Death of Leon Trotsky (1940)

Archdruid: Whatever happened to dear old Lenny Bruce?

All: Can we get on-topic Eileen?

Archdruid: OK. We remember Leon Trotsky as a revolutionary, a visionary, and most of all as a bloke who looked enough like Harry Secombe that it could - if we are not careful - take over this whole liturgy.

Youngest Beaker Person: Who's Harry Secombe?

Archdruid: He was Thora Hird's brother. He frequently fell in the water.

Youngest Beaker Person: And who's Len Trotsky?

Archdruid: Leon's English cousin, Was a plumber in Bolton.

All: Does any of this make sense?

Archdruid: Not really. I'm just spieling to cover up my awareness that we are marking the death of a man who was instrumental in the creation of one of the nastiest, most brutal states in human history - partially responsible for the martyrdom of thousands of Christians, starvation, bloody wars and oppression.  Trotsky, that is. Not Secombe. And yet because he was murdered himself, we act as if he's some kind of hero.

Neddie Trotsky

All: Whatever happened to the heroes?

Archdruid: No more heroes anymore.

All: No more heroes anymore.

Archdruid: No more heroes anymore.

All: No more heroes anymore.

Hnaef: Enter Hnaef, in dazzling orange hi viz and gold nail polish. What's going on?

Trotsky Seagoon: once again I am being pursued by the evil schemes of Grytpype-Stalinne.

Charlii: Have a cake? Take your pick.

Bloodnok: I don't wish to know that.

Eccles: Have a gorilla?

Hnaef: No thanks. I just put one out.

Archdruid: Can we get back on track? We're not supposed to be marking the death of Neddie Seagoon. We're remembering the co-founder of the Russian Democratic Socialist Labour Party.

Young Keith: Bolsheviks.

Archdruid: No, it's true I tell you. After the death of Lenin, Stalin rejected votes for Trotsky to become leader of the Soviet Union because the voters for Trotsky were all clearly left-wingers. And nobody got their three roubles membership fee back.

Hnaef: And so Leon Seagoon went into exile in Mexico, where he earned back his three roubles doing stunt diving off the cliffs at Acapulco.

Little Jim: He's fallen in the water.....

Daphne: In later years, Seagoon denied he had ever invaded Poland in 1920 on the basis of a dodgy dossier. But still he was a threat to the Party. And so he met his fate at the hands of a revolutionary and was deaded.

Hnaef: When he was killed with an ice pick, was that like one of those little ones that Nanny used to break up ice for my gin and tonic? Or a big one used in mountaineering?

Archdruid: Yes I've often wondered that. Because in a hot country like Mexico, a proper mountaineering ice pick is a dead give away, isn't it? Not what you'd expect to take on the Tube. Whereas a little thing for chipping away at ice....

Hnaef: Oh, you've met Nanny?

Archdruid ...would be easily concealable, but very inefficient as a murder weapon.

Hnaef: And so he died and today, on Trotsky Day, Socialists will remember him as they, in their turn, are denied their chance to lead a socialist party.

Trotsky: I don't wish to know that.

All: Shut up! You're deaded!