Report of the Siberian Delegation
Date: 1903, 1927, 1930, 1933, 1934
Region: Russia and Central Asia Europe North America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Literature
Artist: Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) (1879-1940)
Confronting Bodies: Russian Imperial Government, Soviet Union, The United States of America, Germany, Italy
Dates of Action: 1903, 1927, 1930, 1933, 1934
Location: Russia, Soviet Union, United States, Germany, Italy
Description of Artwork: Second Congress of the Russian Socialist Democratic Worker's Party: Report of the Siberian Delegation, held in Brussels and London in July 1903. Trotsky sided with Menshevick faction - advocating a democratic approach to Socialism - against the Bolsheviks, rejecting Lenin's dictatorial methods and organizational concepts which were aiming at immediate revolution.
The Incident: 1903 Russia: Banned by the Imperial Government; 1927 Soviet Union: Banned by the government (therefore the same writings were banned by two opposing ideologies for the same reason- that they opposed the existing philosophies of government); 1930 United States: Boston MA all Trotsky's works banned; 1933 Germany: all Trotsky's works banned; 1933 Soviet Union: all Trotsky's works banned; 1934 Italy: all Trotsky's works banned except in deluxe editions.
Results of Incident: Trotsky has been an under-appreciated thinker and proponent of Democratic Socialism since his exile from the Soviet Union in 1929.
Source: Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D., by Anne Lyon Haight, and Chandler B. Grannis, R.R. Bowker Co, 1978.