Oxford Paperbacks
4 total works
Hardly any political figure in the 20th century aroused so much passionate and confused controversy as Leon Trotsky. There was a danger that his name might have disappeared from history. Isaac Deutscher's three volume life of Trotsky was originally published in 1954, and was the first book to counter the powerful Stalinist propaganda machine that had sort to expunge Trotsky's name from the annals of the revolution, or worse, to leave it there as a synonym for an arch-traitor. This first volume of the trilogy traces Trotsky's development: his early activities, the formation and crystallization of his distinctive and motivating idea, the permanent revolution, his long feud and final reconcilliation with Lenin and Bolshevism and his role in the October insurrection of 1917. The volume ends with 1921, when Trotsky, then at the hight of his power, unwittingly sowed the seeds of his defeat.
The Prophet Unarmed, first published in 1959, is the second volume of Isaac Deutscher's extraordinary Trotsky trilogy, which the Guardian has said 'will rank among the great political biographies of our time.' It is a self-contained account, drawing for the first time on Trotsky's archives in Harvard, of the great struggle between Stalin and Trotsky that followed the end of the civil war in 1921 and the death of Lenin. From the story of Trotsky's fierce opposition to Stalin's policies emerges a dazzling portrait gallery of important Soviet leaders with, at its centre, Trotsky, the man of ideas, the Marxist philosopher and literary critic. The book provides an original assessment of the defeat that led to his expulsion from the Communist Party, his exile, and his banishment from Russia in 1929.
Few political figures of the twentieth century have aroused as much controversy as the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Trotsky’s extraordinary life and extensive writings have left an indelible mark on revolutionary conscience, yet there was a danger that his name would disappear from history. Originally published in 1954, Deutscher’s magisterial three-volume biography was the first major publication to counter the powerful Stalinist propaganda machine. In this definitive biography Trotsky emerges in his real stature, as the most heroic, and ultimately tragic, character of the Russian Revolution.
This third volume of the trilogy, first published in 1963, is a self-contained narrative of Trotsky’s years in exile and of his murder in Mexico in 1940. Deutscher’s masterful account of the period, and of the ideological controversies ranging throughout it, forms a background against which, as he says, ‘the protagonist’s character reveals itself, while he is moving towards catastrophe.’
This third volume of the trilogy, first published in 1963, is a self-contained narrative of Trotsky’s years in exile and of his murder in Mexico in 1940. Deutscher’s masterful account of the period, and of the ideological controversies ranging throughout it, forms a background against which, as he says, ‘the protagonist’s character reveals itself, while he is moving towards catastrophe.’