Books
VERSIONS OF BOLSHEVISM
T
ROTSKYJS BIOGRAPHY
of Stalin;x- suppressed by the publishers
since 1941, was no sooner released for general circulation than most
reviewers set to work to snipe at the book and jeer at its author. This
is particularly true of some of the "liberal" reviewers writing for
newspapers which regularly .and as a matter of course hand over
books critical of the Soviet myth precisely to people like Frederick
L. Schuman, one of the busiest and sleekest mythomaniacs. Schuman
reviewed the book for
PM.
And why not? For that newspaper the
choice of Schuman as a reviewer of Trotsky is entirely logical.
PM
is
controlled by irresponsible journalists greatly on the make who will
stick with Stalinism so long as it continues to gather power and pres–
tige-and just so long, too, as the coming showdown with American
capitalism is delayed. When the showdown comes they will inevitably
run back to Mamma.
Now the one thing that cannot be claimed for men like Schuman
is that they are objective. Mter all, in their writings on the Soviet
Union those people are guilty of the most flagrant suppression of evi–
dence. One would think, then, that knowing their own commitments,
they would at least refrain from attacking Trotsky on the ground
that he hated Stalin and could not be objective about him. But no,
that is the charge-the principal charge-brought against the book.
(Trotsky himself disclaims any personal feelings toward Stalin, warn–
ing his critics not to indulge in that cheap use of psychoanalysis against
which Freud protested before his death.)
If
by objectivity we mean
intellectual honesty, rather than freedom from prior ideological com–
mitments, then there can be no doubt of Trotsky's honesty and every
doubt in the world of the honesty of some of his critics, who are really
no better than tricksters, for they pose as liberals while playing the
Stalinist game.
The device of gratuitously "motivating" the authors of books
one dislikes is of course reserved solely for the opponents of Soviet
*
STALIN.
By Leon Trotsky. Edited and translated from the Russian by Charles
Malamuth. Harper
&
Brothers.
$5.00.
