Leon Trotsky Died 80 Years Ago

#LeonTrotsky

कै गो पु देशपांडे: 

"...पण स्तालिनसंबंधी मी काय चुकीचे बोललो? त्याच्या आमदनीत रशियात रक्त सांडलं हे नाकारण्यात काय मतलब आहे? रक्त सांडून का होईना गोगलगाय होऊन गेलेल्या रशियात वाघाची अवलाद त्यानं निर्माण केली पंचवीस वर्षात… " 

"...माओ काय म्हणतो माहिती आहे ना ? क्रांती करणे  म्हणजे पंचपात्र आणि पितांबर घेऊन जेवायला जाण नव्हे --"

"...काही चळवळी आज या देशात नोकरशाह्या होऊन बसलेल्या आहेत. विशेषतः डाव्या चळवळी. कदाचित सगळीकडेच. नाहीतर माओने सांस्कृतिक क्रांतीचा एवढा मोठा प्रपंच मांडला नसता…"

 

('उध्वस्त धर्मशाळा', १९७४)

I liked what Clive James has written about Trotsky:

"...Pablo Neruda was instrumental in smoothing the assassin’s path but never wrote a poem on the subject: something to remember when reading the thousands of ecstatic love poems he did write. They are full of wine and roses but no ice axe is ever mentioned. Admirers of Neruda don’t seem to mind. The same capacity for tacit endorsement is shown by Trotsky’s admirers, who even today persist in seeing him as some sort of liberal democrat; or, if not as that, then as a true champion of the working class; or anyway, and at the very worst, as one of those large-hearted Old Bolsheviks who might have made the Soviet Union some kind of successfully egalitarian society had they prevailed. But when it became clear that the campaign for the collectivization of agriculture would involve a massacre of the peasantry, Trotsky’s only objection was that the campaign was not sufficiently ‘militarized.’ He meant that the peasants weren’t being massacred fast enough...."

('Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts',  2007)

वर उद्धृत केल्याप्रमाणे स्टालिन आणि माओचे प्रचंड कौतुक असणारे, पाब्लो नेरुडा सारखे वागायची तयारी असणारे, भारतातील कित्येक left liberal अथवा  पुरोगाम्यांना, त्यांच्या स्वतः सारख्या नसणाऱ्या लोकांबद्दल ट्रॉटस्की सारखे वाटते. ते छुपे ट्रॉटस्कीच आहेत. 

वरील चित्रातील Leon Trotsky ओळखा!

 

Both pictures: 'Animal Farm' is a 1954 British-American animated drama film directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor. It was produced by Halas and Batchelor, based on the 1945 novel of the same name by George Orwell.