“La Revolución es imposible hasta que es inevitable.”
—Trotsky

Leon Trotsky, born Len Bronstein, in Bereslavka, Ukraine in 1879, was, like several other Comrades of Vladimir Lenin, a Jew. After the Revolution Trotsky organized the Red Army. While Jewish, he was an anti-nationalist and an anti-Zionist.

We all (should) know the history.

When Lenin died Joseph Stalin took power. Stalin subsequently forced Trotsky into exile. In 1940, Ramon Mercader, a Spanish Communist and an agent of the Soviet NKVD, tracked Trotsky down in Mexico City, Mexico and brutally murdered him; stabbing him over and over with an ice pick.

If Trotsky had been a Zionist and had gone to the land of Israel, with or without Lenin’s blessing, he could have helped Ben Gurion, a Socialist Zionist, organize the Histadrut labor coalition, the Mapai political party, and the Haganah, the Jewish self-defense forces. He could have helped the Jews of the Yishuv fight off Arab terrorists and British colonial occupation forces. He could have fought the Nazis within the Jewish Brigade in Europe, and subsequently fought against the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in 1948.

While Stalin may have wanted Trotsky dead he probably would have been out of reach in the Land of Israel, both during the period of the British colonial rule and after Israel declared independence. Trotsky would also have been valuable as a potential Soviet ally in the British colony in the Middle East and, after independence, in the Jewish state.

While the British too may have wanted him dead they would have had to arrest him first and put him on trial. Trotsky’s incarceration, whether the evidence was real or made up, would have inspired Zionists across the spectrum, from the Socialists of Mapai led by Ben Gurion.born in Poland, Golda Meir, born in Kiev, to the revisionists of Betar led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, born in Odessa, and Menahem Begin, born in Poland, to free him or exact revenge.

Trotsky might have rotted in a British prison, been killed in action in WW II or the Israeli war of independence. Although at 61 in 1940 and 69 in 1947 it is more likely that he would have lived out his days on a Kibbutz.

Regardless of which of the above had been his fate, unlike the tens of thousands of members of the hundreds of Trotskyite “Fourth International” networks that exist today there would have been zero. He could have gone down in history as a Zionist pioneer. Instead he was a Marxist revolutionary who was brutally murdered at 61 on orders of his former comrade.

Stalin also killed eight other prominent Jewish Bolsheviks in the Trial of 16 in August 1936: Lev Kimenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Isak Reingold, Eduard Holtzman, Ilya-David Krugljanski, Moussei Lurye, and Kenan Berman-Yurin. Stalin also killed or deported Trotsky’s wife and ex-wife, and both of his sons, exiled both of his daughters and killed both sons-in-law. He also killed or exiled Trotsky’s grandchildren. One grandson, however, built Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky, the Trotsky Museum, in Mexico City.

As Oleg Yegorov put it, in “Russia Beyond,,” (here) “At the dawn of the Cold War, in the late 1940s – early 1950s, Joseph Stalin found inner enemies whom he considered traitors – and, unfortunately for Soviet Jews, it was them.

Had Trotsky been a Zionist, the “Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky” would have been “Bayit Trotsky.” And it would have been in Tel Aviv or a Kibbutz not Mexico City. Rather than exiled and killed by Stalin, he would have been a pioneer in Eretz Yisroael, the Land of Israel, helping establish Medinat Israel, the State of Israel. His children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would have served in the IDF. Some may have gone to the Nova or Psyduck music festivals. They may have lived in Sderot or Ofakim, or on Kibbutz Be’eri, Nahal Oz, or another of the Kibbutzim attacked by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and their army of volunteers.

Trotsky would have died a proud Zionist pioneer, possibly a hero, rather than a purged Bolshevik on the run in hiding and in exile; a has-been and a schlemiel.

Hold that thought.

In Iran in the 1970’s communists and other leftists joined with Islamists led by Ayatollah Khomenie to topple the Shah and declare the “Islamic Republic of Iran.” Upon taking power the Islamists murdered the leftists and have ruthlessly and mercilessly suppressed women, gays, Kurds, others.

To be fair, had they taken power, Iranian communists may also have murdered the Islamists, Jews, Kurds, and gays. (That’s a Schrodinger‘s Cat problem: an unsolvable problem with multiple likely solutions but an unknowable single solution.)

So Bernie Sanders, Elissa Slotkin, Brad Landers, Jon Stewart, Scott Wiener, Ed Miliband: I’ve a a question for you:

In denying Israel’s right to self-defense; which is denying Israel’s right to exist, which is supporting genocide; in supporting AOC, el Sayed, Mamdani and others are you following Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and all the Jews killed by the Soviets to your deaths at the hands of a Stalin or a Khomenie?

And Elissa, do you really not see what’s going in Iran? Do you really not see how women are treated in Islamist countries? In Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Saudi Arabia? How can you support El Sayed?

In other words, would Sinwar, Nasrallah, or their fighters hesitate to kill you? Would Abbas of the PA. al Thani of Qatar, or Ergdogan of Turkey reward the families of fighters who died killing you?

We all know the answer.