Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and Birthday of Leon Trotsky

I thought I would mark the occasion of the Storming of the Winter Place and the birth of Trotsky by posting this magnificent painting Bolshevik (1920), by Boris Kustodiev.

This day is also somewhat improbably the birthday of someone else.

It is a lovely, sunny autumnal day and since there are no barricades about I am now off for a run (jog) around Wanstead Flats and Wanstead Park.

“Quite Right Mr Trotsky: Some Trotsky myths debunked...”

“Quite Right Mr Trotsky: Some Trotsky myths debunked; and how Trotskyists today hamper the fight for peace and socialism” (1985).                             For some reason or other I decided today to start rereading “Quite Right Mr Trotsky” by Denver Walker. This is sadly nowadays long out of print but you should be able to get a copy online or at a second hand book shop.

It is quite a controversial book – see here “...Denver Walker’s curious concoction of fact, falsehood and frivolity”

However, it seems that Comrade Lenin never thought that much of Comrade Trotsky (this feeling was replicated).

For example (page 8) May 1914 he is quoted as saying “A joke is the only way of responding mildly to Trotsky intolerable phrase mongering”.

So -  some things don’t change then.

I’ll post on the book as soon as I have finished. I am particularly interested in finding more about the Revolutionary Workers Party and their views on the certainty that ET must be a Trotskyite :)