Highlights of the tour

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• Presented letter from the family of Leon Trotsky to Otto Latsis, Deputy Editor of Kommunist, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Latsis promised to present the letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU.

• Suzi Weissman and Vlady Kibalchich obtained agreement of the Soviet Foundation of Culture to aid in the search for the lost manuscripts of Victor Serge. These manuscripts were stolen from Serge as he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1936.

• Attended a meeting of the Moscow Writers' Union on the subject of clearing Leon Trotsky's name. The delegation was warmly greeted by the audience of 150. Vlady Kibalchich, son of Left Oppositionist Victor Serge, addressed the meeting.

• Attended a meeting of 2500 to support the candidacy of Boris Yeltsin, a veteran member of the ruling bureaucracy who has cultivated a populist image in recent years.

• Attended a mass outdoor meeting of Memorial of over 500 people. Memorial was formed to expose the crimes of Stalin and to seek compensation for the survivors of the • Attended the founding conference of the Moscow People's Front, the largest unofficial • Extensive interview and discussions with Boris Kagarlitsky, leader of the Socialist • Extensive interview with 106-year-old Alexander Davidovich Brianski, a veteran of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, who spoke in defense of Trotsky at the Writers' Union • Distributed many classic works of Trotsky in Russian and presented a copy of Bulletin of the Left Opposition to the historian of the group Memorial.

• Attended the trial of five arrested People's Front activists. They were tried • Extensive interviews of the Trotskyist delegation by the Moscow News, the Moscow University newspaper, the Moscow CPSU youth newspaper, a Moscow regional district paper called Avantgard, and a Baltic region newspaper. (We don't know if they will be printed.) Komsomolskya Pravda, the CPSU national youth paper, also interviewed Suzi Weissman and Vlady Kibalchich on the life and works of Victor Serge. Moscow TV requested an interview but was unable to contact the delegation before our departure. Arrangements were made to interview Vlady Kibalchich, who remained in Moscow for 10 16 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1989 Also did extensive interview with Latsis. repression.

political group in that city.

Initiative Club and of the Moscow People's Front.

meeting.

• Meeting with Nadejda Joffe and family.

• Extensive interview and discussion with Medvedev.

unauthorized election activity. more days.—RALPH SCHOENMAN dissident Roy Of course, the bureaucracy still idealizes Lenin, but for Trotsky they continue to heap abuse, distortions, and attacks.

Meeting with Roy Medvedev One of our first meetings was with Roy Medvedev, the Marxist dissident who is now running for Deputy in the Congress-and is favored to win. Medvedev told us he does not agree with Trotsky's ideas and that he supports glasnost and Gorbachev. But, as a historian, he said he completely opposes the current distortions of Trotsky's political views. Medvedev, in fact, publicly attacked Volkogonov's false characterization of Trotsky. He told us that it was Stalin who was the "Demon of the Revolution."

Medvedev told us, however, that he believes it is very difficult for the Soviet leadership to clear Trotsky's name. He said that Trotsky's political positions were so antagonistic to the whole Stalinist machinery and the basic structure of the bureaucratized society that taking this step would be a major challenge for the regime. Nonetheless, he said, it was inevitable that someday Trotsky would be rehabilitated.

While most people we spoke to considered Trotsky's rehabilitation inevitable, it is my own view that it will be some time before this happens. It is not necessary for the bureaucracy to clear Trotsky's name now. It is only necessary to allow the mostly one-sided discussion about him to continue.

Whatever happens, it is obvious that the Left Opposition opponents of Stalin are not going to get a fair hearing if the presentation of their views is left in the hands of the governing apparatus. Nonetheless, there are big openings for supporters of Trotsky to