parades them without disguise as a mourner for the suppressed bourgeoisie in Russia.
Trotsky’s answer to Kautsky is not only one side of a controversy. It is one of the literary fruits of the revolution itself. It breathes the breath of revolution. It conquers the gray scholastic theory of the renegade with the irresistible weapon of the revolutionary experience of the Russian proletariat. It refuses to shed tears over the victims of Gallifet and shows what alone saved the Russian revolution from the Russian Gallifets, the Kolchaks, Wrangels, etc.
Trotsky’s book is not only an answer to Karl Kautsky; it is an answer to the thousands of Kautskys in the socialist movement the world over who want the proletariat to drown the memory of seas of proletarian blood shed by their treachery in an ocean of tears shed for the suppressed bourgeoisie of Russia.
Trotsky’s book is one of the most effective weapons in the literary arsenal of the revolutionary proletariat in its fight against the social traitors for leadership of the proletarian masses.