Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip from the film documentary, Trotsky: The Rise And Fall Of A Revolutionary.
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin
DVD Review
Trotsky: Rise and Fall Of A Revolutionary, starring Leon Trotsky, Natalia Sedova, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and various other member of the Bolshevik Party, Kultur Films, 2008
This one has me stumped. I mean I was not sure whether to review the documentary or not. My quandary was whether in recommending this hour long documentary I was aiding in bringing the younger generation, who may not be familiar with the great Russian revolutionary and 20th century leftist icon, Leon Trotsky, more misconceptions about his role in history, the role of the Russian revolution in history, and the role of the Bolshevik Party in bringing that revolution about than clarity. The documentary has a fair number of those misconceptions, especially around the always controversial subjects of the seizure of power, the original sin, by the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Trotsky’s role in the Kronstadt uprising in 1921, and of Stalin as the “legitimate” continuator of the Leninist traditions, among others. I think that the comment of one of the Russian “talking heads” near the end of the presentation kind of summed up the whole piece-Yes, Trotsky was a great revolutionary, a great thinker, and great organizer but he was a fanatic (like the rest of the Bolsheviks) and the whole “experiment” was doomed to failure. Conclusion: Trotsky got caught up with great historic forces consciously and so he, basically, got what he deserved.
I have reviewed many books and films on Leon Trotsky and on the Bolshevik revolution, some of them, frankly, even less forthright that this effect so, in the end, I decided to review this one in the interest of completeness. And I will just add the proviso that further study is mandatory after viewing this one. Another factor pulling at me, as well, was that, political perspective and other faults aside, this is a very quick overview of Trotsky’s life and can at least serve at a primer for the highlights of his biography, and a glimmer of light on the issues that surrounded that life, including his theory of permanent revolution, his notions of socialist society-building and his fight, to the end, to save the honor of the Russian revolution.
One virtue of this film is that it presents a fair amount of film footage (some which I had not seem before) of Trotsky’s rise as revolutionary from his chairmanship of the Petrograd Soviet in the 1905 revolution, his various exiles in the aftermath of that event, his return to Russia in 1917 , his organization of the November revolution, his role as War Commissar in the Civil War against the Whites, his role in founding the Communist International, his fights inside the Bolshevik Party against Stalin in the early 1920s, his political defeats at the hands of Stalin in the late 1920s, his expulsion from the Soviet Union and further exiles abroad, and finally his assassination at the hands of a Stalinist agent in Mexico in 1940. Just that short list is enough to keep one going for a while. So watch this one. Then grab Isaac Deutscher’s definitive three-volume Trotsky biography(The Prophet series) to fill in the many blanks of his life left out of the film, and, finally, read Trotsky’s own History Of The Russian Revolution to get his take on that action. In any case don’t stop with this film documentary.
Note: Much has been made of Trotsky as an orator. Unfortunately, in his oratorical heyday film had no audio component so we can’t get a sense of what virtually every on the spot commentator has described as a mesmerizing presentation. Of course that was an age, or at least more of an age, when oratory, especially political oratory, was prized for its entertainment as well as educational value. Frankly, off his later voice presentation, in some of the footage later in the 1930s he sounds more like Hollywood’s image of a mad, exiled East European professor than a revolutionary leader.
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