Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary by Dmitri Volkogonov

by Dmitri Volkogonov

The Eternal Revolutionary by Dmitri Volkogonov -- By the author of A new biography and TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

Genres: History, Biography, Russia, Politics, Autobiography, Nonfiction, Ebooks

Hardcover

First published March 12, 1996

About the author

See also: Дмитрий Волкогонов

Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (Russian: Дми́трий Анто́нович Волкого́нов) (22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Russian historian and colonel-general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department. After researching the secret Soviet archives, he published biographies of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, among others. Despite being a committed Stalinist and Marxist-Leninist ideologue for most of his career, Volkogonov came to repudiate communism and the Soviet system within the last decade of his life before his death from cancer in 1995.
Through his research in the restricted archives of the Soviet Central Committee, Volkogonov discovered facts that contradicted the official Soviet version of events, and the cult of personality that had been built up around Lenin and Stalin. Volkogonov published books that contributed to the strain of liberal Russian thought that emerged during Glasnost in the late 1980s and the post-Soviet era of the early 1990s.

Reviews

[John Mark King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Another incredible biography by Volkogonov. Achieving almost literary status, this work is a brutally honest and even-handed account of the life of the most enigmatic and, dare I say, likable, of the three great proponents of Russian Marxism. His version of the theory was based on a odd combination of dictatorship and shared governance and it is stunning that Trotsky himself never saw his own hand in the making of the Stalinist terror state.

Where Lenin sought only to seize power and Stalin valued only the combined dystopia of bureaucracy and terror, Trotsky, to his death, truly believed that the permanent revolution would bring about peace, harmony and stability throughout the world.

[Robbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary
by Dmitri Volkogonov
Free Press
560 pages
1416576649

This book tells the life of a Russian Revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. It tells about how he tried to change Russia with his ideas and how he became a revolutionary. He reformed the government, and became a very popular Leader of the Bolsheviks. He also managed to mobilize the Communist army from 300,000 soldiers to just short of about a million. He brought great change to Russia and worked in an underground union where he worked on revolutionary pamphlets and fliers.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they needed to write a report on Leon Trotsky, or if they were just a big fan of him. This wasn't an interesting read to me. It wasn't adventurous and it didn't have any action in it, which seemed boring to me. However it did supply with great knowledge of Leon Trotsky. However though, i really didn't care to much for this book.

[Mike Staresinic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dmitri Volkogonov's well-written, thorough biography digs deep in newly opened Russian archives for the stories behind Trotsky's multiple exiles. As such, the biography draws a clear picture of the person and beliefs of this revolutionary, and provides a corrective to Stalin's smear campaigns. This is not to leave Trotsky in a privileged position, however.

The brilliantly Trotsky leaves little doubt that he had no scruples in turning narcissism and ruthlessness into mass murder. To the end of his life, Trotsky denied his role in creating a system of terror that "liquidated" millions. His life would have been tragic if only had there been any redemptive potential, intent, or action. The reader finds himself racing through the text to reach the conclusion of the misery. Trotsky's 1940 assassination under the orders of Stalin at the Mexico home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is not welcome, but does provide relief. If it was this much misery to read, what about to live it?

[Alex Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fiercely critical (and rather uneven) biography of the famous Bolshevik revolutionary by a Russian historian, using Soviet archives unavailable to past biographers. I felt this book was as noteworthy for what it left out as for what it explicated: Trotsky's role in the events of Red October is barely mentioned, nor his participation in the crushing of the Kronstadt revolt of March 1921. Meanwhile, the reader is treated to fairly lengthy descriptions of life aboard Trotsky's train during the Russian civil war as well as his post-exile life (which covers over a third of the book). As for Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army during that war, it's cut down to size by Volkogonov: Trotsky apparently did no more than ride around from front to front giving speeches, a sort of cheerleader for the army (and ignoring his spirited defense of Petrograd from the White armies in 1919). He's keen to debunk the notion, popular among anti-Stalinist tankies, that Trotsky was the kindler, gentler face of Bolshevism. Indeed, Trotsky was something of an originator of the Stalinist terror to come. He acted ruthlessly during the civil war, ordering mass executions of deserters with special "blocking" formations (something Stalin later used during WWII). He was also a proponent of agricultural collectivization, a policy Stalin adopted to disastrous consequences in the early 30s.

The book is good on how Trotsky lost the post-Lenin power struggle to Stalin and equally good on Stalin's ruthless pursuit of Trotsky after his exile. On balance, though, this is overwhelmed by the book's organizational flaws, dry writing style, and uneven attention to key periods in Trotsky's life.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4 out of 5

This was not a sympathetic biography, nor for that matter, am I a sympathetic reviewer, being firmly of a Western Bourgeois Liberal Democrat conviction. I had encountered Trotsky a few times while studying interwar history, but never did a deep dive into him, or for that matter, and other of the Soviet leaders. I knew that Trotsky was the Minister or War (or whatever fifteen word title they used for it) during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20. Beyond a skeletal outline of his life and later assassination I was ignorant. Early Soviet/Bolshevik/Revolutionary history fills me with dread. I enter into a completely unknown world filled with arcana and heresies between which I cannot distinguish nor understand the great difference. I’m much more at home learning about Early Church heresies, although equally unable to empathize with them, I understand them a bit better. I can split between a Bolshevik, a Menshevik, a SR, a White, a Green etc, but asking me to remember the myriad of Bolshevik factions is just that, an ask. This is a major part of the reason that this book has been languishing on my shelf for at least the last six years.

For all of you giving this book bad marks for being ‘boring’ I kindly encourage you to zip it. This is a history book. It’s also translated from Russian. What is far more important is the book’s contents. The ability of the author to weed through decades of incessant, state-sponsored propaganda to create a cohesive, and what appears to be, a largely reliable account, is what really matters. That being said, there are a lot of events that are described in a way which assumes foreknowledge on the part of the reader, knowledge that I largely didn’t posses, so I found myself referring to Wikipedia on more than one occasion. Is this perhaps because Volkogonov deals with these events in his earlier biographies on Lenin and Stalin? I don’t know, and I won’t know for a while. I am in no rush to read about a wannabe mass murder who actually succeeded.

Volkogonov is writing to several different audiences. The primary audience was the people of the former USSR. With the other groups being western academics and history people, and westerners with communist leaning tendencies. Within the latter group, there is a mythos around Trotsky. It supposes that if Trotsky, rather than Stalin, had succeeded Lenin, then the Red Terror and other monstrosities wouldn’t have taken place if St. Trotsky had been at the wheel. Volkogonov doesn’t allow these fantasies to endure. In an opening shot, Volkogonov points out that engaging in alternative history is a largely purposeless endeavor, being mostly an exercise in wishing. He continually points out how Stalin pilfered ideas that birthed the atrocities from Trotsky. While Trotsky had the good fortune to be on the right side of history in that he criticized Stalin, the fact remains that Trotsky lost a power struggle and didn’t admit defeat. Trotsky’s criticisms of Stalin never cut to the root of the problem. Both men supported the existence of a one-party state that stifled opposition and enforced top-down social change. Trotsky never cut to the quick by demanding a democratic system, he preffered to harangue on the details of Marxist theory. Being a part of the opposition, and having no power at all, Trotsky was free to criticize Stalin even if he had no better idea or would have made any fundamental changes.

Going back to the book itself, it was very interesting. Like I said, there are a lot of blank spaces for a reader like myself, but I was able to follow the outline without too much difficulty. Not an ‘easy’ read, nor am I sure that it should be. Don’t walk into this expecting cake. It was a good book. If I was to follow this subject up with another read I would look for a book from a western historian with more distance from the subject, and sacrifice the lack of archival access in favor of, hopefully, a less interested tone. That being said, again, I have no desire to read another book about this particular fanatic, there are plenty others who are calling for my attention.

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been reading DV’s trio of biographies in reverse order of publication. While he touches on many of the same themes, this book reads less like a prosecution than the Lenin book did.
DV actually goes into some details about Trotsky’s writings, something his Lenin book lacked. But as with the Lenin book, DV’s narrative here is also repetitive and he constantly indulges in hectoring the reader with his conclusions instead of letting the reader forge his own.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long, winding, sometimes frustratingly non-linear, but the conclusion does tighten breathtakingly, as Stalin's assassins close in...Volkogonov was an insider, and he had access to every possible source for his research. I don't know if I'll ever go back and read Deutscher's apparently authoritative biography, but this book leaves me feeling like I should.

[Stephen Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

An significant advance on Deutscher's trilogy.

[Andres Cordoba · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a description of The Eternal Revolutionary, this book is a resolute success. Not so clearly in describing Trotsky. The book is a dense historical text, with a focus on Trotsky's revolutionary inclinations and theory and his infighting with Stalin and turbulent decline in later years. Unfortunately, the book focuses so much on Trotsky's ideology and reports of how he carried himself intellectually throughout his life it fails to ascribe him anything resembling humanity. An intellectual first, Trotsky is properly characterized this way, but it leaves us with little understanding of Trotsky as a emotional person with real tangible concerns beyond "The Eternal Revolution." Likewise this book's laser-focus also compromises context, leaving the reader in wonder as to what Volkogonov is referring to. While the revolution's history might be well known to the author, the internal affairs that surround the figure are just as important to describe and the incessant use of primary sources drowns this out in figures who know their context to the reader's detriment. As such, although the book is well made, it is too dense and focuses on "The Eternal Revolutionary" to an extent we lose Trotsky himself.

[Trounin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Все разговоры о прошлом – пустословная полемика. Какая разница, чем славны Пётр I или Екатерина II? Или какая необходимость ломать копья вокруг личности Сталина? Уже нет тех стран, которыми они руководили. Во многом изменились и нравы. Русский человек начала XXI века – это не русский прошлых столетий. Как и мировоззрение всякого россиянина, чьи предки некогда составляли единую державу, теперь раздробленные на множество государств. Потому не нужно допускать категорических суждений, чаще основанных на неполном владении информацией. Не получится составить точный портрет и Льва Троцкого, к каким усилиям не прибегай. Единственно возможный вариант – читать непосредственно его самого, особенно написанну�� им автобиографию “Моя жизнь”. Всё прочее, в том числе и труд Волкогонова, лишь попытка понять былое под определённым углом зрения. Всякий волен изменить градус восприятия, как тот же Троцкий предстанет от демонических до ангельских оттенков. А как быть потомку? Не зацикливаться. Ушедшее в небытие стоит помнить, но иметь о том категорические суждения нельзя.

(c) Trounin

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A biography written by a man whose reality would change from hour to the next as his master would demand. So, is it worth your time? Maybe, if you are a Trotsky expert that has to read every line ever written about a sick mind.

[My work is never done · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cant wait to read this book! Leon Trotky, the great Revolutionary who fought against : Capitalism, Stalinism, and Fascism!

Leader of the 4th Internationalist and the International Socialist Revolution!

[Ajit Dharmakeerthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a good book on Trotsky. Lot of historical events discussed.