 The reason is that the book itself is re-enforced and started. This originally was published or was due to be published in 1941 in America. It's a book that Trotsky didn't finish because he was assassinated on the 20th of August 1940 and the book was only half complete with other sections in various states. But the person who was given responsibility to edit the book and to complete the book is a man called Charles Malamuth. He was originally just a translator of Trotsky's work. But the publisher decided he should be the editor. And as a result, he introduced into the text all his ideas, lots of interjections, this interpolation in the last half of the book, which in effect ruined the book in one sense. In fact it's 75 years ago this year that Trotsky's widow, Natalia Sedoff, went to court to try and stop the publisher producing the book in this particular form. And it's therefore taken about 75 years to really correct this injustice. To publish the book without Charles Malamuth's comments and interpolations and restoring a lot of material that he left out in the book when he was editing it. And therefore we believe that this is an important milestone in the defence of the ideas of Trotsky and his memory. And his political honour. Now the speakers we have tonight will be Esteban Vorkoff, who is Trotsky's grandson. In fact he was the biggest supporter of this project. He himself attempted to get this book stopped, the publication of this book stopped in 1967 when they tried to bring it out with an introduction by Beatron Wolfe. Like Natalia in 1941 the legal action failed. And this book has been in print with this maligned political content for the last 75 years. Therefore I would say that the person most fitted to speak to this meeting about this subject is certainly Esteban Vorkoff. I will give a brief outline of the history of the book. And then I will hand it over to Alan Woods who edited the book and did a lot of the Russian translation of the book. And basically brought it into the condition it is at the present time. You might say he was a labour of love. He was certainly a labourer, I know that. Given the blood, the sweat and the tears that went into this over the last 13 years as a matter of fact. Now Esteban Vorkoff is obviously closely associated with the name of Leon Trotsky. Esteban, well his mother was driven to suicide by the Stalinists. And his father was arrested and taken to a Stalinist gulag where he perished. And Esteban therefore went to live with his uncle in Paris, Leon Sedov. But in February 1938 Leon Sedov was murdered by a Stalinist agent. As a result Trotsky, who then moved to Cuyacan in Mexico City, wanted to bring young Sieba away from the dangers of Europe and the Stalinists and bring him to Mexico to live with himself and with Natalia. Therefore in the summer of 1939 at the age of 13 he made the trip and travelled all the way to Cuyacan. In May of 1940 you had the first assassination attempt on Trotsky's life and in that attack where 25 armed men raided the fortress firing machine gun bullets everywhere they could to try and kill Trotsky in particular. They failed in the mission but they did actually wound Esteban in the toe. On the 20th of August 1940 when Esteban came home from school he was faced with a crowd and the sad news that his grandfather had been assassinated. And really ever since then he has worked tirelessly to defend the ideas of Trotsky against the slanders of the Stalinists and also the bourgeois critics through all this time. Therefore I would say this as I said there's no one more important for this meeting tonight than the contribution of Esteban Borgoff. Esteban, please give a warm welcome to Esteban Borgoff. Please give a warm welcome to Esteban, greetings, hope you can hear us okay? Okay. Okay, I'll leave this alone to the experts, I'll just sit down and enjoy the speech. Okay, with who? Okay. With who, Esteban? Spanish. With who or not? With who. Yes, perfect. Aha. Okay. Can you please give a little response to the speaker? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. From the other side of the ocean I send a warm fraternal greetings to my comrades and friends of the International Marxist Tentacion. I'm afraid it's breaking up a little bit. The comrades who for the last 10 years dedicated a colossal amount of time and effort to restoring and recreating the final work of the great Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky. This work could not be finished because its author was assassinated on the instructions of that sinister personage Joseph Stalin on the 20th of August 1940. That, I'm afraid the sound is distorting seriously, you know. Stalin was terrified of the comrade in arms of Lenin, as I say Trotsky, and therefore he took great pains in order to ensure that this book should never see the light of day. I should explain that Trotsky undertook this work without any great enthusiasm. He did this reluctantly. He was compelled to undertake this task for financial reasons as a result of the conditions of extreme poverty and want that was being suffered by our little family here in Coyoacán. His real wish was to carry on the work which he began on a biography of Lenin. There is no doubt at all that the publication of this book is a tremendous contribution to the memory and the ideas of Leon Trotsky. It's seriously distorting, you know, very seriously distorting. The list of people who have collided with us is too large to be here. The list of people who have collaborated in the publication of this magnificent book is far too long for me to mention them all. But I should mention the name of comrade Rob Sewell. Because he was the one that took the initiative in going to the Harvard University archives and digging out the original material that had been left out of this book. I should also mention the British Marxist Alan Woods with his knowledge of the Russian language and his deep knowledge of the ideas of Leon Trotsky. Who was able to put together finally an acceptance of the correct version of all that material that was left out of this book in the edition published first of all in 1946. Which was carried out by the man who had been the translator of the book Charles Malamut. This man had been contracted and taken on by the publisher Harper in order to carry the translation of Trotsky's work. This man was purely interested in the book from a mercenary point of view with no interest whatsoever in either its political or historical content. Therefore he paid no attention whatsoever. He completely ignored the protests made by Trotsky's widow Natalia Sierdova and her lawyer legal representative Albert Goldman. The camera Alan Woods also eliminated the protests made by Malamut, many of which were against the idea of Trotsky. Comet Alan Woods also eliminated all of the offensive editions put in by Malamut many of which were in flagrant contradiction to the ideas of Leon Trotsky. The camera Alan Woods managed to put together all the material of this book in a logical sequence which respected the original ideas and intentions of Leon Trotsky. This work was also made possible originally by the hard work of comrades who actually typed out the original manuscript which was not in a legible form. All this work was carried out faithfully by comrades and friends of the International Marxist Tendency, the IMT. which finally succeeded in presenting to the public in a genuine form the original ideas of this important book. Thanks to the work conducted by the International Marxist Tendency, the world has been given an important weapon in the arsenal of Marxism. The work which was sabotaged by the assassination of Leon Trotsky. A work which was the product of Trotsky's most mature period of his life, his mature thought. This powerful arsenal of ideas is the most important weapon in the hands of the oppressed masses of the entire planet in the world today. Can you repeat it, Stefan? Yes, I am the world and today the world where it remains is closed to oppression, exploitation and violence. Where the enormous scientific and technological advances are forced to be made possible. A world in which the extraordinary advances of technology and science will be put at the disposal of improving and raising the quality of life of the masses of the majority of the human race. The contribution made by Leon Trotsky to this arsenal of Marxism was extremely important and retains today all of its original vitality and importance. Can you repeat it, Stefan? Can you reconnect because it is failing again? I am going to call again. The contribution of Trotsky is very broad and of extreme importance. This is quite a part of his fundamental role that he played in the Russian Revolution of 1917 side by side with Lenin. And also his extremely important contribution in the first Russian Revolution of 1905. When he first of all developed his fundamental theories such as the permanent revolution in contrast to the anti-Marxist theory of Stalin of the two stages which ended up with the terrible massacre of the Chinese proletariat by Chiang Kai-shek. Side by side with Lenin Trotsky played a fundamental role in this great social transformation of the 20th century. And also after the death of Lenin in 1924 to continue the defense system And also after the death of Lenin in 1924 to continue the defense of this revolution. Carrying out a life and death struggle against the Stalinist counter-revolution. And finally he paid for the struggle with his own life. You have to repeat the communication. If you don't understand, this is breaking. We are going to call again but without a video, the connection is very short. Let's see. Nobody... Nobody... Make a sound. But it was very loud. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Okay. Nobody analysed this... What's this noise? It's too loud, okay. Nobody analysed this new historical phenomenon. Better and in more detail, it's written than Trotsky. Sorry. No sound at all. I don't have to translate. Okay. The struggle against a parasitic computer traffic cast encrusted within the body of the socialist nationalised planned economy. An economy based upon the nationalisation and planning of the beans of production. Trotsky wrote a great many works on this subject. Among which is the book The Revolution Betrayed. It points to the total abandonment of the Stalin regime, the principles and foundations of the Bolshevik Revolution. Which analyses point by point the abandonment by the Stalinist regime of all the basic principles of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. And was predicted more than half a century beforehand the collapse of the Soviet Union and its return to capitalism. It's not clear. What is repeated is still... No, no, no. It's still the following phrase. It's still there. It's still there. I think so, yeah. Yes, Esteban. I think it would be better to start the conclusion, because the technology is failing badly. No, no, no. The book should be that the deep analysis and certain denunciations of Trotsky, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, should be the deep analysis and certain denunciations of Trotsky. Every revolutionary should be inspired by the profound and correct ideas of the theories of Leon Trotsky. His ideas concerning the Stalinist counter-revolution serve as a means of avoiding these phenomena in the future. And thus guarantee the success of future revolutions. Such that we can finally arrive at a genuine socialist society. And not fall into the trap of a bureaucratic regime. The ideas of Leon Trotsky still maintain all their vitality. Despite the distortions of such organizations as the Socialist Workers' Party of North America. There was never a greater task on the face of the Earth. We carry on our shoulders a particle of the destiny of the human race. The struggle for a better world. Which demands a complete and absolute dedication on all our paths. In return we have the satisfaction in knowing that our lives have not been lived in vain. The book that we have produced today contains nearly 100,000 more words than the original book produced in 1946. That shows the amount of editing that was carried out by Charles Malamoth. He said that this was irrelevant. And was it germane to the real story being told? And therefore despite translating it from Russian he dismissed it. At the same time as he cut out these words from Trotsky he actually put in his own words into the book. I don't mean one or two words. For instance in the original chapter 11 of the book of the 1946 edition Malamoth's words account for 62% and Trotsky's words 38%. So you can see by that balance how much he was prepared to foist his own ideas into the book. In order I presume to boost his own particular prestige and start for any reason really that Trotsky did say that he thought that Malamoth was very pretentious. I think this is an example of this feature. And in one way we were very lucky to come across this material like everything else accidents do happen and I just happened to be looking for somewhere to stay when I was visiting the United States and it just so happened that my wife's cousin lived in Boston so I could get somewhere free to stay. So I went along there and I realised that of course here's Harvard University very close by and in Harvard University is Trotsky's archive. I've heard a lot about this archive but I've never seen it before so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go and see the archive for myself. When I got there I was very taken, I was very surprised first of all by the scope of the collection. Trotsky was very meticulous and he recorded and duplicated probably every single thing he wrote and kept it in an archive. And in 1940, just before he was assassinated in order to keep the archive safe because it was being raided, in fact the Soviet secret police tried to burn the archive in Pinkiporn elsewhere that he agreed to sell the archive for safe keeping to Harvard. And in this archive, even from the period 1929 to 1940 there are 20,000 documents. It gives you an idea of how fruitful Trotsky's ideas were. I went there with the express idea of looking for material on British Trotskyism but I haven't been shown the prospectus. I just, in the short time I was there, glanced through it all as much as I could because I only speak English, I don't speak Russian or anything and there's a lot of material in foreign languages but my idea then caught on documents on Stalin and I bought this book, this is the second volume, in 1969 and the first part is great and the second part is full of this Malamoth's dejections and I did remember reading this and it said in there that, oh well, when I was editing the book I couldn't edit all of it because the pages on the manuscript were searched in the struggle. Apparently he said that the galley proofs were in Trotsky's office when he was murdered and in the struggle the manuscripts were destroyed covered in blood and so on and so forth. So I looked at it, I thought, how much you got here? How many manuscripts are there? They had nine boxes of this material, nine boxes. So I decided to have a quick look through these boxes, I couldn't do it, couldn't do a lot. I had to go back the following year and I went through every single piece that was in there. There was no destruction, there was no blood, there was nothing. Everything was in perfect order and then it had the correspondence of Malamoth, of Natalia, of Albert Goldman and others and their comments that they were making at the time. As I said, they tried to stop this book being produced because of the insertions of Malamoth and the politically incorrect ideas he was trying to smuggle into the book and when they saw the drafts that were going to be published they were scandalised and you could read the drafts and all the comments they had. This is scandalous, this is a crime, this is historical revisionism, this must not be published and all it's full of these comments. Of course when they took up these complaints to the publisher, the publisher refused to acknowledge them. All they were interested in was getting the book out and making money from the book. They weren't interested in Trotsky's ideas of course and you could see the anger expressed in this way. Then I noticed that there were a lot more material there than were in the original book and I went back to the library with this particular book and started to look at, compare what had been printed with the actual manuscripts and I could see then there were chunks taken out just huge chunks missing and then I found in these nine boxes there was a section which had said unpublished material. I thought this is going to be useful it's a bit of a gold mine yet opened all up and it's all the material which was translated into English but not used in the book. Under those circumstances I thought we must correct this. We must get this material and we must take out Malamoth from the original and put this material back in the book. It was all numbered although the numbers itself it was still a very messy job to say the least. So we ordered the microfilm it cost us I think £400 for the microfilm and then we had to have the microfilm made into hard copies and from hard copies we had a comrade type up those copies I think it took him two years because it was so difficult to understand and follow the tract and once it was done in a word format we were then able to put it back into the book. Then we discovered in working on this book that there was a Russian translation and we thought let's compare the Russian translation to what is in the English book and there were sections in the Russian book which didn't appear. So in other words so we read Chancellor Allen in particular translated all this material that was in Russian into English and that was put into the book itself. So you could say this is the most complete version that you could ever have probably obviously it's not the book that you thought you would have completed that's clear but nevertheless using all the material that was available we decided to put everything into the book so it becomes a complete text that was available to us at the time and in that way we thought this is a means of restoring the real honour of Trotsky. There were 10,000 words of Malamuth in there we took out as you can imagine how much that was and clearly the nevertheless some of the notes were very rough and therefore it was down to editing I think Allen took about two years or was it more three years in editing and basically reworking the book and also putting it into chronological order rather than the haphazard way which was done in 1946 and if you compare the books you'll see that it's an enormous change in fact you could say that the second bad part of this book is new it's like a new book because the material is all put together reworked, redeveloped, refined and really does it a colossal justice that's why Esther Van Valkoff was basically over the moon when he heard that we were going to do it he was going on for 10 years and he was pressing us and pressing us and pressing us to do this of course we had the other work to do so it was a bit of a slow process but finally we because I remember I think it was in 2012 I did put an article in the magazine saying that this book could be out in 6 months so there was a bit of an underestimation on my behalf there and of course the main thing for us was not just to get it done but to do a a good book to do it justice and to make sure we do the best job we could possibly could and that's why we took out time if you want to put it that way we worked on it and worked on it and even when we'd finally thought we'd completed it there was always some other material that we managed to get from the archives and therefore this is sort of certainly a labour of love but once you read it it's one of the most powerful books I would say and ranks up with Trotsky's The Russian Revolution it is certainly the most mature work of Leon Trotsky and his analysis of Stalin and of Stalinism and his enormous contribution therefore to the new generation of Marxists in Britain and internationally so I think we've done a good job we can pat ourselves on the back but of course the question now is to sell and promote the book as well which we'll talk about towards the end but now I want to call on Alan to speak and we will have time for I think a few questions and then we'll have a bit of time at the end if you want to buy some of those books even get Alan to sign them so it's even good for you ok so without further ado I'm going to address you give me 10 pass me the book please one of the writers of antiquity a roman writer once said a very profound thing every book has its own fate this book some holding in my hands has in my opinion the most extraordinary fate perhaps of any other book in history this is a book that was never supposed to see the light of day Stalin was determined on that and on the 20th of August 1940 one of Stalin's hired murderers as you know assassinated Leon Trotsky drove a nice pick into his brain while he was reading an article treacherously cowardly attack from behind destroyed one of the finest brains of the 20th century and when he was assassinated Trotsky was working on this book now it's true as a steven pointed out this was not an initiative on Trotsky's part you see superficial observers how many of them are there for everyone's serious critique of a thousand idiots and superficial analysis people like Isaac Deutsche other people never understood this book many of them thought they believed and they believed that this was a kind of act of personal spite on Trotsky's part Trotsky was having his revenge on Stalin with a sword Trotsky didn't intend to write this book, it caused him considerable irritation when he was asked to write it by Harper, but he needed the cash as simple as that yes he didn't go into this book with any particular desire to do this but once he started he produced in my opinion one of the most profound and fascinating documents the entire literature of Marxism and that's saying something this book in my view is original, it's unique in the sense although it's true that Marx if you like preceded this in one of the marvelous gems of Marxist of historical materialism which I hope you've read, if not you should read it 18th Brumaire of Livy Bonaparte marvelous work now one of the continuous insults which they smears with the persistent repeating against Marxism is something like this oh Marx, yes he reduced everything to economics have you heard that? yes, yes I've heard it also you know a piece of Aaron Nonsense which is far from the truth which Marx answered a long time ago what Marx said was no, no, no man and women in those days they didn't explain it humanity, man, men and women if you like make their own history men and women make their own history, that's Marx yes, but we make our own history who else is going to make it? not human beings but human beings do not make history according to their own free will no, no, no, no, no people make history within certain limits and under certain objective processes which affect and limit their actions and determine their actions to a large extent Marx gave in this wonderful work in 18th Brumaire, that's an interesting book it's an interesting part of this because what Marx explains in this book is how this man, Louis Napoleon Louis Bonaparte he was Napoleon, he was the the nephew actual of the great Napoleon who played a similar role to Stalin in the French Revolution but he was nevertheless a great historical personate at least a great general this man is this creature who became Napoleon the third was so insignificant he was an insignificant sniveling groveling, grey boring idiot ok, that's only to refer to his positive features took power in France how do you explain this? he took power against people that were far more capable than him but he took power so such a mediocrity he was that the French, the famous French poet Dieter Hugo described him as Napoleon the pretty Napoleon the little how did this man, this mediocrity succeed in coming to power? now that's an important question and also the question arises here how did it come about that Stalin you know the trouble here is as you well know history is written by the victors always that's why the voice of the working classes the masses and so on they never heard in history or heard in a very distorted way you only find about Spartacus the great hero of the Roman Republic leader of the masses all that we know about Spartacus comes from the writings of Spartacus's enemies and even so this wonderful character signs through history is written by the victors and the Stalinists with this huge propaganda machine just imagine a propaganda machine this monolith is controlled all the printing classes, the cinema every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin, under this horrible dictatorship produced a flood of material about Stalin the genius Stalin, Lenin's faithful disciple and comedy Stalin the leader of the Russian Republic Stalin the hero of the civil war Stalin the father of the people and so on and so forth yes on the contrary Stalin like Louis Bonaparte was to complete an absolute mediocrity like Napoleon Le Petit a mediocrity who played next to Norol in the revolution he played the secondary role, it wouldn't be fair to say that he played Norol he had originally been a bolshevik yes but a very narrow type of bolshevik a narrow type of revolutionary which the Russians used to call the committee men the committee men narrow organizational type necessary for the party organization, apparatus is necessary to any organization in history whether it be the social democracy or the conservative party or our organization you do need an apparatus the problem is that in a genuine revolution the Marxist organization the apparatus must not control the apparatus men and women and never control the party that must be in the hands of serious, dedicated, honest revolution Stalin was an organizational type so the question arises how did he come to power how did he succeed in defeating men and women who in every respect were his superiors you take the leaders of the bolshevik party Lenin's party it was a galaxy of enormous talent these were great people all of them intellectuals all of them but they were intellectuals who had experience of working abroad who spoke foreign languages fluently who had a high theoretical level Stalin Stalin was the exception on the circle committee no serious education educated in a seminar by the way if you read the speeches and articles you can see it smells of incense it smells of the seminar the language of a priest narrow as hell ignorant and so on spoke no foreign languages except Russian because Russian was not his language he was a Georgian same as Napoleon was a Corsican that's an interesting parallel Hitler was not German he was an Austrian German sovenist Napoleon was a Corsican but became an absolute defender of French centralism and the oppression of the Corsican people and Stalin also became an absolute outed out great Russian sovenist who spoke Russian badly by the way he wasn't his language spoke no foreign languages a fairly ignorant narrow kind of person and yet he defeated men and murdered giants like Bukharin even Kamenyev and Zinovyev Trotsky of course General Tukhachevsky a military genius hero of the civil war these people were wiped out I'll come to that but the question is how, why now to a simple mind and there are so many super minds among us I find it goes like this he must have been clever cleverer than Trotsky and Trotsky must have been a little bit naive or stupid or inept or something not so Marx explains in the 18th and it's a fact that there are certain objective periods in history which demand mediocrity that's particularly true of the history of evolution I've just been studying in preparation for the school I hope you'll come on Monday about a subject which we don't discuss officially the English Revolution and by the way there are very serious parallels extraordinary parallels in the processes of the English Revolution the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution you see a similar phenomenon and in these revolutions you will find there's an initial period where the revolution is going forward a period of revolutionary ascent the heroic period of the revolution France is the classic example England also, Russia of course but let's take the French Revolution in the French Revolution there's a period of storm, of stress of advance where the revolution is going forward where the masses are involved where they're sacrificing, they're struggling, they're participating and this is a period of giants the heroic period demands heroes and by God they were heroes people like Danton it sounds just Ralph Spear even these are the products of a period where the revolution is going forward but see if the revolution does not reach its declared aims if it disappoints the masses if it hits the buffers and begins to go into decline the whole thing begins to unwind it goes into reverse and in that kind of period there's actually ebb tide where the masses, if you like, are tired exhausted as they were in Russia and who can blame the Russian working class after years of war revolution and civil war hunger, starvation and so on and the rest of it but the time Lenin had died the working class in Russia was exhausted it was appeared an ebb tide in which, and that's the explanation for the rise of the bureaucracy and it's by the way Marx predicted in advance, before he wrote the Communist Manifesto a marvelous work called the German Ideology I think it was in 1845 where he and Engels wrote the following in any society where poverty is general where there's not enough to eat in any society is this working? in any society where misery, where poverty is general Marx wrote all the old crap revives and he used the German word all the word, all the old shit revives and by all the old shit what he meant was precisely inequality bureaucracy, corruption oppression that's an inevitable situation where you don't have the material basis for socialism and that was certainly the case in Russia, in this period of decline in France it's summed up by one man you've probably never heard of Joseph Fouche you ever heard of Joseph? Probably not oh yeah Fouche was a terrorist, an ultra left if you like in the terrorist document who became first of all a supporter of Thermidor Thermidorian reaction then a supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte and finally a supporter of the Bourbon monarchy that was restored and he became a duke and held important positions throughout Joseph Fouche an opportunist, a careerist a groveling unprincipled wretch and a complete mediocrity a bureaucrat if you like arrives at the position of power because of the end of the revolution which has not got any rule for any other sort of reason same in Russia the isolation of the Russian revolution don't forget that the perspective of Lenin and Trotsky was not the Russian road to socialism was not socialism in one country the October revolution was meant to be the first step in the international revolution particularly the European revolution the German revolution which could and should have succeeded if it had not been for the betrayal of the social democratic leaders but that's a separate discussion once the European revolution would have been defeated the Russian revolution was isolated into conditions of the most frightful backwardness one figure, I wasn't boring with a lot of figures in one year 1920 6 million people starved to death in Russia there were cases of cannibalism how can you talk about building socialism on that kind of places no, no, no the working class was exhausted disappointed, beginning to become apathetic was not participating as it had done and therefore the bureaucratic caste by the way when we say the bureaucracy we're not talking about one or two pen pushes we're talking about a caste of millions of privileged officials of former Tsarist officials who began to feel that they were in charge that they were going to take power yes, but this caste in the mainly were Tsarist officials Lenin said he was worried about this in his last speech to the Soviet to the Moscow Soviet in 1920 I think it was, he said, look you take the Soviet state 1922, I believe you take the Soviet state whatever you like and beneath the thin veneer of Soviet democracy you will find the same old Tsarist state apparatus underneath the same old officials and these officials, of course they weren't interested the sources, they wanted power for themselves they wanted privileges for themselves they wanted to lord it over the workers but they required a cover particularly as there was only one legal party the communist party they required a leading Bolshevik that would reflect their interests that would speak for them that would be in their image and that man was Joseph Stalin he was the representative of the bureaucracy now the question is why did Trotsky lose and why did Stalin win well that's the reason Trotsky after Lenin's death tried to base himself on the working class but it was a working class that was small was demoralized, was hungry already beginning to fall into apathy was not up to any serious struggle whereas the bureaucracy, this cast of millions of officials was becoming more and more confident, more and more aggressive more and more assertive and seeking a political leading business that had to be the old Bolshevik and that was Stalin therefore Trotsky was defeated because the Russian working class was defeated that defeat by the way was inevitable I'll tell you something else Trotsky knew that it was inevitable he knew he knew in advance the left opposition could not win under those circumstances so why did he bother, why did he fight others capitulated the realists like Zanoviev, Kamenev others they capitulated in the hope of saving their life in the hope even of starting some kind of an opposition not every single one of them was murdered by Stalin Trotsky stuck to his guns Stalin made a big mistake he expelled Trotsky he couldn't kill him at that time it was too early 1929 I think he was expelled wasn't it not from the Soviet Union 27 he was expelled from the party 29 he was sent to Turkey and the Godforsaken island called Prinkipo where the Ottoman emperors used to send the Byzantine people that were or rather the Byzantine emperors used to send troublemakers to that island Stalin was convinced because he was a bureaucrat because he had the mentality Trotsky was finished because what was Trotsky going to do without an apparatus without the apparatus, without hundreds of officials without even a typewriter what was Trotsky going to do big mistake from the island of Prinkipo Trotsky continued his opposition and tried to put together the forces of the left opposition come back to the question why did Trotsky if he knew he was going to be defeated why continue only for one reason Trotsky was fighting to preserve the genuine ideas of the Russian Revolution the genuine ideas the genuine ideas of Lenin the genuine ideas of October the principles of workers democracy Soviet democracy and political and international preserve this for the future for the future generations for us colleagues for all of us that are in this island for the movement which still bears his name today that was what he was fighting they thought they could play hide and seek they thought they could play Kamenev and Bohara thought they could play fast and loose with Stalin play fast and loose with thought they could manoeuvre an intrigue now Stalin destroyed them exterminated them physically by the way here's an interesting question for you I realize of course that what I'm saying tonight is not fashionable is it not at all particularly in these temples of wisdom you know the universities what's the line is the line is no no no no my friends there's no real difference between Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin they're all the same Stalinism is an inevitable product of Bolshevism you heard of that you heard of it you haven't lived you haven't been doing your studies you must be living in another planet constantly no Stalin was a product of Bolshevism, false it's a line and by the way anyone that says that to me has got to answer one simple question if Stalinism and Bolshevism are the same if Stalinism is the inheritor of Bolshevism how does it come about that in order to consolidate his bureaucratic and totalitarian regime Stalin had to murder every single one of Lenin's party with leadership all the Central Committee one exception Conant I don't know why ended up in Sweden but not just the Central Committee he murdered millions of people okay not just old Bolsheviks I think they recently reviewed the book in the Morning Star I'll have to answer that chat well a bit of fun with that Stalinist one of the things he says it isn't true that Stalin only killed the old Bolsheviks no it's not he killed a lot more people he killed a lot of Stalinists well yeah no, seriously millions of people were exterminated in this monstrous meat grinding machine this regime of terror and the question again arises why why for example Stalin so terrified of Trotsky that he devoted all his time and energy to assassinate this one man in Mexico what has he failed what has he failed Stalin was had been a Bolshevik and he knew from his own experience that a small group a small organization like Lenin's organization with correct ideas and correct methods can under certain circumstances grow and become a serious threat and he didn't feel at all secure Stalin as a matter of of fact and therefore he was determined to eliminate all the old Bolsheviks were slaughtered monstrous purge trials the Moscow trials which they were so monstrous the only thing that I can compare them to is the Spanish Imposition these are Lenin's faithful supporters people like Bukharin's and all the cabinet were tortured blackmailed the families were threatened until eventually they broke people can only take so much torture and punishment they broke and they capitulated one by one the leading people capitulated many Trotskyists that is to say but they are not Trotskyists many Bolshevik Leninists Trotsky didn't use the word Trotskyist he described himself that we are the Bolshevik Leninists that continue with Lenin many of them did not break they were arrested they were tortured, they were beaten they were sent to these hellish concentration camps where they were starved and worked to death beaten and so on and even in these hellish places in the Arctic Circle freezing with cold 40 degrees below zero these ragged prisoners men and women maintained their party discipline maintained their classes of Marxism discussed international events even conducted struggles and strikes in order against the criminal regime of the prison guards in order to preserve some kind of dignity and some kind of rights they even succeeded in Vortuca coal mine in the north in the frozen Arctic Circle they succeeded in winning this struggle when Stalin heard about it he issued the order and one day in 1937 the prisoners of Trotskis were led out in groups of 20 men, women and children above the age of 12 marched by the guards into the frozen tundra and they were shot and while they marched to their deaths they sang the international and they cried long live Lenin long live Trotskis comes that state the real tradition that's represented in this hall today and the real tradition represented by Trotsky one man against the whole world with all this monstrosity and Stalin didn't stop at his political enemies he took his revenge on their families on their children one by one Trotsky's children were murdered instead of on the block off my old friend that you just saw him there his mother as was stated committed suicide in 1930 driven to suicide by Stalin in 1933 Trotsky's eldest son Leon Shedov was active in the left opposition in Paris was murdered after an opposition by the GP Stalin's agents in Paris and the cruelest blow Trotsky and his wife was his youngest son Sergei who was not involved in politics he wasn't involved in politics he wasn't an oppositionist he was a mathematician not involved in politics stayed behind in Russia they thought they wouldn't touch him because he was not active big mistake Stalin caught him he was tortured to denounce his father which he refused to do taken to a concentration camp and shot disappeared you know what happened to Sergei this is the kind of monstrous regime that we're talking about we're talking about the biggest the most ferocious, the cruelest and the most efficient murder machine perhaps in the history of the world the gpu, the russian secret police have endless resources its arms extended, its tentacles extended everywhere including Trotsky's own circle we know because some of these creatures some of the gpu officers survived and wrote their memoirs and from these memoirs we know that every morning on Stalin's desk in the Kremlin was the latest articles and speeches of Trotsky articles in particular Stalin got the articles before the Trotsky scum because of these infiltrators so he followed Trotsky's ideas very, very closely one man against the whole world imagine it one man against the whole world nobody by the way would take him in none of the so called democracies the right of asylum which they talk big about nowadays they let Marx in they let Lenin in before the first world war not Trotsky systematically refused by Britain by the United States and so on the only country finally that would let him was Mexico at that time in 1913 he was in the left wing in Las Vegas he did accept Trotsky genuinely and again from Coyotecán from Mexico thousands of miles from Trotsky continued the struggle and these same superficial creatures like I said, Deutsche Deutsche actually wrote in his don't recommend that three volume but it's rubbish Deutsche actually wrote that the last 10 years of Trotsky's life was more or less a waste of time it was like a barren desert nothing compared to the time when he was reading the Red Army and it's too Trotsky created the Red Army from nothing which defeated 21 armies of foreign intervention saved the Russian Revolution thereby or the time when he led the Russian Revolution along with Lenin so much so you did any newspaper British newspaper, The Times at that time you find that they refer to the Bolshevik party as the party of Lenin and Trotsky that was the general Stalin was nowhere to be seen all the time when he was 26 years of age in 1905 was the president of the St. Petersburg's hobby of workers there and many other things compared to that Deutsche said what's this last, what did he achieve in this last minute and yet, you know that was not the opinion of Trotsky himself Trotsky wrote in his diary in exile he wrote the following which is not for publication it is available he says look, if I think of my whole life since he entered the Revolutionary movement 18 years of age you've sent the Siberian for Revolutionary activity 18 years of age since I've been in the movement if you ask me what is the most important period of my life I answer it is now why? because I am fulfilling a role which nobody else can do because of the destruction of the Bolshevik Party I alone, Trotsky alone was maintaining this banner of Bolsheviks, the spotless banner of Bolsheviks for that reason Stalin had to get rid of it he issued the order that Trotsky must be killed there were even protests actually, we know this from some of the officers of the GP responsible for work in Latin America Comrade Stalin why are we wasting all this money on just one man Trotsky we've got other things to do in South America Stalin said no you must get rid of Trotsky get rid of Trotsky he was right on one thing he says because the fourth international does not have good leaders he was dead right on that therefore get rid of Trotsky and the whole thing will be finished an actual fact and when Stalin heard what he did here that Trotsky was writing a biography about him who can imagine his reaction to go back to my earlier question was I didn't answer why did Stalin have to resort to this mass murder well you know Joseph Stalin was the biggest, one of the biggest criminals in the animals of human history compared to him the crimes of the Borgias and the Roman Emperor Caligula, Palin and Significance a monster genuinely he was a monster and the question is this all criminals always seek to remove witnesses witnesses must be eliminated and there were many witnesses to Stalin's past to the fact that he didn't play the role which he claimed to have done in the Revolution and the fact of course of his terrible crimes that he committed against Lenin's party and against the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin was he succeeded he succeeded in exterminating all of the witnesses he got rid of them in the most brutal fashion except for one the most important one the man he most feared the man who knew most about him and his regime and the party and also the genuine traditions of October and that's contained in this book that was the reason I don't say by the way that this book is the reason why Trotsky was killed it wasn't that decision was taken before but that it expedited things you better be sure of it Stalin was keen that this book should never see the light of day because he was afraid of what it would reveal and it reveals a great deal if you read it but you see just to round up you see when Stalin heard the news of the assassination of Trotsky which he so desired had finally succeeded extremely pleased yes he must have been delighted and he must have thought well that's it that's that finished we hear no more of this but you see when you think about it it is not a difficult thing to murder a man or a woman we human beings are very weak animals very fragile beings anything can kill a human being a bullet a knife a nice pick a bomb anything however you cannot murder an idea whose time has come and that's what Stalin never understood this narrow ignorant petty bureaucrat never understood that never understood the power of ideas Mark said ideas can become a material force when they grip the minds of the masses and the importance of ideas is that Trotsky understood that and that's why the last period of his life was the most decisive the books that he wrote as Esteban so put so well a part of an important arsenal there are weapons Stalin proceeded with guns and knives and pickaxes and slander our weapons are different the only weapons we possess is the weapon of ideas and it is a very very powerful weapon indeed and therefore this book which I and Rob and other comments are proud very proud proud to have a role in giving to the world a book that was never supposed to see the light of day and it has thanks to our tendency and it will have an effect this book in my opinion is a Marxist masterpiece which is worthy to stand alongside such masterpieces of Trotsky as the revolution betrayed in defense of Marxism and the history of the Russian Revolution and therefore I appeal to every comment in this room to get this book and read it thoroughly from start to finish and you will find that it contains a colossal amount of information of facts and of course of theory of explanation very profound things on philosophy not just on that on the immediate issues but on Marxist philosophy on the history on the historical materialism and the role of individuals and so on it is a fascinating study which could serve to arm our comrades arm the new generation that's what Trotsky wanted the only memorial that he ever wanted was this the power of ideas to inspire and to convince and to motivate the only force that can change the history of the planet which is the working class once it is armed and led by conscious Marxists dedicated to the only struggle which is worthwhile cutting out and sacrificing for in the 21st century the struggle for the emancipation of the worldwide working class