Indian Trotskyist Com. Dulal Bose, 1918-2001
Veteran Trotskyist Dulal Bose died in Calcutta on March 21 at the age of 82. He joined the Trotskyist movement in 1939 as a young man, fought tenaciously for its program in the Indian working class and remained committed to its principles throughout his entire adult life. In 1991, he joined the Socialist Labour League in India,
which is in solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International, and devoted the last decade of his life to translating the works of Leon Trotsky into Bengali.
Dulal Bose was born in Calcutta on September 10, 1918. His father died when Dulal was young and he was brought up by his uncle. An intelligent and talented young man, he studied for a bachelor of honors degree in English but never finished the course. Like many of his generation he was drawn into politics by momentous events—the Russian Revolution, which occurred in the year before he was born, a growing mass movement against British colonial rule and the imminent Second World War.
What distinguished Dulal, however, was an understanding that the working class was the sole force capable of resolving the immense problems confronting the Indian masses. He was hostile to the Indian National Congress led by Gandhi and Nehru, which had accepted ministerial office under the British. Dulal was particularly affected when the Congress administration shot down striking workers in Kanpur, Bombay and Madras, and put down peasant struggles in 1938. He also distrusted the Communist Party of India, which took its line from the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow, and called for unity with Gandhi and the Congress despite the repression.
In the midst of this political turmoil, it was Leon Trotsky's Open Letter to the Workers of India that clarified for Dulal the political orientation that had to be fought for. Written in July, 1939 on the eve of World War II, the letter subjected the policies of the Communist International or Comintern, which argued that the Indian working class had to subordinate itself to the British in the interests of fighting fascism, to a withering critique.
After exposing the utter incapacity of Congress to wage a revolutionary struggle, Trotsky tore apart the arguments of the Stalinists. According to the Comintern, he wrote, in the event of a war over colonies, “the Indian people must support their present slaveowners, the British imperialists. That is to say, they must shed their blood not for their own emancipation, but for the preservation of the rule of ‘the City' [the financial centre of London] over India. And these cheaply-to-be-bought scoundrels dare to quote Marx and Lenin!” In the case of war, the Indian working class, Trotsky explained, had to fight for its own class interests independently of the British, Congress and the Stalinists and for that a revolutionary party was needed.
Dulal responded to this appeal and joined the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) formed in Bengal in 1939 to fight for Trotsky's perspective. The RSL merged with the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] and other Trotskyist organisations on the Indian subcontinent to form the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI), which became a section of the Fourth International in 1942.
Dulal was present at the BLPI's founding congress and was a member of its Bengal regional committee. He devoted himself to work full-time for the new party and played a leading role in its struggle during and immediately after World War II.
Working under conditions of illegality, Dulal and his comrades succeeded in establishing the authority of the BLPI among a considerable section of the working class of Calcutta. The party produced an English-language journal, the Permanent Revolution, the newspaper Spark in English and a Bengali paper Inquilab (Revolution), which had over 2,000 regular subscribers and was circulated widely.
The BLPI not only had to counter the dangers of arrest by the police but also the threat of Stalinist informers who had no compunction in providing the British colonial authorities with information about the activity of Trotskyists. Throughout this period, the BLPI sheltered leading Trotskyists from Ceylon who had escaped from jail after being imprisoned for opposing the war.
The immediate aftermath of the war witnessed an upsurge in the struggles of the Indian working class. The BLPI won the leadership of a number of trade unions. In Bengal, it led the paper workers', match workers' and fire fighters' unions. Dulal became secretary of the Titagarh paper workers' union and the Calcutta match workers' union. He also played a prominent role in organising anti-British protests among students and workers, and in doing so won a reputation as an effective speaker and dynamic figure.

In 1946, a mutiny by British naval ratings broke out in Bombay over the decision to send them to Indonesia to back Dutch military forces seeking to crush the anti-colonial movement. The BLPI leadership decided to send Dulal to Bombay where he organised medical students to distribute leaflets supporting the mutiny to major factories in the city.
Joining the ICFI breathed new life back into Dulal. Despite his advanced age, he was determined to use his considerable knowledge and skills to benefit the Trotskyist movement by translating its works into Bengali.
He produced translations of David North's The Heritage We Defend and the End of the USSR and the ICFI statement Oppose Imperialist War and Colonialism, as well as Leon Trotsky's I Stake My Life and In Defense of the October Revolution. He also translated a number of World Socialist Web Site articles into Bengali and contributed to the SLL's Bengali language paper. At the time of his death, he was working on a translation of Trotsky's classic The Revolution Betrayed.

As this writer can testify, Dulal was a remarkable individual. Cultured, systematic and thoroughly versed in the works of Trotsky, he could quote passages with great accuracy on the spur of the moment. When he spoke in meetings one was given a glimpse of his abilities as a public speaker. He retained from his early years in the Trotskyist movement the mannerisms of an orator capable of explaining complex political issues to a large audience of workers. He always showed great warmth and hospitality towards visiting comrades as did his wife and children. Their home in Calcutta became a venue for political meetings and discussion.
What animated Dulal right up to his death was the conviction that the future for the working class and mankind as a whole lay in the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Despite a gap of nearly 40 years in his active political involvement, he has made an indelible contribution to the struggle to build the Trotskyist movement throughout the Indian subcontinent and internationally. His work will live on in the translations that he so tirelessly laboured to complete before his death.
The Socialist Equality Party in Sri Lanka and the Socialist Labour League in India send their deepest condolences to his wife and children.

CPI (communist Party Of INDIA) - Gulagist Party of INDIA

Wages of Gulagism
’Creative Marxism’ of a ’Communist Rishi’

Tuesday 11 December 2007, by Subrata Banerjee

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article469.html


worth reading friends - Leon Rao

Indians Killed In Great Purges of Stalin

For a number of Indians, including those born in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the lure of Russia proved fatal. They were drawn to Bolshevism by Lenin and his famous thesis on the National and Colonial Question at the Second Congress of the Comintern 1920. They met their end at the hands of Jossef Stalin.
KGB archival records show that as many as ‘45 Indian revolutionaries were sent to firing squads on trumped-up charges of espionage and conspiracies’. The purge, which began in the late 1930s, labelled these men ‘British spies’.
However, the documents do not elaborate on the charges. Records collected in the Memorial, an institute run by Russian Indologist Yan Rachinskii in Moscow, show that 12 of the 45 Indians have been identified. They all lived in Moscow.
The Indian Communists in Russia, who held a special relation with several Indian revolutionaries including Savarkar and also the Communist Party of Great Britain, were sent to firing squads just before Stalin signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression with Germany in 1939.
One of them was Birendra Nath Chatterjee, brother of Sarojini Naidu. Chatterjee joined hands with Savarkar to launch a nation-wide movement against the British Government.
After travelling in Europe he went to the Soviet Union in 1918 and joined the Comintern.
He survived the war of succession following Lenin’s death but was arrested in 1937 and put before the firing squad.
Another was Abani Mukherjee whose Russian name was Mukherjee Trilokovich.
A professor of history at the Moscow State University, he was arrested and shot the same year as Chatterjee.
Purobi Roy, who holds a chair in St Petersburg University, says that while Russia is trying to find out what happened to the ‘lost revolutionaries who began vanishing from the late ’30s to early ’40, there’s hardly any interest in India to trace their men.
‘‘I think neither the Congress nor the Indian Communists wanted to disturb the Indo-Russian friendship,’’ says Roy.
Roy who visited Russia way back in 1995 with the Asiatic Society team had also come across evidence on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s reported presence in Russia after the air crash in Taiwan in 1945.
Concerning the fallouts of the revelations of the Indian killings, Roy is not quite clear.
‘‘There isn’t any elaboration on the charges barring that they were accused of being British spies and were killed. but I would try to link an interesting letter and 8-page missing report which Ben Bradley, leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain, wrote to Abani Mukherjee saying ‘Don’t allow Subhas Chandra Bose to re-enter India’.
’’ The letter was written in 1936. At that time Bose was on last leg of his exile in Europe and trying to come back to India with the British Government’s permission.
‘‘We’ve already mentioned the letter in our book Indo-Russia Relation from 1929 to 1947, Vol 2. Only then we didn’t know that these Indian members of Comintern were killed on charges of espionage. Now we could understand at least that Bradley wanted to elicit Comintern’s support to put a check on Bose’s return from exile. We need more research to know exactly what happened.’’

Discuss please - Leon Rao
But the Indian Government doesn’t appear too keen to know what happened.

LALGHAD SOLIDARITY

Revisionist CPM is opposing (acting as opposing) the ZINDAL SEZ in the State of AP, INDIA. The same CPM’s stand in its ruled state West Bengal they have allotted 5000acres of ADIVASI (Aborigines) Land to Same ZINDAL Company for a steel plant.
This naked act shows the duplicity and double standards of the CPM govt in West Bengal.

All Socialistic Democratic forces should condemn this act and express the solidarity to the “LALGHAD ADIVASI Agitation”. Raise voice for withdrawing Central Army forces of Indian Govt in LALGHAD.
From Andhra Jyothi News Paper 26th July 2009:

http://www.andhrajyothy.com/mainshow.asp?qry=/2009/jun/25state1
* Tankasala Ashok
* Allam Narayana
* N. Bhaskar

An open letter to the workers of INDIA - Trotsky (1939)

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Written: 25 July 1939.

Source: New International [New York], Vol.5 No.9, September 1939, pp.263-266.

Translated: New International.Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters.Public Domain: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive 2005. This work is completely free to copy and distribute.

*********************************************************************************

Dear Friends:
Titanic and terrible events are approaching with implacable force. Mankind lives in expectation of war which will, of course, also draw into its maelstrom the colonial countries and which is of vital significance for their destiny. Agents of the British government depict the matter as though the war will be waged for principles of “democracy” which must be saved from fascism. All classes and peoples must rally around the “peaceful” “democratic” governments so as to repel the fascist aggressors. Then “democracy” will be saved and peace stabilized forever. This gospel rests on a deliberate lie. If the British government were really concerned with the flowering of democracy then a very simple opportunity to demonstrate this exists: let the government give complete freedom to India. The right of national independence is one of the elementary democratic rights. But actually, the London government is ready to hand over all the democracies in the world in return for one tenth of its colonies.
If the Indian people do not wish to remain as slaves for all eternity, then they must expose and reject those false preachers who assert that the sole enemy of the people is fascism. Hitler and Mussolini are, beyond doubt, the bitterest enemies of the toilers and oppressed. They are gory executioners, deserving of the greatest hatred from the toilers and oppressed of the world. But they are, before everything, the enemies of the German and Italian peoples on whose backs they sit. The oppressed classes and peoples – as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Liebknecht have taught us – must always seek out their main enemy at home, cast in the role of their own immediate oppressors and exploiters. In India that enemy above all is the British bourgeoisie. The overthrow of British imperialism would deliver a terrible blow at all the oppressors, including the fascist dictators. In the long run the imperialists are distinguished from one another in form – not in essence. German imperialism, deprived of colonies, puts on the fearful mask of fascism with its saber teeth protruding. British imperialism, gorged, because it possesses immense colonies, hides its saber teeth behind a mask of democracy. But this democracy exists only for the metropolitan center, for the 45,000,000 souls – or more correctly, for the ruling bourgeoisie – in the metropolitan center. India is deprived not only of democracy but of the most elementary right of national independence. Imperialist democracy is thus the democracy of slave owners fed by the lifeblood of the colonies. But India seeks her own democracy, and not to serve as fertilizer for the slave owners.
Those who desire to end fascism, reaction and all forms of oppression must overthrow imperialism. There is no other road. This task cannot, however, be accomplished by peaceful methods, by negotiations and pledges. Never before in history have slave owners voluntarily freed their slaves. Only a bold, resolute struggle of the Indian people for their economic and national emancipation can free India.
The Indian bourgeoisie is incapable of leading a revolutionary struggle. They are closely bound up with and dependent upon British capitalism. They tremble for their own property. They stand in fear of the masses. They seek compromises with British imperialism no matter what the price and lull the Indian masses with hopes of reforms from above. The leader and prophet of this bourgeoisie is Gandhi. A fake leader and a false prophet! Gandhi and his compeers have developed a theory that India’s position will constantly improve, that her liberties will continually be enlarged and that India will gradually become a Dominion on the road of peaceful reforms. Later on, perhaps even achieve full independence. This entire perspective is false to the core. The imperialist classes were able to make concessions to colonial peoples as well as to their own workers, only so long as capitalism marched uphill, so long as the exploiters could firmly bank on the further growth of profits. Nowadays there cannot even be talk of this. World imperialism is in decline. The condition of all imperialist nations daily becomes more difficult while the contradictions between them become more and more aggravated. Monstrous armaments devour an ever greater share of national incomes. The imperialists can no longer make serious concessions either to their own toiling masses or to the colonies. On the contrary, they are compelled to resort to an ever more bestial exploitation. It is precisely in this that capitalism’s death agony is expressed. To retain their colonies, markets and concessions, from Germany, Italy and Japan, the London government stands ready to mow down millions of people. Is it possible, without losing one’s senses, to pin any hopes that this greedy and savage financial oligarchy will voluntarily free India?
True enough, a government of the so-called Labor Party may replace the Tory government. But this will alter nothing. The Labor Party – as witness its entire past and present program – is in no way distinguished from the Tories on the colonial question. The Labor Party in reality expresses not the interests of the working class, but only the interests of the British labor bureaucracy and labor aristocracy. It is to this stratum that the bourgeoisie can toss juicy morsels, due to the fact that they themselves ruthlessly exploit the colonies, above all India. The British labor bureaucracy – in the Labor Party as well as in the trade unions – is directly interested in the exploitation of colonies. It has not the slightest desire to think of the emancipation of India. All these gentlemen – Major Atlee, Sir Walter Citrine & Co. – are ready at any moment to brand the revolutionary movement of the Indian people as “betrayal”, as aid to Hitler and Mussolini and to resort to military measures for its suppression.
In no way superior is the policy of the present day Communist International. To be sure, 20 years ago the Third, or Communist, International was founded as a genuine revolutionary organization. One of its most important tasks was the liberation of the colonial peoples. Only recollections today remain of this program, however. The leaders of the Communist International have long since become the mere tools of the Moscow bureaucracy which has stifled the Soviet working masses and which has become transformed into a new aristocracy. In the ranks of the Communist Parties of various countries – including India – there are no doubt many honest workers, students, etc.: but they do not fix the politics of the Comintern. The deciding word belongs to the Kremlin which is guided not by the interests of the oppressed, but by those of the USSR’s new aristocracy.
Stalin and his clique, for the sake of an alliance with the imperialist governments, have completely renounced the revolutionary program for the emancipation of the colonies. This was openly avowed at the last Congress of Stalin’s party in Moscow in March of the current year by Manuilski, one of the leaders of the Comintern, who declared: “The Communists advance to the forefront the struggle for the realization of the right of self-determination of nationalities enslaved by fascist governments. They demand free self-determination for Austria ... the Sudeten regions ... Korea, Formosa, Abyssinia ... .” And what about India, Indo-China, Algeria and other colonies of England and France? The Comintern representative answers this question as follows, “The Communists demand of the imperialist governments of the so called bourgeois democratic states the immediate [sic] drastic [!] improvement in the living standards of the toiling masses in the colonies and the granting of broad democratic rights and liberties to the colonies.” (Pravda, issue No.70, March 12, 1939.) In other words, as regards the colonies of England and France the Comintern has completely gone over to Gandhi’s position and the position of the conciliationist colonial bourgeoisie in general. The Comintern has completely renounced revolutionary struggle for India’s independence. It “demands” (on its hands and knees) the “granting” of “democratic liberties” to India by British imperialism. The words “immediate drastic improvement in the living standards of the toiling masses in the colonies”, have an especially false and cynical ring. Modern capitalism – declining, gangrenous, disintegrating – is more and more compelled to worsen the position of workers in the metropolitan center itself. How then can it improve the position of the toilers in the colonies from whom it is compelled to squeeze out all the juices of life so as to maintain its own state of equilibrium? The improvement of the conditions of the toiling masses in the colonies is possible only on the road to the complete overthrow of imperialism.
But the Communist International has traveled even further on this road of betrayal. Communists, according to Manuilski, “subordinate the realization of this right of secession ... in the interests of defeating fascism.” In other words, in the event of war between England and France over colonies, the Indian people must support their present slave owners, the British imperialists. That is to say, must shed their blood not for their own emancipation, but for the preservation of the rule of “the City” over India. And these cheaply to be bought scoundrels dare to quote Marx and Lenin! As a matter of fact, their teacher and leader is none other than Stalin, the head of a new bureaucratic aristocracy, the butcher of the Bolshevik Party, the strangler of workers and peasants.

The Permanent Revolution - Book in INDIA

Aakar Books in Delhi, India, have recently published a new edition of The Permanent Revolution. Here we provide the details and a picture of the cover.
Aakar Books in Delhi, India, have recently published a new edition of The Permanent Revolution. The publishers can be contacted at: Mr Saxena, AAKAR Books, 28 E Pkt. IV, Mayur Vihar Phase I, Delhi 110091, India, E-mail aakarb@del2.vsnl.net.in
The book also contains the earlier work by Trotsky, Results and Prospects. The cover price is Rs 200.
Publishers welcome this publication as it makes this important work of Trotsky available again to the new generations of youth and workers who wish to understand the tasks facing the working class in India.

PLEA FOR TROTSKY IN A SOVIET PAPER

From: By BILL KELLER, Special to the New York Times::Published: Wednesday, June 29, 1988
A Soviet newspaper today published a plea for the legal vindication of Leon Trotsky and for the release of the Bolshevik outcast's writings in the Soviot union.
In remarks quoted in the youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Otto R. Latsis, an economist and deputy editor of the Communist Party journal Kommunist, said that Trotsky ''was neither a spy nor a murderer'' and added that ''he never committed any crimes.''
Mr. Latsis said Trotsky's political views were still anathemas and should be condemned, but he said they should be published and studied.
Several Soviet academic figures have told Western reporters that Trotsky should be cleared of crimes and his works should be published, but their views have never before been carried in the official Soviet domestic press. A Signal of Rehabilitation
The publication of such views in the main newspaper of the Young Communists League is a likely signal that legal rehabilitation is forthcoming.
Trotsky, a founder of the Soviet state, its first commissar of foreign affairs and the leader of military forces in the civil war, is the most prominent Bolshevik figure still untouched by the process of rehabilitation that has begun under Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
After decades in which his name was blanked out of reference works except as the namesake of a political heresy -Trotskyism - Trotsky has gradually emerged from the shadows. He has been portrayed as a character in theatrical works, and his face has appeared in documentary films.
Trotsky became the leader of the so-called left opposition to Stalin in the 1920's, advocating the view that Communism in the Soviet Union would fail without the support of a continuing world revolution. Opposed Lenin Program
He also opposed Lenin's New Economic Program, which restored private ownership to many small businesses and introduced other market elements.
Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, sent into internal exile in Kazakhstan, then exiled from the country two years later in a power struggle with Stalin. During the great purge trials, he was accused of espionage. In 1940 he was murdered in Mexico City, almost certainly on Stalin's orders.
A dogmatic revolutionary with fiercely authoritarian views, Trotsky is unlikely to return to fashion under Mr. Gorbachev, who promotes pragmatism and promises greater democracy.
In his speech last November on the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Mr. Gorbachev portrayed Trotsky as the archheretic of Soviet history, an ''excessively self-assured politician who always vacillated and cheated.'' At Crowded News Conference
Komsomolskaya Pravda, the main newspaper of the Young Communists League, was the only major newspaper to report Mr. Latsis' comments, which were made Monday to a crowded news conference held in connection with the national Communist Party conference and carried on the English-language service of Tass, the official press agency.
Mr. Latsis, asked to predict whether Trotsky would be rehabilitated, said:
''There is civil rehabilitation, and Trotsky deserves it. He was neither a spy nor a murderer, he never committed any crimes. But there is also political rehabilitation that implies restoration in the party. This, in my opinion, is not going to happen.''
Mr. Latsis said Trotsky's role in history should be fully portrayed and that, regardless of his views, ''his works should be available; this is also our history.''
Similar remarks last week by Yuri N. Afanasyev, a historian, at a news conference were also ignored in the Soviet press. Bukharin Cleared in February
In February, Nikolai I. Bukharin was cleared of crimes for which he was executed. Bukharin, a champion of the New Economic Program, is now presented by some Soviet historians as the logical alternative to Stalin.
Some of Bukharin's writing has been published in the press, and a Soviet publisher has signed a contract to produce a Russian-language volume of a Bukharin biography by Stephen F. Cohen, the Princeton University historian.
There have been unconfirmed reports that Bukharin will be posthumously restored to the party in time for the centennial of his birth in September.
Two weeks ago, the Soviet Supreme Court ruled that two Bolshevik revolutionaries, Lev B. Kamenev and Grigory Y. Zinoviev, had been wrongly convicted and executed for treasonous activities. Kamenev and Zinoviev sided for a time with Trotsky in an ill-fated alliance to overcome Stalin.
None of these men has yet been restored to the political good graces of the party.
Correction: July 29, 1988, Friday, Late City Final Edition Editors Note' An article on June 29 about a Soviet newspaper's publication of a plea for legal vindication of Trotsky briefly described Trotsky's politics. The article said Trotsky opposed Lenin's New Economic Policy. As some scholars have written to point out, Trotsky did not oppose the policy when it was introduced in 1921, but in later years he differed sharply with other Soviet leaders over its management. Scholars differ over whether he should be portrayed as an opponent

United Front against Capitalism (UFC)

“Despite the fact that a split is inevitable between  the various political organizations basing themselves  on the working class, the United Front grows out of the  urgent need to secure for the working class the  possibility of a united front in the struggle against  capitalism.”

Leon Trotsky.

Discussion invited:

Chronology of the life of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)

Chronology of the life of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
1879
November 7 (October 25th, old style): born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in the village of Yanovka in the Ukraine. His father was a farmer of Russified Jewish background.
1888
At the age of eight, Bronstein is sent to school at Odessa, where he shows intellectual brilliance and literary gifts.
1896
In preparation for his final examination (Abitur), he transfers to Nikolayev, where he first encounters socialist ideas and reads illegal pamphlets.
1897
After a brief attendance at Odessa University, he returns to Nikolayev to assist in the organisation of the South Russian Workers Union.
1898
Arrested for revolutionary activity. Spends next four-and-a-half years in prison and in exile in Siberia, during which time he marries his co-conspirator Aleksandra Sokolovskya, with whom he has two daughters.
1902
He escapes from Siberia using a forged passport under the name Trotsky, permanently separating from Sokolovskya. Makes his way to London to join the Russian Social Democrats and works with Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) on the revolutionary newspaper Iskra (The Spark).
1903
At the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, held in London and Brussels, Trotsky sides with the Menshevik faction, rejecting Lenin's methods.
1905
Trotsky returns to Russia to become a leading spokesman of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. The Soviet (ie council) organises a revolutionary strike against the Tsarist regime, the aftermath of which brings Trotsky and the other leaders of the Soviet to trial in 1906.

1906
While in jail, he writes one of his major theoretical works, Itogi i perspektivy (Results and prospects), expounding the theory of permanent revolution. In his book, Trotsky maintains that the Russian Revolution will lead to a permanent state of revolution internationally, inspiring proletarian revolution in the West, thus ensuring the establishment of socialist governments which will consequently support the revolution in Russia.
1907
Exiled for a second time to Siberia, but again he escapes, settling in Vienna as a journalist.
1912-13
Serves as a war correspondent in the Balkan Wars.
1914
At outbreak of First World War, joins the majority of the Russian Social Democrats who condemn the war. Moves to France.
1915
Participates in the international conference of anti-war socialists at Zimmerwald in Switzerland.
1916
His anti-war agitation leads to his expulsion from France.
1917
January: Arrives in New York. Joins the Bolshevik theoretician Nikolai Bukharin in editing the Russian language paper, Novy-Mir (New World).February (March, old style): Welcomes the outbreak of revolution as the beginning of the permanent revolution he had predicted. March 27: Trotsky and his family leave the USA by ship, but are detained by the authorities at Halifax, Nova Scotia. They are released a month later at the behest of the Russian government. May 4: Reaches Petrograd and assumes leadership of the left-wing Menshevik faction. August: While in prison after a crackdown on the revolutionaries by Kerensky’s liberal government, Trotsky is formally admitted to the Bolshevik Central Committee. September: On his release from prison, he is elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. From this point up to the arrival of Lenin, Trotsky is the principal protagonist in the Bolshevik preparations to seize power. October 24 (November 6, new style): As a result of an attack by the authorities, Trotsky takes defensive measures, which result in the virtual overthrow of the Provisional Government. By the time Lenin appears on the scene in the early hours of October 25, Petrograd is in Bolshevik hands. October 25 (November 7, new style): At the All-Russian Congress of Soviets held that evening, the new Soviet government is installed, headed by the Council of People's Commissars, with Trotsky as the Commissar of Foreign Affairs. October 31 (November 13, new style): Trotsky defeats forces loyal to Kerensky at Pulkovo. December (new style): Talks commence with Germans at Brest-Litovsk concerning a peace treaty.
1918
January: Trotsky enters talks personally. Rejects Germany's annexationist terms. Lenin, however, is willing to pay the price in order to ensure the continued existence of the new Soviet state. February 24: Trotsky resigns as Commissar of Foreign Affairs after signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. March 13: Trotsky is appointed Commissar of War and faces the formidable task of reconstructing a new Red Army from the detritus of the old Imperial Army.
1919
The Politburo is formed, with Trotsky as one of its initial five members. Plays a leading role in the founding of the Third International (Comintern), writing its first manifesto calling for the overthrow of capitalism throughout the world.
Trotsky addressing Red soldiers during the civil war.Photo: From Lenin to Stalin, Victor Serge, Pioneer Publishers, 1937 Sp Coll Trotsky U72.160
1920
Final defeat of the White forces and the end of the Civil War. Second Congress of the Third International.
1921
Trotsky faces opposition to his policy of war communism and the role of the trade unions. March: Crisis comes to a head in the Kronstadt uprising, which is suppressed.
1922
Lenin has first stroke. Although Trotsky is the obvious successor, Politburo supports the informal leadership of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Stalin now Secretary-General of the Communist Party. December 22: Lenin warns in his Testament against the danger of a split in the Central Committee.
1923
Leads first opposition against Stalin, criticising the bureaucratisation of the Party, the violation of democracy and the failure to develop adequate economic planning. Publishes an open letter, Novyi kurs (The new course).
1924
January 16-18: Trotskyist opposition condemned at the 13th Communist Party Conference. January 21: Lenin dies. Deceived concerning the date of the funeral, Trotsky fails to return to Moscow in time to be present. Publishes Uroki Oktyabya (Lessons of October) in which he links the opposition of Zinoviev and Kamenev to the October Revolution with the failure of the Soviet-inspired German Communist uprising of 1923.
1925
Trotsky resigns as Commissar of War. During pauses in the faction struggles, he writes on a wide range of topics, producing the following works (among others): Literatura i revolyutska (Literature and revolution), 1923; Voprosy byta (Problems of life), 1923; O Lenine (Lenin), 1924 and Kuda idet Angliya? (Where is Britain going?), 1925.
1926
Forms united left opposition with his old political opponents Zinoviev and Kamenev. They condemn Stalin's doctrine of 'socialism in one country'. October: Trotsky ousted from the Politburo.
1927
November 15: Trotsky and Zinoviev are expelled from the Party.
1928
Trotsky banished to Alma Ata in Central Asia.
1929
Exiled from the USSR, he is taken to Turkey, where he settles on the island Buyuk Ada , near Istanbul. Issued first number of the Byulletin Oppositsii (Bulletin of the Opposition).
1930
Publishes Moya zhizn (My Life) and Permanentnaya revolyutsiya (Permanent revolution).
1931 -33
Publishes lstoriya Russkoi revolyutsii (History of the Russian Revolution).
1932
Publishes Stalinskaya shkola falsifikatsii (The Stalin school of falsification).
1933
Moves to France. After Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Trotsky urges his followers to form a new, Fourth International.
1935
He is expelled from France and granted entry into Norway.
1936
Under Soviet pressure, he is forced to seek asylum in Mexico. This is made possible through the agency of the Mexican revolutionary artist, Diego Rivera. He publishes La revolution trahie (The revolution betrayed). The Moscow trials begin, in which both Trotsky and his son Lyova are condemned in absentia for crimes of terrorism against the Soviet Union.
1937
January: Trotsky arrives in Mexico and takes up residence in the Avenida Londres in Coyoacán, near Mexico City. Evidence of the Moscow trials shown to be false, and the charges are refuted by an investigating committee, headed by the American philosopher John Dewey.
1938
January 16: Trotsky’ son Lyova dies in a Paris clinic. February 16: Finishes Ikh moral I nasha (Their morals and ours), which he dedicates to his dead son. September 3: Founding conference of the Fourth International at Périgny, near Paris.
1940
May 24: Trotsky's house is attacked by an armed band, led by the communist painter, David Alfaro Siqueiros. Trotsky is unharmed. August 20: Ramon Mercader, alias Jacson , who had gained the confidence of the Trotsky household, strikes Trotsky with an ice-axe; he dies the following day at 7.25am. At the time of his assassination, Trotsky was working on a biography and denunciation of Stalin