Trotsky

Robert Service completes his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union in an eagerly anticipated, authoritative biography of Leon Trotsky.

Trotsky is perhaps the most intriguing and, given his prominence, the most understudied of the Soviet revolutionaries. Using new archival sources including family letters, party and military correspondence, confidential speeches, and medical records, Service offers new insights into Trotsky. He discusses Trotsky’s fractious relations with the leaders he was trying to bring into a unified party before 1914; his attempt to disguise his political closeness to Stalin; and his role in the early 1920s as the progenitor of political and cultural Stalinism. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial and schematic approach to making revolution. Service recounts Trotsky’s role in the botched German revolution of 1923; his willingness to subject Europe to a Red Army invasion in the 1920s; and his assumption that peasants could easily be pushed onto collective farms. Service also sheds light on Trotsky’s character and personality: his difficulties with his Jewish background, the development of his oratorical skills and his preference for writing over politicking, his inept handling of political factions and coldness toward associates, and his aversion to assuming personal power.

Although Trotsky’s followers clung to the stubborn view of him as a pure revolutionary and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin, the reality is very different. This illuminating portrait of the man and his legacy sets the record straight.

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Trotsky

Robert Service completes his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union in an eagerly anticipated, authoritative biography of Leon Trotsky.

Trotsky is perhaps the most intriguing and, given his prominence, the most understudied of the Soviet revolutionaries. Using new archival sources including family letters, party and military correspondence, confidential speeches, and medical records, Service offers new insights into Trotsky. He discusses Trotsky’s fractious relations with the leaders he was trying to bring into a unified party before 1914; his attempt to disguise his political closeness to Stalin; and his role in the early 1920s as the progenitor of political and cultural Stalinism. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial and schematic approach to making revolution. Service recounts Trotsky’s role in the botched German revolution of 1923; his willingness to subject Europe to a Red Army invasion in the 1920s; and his assumption that peasants could easily be pushed onto collective farms. Service also sheds light on Trotsky’s character and personality: his difficulties with his Jewish background, the development of his oratorical skills and his preference for writing over politicking, his inept handling of political factions and coldness toward associates, and his aversion to assuming personal power.

Although Trotsky’s followers clung to the stubborn view of him as a pure revolutionary and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin, the reality is very different. This illuminating portrait of the man and his legacy sets the record straight.

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Trotsky

Trotsky

by Robert Service
Trotsky

Trotsky

by Robert Service
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Overview

Robert Service completes his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union in an eagerly anticipated, authoritative biography of Leon Trotsky.

Trotsky is perhaps the most intriguing and, given his prominence, the most understudied of the Soviet revolutionaries. Using new archival sources including family letters, party and military correspondence, confidential speeches, and medical records, Service offers new insights into Trotsky. He discusses Trotsky’s fractious relations with the leaders he was trying to bring into a unified party before 1914; his attempt to disguise his political closeness to Stalin; and his role in the early 1920s as the progenitor of political and cultural Stalinism. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial and schematic approach to making revolution. Service recounts Trotsky’s role in the botched German revolution of 1923; his willingness to subject Europe to a Red Army invasion in the 1920s; and his assumption that peasants could easily be pushed onto collective farms. Service also sheds light on Trotsky’s character and personality: his difficulties with his Jewish background, the development of his oratorical skills and his preference for writing over politicking, his inept handling of political factions and coldness toward associates, and his aversion to assuming personal power.

Although Trotsky’s followers clung to the stubborn view of him as a pure revolutionary and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin, the reality is very different. This illuminating portrait of the man and his legacy sets the record straight.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780330439695
Publisher: Macmillan UK
Publication date: 06/24/2010
Pages: 600
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Russian History at Oxford University.

Table of Contents


  • List of Illustrations

  • Maps

  • Preface

  • A Note on Usages

  • Introduction


    Part One: 1879–1913
  1. The Family Bronstein

  2. Upbringing

  3. Schooling

  4. The Young Revolutionary

  5. Love And Prison

  6. Siberian Exile

  7. Iskra

  8. Cutting Loose

  9. The Year 1905

  10. Trial And Punishment

  11. Again The Emigrant

  12. Unifier

  13. Special Correspondent

  14. Part Two: 1914–1919
  15. War On The War

  16. Designs For Revolution

  17. Atlantic Crossings

  18. Nearly A Bolshevik

  19. Threats And Promises

  20. Seizure Of Power

  21. People's Commissar

  22. Trotsky And The Jews

  23. Brest-Litovsk

  24. Kazan And After

  25. Almost The Commander

  26. Red Victory

  27. World Revolution

  28. Part Three: 1920–1928
  29. Images And The Life

  30. Peace And War

  31. Back From The Brink

  32. Disputing About Reform

  33. The Politics Of Illness

  34. The Left Opposition

  35. On The Cultural Front

  36. Failing To Succeed

  37. Entourage And Faction

  38. Living With Trotsky

  39. What Trotsky Wanted

  40. Last Stand In Moscow

  41. Alma-Ata

  42. Part Four: 1929–1940
  43. Bü Yü Kada

  44. Looking For Revolutions

  45. The Writer

  46. Russian Connections

  47. Europe South And North

  48. Setting Up In Mexico

  49. The Fourth International

  50. Trotsky AndHis Women

  51. 'The Russian Question'

  52. Confronting The Philosophers

  53. The Second World War

  54. Assassination

  55. The Keepers And The Flame


  • Notes

  • Select Bibliography

  • Index

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