Moscow rally calls for rehabilitation of Trotsky

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This successful search for and the atmosphere of that called for the The following interview with Pierre Broué, director of the French-based Leon Trotsky Institute, was conducted by Alan Benjamin on Dec. 4, 1988. Broué is the author of a recently published monumental biography of Leon Trotsky, which at present is only available in French from Editions Fayard.

Socialist Action: You recently returned from a trip to the Soviet Union. Who organized the trip and what was its purpose?

Pierre Broué: I was contacted by a socialist activist in the France-U.S.S.R. Friendship Committee who asked me if I would be willing to be part of a delegation to the Soviet Union, assuming the Soviet consulate granted me a visa. I said yes.

So I wrote a request for a visa in which I stated that I was a Trotskyist, a biographer of Trotsky, and that I wanted to do some research on the Soviet Union and to talk to Soviet historians about gaining access to the state archives on Trotsky. I also said I wanted to find Trotsky's granddaughter. Fortunately I was granted a visa.

S.A.: Did you have access to the state archives on Trotsky?

Broué: Absolutely not. I met Yuri Afanasiev, the director of the Historical Archives Institute, who told me that there had been no change of policy concerning the archives I was interested in—that is, the Joseph Stalin collection and the KGB archives. He said that access was still highly restricted and that only a few historians and intellectuals such as Dimitri Volkogonov [Stalin's official biographer] and Chatrov [a leading playwright] had been given access to the files.

S.A.: And did you find Trotsky's granddaughter?

Broué: Yes. I found her soon after my arrival. Her name is Alexandra (Sasha) Sakharonovna. She is about 65 years old. She is the daughter of Zinaida (Trotsky's oldest daughter] by her first marriage with a teacher named Sakhar Mogline. She is the half sister of Seva-that is, Esteban Volkov.

[Zina remarried P.I. Volkov two years after Alexandra was born and had a second child, Seva.] I spent many hours with her, filling her in on the history of her family. She didn't know under what conditions her mother had left the Soviet Union 58 years ago or how her mother had died 55 years ago. I also spoke to her about her brother, Seva, whom she only remembered as a 5-year-old boy.

Alexandra was exiled and then imprisoned until the mid-1950s. Upon her release, following Stalin's death, she became a chemist and lived anonymously until three months ago, when she declared she was Trotsky's granddaughter. She did this after finding out that she had terminal cancer. For more on this story, see interview with Esteban Volkov on opposite page.] S.A.: An article in the Nov. 22 issue of the French daily Le Monde gave an account of a meeting in Moscow that called for the rehabilitation of Leon Trotsky. It was the first meeting dealing with Trotsky in the Soviet Union in over 60 years. I understand you were at that meeting.

Broué: Yes. My first day in Moscow I received a phone call from someone who invited me to attend a meeting that was being held the next day—that is, Nov. 15—t0 demand Trotsky's rehabilitation.

The meeting was held at the Palace of Culture of the National Aeronautical Institute. It was organized by the Memorial group. [This is an independent organization that has spearheaded a campaign to erect a monument to the victims of Stalin's repression.] Four hundred tickets for the event had been sold in advance, even though no publicity had gone out, only word of mouth. The night of the event, more than 1000 people were Knocking at the doors of the Institute, trying to get in. The hall seated only 400, but 500 were allowed in. I didn't have a ticket but was ushered in and placed in the front row.

At the entrance there were large billboards with photos of Trotsky, Natalia [his companion], and Leon Sedov [his son and close collaborator]. The billboards included information about Trotsky's role in Soviet history and his fight against Stalin. People were 'eturned from m a trip to that is, men and women in their seventies and eighties, many of whom were also children of old Bolshevik leaders.

Speakers at an open microphone in the auditorium included Galina AntonovOvseenko, the daughter of one of the principal leaders of the Red Army who was executed in 1938. She had been in a Stalinist camp from 1937 to 1953.

Galina spoke with tremendous energy and passion, unable to contain any longer what she had been unable to say all her life. At one point she said: "What is Trotskyism? It is my whole life!" And she continued, "Now it is time for us to demand our history. Give us back our history and the truth, the whole truth."

Others who spoke asked questions, some of them quite naïve. One young person, for example, asked if it was true that Stalin allowed Trotsky to take a train car full of gold when he expelled him the from the Soviet Union. Other questions were more complex, dealing with past and present political debates. Still others wanted to know why Trotsky was not at Lenin's funeral.

One speaker from the audience said he wished the speakers had more fully taken up Trotsky's role in founding the Fourth International. He also said that he had a copy of Trotsky's "The Revolution Betrayed," which he urged everyone to read. He gave his name and telephone number so that people could get a copy of the book from him.

S.A.: Does "Revolution Betrayed" circulate widely among the dissidents?

Broué: This book as well as others by Trotsky get around very fast. If a copy is brought from abroad, you can be sure that the next day 500 copies have been made and distributed. This is also true of videocassettes.

For example, I took a copy of a two-hour video documentary on Trotsky that was recently shown on French national TV. [Broué was the historical consultant of the documentary.] I was told that by the end of my one-week trip, a couple-hundred copies of the documentary had already been made and circulated underground.

S.A.: I also understand that you were able to speak at the meeting.

Broué: Yes. At the end of the questionand-answer period, the chairperson called on me to answer questions pertaining to the Trotsky archives.

I took the floor, to my great surprise, and began my remarks by stating my name and saying : that I was a Trotskyist. I was immediately interrupted by thunderous applause.

I said I had devoted over 30 years to researching the life and work of Trotsky. I recounted how some of Trotsky's archives had ended up at Harvard and those of Leon Sedov had ended up at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. I explained what documents could be found in these archives.

I then showed a copy of my recently published biography of Trotsky, which is over 1100 pages in length and weighs close to 3 lbs., a comment that made everyone laugh. I said I had written this book not only for French readers, but also for Soviet working people to help them in their struggle against what I called the assassins o! historical truth and memory.

I then symbolically offered my book to th Soviet workers and youth by giving it 1 Nadejda Joffe. Nadejda took the book, wave it passionately over her head, and exclaimtu loudly: "Never in my 82 years of life has a present meant so much to me and given me such great joy!" The audience responded with even louder applause.

The meeting then concluded with a vote on a resolution that called for Trotsky's rehabilitation, his reintegration into the Soviet Communist Party, the restitution of his Soviet citizenship, and the publication of all his works.

After the meeting, I was immediately surrounded by dozens of people, old and young, who were exhilarated to meet a Trotskyist and who were thirsty to find out more about Trotsky. They said how important it was for them to finally be able to find their way back to the traditions of the early Bolshevik Party.