Translated by Ana Portela
from the original which is
posted to the website of the Haydée Santamaria
Association for
Peace and Solidarity, in Spain.
http://www.nodo50.org/haydeesantamaria/docs_ajenos/bandera_coyoacan.htm
======================================================
The Flag of Coyoacán
By Celia Hart
December 2003
On
November 7 we will be celebrating the 96th (now the 97th) Anniversary of the
forgotten October Revolution, the revolution that shook the world in 1917 and
scattered to the winds fears and myths; that opened to the world the doors of a
new project; that gave Marxist theory firm bases. Of this glorious revolution,
in spite of its resounding and apparent end it joins all who hope that a simple
event will save the world. No mistake should be made: the revolution that sang
out in the cruiser Aurora, and in the Winter Palace is not the one that ended in
the fall of 1990 when some men, completely alien to it decided that they did not
sit well with Socialism and toasting with imported vodka, crossed over to the
other side. The glorious revolution of the Soviet was no more (thank God) and
this wishy-washy government slid down until the eighties of the XX century.
But
History always surprises us with its strange coincidences: On November 7, 1878,
one of the most principled revolutionary of all times was born. Lev Davidovich
Bronstein, known as Leon Trotsky, admired by some and hated by others ...
forgotten by the majority, except by the stubborn events. At 125 years since his
birth, the incapacity of capitalism to offer humanity an alternative for
survival and the disastrous backlash of European socialism, we stand in front of
a small house in Coyacán, Mexico. The flag with the hammer and sickle, last
symbol of the socialist revolution, continues to wave in silent tribute to the
death of its last inhabitant.
Trotsky
and Natalie do not rest in Russia … In Russia is the Romanov family. The Czar
buried with military honors and great pomp presided by those who were once
communist leaders. The truth of socialism in Europe does not rest in the old
continent. But in the mystical Mexico, the Latin American continent has awakened
to the fact that social struggle is the only road towards equality.
Not
finding asylum in Europe the old revolutionary was received by the brush of
Diego and the sensuality of Frida and the revolutionary, Lázaro Cardenas. The
destination of the Marxist principles was joined there with the most symbolic
avant–garde art in this part of the world. This region that does not wait for
norms, nor for methods to conquer its freedom and justice. There are the last
events that speak for themselves. In each is the seal of the old German, Karl
Marx. Since Marxism does have scientific bases and the truth does not wait for
eyes to see it nor skill to foresee it.
After
the last decade of last century when the world collapsed in the imagined end of
history in the hands of neo–liberalism, the Russians hand in hand with the
grandchildren of the “Stalinist terminators”, began hysterically to tear
down statues and carried off the body of Lenin that burned their hands like a
hot potato, not knowing where to bury him. They tried to turn back the clock
reviving Princess Anastasia, etc. And they fell to the most depressing and
abject system ever known. The Mafia ruled by the old Central Committee leaders
held a dark power, the same kind of the bureaucratic and sinister power that did
away with the left wing bases of the authentic Bolshevik party, the same power
that killed the international communist movement and made it an ideological
colony of Stalin, the same power that transformed the wonderful ideas of Lenin
into pathetic norms, that struck out revolution from communist philosophy,
canonized socialism in only one country. What the USSR did after the inopportune
death of Lenin was not socialism in only one country. It was not socialism; it
never was … now we see that it was not also a country. The USSR shattered into
bits. Oh, those who think that history can be measured in days! … Its beat is
another and the end of this model is now evident.
It is
criminal then that today’s left-wing movements, at times, stop talking of
Marxism and Leninism, because of the resounding end of the USSR. This collapse
has been the best argument to have faith in those revolutionaries who thought
that internationalism was the building block of the triumph of those ideas. This
end demonstrates how right Lenin and his followers were. The dark power of
Stalin put an end to it all. Not even the defeat of fascism can redeem him from
trying to strip intelligence, dedication and audacity of socialist ideals.
Trotsky
was the last of Lenin's contemporaries, of the leader of the working class. This
dark power managed to lie, barefacedly, about the head of the Red Army accusing
him of being crazy and a terrorist and even an accomplice of Hitler. Not content
with his work, Stalin used his power to have Mercader assassinate Trotsky on
August 20… What he fortunately was unable to do was to remove the flag from
Coyoacán. When monuments and ideas of the USSR crumbled and the world with
Fukuyama shouted incoherently, when all the revolutionaries of the world closed
their eyes in horror and the reactionaries rubbed their hands with glee, in
Coyoacán the flag of the hammer and sickle continued to flutter in the wind of
ancestral Mexico, like a mysterious symbol.
Many
comrades tell me that, although it’s true, too much time has passed and ideas
have taken another route, that another phase of imperialism was born in New York
on September 11 with the destruction of the Twin Towers. The militarism that
Petras has described so well like a new phase of imperialism needed new forms of
struggle, that there is now Internet, and that the world is unipolar … What
point is there to bring Leon Trotsky back to life? Simple. In history, to forget
is a sin. José Martí, the visionary of America, said that “he who sets
aside, by will or forgetfulness, a part of the truth, in the long run will fall
due to the truth he left out, growing in negligence and crushes what which rises
without it”.
To
turn back now that it is evident that history begins is necessary. It is going
forward and not turning back. Che said, more or less, that if a pilot loses his
way he must not turn back to the point where he got lost. He must return to port
and then retry it again. For all those of us who think that socialism as set
down by Karl Marx, enriched by many later, is the true road to peace, justice
and solidarity, we will come back to that forgotten point. To avoid mentioning
Marxism and its spin offs for fear or for being popular can lead us back to the
dangerous crossroads. At the age of 70 Galileo Galillei recanted his
heliocentric theory for fear of the Inquisition. Nonetheless the Earth continues
to revolve around the Sun.
When
we search for that road towards an equilibrium between man, nature, power and
freedom, unknowingly we will be going along the routes of Marxism and we will
stop, still without realizing the crisis of the twenties and thirties in the
USSR, we will understand that these roads, even as mere references, have a stop
off in Coyoacán.
Engels
once said that bourgeois society confronts the quandary of going along socialism
or turning back to a state of barbarism. In other words, socialism or the
collapse of civilization. I hesitate to think of the distance that separates us
from both extremes. But the sooner we are aware of this truth, not half
heartedly nor with reformist rhetoric, the more we will lose sight of the true
end of human history … when we disappear as a species. Then we will be in a
universe without memories. I am fully aware that there are prime directions to
fight for: peace; the preservation of the planet; our function as an intelligent
species gifted with a conscience. Yet we must understand that the only road to
peace and social justice is socialism. Peaceful coexistence and all its
fallacies have tragically lost their opportunity to triumph. With the exploiting
classes there will never be social justice; without social justice there will
never be peace.
The
communists of today must not fear being singled out from the destroyed socialist
bloc. That was not socialism, that revolution was betrayed.
We
must recover memory and rise from that state of collective amnesia in which we
want to sheath the new movements. The Marxists have much to offer the people in
the midst of desperation confronting realities that are misunderstood. Enough of
falling back on the rhetoric of the enemy: “terrorism, national security”.
Let us lift up our old weapons. Never before has the world been more convinced
that its salvation is through unity or it will disappear. We have lost too much
space. Let us take up the slogan of Trotsky who, on the eve of his contemptible
assassination, declared sententiously: “whatever the circumstances of my death
I will die with an unyielding faith in the communist future”.
Let’s
join the people under the banner of the International. Never before has the
world needed, as now, to remember November seven. Never before must we
understand that the banner of Bolshevism never died, that was exiled in Europe
and reached America to cure its wounds in silence, but irredentist
Mexico. This Mexico that quietly marched that October 2nd carrying the red flag
of Coyoacán that it has taken up. And let us shout to our enemies, regardless
of whether they call us terrorists, that we will not fight for the imperialist
war, or for the miserable peace of injustices; we will fight together for the
socialist revolution in permanent combat.
Workers
of the World, Unite
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Prepared and web-posted by
Walter Lippmann, August 2004
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