Question by Una: Why did Diego Rivera and Trotsky Fall out?
I’m doing a history project on Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky the exiled Communist leader, I’ve been through all of the websites on his life and scanned hundreds of pages about his love for Frida Khalo but all they say about it is they “fell out over ideological differences” while Trotsky was living with him. I would appreciate if anyone could recommend books or links to websites as this is key to my project which is 50% of my mark for my final exams in secondary school.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Spellbound
They fell out for several reasons, including Trotsky sleeping with Rivera’s wife – Frida Kahlo, and the fact that both men had massive egos.
But their ideological disagreements began with Rivera believing that he alone knew how to implement a Trotskyite revolution in Mexico – he thought that he had a unique insight into the Mexican peasant and workers’ psyche: something that Trotsky, and the Mexican Trotskyites disagreed with. Rivera accused Trotsky of not siding with him over an article he wrote – the Trotskyites refused to publish it. He also wanted an administrative post on the (Trotskyite) Fourth International – Trotsky refused to grant one to him. But their biggest spat was over Rivera’s backing of General Mugica in the 1939 elections. Trotsky accused Rivera of succumbing to the temptation to ‘look for a haven in the bourgeois…public opinion”.
See:
Trotsky, A biography by Robert Service
http://trotsky.net/
http://www.marxists.org/index.htm
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