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Books for Workers, The Militant, Vol. III No. 30, 15 September 1930, p. 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Since Lenin Died
by Max Eastman
Labour Publishing Company, London, 1925, 158 pages.
The fact that this book earned the concentrated scorn of the latter-day Comintern leadership, should immediately interest all Communists suffering under the deluge of “anti-Trotskyist” verbiage distributed in recent years under the guise of Leninism. Aspirants to leadership, in all English-speaking countries, from Rothstein to Browder, finding the thorny path of fight against capitalism not so promising, have turned with enthusiasm to slinging mud at the Russian Opposition and its leader, comrade Trotsky. But the authority of these slanderers of the revolution is shortlived. This book is one of the nails in their political coffin.
Coming fresh from the Thirteenth Party Congress of the Russian Party (May 1924) and the hysterical campaign leading up to Trotsky’s resignation as president of the Revolutionary Military Soviet in January 1925, Max Eastman was the first to publish the authentic documents of the controversy in English. He was in Russia during the whole development of the fight, witnessed the consolidation of the shady opponents of Leninism under the crafty leadership of the “Triumvirate”. The book is valuable to us now because in it are published the original documents, theses, letters and press articles of the period. These documents have already been supplemented, amplified and a thousand times verified in the writings of comrade Trotsky and other leaders of the Russian Opposition. Also by the shamefaced confessions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. when they were no longer of use to Stalin.
Eastman will be remembered for unswerving courage and determination in the face of the solid mass of howling bureaucrats, to speak the truth and prove it. He has the honor of being one of the first to be expelled from the American Party for supporting the Russian Opposition. He certainly was the first to bring the documents and platform of the Russian Opposition out of the “illegality” imposed by Stalin and into the light of day.
Price: Cloth, $1; paper, 50 cents. Order through the Militant
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