Commenting on Leon Trotsky’s exile to Turkey, the “Jewish Daily Forward,” Socialist Jewish organ, terms the event “the greatest irony of fate imaginable.”
“Trotsky, the former leader of the Communist world revolution, is now compelled to seek a haven of refuge in a capitalistic country under the protection of the capitalist law. The fact that during his period of power he did not succeed in transforming the other countries into a Communist ‘paradise’ is now fortunate for him, for where could he have gone if the Communists would have reigned not only in Russia but also in other countries?”
The paper continues: “We are the last to regret Trotsky’s end. We know very well that he, perhaps more than anybody else outside of Lenin, is responsible for Russia’s miseries and for rivers of innocent blood which were shed there. We know, too, that if Trotsky would have had an opportunity to carry out his present program, it would have been a new misfortune both for Russia and the world at large. Trotsky has now fallen a victim of the system which he himself created. He fell into the grave he dug for others.
“His political career is now probably ended. The only thing he can accomplish abroad is to help increase the splits in the Communist groups abroad and to demonstrate to the world through his own person the moral bankruptcy of the Communist dictatorship which has declared the chief hero of the Bolshevik revolution a traitor and has driven him into exile just because he demands freedom of opinion merely for the members of the Communist party,” the paper declares.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
