Trotzky vs. Eastman

Allegedly out of Russia, from the pen of Comrade Leon Trotzky, came a violent denunciation of Max Eastman, U. S. Communist, and Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died.

The indictment was the more remarkable since Comrade Eastman defends Trotzky in his book against the Zinoviev-Stalin-Kamenev triumvirate, which he labels cowardly, weak, etc.

Among the things which Comrade Trotzky said:

"No honest worker will believe the sort of picture of Russia drawn by Max Eastman. It contains its own refutation. It is immaterial what were Eastman's intentions. His booklet can only render service to the worst enemies of Communism and revolution. It therefore objectively constitutes a weapon of counter-revolution."

After calling Eastman's book "fallacious and mendacious," Trotzky goes on to describe his relations with the author:

"My relations with Eastman differed in nothing from my relations with a number of other Communists or foreign 'sympathizers' who have asked my assistance in studying the October Revolution, our party and the Soviet State-- not more than that. . . .

"Eastman exploits single incidents of the party discussion to blacken our party and to undermine all confidence by perverting the meaning of facts. I should think, however, that any serious and reflective reader need not even take the trouble to verify Eastman's references and 'documents' (which, moreover, would not be accessible to everybody), but would find it sufficiently simple to ask himself, if the derogatory characteristics given by Eastman to the leading personnel of our party had been true, how could this party have gone through the long years of underground struggle, have made the greatest revolution in the world, have been able to lead the millions and to assist the formation of revolutionary parties in other countries?" Max Eastman, 42, whose father was descended from Daniel Webster, was born in New York State. He was graduated from Williams College in 1905 and subsequently became an associate professor at Columbia University, teaching Philosophy.

In 1907 he left Columbia, became interested in social and literary work. He became Editor of The Masses and a promoter-actor in the Provincetown Players. In 1918 The Masses was suppressed, but later reorganized into The Liberator. He founded the first men's league for woman suffrage. Lately, he has lived abroad.