Last minute: Trotsky's son, Sergei Sedov, rehabilitated
1988 1988-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
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completely distorts Trotsky's position on the collectivization of agriculture.
S.A.: The fabrications are incredible. Trotsky was one of the first to propose a "new economic policy" with overtures to the better-off peasants and the introduction of limited market mechanisms. But his proposals were rejected by the Bolshevik Party leadership. So he then said that the only alternative would be to carry out a rapid plan of industrialization to supply the peasants with adequate consumer and capital goods.
Weissman: That's right, he proposed it to the Central Committee of the party back in 1920. And he was in a position to know about the country's drastic economic situation had said and emptied it of its content.
S.A.: Indeed. Trotsky explained that the collectivization of agriculture could only be carried out through patient example. Only the lure of increased production, material goods, and mechanization would bring the peasants to relinquish their private plots and join in more advanced cooperative and collective forms of production. Trotsky was vehemently opposed to Stalin's forced collectivization and terror.
In the article by General Volkogonov, however, you get the distinct impression that Trotsky would have carried out the same forced collectivization as Stalin.
Weissman: You're right. They're trying As we go to press, the Soviet bureaucracy has just announced that Sergei Sedov, Trotsky's son who was shot by Stalin in 1937, has been rehabilitated.
Sergei Sedov was an engineer who generally kept out of politics. He was assassinated after serving a three-year sentence on charges of conspiracy against the state. His only crime: Being the son of Leon Trotsky.
In a related item, we have learned that a meeting of 500 people, organized by tr group Memorial, just took place in Mos cow to call for the rehabilitation of Leo: Trotsky. Two of the keynote speakers were Pierre Broué, director of the Leon Trotsky Insitute in France, and the daughter of Adolf A. Joffe, who was a leader of Trotsky's Left Opposition.
In our next issue, we will publish an extensive interview with Pierre Broué on the meaning of these two events.