‘Trotsky in Tijuana’ with Author Dan La Botz

Join author Dan La Botz for a five-week reading and discussion of his counter-historical novel Trotsky in Tijuana. In La Botz’s portrayal, the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was not murdered by Stalin’s henchman Ramón Mercador in August 1940 after all, but was rescued and spirited off to Tijuana at the direction of Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas. From the small city on the U.S. border, Trotsky continues to lead his Fourth International organization in planning a world revolution to overthrow both the global capitalist system and Stalin’s bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.

The book is both a portrait of Leon Trotsky as an aging and isolated figure, and an exploration of his ideas. We look at Trotsky’s relations with his partner Natalia Sedova, with a new lover Rachel Silberstein, with his favorite secretary Jean van Heijenoort, and with various other friends and comrades. With Trotsky we also follow developments in World War II and attempt to forecast the  war’s outcome and aftermath. Trotsky’s story is paralleled in the background by an account of Stalin in the same period.

The 464-page novel is broken into 81 bite-sized chapters; readers have described it as a quick and easy read. Dan will lead weekly discussions April 24 through May 22, separating historical fact from fiction and comparing the book with other novels about its protagonist. Trotsky in Tijuana is available from booksellers in paperback $22.99 and eBook format for $2.99. More information is available at trotskyintijuana.com.

Dan La Botz is a retired historian of the United States and Latin America and a longtime political activist on the left. He holds a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Cincinnati and has taught at several universities, most recently in the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. He is the author of a dozen books and scores of journalistic and academic articles on labor movements, social movements, and politics in the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Indonesia. He is a co-editor of the journal New Politics.