Radical Graffiti
New graffiti honoring the socialist Fourth International and its founder, Leon Trotsky, recently appeared on the fieldhouse of Harold Washington Park in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The park bears the name of the most radical mayor Chicago ever had; the building Washington lived in can be seen in the background of the photo. Yet Washington’s entire political career was in the Democratic Party, so it is unclear whether during his lifetime he would have liked to see his park adorned with the socialist hammer-and-sickle and Trotsky’s name. Trotsky, an unrepentant revolutionary, left Russia after Joseph Stalin took over the Soviet Communist Party. George Orwell fictionalized Trotsky as “Snowball” in the novel Animal Farm (which Substance News has been reprinting portions of recently). Editor’s note: The Substance reporter who documented this scene swears he simply noticed it while walking through the park, and denies that he painted the graffiti himself.
By David R. Stone – January 25, 2022
New graffiti honoring the socialist Fourth International and its founder, Leon Trotsky, recently appeared on the fieldhouse of Harold Washington Park in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The park bears the name of the most radical mayor Chicago ever had; the building Washington lived in can be seen in the background of the photo. Yet Washington’s entire political career was in the Democratic Party, so it is unclear whether during his lifetime he would have liked to see his park adorned with the socialist hammer-and-sickle and Trotsky’s name. Trotsky, an unrepentant revolutionary, left Russia after Joseph Stalin took over the Soviet Communist Party. George Orwell fictionalized Trotsky as “Snowball” in the novel Animal Farm (which Substance News has been reprinting portions of recently). (Editor’s note: The Substance reporter who documented this scene swears he simply noticed it while walking through the park, and denies that he painted the graffiti himself.)
