[Edited Message Follows] Hi Hari,
Thanks for the Chase and Bland articles. I read both. Chase argues at length that Trotsky and the SWP used their defence committee and the Dewey Commission to further their influence in liberal circles and in the Socialist Party, and especially to recruit cadre from the latter. IMO it's hardly surprising and even understandable that they would try to do do, though I believe they also had more profound and principled reasons to want Trotsky’s defence against Stalin’s indictment aired internationally. Bland’s essay makes Trotsky and his followers appear even more sinister. He alleges they staged the botched raid on Coyoacan by Siquerios in order to discredit the Mexican CP and the Soviet Union, and did so in collusion with the Cardenas government and the Roosevelt administration. Bland relies mostly on Issac D. Levine’s book The Mind of an Assassin (1959) to make the case. I would need to see corroborating evidence of such a conspiracy by more credible sources then the notorious red-baiter Levine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Don_Levine). I like Tony’s summation of the controversy: Trotsky may have lied on one or more occasions to greater or lesser degree but Stalin and Vyshinsky were peddling a far more brazen accusation, ie. that the Trotskyists and Bukharinists were fascist collaborators and that the murderous purges were justified. That is the real charge which needs defending. (I say this as someone who in retrospect believes the Stalinists had a better grasp of the world situation in the 30’s and the strategies appropriate to it, quite apart from the purges, than did the Trotskyists). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42985): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42985 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120720019/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
