The journal Devrimci Marksizm (Revolutionary Marxism) held a meeting on Büyükada (Prinkipo), Istanbul, where Trotsky spent four years in exile. The gathering took place on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the assassination, on 20 August 1940, of Leon Trotsky, who was, alongside Lenin, one of the two leaders of the October Revolution as well as the founder and commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and the leader who personally directed the uprising as chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. The meeting was held on Sunday, August 17, 2025, at the Taş Mektep building on Prinkipo and drew significant interest from the residents of the Princes’ Islands.
This was no routine exercise. Although Trotskyism in Turkey is by now half-a-century old, this was the very first time a Turkish revolutionary Marxist movement was organizing a meeting on the occasion of Trotsky’s assassination on the island of Prinkipo itself as a powerful symbol of Trotsky’s presence in the history of the city of Istanbul. And the ultimate goal of this very special effort was, again for the first time, the search for the creation of a memorial site and an archive for Trotsky on the island itself, with the cooperation of the Municipality of the Princes’ Islands. It must be underlined that the mayor himself and his deputy have provided cordial support to the meeting and the goal itself.
The event began with speeches by Dr. İrem Berksoy and the Adalar (Prince Islands) Deputy Mayor Aytül Ekşiyan. İrem Berksoy began her speech by commemorating those who lost their lives in the earthquake of August 17, 1999. Berksoy pointed out that people living on the Princes’ Islands, as well as Gebze, Silivri, and other parts of Istanbul are still under serious threat of earthquakes, and stated that it is capitalism that leaves the working class defenseless against earthquakes by leaving the right to safe housing to the mercy of the market. Continuing her remarks by recalling that one aspect of Trotsky's struggle was to provide safe housing for Russian workers and peasants living in poverty in the 19th century, Berksoy emphasized that thanks to the powerful legacy left behind by the revolution led by Trotsky and Lenin—even though it was hijacked by the bureaucracy— the people of the Soviet Union enjoyed better conditions in this area than even the rich imperialist countries. She emphasized that the annual meetings that Devrimci Marksizm has decided to organize in order to preserve Trotsky's political and intellectual legacy would also serve to protect the islands. Berksoy expressed her pleasure as a jurist at being part of the working group formed by Devrimci Marksizm, consisting of historians and economists, to establish a Trotsky archive on Prinkipo. She concluded her remarks by thanking the Adalar Municipality for providing the opportunity to hold the meeting in the historic atmosphere of the Taş Mektep.
Aytül Ekşiyan, who, in her capacity of deputy mayor, delivered the opening speech on behalf of the Adalar Municipality, began by expressing her joy at hosting the participants in this area, which is a crossroads of history, ideas, and exile. She emphasized that Trotsky, one of the thinkers who left his mark on world political history, wrote his most important works aiming for a free and egalitarian world in his home on the island. She stated that valuable intellectuals such as Trotsky showed us that an island can be not only a natural wonder but also a hub of culture and ideas. Ekşiyan stated that it is our duty to support activities that promote the historical and cultural development of Princes’ Islands and, in this context, to preserve and commemorate Trotsky's legacy. She concluded her remarks by emphasizing that social development is possible not by covering up the traces of ideas, but by continuing to understand, discuss, and debate them.
Meryem Kurtulmuş, a member of the Devrimci Marksizm Collective, moderated the event while Sungur Savran, a member of the Devrimci Marksizm Editorial Board and chairman of DIP (Revolutionary Workers’ Party), Şiar Rişvanoğlu, owner and managing editor of Devrimci Marksizm, and Naz Şakar, a young metalworker who successfully pursues class struggle in the footsteps of Lenin and Trotsky in her workplace, union, and party, took the floor successively to give their speeches.
Sungur Savran began his remarks by stating that his aim was to demonstrate that Trotsky was one of the foremost figures of the 20th century to serve humanity. To this end, he emphasized the need to place Trotsky in his proper place in history, explaining that whatever good had been done for humanity worldwide in the 20th century bore the stamp of Russia's October Revolution in 1917. As a second step, he presented concrete evidence that Trotsky, together with Lenin and second only to him, was one of the two main leaders of this salutary revolution. However, as a third point, he stressed that Trotsky's greatest contribution was his success in defending the internationalist program of Marx, Engels, and Lenin against the ravages caused by the “national communism” promoted by Stalin, who had become the leader of the Soviet bureaucracy, in the Soviet Union and worldwide, especially within the international communist movement. Fourth, and finally, he turned to Trotsky's importance worldwide as a theoretician, a public intellectual, and an orator, arguing that embracing him would bring great esteem to Prinkipo and Istanbul.
The second speaker, Şiar Rişvanoğlu, began his speech by discussing the intellectual universe and perspective Trotsky shared with Lenin, as well as his journey as a reader lying behind this intellectual world. He emphasized that both men had a passionate attachment to music, the theater, the opera, art, and especially literature, and that Trotsky in particular had developed himself to a highly advanced level in this field. As a result of this passion, Rişvanoğlu explained, Trotsky's works, particularly The History of the Russian Revolution and My Life were considered by many critics to be highly skillful and accomplished works, not only in terms of their political and historical narrative, but also in terms of their literary quality. In addition, he pointed out that Trotsky had also proven himself to be a sharp and insightful literary critic with his work Literature and Revolution. In conclusion, he stated that Trotsky criticized the overzealous “Proletkult” school in the early 1920s, again alongside Lenin, and the Stalinist bureaucracy’s narrow-minded and sectarian approach called “Socialist Realism” in the 1930s, which culminated in banning many artists’ works, and resulting in their exile, suicide, and death, . He also mentioned that Trotsky reached the highest level in this critique with the “Coyoacán Manifesto,” also known as the “Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art,”, together with the influential and celebrated artists of the period, painter Diego Rivera and poet André Breton.
The last speaker was Comrade Naz Şakar, a woman metalworker, who deservingly received a lengthy ovation at the end of her speech. She began by saying that Trotsky, along with Lenin, were the leaders of the October Revolution, the first revolution in history that concretely proved that the working class could break free from the political hegemony of the bourgeoisie, destroy the capitalist state, and establish its own power, and that this was why Trotsky was so important for the vanguard workers. Our comrade, who explained Trotsky's position on the role of the working class, emphasized that Trotsky never abandoned the proletarian line from the years when he first entered revolutionary politics in Nikolaev/Mykolaiv. She noted that Trotsky developed the theory of permanent revolution, determining that the bourgeoisie had lost its revolutionary character and that the tasks of the democratic revolution worldwide had fallen entirely to the proletariat and its communist party. She recounted how Trotsky, in establishing the Red Army, skillfully formed the proletarian core of the army. She provided an account of how Trotsky intervened within the American section of the Fourth International, the largest and most proletarianized section, to prevent the party from falling victim to a petty-bourgeois deviation, and showed how a party with a proletarian understanding should work in his last work, the collection of articles later published under the title In Defense of Marxism. She concluded her speech by emphasizing that as long as capitalism exists, Trotsky and Lenin's program will remain the program of the workers.
The event also featured, as a sign of Trotsky's proletarian internationalism, a number of international video messages. These included Gabriela Pérez, director of the Trotsky Museum (Casa Trotsky) in Mexico; Savas Michael Matsas, chairman of the EEK (Workers’ Revolutionary Party) from Greece; Iosif Abramson, retired member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from Russia; and Osvaldo Coggiola, professor of history at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
In her message, Pérez said that the domination of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union meant that workers struggling against war and famine lost power, and that during his stay on Prinkipo, Trotsky produced valuable works, warned the German working class against fascism, and tried to organize international opposition while in exile. Summarizing the Casa Trotsky’s mission in Mexico with the phrase “There can be no struggle without memory,” Pérez concluded her remarks by embracing the event’s participants.
Another video message came from Iosif Abramson, the oldest Russian communist alive. In his pithy and powerful speech, Abramson recalled the words used by Stalin, Trotsky's murderer, in an article he wrote for Pravda on the first anniversary of the revolution, in blatant contradiction to all the accusations of treason levelled by him and his followers later on: “The party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized.”
Savas Michael Matsas, chairman of the Workers' Revolutionary Party of Greece (EEK), began his message by stating that the Aegean Sea is a sea that unites the working people of Greece and Turkey, rather than dividing them, at a time when an imperialist war is looming on the horizon. Emphasizing that internationalism, as Trotsky said, is not an abstract but a practical principle, Matsas said that as EEK they commemorate not only Trotsky's assassination but also his approach that was open to and inclusive of the world's workers, and that Trotsky's struggle for liberation continues. He highlighted the struggle waged by DIP and EEK, alongside other socialists, at the International Socialist Center “Christian Rakovsky” against barbarism—that is, the threat of a Third World War and subsequent nuclear annihilation.
Osvaldo Coggiola's video message began by emphasizing that, despite being geographically relatively distant from developments such as the crash and the Great Depression and the rise of fascism during Trotsky's years of exile in Istanbul, he responded to these developments and wrote some of his most important political texts on Prinkipo. Coggiola stated in his speech that among these texts, the pamphlet Permanent Revolution is a highly significant work that has inspired subsequent generations, that his work The History of the Russian Revolution was one of the most important texts of the 20th century, and that his autobiography My Life, unlike other great revolutionaries from Marx to Che, gave Trotsky the opportunity to pass on the lessons he had learned in his life to future generations. For these reasons, he emphasized that it was important to keep Trotsky's legacy alive on Prinkipo.
The event, organized with the support of the Adalar Municipality, drew significant interest from the residents of the Prince Islands, as well as Marxists and socialists from distant neighborhoods of Istanbul.