The Unfinished Revolution: Russia 1917-67

by Isaac Deutscher

The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge, January-March 1967. A brilliant assessment of half a century of Soviet history by one of the foremost analysts of world Communism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Isaac Deutscher was a Polish-born Jewish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs. His three-volume biography of Trotsky, in particular, was highly influential among the British New Left.

Reviews

[Lyle]

Despite obvious Trotskyist pitfalls and stupidities, has some very sharp, original and insightful analyses of class in the USSR and the revolution.

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent short lecture book on the hopes and failures of the Russian Revolution. Deutscher wrote biographies on Trotsky and Stalin; he is some sort of Trotskyist, but analyzed Stalin's life in the context of the fight for a more just society. His commitment is to communism and the Russian Revolution and not to Stalin. Deutscher is able to both appreciate the victories and critique the missteps of the Russian Revolution (without the interference of wester propaganda 'communism only works on paper' types of views).

The first chapter puts the Russian revolution into the conversation and comparisons with other revolutions. It asks questions about when did the revolution begin and when did it end and who were the precursors that paved the way. Chapter two is very important discussion on continuity with other revolutions and the stages of revolution. The question asked by Lenin in particular was essential to determining how various groups responded. Some saw it necessary for Russia to endure a bourgeois revolution Before a proletarian/socialist one could even take place. The last three chapters cover the class make up of the Soviet union, Stalin's retreat from international revolution/world communism to the conservative 'revolution in one country', and the effect of the Stalin era policy on Russian Chinese relations. The last two chapters are essential for understanding not only the tension between Russia and (communist) China, but also the tension between Stalin and Lenin/Trotsky.

[Sinan Öner]

The Great Polish Marxist Historian Isaac Deutscher's "The Unfinished Revolution: Russia 1917-1967" is about the history of 1917 Soviet October Revolution, then the formation of Soviet socio-political system in the Soviet Union. Isaac Deutscher is the biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky who were the leaders of 1917 Soviet October Revolution, but in his "The Unfinished Revolution: Russia 1917-1967", Isaac Deutscher writes more freely, he thinks on the different questions of Soviet History before the Second World War, after the Second World War, in the restoration age of Soviet History. For Isaac Deutscher, the 1917 Soviet October Revolution under the leadership of Bolshevik Party of Lenin did not complete, continues with the contradictions or changes. Which programs of 1917 Soviet Revolution were practised, which could not? Why? Isaac Deutscher, as a Historian, thinks on the questions of history of Soviet Union clearly, objectively with his individual feelings, can the 1917 Soviet Revolution complete homeworks in the age of knowledge, scientific-technological revolution of Western world?

[Joshua Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mountain of historical insight into the circumstances surrounding the Soviet Revolution of 1917 and beyond. Not an easy read, but short.