Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary

by Dmitri Volkogonov

Overview

Through exclusive archive access and interviews, Dmitri Volkogonov provides a reinterpretation of the life and ruthless career of Leon Trotksy, one of the most influential figures of the 20th century whose faith in the world socialist revolution remained undimmed to the end.

This biography examines Leon Trotsky’s career as a revolutionary before World War I, including his success as chief organizer of the October revolution, becoming a military hero of the Russian civil war, and his outspoken criticism of the Stalinist style of leadership.

Expelled from the Communist Party, written out of the history of the revolution, and murdered in Mexico by Stalin’s agents, Volkogonov shines a light on this dynamic public speaker, brilliant organizer, and theorist.

Through interviews with Stalin’s overseas hit-squad and relatives of Trotsky, as well as access to top-secret Soviet archives, Trotsky lends insight into one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416576648
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	09/11/2007
Series:	Media and Communications; 49
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Dmitry Antonovich Volkogonov was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department.

Editorial Reviews

A revealing biography of perhaps the most tragic figure of the Russian Revolution.

Leon Trotsky was once portrayed as the pivotal figure of the revolution, as idealistic as Lenin but far less ruthless than Stalin. If he had gained power, rather than Stalin, the theory goes, the revolution might have turned out differently. Volkogonov's biography Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994, not reviewed) destroyed any illusions about the man and Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (1991) reinforced the dictator's negative image. Now we have the last volume in a collective biography of the leadership of the Russian Revolution. And perhaps no one was better prepared to write it than Volkogonov, who rose to the post of deputy chief of political indoctrination in the Soviet army despite the fact that his father had been a victim of one of Stalin's purges. Before his death last month, Volkogonov had unprecedented access to army, party, and NKVD archives, and even to Stalin's personal library. Here he does a masterful job of conveying the "madness" of revolution and Trotsky's intoxication with the myth of "permanent revolution." Although Trotsky has always been held up as more humane than Stalin, Volkogonov unflinchingly reveals his brutality and fanaticism. Defenders of the Bolshevik Revolution once argued that Stalin betrayed its principles, but it now appears that Lenin set the pattern for the abuses and that Trotsky would have been constrained by the historical forces unleashed by revolution. In the end, Trotsky, unable to control these forces, which he had helped set in motion, or to accept the inadequacies of his own ideas, became an isolated, harassed figure, more memorable for the fervor of his beliefs than for their value.

An authoritative and definitive biography of a figure instrumental in shaping the 20th century.

Kirkus Reviews