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Robert Service | 624 pages | 24 Jun 2010 | Pan MacMillan | 9780330439695 | English | London, United Kingdom Trotsky: A Biography by Robert Service, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

Plekhanov soon parted ways with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky left the Mensheviks in September over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. From until , Trotsky described himself as a "non-factional social democrat". He worked between and , trying to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members. Trotsky later maintained that he had been wrong in opposing Lenin on the issue of the party. During these years, Trotsky began developing his theory of permanent revolution and developed a close working relationship with Alexander Parvus in — During their split, Lenin referred to Trotsky as a " Judas ", [38] a "scoundrel" [39] and a "swine". The unrest and agitation against the Russian government came to a head in Saint Petersburg on 3 January Julian Calendar , when a strike broke out at the Putilov Works in the city. This single strike grew into a general strike, and by 7 January , there were , strikers in Saint Petersburg. On Sunday, 9 January , Father Georgi Gapon led a peaceful procession of citizens through the streets to the Winter Palace to beseech the Tsar for food and relief from the oppressive government. The Palace Guard fired on the peaceful demonstration, resulting in the deaths of some 1, demonstrators. Sunday, 9 January , became known as Bloody Sunday. There he worked with both Bolsheviks, such as Central Committee member Leonid Krasin , and the local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, were betrayed by a secret police agent in May, and Trotsky had to flee to rural Finland. There he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution. On 19 September , the typesetters at the Ivan Sytin 's printing house in Moscow went out on strike for shorter hours and higher pay. By the evening of 24 September, the workers at 50 other printing shops in Moscow were also on strike. On 2 October , the typesetters in printing shops in Saint Petersburg decided to strike in support of the Moscow strikers. On 7 October , the railway workers of the Moscow—Kazan Railway went out on strike. Also attending were some , people crowded outside to hear the speeches—about half of all workers in Saint Petersburg. After his return, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper Russian Gazette, increasing its circulation to , Just before Trotsky's return, the Mensheviks had independently come up with the same idea that Trotsky had: an elected non-party revolutionary organization representing the capital's workers, the first Soviet "Council" of Workers. Khrustalyev-Nosar had been a compromise figure when elected as the head of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Khrustalev- Nosar was a lawyer that stood above the political factions contained in the Soviet. However, since his election, he proved to be very popular with the workers in spite of the Bolsheviks' original opposition to him. Khrustalev-Nosar became famous in his position as spokesman for the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He did much of the actual work at the Soviet and, after Khrustalev-Nosar's arrest on 26 November , was elected its chairman. On 2 December, the Soviet issued a proclamation which included the following statement about the Tsarist government and its foreign debts: [49]. The autocracy never enjoyed the confidence of the people and was never granted any authority by the people. We have therefore decided not to allow the repayment of such loans as have been made by the Tsarist government when openly engaged in a war with the entire people. The following day, the Soviet was surrounded by troops loyal to the government and the deputies were arrested. On 4 October he was convicted and sentenced to internal exile to Siberia. While en route to exile in Obdorsk , Siberia, in January , Trotsky escaped at Berezov [51] and once again made his way to London. In October, he moved to Vienna , Austria-Hungary. For the next seven years, he often took part in the activities of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and, occasionally, of the German Social Democratic Party. In Vienna, Trotsky became close to Adolph Joffe , his friend for the next 20 years, who introduced him to psychoanalysis. In October he was asked to join the editorial staff of Pravda "Truth" , a bi-weekly, Russian-language social democratic paper for Russian workers, which he co-edited with Adolph Joffe and Matvey Skobelev. It was smuggled into Russia. Avoiding factional politics, the paper proved popular with Russian industrial workers. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks split multiple times after the failure of the — revolution. Trotsky approached the Russian Central Committee to seek financial backing for the newspaper throughout A majority of Bolsheviks controlled the Central Committee in Lev Kamenev , Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. Trotsky continued publishing Pravda for another two years until it finally folded in April The Bolsheviks started a new workers- oriented newspaper in Saint Petersburg on 22 April and also called it Pravda. Trotsky was so upset by what he saw as a usurpation of his newspaper's name that in April , he wrote a letter to Nikolay Chkheidze , a Menshevik leader, bitterly denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Though he quickly got over the disagreement, the message was intercepted by the Russian police , and a copy was put into their archives. Shortly after Lenin's death in , the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky's opponents within the Communist Party to portray him as Lenin's enemy. The most serious disagreement that Trotsky and the Mensheviks had with Lenin at the time was over the issue of "expropriations", [56] i. These actions had been banned by the 5th Congress, but were continued by the Bolsheviks. In January , the majority of the Bolshevik faction, led by Lenin, as well as a few defecting Mensheviks, held a conference in Prague and decided to break away from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , and formed a new party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Bolsheviks. In response, Trotsky organized a "unification" conference of social democratic factions in Vienna in August a. The attempt was generally unsuccessful. While there, Trotsky chronicled the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian army against the Albanian civilian population. The outbreak of World War I caused a sudden realignment within the RSDLP and other European social democratic parties over the issues of war, revolution, pacifism and internationalism. Within the RSDLP, Lenin, Trotsky and Martov advocated various internationalist anti-war positions, while Plekhanov and other social democrats both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks supported the Russian government to some extent. In Switzerland , Trotsky briefly worked within the Swiss Socialist Party , prompting it to adopt an internationalist resolution. He wrote a book opposing the war, The War and the International, [59] and the pro-war position taken by the European social democratic parties, primarily the German party. In January in Paris, he began editing at first with Martov, who soon resigned as the paper moved to the left Nashe Slovo "Our Word" , an internationalist socialist newspaper. He adopted the slogan of "peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered. Trotsky attended the Zimmerwald Conference of anti-war socialists in September and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a Third International. The conference adopted the middle line proposed by Trotsky. At first opposed, in the end Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. On 31 March [ citation needed ] , Trotsky was deported from France to Spain for his anti-war activities. Spanish authorities did not want him and deported him to the United States on 25 December He arrived in New York City on 13 January He stayed for nearly three months at Vyse Avenue in The Bronx. While imprisoned in the camp, Trotsky established an increasing friendship with the workers and sailors amongst his fellow inmates, describing his month at the camp as "one continual mass meeting". Trotsky's speeches and agitation incurred the wrath of German officer inmates who complained to the British camp commander, Colonel Morris, about Trotsky's "anti-patriotic" attitude. He reached Russia on 17 May After his return, Trotsky substantially agreed with the Bolshevik position, but did not join them right away. Russian social democrats were split into at least six groups, and the Bolsheviks were waiting for the next party Congress to determine which factions to merge with. Trotsky temporarily joined the Mezhraiontsy , a regional social democratic organization in Saint Petersburg , and became one of its leaders. After an unsuccessful pro-Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd , Trotsky was arrested on 7 August He was released 40 days later in the aftermath of the failed counter-revolutionary uprising by Lavr Kornilov. The following summary of Trotsky's role in was written by Stalin in Pravda , 6 November All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized. After the success of the uprising on 7—8 November , Trotsky led the efforts to repel a counter-attack by Cossacks under General Pyotr Krasnov and other troops still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government at Gatchina. By the end of , Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin. He overshadowed the ambitious Zinoviev, who had been Lenin's top lieutenant over the previous decade, but whose star appeared to be fading. This reversal of position contributed to continuing competition and enmity between the two men, which lasted until and did much to destroy them both. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and published the secret treaties previously signed by the Triple Entente that detailed plans for post-war reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and the representatives of the other Central Powers leading up to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , Leon Trotsky appointed his old friend Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks. When the Soviet delegation learned that Germans and Austro-Hungarian planned to annex slices of Polish territory and to set up a rump Polish state with what remained, while the Baltic provinces were to become client states ruled by German princes, the talks were recessed for 12 days. The Soviets' only hopes were that given time their allies would agree to join the negotiations or that the western European proletariat would revolt, so their best strategy was to prolong the negotiations. As Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky wrote, "To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying". Left Communists , led by Nikolai Bukharin , continued to believe that there could be no peace between a Soviet republic and a capitalist country and that only a revolutionary war leading to a pan-European Soviet republic would bring a durable peace. They cited the successes of the newly formed 15 January voluntary Red Army against Polish forces of Gen. They were willing to hold talks with the Germans as a means of exposing German imperial ambitions territorial gains, reparations , etc. Still, they were dead set against signing any peace treaty. In the case of a German ultimatum, they advocated proclaiming a revolutionary war against Germany to inspire Russian and European workers to fight for socialism. This opinion was shared by Left Socialist Revolutionaries , who were then the Bolsheviks' junior partners in a coalition government. Lenin, who had earlier hoped for a speedy Soviet revolution in Germany and other parts of Europe, quickly decided that the imperial government of Germany was still firmly in control and that, without a strong Russian military, an armed conflict with Germany would lead to a collapse of the Soviet government in Russia. He agreed with the Left Communists that ultimately a pan-European Soviet revolution would solve all problems, but until then the Bolsheviks had to stay in power. Lenin did not mind prolonging the negotiating process for maximum propaganda effect, but, from January on, advocated signing a separate peace treaty if faced with a German ultimatum. Trotsky's position was between these two Bolshevik factions. Like Lenin, he admitted that the old Russian military, inherited from the monarchy and the Provisional Government and in advanced stages of decomposition, was unable to fight: [72]. That we could no longer fight was perfectly clear to me and that the newly formed Red Guard and Red Army detachments were too small and poorly trained to resist the Germans. But he agreed with the Left Communists that a separate peace treaty with an imperialist power would be a terrible morale and material blow to the Soviet government, negate all its military and political successes of and , resurrect the notion that the Bolsheviks secretly allied with the German government, and cause an upsurge of internal resistance. He argued that any German ultimatum should be refused, and that this might well lead to an uprising in Germany, or at least inspire German soldiers to disobey their officers since any German offensive would be a naked grab for territories. Trotsky wrote in [73]. We began peace negotiations in the hope of arousing the workmen's party of Germany and Austria-Hungary as well as of the Entente countries. For this reason we were obliged to delay the negotiations as long as possible to give the European workman time to understand the main fact of the Soviet revolution itself and particularly its peace policy. But there was the other question: Can the Germans still fight? Are they in a position to begin an attack on the revolution that will explain the cessation of the war? How can we find out the state of mind of the German soldiers, how to fathom it? Throughout January and February , Lenin's position was supported by 7 members of the Bolshevik Central Committee and Bukharin's by 4. Trotsky had 4 votes his own, Felix Dzerzhinsky 's, Nikolai Krestinsky 's and Adolph Joffe 's and, since he held the balance of power, he was able to pursue his policy in Brest-Litovsk. When he could no longer delay the negotiations, he withdrew from the talks on 10 February , refusing to sign on Germany's harsh terms. After a brief hiatus, the Central Powers notified the Soviet government that they would no longer observe the truce after 17 February. At this point Lenin again argued that the Soviet government had done all it could to explain its position to Western workers and that it was time to accept the terms. Trotsky refused to support Lenin since he was waiting to see whether German workers would rebel and whether German soldiers would refuse to follow orders. Germany resumed military operations on 18 February. Within a day, it became clear that the German army was capable of conducting offensive operations and that Red Army detachments, which were relatively small, poorly organized and poorly led, were no match for it. On the evening of 18 February , Trotsky and his supporters in the committee abstained, and Lenin's proposal was accepted 7—4. The Soviet government sent a radiogram to the German side, taking the final Brest-Litovsk peace terms. Germany did not respond for three days and continued its offensive encountering little resistance. The response arrived on 21 February, but the proposed terms were so harsh that even Lenin briefly thought that the Soviet government had no choice but to fight. But in the end, the committee again voted 7—4 on 23 February ; the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March and ratified on 15 March Since Trotsky was so closely associated with the policy previously followed by the Soviet delegation at Brest-Litovsk, he resigned from his position as Commissar for Foreign Affairs to remove a potential obstacle to the new policy. The failure of the recently formed Red Army to resist the German offensive in February revealed its weaknesses: insufficient numbers, lack of knowledgeable officers, and near absence of coordination and subordination. Celebrated and feared Baltic Fleet sailors, one of the bastions of the new regime led by Pavel Dybenko , fled from the German army at Narva. The notion that the Soviet state could have a capable voluntary or militia type military was seriously undermined. Trotsky was one of the first Bolshevik leaders to recognize the problem, and he pushed for the formation of a military council of former Russian generals that would function as an advisory body. The entire Bolshevik leadership of the Red Army, including People's Commissar defence minister Nikolai Podvoisky and commander-in-chief Nikolai Krylenko , protested vigorously and eventually resigned. They believed that the Red Army should consist only of dedicated revolutionaries, rely on propaganda and force, and have elected officers. They viewed former imperial officers and generals as potential traitors who should be kept out of the new military, much less put in charge of it. Their views continued to be popular with many Bolsheviks throughout most of the Russian Civil War , and their supporters, including Podvoisky, who became one of Trotsky's deputies, were a constant thorn in Trotsky's side. The post of commander-in-chief was abolished, and Trotsky gained full control of the Red Army, responsible only to the Communist Party leadership, whose Left Socialist Revolutionary allies had left the government over Brest-Litovsk. With the help of his deputy Ephraim Sklyansky , Trotsky spent the rest of the Civil War transforming the Red Army from a ragtag network of small and fiercely independent detachments into a large and disciplined military machine, through forced conscription, party-controlled blocking squads , compulsory obedience and officers chosen by the leadership instead of the rank and file. He defended these positions throughout his life. The military situation soon tested Trotsky's managerial and organization-building skills. This left the Bolsheviks with the loss of most of the country's territory, an increasingly well-organized resistance by Russian anti-Communist forces usually referred to as the White Army after their best-known component and widespread defection by the military experts whom Trotsky relied on. Trotsky and the government responded with a full-fledged mobilisation , which increased the size of the Red Army from fewer than , in May to one million in October, and an introduction of political commissars into the army. The latter had the task of ensuring the loyalty of military experts mostly former officers in the imperial army and co-signing their orders. Trotsky regarded the organisation of the Red Army as built on the ideas of the October Revolution. As he later wrote in his autobiography: [76]. An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army command has the death-penalty in its arsenal. So long as those malicious tailless apes that are so proud of their technical achievements—the animals that we call men—will build armies and wage wars, the command will always be obliged to place the soldiers between the possible death in the front and the inevitable one in the rear. And yet armies are not built on fear. The Tsar's army fell to pieces not because of any lack of reprisals. In his attempt to save it by restoring the death-penalty, Kerensky only finished it. Upon the ashes of the great war, the Bolsheviks created a new army. These facts demand no explanation for any one who has even the slightest knowledge of the language of history. The strongest cement in the new army was the ideas of the October revolution, and the train supplied the front with this cement. The bourgeoisie today is a falling class We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie. In dealing with deserters, Trotsky often appealed to them politically, arousing them with the ideas of the Revolution. In the provinces of Kaluga, Voronezh, and Ryazan, tens of thousands of young peasants had failed to answer the first recruiting summons by the Soviets The war commissariat of Ryazan succeeded in gathering in some fifteen thousand of such deserters. While passing through Ryazan, I decided to take a look at them. Some of our men tried to dissuade me. But everything went off beautifully. The men were called out of their barracks. Comrade Trotsky has come to speak to you. I had imagined them much worse, and they had imagined me as more terrible. In a few minutes, I was surrounded by a huge crowd of unbridled, utterly undisciplined, but not at all hostile men. The "comrade-deserters" were looking at me with such curiosity that it seemed as if their eyes would pop out of their heads. I climbed on a table there in the yard, and spoke to them for about an hour and a half. It was a most responsive audience. I tried to raise them in their own eyes; concluding, I asked them to lift their hands in token of their loyalty to the revolution. The new ideas infected them before my very eyes. They were genuinely enthusiastic; they followed me to the automobile, devoured me with their eyes, not fearfully, as before, but rapturously, and shouted at the tops of their voices. They would hardly let me go. I learned afterward, with some pride, that one of the best ways to educate them was to remind them: "What did you promise Comrade Trotsky? Given the lack of manpower and the 16 opposing foreign armies, Trotsky also insisted on the use of former Tsarist officers as military specialists within the Red Army, in combination with Bolshevik political commissars to ensure the revolutionary nature of the Red Army. Lenin commented on this:. When Comrade Trotsky informed me recently that the number of officers of the old army employed by our War Department runs into several tens of thousands, I perceived concretely where the secret of using our enemy lay, how to compel those who had opposed communism to build it, how to build communism with the bricks which the capitalists had chosen to hurl against us! We have no other bricks! And so, we must compel the bourgeois experts, under the leadership of the proletariat, to build up our edifice with these bricks. This is what is difficult; but this is the pledge of victory. In September , the Bolshevik government, facing continuous military difficulties, declared what amounted to martial law and reorganized the Red Army. The Supreme Military Council was abolished, and the position of commander-in-chief was restored, filled by the commander of the Latvian Riflemen , Loakim Vatsetis a. Vatsetis took charge of the day-to-day operations of the army. At the same time, Trotsky became chairman of the newly formed Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and retained overall control of the military. Trotsky and Vatsetis had clashed earlier in , while Vatsetis and Trotsky's adviser Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich were also on unfriendly terms. Nevertheless, Trotsky eventually established a working relationship with the often prickly Vatsetis. The reorganization caused yet another conflict between Trotsky and Stalin in late September. Trotsky appointed former imperial general Pavel Pavlovich Sytin to command the Southern Front, but in early October Stalin refused to accept him and so he was recalled [ by whom? Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov tried to make Trotsky and Stalin reconcile, but their meeting proved unsuccessful. Throughout late and early , there were a number of attacks on Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army, including veiled accusations in newspaper articles inspired by Stalin and a direct attack by the Military Opposition at the VIIIth Party Congress in March On the surface, he weathered them successfully and was elected one of only five full members of the first Politburo after the Congress. But he later wrote: [75]. It is no wonder that my military work created so many enemies for me. I did not look to the side, I elbowed away those who interfered with military success, or in the haste of the work trod on the toes of the unheeding and was too busy even to apologize. Some people remember such things. The dissatisfied and those whose feelings had been hurt found their way to Stalin or Zinoviev, for these two also nourished hurts. In mid, the dissatisfied had an opportunity to mount a serious challenge to Trotsky's leadership: the Red Army grew from , to 3,, and fought simultaneously on sixteen fronts. But in the south, General Anton Denikin 's White Russian forces advanced, and the situation deteriorated rapidly. They insisted that it was vital to capture Siberia before the onset of winter and that once Kolchak's forces were broken, many more divisions would be freed up for the Southern Front. Trotsky's plan was rejected, and he was much criticized for various alleged shortcomings in his leadership style, much of it of a personal nature. Stalin used this opportunity to pressure Lenin [81] to dismiss Trotsky from his post. But when Trotsky offered his resignation on 5 July, the Politburo and the Orgburo of the Central Committee unanimously rejected it. However, some significant changes to the leadership of the Red Army were made. Trotsky was temporarily sent to the Southern Front, while Smilga informally coordinated the work in Moscow. Most members of the Revolutionary Military Council who were not involved in its day-to-day operations were relieved of their duties on 8 July, and new members, including Smilga, were added. After a few weeks in the south, Trotsky returned to Moscow and resumed control of the Red Army. A year later, Smilga and Tukhachevsky were defeated during the Battle of Warsaw , but Trotsky refused this opportunity to pay Smilga back, which earned him Smilga's friendship and then supported during the intra-Party battles of the s. By October , the government was in the worst crisis of the Civil War: Denikin's troops approached Tula and Moscow from the south, and General Nikolay Yudenich 's troops approached Petrograd from the west. Lenin decided that since it was more important to defend Moscow, Petrograd would have to be abandoned. Trotsky argued [83] that Petrograd needed to be defended, at least in part to prevent Estonia and Finland from intervening. In a rare reversal, Trotsky was supported by Stalin and Zinoviev, and prevailed against Lenin in the Central Committee. He immediately went to Petrograd, whose leadership headed by Zinoviev he found demoralized, and organized its defense, sometimes personally stopping fleeing soldiers. By 22 October, the Red Army was on the offensive and in early November, Yudenich's troops were driven back to Estonia, where they were disarmed and interned. Trotsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his actions in Petrograd. With the defeat of Denikin and Yudenich in late , the Soviet government's emphasis shifted to the economy. Trotsky spent the winter of —20 in the Urals region trying to restart its economy. A false rumor of his assassination circulated in Germany and the international press on New Year's Day Still committed to War Communism, Lenin rejected his proposal. He put Trotsky in charge of the country's railroads while retaining overall control of the Red Army , which he directed should be militarized in the spirit of War Communism. It was not until early , due to economic collapse and social uprisings, that Lenin and the rest of the Bolshevik leadership abandoned War Communism in favor of the New Economic Policy. In the run-up and during the war, Trotsky argued [81] that the Red Army was exhausted and the Soviet government should sign a peace treaty with Poland as soon as possible. He did not believe that the Red Army would find much support in Poland proper. Lenin later wrote that he and other Bolshevik leaders believed the Red Army's successes in the Russian Civil War and against the Poles meant "The defensive period of the war with worldwide imperialism was over, and we could, and had the obligation to, exploit the military situation to launch an offensive war. Poland defeated the Red Army, and the offensive was turned back during the Battle of Warsaw in August , in part because of Stalin's failure to obey Trotsky's orders in the run-up to the decisive engagements. Back in Moscow, Trotsky again argued for a peace treaty, and this time prevailed. In late , after the Bolsheviks won the Civil War and before the Eighth and Ninth Congress of Soviets, the Communist Party had a heated and increasingly acrimonious debate over the role of trade unions in the Soviet Union. The discussion split the party into many "platforms" factions , including Lenin's, Trotsky's and Bukharin's; Bukharin eventually merged his with Trotsky's. Smaller, more radical factions like the Workers' Opposition headed by Alexander Shlyapnikov and the Group of Democratic Centralism were particularly active. Trotsky's position formed while he led a special commission on the Soviet transportation system, Tsektran. He was appointed there to rebuild the rail system ruined by the Civil War. Being the Commissar of War and a revolutionary military leader, he saw a need to create a militarized "production atmosphere" by incorporating trade unions directly into the State apparatus. His unyielding stance was that in a worker's state, the workers should have nothing to fear from the State, and the State should fully control the unions. In the Ninth Party Congress, he argued for:. Who looks after this? The trade unions. It creates the new regime. This is the militarisation of the working class. Lenin sharply criticized Trotsky and accused him of "bureaucratically nagging the trade unions" and of staging "factional attacks. He said, "Introduction of genuine labour discipline is conceived only if the whole mass of participants in productions takes a conscious part in the fulfillment of these tasks. Bureaucratic methods and orders from above cannot achieve this. His frustration with Trotsky was used by Stalin and Zinoviev with their support for Lenin's position, to improve their standing within the Bolshevik leadership at Trotsky's expense. Disagreements threatened to get out of hand, and many Bolsheviks, including Lenin, feared that the party would splinter. At a meeting of his faction at the Tenth Party Congress in March , Lenin's faction won a decisive victory, and a number of Trotsky's supporters including all three secretaries of the Central Committee lost their leadership positions. Krestinsky was replaced as a member of the Politburo by Zinoviev, who had supported Lenin. Krestinsky's place in the secretariat was taken by Vyacheslav Molotov. The congress also adopted a secret resolution on "Party unity", which banned factions within the Party except during pre-Congress discussions. The resolution was later published and used by Stalin against Trotsky and other opponents. At the end of the Tenth Congress, after peace negotiations had failed, Trotsky gave the order for the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion , the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule. Years later, anarchist Emma Goldman and others criticised Trotsky's actions as Commissar for War for his role in the suppression of the rebellion, and argued that he ordered unjustified incarcerations and executions of political opponents such as anarchists, although Trotsky did not participate in the actual suppression. Vladimir Cherniaev, a leading Russian historian, sums up Trotsky's main contributions to the Russian Revolution:. Trotsky bears a great deal of responsibility both for the victory of the Red Army in the civil war, and for the establishment of a one-party authoritarian state with its apparatus for ruthlessly suppressing dissent He was an ideologist and practitioner of the Red Terror. In July , prior to the publication of his own book, Robert Service had written a review of Partenaude's publication Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky which he applauded for being "vividly told" but also criticised for neglecting Trotsky's crimes while sharing power in the USSR. The book has also been harshly criticized by the German historian of communism Hermann Weber who led a campaign to prevent Suhrkamp Verlag from publishing it in Germany. Fourteen historians and sociologists signed a letter to the publishing house. The letter cited "a host of factual errors", the "repugnant connotations" of the passages in which Service deals with Trotsky's Jewish origins, and Service's recourse to "formulas associated with Stalinist propaganda" for the purpose of discrediting Trotsky. Reviews in the mainstream British press were predominantly positive. In The Daily Telegraph , the popular historian Simon Sebag Montefiore described Trotsky as "an outstanding, fascinating biography of this dazzling titan. Gray claimed that "the full extent of Trotsky's role in building Soviet totalitarianism has not been detailed — until now". Considering the book to be "[r]igorously researched," he notes that Service "surpasses himself", painting a portrait of Trotsky that is "genuinely revelatory" and "very different from the one celebrated by bien pensants. Summing up his review, Gray proclaims that Service has authored the "best biography of Trotsky to date, and there seems little reason why anyone should write another. In contrast, Tariq Ali , socialist activist and a former Trotskyist still appreciating Trotsky, [8] produced a negative review of Service's book for The Guardian. Describing the work as "stodgy", Ali claims that the work is highly politically motivated by Service's anti-communist views, believing that Service's view "can be summarised in a sentence: Trotsky was a ruthless and cold-blooded murderer and deserves to be exposed as such. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Trotsky: A Biography The first edition cover of the book, depicting Trotsky. St Antony's College. Retrieved Inside Higher Ed. Patenaude June Trotsky: A Biography. He had an older brother and sister; two other siblings died in infancy. When he moved to Nikolayev in to complete his schooling, he was drawn into an underground socialist circle and introduced to Marxism. Arrested in January for revolutionary activity, Bronshtein spent four and a half years in prison and in exile in Siberia , during which time he married his coconspirator Aleksandra Sokolovskaya and fathered two daughters. He escaped in with a forged passport bearing the name Trotsky, which he adopted as his revolutionary pseudonym. His wife remained behind, and the separation became permanent. Shortly before this, in Paris , Trotsky had met and married Natalya Sedova, by whom he subsequently had two sons, Lev and Sergey. Upon the outbreak of revolutionary disturbances in , Trotsky returned to Russia. He became a leading spokesman of the St. In the aftermath, Trotsky was jailed and brought to trial in In , after a second exile to Siberia, Trotsky once again escaped. He settled in Vienna and supported himself as a correspondent in the Balkan Wars of — At the outbreak of World War I , Trotsky joined the majority of Russian Social-Democrats who condemned the war and refused to support the war effort of the tsarist regime. He moved to Switzerland and then to Paris. His antiwar stance led to his expulsion from both France and Spain. Trotsky hailed the outbreak of revolution in Russia in February March, New Style as the opening of the permanent revolution he had predicted. He reached Petrograd in mid-May and assumed the leadership of a left-wing Menshevik faction. In August, while still in jail, Trotsky was formally admitted to the Bolshevik Party and was also elected to membership on the Bolshevik Central Committee. When fighting was precipitated by an ineffectual government raid early on November 6 October 24, Old Style , Trotsky took a leading role in directing countermeasures for the soviet, while reassuring the public that his Military Revolutionary Committee meant only to defend the Congress of Soviets. Governmental authority crumbled quickly, and Petrograd was largely in Bolshevik hands by the time Lenin reappeared from the underground on November 7 to take direct charge of the Revolution and present the Congress of Soviets with an accomplished fact when it convened next day. Trotsky continued to function as the military leader of the Revolution when Kerensky vainly attempted to retake Petrograd with loyal troops. Immediately afterward he joined Lenin in defeating proposals for a coalition government including Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Article Contents. Home World History Military Leaders. Trotsky: A Biography - Wikipedia

Trotsky survived the incident. A second assassination attempt took place some three months later. He had an older brother and sister; two other siblings died in infancy. When he moved to Nikolayev in to complete his schooling, he was drawn into an underground socialist circle and introduced to Marxism. Arrested in January for revolutionary activity, Bronshtein spent four and a half years in prison and in exile in Siberia , during which time he married his coconspirator Aleksandra Sokolovskaya and fathered two daughters. He escaped in with a forged passport bearing the name Trotsky, which he adopted as his revolutionary pseudonym. His wife remained behind, and the separation became permanent. Shortly before this, in Paris , Trotsky had met and married Natalya Sedova, by whom he subsequently had two sons, Lev and Sergey. Upon the outbreak of revolutionary disturbances in , Trotsky returned to Russia. He became a leading spokesman of the St. In the aftermath, Trotsky was jailed and brought to trial in In , after a second exile to Siberia, Trotsky once again escaped. He settled in Vienna and supported himself as a correspondent in the Balkan Wars of — At the outbreak of World War I , Trotsky joined the majority of Russian Social-Democrats who condemned the war and refused to support the war effort of the tsarist regime. He moved to Switzerland and then to Paris. His antiwar stance led to his expulsion from both France and Spain. Trotsky hailed the outbreak of revolution in Russia in February March, New Style as the opening of the permanent revolution he had predicted. He reached Petrograd in mid-May and assumed the leadership of a left-wing Menshevik faction. In August, while still in jail, Trotsky was formally admitted to the Bolshevik Party and was also elected to membership on the Bolshevik Central Committee. When fighting was precipitated by an ineffectual government raid early on November 6 October 24, Old Style , Trotsky took a leading role in directing countermeasures for the soviet, while reassuring the public that his Military Revolutionary Committee meant only to defend the Congress of Soviets. Governmental authority crumbled quickly, and Petrograd was largely in Bolshevik hands by the time Lenin reappeared from the underground on November 7 to take direct charge of the Revolution and present the Congress of Soviets with an accomplished fact when it convened next day. Trotsky continued to function as the military leader of the Revolution when Kerensky vainly attempted to retake Petrograd with loyal troops. Immediately afterward he joined Lenin in defeating proposals for a coalition government including Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Article Contents. Home World History Military Leaders. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Robert V. Author of Russia: Roots of Confrontation and others. See Article History. From what is presented, it's easy to conclude that Trotsky could never have won the power struggle with Stalin. His sense of timing was off. He didn't showcase Lenin's warning on Stalin until it had consequences for him. His actions upon his expulsion from Moscow and later expulsion Russia itself, show an incredible naivete for someone of his position. In the last chapter, Service gives words to the impression you get as you read this, which is that Trotsky doesn't really want leadership responsibility, he wanted to write more than to lead. Service gives little to suggest a better outcome had Trotsky won against Stalin. While he some modern management ideas, such as using qualified, if not ideologically pure, military officers who had served the Tsar, he was still an authoritarian. In the aftermath of the Revolution, he stifled dissent. His response to the Kronstadt Revolt was not to sort out the issues, but to dispatch an army. In his later years he praised Russia's invasion of Poland for its re-appropriation of property with no thought for the lives or losses of the Poles. The post- revolution ruling elite was stacked with authoritarians so there is no reason to conclude that Trotsky would derail the culture of execution and pre- emptive censorship. The hair splitting differences between groups and individuals is mentioned, and fortunately, for me, not belabored. The prose in the chapters on his early life and on his death by assassination stand out in a book with many well written chapters. My only disappointment is that Trotsky's father's new status after losing his farm in the revolution and his death are given little description and no analysis. There is a lot to digest. This book is not for the casual reader, but highly recommended for those interested in Russian history. View all 8 comments. Feb 24, Alexw rated it it was amazing. This page biography of Trotksy is summarized on Page which states, Trotsky failed to explain how the common objectives of communism could be fulfilled. He was an idealist. Nov 14, Stefanie rated it really liked it Shelves: russian. An even-handed review of the complex and contradictory character of Trotsky. A charismatic man, with abundant literary gifts, including polemics and oratory, absolutely committed to revolution. His fearless leadership and organizational skills are celebrated in his pivotal roles in the October Revolution and the Red Army. His factiousness led to his demise from party leadership, expulsion, exile, death, and murder. Despite his many gifts, the myth of Trotsky is debunked by his egotism, coldness, An even-handed review of the complex and contradictory character of Trotsky. Despite his many gifts, the myth of Trotsky is debunked by his egotism, coldness, lack of introspection, and human empathy. The romanticized vision of Trotsky's leadership of the soviets is revealed to be no better, and possibly worse, than Stalin, due to similar governing methods of terror and totalitarianism. Trotsky dedicated his life to the 'proletarian revolution. Personally, he avoided self-negation precisely by not deviating from the cause, but one can't help to feel that his purpose and talents were compromised. Dec 08, Jacob van Berkel rated it it was ok Shelves: tribune , longth-century. Gustave Flaubert wrote that, if you write the biography of a friend, you should write it as if you were taking revenge for him. It follows that, if your write the biography of an enemy, you should write it as if you were taking revenge on him. And even before he wrote the book he called Trotsky "an appalling f Gustave Flaubert wrote that, if you write the biography of a friend, you should write it as if you were taking revenge for him. And even before he wrote the book he called Trotsky "an appalling figure". Personally I don't mind this at all. I don't believe in 'neutral' or 'objective' journalism or history writing, only the mad pretentions thereof, which are always best dropped. So someone setting out to write an antagonistic biography of someone, and is open about that antagonism, that is not only perfectly legitimate, but even preferable to pretending to be 'objective'. As long as the piece of journalism or history writing holds itself to standards of fairness and accuracy, there's no problem with taking a stance at all. Robert Service, however, apparently did neither. The weirdest thing for me is when Service projects motivations onto Trotsky that he or we would have no way of knowing. Sometimes Service even explicitly states that the available sources often Trotsky's own writing say something different about his motivations, but Service then simply ignores his sources and makes something up based on his personal feelings on Trotsky. For instance in chapter 5 p. But then Service tells us: "He was never genuinely suicidal; his comment was designed to make her want to protect him. He doesn't say. The endnote only refers to the letter to Alexandra in which Trotsky wrote he was feeling suicial. Service simply overrules the only available source on Trotsky's inner feelings, believing his own mind-reading powers to be more reliable than the actual sources. There are unfortunately more instances of this, especially concering Trotsky's relationship with his family. Trotsky can express all the grief and regret he wants in letters and his diary, but Service always knows better and keeps repeating how "heartless" and "self-absorbed" Trotsky was when dealing with his parents or his children and first wife. In this respect the book reminded me of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story , which benefited greatly from similar mind-reading abilities. So not very fair then. But is it at least accurate when it comes to facts outside of Trotsky's mind? According to Bertrand M. Patenaude, who is Robert Service's fellow fellow at the Hoover Institution note: this means not a Trotskyist , writing in the American Historical Review , it is not. This piece first tears to shreds Service's claim that his book is "the first full-length biography of Trotsky written by someone outside of Russia who is not a Trotskyist. Service's book is completely unreliable as a reference…. At times the errors are jaw-dropping. Though, in fairness, I have to agree with Service's response that these inaccuraries are not very serious. More consequential accusations of inaccuracies are leveled by David North, a writer for the World Socialist Website a Trotskyist organization , and they often seem to relate again to Service's secret method of knowing what Trotsky's inner motivations are. Besides this, I also found the book an unnecessarily boring read, perhaps due to the focus on bureaucratics, but maybe it's just that the style of writing doesn't suit me. And all this is a shame, because I think Trotsky really does deserve the kind of critical treatment Service had in mind. Because, while the fact that Stalin was a pretty bad guy is now almost universally accepted, Lenin and Trotsky are still remembered by many though certainly not everybody as the benevolent Old Major and Snowball. Which, in my opinion, is also neither very fair nor particularly accurate. Jan 22, David James rated it it was amazing. Leon Trotsky has long sidestepped the sort of scrutiny and criticism meted out to Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin for their roles in the establishment of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. This has occurred for a variety of reasons, including his break with Stalin, his exhaustive writings that critiqued Stalin, and his assassination which made him a martyr , most likely ordered by Stalin. But perhaps the biggest reason he has escaped comparatively unscathed is that for those on the far left, Leon Trotsky has long sidestepped the sort of scrutiny and criticism meted out to Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin for their roles in the establishment of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. But perhaps the biggest reason he has escaped comparatively unscathed is that for those on the far left, Trotsky is the only potential hero they can dredge up from the Bolshevik Revolution. To admit that Trotsky was as much of a tyrant and cold blooded killer as his compatriots in that fateful year is to admit that the entire Marxist enterprise was incapable of efficiently producing anything other than corpses, and to be forced to confront Marxism's responsibility for creating Stalin. By embracing Trotsky, Marxists can pretend to distance themselves from reality and sustain the canard that Marxism has anything of worth to offer us. British historian and Oxford professor Robert Service concludes his trilogy of biographies of the three primary architects of the Soviet Union "Lenin" and "Stalin" being the other two with the best and most important volume. The Trotsky we meet here is a man who never believed in basic human rights, never believed that people should have the power to choose their own leaders, and never believed that any of his own ideas could possibly be wrong. As we follow Trotsky through his days as a member of the Politburo and head of the Red Army, we see a man who reveled in executions, random killings, and full-throttle warfare. More importantly, Service documents how Trotsky was the first of the Bolsheviks to introduce the idea that terror against civilians was a legitimate means of empowering the state. We learn that Trotsky provided the arguments for severe state censorship of all ideas. Most damning, Service shows how it was Trotsky, through his writings in the s, who provided the crucial intellectual underpinnings for what became known as Stalinism. By the s, when Trotsky was in exile and the Great Terror was in full swing, even Trotsky himself recognized that Stalin was enacting Trotsky's ideas, and he had little complaint about this aspect of Stalin's rule. His biggest concern with Stalin wasn't that the man was killing people by the millions, it was Stalin's failure to forcefully spread communism into Europe that Trotsky found most despicable. The left has long insisted that Stalin betrayed the Revolution, and that he was an aberration from true Marxism. The underlying lesson of Service's three exceptional inquiries into the lives of the men who put Marxism to the test is quite the opposite. Stalin, Service shows us, was the natural result of communism in action. Had Trotsky, not Stalin, emerged triumphant from the struggle to succeed Lenin, Service makes it clear that the death toll wouldn't have been significantly lower. Stalin may have ordered Trotsky's killing this has never been conclusively documented, but it hardly seems plausible that he didn't , but what Service makes clear is that Trotsky was ultimately killed by the cause to which he had devoted his entire life. This is the truth about Leon Trotsky. Jun 05, Anukriti rated it it was ok. I must say that I do suffer from ignorance to a high extent in understanding fully,the author's unarmed attack on trotsky. I had to read quiet a bit about Trotsky, Permanent Revolution and the origin of the theory by Engels and Marx. Even then it was impossible to understand this seething hatred of him. After having read the same author's other book on Stalin- this came as a shock. Most of the prose consists of redundant adjectives showing the author's abhorrence toward the leader. Why write in thousands of sheets what can be said in a few scores? All the Commuism apart though, the book makes for a monotonic read. The author is so hell bent on complete assassination of Trotsky that much else has been considered "beside the point" by him. Give it a shot if you are prepared to get bored and waste a lot of good reading hours on a lop-sided version of history by a great writer. Feb 09, Kim rated it really liked it. Well written, well supported, though actually a bit lean through the years of the Revolution. Oct 11, Denerick rated it really liked it. A critical biography of Leiba Bronstein Better known to the world as Leon Trotsky , Service does an excellent job of exploring the life, the complexities, and the many hypocrisies of this giant of 20th century history. From his early intellectual ferment to his heroics in the October revolution and Civil War, Service illustrates a man of fixed ideological belief - a demagogue, an intellectual, but most importantly a deeply inhumane individual. Trotskyists have always asserted that the USSR would A critical biography of Leiba Bronstein Better known to the world as Leon Trotsky , Service does an excellent job of exploring the life, the complexities, and the many hypocrisies of this giant of 20th century history. Trotskyists have always asserted that the USSR would never have degenerated into totalitarianism if Trotsky had only have pipped Stalin to absolute control of the communist regime following the death of Lenin. They claim he was a democrat with fundamentally humane inclinations. As Service demonstrates this was simply not the case. Trotsky held most people in contempt and was extraordinarily selfish and egotistical. His supposed humanitarianism is a myth, one that can easily be debunked by his conduct in the civil war As well as his despicable suppression of the Kronstadt mutineers who demonstrated in favour of a democratic system and against the budding totalitarianism that was evident long before the ascent of Stalin His dogmatism, his inherent lust for violence, his inability for compromise all indicate an intellect clowded by its own egotism. His was an undoubtedly eloquent and sophisticated pen; but he had a tendency for unnecessary alienation. He was a bad politician and a brilliant orator. For all his talk about 'democracy is the life blood of socialism' there is actually very little evidence that he truly believed in a democratic socialism. When he was in a position of authority he was consistently in favour of uncompromisingly oppressive policies. This man was no saint. The biography itself is rather conventionally written; the sentences lack cadence and Service is uninspiring in his delivery. It is a functional work. Furthermore his analyses of leftist revolutionary thought is shallow and almost non existent. His analysis of Trotsky's political writing are similarly woefully inadequate. Read this book for a strictly historical account With some fair minded and much welcomed criticism , but find the deeper political analyses elsewhere. Based on what this book set out to accomplish Re-evaluate the life of Trotsky and liberate him from the various hagiographers I would have to say that it is groundbreaking scholarship, a transformational book. But its shortcomings are apparent also. View 1 comment. Mar 27, Howard Olsen rated it really liked it. A straight forward biography of the real life Emmanuel Goldstein. Service focuses more on Trotsky's intellectual development, rather than on the more exciting elements of his life. It feels like every meeting he ever went to is described in detail, while the two years he spent leading the Red Army during the wars after the Revolution despite having no military experience go by too quickly. Of course, that is a reflection of Trotsky's milieu. He and the other Communists were intellectuals and r A straight forward biography of the real life Emmanuel Goldstein. He and the other Communists were intellectuals and revolutionaries who spent most of their time pre going to meetings and furiously denouncing one another, along with bourgeois capitalism. Still, for all the talk of Trotsky's writings, I still couldn't tell you what a "Trotskyist" is, except maybe that they are an admirer of Trotsky. Also, Service does not provide any sort of primer for basic marxist thought, which can make it difficult for beginners to follow what is going on when Stalin and Bukharin gang up on Trotsky. Also, Service doesn't state this explicitly, but Trotsky was clearly a dictatorial personality who did not hesitate to use the power of the state to kill off those whom he considered the enemies of the Revolution. Despite his gifts and unquestionable dedication to the cause, there was little in the man to admire. I feel like there could be a better biography out there, but will take this over the lame-o apologias that have preceded it. Dec 14, Steven Passmore rated it really liked it. I think I have to disagree with the other reviewers who accuse Robert Service of being non-partial, or biased against Trotsky. Obviously there was several character flaws in David Bronstein that inevitably must appear in any true study of the man. Trotsky was vain, but at the same time lacked self-conscious of his actions. He was an individualist who advocated collectivism. He had a habit of using people until they were no longer politically useful. His reaction to the Kronstadt rebellion was he I think I have to disagree with the other reviewers who accuse Robert Service of being non-partial, or biased against Trotsky. His reaction to the Kronstadt rebellion was heavy handed and hypocritical. On the other hand he is an amazing character in the history of the Soviet Union. He possessed a rhetorical flourish that cut down his enemies with a stroke of the pen. He was a master political operator, a hard worker who avoided the drink, and created the Red Army from the pieces of the Imperial Russian Army despite having no prior military experience. I don't think the Soviet Union however would have been that much different under Trotsky after the death of Lenin. Trotsky was instrumental in the creation of the secret police services during the Red Terror, which would later claim a higher body count than the Nazi SS and also killed more communists than Hitler. Trotsky didn't believe in "constructive criticism", and was equally vengeful against his enemies as Stalin. Overall the cast was set for the Soviet Union during the creation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Which despite the context of two decades of aristocratic led war and conflict in Russia is a very dangerous thing to excuse or advocate. Dec 19, Nate rated it really liked it. This was a really interesting book, I wish it would've talked more about his ideas though. Here's what you need to know about Trotsky: He was ruthless. The popular idea is that if he would've taken over after Lenin instead of Stalin things would've been really different. In some ways it probably would have He would've tried much harder to encourage socialist revolution in other countries, he never thought the USSR would last without "continual revolution" but it sounds like he would've been eve This was a really interesting book, I wish it would've talked more about his ideas though. In some ways it probably would have He would've tried much harder to encourage socialist revolution in other countries, he never thought the USSR would last without "continual revolution" but it sounds like he would've been every bit as brutal as Stalin to people he didn't like. He was courageous. The stories are pretty incredible, time after time he went headfirst into really dangerous situations. From this book you really get the feeling that the USSR never would've happened without him or Lenin, they really are the only two people indispensable to the cause. Even in exile and right to the very end he never backed down. He had no political talent. Which makes how far he went even more amazing. Like I said I wish the book would've talked more about his ideas. There is some ideology in the book but I really wanted more. From what I did get though I'm even more convinced that socialism is wrong wrong wrong. My biggest problem is how authoritarian it is. These guys hated liberals as much as they hated the imperialists. Jan 24, Titus Hjelm rated it really liked it. Service closes his trilogy with another captivating portrait. What emerges is a picture of a selfish man who really didn't know better even when things were turning against him in the battle of succession after Lenin's death. Again, for me at least, the most interesting aspect was Service's analysis of Trotsky's marxism. Even more so than Lenin, Trotsky's connection to 'the source' seems to have been idiosyncratic, to say the least. Practical concerns overrode theory even when the man was clearl Service closes his trilogy with another captivating portrait. Practical concerns overrode theory even when the man was clearly at his best as a provider of ideological justification for the October Revolution and its embattled legacy. His inconsistencies prove the point. Again, as with Lenin and Stalin, Service clearly points out how Trotsky was never the idealised socialist, but an architect of state terror and other aspects easily condemned in hindsight. Hagiography this is not--Service is much more critical of Trotsky than the other two revolutionaries. Perhaps this is because unlike with Trotsky, the faults of the others have been unanimously agreed upon by historiography. I wouldn't read this as the only source of information, but it does--with its faults--balance some of the more praising interpretations. Aug 12, John Kerridge rated it really liked it. I started this book as my final instalment following Service's books on Stalin, Lenin and Comrades. If you read these books from the knowledge and perspective that the author is not a left wing idealists or supporter then they are quite enjoyable to read. On the other hand if you are a hardened communist then you will no doubt hate these books. The weakest of the volumes for me has been Lenin. Jeepers it took some reading. Stalin was by far the most interesting. Trotsky was very interesting on I started this book as my final instalment following Service's books on Stalin, Lenin and Comrades. Trotsky was very interesting on so many levels and if you like books about political intrigue and history you will enjoy this book. As for Robert Service and the complaints about his historical license, etc. Service has done a professional and informative job. Not perfect. He allows his own political bias to emerge on the odd occasion, which is his weakness as a writer, but don't let this put you off. Simply use your own intelligence. Jun 23, Mouldy Squid rated it really liked it Shelves: biography. An exhaustive you can tell my how long it has taken me to finish it , dense and illuminating biography of Leon Trotsky. Service has done a remarkable job collecting, researching and writing the tome. Probably the best biography of Trotsky available, but not for the timid or the merely curious; those who do not want to know every available detail of Trotsky's life, but only an overview, best look elsewhere. For the rest of us, the history nuts or the student of modern history, this is the biogra An exhaustive you can tell my how long it has taken me to finish it , dense and illuminating biography of Leon Trotsky. For the rest of us, the history nuts or the student of modern history, this is the biography to get. May 29, Mike rated it really liked it. Very good. Objective and not a hagiography by any means. Might read Stalin and Lenin by the same author. May 13, Revanth Ukkalam rated it really liked it Shelves: russia , biography , marx-and-communism. The world likes its underdogs. When it doesn't have one it makes one. The world also likes cruel men who are less cruel than other men. Leon Trotsky checks both boxes. Here is a great and highly readable, extremely opinionated account of the life of one of the most venerated communist heroes of the twentieth century. He is remembered today as a dissenter, a maverick, and a man of supreme passion. All of those qualifiers are quite accurate however this book contributes proportion to the figure by The world likes its underdogs. All of those qualifiers are quite accurate however this book contributes proportion to the figure by also highlighting his erratic ideological temperament. He seems to have always spoken his mind, he is not much of a hypocrite in that but he was particularly self-contradictory and in his own writings according to the author among politician-writers he is second to only Churchill , he always selectively quoted himself and the rest to justify his often unreasonable views. Trotsky comes through as a very power-hungry person, not position-hungry he displayed self-restraint in moments of acquisition of power because of his being a Jew ; he tried to rub his meditated ideological positions against the party, nation, and populace. He was a brilliant leader. In moments where the book explores his charisma in public visible life, Trotsky glitters glamorously. The strength of the book lay in its focus on details in Trotsky's opinions and especially in relation to raging Soviet debates. The book is most interested in that. Interest in his personal life suffers just a little as a result perhaps. May 20, The Four rated it really liked it. For a book with a reputation of being overly biased and hateful against Trotsky, this books wasn't very biased and hateful against Trotsky. It dragged at times, and took me way too long to get through, but yes it's good so, like Should preface this by saying that I'm not a Trotskyist, Leninist, Stalinist, or Communist of any brand whatsoever. Service's biography of Lenin is without a doubt a definitive one; his volume on Stalin is useful but I feel that Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives is slightly superior despite not being dedicated entirely to the Man of Steel. His biography of Trotsky, on the other hand, has raised the most controversy, partly as a result of Service's own marketing of it- publicised Should preface this by saying that I'm not a Trotskyist, Leninist, Stalinist, or Communist of any brand whatsoever. His biography of Trotsky, on the other hand, has raised the most controversy, partly as a result of Service's own marketing of it- publicised as being the first biography of Trotsky to have been written outside of Russia by a non-Trotskyist, the blurb and reviews all hailed it as a book which takes Trotsky from the pedestal which his followers had put him on, and reveals him to be every bit as violent and monstrous as Lenin or Stalin were in his methods and ideology. Suffice to say, many Trotskyists were outraged. It's easy to see why- Trotsky was far from being a pro- democratic, anti-totalitarian ideologue when he himself was building up his position before the Revolution and when he held positions of immense power following the Revolution. It's always been easy to see Trotsky as a victim of Stalin's betrayal of all that the October Revolution,a martyr who represented a more "human" and less "bureaucratic" and "degenerate" form of Bolshevism witness Snowball and Emmanuel Goldstein from Orwell's classics - truth is that until he began rewriting his own history after , Trotsky was just as contemptful of freedom and democracy and just as enthusiastic about tyranny and force as Stalin and Lenin were. Service's efforts to discredit and demonise Trotsky sometimes come across as rather too impassioned for a scholarly biography- probably the biggest flaw of this book, and quite a flaw it is. I understand that there's been an official Trotskyist rebuttal of Service's portrayal, perhaps I should give that a read. As a biography, it's a highly informative and well-written recounting of his political activities, political ideas, and private life. Just bear in mind when reading it that it's a very negatively biased approach to the subject. Bits I found particularly interesting: Service's discussion of Trotsky's Jewish roots, and his contention that he refused the highest offices offered to him by Lenin in order to not give propaganda fuel to the Bolsheviks anti-semitic opponents; his listing of the huge staff that were on board his Civil War "Trotsky Train" he took a piece military band around the country with him! Also, the love letter he sent to Natalia Sedova in is something which James Joyce himself would have been proud of. Jan 05, Jeremy rated it really liked it. This is an entertaining biography of one of the flawed giants of the 20th century. It suffers from needed detail about Trotsky's philosophy and the internal and interminable disputes between communist factions. But it tells the Old Man's story well, painting him as a brilliant, self-centred, erudite, historic yet ultimately self-destructive global political force. Don't be put off by how long it took me to read. I dipped in and out. It is written with aplomb. Aug 02, Michael T. Trotsky is, I think, an innately fascinating historical figure. Even as we approach the 20th anniversary of the demise of the Soviet Union, it's legacy is still hotly debated. Was what happened in Soviet Russia even worthy of the name of communism? And does the failure of the Soviet experiment discredit all of the nobler aims which the human impulse towards so Trotsky is, I think, an innately fascinating historical figure. And does the failure of the Soviet experiment discredit all of the nobler aims which the human impulse towards socialism or collectivism may lay claim? I have read them both. Stalin set the bar awfully high, but it can be convincingly argued that his excesses were a logical extension of what Lenin had started. All of this is not to diminish the self evident talents of Lev Trotsky the man. In fact, reconciling the brilliance of the man with the very bad paths that he took are a cautionary tale. BBC - History - Historic Figures: Leon Trotsky ( - )

The opposition remained united against Stalin throughout and , especially on the issue of the Chinese Revolution. The methods used by the Stalinists against the Opposition became more and more extreme. At the XV Party Conference in October , Trotsky could barely speak because of interruptions and catcalls, and at the end of the Conference he lost his Politburo seat. In , Stalin started using the GPU Soviet secret police to infiltrate and discredit the opposition. Rank-and-file oppositionists were increasingly harassed, sometimes expelled from the Party and even arrested. Soviet policy toward the Chinese Revolution became the ideological line of demarcation between Stalin and the United Opposition. Much of China was divided between various regional warlords. The Republican government established a new "nationalist people's army and a national people's party" — the Kuomintang. In , the Kuomintang opened relations with Soviet Russia. With Soviet help, the Republic of China built up the nationalist people's army. With the development of the nationalist army, a Northern Expedition was planned to smash the power of the warlords of the northern part of the country. This Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin tried to persuade the small Chinese Communist Party to merge with the Kuomintang KMT Nationalists to bring about a bourgeois revolution before attempting to bring about a Soviet-style working class revolution. Trotsky wanted the Communist Party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and have clear class independence from the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the Shanghai massacre of 12 April by massacring the Communist Party in Shanghai midway through the Northern Expedition. While the catastrophic events in China completely vindicated Trotsky's criticism of Stalin's approach towards the Chinese Revolution, this paled in significance compared to the demoralization that the Soviet masses felt [ citation needed ] at such a big setback for socialist revolution in China, with this demoralization aiding Stalin and his allies in the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Attacks against the United Opposition quickly increased in volatility and ferocity afterwards. When the United Opposition tried to organize independent demonstrations commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in November , the demonstrators were dispersed by force and Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Communist Party on 12 November. Their leading supporters, from Kamenev down, were expelled in December by the XV Party Congress , which paved the way for mass expulsions of rank-and-file oppositionists as well as internal exile of opposition leaders in early During this time Trotsky gave the eulogy at the funeral of his friend, the Soviet diplomat Adolph Joffe , in November It would be the last speech that Trotsky would give in the Soviet Union. Trotsky and most of his followers, on the other hand, refused to surrender and stayed the course. Trotsky was exiled to Alma Ata, Kazakhstan on 31 January Between and , most leading members of the Left Opposition surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes" and were reinstated in the Communist Party. One initial exception to this was Christian Rakovsky , who inspired Trotsky between and with his refusal to capitulate as state suppression of any remaining opposition to Stalin increased by the year. In late , Rakovsky had failed with an attempt to flee the Soviet Union , and was exiled to Yakutia in March Answering Trotsky's request, the French mathematician and Trotskyist Jean Van Heijenoort , together with his fellow activist Pierre Frank , unsuccessfully called on the influential Soviet author Maxim Gorky to intervene in favor of Christian Rakovsky, and boarded the ship he was traveling on near Constantinople. Almost all Trotskyists who were still within the Soviet Union's borders were executed in the Great Purges of —, although Rakovsky survived until the Medvedev Forest massacre of September , where he was shot dead along with other prisoners on Stalin's orders, less than three months into the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. During his first two months in Turkey, Trotsky lived with his wife and eldest son at the Soviet Union Consulate in Constantinople and then at a nearby hotel in the city. Trotsky was also at risk from the many former White Army officers who lived on Prinkipo, officers who had opposed the October Revolution and who had been defeated by Trotsky and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. However, Trotsky's European supporters volunteered to serve as bodyguards and assured his safety. On 20 February , Trotsky and all of his family lost their Soviet citizenship and were forbidden to enter the Soviet Union. The members of the bloc were zinovievites , rightists and trotskyists who "capitulated" to Stalin. Kamenev and Zinoviev also were members of the bloc. Trotsky wanted by no means that the alliance became a fusion, and he was afraid of the right gaining much power inside the bloc. Trotsky accepted the offer, but he was forbidden to live in Paris and soon found himself under the surveillance of the French police. From July to February , Trotsky and his wife lived in Royan. The philosopher and activist Simone Weil also arranged for Trotsky and his bodyguards to stay for a few days at her parents' house. Accordingly, the French authorities instructed Trotsky to move to a residence in the tiny village of Barbizon under the strict surveillance of the French police, where Trotsky found his contact with the outside world to be even worse than during his exile in Turkey. In May , soon after the French government had agreed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union government, Trotsky was officially told that he was no longer welcome in France. After weighing his options, Trotsky applied to move to Norway. Following French media complaints about Trotsky's role in encouraging the mass strikes in France in May and June with his articles, the Johan Nygaardsvold -led Norwegian government began to exhibit disquiet about Trotsky's actions. On 5 August , Knudsen's house was burgled by fascists from the Nasjonal Samling while Trotsky and his wife were out on a seashore trip with Knudsen and his wife. The fascist burglars targeted Trotsky's works and archives for vandalism. Trotsky demanded a complete and open enquiry into Moscow's accusations. The accused were sentenced to death, including Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev , and executed on 25 August On 26 August , eight policemen arrived at Knudsen's house demanding that Trotsky sign new conditions for residing in Norway. These conditions included agreeing to write no more about current political matters, to give no interviews, and to have all his correspondence incoming and outgoing inspected by the police. Trotsky categorically refused the conditions, and Trotsky was then told that he and his wife would soon be moved to another residence. On 2 September , four weeks after the fascist break-in at Knudsen's house, Trygve Lie ordered that Trotsky and his wife be transferred to a farm in Hurum , [] where they were under house arrest. When later living in Mexico, Trotsky was utterly scathing about the treatment he received during his days at Hurum, and accused the Norwegian government of trying to prevent him from publicly voicing his strong opposition to the Trial of the Sixteen and other show trials, saying:. When I look back today on this period of internment, I must say that never, anywhere, in the course of my entire life — and I have lived through many things — was I persecuted with as much miserable cynicism as I was by the Norwegian "Socialist" government. For four months, these ministers, dripping with democratic hypocrisy, gripped me in a stranglehold to prevent me from protesting the greatest crime history may ever know. The Ruth arrived in Mexico on 9 January Trotsky wrote prolifically while in exile, penning several key works, including his History of the Russian Revolution and The Revolution Betrayed , a critique of the Soviet Union under Stalinism. He argued that the Soviet state had become a " degenerated workers' state " controlled by an undemocratic bureaucracy, which would eventually either be overthrown via a political revolution establishing a workers' democracy, or degenerate into a capitalist class. While in Mexico, Trotsky also worked closely with James P. Trotsky's critique of the Stalinist regime, though banned, was distributed to leaders of the Comintern. This organization was short-lived and ended before In August , the first Moscow show trial of the so-called "Trotskyite— Zinovievite Terrorist Center" was staged in front of an international audience. During the trial, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 other accused, most of them prominent Old Bolsheviks, confessed to having plotted with Trotsky to kill Stalin and other members of the Soviet leadership. The court found everybody guilty and sentenced the defendants to death, Trotsky, in absentia. The second show trial of Karl Radek , Grigori Sokolnikov , Yuri Pyatakov and 14 others, took place in January , during which more alleged conspiracies and crimes were linked to Trotsky. The Moscow trials are perpetuated under the banner of socialism. We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe, it will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word 'Socialism' is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life — forward! Neither threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones the future will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy as in the best days of my youth; because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future. For fear of splitting the Communist movement, Trotsky initially opposed the idea of establishing parallel Communist parties or a parallel international Communist organization that would compete with the Third International. In mid, after the Nazi takeover in Germany and the Comintern's response to it, he changed his mind. He said: []. An organization which was not roused by the thunder of fascism and which submits docilely to such outrageous acts of the bureaucracy demonstrates thereby that it is dead and that nothing can ever revive it In all our subsequent work it is necessary to take as our point of departure the historical collapse of the official Communist International. In , Trotsky and his supporters founded the Fourth International , which was intended to be a revolutionary and internationalist alternative to the Stalinist Comintern. Representative Martin Dies , chairman of the committee, demanded the suppression of the American Communist Party. Trotsky intended to use the forum to expose the NKVD's activities against him and his followers. He made it clear that he also intended to argue against the suppression of the American Communist Party and to use the committee as a platform for a call to transform World War II into a world revolution. Many of his supporters argued against his appearance. When the committee learned the nature of the testimony Trotsky intended to present, it refused to hear him, and he was denied a visa to enter the United States. On hearing about it, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union immediately accused Trotsky of being in the pay of the oil magnates and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was suffering from high blood pressure , and feared that he would suffer a cerebral haemorrhage. In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness. For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist , and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth. Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full. After a failed attempt to have Trotsky murdered in March , Stalin assigned the overall organization of implementing the task to the NKVD officer Pavel Sudoplatov , who, in turn, co-opted Nahum Eitingon. According to Sudoplatov, all three networks were designed to operate entirely autonomously from the NKVD's hitherto-established spy networks in the U. Trotsky's other guards fended off the attackers. A mountaineering ice axe has a narrow end, called the pick, and a flat wide end called the adze. Witnesses stated that Trotsky spat on Mercader and began struggling fiercely with him, which resulted in Mercader's hand being broken. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky's bodyguards burst into the room and nearly beat Mercader to death, but Trotsky stopped them, laboriously stating that the assassin should be made to answer questions. I laid my raincoat on the table in such a way as to be able to remove the ice axe which was in the pocket. I decided not to miss the wonderful opportunity that presented itself. The moment Trotsky began reading the article, he gave me my chance; I took out the ice axe from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head. According to James P. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before. Stalin presented Mercader with an Order of Lenin in absentia. Trotsky's grave is located on its grounds. The foundation "International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum" has been organized to raise funds to improve the museum further. Trotsky was never formally rehabilitated during the rule of the Soviet government, despite the Glasnost -era rehabilitation of most other Old Bolsheviks killed during the Great Purges. His son, Sergei Sedov , who died in , was rehabilitated in , as was Nikolai Bukharin. Beginning in , Trotsky's books, forbidden until , were published in the Soviet Union. Trotsky considered himself to be a "Bolshevik-Leninist," [] arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. He viewed himself as an advocate of orthodox Marxism. His politics differed in some respects from those of Stalin or Mao Zedong , most importantly in his rejection of the theory of Socialism in One Country and his declaring of the need for an international " permanent revolution. However, they have different interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from this. Supporters of the Fourth International echo Trotsky's opposition to Stalinist totalitarianism , advocating political revolution , and arguing that socialism cannot sustain itself without democracy. Permanent Revolution is the theory that the bourgeois democratic tasks in countries with delayed bourgeois democratic development can only be accomplished through the establishment of a workers' state, and that the creation of a workers' state would inevitably involve inroads against capitalist property. Thus, the accomplishment of bourgeois democratic tasks passes over into proletarian tasks. Although most closely associated with Leon Trotsky, the call for Permanent Revolution is first found in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in March , in the aftermath of the Revolution , in their Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League :. It is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far — not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world — that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution. Trotsky's conception of the Permanent Revolution is based on his understanding, drawing on the work of the founder of Russian Marxism Georgy Plekhanov , that in 'backward' countries the tasks of the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution could not be achieved by the bourgeoisie itself. Trotsky first developed this conception in collaboration with Alexander Parvus in late — The relevant articles were later collected in Trotsky's books and in "Permanent Revolution", which also contains his essay " Results and Prospects. Trotsky was a central figure in the Comintern during its first four congresses. During this time, he helped to generalize the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks to newly formed Communist parties across Europe and further afield. From onwards, the united front , a method of uniting revolutionaries and reformists in the common struggle while winning some of the workers to revolution, was the central tactic put forward by the Comintern after the defeat of the German revolution. After he was exiled and politically marginalized by Stalinism, Trotsky continued to argue for a united front against fascism in Germany and Spain. According to Joseph Choonara of the British Socialist Workers Party in International Socialism , his articles on the united front represent an essential part of his political legacy. Our relations with Kamenev, which were very good in the first period after the insurrection, began to become more distant from that day. The need of the hour was for a man who would incarnate the call to struggle, a man who, subordinating himself completely to the requirements of the struggle, would become the ringing summons to arms, the will which exacts from all unconditional submission to a great, sacrificial necessity. Only a man with Trotsky's capacity for work, only a man so unsparing of himself as Trotsky, only a man who knew how to speak to the soldiers as Trotsky did—only such a man could have become the standard bearer of the armed toilers. He was all things rolled into one. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Trotsky disambiguation. Marxist revolutionary from Ukraine. Photograph of Trotsky that appeared on the cover of the magazine Prozhektor in January Vladimir Lenin Alexei Rykov. Russian — Soviet — Stateless — Ukrainian Russian. Aleksandra Sokolovskaya. Natalia Sedova. Main article: First exile of Trotsky. Theoretical works. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Economic determinism Historical materialism Marx's dialectic Marx's method Philosophy of nature. Related topics. Related categories. Main article: Russian Civil War. Main article: Left Opposition. Tariq Ali James P. Current Internationals. Historical Internationals. Main article: Fourth International. Main article: Trotskyism. Main article: Permanent revolution. Main article: United Front. Many history and reference books have confused the two. After Krestinsky's ouster in March , Vyacheslav Molotov became the senior secretary, but he lacked Krestinsky's authority, since he was not a full Politburo member. Stalin took over the position as senior secretary, which was formalized at the XIth Party Congress in April , with Molotov becoming second secretary. Trotsky later speculated that it may have been due to Kamenev's love of comfort, which Trotsky found "repelled me. The change was prompted by the need to allocate manpower quickly during the Civil War as well as by the transformation of the party from a small group of revolutionaries into the country's ruling party, with a corresponding increase in membership. New members included career seekers and former members of banned socialist parties, who were viewed with apprehension by Old Bolsheviks. This put enormous power in the general secretary's hands. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Archived from the original on 17 August Retrieved 26 June Archived from the original on 15 September Retrieved 24 October Lindemann 4 December Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 26 September My life: an attempt at an autobiography. Courier Corporation, History Today. Archived from the original on 22 October Retrieved 22 October Australian Journal of Politics and History. Permanent Revolution. New York: Pathfinder Press. Lenin Towards Unity. Internet Marxists Archive. Perritt; H.. Perritt Retrieved 1 January Archived from the original on 20 November Retrieved 31 August The Life of Lenin. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 26 May The October Revolution and the National Question. Encyclopaedia Britannica. New York: Enigma Books. My Life. Archived from the original on 12 June Retrieved 22 May Progress Publishers. Archived from the original on 4 March Retrieved 6 November The New Statesman. Archived from the original on 23 April Retrieved 22 April Abramovich — , a friend of Smilga's, was one of the few Trotskyists who survived the Great Purges and returned from Stalin's camps in the late s. Los Angeles Herald. Retrieved 24 May Glasgow: The Anarchist Communist Federation. Archived PDF from the original on 18 January Archived from the original on 16 September Retrieved 17 September Rosenberg, eds. Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, — Indiana University Press. Archived from the original on 22 November Retrieved 21 April Knopf Inc. China in war and revolution, — Volume 1 of Asia's transformations illustrated ed. Psychology Press. Moscow and Chinese Communists 2 ed. Stanford University Press. A history of Russia: Since Volume 2 of A History of Russia 2, illustrated ed. Anthem Press. Archived from the original on 10 January Retrieved 10 January — via Marxist. Archived from the original on 23 November Retrieved 8 January — via Marxists. UK National Archives. Trotsky 15 November Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, , page Yale University Press. Retrieved 4 August Archived from the original on 15 July Retrieved 8 March Archived from the original on 29 September Retrieved 6 January — via Marxists. Trotsky failed to form alliances and was socially inept and never fully accepted in the Bolshevik party leadership, which he had joined late. However, Stalin, contrary to his opponent, was a brilliant politician and political tactician, who was among the few who genuinely understood the consequences and means of political maneuvering in an environment in which appeals to the masses where the other leaders were strong had been systematically cut out of the equation by the means of the red-terror and prohibition of most means and vehicles of opposition that they had themselves promoted and embraced. The ability to think theoretically, appeal in writing or speech to the public had rapidly diminished in political value by and was steadily declining in political value, and only alliances counted, which was Stalin's strength. Trotsky had himself aided the cutting off the only branch which might have supported him. His biography of Trotsky was positively reviewed in the British and American press on its publication, but two years later was strongly criticized by Service's Hoover Institution colleague Bertrand Patenaude in a review for The American Historical Review. In July , prior to the publication of his own book, Robert Service had written a review of Partenaude's publication Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky which he applauded for being "vividly told" but also criticised for neglecting Trotsky's crimes while sharing power in the USSR. The book has also been harshly criticized by the German historian of communism Hermann Weber who led a campaign to prevent Suhrkamp Verlag from publishing it in Germany. Fourteen historians and sociologists signed a letter to the publishing house. The letter cited "a host of factual errors", the "repugnant connotations" of the passages in which Service deals with Trotsky's Jewish origins, and Service's recourse to "formulas associated with Stalinist propaganda" for the purpose of discrediting Trotsky. Reviews in the mainstream British press were predominantly positive. In The Daily Telegraph , the popular historian Simon Sebag Montefiore described Trotsky as "an outstanding, fascinating biography of this dazzling titan. Gray claimed that "the full extent of Trotsky's role in building Soviet totalitarianism has not been detailed — until now". Considering the book to be "[r]igorously researched," he notes that Service "surpasses himself", painting a portrait of Trotsky that is "genuinely revelatory" and "very different from the one celebrated by bien pensants. Summing up his review, Gray proclaims that Service has authored the "best biography of Trotsky to date, and there seems little reason why anyone should write another. In contrast, Tariq Ali , socialist activist and a former Trotskyist still appreciating Trotsky, [8] produced a negative review of Service's book for The Guardian. Describing the work as "stodgy", Ali claims that the work is highly politically motivated by Service's anti-communist views, believing that Service's view "can be summarised in a sentence: Trotsky was a ruthless and cold-blooded murderer and deserves to be exposed as such. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Trotsky: A Biography The first edition cover of the book, depicting Trotsky. Leon Trotsky was a communist theorist and Soviet politician. He played a key role in the Russian Revolution of During this time, Trotsky directed the Soviet military forces. He later served as the Soviet commissar of foreign affairs —18 and of war — After the death of Vladimir Lenin in , Trotsky was gradually removed from power. In he was exiled by his chief rival in government, Joseph Stalin. Trotsky quickly rose to a position of power in the party: just before the October Revolution , he was elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee. During the revolution, Trotsky oversaw Soviet military operations in Petrograd now St. Petersburg , the capital of the Russian Empire. By early November, Trotsky had all but sacked the capital city. On November 13, ousted liberal politician Aleksandr Kerensky tried to retake Petrograd with loyal troops. Trotsky defeated Kerensky, and the Bolsheviks achieved total control of Petrograd. Leon Trotsky was a communist with a unique worldview. Trotsky did not believe an economic system could exist in isolation. He believed that an economic system must be seen and understood as a world system rather than as a national one. Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were political rivals. After Vladimir Lenin , the first Soviet head of state, suffered a stroke in early , Trotsky and Stalin engaged in a contest for power. Stalin quickly gained the upper hand: in April he consolidated his hold on the Bolshevik Central Committee. Still, the contest endured into the late s. Stalin eventually emerged as its victor and gained virtual dictatorial control over the Soviet Union. Trotsky, on the other hand, was expelled from the Bolshevik Party , exiled , and banished from the territory of the Soviet Union After his exile, Leon Trotsky sought asylum in Mexico. In May , men armed with machine guns attacked his house.

Leon Trotsky - Wikipedia Shortly before this, in Paris , Trotsky had met and married Natalya Sedova, by whom he subsequently had two sons, Lev and Sergey. Upon the outbreak of revolutionary disturbances in , Trotsky returned to Russia. He became a leading spokesman of the St. In the aftermath, Trotsky was jailed and brought to trial in In , after a second exile to Siberia, Trotsky once again escaped. He settled in Vienna and supported himself as a correspondent in the Balkan Wars of — At the outbreak of World War I , Trotsky joined the majority of Russian Social-Democrats who condemned the war and refused to support the war effort of the tsarist regime. He moved to Switzerland and then to Paris. His antiwar stance led to his expulsion from both France and Spain. Trotsky hailed the outbreak of revolution in Russia in February March, New Style as the opening of the permanent revolution he had predicted. He reached Petrograd in mid-May and assumed the leadership of a left-wing Menshevik faction. In August, while still in jail, Trotsky was formally admitted to the Bolshevik Party and was also elected to membership on the Bolshevik Central Committee. When fighting was precipitated by an ineffectual government raid early on November 6 October 24, Old Style , Trotsky took a leading role in directing countermeasures for the soviet, while reassuring the public that his Military Revolutionary Committee meant only to defend the Congress of Soviets. Governmental authority crumbled quickly, and Petrograd was largely in Bolshevik hands by the time Lenin reappeared from the underground on November 7 to take direct charge of the Revolution and present the Congress of Soviets with an accomplished fact when it convened next day. Trotsky continued to function as the military leader of the Revolution when Kerensky vainly attempted to retake Petrograd with loyal troops. Immediately afterward he joined Lenin in defeating proposals for a coalition government including Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Article Contents. Home World History Military Leaders. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Robert V. Author of Russia: Roots of Confrontation and others. See Article History. Alternative Title: Lev Davidovich Bronshtein. Top Questions. Russian Revolution. Read more below: Leadership in the Revolution of Economic system. Read more below: The struggle for the succession. Joseph Stalin. Using new archival sources including family letters, party and military correspondence, confidential speeches, and medical records, Service offers new insights into Trotsky. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial and schematic approach to making revolution. This illuminating portrait of the man and his legacy sets the record straight. Home 1 Books 2. Add to Wishlist. Sign in to Purchase Instantly. Members save with free shipping everyday! See details. Overview Robert Service completes his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union in an eagerly anticipated, authoritative biography of Leon Trotsky. Show More. Related Searches. Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation. Scientists are famous for believing in the proven and peer- accepted, the very ground that pioneering Scientists are famous for believing in the proven and peer-accepted, the very ground that pioneering artists often subvert; they recognize correct and incorrect where artists see only true and false. And yet in some individuals, crossover learning provides a remarkable View Product. Biogeography and Adaptation: Patterns of Marine Life. The driving forces of natural selection leave their traces in the shapes of living creatures The driving forces of natural selection leave their traces in the shapes of living creatures and their patterns of distribution. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of evolutionary process and adaptive response, Geerat Vermeij elucidates the general principles that underlie Since its founding in , the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University has been collecting, caring for, exhibiting, and researching objects produced by human cultures around the world. This handsomely illustrated, highly portable volume presents a selection Take a random walk through your life and you'll find it is awash in industrial,

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