Bold Lives in Full Revolution

Raymond Molinier was a man devoted to revolution. A Trotskyist who fell out with Trotsky, all his efforts were dedicated to the triumph of workers' struggles. He was a swindler, smuggler, forger, inventor, taxi driver, and an eccentric entrepreneur who even set up a circus in Lisbon to help his persecuted comrades escape Europe. Half adventurer, half insurgent, Molinier's life forms the backbone of the novel 'A Terrible Beauty' (Galaxia Gutenberg), co-authored by Edurne Portela and José Ovejero. The authors have undertaken extensive research and listened to witnesses to bring to life the existence of tireless revolutionaries who opposed Nazi Germany, Stalinism, and Latin American military dictatorships.

"Half of the information we had about Molinier was false, as countless legends surrounded him, believed even by his own family. We have read hundreds of letters preserved at Harvard, which they kindly digitised for us," says José Ovejero.

'A Terrible Beauty' is a choral novel with multiple voices and perspectives, aiming to reconstruct the odyssey of the men and women who conspired to protect Leon Trotsky, assassinated in 1940 in a Coyoacán (Mexico) neighbourhood by Stalin's order.

The book speaks of hardy people who armed themselves with a moral shield to survive. Through audacity, Raymond Molinier managed to persevere, undertaking daring actions that seem amusing today, though they risked his life at the time. "He pulled off a scam at the Belgian Metropol hotel, deceiving numerous business figures to confiscate their passports and provide false identities to many persecuted individuals," asserts Edurne Portela.

If Molinier is largely unknown, even more so is his wife, Jeanne Martin des Pallières, a woman born into a military and aristocratic family who broke away to become Trotsky's secretary during his exile in Turkey. Her connection with the creator of the Red Army deepened when, after her marriage ended, she wed Lev Sedov, the eldest son of the champion of permanent revolution. "The book discusses other women who were much more than mere companions to men of action. We talk, for instance, about Elisabeth Käsemann, detained in a clandestine centre during Argentina's military dictatorship. She was tortured to death," recalls Portela.

Over an eighty-year period, from World War I Paris to the 1980s, passing through Civil War Spain, Peronist Argentina, and subsequent military juntas, the protagonists of 'A Terrible Beauty', united by Trotskyism, faced formidable enemies. Subjected to relentless pursuit, their faith in the justice of their cause never wavered, a stance that inspires admiration from the two authors, who lament these times of disbelief and apathy.

Faced with the challenge of recreating such tumultuous times, the pair of writers have sought to do justice to some of their protagonists, like Jeanne Martin, who bears an unjust reputation as a hysterical woman. Trotsky furiously blamed her following the murder of his son Lev in Paris. After Ramón Mercader ended Trotsky's life with an ice axe, his widow, Natalia Sedova, strengthened her friendship with her former daughter-in-law. "Natalia and Jeanne remained very close, and indeed, the former left the latter a portion of money in her will," states Edurne Portela, viewing that gesture as a form of solidarity justice among women.

To bring this book to light, Portela and Ovejero have scoured cemeteries and streets in search of those wandering survivors, while handling copious amounts of documents. "When two people write a book together, they sometimes agree on a very rational division of labour. But that wasn't our case. We approached writing as a discovery," notes Ovejero. "Very soon we realised we worked very well together, that the boundary between the two authors was blurring," he argues.