Transatlantic Trotsky

Abstract

Few historical figures of the 20th century are as intriguing from a Transatlantic perspective as Leon Trotsky. Trotsky can be thought of as “transatlantic” in at least three ways. First, and perhaps most obviously, we can consider Trotsky’s transnationalism in terms of the internationalist basis and verve of his political theories. Second, we might explore how Trotsky’s exilic fate placed him in contact with intellectuals, followers and enemies in multiple linguistic and cultural communities in Europe, Turkey and the Americas—places in which he could further observe the “unevenness” of capitalism in space and time. Third, we might consider the cultural representations of the Old Man’s exile and assassination at the hands of a Catalan Stalinist agent, Ramón Mercader, in Coyoacán Mexico in 1940, whereupon the Revolutionary leader becomes a vessel of Hispanic Atlantic contemplation and circulation.