On August 20, 2023, Trotsky’s four-year exile in Turkey from 1929 to 1933 was honored at a major event on Prinkipo, an island in the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Istanbul. Trotsky took refuge on Prinkipo following his expulsion from the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime.
The commemoration, “An Island at the Center of World History: Trotsky on Prinkipo,” coincided with the 90th anniversary of Trotsky’s departure from Prinkipo in July 1933 and fell exactly on the 83rd anniversary of his assassination in August 1940.
The principal speakers were David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site; Ulaş Ateşçi, an editor of Mehring Yayıncılık and a leading member of Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu [Socialist Equality Group] in Turkey; and Eric London, an editorial board member of the WSWS, who has written extensively on the assassination of Leon Trotsky.
Professor Mehmet Ö. Alkan, the chairman of the History Foundation in Turkey, moderated the event. The commemoration was sponsored by the Prinkipo (Adalar) Municipality, led by Mayor Erdem Gül, with the contributions of Adalar City Council, led by Chair Ö. İskender Özturanlı.
The event reflects the objective change that has been underway for some time in the relationship between Trotskyism and the international working class.
This is the speech by World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North given on Sunday, August 20, honoring the life and political legacy of Leon Trotsky.
The penetration of GPU agents into the Fourth International played a fatal role in the assassination of Trotsky.
Trotsky spent the critical years of his exile on Prinkipo writing masterpieces and organizing the Left Opposition in the Communist International all over the world.
Leon Trotsky was the most significant figure in the history of socialism during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and his legacy remains the critical and indispensable theoretical and political foundation of the ongoing contemporary struggle for the victory of world socialism.
While in Turkey for discussions with the comrades of the Socialist Equality Group (Turkey), David North visited Trotsky’s final residence during his exile (1929-33) on the island of Prinkipo, and paid tribute to the life of the great theorist of world socialist revolution.
In this book, North defends Trotsky’s legacy against the campaign of historical falsification begun by Stalin and continuing to this day. While Stalin assassinated Trotsky in 1940, he was unable to silence the Fourth International, founded to embody the revolutionary heritage of 1917.
This book uses archival evidence to shed new light on how the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union spied on and infiltrated the world Trotskyist movement from the 1930s through the 1980s.
This WSWS feature page brings together the major books, articles and videos on the life and political struggles of the great revolutionary.
