Jimmy Deane Archive | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Fight, Vol. 4 No. 1, February 1962, p. 4.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The death of Leon Trotsky’s widow, Natalya Ivanovna Sedova-Trotskaya, at the age of 81 was announced in Paris on January 23rd. Though inevitably overshadowed by the great work and fame of Leon Trotsky, Natalya was a revolutionary Marxist of great ability, devotion and courage.
Natalya and Leon Trotsky met in Paris in 1903 whilst engaged in revolutionary work. From those days she fought side by side with Trotsky against Tsarism, Kerenskyism and later the monstrosities of Stalinism.
In the early part of the October Revolution, when Trotsky was chairman of the Soviet of Peoples Comissaries, not only did Natalya aid Trotsky but she was a propagandist and educational officer in the trade unions. Later she was appointed to head the arts, museums and monuments in the Commissary of Education at a time when Trotsky was chairman of the Supreme War Council and founding the Red Army. In this period both Natalya and Trotsky lived and worked closely with Lenin, and his wife Krupskaya.
As a companion, comrade, collaborator, suffering exile, hounded from country to country, witnessing the murder of her sons, friends and comrades at the hands of Stalin and, eventually in 1940 the murder of Leon Trotsky himself, Natalya remained loyal to the fundamental ideas of revolutionary Marxism with a courage and devotion that has few parallels in history.
Even to a few months ago, in her 80th year, Natalya was fighting for the rehabilitation of Leon Trotsky, her sons and the Bolshevik-Leninists vilified, slandered and murdered by Stalin’s secret police.
Though Krushchev continues to repeat the slander and lies invented by Stalin against Trotsky, by lifting one corner of the curtain on the crimes of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress, by rehabilitating such men as Tuchachevsky he has proved the complete correctness of Trotsky’s criticisms of Stalinism. The condemnation of Stalin is a condemnation of the entire bureaucracy and the policies they pursued.
Krushchev cannot draw the political conclusions of all this, if only because the bureaucracy cannot reform itself. As Natalya herself explained the final reckoning will be made by the Russian people themselves, truth is concrete.
Unbounded faith in the future of mankind, in the correctness of Marxism and the triumph of world Socialism – this was the source of Natalya’s and Trotsky’s titanic willpower and determination. From the same source, inspired by example, the future leaders of revolutionary Socialism will find the power to continue the struggle to the very end.
Jimmy Deane Archive | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 13 April 2020