JAY MARTIN
535
Trotsky was Dewey's Thrasymachus. True, he was not guilty of the
crimes with which he had been charged-and justice
had
to acknowl–
edge this-but, by employing unjust revolutionary means, Trotsky
proved that like Thrasymachus (and Stalin) he ultimately believed that
"injustice, when it comes into being on a sufficient scale, is mightier,
freer, and more masterful than justice; ...and the unjust is what is prof–
itable and advantageous."
This trial in Mexico was Dewey's reenactment of Socrates' quest for
justice; and Dewey'S essay "Means and Ends" completed his up-to-date
examination of the flaws in ThrasymachusfTrotsky's views. In the end,
Dewey, like Socrates, exhibited the true basis for political choice in ren–
dering a just verdict, unmindful of death threats, attacks on his reputa–
tion, pleas from friends and family, or material bribes.
From Athens, across the centuries, to Coyoaccin in
1937,
the image
of Socrates spread its angelic wings to reach across Dewey's life, and to
take him in. He lived out here what Plato imagined there, and for one
brief time, in the quiet heroism of his own being, made Plato's Repub–
lic real.
In his usual way, following the trial, Dewey simply went on to other
things. He finished
Logic: The Theory of Inquiry
not long after his
return, and was already working on
Experience and Education, Free–
dom and Culture,
and
Theory of Valuation,
all of which he published in
1938,
at the age of seventy-nine . Ever young, at the age of eighty-six he
married Roberta Grant-she was forty-two-and they adopted two
young children. Dewey maintained his optimism to the last. When he
died at ninety-two, he was writing another big book.
In his long career, the Trotsky trial stood out for Dewey. He told Max
Eastman that" it was the most interesting single experience of my life."
For us it offers a remarkable revelation of Dewey's character and
thought, and of a crucial episode in the history of American political,
philosophical, and social action.
