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The Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology
Revealing Selections from the Speeches and Writings of This Century's Most Controversial Political Figure. Edited, with an introduction, by Isaac Deutscher
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1970
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About the author
Isaac Deutscher
51 books145 followersIsaac 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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 9, 2016
I don’t usually read original sources since they tend to be both dry and over my head. For instance, I’ve many times attempted Karl Marx, and never really gotten anything meaningful from it.
This book, a collection from Leon Trotsky’s writings and speeches, was interesting and showed his skills as a polemist, though a lot of the pieces here also didn’t do much for me. I mostly enjoyed his essays about Germany, France and England on the cusp of World War II.
Here is a passage on American imperialism that I highlighted, written in Trotsky’s typical cutting sarcasm:
“The U.S. entered the world arena late, after the whole world had already been seized and divided by the old imperialist powers. The imperialist progress of the U.S. therefore proceeds under the banner of ‘the freedom of the seas,’ ‘open doors,’ and so on. Thus when America is compelled to engage in acts of open military criminality, the responsibility – in the eyes of the U.S. population and to a certain degree in the eyes of mankind as a whole – falls upon all the other citizens of the planet but not on the U.S. itself.
“Wilson helped finish off Germany and then appeared, as you will recall, in Europe accoutred from head to toe in his Fourteen Points, which promised universal well-being and the reign of peace, the right of nations to self-determination, punishment for such criminals as the Kaiser, and rewards to all virtuous people, etc. The gospel according to Wilson!... The provincial professor, summoned to represent American capitalism and dripping from blood up to his knees and elbows – for after all he incited the European slaughter – appeared in Europe as the apostle of pacifism and pacification.”
This book, a collection from Leon Trotsky’s writings and speeches, was interesting and showed his skills as a polemist, though a lot of the pieces here also didn’t do much for me. I mostly enjoyed his essays about Germany, France and England on the cusp of World War II.
Here is a passage on American imperialism that I highlighted, written in Trotsky’s typical cutting sarcasm:
“The U.S. entered the world arena late, after the whole world had already been seized and divided by the old imperialist powers. The imperialist progress of the U.S. therefore proceeds under the banner of ‘the freedom of the seas,’ ‘open doors,’ and so on. Thus when America is compelled to engage in acts of open military criminality, the responsibility – in the eyes of the U.S. population and to a certain degree in the eyes of mankind as a whole – falls upon all the other citizens of the planet but not on the U.S. itself.
“Wilson helped finish off Germany and then appeared, as you will recall, in Europe accoutred from head to toe in his Fourteen Points, which promised universal well-being and the reign of peace, the right of nations to self-determination, punishment for such criminals as the Kaiser, and rewards to all virtuous people, etc. The gospel according to Wilson!... The provincial professor, summoned to represent American capitalism and dripping from blood up to his knees and elbows – for after all he incited the European slaughter – appeared in Europe as the apostle of pacifism and pacification.”
December 18, 2013
H'mmm...of the 4-5 books I've chosen lately to study Leon Trotsky by; this title is turning out the least enjoyable or rich. His writing style here (basically, exhortation and diatribe) is abrasive and coarse; unlike most of his other more polished pieces. I can only assume it is because of their provenance: early issues of Pravda written while he was in exile in Germany trying to bring about the revolution of 1917. These are bellowings, with which he tried to urge the proletariat to become a proletariat. They're not pieces written for academic reflection and they're not pieces which tell us much about the man himself. Merely a batch of political studies written in very hoarse voice.
March 17, 2023
literally a dude screaming into the void. not a book that really explains all of trotskys ideas in detail- i think this book assumes you already know the background for a lot of ideas and terms and events mentioned. which is fine, if you’ve read about him and his ideas before. perfect if you want a trotski perspective on certain case studies etc. but as pure theory with descriptions, no
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews