In conjunction with Mehring Books, the Socialist Equality Party (Canada) is holding a public meeting in Montreal on the evening of Wednesday, November 28 to review the contemporary significance of the life and struggle of Leon Trotsky. (Scroll to the bottom for meeting details.)

Co-leader of the Russian Revolution, chief protagonist in the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy that usurped power from the Soviet working class, founder of the Fourth International—Trotsky’s political and theoretical conceptions are vital to an understanding of the contemporary crisis of world capitalism and the elaboration of a socialist internationalist strategy for the working class.

It is for this reason that Trotsky, more than three-quarters of a century after his assassination, continues to be the target of historical vilification.

The November 28 meeting will see the Canadian launch of the French-language edition of David North’s In Defense of Leon Trotsky (Défense de Léon Trotsky), which demonstrates the continuity between contemporary rightwing attacks on Trotsky and the Russian Revolution and the lies and calumnies promoted by the Stalin school of historical falsification.

North, the Chairman of the World Socialist Web Site, has explained that the defence of Trotsky’s legacy is critical, for “it is impossible to fight for socialism in the twenty-first century without studying and assimilating the lessons of Trotsky’s struggle against Stalinism in the twentieth century. This remains the fundamental theoretical and political struggle of the last century, of the most profound and immediate significance to every critical issue of political strategy that confronts workers and all those seeking seriously the correct path of struggle against capitalism in the contemporary world.”

The main speaker at the Montreal meeting will be Keith Jones, the National Secretary of the SEP (Canada). A period of questions and discussion will follow.

Montreal

Wednesday, November 28, at 7 PM

UQAM-Université du Québec à Montréal

Pavillon Hubert-Aquin, Room A-1745

400 rue Sainte-Catherine Est

(near the Berri-UQAM Metro)