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In Defense of Leon Trotsky
his work contains a devastating refutation of biographies of Trotsky published in recent years by three British historians: Ian Thatcher, Geoffrey Swain and Robert Service. Through a marshaling of facts and detailed analysis, North explains that these works continue the campaign of historical falsification against Trotsky first initiated by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the 1920s. In particular, North’s refutation of Service’s biography has, in the words of Germany historian Hermann Weber, exposed Service as a one who “deals in lies, falsifications of history, dubious references and even anti-semitic prejudices.”
The significantly expanded edition contains a new foreword, four new chapters and two appendices. The additional material includes three lectures for German audiences in Berlin, Leipzig and Mainz, written as answers to apologists for Service’s biography. The fourth chapter, an essay on the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky, is a paper that was delivered at the 2010 conference of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies.
The new appendices include a review of Service and North’s books by historian Bertrand Patenaude, originally published in the American Historical Review, and a letter from 14 historians from Germany, Austria and Switzerland opposing the publication by Suhrkamp Verlag of a German edition of Service’s biography.
In Defense of Leon Trotsky is of immense contemporary as well as historical significance. As North writes in the forward to the second edition, “Trotsky’s life will remain the subject of the bitterest controversy as long as his ideas retain the power to influence the outcome of on-going political and social struggles. The attacks directed against Trotsky are aimed not only against a figure in history, but against a man whose vision of world socialist revolution remains to this day a source of inspiration and hope for the future of humanity.”
This book is critical reading for anyone seeking to understand Trotsky’s life and the enduring relevance of his ideas.
The significantly expanded edition contains a new foreword, four new chapters and two appendices. The additional material includes three lectures for German audiences in Berlin, Leipzig and Mainz, written as answers to apologists for Service’s biography. The fourth chapter, an essay on the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky, is a paper that was delivered at the 2010 conference of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies.
The new appendices include a review of Service and North’s books by historian Bertrand Patenaude, originally published in the American Historical Review, and a letter from 14 historians from Germany, Austria and Switzerland opposing the publication by Suhrkamp Verlag of a German edition of Service’s biography.
In Defense of Leon Trotsky is of immense contemporary as well as historical significance. As North writes in the forward to the second edition, “Trotsky’s life will remain the subject of the bitterest controversy as long as his ideas retain the power to influence the outcome of on-going political and social struggles. The attacks directed against Trotsky are aimed not only against a figure in history, but against a man whose vision of world socialist revolution remains to this day a source of inspiration and hope for the future of humanity.”
This book is critical reading for anyone seeking to understand Trotsky’s life and the enduring relevance of his ideas.
259 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