Mainstream press covers tour by veteran Trotskyists

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Alexei Folger; and F erre Broué AcTioN at Oct. 20 Boston Soviet tour meeting Members of Walnut Publishing's recent cross-country tour on the Soviet Union were interviewed by several radio stations and newspapers. The Boston Globe, for example, carried an interview with Esteban Volkov in its Oct. 21, 1989, issue titled "In defense of Trotsky; slain revolutionary's grandson campaigns to clear reputation in USSR."

"I am not so much trying to restore his name," Volkov told the Globe. "Trotsky doesn't need it. But I want to restore historical truth."

"Why?" commented the interviewer. "Trotsky would be pleased with the answer. Because, Volkov said, he and his allies believe that Trotsky's books could rekindle the revolution Stalin thwarted."

Tour participant Nadezhda Joffe was also interviewed by the Boston Globe. The newspaper pointed out that Joffe spent decades in labor and concentration camps after her father committed suicide in protest against Stalin.

Joffe told the Globe that publication of Trotsky's works would be of great importance as the Gorbachev leadership attempts to ban strikes, because "Trotsky's work provides a justification of strikes."

In the San Francisco (Oct.

Editeraynerilfinamore Essaysmay Esteban Volkov. Pierre Broué, Susan Weissman, Nat Weinstein, Paul Siegel, Ralph Schoenman Zbigniew Kowalewski. Gerry Foley, Hayden Perry, to Cartlanarhbre dent representatives of the society througout the republic." (New York Times, Nov. 27)

Whatever Havel thinks or does in the days ahead, these words can only be a reflection of a process already unfolding in workers' forums, and points to the way by which the political revolution in the workers' states can be consummated.

The way forward It would be the greatest mistake to imagine that the bureaucracy will not be able to establish forms of "democratization" consistent with its continued bureaucratic rule. Parliamentary democracy permits the bureaucracy to establish an outlet for discontent that (continued from previous page)

operated on but never recovered. Before the operation, Natalya was at his side, and the nurse came to cut his hair for the operation. He tried to lighten the moment for Natalya by making a joke. There was an old barber from Coyoacan who used to cut Trotsky's hair every month. So Trotsky commented to Natalya that "it seems the barber has come."

After that, his last words were to Natalya, "I love you, I love you." He gave her a last kiss and he disappeared, to take his place in the annals of history.

That is more or less my recollection of those tragic days. But if we see the march of history now, I think that Trotsky is more alive politically than he was 50 years ago. 1989), staffwriter Stephen Schwartz wrote that "Volkov, who arrived in San Francisco last night for a lecture today, believes glasnost has a long way to go."

"The leadership is hesitant to completely publicize Trotsky's ideas because they are a sharp criticism of the Soviet bureaucracy," Volkov told the Chronicle interviewer.

Esteban Volkov was also interviewed in the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 2, 1989). Staffwriter Garry Abrams noted: "The murder of Trotsky, apparently on orders of Stalin, silenced one of the dictator's most articulate enemies and a key architect of the Bolshevik Revolution that established the Soviet government. It's generally agreed that the killing gave Stalin even more latitude to rewrite history—to minimize, distort, and often erase the role played by the man who might have succeeded Lenin as leader of the first communist state."

The Los Angeles Times staffwriter said that Volkov told him he "wants the past put into the proper perspective not only for his grandfather but for all victims of the Stalin era." Volkov added, however, that "Personally, I would not like Trotsky to become an icon."

Walnut Publishing's

"Gorbachev's USSR:

Is Stalinism Dead" (208 pages with photos) analyzes current events in the Soviet Union againsi the backdrop of the struggle for socialist democracy waged by Leon Trotsky and hi supporters against Josef Stalin in the 1920s and '30s.

To order, send $9.95 (includes $1 for postage and handling) to Walnui Publishing Co., 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

essentially bars workers from bringing their political force to bear. (The majorities won by opponents of Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union and Poland have left the direction of government, the army, the police, and economic management in the hands of bureaucrats.)

Only a system of workers' and consumers' democratic control over production and distribution, in every workplace and in every city, institutionalized in workers' and consumers' councils, can overcome the bureaucratic malaise dragging down the economies in the workers' states, and point the way to a genuine socialist future for the human race. - NAT WEINSTEIN And Stalin is going to the garbage dump of history.

Developments in the Soviet Union are unfolding in the way that Trotsky forecast. Inevitably, there will be a political revolution to rid society of the Stalinist bureaucratic dictatorship. The working class sooner or later will recover the power that was stolen from them by the bureaucracy.

Gorbachev is trying to overcome this historical march by making various deals and arrangements. But Marxists don't think the bureaucracy has any future. It has no roots in society. It has no ownership of property like the capitalists; it only has the power it gained illegitimately through tyranny-and those things cannot last forever.

In human society, as in any physical world, you need harmony. The Soviet bureaucratic system is not harmonic and it will be destroyed by the process of history.

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Gorbachev's USSRI Is-Stalinism Dead! Amallection ofessays in defense. of socialist democracy