Trotsky's courtroom speech "In Defence of Insurrection"
The 1906 speech of Leon Trotsky, on trial for his life, to the Tsarist court; introduction by Sean Matgamna. The “war on terrorism” being waged by George W Bush’s US hyperpower and its political satellites, such as Tony Blair’s Britain, poses strongly the question of the attitude of Marxists toward political violence. Naturally, we are against, unequivocally against, both the objectives and the methods — indiscriminate slaughter of civilians — of the terrorists of political Islam, who now hold the centre of the political stage. Socialists and consistent democrats who do not condemn political...