I will never understand the personal demoralization and intellectual dishonesty required for an individual to defend the bloody and counterrevolutionary legacy of Stalinism. There is not a trace of anticommunism in legitimate Trotskyism. Stalin, on the contrary, as the agency of imperialism in the workers movement, murdered hundreds of thousands of communist revolutionaries and Old Bolsheviks, and promoted a program of class collaboration with imperialism, which led to repeated disaster. The physical anhilalation of revolutionary cadres was devastating to Marxist political culture. The damage Stalin did to the reputation of communism in the workers movement is incalculable.

You want to talk about the revolutionary role of the peasentry at a time now in history when the world peasant population has shrunk to a fraction of its size and the proletarian working class makes up the majority of the world population? Pathetic. Trotsky's theory, adopted by Lenin in April 1917, of the proletariat leading the peasantry in revolution to establish a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry was absolutely correct, as demonstrated in the victory of October 1917. Returning to the old pre-April 1917 formulation of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry was a reactionary step away from the program of world socialist revolution, which strengthened the position of imperialism and the comprador bourgeoisie.

Trotsky correctly predicted the result of Stalinist politics, which would be the restoration of capitalism by the initiative of the Stalinist bureaucracies, as was carried out by Deng in China in 1989 and Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1991. The political base of Stalinism is nationalism and class collaboration.

Interesting to see a sympathetic portrayal of Trotsky's life in popular culture. It is bizarre how such a significant figure in modern history has been confined to relative obscurity. Whenever Trotsky is considered at all, his role is usually minimized and his person demonized. It is not hard to understand why. Between imperialism and Stalinism, he represented a serious political challenge to the forces of world reaction and embodied the power of political consciousness in the working class that reverberates to this day.

As charming as the album is (I gave it a few listens through) I would say it is not without serious problems. Despite the obvious sympathy and admiration for Trotsky, it gives the feeling of a well intentioned though ill-fated struggle of a lofty idealist who was ultimately powerless to stop the descent into the bloody grip of Stalinist reaction. In the end, we are left with impression of an exuberant and violent affair that ended in bloody ruin. What is there to admire or desire to repeat about that?

It also focuses too narrowly on the political turmoil within the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, while Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution emphasizes the primacy of the international situation in determining political programs and analyses. Entirely missing from the narrative are the development of the International Left Opposition, the experience of the Spanish Civil War, the struggle for a revolutionary program against the Nazis in Germany, and founding of the Fourth International, which are essential moments in the fight back against Stalinism.

The music is catchy and shows a range of stylistic expression. The political understanding of Trotsky leaves much to be desired.