Traitors
By Stephen Sewell
Directed by Colin Kenny
New Theatre, Sydney
Reviewed by Stephen Robson
Bringing the poignant political issues of the Soviet Union in the 1920s into stark reality, Traitors focuses on the United Opposition and its doomed struggle against what came to be known as Stalinism.
The play was first performed in Sydney in 1980 at the Nimrod Theatre. Many of that original cast are now very well known. Colin Friels played Joseph Rubin, a Zinovievist; Barry Otto played Giorgi Krasin, the Cheka operative; and Max Gillies played Kolya Lebeshev, Krasin's superior officer.
The current production delivers a confronting and sympathetic examination of the harrowing choices in an increasingly hopeless political situation.
Lenin was dead. The war and the blockade had killed many of the most authoritative leaders of the Revolution. The pressure of trying to fight for socialism in a backward country was taking its toll. By the mid-'20s, general secretary Stalin was a formidable figure. The struggle within the party was bitter; those opposing him would soon face purges, exile and concentration camps.
Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, Zinoviev (head of the Leningrad party organisation), Kamenev (the party head in Moscow) and Stalin launched a campaign against Trotsky and "Trotskyism". This united campaign was undermined by economic crisis in 1925. Tentatively at first, supporters of Trotsky began to forge an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev against Stalin — the United Opposition.
This is where Traitors begins, as Anna, a supporter of Trotsky, travels to Leningrad to negotiate with Rubin, a supporter of Zinoviev.
Rubin explains: "The majority is in favour of a united front with Trotsky". Anna asks how many can be relied on. Rubin says 500. But then the reality of their isolation in the party begins to unfold.
By chance Anna meets Krasin, a Cheka operative returning from six months in England. They begin an affair, meeting in railway carriages, unfurnished rooms and alley ways: the harsh social and economic conditions of the time are nowhere better illuminated.
Krasin's superior at the Cheka is Lebeshev, an old friend. But six months can be a long time in politics. Much has changed. Lebeshev tests Krasin's loyalty to the ascending Stalinist regime by ordering him to do something utterly unpalatable: he must interrogate Rubin, not over a matter of state security, but over an internal party dispute.
Tied in with all this is the sexual politics. Krasin staggers straight sion out of Rubin to an alley where he fucks Anna. These are stark, confronting scenes, played out in bare, grey sets.
When Anna meets her young cousin for lunch, she tells of her work translating Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire. Anna makes plain her lack of interest in this project. Considering the tremendous sacrifices she has made for her principles, this scene hardly squares. Is it cynicism or despair?
As the post-mortem of the Soviet Union continues, Traitors powerfully focuses on a central aspect of the crisis that has been pivotal in the history of this century. Go see it.