The Essential Trotsky

by Leon Trotsky

When Lenin died and the Russian Revolution began to devour its leaders, Trotsky survived longer than most as an exile in Mexico, until his assassination in 1940. The Essential Trotsky, first published in 1963, demonstrates the significance of this innovative and radical thinker's contribution to the Bolshevik success, the magnetism of his personality, and also a certain tragic heroism discernible throughout his life.

The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk was written immediately after the events it describes, when Trotsky was attending the negotiations that extracted Russia from the First World War; The Lessons of October, an answer to his opponents in 1924, matches Lenin in power of analysis; and Stalin Falsifies History, written in 1927, presents the beginning of the distorting process by which Stalin secured his position, and defeated a range of attitudes, many more benign than his own, towards the future of the Revolution. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of value to students with an interest in early-twentieth century Russia, the Russian Revolution and the writings of Trotsky more generally.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

See also Лев Троцкий

Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.

The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.

People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.

After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.

Reviews

[Sinan Öner]

One of the three Leaders of the Soviet October Revolution in 1917, Leon Trotsky's writings in "The Essential Trotsky", was published by Routledge. Leon Trotsky's life since his youth is a life of modern Russian revolutionary. But, Leon Trotsky thought about all the questions of the modern world. Leon Trotsky's Marxism was the Marxism of 20. Century, Leon Trotsky wrote a lot of books with his Marxist methodology, Leon Trotsky thinks the necessity of world socialist revolution, so, Leon Trotsky's internationalism since his youth improves his Marxism in the new century. Leon Trotsky's "The Essential Trotsky" is very important book now, about one hundred years later, for studying on the history of Soviet Revolution, Leon Trotsky's writings can be one of our "primary" sources.

[Thibaud Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are the first writings by Leon Trotsky I read. I read these writings as so much of the history. He talked about how the Workers and peasants were able to hold on to power. The revolution was popular with the masses contrary to what we are told. Something I didn't know is that he was an artist. One of the most significant anti-stalinists of the 20th along with Victor Serge.