From October To Brest-Litovsk

by Leon Trotsky

Overview

This record by Trotsky is of the events in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, to his Signing of the Brest-Litovsk deal with Germany on 3rd March 1918 that removed Russia from World War I. The treaty demanded heavy losses for Russia with regard to the annexation of land and financial indemnities to Germany. In this extended essay, Trotsky contends the reasons why he chose to sign what appears to be a disastrous agreement for Russia.Had the revolution developed more typically - - that is, under serene conditions, as it had in 1912 - - the working class would constantly have stood firm on a predominant situation, while the worker masses would progressively have been taken close behind by the low class and brought into the whirlpool of the unrest. In any case, the conflict delivered a by and large unique progression of occasions.In this book, Trotzky (until close to the end) involves the Russian Calendar in showing dates, which, as the reader will recall, is 13 days behind the Gregorian Calendar, presently introduced in Russia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789356567634
Publisher:	Double 9 Books
Publication date:	12/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	913,399
File size:	499 KB

About the Author

Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940) was a Russian revolutionary, theorist and Soviet politician. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, he later developed his own version of Marxist thought, Trotskyism. Initially supporting the Menshevik Internationalists faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, he joined the Bolsheviks ("majority") just before the 1917 October Revolution, immediately becoming a leader within the Communist Party. He would go on to become one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution. During the early days of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army, with the title of People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He became a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918-22). After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and against the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was removed as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (January 1925), removed from the Politburo (October 1926), removed from the Central Committee (October 1927), expelled from the Communist Party (November 1927), exiled to Alma-Ata (January 1928) and exiled from the Soviet Union (February 1929). As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued from exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. Trotsky was assassinated by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born NKVD agent. On August 20, 1940, Mercader attacked Trotsky with an ice axe and Trotsky died the next day in a hospital. Mercader acted upon instruction from Stalin and was nearly beaten to death by Trotsky's bodyguards, with Mercader spending 20 years in a Mexican prison for murdering Trotsky. Stalin presented Mercader with an Order of Lenin in absentia.