THE DEATH OF TROTSKY
(tho many lend a hand). This victory's small
-nobody would deny it to any-
nor is it hypothetical.
7.
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When Trotsky was dead in Coyoacan on the 3rd day after the
finally successful assault, an attempt was made by Albert Goldman
and other American Trotskyist leaders to bring the body to New
York, to the Empire City, for a great public funeral and demon–
stration. (There was also dissent among these leaders, for a few
had just led the secession from the party of nearly half of the
American members of the Fourth International.)
The State Department of the United States, however, which
had previously denied entrance to Trotsky himself, would by no
means permit the importation of the body, to become an object not
only of insurrectionary ardor on the part of some, but of contention
and perhaps open street-fighting between Trotskyists and Stalinists
in New York. For a moment Goldman intended to appeal this
decision to the highest courts. But in the end the body was burned
in fire and the ashes given over to Trotsky's widow.
8.
A Hebrew Song, in Memory of L. T.
Our land we work
our land we work
we have already ploughed it
and we have seeded it,
have not yet harvested
have not yet harvested.
1940
