this on the french elections:

the April ballot will include candidates from three Trotskyist parties (including mailman Olivier Besancenot of the Revolutionary Communist League)

three "trotskyist" parties? this indicates not only a vigorous "trotskyist" movement in france, but, of course, terrible schisms within the french "trotskyist" movement, which must be of concern to "trotskyists"  and french patriots everywhere. let me ask you  a question, though: have you read trotsky? christ. i seem to vaguely recall a brutal military crackdown on any sort of political variety early in the soviet disaster. no doubt the first thing the winning "trotskyist" party will accomplish is a thorough gulaging or simple line-em-up-and-shoot-em of the members of the rival "trotskyist" factions. that, in itself, would be  a blessing to any nation, of course. but who will purge the winners?

anyway you might read this:

At the end of the Tenth Party Congress, Trotsky had to rush to Petrograd to organize and direct the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule. Anarchist Emma Goldman has criticized Trotsky for his actions as Commissar for War and his role in the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, and also arguing that he ordered unjustified incarcerations and executions of political opponents such as anarchists, which, in Goldman's view, makes Trotsky's allegiance to socialism and communism highly questionable. Trotsky, however, frequently argued for revolutionary defensism, which states that revolutionists have a right to protect a revolution from counterrevolutionary violence.

kronstadt: Although there are no reliable figures for the rebels' battle losses, historians estimate that thousands were executed in the days following the revolt, and a like number were jailed, many in the Solovki labor camp.