Two Russians In Mexico

Now that I have moved much closer to Mexico, everything about this country becomes more interesting.

Leon Trotsky

The other Russian was Leon Trotsky, a leading communist theorist and revolutionary, but who was outdone by Stalin to succeed Lenin, was killed in Mexico City in 1940 with an ice pick by an assassin on orders by Stalin. It was painter Diego Rivera who asked the Mexican president to grant asylum to Trotsky. While in Mexico he lived for about two years at the home of painter couple Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (with whom he had an affair). One of the foremost advocates of the permanent revolution died in the country were the party of permanent institutional revolution (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) ruled the country from 1929 to 2000.

Anna Pavlova

Recently learnt of another well-known Russian to visit and possibly to influence Mexico, the famous ballerina Anna Pavlova visited Mexico City in 1918, where she also performed Mexican Dances in open-air venue of the Plaza de Toros in front of a broad audience of 25,000 people. Mexicans were enthusiastic about her references to traditional Mexican dances. It has been said that at the time, the Mexican elite cared more about European art and style than about local traditions. Anna Pavlova may have changed that.

Stalin – A Criminal Before The Revolution

As can be learnt from the great universal encyclopedia of our times – Wikipedia – the successor to Lenin was a bank robber, counterfeiter. He was someone who conducted protection rackets, ransom kidnappings, and robberies. Details about his pre-revolutionary criminal career are unfortunately not provided in the article.

What is missing in the article about Stalin is that Stalin supposedly did not even bother to attend the funeral of his mother. The article about her mother does not mention it either. That is how a middle-aged Russian remembers Stalin.

Early Russian Revolutionaries

Two Main Figures Of the 19th Century Russia

Take Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) and Sergey Gennadiyevich Nyechayev (1847-82). They were early Anarchists and Nihilists.

If it is true what is reported in Wikipedia especially on the latter guy, then no wonder about the outcome following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and of the USSR under Lenin and Stalin (Stalin was a petty criminal before he joined the communist party.). Mr. Bakunin is reported to be a close long-time mentor of Stalin.

A Murderer

Mr. Nyechayev and others conspired and murdered another revolutionary, because the victim was not complying. Mr. Bakunin did not mind, because he was very close to him especially in Swiss exile.

Purveyors Of Perverse Manifestos

Both Mr. Bakunin and Mr. Nyechayev each wrote and published a Catechism of a Revolutionary in the 1860s. The content of these Catechisms can only be described as perverse.

A revolutionary has no other purpose in life but to be merciless and destroy civilization at all costs and by all (including immoral) means.

A revolutionary must: infiltrate all social formations including the police; must exploit rich and influential people, subordinating to himself; must aggravate the miseries of common people.

Apparently groups like the Black Panther and the Italian Red Brigade terrorists republished this Catechism. What a turn of events.

Did perhaps Saul Alinsky take a cue from this Catechism when he wrote his “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”?

Cowards In Switzerland

When things got a bit too hot, both men fled to Switzerland (like Lenin later) while other, less fortunate revolutionaries were captured and imprisoned.

Mr. Nyechayev even tried to disguise his cowardliness by deliberately spreading false rumors of his arrest in St. Petersburg before heading to Switzerland.

Betrayer Of His Followers

As a student, Mr. Nyechayev had 97 fellow students sign a petition so he would hand this petition over to the police with the intention to radicalize the poor students through prison and exile. What a warped mind.

While in Swiss exile, Mr. Nyechayev mailed leaflets to hundreds of followers in Russia again with the intention to denunciate these activists to authorities so they would be radicalized by their subsequent arrest and punishment.