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In Defense of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) – the leader of the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s unyielding opponent – remains an immensely controversial figure seventy years after his assassination in Mexico City. In this collection of essays and lectures, David North, an authority on Soviet history, examines the disputes surrounding Trotsky’s life and ideas and explains their contemporary relevance.
Exposing recent efforts by several British scholars to denigrate Trotsky’s historical role by falsifying history, the author insists that their aim is to forestall a resurgence of interest in the great revolutionist at a time when millions of people are becoming disenchanted with capitalism.
“The passions evoked by [Trotsky’s] name testify to the enduring significance of [his] ideas,” North writes in the introduction of his book. “Arguments about Trotsky are never simply about what happened in the past. They are just as much about what is happening in the world today, and what is likely to happen in the future.”
In the first section of In Defense of Leon Trotsky, North explores Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution and insists that it had a decisive impact on the events of October 1917, which is often overlooked by scholars. Examining Trotsky’s varying treatment at the hands of the liberal left intelligentsia over the post-war period, North argues that shifts in the attitude of scholars towards the Russian revolutionary have been bound up with changes in the objective political and economic situation. He challenges today’s historians to once again turn serious and honest attention to Trotsky’s life and ideas.
In the last two parts of the collection, readers will find reviews of recent biographies of Trotsky written by Geoffrey Swain, Ian Thatcher, and Robert Service. North demonstrates that these biographies reproduce many of the same claims made by Stalin in order to besmirch Trotsky reputation and undermine his political authority in the working class. Rather than shedding light on the man and his work, these books, which are riddled with factual errors, are part of the unrelenting campaign of vilification of which Trotsky has been the object for decades.
In Defense of Leon Trotsky contains numerous photographs of Trotsky and family members interspersed throughout the text, as well as a complete index.
Exposing recent efforts by several British scholars to denigrate Trotsky’s historical role by falsifying history, the author insists that their aim is to forestall a resurgence of interest in the great revolutionist at a time when millions of people are becoming disenchanted with capitalism.
“The passions evoked by [Trotsky’s] name testify to the enduring significance of [his] ideas,” North writes in the introduction of his book. “Arguments about Trotsky are never simply about what happened in the past. They are just as much about what is happening in the world today, and what is likely to happen in the future.”
In the first section of In Defense of Leon Trotsky, North explores Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution and insists that it had a decisive impact on the events of October 1917, which is often overlooked by scholars. Examining Trotsky’s varying treatment at the hands of the liberal left intelligentsia over the post-war period, North argues that shifts in the attitude of scholars towards the Russian revolutionary have been bound up with changes in the objective political and economic situation. He challenges today’s historians to once again turn serious and honest attention to Trotsky’s life and ideas.
In the last two parts of the collection, readers will find reviews of recent biographies of Trotsky written by Geoffrey Swain, Ian Thatcher, and Robert Service. North demonstrates that these biographies reproduce many of the same claims made by Stalin in order to besmirch Trotsky reputation and undermine his political authority in the working class. Rather than shedding light on the man and his work, these books, which are riddled with factual errors, are part of the unrelenting campaign of vilification of which Trotsky has been the object for decades.
In Defense of Leon Trotsky contains numerous photographs of Trotsky and family members interspersed throughout the text, as well as a complete index.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 6, 2019
Stalinist tarih tahrifatı üzerine mükemmel bir kitap. Marksizme ilgi duyan herkesin okuması gereken bir kitap. Zaten kitabı okuduğunuzda Çağdaş Marksizm üzerine çok daha fazla şey okuma ihtiyacı hissedeceksiniz.
September 28, 2011
North's damning critique of three recent Trotsky biographers sheds light on disturbing new "scholarship" by academics who are also backed by large British and U.S. publishing houses (including Harvard University Press). It's more and more starting to seem that there is indeed an increasingly conscious effort (not just in the news and rhetoric of U.S. and British politicians and policy makers, but in publishing) to discredit socialism and falsify and misrepresent the history of Socialist thinkers. Very disturbing, but noted.
November 12, 2017
This exposure of what amounts to a process of historical falsification taking place in British, American and German universities is most effective where it helps us see how the suppression of the history of revolutionary socialism relates to the world in which we now live.
The author, associated with the International Committee of the Fourth International, provides a thought-provoking analysis of the legacy of Leon Trotsky in a series of essays, speeches and polemics that trace the necessity of an independent socialist perspective in modern politics.
This collection is a rare find: a forceful commentary on current affairs by an expert in the world socialist movement.
The author, associated with the International Committee of the Fourth International, provides a thought-provoking analysis of the legacy of Leon Trotsky in a series of essays, speeches and polemics that trace the necessity of an independent socialist perspective in modern politics.
This collection is a rare find: a forceful commentary on current affairs by an expert in the world socialist movement.
September 14, 2022
North defends Trotsky with brilliance
Tbis is a great book. David North, a Trotskyist, defends the great revolutionary with integrity, professionalism, honesty and convincingly. He illustrates how current histories of Trotsky are both highly subjective and containing deliberate distortions and omissions. There is an agenda to blacken Trotsky, to tar his image and no doubt, the agenda is rooted in class interst, and often, nasty anti-semitism. This is a case of the dilemmas of history, and the need to fight for truth, to shine light on greats such as Trotsky, despite their human frailities.
Tbis is a great book. David North, a Trotskyist, defends the great revolutionary with integrity, professionalism, honesty and convincingly. He illustrates how current histories of Trotsky are both highly subjective and containing deliberate distortions and omissions. There is an agenda to blacken Trotsky, to tar his image and no doubt, the agenda is rooted in class interst, and often, nasty anti-semitism. This is a case of the dilemmas of history, and the need to fight for truth, to shine light on greats such as Trotsky, despite their human frailities.
January 14, 2014
This book is a wonderful introduction to Leon Trotsky. Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Trotsky remains among the most slandered - and the greatest - political figures of the 20th Century. In fact, it is not possible to understand the events of the 20th Century, without studying his writings. In the course of exposing tendentious "biographers" like Service, David North makes a positive accounting of Trotsky's political life. North published this Second Edition, after his First Edition impelled the American Historical Review to critically examine Service's numerous lies, distortions & errors.
When Trotsky was barely 26, he led the 1905 Soviet in Petrograd. From the outset, he had an internationalist outlook, but out of the experience of 1905, he developed the theory of Permanent Revolution. Later, in 1917, this was to form the political basis of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Trotsky organized & led the Red Army in defeating the White armies, which were supported by the US, Britain and all the major powers. After Lenin's death in 1924, he led the struggle against the growing bureaucracy under Stalin, forming the Left Opposition. After Hitler's coming to power in 1933, he broke with the Stalinized 3rd International to form the 4th International.
His History of the Russian Revolution is a classic, from a historical and literary point of view. His political writings on the developments between the two World Wars are invaluable - in the 1920s the British General Strike & the Chinese Revolution; in the 1930s the growth of fascism in Germany, the French Popular Front, the Spanish Civil War, the Stalinist purges & Moscow Show Trials which murdered the generation of revolutionaries, the Great Depression and the approaching World War. Trotsky was assassinated by Stalin in August 1940.
When Trotsky was barely 26, he led the 1905 Soviet in Petrograd. From the outset, he had an internationalist outlook, but out of the experience of 1905, he developed the theory of Permanent Revolution. Later, in 1917, this was to form the political basis of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Trotsky organized & led the Red Army in defeating the White armies, which were supported by the US, Britain and all the major powers. After Lenin's death in 1924, he led the struggle against the growing bureaucracy under Stalin, forming the Left Opposition. After Hitler's coming to power in 1933, he broke with the Stalinized 3rd International to form the 4th International.
His History of the Russian Revolution is a classic, from a historical and literary point of view. His political writings on the developments between the two World Wars are invaluable - in the 1920s the British General Strike & the Chinese Revolution; in the 1930s the growth of fascism in Germany, the French Popular Front, the Spanish Civil War, the Stalinist purges & Moscow Show Trials which murdered the generation of revolutionaries, the Great Depression and the approaching World War. Trotsky was assassinated by Stalin in August 1940.
July 13, 2014
Outstanding response to the "biography" by Robert Service. North sets the record straight and reveals what a huckster Service is.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews