Tribute to Leon Trotsky, 80 years since his assassination by Stalinism
Intervention by Abu Muad, from the editorial committee of the paper "The Truth of the Oppressed”
"The martyrs we have in Syria died and gave their lives (...) for setting up an international party; for setting up the Fourth International"
Good afternoon comrades. First, to greet all those present today, making an effort to connect, despite the difficulties we have, as we are trying to seek unity and that seems to me very productive.
Indeed, as Flaco who introduced me just said, we have to pay tribute to all the comrades who gave their lives, to the last drop of their blood, to set up an international party, who were betrayed, who were sold out...
I will never forget the nickname Trotsky had, which was "the prophet without a land, without a passport". Nobody wanted him in his land.
That goes back forward to today. We had the honor of having brought Trotsky's legacy to those "far-off lands" as many say, which is the Middle East, a "world" where "they live in war," where there are "barbarian tribes" as the left likes to tell of it.
We had the honor of fighting side by side with comrades from the Middle East who were rising up in a revolution, which was a chain of revolutions, where the engine was basically hunger and hardships suffered by people who live on top of seas of oil. We had the honor of having learned, with those comrades, to fight day by day.
We had the honor of having been in Syria, where they have been in a revolution for almost 10 years... a revolution that, actually, could not have been more sullied, more slandered, more bastardized by the left. We really had the honor of being able to name the brigade that fought along with these comrades after Leon Sedov, the son of comrade Trotsky, who was also killed.
Now, everyone wonders how people from Argentina and other countries could come to fight in the Middle East. That is the legacy that Trotskyism, left us, internationalism. Many people tell you, why do you go to fight there and not here?
I think that what we have to explain patiently, because Stalinism and the left have taken care to erase it, is that it is not "here" and "there”. It is that the working class is one. It is a world class and the revolution that begins in one country has to be supported by all the other countries so that it can succeed.
That revolution that begins in that country has to be supported, and to raise the demands of the world working class.
We could not believe, while we were suffering the hardships on the battle front, the slanders that the left was directing at us, which translated into nothing less than defeat. To be isolated, to be pointed at by the whole of the international working class was something that translated into blood.
Now, the blame does not lie with the workers, but with their leaderships, who were the ones who did things we never thought they would do.
I remember in 2016, when there was a boom in Syria, thousands of workers arrived on the shores of Europe, fleeing the barbarism and massacre of Bashar al-Assad, Putin and Iran, the working class woke up again. The European working class began to take the side of the Syrians who came to tell their truth... And the left invented a revolution, which is "the revolution of Rojava", saying that we had to support the Kurdish people, because "the only progressive revolution in the Middle East was that of the Kurdish people."
They didn't care about Tunisia, they didn't care about Libya, they didn't care about Bahrain, they didn't care about Yemen, they didn't care about Syria. Not only did they not care from the point of view that they didn't contribute anything, but they cared very much about siding with the oppressor. The "Trotskyist" left was with Bashar. The "Trotskyist" left said that Russia, the biggest ally of the mass murderer of the Syrian masses, "delivered humanitarian aid". The left took it upon itself to say that we were "barbarian tribes”. The left took it upon itself to say that the greatest enemy of the Middle East and the world was not Bashar, who massacred women, men and children, but that it was the Islamic State, a state created by imperialism to justify its misdeeds.
Today is a day when we must also remember that the martyrs we have in Syria are martyrs who died and gave their lives for this battle. Not only for the Syrian revolution, not only for the Libyan revolution, not only for the Lebanese revolution, but they have given their lives to set up an international party; to set up the Fourth International. The Fourth International is the one that is going to help us... it is going to be the feather that will counterbalance each of the leaderships.
Because what happened in Syria was that there was a leadership crisis. The bourgeoisie takes the post in the rebel countries, and diverts, with its actions, all types of revolutionary struggle. It buys, corrupts and massacres.
Therefore, today more than ever, we have to raise that flag that thousands of comrades left behind when they fell on the battlefield. We have to remember one of our great leaders, who was Mustafa, and his son, Abu Al Baraa, who were the first to raise the Trotskyist flag inside Syria together with us.
The good thing about comrades who die giving this fight is that they never disappear, that is, their ideas continue, the legacy remains. But it remains in our hands and we have to continue to carry it out. Today, the Leon Sedov Brigade exists. Today, the Leon Sedov Brigade writes. Today, the Leon Sedov Brigade publishes. Today, the Leon Sedov Brigade raises the voice of every oppressed person through the Haqeqa Al Maqhoureen (Truth of the Oppressed) newspaper, where it tries to be a hinge so that every revolution in the world can be unified and the working class can finally strike as one.
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