The Trotsky Affair

First published in Tribune, 1 December 1944

Shortly before his assassination, Trotsky had completed a Life of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously a biography of Stalin by Trotsky—or, for that matter, a biography of Trotsky by Stalin—would be a winner from a selling point of view. A very well-known American firm of publishers were to issue it. The book had been printed and—this is the point that I have been waiting to verify before mentioning this matter in my notes—the review copies had been sent out when the U.S.A. entered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn, and the reviewers were asked to cooperate in ‘avoiding any comment whatever regarding the biography and its postponement’.

They have cooperated remarkably well. The affair has gone almost unmentioned in the American press and, as far as I know, entirely unmentioned in the British press, although the facts were well known and obviously worth a paragraph or two.

Since the American entry into the war made the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. allies, I think that to withdraw the book was an understandable if not particularly admirable deed. What is disgusting is the general willingness to suppress all mention of it. A little while back I attended a meeting of the PEN Club, which was held to celebrate the tercentenary of Areopagitica, Milton’s famous tract on the freedom of the press. There were countless speeches emphasizing the importance of preserving intellectual liberty, even in war-time. If I remember rightly, Milton’s phrase about the special sin of ‘murdering’ a book was printed on the PEN leaflet for the occasion. But I heard no reference to this particular murder, the facts of which were no doubt known to plenty of people there.

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