http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv–EVbmMys

Leon Trotsky,  Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army lived the last years of his life in Mexico. While there, he wrote prolifically and lived, for a time, in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City at the home (The Blue House) of the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, with whom Trotsky had an affair.His final move was a few blocks away to a residence on Avenida Viena in May 1939, following a break with Rivera.

He wrote prolifically in exile, penning several key works, including his History of the Russian Revolution (1930) and The Revolution Betrayed (1936), a critique of the Soviet Union under Stalinism. Trotsky argued that the Soviet state had become a “degenerated workers’ state” controlled by an undemocratic bureaucracy, which would eventually either be overthrown via a political revolution establishing a workers’ democracy, or degenerate into a capitalist class.

In this speech, Trotsky is holding a copy of his book ‘Behind The Moscow Trial’. He stands in front of a brick wall. He apologizes for his poor English and gives thanks to the Mexican people and their leader President Cardenas. He thanks Cardenas for allowing him to go from being held ‘under lock and key’ in Norway to being able to talk freely in Mexico. He says that Stalin’s trial against him is based on false evidence. This is based on Stalinism – ‘the irresponsible despotism of the bureaucracy over the people.” He wants to show his personal files to an independent inquiry to prove himself innocent. He wants a counter trial.

N.B. Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940. This film dates from between 1937 and then.

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Leon Trotsky Speech from Exile in Mexico appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LqUP2Qc81M

Rudolf Abel was an intelligence officer with the KGB who was arrested on charges of conspiracy by the FBI in 1957. Abel was sent to the United States after World War II as part of a spy ring operating out of New York City. Although Abel was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his conviction on three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy, he only served four years of his sentence. On February 10, 1962, Abel was exchanged for American U-2 pilot Gary Powers, who had been captured by the Soviets. This video explains how Abel was caught, and shows clips from interviews with Abel’s New York neighbors as well as his defense attorney.

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KGB Atomic Spy Rudolf Abel And The Hollow Coin appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phpe0DsisbY

The Cuban Missile Crisis ended on October 28, 1962, when Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. In this video, Khrushchev’s son Sergei gives the Soviet perspective of the missile crisis. Of the Soviet Union’s involvement, he says: “Each great power have their obligation to protect their allies. They’re far, or close; they’re important or they’re not important. And when Castro, after Bay of Pigs, declare officially that he joined the Soviet Bloc, he put this obligation on my father’s shoulders.” He also speaks to the juxtaposition of how US and Soviet citizens responded to the crisis, saying: “For Americans, each such threat was like a shock. And here, because it was a psychological crisis, Americans thought it is end of the world. They tried to bring all this food in the shelters, waiting until it will be this apocalypse. For the Soviet Union, it was one of the crisis, because we lived through the two Berlin crisis, three Middle East crisis, Far East crisis. So it was no panic in the Soviets…. Nobody left the Moscow or the big cities. Nobody buy food. It was life as usual.”

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Khrushchev’s Son On The Cuban Missile Crisis appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvaSd2PKrUY

Fifty years after the construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 13, 1961, people recall what life was like with the wall dividing Berlin, Germany in half. Hear about Joachim Rudolph’s daring escape and the incredible way that he met his future wife. Also hear how Klaus Koppen became separated from his fiancé and the struggle he went through to reunite with her. The wall came down on November 9, 1989.

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50 Years After the Berlin Wall appeared first on Witnify.