August 2020

Tribute to Leon Trotsky, 80 years since his assassination by Stalinism

Message from Claudia Pafundi, member of the "Commission of Condemned Workers, Relatives and Friends of Las Heras" (Argentina) to the day in tribute to León Trotsky, 80 years after his murder at the hands of Stalinism “We also suffered the betrayal of Stalinism; it was the Communist Party that betrayed us, it was which imposed isolation on us. That dark character named Mario Navarro from the Communist Party could never put a step on our town again, because it was he who gave up our fight"   From Las Heras we want to pay tribute to Comrade Trotsky, assassinated by Stalinism, and to all the revolutionaries persecuted and massacred for fighting for the world revolution. It is exciting to hear Mario from Mexico because they, the fathers and mothers of the 43 Ayotzinapa students disappeared by the State, gave an enormous example of international struggle, searching for their children from Alaska to Patagonia. We lived that same experience in our town. The oil companies sentenced our comrades for life imprisonment and to jail, for fighting against job insecurity and in defense of our wages. But although they sentenced against us, today they cannot enforce the sentence, because we called from our town on all the workers of the world to confront the judgment that they were ruling on us. And those were the forces that allow us today, despite the conviction, to continue fighting together with our families for our acquittal, joining the fight for the freedom of all the political prisoners in the world and for justice for our martyrs. And in this tribute to Trotsky we have to affirm that we too suffered the betrayal of Stalinism; it was the Communist Party that betrayed us, it was which imposed isolation on us. That dark character named Mario Navarro from the Communist Party could never put a step on our town again, because it was he who gave up our fight. For this reason, the greatest tribute that we want to pay Trotsky is that of internationalism. That is why today we are in a single fight from the International Network for the Freedom of All the Political Prisoners of the World and Justice for Our Martyrs. We have fought together with Mario for six years looking for his children, with the Palestinian political prisoners, with Abdallah imprisoned in France and the Basque comrades imprisoned in the prisons of Europe, with the young Greek rebels, with the relatives of Senkata in Bolivia and also we do so with our brothers in Syria that are massacred in a huge genocide. This fight is the one we want to strengthen. A huge hug to all those who are participating in this very important day 80 years after the assassination of comrade Trotsky.