Book overview
At the start of the second world imperialist slaughter, exiled Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky led the majority leadership of the US Socialist Workers Party to victory in a decisive political struggle. Under pressure from the US capitalists' accelerating war drive, a minority in the leadership were buckling. They were abandoning Marxism. The articles and letters collected here are not only a record of Trotsky's leadership of that fight in 1939-40. They are an education in the materialist foundations of Marxism, the cornerstone of revolutionary class consciousness and action for workers today. Trotsky sharply poses--and answers--what remains the decisive question for working people the world over: What is the class character and composition of the political leadership the working class must forge to prepare for coming revolutionary battles? As conflicts intensify among the world's dominant capitalist powers, the rulers are once again dragging humanity toward social catastrophes, fascist dictatorships, another Holocaust for the Jews, and a nuclear World War III. This is the world in which the lessons of Trotsky's In Defense of Marxism are needed more than ever.
