Prince of Pamphleteers

Source: The Communist Review, July 1922, Vol. 3, No. 3.
Publisher: Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2006). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Between Red and White, by L. Trotsky.
104 pp. Limp covers.
Communist Party, 16 King Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C.2.
Post free, 2s. 3d.

A FEW months ago Geo. B. Shaw, writing in the Nation, described Trotsky as the Prince of Pamphleteers; others have declared he is the greatest controversialist ever produced by a political movement. And when we remember that in this book he is dealing with such people as J. Ramsay Macdonald, Mrs. Snowden, etc., one can imagine how easily Trotsky castigates these puny ones; it is like a whale among the minnows.

It is a curious thing that since the imperialist states have given up their open armed offensive against Soviet Russia that the Second International should have redoubled its campaign against the struggling peasants’ and workers’ Republic. A few months ago the Macdonalds and Snowdens did their utmost to incite the masses of this country against Russia by spreading, as is their manner, the most malicious lies about “Red” imperialism in general and the violation of poor little Georgia in particular. To the eternal credit of the rank and file proletarians in the I.L.P. they showed the utmost contempt for this anti-Soviet campaign of their leaders. Since the stunt regarding Georgia has been successful only in such reactionary papers as the Morning Post, the Macdonalds and Snowdens have had to find another muck heap in order to use it to bespatter Russia; at present, therefore, they are revelling in a new orgy of vituperation regarding the social revolutionary prisoners who are now being tried in Moscow.

The theme of Trotsky’s latest book is the Communist reply to the Second International regarding Georgia. By a series of quotations, from the official documents of the Second International statesmen who recently were the wooden-head figureheads in Georgia, Trotsky is able to scarify critics of Soviet Russia. He shows that the Georgian mensheviks were mere tools at once venal and willing, in the hands of imperialist states anxious to destroy the power of the Soviets in Russia. But the most important thing in Trotsky’s book is not his proof of the treachery of the Second International, it is his wonderful exposition of the fundamental principles of revolutionary tactics. Between Red and White has already been sold in great numbers, and those who have not yet read it should order a copy without delay.

T.L.