Somehow, a true believer without power is more sympathetic, at least to me, than one who does. And it doesn't hurt that Joseph Stalin, one of history's most monstrously powerful leaders, had Leon Trotsky (red figure below) assassinated. I couldn't wait to visit the political martyr's home in Mexico City, now a museum.
Stenciled graffiti let us know we had arrived in the right neighborhood.
Trotsky and Diego Rivera were buddies until they had a falling out, perhaps because Trotsky and Frida Kahlo were getting it on. When Trotsky and his wife Natalia arrived in Mexico City in 1937, Rivera persuaded Kahlo to let them stay with her at La Casa Azul. If you believe Frida, Julie Taymor's phantasmagoric 2002 biopic, Trotsky only found his own place to end the affair and save his marriage.
But Trotsky, who had been banished to Siberia more than once, must have loved the warmth of Mexico's climate and his lovely villa on Avenida Viena, which was just around the corner. Natalia claimed that he got his best ideas in the morning, while tending his rabbits in a hutch on their property.
Nothing has been changed since August 1940, when Trotsky died after being brutally clubbed in the head at the age of 60 with a mountaineering tool wielded by a Soviet agent.
Trotsky, who believed that socialism should be a worldwide movement, not one confined to Russia, spent his final three years writing in this room and networking with American socialists. He was even invited to testify before Congress, an event that Martin Dies, Jr., the committee chair, a Democratic Representative from Texas, quashed upon learning that Trotsky planned to rail against Stalin instead of helping him further his rabidly anti-communist agenda.
A cadre of volunteers assisted Trotsky. Note the red floors in all the room; the unusual color choice must have been deliberate!
Trotsky and his family members survived an earlier assassination led by a gun-wielding David Alfaro Siqueiros, the famous Mexican muralist and committed Stalinist by hiding under the furniture. Although the Mexican government arrested him, Siqueiros was never tried for his crime.
His 14-year-old grandson, seen here between Trotsky and his wife, was shot in the foot.
The Trotskys left the bullet holes intact, a grim reminder that they lived under a constant state of threat.
Stalin's nemesis is buried on the premises. I bought a t-shirt, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment