Leon Trotsky and the Defense of Historical Truth
Eighty years since the first Moscow Trial
By Fred Williams, 1 September 2016
In carrying out these trials, Joseph Stalin was launching an assault on the legacy and the leaders of the first successful socialist revolution.
The return of the “grand narrative”
By Andre Damon, 1 June 2016
The resurgence of the class struggle is undermining the intellectual charlatanry that underpinned the ideological dominance of various forms of anti-Marxism over the past half-century.
A further comment on the death of David King, socialist and artist
By David Walsh, 19 May 2016
King was a brilliant graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, archivist, researcher, editor, historian and art collector.
David King 1943-2016: Revolutionary socialist, artist and defender of historical truth
By David North, 14 May 2016
David King, who devoted his extraordinary gifts as an artist to salvaging the historical truth of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath from beneath the vast edifice of Stalinist crimes and lies, died suddenly in London on May 11.
Public meetings in Australia mark 75th anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s murder
By our correspondents, 23 December 2015
There was intense interest as speakers explained the significance of Trotsky’s life and work, and why and how he was assassinated by Stalin’s secret police, the GPU.
Workers and youth speak on Trotsky’s life and death
By our correspondents, 23 December 2015
WSWS correspondents interviewed some of those who attended the meetings last week in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on “How and Why the GPU Murdered Trotsky” [link]. Members of the audience were asked about why they had come to the meetings and what they thought were the most significant aspects of the reports delivered on Trotsky’s life, his assassination and the Security and the Fourth International investigation, conducted by the International Committee of the Fourth International, into the circumstances surrounding Trotsky’s murder.
SEP public meetings in Australia:
Why and How the GPU Murdered Leon Trotsky
By , 18 November 2015
The meetings are part of the commemoration by the ICFI of the 75th anniversary of Trotsky’s assassination.
David North to speak at public meetings in UK and US: Why and How the GPU Murdered Leon Trotsky
By , 21 October 2015
A public meeting in London on Sunday November 22 has been added to a series of US meetings that will review the significance of Trotsky’s murder at the hands of the Stalinist GPU and the origins and findings of the Security and the Fourth International investigation.
Seventy-five years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky
By David North, 30 September 2015
The assassination of the greatest leader of the 1917 October Revolution marked the climax of the Stalinist regime’s eradication of the socialist workers and intellectuals who had secured the victory of the Bolshevik revolution.
David North to speak at public meetings in US: Why and How the GPU Murdered Leon Trotsky
By , 16 September 2015
At meetings marking 75 years since Trotsky’s assassination, North will speak on the significance of Trotsky’s murder at the hands of the Stalinist GPU and the origins and findings of the Security and the Fourth International investigation.
75 years since the assassination of Trotsky: 1940-2015
Leon Trotsky’s place in history
By David North, 21 August 2015
Published here is a section of a lecture delivered on the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. The full lecture is included in David North’s book, In Defense of Leon Trotsky.
Seventy-five years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky
By Joseph Kishore, 20 August 2015
Seventy-five years after his death, Trotsky emerges ever more clearly as a world historical figure who not only influenced the course of the 20th century, but whose writings and ideas remain an essential guide for orienting the working class today.
A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part four
By Fred Williams, 4 June 2015
Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.
Socialism and historical truth
A lecture delivered at the Leipzig Book Fair
By David North, 17 March 2015
This lecture was delivered before an audience of 450 people on the occasion of the publication of the German-language edition of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century.
Hundreds attend lecture introducing German edition of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century
By our correspondents, 17 March 2015
WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North presented the German edition of his book to an audience of students, workers and visitors to the Leipzig Book Fair.
Scholarship, not war propaganda!
The IYSSE’s campaign against war and historical falsification at Humboldt University
By Andre Damon and Jesse Olsen, 13 January 2015
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at Humboldt University is running in the upcoming student elections against the drive to turn the university into a center of war propaganda.
Foreword to The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century
By David North, 1 August 2014
This essay by David North is the foreword to The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century, now available at Mehring Books.
Berlin IYSSE protests Professor Jörg Baberowski’s suppression of democratic discussion at Humboldt University
By , 22 February 2014
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality have sent an open letter calling upon the University Board of the Humboldt University to censure Professor Jörg Baberowski for his undemocratic behavior.
Appearance of Robert Service in Berlin ends in fiasco
By Peter Schwarz, 14 February 2014
Service’s public lecture was canceled and moved to a secret location from which all critics were barred.
The philosophical and political foundations of historical falsification
IYSSE meeting at the Humboldt University in Berlin
By our correspondents, 12 February 2014
Around one hundred participants discussed the invitation extended by Professor Jörg Baberowski to Robert Service, the author of a discredited biography of Leon Trotsky, at a meeting last Saturday at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
Nine questions for Robert Service
By the Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party of Germany), 11 February 2014
On February 12, British author Robert Service will speak at Berlin’s Humboldt University about his internationally discredited biography of Leon Trotsky. The Partei für Soziale Gleichheit has formulated nine questions for Service.
February 8 meeting in Berlin
Baberowski’s invitation to Service: The philosophical and political foundations of historical falsification
By , 4 February 2014
Wolfgang Weber of the Socialist Equality Party of Germany will elaborate the critique of Robert Service’s Trotsky biography and discuss the philosophical and political foundations of the post-Soviet school of historical falsification.
Lecture at Historians’ Convention: In Defense of Leon Trotsky
By David North, 4 October 2012
We publish here the text of a lecture given at the Historians’ Convention at the University of Mainz in Germany by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site.
Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag publishes Robert Service’s diatribe against Leon Trotsky
By Wolfgang Weber, 2 August 2012
The circumstances surrounding Suhrkamp Verlag’s release of the German edition of Robert Service’s denunciatory biography of Leon Trotsky can only be assessed as a scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the publishing house.
“Of course, Trotsky was an alternative to Stalin”
An interview with Professor Mario Kessler on the Trotsky biography by Robert Service—Part one
By Wolfgang Weber, 21 May 2012
This is the first part of a two-part interview with German historian Professor Mario Kessler on the 2009 biography of Leon Trotsky by Robert Service. Professor Kessler is a co-signatory of a letter sent by 14 European sociologists and political scientists to the Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house raising grave reservations about its plan to bring out a German edition of Service’s book.
Leon Trotsky and the defense of historical truth
By David North, 20 March 2012
We are publishing here the lecture given by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, at the University of Leipzig on March 16. North is the author of In Defense of Leon Trotsky, a defense of historical truth and the legacy of Trotsky against the falsifications in the biography of Trotsky by Robert Service.
From the archives
The story of Mark Zborowski: Stalin’s spy in the Fourth International
By International Committee of the Fourth International, 17 November 2011
We are republishing a statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International originally published on June 15, 1990 in the Fourth International magazine on the death of Mark Zborowski. Zborowski, a GPU spy against the Trotskyist movement, was responsible for the murder of leading cadre of the Fourth International in the 1930s and for preparing, along with other Stalinist agents, the assassination of Leon Trotsky.
“A book that fails to meet the basic standards of historical scholarship”
The American Historical Review discredits Robert Service’s biography of Leon Trotsky
By The Political Committee Socialist Equality Party (US), 28 June 2011
The American Historical Review has published a critical examination of two books: the denunciatory biography Trotsky by British historian Robert Service and In Defense of Leon Trotsky by David North, the chairman of both the Socialist Equality Party in the United States and the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site.
Leon Trotsky’s Analysis of the Emerging Global Role of US Capitalism
By Nick Beams, 24 November 2010
The WSWS organized a panel on “The Cultural, Economic and Geo-strategic Thought of Leon Trotsky: A Retrospective Analysis 70 years after His Assassination,” at the 42nd annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (formerly the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies), held November 18-21 in Los Angeles. About 1,400 historians, political scientists, economists, and literary scholars presented papers on a wide array of topics.
Assessing Leon Trotsky seventy years after his assassination
Report given at the annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies
By David North, 23 November 2010
Report given at the annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, November 21 2010.
Seventy years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky
By David North, 21 October 2010
This report was delivered by David North, WSWS International Editorial Board chairman, to a meeting in Berlin on October 17.
New release from Mehring Books
In Defense of Leon Trotsky by David North now available
Pre-order your copy today
By , 31 July 2010
Mehring Books announces the publication of In Defense of Leon Trotsky by David North, a new collection of essays exploring Trotsky’s lasting contributions to the socialist movement and exposing the campaign of historical falsification against him.
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