Eighty years since the first Moscow Trial

When the first Moscow Trial began, Trotsky was under virtual house arrest in Norway. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, the Norwegian Labor Party was attempting to muzzle Trotsky and prevent him from answering the slanders of the trial. A new voice soon emerged, however; Lev Sedov, Trotsky’s son, published in the Bulletin of the Opposition what was to become The Red Book on the Moscow Trial. Sedov meticulously examined the details of the trial and exposed them as a fraudulent attack on genuine revolutionaries.

By April 1937, Trotsky had organized a counter-trial in the form of the Dewey Commission in Mexico, where Trotsky was now located after expulsion from Norway. The voluminous refutation of the first two Moscow show trials (a second occurred in January 1937) is presented in the book Not Guilty. The two concluding points state: (22) “We therefore find the Moscow trials to be frame-ups. (23) We therefore find Trotsky and Sedov not guilty.”

In carrying out these trials, Joseph Stalin was launching an assault on the legacy and the actual leaders of the first successful socialist revolution. As the Bonapartist leader of an increasingly counterrevolutionary social layer, the Soviet bureaucracy, it was not enough for Stalin to expel these Old Bolsheviks from the party and persecute them with exile or imprisonment.

For the middle-class organizers of these protests, who lack a serious political perspective, the protest is their victory. They have no concept of the independent organization of the masses doing anything, besides protesting and calling it a day. They believe and promote the belief that mass rallies will be sufficient to pressure the Democratic Party, some Republicans, and the trade union bureaucracies to oppose Trump more vigorously. They will not.

It can be difficult to imagine the possibility of general strike when we haven’t seen a real organized mass movement in at least two generations. It’s not enough for isolated individuals convinced of the necessity to simply strike of their own initiative. That would be a recipe for disaster, with the participants facing certain reprisal and victimization. The movement must be prepared, starting with the most advanced sections of the working class organizing the leadership.

The protests express a broadly felt desire for action, but that cannot spontaneously generate the necessary movement. It will take the input of people like you, talking to your neighbors and coworkers, organizing action committees in your neighborhoods and workplaces, reaching out to people from other neighborhoods and workplaces, and organizing in preparation for a struggle. The protests provide a prime opportunity to do just that.

For what it’s worth, in case you’re interested, this is the statement we distributed at No Kings: Mobilize the working class against Trump’s dictatorship!

I’ll also recommend this perspective following the protest: The mass protests against dictatorship in the US and the way forward in the fight against Trump’s coup.

If you read something in there that strikes a chord, I would suggest reaching out through the contact form.

These “humanitarian pauses” merely serve to provide the barest cover for the deliberate mass starvation of the Palestinian people. The images of emaciated skeletal figures have aggravated the mass revulsion and anger felt among the populations of Israel’s imperialist allies, and increasingly among the Israeli population itself. Such “pauses” in the livestreamed genocide are intended to provide the governments of the respective countries with sufficient justification to continue arming Israel and supporting the slaughter.

The protests by themselves are certainly inadequate, despite the impressive turnout. What makes the difference is what we do with them. Last time I went out, I distributed statements, made contacts and even received some donations. People are seeking out fighting perspectives. They need organization and leadership.

I think this sort of pessimism is hopelessly self defeating. People are looking for meaningful ways to fight back. What they lack is organization and leadership. What are you doing to develop this?

June “No Kings” saw the largest single day protests in US history. This is a healthy response by the population. We do absolutely need to move beyond the limits of street protests, and onto the development of a mass strike movement; however, the fact that masses of people are willing to go out and protest on a largely spontaneous basis is significant. What is needed is clear revolutionary political perspective. When this understanding grips the masses, particularly the working class, the movement will take on an explosivly historic significance.

Education at all levels should be freely available to everyone who wants it. While billionaire oligarchs hoard unfathomable sums of our social wealth, they limit and ration our opportunities for education on certain arbitrary bases. Expropriate capital and make the former capitalist live at an equal level to the rest of society.

It doesn’t seem to be the case. As far as I can tell, the law only covers realistic digital imitations of a person’s likeness (deepfakes), with an exception for parody and satire. If you appear in public that is effectively license for someone to capture your image.

Mangione has not admitted to the act nor has he been convicted. He has a right to the presumption of innocence. The state must prove his guilt. Trial by public opinion in the media is not a replacement for a jury of his peers. That is an elementary democratic principle, not a conspiracy theory.

I agree that “DA says…” is equal to “alleged,” but you lost the thread with “it’s clear he shot the guy.”

Hard disagree. We must use the terms “socialism” (and “communism”) openly and directly.

This is correct. We are witnessing some of the greatest upsurge in working class militancy in several decades, as well as a veritable renaissance in revolutionary thought. The stuff of great historic movements is available in plenty abundance. It depends on what we do with this moment.

Now is the time for world socialist revolution. The time for a Labor Party was 60 years ago. Instead, the leadership of the trade union movement subordinated itself to the Democratic Party and imperialism. This process has been replicated worldwide in the various Social Democratic and Labor parties in support of capitalist exploitation and imperialist war. The entire system is in a state of advanced decay and historical bankruptcy with no possibility of meaningful reform.

Whence cometh the experts expertise? They had to do the work to get there.

I can, and I do benefit from other people’s skills and efforts. That is the content of society.

Our culture trains us to value only the output of our work and regard the process as nothing but liability—but for the results, an abject waste of time and resources. And so, the masters of our society attempt to eliminate every expenditure that does not yield an immediate return. So they extinguish the light of human culture, which is the expression of our creative activities.

Music as magic is a wonderful motif! I saw an image post circulate that suggested using photos of orchestra conductors as visual reference for drawing spellcasters. The image spoke for itself: the degree of focused intensity and direction in their posture fits the concept perfectly.

I never really felt like the “creative” type; that was always my dad and my brother. I’ve always been more interested in the “analytical” minded subject: mathematics, natural sciences, computer programming and logic.

Ironically, my journey in music really began after I chose to cut contact with my dad, arguably the biggest musical influence in my life beginning from early childhood. I take this as spiritual validation that I made the correct choice leaving behind his narcissistic bullying and abuse.

I play a mandolin. It’s neat that it is tuned the same as a violin, because that makes the very expansive repertoire music arranged for that instrument available to me as well. I’ve been learning mainly folk music, but I may dabble in classical more as I continue.

I don’t really mean dotted notes. I am referring to the entire score of music as “dots on a page” reductively by the noteheads. The dots don’t do anything until I make them do something. I make the note longer when I hold it longer. The music doesn’t come from the page nor the instrument, but from me.

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