August 20 and 21 mark the seventieth anniversary of the assassination and death of Leon Trotsky, next to Lenin the greatest revolutionary of the twentieth century. Simon Hardy, in a chapter from a forthcoming book, records how Stalin and his gangsters brought this about. (Click here to see Simon on Russia Today talking about the legacy of Trotsky today). Read more...

In the first of two articles, we reproduce extracts from Richard Brenner’s recently republished book, Trotsky - an introduction Read more...

Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, wants 10 million roubles ($335,800) compensation from the Novaya Gazeta newspaper because they published an article in April 2009 which claimed that Stalin was responsible for thousands of deaths in Russia. This follows from a nationwide poll in 2008 which voted Stalin the third most popular Russian of all time. In first place was Alexander Nevsky a 13th century prince, and in second place Pyotr Stolypin, a 20th century prime minister. All of these attempts to rehabilitate Stalin is something that socialists actively oppose.

This article was written by Leon Trotsky in August 1937, at the height of the Moscow show trials, to dispel the myth that Stalinism was simply the natural progression of Bolshevism. Read more...

Bryan D Palmer, a Canadian based professor and writer on the history of the North American labour movement, has published the first volume of his James Cannon biography, James P Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left (1890-1974) Illinois, 2007. Simon Hardy reviews its lessons for today Read more...

Wang Fan-hsi, a key leader of the Chinese Trotskyists has died. Peter Main surveys the life and struggles of the veteran Trotskyist Read more...

Battered but unbroken by his fight inside the USSR with Stalin, Trotsky began his foreign exile in 1929 by creating an international opposition (ILO). Dave Stockton reveal the obstacles that had to be overcome by the ILO in building unity around political principle, a trusted international leadership and disciplined practice Read more...

The final split with the Communist International (Comintern) brought home a brutal fact: the International Left Opposition (ILO) was tiny. Read more...