What can be scarier and stronger than the feeling of impending death?
— Larisa Reisner, Trotsky (2017)
*
I hung around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was time for a change
Killed the Tsar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain…
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
— “Sympathy For The Devil,” Jagger/Richards
*
Revolutionary Russia, 1918 — a time of civil war….
It starts with rough sex on an armored train.
Russian journalist and poet Larisa Reisner is the Seductress, the Angel of … what? Death? Revolution? Revolutionary Death? Her long fingers dig into the black leather-clad back of Lev Bronstein, nom de guerre Leon Trotsky, leader of the Bolshevik Red Army; she leaps upon him like a succubus, demanding to be taken. And Trotsky does, as Reisner declaims her revolutionary poetry in a voiceover that rises to a crescendo over her cries of sexual ecstasy:
Where darkness of unruly power is gurgling grumbling and screaming, the darkness of an unrestrained power, the Archangel’s wing is hovering over. Inumerable roads make way to Rome that lies in ruins. But if the February Rome falls and howls with a crowd’s shout, the Angel, show benevolence. The Demon, show them all no mercy.
Trotsky pounds into her, his hand around her throat — just as it clenched around the throat of Revolutionary Russia.
Trotsky (2017) is weird like that.
*
It’s safe to say that without Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. Counter-revolutionary “White” forces had the upper hand in the civil war that erupted in 1918, and appeared poised to crush the Red Army between pincers moving from east, south and west. A powerful orator and a ferociously capable organizer, Trotsky whipped the Red Army into shape in the face of disaster and won the Russian Civil War. He was not gentle about it.
But when the game of thrones began after the death of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky, the charismatic revolutionary, was outmaneuvered by Stalin the bureaucratic thug. He was forced into exile in 1929, and was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940, by a Stalinist agent.
*
The eight-episode Russian miniseries recently dropped on Netflix. It’s a fascinating fable of Revolution — historically suspect, but a compelling drama and a window into the current Russian state’s ambiguous relationship with the Bolshevik Revolution 100 years after the events. For Trotsky was the state TV centerpiece of Russia’s rather muted acknowledgement of the centenary and while it’s an oversimplification to say it’s a propaganda piece, it certainly conveys certain messages that serve the Putin regime.
Putin’s Russian cannot but have a fraught relationship with the Revolution. On the one hand, it gave birth to the Soviet State, which gave birth to Putin. On the other hand, it destroyed the old Romanov regime and smothered the Orthodox Church, both of which are enjoying a revival of esteem under Putin’s neo-Tsarist hand. Putin and his cronies cannot and will not endorse the kind of revolutionary action that might readily be turned on them. But the sacred Power of the State — that they cherish.
In an insightful piece in The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa recalls Putin’s take on the Bolsheviks:
“Someone decided to shake Russia from inside, and rocked things so much that the Russian state crumbled. A complete betrayal of national interests! We have such people today as well.”
Trotsky makes much of the long-standing early 20th Century covert German support for Russian radicalism, aimed at weakening the Russian state. Putin sees any protest against his regime as generated in exactly this way — as outside “interference,” not as authentic dissatisfaction with his rule. And a scene in the very first episode of Trotsky serves up a dark philosophy that seems to both counter any idea of revolutionary idealism and to justify rule with an iron fist: In 1898, Trotsky languishes in prison due to his radical activities. His jailer tells him over a game of chess that “every order is based on fear.” It is a lesson that Comrade Trotsky would learn well.
Trotsky the Demonic.
*
Trotsky has been criticized for playing fast and loose with history — which is fair enough, though I think the point is moot in a tale that also features ghosts (or hallucinations). Trotsky is historical in the way that Shakespeare’s tragedies were historical — mining a historic tale for its drama while using it to legitimize the contemporary powers that be.
The series is a mythic and sometimes deliberately surreal take on events that were uncoupled from any factual reality even as they were happening. The Bolshevik “Revolution” is itself a myth, since it was actually a coup d’e’tat by a small, militant minority that hijacked a revolution they did not make. The Soviet Union was founded on a lie, built upon lies with a mortar of bloody corpses, and collapsed when the lie could no longer sustain itself. Another persistent myth is that the “good” revolution was derailed by Stalin; that if Trotsky had prevailed in the power struggle things might have been different. But Leon Trotsky was no less a murderer than Joseph Stalin. In Trotsky, the exiled communist defends himself as a monster made by force of circumstance, revolutionary necessity, while Stalin was a monster because he liked being a monster. A distinction lost upon their dead.
It is instructive and entertaining to engage the Trotsky myth, and at the same time to analyze its construction. It’s especially worthwhile, since the totalitarian myths of the 20th century have proven harder to kill than we might have expected. There’s some alluring power even yet to the great secular faiths of Communism and National Socialism that plunged the world into darkness and a storm of blood unprecedented in human history.
Ugly Hombre says
Great post on a very interesting subject-
Interesting to read Putin’s take on the Russian Revolution esp since he himself is a Chekist and served the Communist state.
Communists are masters of deception and false myth making, Che was a good guy etc etc et al.
Its also a myth that Lenin was some kind of a misunderstood good guy and that he was adverse to mass murder, torture and murder.
Nothing could be further from the truth… He started the Cheka and unleashed Dzerzhinsky, Lenin constantly called for more hangings of class enemies and mass murder, “find harder people kill more” etc
A good place to look a starting place- if you are interested in the real history of the Russian Revolution and the prime movers- is the book
“The Secret Police In Lenin’s Russia” by Lennard Gerson- 1976, the SS and the Gestapo learned their murderous trade at the feet of the Russian Communist Cheka. The Gerson book is easy to find and not to dear. Its quite good.
I will look for that Trotsky series,
Thanks.
The Red Terror was baked in. People forget that at their peril.
deuce says
I still remember the short scene in TNT’s “Stalin” (or was it HBO?) showing Trotsky getting an icepick in the head. I cheered every time I saw it.
Russia. What a tortured country.
Ugly Hombre says
“Russia. What a tortured country.”
Yes the Bolsheviks turned a relatively well off country Russia under the Czar- into a hell on earth. Unleashed world Communist rule movements all over the world and killed tens of millions.
The Nazis are long gone but the Communist tyranny is still extent and even gaining power. Look at the 1984 type lock down the Chicoms are setting up all over China and its ruled territories. They will export it.
If you want to understand something you have to go to the origin- if you want to understand Communist mind set you have to go back and study the original movement.
http://unamusementpark.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/red-terror-in-russia.pdf
From 1926 another NSFW place to start.
They are masters of deception , propaganda and message control, failed states, slavery and murder though out history that we can plainly see- yet the lure of the insect religion remains strong.
Even in our Republic…
deuce says
Some people simply will not accept that humans aren’t blank slates and that there is such a thing as basic human nature. Therefore, they embrace an all-encompassing ideology which is founded upon utterly false premises. Eventually, that ideology always leads to futile attempts to establish an earthly utopia–which is always just ONE more dead wrongthinker away. Always.
This is why I gravitate toward people with a tragic view of life and humanity. (I don’t mean morose, as you know). They’re far more accepting of people as people and not built to sacrifice people for “The People” and other abstractions.
deuce says
“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies.” — CS Lewis
Nobody feels better about putting a bullet into the back of a wrongthinker’s head than Commissar Busybody. After all, he’s just laying one more pavement stone on the road to the Rainbow Utopia. “You can’t make omelettes without breaking a few eggs!” as the Man From Ossetia wisely said.
There are moral busybodies everywhere. Best not to empower them.
“Badgers and Blood Oranges.”
Jean Germano says
Wow, good timing just finished watching this series in a single evening with my father after having spotted it and noticing the state sponsorship jokingly pointed a friend who studies Russia (particularly her history.) Surprisingly he responded back that it was decent and so we ended up watching it and were impressed enough by the quality to finish the show in one evening.
Likening the series to Shakespeare’s historic plays is definitely a good line to follow. “Richard III” is often respected as a great work in spite of a mustache twirling villain in the form of Richard III in an ahistorical depiction of the man (in fact Richard’s gleeful evil and monologueing probably raises the profile of the play.) Richard was more than likely cast as such an unabashed villain to line up with the visions of the Tudors who ruled in Shakespeare’s time and had rose to power after toppling Richard. Yet propaganda aside it’s a great play, Trotsky is in a similar vein albeit its villain is the whole of the Bolshevik rise to power. Trotsky is cast as something more complex than a consummate villain having dignity and humanity that usually manifests divorced or in ignorance of the “Revolution’s” principles. He’s a terrible father but the story seems to lean into framing him as of the overworked and never present one rather than an ogre and his saving the college professors from being executed is framed as a rare genuinely good thing. It’s also worth noting that the show seems to use the ghosts as its way to point out that it’s Trotsky’s blind quest for Revolution that makes him a monster rather than him simply being a
monster which is what you usually expect in a propaganda production.
Another thing that made me feel like this was more than a propaganda piece is its depiction of Stalin who is usually framed as a hero and much loved by the general Russian populace. In this work Stalin (or Koba as was his nickname before he took on his “man of steel” sobriquet) is depicted as more of a malevolent looming threat somewhat like the Judge. He starts out as something of an incidental figure to the story yet as Trotsky advances further in the story like “the boy” he is shadowed by his version of the Judge and both are ultimately unable to resist their hunter’s inevitability. Stalin is always one step ahead of Trotsky and always seems to have a menacing sneer on his face specifically reserved for Trotsky in every meeting they have after their first during the story. A real surprise is the story also seems to explicitly connect Stalin to Lenin’s incapacitation and death which is also a hazy attribution and a decidedly negative one (even if the show’s version of Lenin is more a conniving politician fit more for a park bench plaque than a legendary portfolio of monuments.)
In the end I won’t lie that I partially liked the show due to my own lack of sympathy to blind heroic revolutionary dreaming. The historical inaccuracies even for someone who has completed a limited historical survey of the October Revolution are many (one that stuck in my craw is a minor moment in a meeting where Stalin blames Trotsky for issuing the order that triggered the uprising of the legendary Czech Legion, Stalin was the one who actually penned the order), yet the framing device for the story of the interplay between Trotsky and his “Canadian” judge in his Mexican exile and his haunting by “ghosts” from his past all help to make it seem like a bit more than just shallow propaganda. Trotsky is a good tale I think and rises past just being the simple soup of regime protecting propaganda and anti-semitism that many of the pieces published on it seem to frame it as (the latter accusation seems a bit unsure when you watch the show as it’s hard to say if things are a product of period casual racism especially in light of a scene where Trotsky’s father and children are mistreated that is completely unsympathetic.) However, maybe I’m just buying into some really high brow propaganda that just seems really interesting because as the show’s director has said Trotsky was a rock star and his story is just that engrossing no matter who tells it.
P.S: I find it very unfortunate that every piece critiquing the history in the show seems to be written either by Trotskyists or at least those who strongly believe in the legacy of the “October Revolution” as I found amongst English and Russian language pieces I exchanged with my Russian studying friend.
Welcome to the campfire Jean. Looks like you and I see this virtually exactly the same.
Ugly Hombre says
One of my mentors a Chinese man now near 90 years old lived through the Chicom ’ ”liberation” of China
His family was wealthy and was purged ruthlessly his father had a collection of Ming and Ching dynasty astrology books- the Communist burned them as one of the “4 olds” the rest was much, much worse.
He told me the difference from the KMT and the Chicom’s was the KMT wanted ” your money and allegiance.””
The Chicom’s “wanted your soul.” They destroyed China. Russia fell, but they the Chinese Communists survived they are very smart and survived morphed into another Communist type of ‘creature’.
Allowing them to gain money and military power was long game a very serious mistake for the west. They will prove that soon.
If you want to know the truth- study the Russian Revolution, it is a amazing story and then you will know and understand how they operate and will not be able to be fooled.
Look at Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe South Africa and China today- and see if you want to live in a place like that.
The new American left are all for it. The Russian term for it is “Useful Idiot”
I think the tendency on the American left is to believe that we in the U.S. can implement some variation of benign social democracy. There seems to be some sense that if that were to be done that all of the strange pathologies of our vast, sprawling and culturally fractured society would magically disappear. When you and I hear socialism, we see Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe South Africa and China. They see Denmark.
deuce says
Denmark is, effectively–in any sense that could be possibly be implemented in the US–a monocultural ethnostate. Basically all of the “benign social democracies” that have “prospered”–at least in the short term sense of “prospered since WWII”–have been monocultural ethnostates. They’re the only places where social trust is high enough to even attempt to keep the wheels on the socialist train. I guess all of these social democrats want monocultural ethnostates. Who knew?
We talked about this last spring in The Circle of Trust.
You are right to identify social trust as the key factor — and the USA manifestly lacks it (on the macro scale; plenty of trust in friends and neighbors).
We just can’t get there from here.
Matthew says
Frankly, I don’t think the left sees the real Denmark, but an idealized version.
Some truth to that, I think, but I’ve known enough people who have lived in Scandinavian countries to be confident that the happiness quotient is a real thing. But, for reasons lined out in The Circle of Trust (you can’t have Denmark without the Danes), I’m very skeptical that it is replicable on a giant scale in a diverse empire; the greater likelihood is the Russian road, which I do not want any part of.
Ugly Hombre says
You are right that is what they think. And eventually they will get Socialist rule here in America.
There are to many of them, they are too brain dead to history and they want free stuff- think they are entitled to free education, free medical care, free basic monthly income etc etc et al.
Starting in 2019 they will begin further to beat down the gates of the Constitution to get it. Later- we will see more of such things as unconstitutional false flag “Obama Care” fiasco, and the “Fast And Furious” Obama Holder guns for Narco Cartels anti 2nd operation- and the turning of the FBI and CIA into a type of neo- Bolshevik American Cheka political police only worse,
And eventually they will win. And America will go down route of “Democratic Socialist” rule.
Good thing is like in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, South Africa and Zimbabwe- the useful idiots will have to live in the destroyed reduced nanny state they created. The people in Caracas who worked for Chavez did not think they would be down to eating zoo animals and pets and crossing the border to sell themselves for medicine. The people in Russia 1917 did not think they would be starved to death by the millions.The people in Cambodia did not think they would end up in the killing fields.
And so on.
The bad thing is- people who see Socialist/Communist rule for what it is and resist it- will also have to live in it.