During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky acted as a key lieutenant to Vladimir Lenin. Trotsky organized the Red Army and successfully resisted all attempts to overthrow the fledgling Communist government.

One of Trotsky’s bitterest enemies was Joseph Stalin, another intimate of Lenin’s. When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky for leadership of the Soviet Union.

Long before he ordered Trotsky’s assassination in 1940, Stalin turned his former rival into an official non-person. Trotsky was:

• Airbrushed from photos showing him sitting or standing close to Lenin.
• Written out of Soviet history textbooks.
• Depicted, in print and documentary films, as seeking to overturn the Revolution—and assassinate Stalin.

Stalin made certain his image in Soviet history was entirely different.

• In the 1930s, he was portrayed as the modest, all-wise, energetic builder of a new Communist world.
• After 1945, he was depicted as the architect of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.

No “historian” dared mention that:

• For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, he had slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
• His wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack in 1941.
• His 1939 “nonaggression” pact with Germany had almost destroyed Russia. In this he and Adolf Hitler secretly divided Poland between them. The subsequent German invasion of Poland, on September 1, 1939, directly triggered World War II.

Joseph Stalin

After Stalin died on March 5, 1953, his status in Soviet history suddenly changed.

• Thousands of his portraits—displayed on streets and in buildings throughout the Soviet Union—suddenly came down.
• In 1956, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, secretly denounced him as a psychotic butcher and bungler who had almost wrecked the country.

So those Americans with a sense of history were undoubtedly stunned at President Donald J. Trump’s reaction to the defeat of Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore on December 12, 2017.

Donald Trump

Unfortunately for Trump, Moore carried heavy political baggage:

• He had twice been removed as a Justice from the Alabama Supreme Court.
• He had blamed 9/11 not on Islamic terrorists but on “America’s turning away from God.”
• He had said the United States should eliminate all but the first 10 Constitutional amendments. This would remove those amendments forbidding slavery and guaranteeing civil rights for blacks and women.

Worst of all, Moore was haunted by allegations that, as a prosecutor during his 30s, he had made sexual advances toward at least eight teenage girls.

Many Republicans openly urged Moore to withdraw. They saw him as a nightmarish embarrassment to their party should he win the election.

 Roy Moore

Even the President’s favorite daughter, Ivanka Trump, said: “There is a special place in hell for people who prey on children.”

But that didn’t stop Trump supporting Moore full-tilt against his Democratic opponent, former United States Attorney Doug Jones. Jones had convicted Ku Klux Klan members for bombing a black church in 1963.

On December 4, 2017, Trump tweeted:

“Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!”

During a December 8 campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, near the state line with Alabama, Trump said:

• “Get out and vote for Roy Moore. Do it. Do it.  We cannot afford, the future of this country cannot afford to lose the seat.”
• “We need somebody in that Senate seat who will vote for our Make America Great Again agenda, which involves tough on crime, strong on borders, strong on immigration.”

On December 8, Trump tweeted:

“LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already. The Pelosi/Schumer Puppet Jones would vote against us 100% of the time. He’s bad on Crime, Life, Border, Vets, Guns & Military. VOTE ROY MOORE!”

As the December 12 election drew close, Trump made a robocall on Moore’s behalf:

“Hi, this is President Donald Trump and I need Alabama to go vote for Roy Moore. It is so important. We’re already making America great again.”

Then—for Trump—the unthinkable happened: Moore lost.  Jones received 49.9% of the vote; Moore got 48.4%.

Suddenly, Trump was rewriting history.

During the Republican Senatorial primary in August, Trump had backed Moore’s opponent, Luther Strange.  Now he tweeted:

“The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!”

And, in another tweet, he stated: “Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!”   

A joke Russians once shared now applies to Donald Trump: “The trouble with writing history in the Soviet Union is you never know what’s going to happen yesterday.”