Letters

Trotsky in the GDR

Jens-Peter Steffen writes:

An interesting piece of information for Revolutionary History might be the announcement that the following titles (amongst others) are to be published in East Germany. Here’s an extract from the Neues Deutschland (2-3 February 1990), formerly owned by the SED, the East German Communist Party, and now just a Socialist daily.

Stalin, Stalinism and the Totalitarian state

The movements that are taking place in our country right now can barely be grasped, with the formation of new political powers and new parties and groups. A radical break with Stalinism is absolutely necessary. However, that demands some knowledge about Stalin himself, his dealings, and his impact, the forms Stalinism takes, and what is understood by ‘Stalinism’. Dietz Verlag of Berlin will publish the following books on this subject in the first quarter of this year.

Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: a Political Biography. The Polish journalist and social scientist Isaac Deutscher (1907-1967) wrote this book during his emigration in London, and published it in English in 1949. He was expelled from the Communist Party of Poland in 1932 because of his part in the so-called anti-Stalinist opposition.

The Crimes of Stalin was written by Leon Trotsky, and is mainly about the four biggest show trials of the 1930s and the political murders connected with them. Trotsky was killed on 20 August 1940.

Non-Persons: Who They Really Were is the title of a book which deals with Nikolai Bukharin, Leon Trotsky, Grigori Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Alexei Rykov.

Khrushchev’s Secret Speech from the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, 25 February 1956, will be available in its authentic version in the GDR for the first time. It is based on its first publication in the Soviet Union in March 1989.

I would like to add some information on the history of German Trotskyism. I was finally able to obtain from Austria a copy of Hans Schafranek’s book on Kurt Landau. He documents the political life of Landau in 600 pages. Supposedly out last autumn, but still not available, is a short book on Anton Grylewicz, published by ISP-Verlag, the publishers of the United Secretariat section.