LEON TROTSKY - August 21, 1940

Murdered by Stalin - August 21, 1940

LEON TROTSKY

Leader of the October Revolution

Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet

Founder and Leader of the Red Army

Journalist, Theoretician, Orator

Critic, Diplomat, Political Prisoner

Leader of the Anti-Stalinist Left Opposition

Founder of the Fourth International

Red Lightning

by Mike Alewitz

7' x 10'  2008

About this Banner:

The Russian Revolution inspired an enormous burst of creative activity.  Though brief, this chapter of the revolution's history had a profound effect on the course of both culture and politics.  Trotsky played a central role in advancing the development of new and challenging art.

While not intended to be interpreted literally, some of the imagery in this banner is based on the following:

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The swirling forms are referenced from Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, 1920.  (Like most art it has precursors, such as Pieter Brueghel’s Tower of Babel, and ultimately going back to antiquity).

Tatlin’s monument was designed to be a tower of iron, glass and steel which would span the Neva River - at 1,300 feet high, it was to be a third taller than the Eiffel Tower. The design was meant to represent the dialectic of the revolution and be a symbol of modernity. The twin helix would contain devices to transport visitors up the structure.

The sculpture would contain four large suspended buildings.  A cube was at the base - designed as a venue for lectures, conferences and legislative meetings – it would rotate on its axis once a year. Above that was a pyramid  - housing executive centers and completing a rotation once a month. Then came a cylinder that would rotate once a day - this would house a propaganda center, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker.  At the top was a sphere – for radio equipment and a projector that would be able to project messages onto clouds.

The buildings were to be made entirely of glass, so the workers could always see what the leaders were doing.  While never built, workers in street demonstrations carried models of this great visionary work.

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Red lightning was a symbol of the revolution, at times used to symbolize how the revolution was based on the earlier experience of the Paris Commune.

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Trotsky was involved in the development and the use of rail transportation in a number of ways.  As organizer of the Red Army, he developed its use as a key weapon to organize defense of the revolution against the White (counter-revolutionary) Armies. 

Agitprop (agitation-propaganda) trains were used to build campaigns for literacy, distribute posters, show films in cinema cars and in many other ways help to promote culture and spread revolutionary ideas to the vast new Soviet Union.

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