Trotsky’s Widow Speaks Of New Soviet Leaders

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27993, 13 June 1956, Page 10

Trotsky’s Widow Speaks Of New Soviet Leaders

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

MEXICO CITY. The widow of Leon Trotsky her bitterness unmitigated by 18 years of Mexican exile, describes the present Soviet leaders as “page boys unable to command the respect of the world.” Insisting that, as Lenin once said, “there is no Bolshevik like Trotsky,” i the diminutive widow, now aged 74, of the founder of the Red Army declared that the real intellectual giants of the Soviet Union were murdered by Stalin, leaving only the sycophants and yes-men to lead the country. She illustrated her point by displaying a newspaper headline reading: “Londoners Not Interested in Niki or Niko; Only Grace and Rainier.” “These are the modern Bolsheviks,” she said contemptuously, referring to the reception given by Marshal Bulganin. the Soviet Prime Minister and Mr Khrushchev, the Communist party leader, on their arrival in England. In an exclusive interview, she declared that the name of her late hus band would not be restored to its exalted place in the Russian Revolution by the present Kremlin rulers. “Some lesser figures will be restored.” she said, “but they will not go so far as to rehabilitate Trotsky. It will take a younger generation with no Stalin asociations to restore Lev Davidovitch to his rightful, place in history.” The present Communist policy .line is the result of internal weakness in the party, according to Mrs Trotsky. No single leader has sufficient strength to move the gigantic machine as Stalin did. Hence the uneasy truce among themselves. But, she claims, the present course is dangerous for their personal ambitions. Thev were all to closely associated with Stalin lightly to cast aside his works without pointing an accusing finger at themselves. The new party line is an admission that the present leaders are men of no character, “lackeys who carried out the whims of a man they now call a paranoic maniac.” “One Party Popular Front”

They are not unaware of the danger in this situation and will end it as soon as possible. Mrs Trotsky believes. She regards the collectivist policy as

an effort to keep divergent groups in the party, a sort of one-party popular front. The real test will come, she thinks, in a few years when these groups will either be liquidated or gain sufficient strength to influence the party. Only in the latter case is there a possibility of the role of Trotsky being vidicated in Russia.

Mrs Trotsky, now a great grandmother. has lived quietly, almost unnoticed. in the same fortress-like house where her husband was struck down on August 20. 1940. by the clumsy blow of an alpenstock. His* assassin. Jacques Mornard. is now seeking parole after serving 15 years of a 23year sentence. Several offers to murder Mornard have reached the Trotsky household. “We have never had any thought of personal vengeance.” Mrs Trotsky said, recalling that the dying man urged the guards not to kill Mornard because he would be more valuable alive than dead.

There is still much speculation as to Mornard’s fate when he leaves prison. Most observers believe that he knows too much and will be liquidated. Mrs Trotsky spoke and gesticulated with a vigour which belied her years when talking politics. But tears welled up in her bright blue eyes as she recalled her life at the side of Lev Davidovitch. Unlike many revolutionaries of the period. Trotsky held that the family was the basis of all society and he was strongly opposed to Bohemian conduct Trotsky might have succeeded Lenin had the father of the Soviet state lived longer, but he lost out to Stalin in the struggle for leadership which followed Lenin’s death. Natalia Sedova went into exile with her husband at Alma Ata, in Turkestan. in 1928. When Trotsky refused to give up his political activities, he was driven to Turkey, then later to Switzerland. France. Norway. Spain, and finally was granted asylum in Mexico in 1939. when no other country would accept him. Violence and agitation accompanied Trotsky in his wanderings round the world. Friends and family disappeared one by one. victims of the terror which he once defended in a treatise entitled: “In Defence of Terror.”