Ebook391 pages5 hours
Trotsky, The Passionate Revolutionary
By Allan Todd
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
About this ebook
Although Trotsky was dramatically assassinated just over eighty years ago, he remains a controversial figure. He has had many biographers over the decades - ranging from the overly-sympathetic, to the extremely-hostile. Robert Service, his most recent biographer, expressed the hope that his book would ‘finish off’ Trotsky - a job he believed the ice-axe had failed to do in 1940! This biography, as expected, deals with those aspects for which Trotsky is noted: his passionate and fiery oratory which captivated and inspired huge crowds; organising the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917; masterminding the creation of the Red Army and ensuring its victory during the Civil War; becoming the most determined opponent of Stalin’s creation of a monolithic party and state; being a Marxist theoretician of socialist revolution and combatting fascism; and, of course, being the originator of the very specific brand of revolutionary socialism that, as early as 1906, became known as Trotskyism. However, this biography also explores other aspects of Trotsky’s life which are not so well-known. In particular, from a very early age, his love of writing: the world of books and publishing became his first passion; it remained his first love and, if revolutionary politics had not taken over, his life would have been a very literary one. Immediately after the November Revolution, he hoped to return to his literary work, believing his main practical work as a revolutionary was over. His writings on art and literature, when compared to the stultifying strictures of the ‘Socialist Realism’ associated with Stalinism, are remarkably sympathetic and open; while he also wrote many perceptive articles as a war correspondent, covering both the Balkan Wars and the early stages of the First World War. Other aspects covered by this biography concern his family life, and his relationships with his children. Also explored is his love-life - while it is known he had a brief affair with the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, there are also suggestions he may have had other affairs. Whatever the truth of such allegations, he certainly maintained a passionate relationship with his long-term companion, Natalya Sedova; and readers should be aware that one proof of that, provided towards the end of this book, contains very explicit language.
Related to Trotsky, The Passionate Revolutionary
Related ebooks
Trotsky: Eternal Revolutionary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leon Trotsky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTerrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays, and Folklore, 1917–1953 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of the Soviet Union Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russia: From Revolution To Counter-Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Birth of the Soviet Secret Police: Lenin and History's Greatest Heist, 1917-1927 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin & Leon Trotsky: The Soviet Union's Big Three Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revolution Anyone? Trotsky in Canada, 1917 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnemies of the People under Stalinism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Mind of Stalin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevolution! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lenin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nobody's Soldier: The Life of Andrii Antonenko Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRussian Legends: The Life and Legacy of Leon Trotsky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kronstadt Uprising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quest for Freedom: A life of Alexander Kerensky the Russian Unicorn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaydays & Trying It On (NHB Modern Plays): Two Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLenin and Trotsky: What They Really Stood For Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoseph Stalin (SparkNotes Biography Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMorbid Symptoms: An Anatomy of a World in Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNO COUNTRY FOR IDEALISTS: THE MAKING OF A FAMILY OF SUBVERSIVES Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Want a Baby and Other Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maydays (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgony & Barbed Wire - The Grim Reality of Former East Germany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA People’s History of the Cold War: Stories From East and West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Trotsky, The Passionate Revolutionary
Rating: 4.875 out of 5 stars
5/5
4 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trotsky – A different view of the man.Since his death, murder or assassination depends which side of the fence you sit on, there have been numerous biographies about Leon Trotsky. Some biographies are sympathetic, overly so in some, and like his most recent by Robert Service very critical. Trotsky really does divide opinion. Trotsky since his death has been described as many things such as a revolutionary practitioner, a political theorist, a factional chief, engaging writer, a ‘ladies’ man’ (his affair with Frieda Kahlo often used an example of this), an icon of the Revolution, the anti-Jewish Jew, a philosopher of everyday life, a father and hunted victim, Trotsky lived an amazing life in extraordinary times. His adherents have represented Trotsky as a pure revolutionary soul and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin and his henchmen. Allan Todd takes the view that Trotsky was a passionate person in everything that he did. Leon Trotsky was a person who rose from obscurity to be an active member of both 1905 and 1917 revolutions. He was the man who organised the Red Army from a shambles to an organised fighting force. One only has to look at the shambles he had to deal with when the political commissar Joseph Stalin made such a mess of the Russo-Polish war.Todd has tried to do something which other biographers have not done, capture is passions without the one-eyed reverence of a Marxist, or the hatred of his politics which some have assessed him by. Todd is not a hostage to fortune or trying to enhance the Trotsky myths which seem to grow by the year. He does highlight Trotsky’s love live and the literary career that sustained him in exile. These are often passed over in other biographies.This is an excellent book exploring Trotsky’s passions rather a political biography of which there are hundreds out there. This brings something new to the reader, which is always important in research.An excellent book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trotsky, The Passionate Revolutionary, by Allan Todd, is a biography that emphasizes what is usually marginalized in other Trotsky biographies, namely, his passion as it relates to things other than the revolutionary cause.It is sometimes easy to think of our historical figures as one dimensional. In this case, as one dedicated to and passionate about revolution. In doing so we lose sight of the figure as a complete human being. Todd rounds out the picture most of us have in our mind, showing how his activism was because it was what he believed to be the right thing to do, not because he wanted to devote his life to the cause. At least not in such a public manner. His preference would have been to use his writing abilities to further the effort.While the love life, alleged and known, plays a significant role in this story, it is not sensationalized but rather used to illustrate how passion in all its forms ruled his life. Todd does not so much sensationalize the stories about Trotsky but weaves them into the whole of who he was. This is a man with flaws yet one who strives to improve himself and the world.I would recommend this to any reader who wants to know more about Trotsky the person and not just Trotsky the revolutionary. They are interlocked and knowing more helps us to better understand his political thought as well.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Book preview
Trotsky, The Passionate Revolutionary - Allan Todd
oe book_preview_excerpt.html }}ɲ#DZ寤vꪊ8ͪ8TEXd2- `>6кu~Is#2B" #cp?~|qR}ǿnjR_k|o~~WCS-OןWuٮR5DZsf~UnH>x?xONccuYӻOC=V.xJE4ޞcT?)MB%c1uwcRtC鳴w`RS8Uӝ0SgHmLQǿc}Γ?T_Żl6{ENgl8jbje>U?}#>q!oϻy6r?bNGHh\55qʥy'&.rh0v,,rB5~zl:ۂc`ih;}=Tal00
.5;
<#{Yt
\2ĶVQ"hCn0p@90~Mjway0UN!67[WO`q|c8]{piì-?W=
v|Ư~h t㻾3ey<;m.ԱAX'
ۄ|Z=.#5Q,#/D8A.0V;jI
fL g\j(c|PmÜ+6zc;2ip>c@{3.7T(o>kkuf|+y#IClmq//p Bd>$uj(+·-~ᎼcWSL6hQ&