On the Jewish Question

Leon Trotsky, a Jew from Ukraine at the head of a Red Army under the banner of communist universalism, is the antisemites' nightmare. Yet he never wrote a book about what was once called the "Jewish Question." Trotsky once said he was "not a Jew" but rather "an internationalist" - to which Winston Churchill replied: "He was a Jew. He was still a Jew. Nothing could get over that." For the counterrevolution, this polyglot cosmopolitan remains "Leiba Bronstein."As much as he resisted identification with Judaism, Trotsky had no choice but to wrangle with antisemitism: as Russia's multiethnic working class organized against the Tsar; as Stalinist reaction dragged up old stereotypes; and as fascism threatened the Jewish people with extermination. Trotsky critically examined plans to create a Jewish national territory, either in Palestine or in Birobidzhan.Today, in the face of the genocide in Gaza, when millions of young Jews are breaking from Zionism, Trotsky's lifelong engagement with the "Jewish question" merits study. For this volume, a team of historians has compiled every word that Trotsky ever wrote about antisemitism and the fight for Jewish liberation, placing well-known essays alongside letters, interviews, and speeches. Together, they form a piercing, urgent corpus - for Trotsky's time and our own.