Russia: TV series claims Jewish Trotsky masterminded bloody 1917 revolution

Via The Times of Israel:

Leaving historians unsure whether show is anti-Semitic or simply sensationalist, upcoming drama accuses Marxist thinker of murdering tsar's family 

A hundred years after the Russian revolution, the Russians are claiming that a Jew was behind it — at least according to a new television drama. 

An eight-episode series entitled “Trotsky” argues it was Jewish revolutionary Leon Trotsky — and not Vladimir Lenin — who masterminded the revolution that brought the communists to power. The film also blames Trotsky for the execution of the Russian royal family.

The upcoming televised drama will be screened on Russian TV in the beginning of November, in time for the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. 

 “You can say that Trotsky wrote the music, and Lenin sang to it. Trotsky made the revolution happen; Lenin only lead it,” said Alexander Kott, the Jewish co-director of the TV series. (...)

But most historians don’t accept the new theory that it was Trotsky who masterminded the Russian revolution.

“This is utter nonsense. It doesn’t fit in with any historical facts. I totally disagree,” said Gennady Estraikh, a New York University professor who specializes in Jewish history in Russia. “It smells like anti-Semitism, the claim that the Jews were responsible for the revolution rather than the Russians. It’s very strange.”

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