
“Leon Trotsky remains one of the great tragic figures of the 20th Century… a powerful orator who could sway a large crowd and move it to tears, a historian whose literary talents made it impossible to ignore his work, and a political analyst who interpreted events and foresaw the future with the passion of an Old Testament prophet.” ~Tariq Ali
Trotsky was a man who blurred distinctions. He is sometimes referred to as a communist and sometimes as a socialist. He was both a pacifist and a revolutionary. On the one hand he found sanctuary in capitalist America, on the other hand he campaigned for its overthrow. Trotsky was distrustful of authority, especially policemen, and yet he was a key architect of Stalinist Russia, one of the most brutal authoritarian regimes of its day.
Kenneth D. Ackerman’s Trotsky in New York, 1917 is perhaps poorly titled. Ackerman’s scope is much more comprehensive than Trotsky’s three month exile in America. But it was those three months, January to March, that were pivotal - not only for Trotsky, but also for the affirmation of socialism as an ideology. Speaking metaphorically, it was the eye of the storm.
“I did not leave a party of crooks to join one of lunatics.” ~Louis Boudin, on the split Socialist Party Convention, 1917
In spite of the advent of people like James Baldwin and (much later) Bernie Sanders, socialism in America would never regain the momentum it had prior to the first world war. From a capitalist point of view socialism, and by extension communism, always inevitably descends into totalitarianism. After all, it was socialistic philosophy that gave rise to the Stalinism that, in the end, led to Trotsky’s imprisonment and eventual assassination.
At his core, Trotsky believed that any oppressive regime could be overthrown by an organized and motivated will of the people. That made him a danger to dictators and oligarchs and autocrats everywhere. Whatever one’s opinion of him may be, Trotsky was, to paraphrase Ackerman, an irrefutable agent of change in a world that craved stability.
Trotsky was a man who blurred distinctions. He is sometimes referred to as a communist and sometimes as a socialist. He was both a pacifist and a revolutionary. On the one hand he found sanctuary in capitalist America, on the other hand he campaigned for its overthrow. Trotsky was distrustful of authority, especially policemen, and yet he was a key architect of Stalinist Russia, one of the most brutal authoritarian regimes of its day.
Kenneth D. Ackerman’s Trotsky in New York, 1917 is perhaps poorly titled. Ackerman’s scope is much more comprehensive than Trotsky’s three month exile in America. But it was those three months, January to March, that were pivotal - not only for Trotsky, but also for the affirmation of socialism as an ideology. Speaking metaphorically, it was the eye of the storm.
“I did not leave a party of crooks to join one of lunatics.” ~Louis Boudin, on the split Socialist Party Convention, 1917
In spite of the advent of people like James Baldwin and (much later) Bernie Sanders, socialism in America would never regain the momentum it had prior to the first world war. From a capitalist point of view socialism, and by extension communism, always inevitably descends into totalitarianism. After all, it was socialistic philosophy that gave rise to the Stalinism that, in the end, led to Trotsky’s imprisonment and eventual assassination.
At his core, Trotsky believed that any oppressive regime could be overthrown by an organized and motivated will of the people. That made him a danger to dictators and oligarchs and autocrats everywhere. Whatever one’s opinion of him may be, Trotsky was, to paraphrase Ackerman, an irrefutable agent of change in a world that craved stability.