Writings of Leon Trotsky [1936-37]

The Moscow trials and how to expose them as counterrevolutionary frame-ups organized by the Stalinist bureaucracy -

The backlash against Marxist theory and practice that developed in the wake of the Moscow trials, and how to counteract the distortions that tried to equate Leninism with Stalinism -

The drive toward World War II, which was being supported by the Second and Third Internationals -

The need to establish the Fourth International and revolutionary parties in all the countries of the world -

These were the major problems occupying Leon Trotsky when he arrived in Mexico as an exile in January 1937, after being deported from Norway. And these were the main subjects of the 150 articles, letters and statements to the press collected here from the ten-month period following his expulsion from Norway, many of which are published here for the first time.

In addition, Trotsky writes here about the preliminary hearings in Mexico held by the Commission of Inquiry and chaired by John Dewey, in April 1937; his advice about the tactics being followed by his American comrades, who were at the time were members of the Socialist Party headed by Norman Thomas; and the murders, by the Soviet secret police, of two of Trotsky's co-thinkers: Erwin Wolf in Spain in August 1937, and Ignace Reiss in Switzerland in September 1937.