“The rising of the masses of the people requires no justification,” Trotsky lectured his former comrade bitingly from the floor. “No, here no compromise is possible. To those who have left and to those who tell us to do this we must say: You are miserable bankrupts, your role is played out. Go where you ought to go: into the dustbin of history!” Here is Trotsky epitomized—rhetorically masterful but tragically overconfident in the ordination of history.
