Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary's Life

by Joshua Rubenstein

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a clear-eyed exploration of the career of Leon Trotsky, the tragic hero who “dreamed of justice and then wreaked havoc,” by a leading expert on human rights and the former Soviet Union

Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in southern Ukraine, Trotsky was both a world-class intellectual and a man capable of the most narrow-minded ideological dogmatism. He was an effective military strategist and an adept diplomat, who staked the fate of the Bolshevik revolution on the meager foundation of a Europe-wide Communist upheaval. He was a master politician who played his cards badly in the momentous struggle for power against Stalin in the 1920s. And he was an assimilated, indifferent Jew who was among the first to foresee that Hitler’s triumph would mean disaster for his fellow European Jews, and that Stalin would attempt to forge an alliance with Hitler if Soviet overtures to the Western democracies failed.

Here, Trotsky emerges as a brilliant and brilliantly flawed man. Rubenstein offers us a Trotsky who is mentally acute and impatient with others, one of the finest students of contemporary politics who refused to engage in the nitty-gritty of party organization in the 1920s, when Stalin was maneuvering, inexorably, toward Trotsky’s own political oblivion.

As Joshua Rubenstein writes in his preface, “Leon Trotsky haunts our historical memory. A preeminent revolutionary figure and a masterful writer, Trotsky led an upheaval that helped to define the contours of twentieth-century politics.” In this lucid and judicious evocation of Trotsky’s life, Joshua Rubenstein gives us an interpretation for the twenty-first century.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics, Judaism, Judaica

238 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2011

About the author

Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. He was a staff member of Amnesty International USA from 1975 to 2012. He lives in Brookline, MA.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 200 page book compares well with the 600 page Robert Service biography of 2009 (Trotsky: A Biography). While keeping Trotsky's full life in perspective, author Joshua Rubenstein notes the influence of Trotsky's Jewish ethnicity on his actions and outlook and how it could be, and was, used against him. Of the two books, Service has a more detailed chronology of his life, but Rubenstein's gives a far better portrait of who this man was.

In exploring Trotsky's Jewish roots, he brings up points not often said out loud about Pre-Revolutionary Russia. While many histories note the pogroms, they rarely assign responsibility; Rubenstein cites sources that show, or in some cases circumstantially show, the pogroms to be policy directly from the tsar. In observing the large number of Jews in the revolution, Rubenstein notes that the more thoughtful members of the autocracy noted that had they been treated as badly as the Jews, they join the revolution too. In Post-Revolutionary Russia, Rubenstein notes that Stalin's call to German communists to break with other socialists helped pave the way for Hitler.

Rubenstein shows how David Bronstein, Trotsky's father and successful farmer, could be cruel to his son and crueler yet to the peasants whose lives depended on him. In the Service book, the expropriation of the family farm seems to come in the course of the unfolding revolution. While Rubenstein doesn't describe the "reform" of the Bronstein land, his observations provide insight into how Trotsky developed the views that ultimately led to his father losing his land.

Trotsly's relationships with Lenin and Stalin are also more clearly drawn by Rubenstein than by Service. Two items stick with me: In 1912, Lenin took the name ("Pravda", meaning truth) of the newspaper Trotsky had established and nurtured, for his own (Lenin's) paper. In 1913, Stalin, whom Trotsky had never met, walked into his apartment without knocking, helped himself to tea, and walked out. Both actions show an early disposition to marginalize Trotsky.

Rubenstein has a good description of Trotsky's role in creating the dictatorial monolith that shut him out and likely killed most of his family. He shows how Trotsky helped centralize power by closing down newspapers/destroying presses, creating a secret police, overturning election results by dissolving the Constituent Assembly, firing on supporters of election victors as well as reluctant members of his own army, and meted out severe punishment and death to opponents and critics.

The cover portrait shows the well-dressed Trotsky in a "young revolutionary" pose. The expression is both studied and arrogant. The inside portrait threw me... was this the author? Someone's kindly uncle?... No it is Trotsky fishing in Mexico. In these two portraits we see the Trotsky enigma. How did the child who sympathized with the peasants whom his father abused come to brutalize so many? How did this writer, linguist and lover of art, come to usurp the civil liberties, lives and dignity of so many? Would history have been different had Trotsky prevailed over Stalin?

Of course these questions are not answered. Perhaps the question that can be answered in our lifetime is how Stalin was given a pass by western journalism, examples being "The Nation" and "The New Republic", (pp.177-179), the New York Times (p. 204 and elsewhere in the book). Rubenstein notes Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna: A Novel), among others has explored this.

This book is written for the series "Jewish Lives" and the role of persecution/discrimination are themes. There is nothing on Trotsky's spiritual life since Trotsky claims to have none, and left no evidence to the contrary. He felt that the revolution would sweep away all injustices suffered by Jews. While these are themes, the book goes well beyond Trotsky's heritage and adds to contemporary discussion of his life.

[Kokelector · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bajo el alero de un programa de estudios, llamado “Judíos Importantes en la Historia” de la universidad de Harvard, Joshua Rubenstein comienza la “investigación” y escritura de este libro.
Y va entre comillas su trabajo investigativo, porque como él mismo lo reconoce al final del libro, no realiza ningún aporte significativo más que una interpretación menos severa, que su colega Robert Service, con una biografía cargada de datos que ya se conocen -utiliza sólo libros de la vida de Trotsky, incluyen Mi Vida, y otras similares, pero no fuentes directas o liberadas por la misma URSS en estos años- y con una interpretación liberal-democrática de la misma. Sus juicios sobre la forma de vida de él, como revolucionario profesional, entregando su vida a la causa y cayendo por ella años más tarde; son para el autor una perspectiva de que algo no estaba bien en la cabeza de Trotsky. Argumentando en cómo fue quedando solo en el camino, otorgando parte de una responsabilidad casual al papel jugado por Stalin en la toma del poder, y más bien entendiendo que el dogma y su funcionamiento como fe, por parte de quien estudia, explican el término de sus días y su alejamiento del poder.
La palabra indomable en el título, podría ser el resumen perfecto desde la lógica que nos quiere mostrar este historiador. Un personaje histórico, que no tuvo reparos en hacer lo que hizo sólo por el objetivo revolucionario que tenía. Si bien es una interpretación sesgada, no deja de ser importante leerlas y conocerlas, para intentar armar un panorama completo de un personaje crucial en la historia del S.XX. Citando las mismas palabras de Trotsky: “nada se ha conseguido en el mundo sin pasión.” Y es un debate de ideas abierto hasta el día de hoy, en donde vuelve a ponerse en entredicho el papel del capitalismo, su solvencia y las respuestas que se puedan dar ante esta crisis de proporciones que estamos viviendo.
Me quedó con esa idea fija al terminar de leer: ¿cómo podremos dialogar? Comenzamos a tener posiciones de trinchera, sin más recursos que sólo creencias ciegas en lo que pensamos y no damos ese espacio para intentar el punto de acuerdo común que nos permita salir del atolladero. Las reflexiones en torno a los primeros años de la revolución bolchevique, en donde Lenin y Trotsky fueron sus protagonistas, no hubiese diferido en nada de su resultado de no llegar Stalin a hacerse con el control total del poder. Una lectura que abre esa pregunta: ¿hasta dónde estamos dispuesto a transar y/o avanzar por nuestros objetivos? Más hoy, que esta crisis viene a develar todo el mal que ha dejado estos años políticas neoliberales y que el mundo ha comenzado a cuestionar. Es una lectura entretenida para quienes no conocen nada de la biografía de Trotsky, porque no aporta datos nuevos, pero si permite rumiar ideas una y otra vez en torno a los papeles ideológicos que se pueden jugar en la historia. Comentario aparte es volver a encontrarse con información fascinante sobre el fervor que movía a un líder político, pensando siempre en que era inevitable una revolución sólo por el hecho de saber lo mal que está el mundo. No es una lectura imprescindible, pero cumple su función.

[Barry Smirnoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biography from the perspective of Jewish themes

This is a short biography of Trotsky that includes information from a number of sources, both primary and secondary. It deals with the Jewish elements of his life and times. Trotsky became a Marxist at a very young age and had very little exposure Jewish life. He had many encounters with anti-Semitism in Russia and the USSR, and this affected his ideology in many ways. There is only a sketch of his theories and of his personal life. But I found this an interesting book even with these criticisms.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trotsky was a brilliant political mind, a talented orator, and a failed strategist. He along with Karl Marx changed political idealism forever so that working class man had a voice in the world stage. The terms Bolshevik, proletariat, anarchist, revolutionary, protest, terrorist, socialist, communist, all come from the profound minds of the Russian Jewish intellectuals who lived to change the world.

[Horia Bura · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting biography of one of the most tragic political figures of the twentieth century, written in an exciting style, benefiting from a balanced, critical, not at all hagiographic approach to Trotsky's life. The author calls for numerous writings about Trotsky's life, contradicting many interpretations (especially by Isaac Deutscher) and offering his own findings and assessments.

[Tyler Amick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written. However I am disappointed in the lack of foot/endnotes

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short interesting take.

[Christopher Potter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrifically-executed concise biography of a brilliant and arrogant ideologue who became an unprincipled murderous maniac. The most interesting parts were the overviews of the deliberately misleading propaganda tactics used by the Tsarist regime and later by the Bolshevik revolutionaries -- tactics that plainly live on long after those particular regimes have entered "the dustbin of history" (a phrase that Trotsky apparently coined).

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy buena biografía de Lev Davidovich Bronstein: Trotsky. Joshua Rubenstein ha logrado una concisa presentación de todo lo importante en la vida del revolucionario indomable. Creo que acertadamente se prioriza la biografía política, pero sin omitir eventos importantes de su vida personal que tuvieron impacto político. En comparación con la biografía de Trotsky escrita por Robert Service, creo que la de Rubenstein es menos antagónica con el enérgico revolucionario ucraniano. En cualquier caso, ambas biografías muestran las mismas tensiones entre Trotsky y Lenin por un lado, y entre Trotsky y Stalin por el otro lado. Rubenstein y Service afirman que la Unión Soviética habría sido igualmente dictatorial y criminal tanto bajo Stalin, como bajo Trotsky. Creo que este razonamiento contrafáctico no es admisible en la investigación histórica rigurosa, pero no deja de ser interesante la construcción de las argumentaciones en el género literario biográfico que siempre oscila entre lo documental y lo ficcional. Esta biografía de Rubenstein, en particular, presenta un Trotsky narcisista, mesiánico, torturado por su condición de judío en un Imperio Ruso claramente antisemita. También muestra a un intelectual muy seguro de sí mismo, talentoso retórico, excelente escritor, lúcido en momentos difíciles, pero errático en momentos decisivos. Opino que este libro es valioso para intentar comprender a uno de los máximos protagonistas de la historia reciente que le ha dado forma al mundo contemporáneo. Creo que se trata de un libro muy recomendable junto con la biografía titulada Trotsky de Robert Service. A la vez, pienso que conviene leer ambas biografías junto con la autobiografía de prolífico Lev Davidovich Bronstein titulada Mi Vida.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice short survey of Leon Trotsky's life, which had interesting insights into his Jewishness and how it played into his life. My one quibble would be that some of author Joshua Rubenstein's criticisms of Trotsky seem a little retrospective. For instance, that Trotsky countenanced violence during the Civil War isn't necessarily that shocking; if it was, Abraham Lincoln wouldn't be widely considered the greatest U.S. president. Ultimately, Trotsky's legacy rests on one thing: whether the system he helped create inevitably aided and abetted Stalinism or whether the Soviet Union could have been something entirely different but for Stalin taking power.

From the book:

"Trotsky remained convinced -- and committed to convincing others -- that the regime he and Lenin had sought to establish had never been intended to result in the kind of dictatorship Stalin was fashioning. This belief had both intensely personal and historical dimensions and was central to the dilemma Trotsky faced in exile. While he was documenting his role alongside Lenin in the creation of the first socialist state, he felt compelled to assert that they had some other kind of dictatorship in mind. In his eyes, Stalinism should not be considered a natural or inevitable consequence of Bolshevism. Trotsky could not accept the idea that Stalin might be Lenin's true heir and therefore, in a paradoxical way, his own. So he wrote vivid descriptions of Stalin's crimes and remained oblivious to Lenin's. He seemed to be haunted by the fear that he had helped to create the system that was destroying his family along with his dream of a socialist utopia."

[Carolyn Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short biography of Trotsky with a focus on his writings and how he perceived his own identity. Lots of interesting details including the time he spent in a prisoner of war camp in Amherst, Nova Scotia in early 1917 and his probable affair with Winston Churchill's cousin, the sculptor Clare Sheridan. The author interviewed Trotsky's grandson, and carefully weighs evidence from surviving sources and perspectives from previous biographies.

[Sherry Leffert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a thorough, well written biography of Leon Trotsky and his place in the Russian Revolution. It was honest in its appraisal of Trotsky, the tragedy of his life and journey as a revolutionary whose dream turned into repressive nightmare. The book is a gem for anyone interested in this man and his time.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leon Trotsky was both an intellectual and a man of action. One of the charismatic leaders of the Russian Revolution—Lenin said there was no better Bolshevik—he created the Red Army through virtually an act of will and led it to victory in the 1918-20 civil war. But he was also a mesmerizing dissenter, sent by Stalin into exile in 1927 and then murdered in Mexico by one of Stalin's agents in 1940.

Trotsky was Jewish—born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in 1879—and it is as such that he is treated in Joshua Rubenstein's brief biography, part of Yale University Press's Jewish Lives series. Trotsky said that his ethnic background had not the slightest influence on his life. But no one inquiring into his origins can ignore what it meant to be a Jew in a Russia permeated with anti-Semitism or can suppose that because Trotsky opposed Zionism—or, indeed, any movement or policy that favored Jews—he was unaffected when many of his actions were attributed to his Jewishness.

Isaac Deutscher, the author of the classic biography of Trotsky (three volumes, published between 1954 and 1963), largely took his subject at his word, noting only those instances when Trotsky himself raised the issue of his Jewishness. Trotsky rejected, for example, Lenin's wish to appoint him commissar of home affairs in 1917, pointing out, according to Deutscher, that counter-revolutionaries would "whip up anti-Semitic feeling and turn it against the Bolsheviks." After Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky appealed to Nicolai Bukharin, a fellow Politburo member, to speak out against the anti-Semitic Party members working for Stalin who had begun "hinting" (Deutscher's word) that Trotsky had better give way to "native and genuine Russian socialism." Otherwise, Deutscher is as silent as his subject about the nexus between "Trotsky and the Jews."

That is the title of a chapter in Robert Service's "Trotsky" (2009), which provides helpful background. Trotsky was not a so-called self-hating Jew. He often lived among Jews in Russia and abroad, but he described himself as an "internationalist," which meant that he wanted nothing whatever to do with specifically Jewish causes. He neither favored nor discriminated against Jews and spoke up for them only in terms of his defense of all minorities suffering discrimination.

Mr. Service, however, clarifies an aspect of Trotsky's belief and behavior that bears directly on what Mr. Rubenstein calls Trotsky's "curiously passive" stance during the period after Lenin's death, when Stalin was busily lining up allies and consolidating his hold on power. Mr. Service observes: "Trotsky continued to believe that his own prominence in government, party and army did practical damage to the revolutionary cause." Surprisingly, Mr. Rubenstein, who is highly critical of Mr. Service's biography for its "gratuitous criticism of Trotsky's character and personality" and its failure "to understand the full complexity of Trotsky's relationship to his Jewish origin," does less in a whole book than Mr. Service did in that single sentence to explain why it was—with the fate of a revolution in his hands, with at least the chance to outwit and even outgun Stalin—Trotsky hesitated and so lost. (He also underestimated his opponent, thinking that because Stalin had neither his intellect nor experience, he would fail.)

To put it another way, Mr. Rubenstein's Trotsky is not Jewish enough. Like Deutscher, he seems beguiled by Trotsky's own denials. In one sense, this accession is understandable. How can the biographer say being a Jew was important to Trotsky when Trotsky's public pronouncements and actions—and even his private behavior—seem devoid of any sort of Jewish resonance. To harp on his Jewishness, to endow it with special qualities, would play into the most anti-Semitic notions of Jewishness. But though Trotsky never tired of saying "I'm no Jew, I'm an internationalist," he knew very well that nothing would change ingrained prejudices. And so knowledge of his Jewishness affected his decisions at the most important moment of his career.

Although Mr. Rubenstein conscientiously describes Trotsky's dealings with Jews and Jewish issues, he is wary of attributing any feelings and motivations about Trotsky's ethnicity to Trotsky himself. He never mentions it in analyzing Trotsky's downfall, for instance, though this is ascribed to many factors: Trotsky's early opposition to Lenin, which many Bolsheviks could not forgive; Trotsky's independent and outspoken attitudes, which, mixed with contempt for his rivals, made it difficult for him to secure allies; Trotsky's refusal to act as ruthlessly as his opponent; the strange and seemingly psychosomatic fevers that felled Trotsky at critical moments; and Trotsky's absolute faith in the authority of the party that was in the vanguard of history and his countervailing lack of faith in individuals.

These are all reason enough for Trotsky's decisive failure, and they have been carefully canvassed in the many other Trotsky biographies. And yet a biographer charged with looking at a single issue and how it played out in Trotsky's life might just want to exercise a little boldness, not refuting the multiple reasons for Trotsky's failure to seize power but suffusing them with the underlying premise that, in the eyes of so many others, once a Jew, always a Jew—as Trotsky himself knew full well.

Only once does Mr. Rubenstein seem to recognize Trotsky's lifelong plight. The biographer recounts his subject's response to the case of Mendel Beilis, a brick-factory worker accused of murdering a 12-year-old boy in Kiev in 1912, supposedly to use the blood to prepare matzoh for the Passover holiday—the old blood libel. The trumped-up charges and trial gave rise to world-wide protests and were treated by Trotsky as a czarist effort to stir up anti-Semitism (always a useful outlet for discontent).

Trotsky wrote extensively about the trial (unmentioned in the Deutscher or Service biographies), not merely denouncing it but expressing his disgust even after the jury acquitted Beilis. The cautious Mr. Rubenstein notes that Trotsky's commitment to social justice had "several sources," none of which Trotsky attributed to his Jewish upbringing. But then, summing up Trotsky's passionate coverage of both the Beilis case and earlier the oppressed Jewish community in Romania, he adds this, the most important passage in his whole book:

Perhaps he did not think of himself as a Jew in the same way that they were Jews; he was a Marxist, a convinced internationalist, a man who resisted any narrow parochial appeal in the name of a universal, political faith. But he had still been born and raised as a Jew. Perhaps the starkness of their lives touched something so deep inside his emotional life that he needed to vomit it out, to disgorge it before it compelled him to see himself in their faces. At moments like these, Leon Trotsky was a Jew in spite of himself.

And I would add: not only at those moments. Just at the moment when Trotsky commanded the world stage and still had time to stop Stalin, he may very well have wondered about doing permanent injury to the revolution he had done so much to bring about by now vouchsafing it to a Jew. As an introduction to Trotsky, Mr. Rubenstein's biography is succinct and reliable. As the last word on Trotsky as Jew, it seems surprisingly reluctant to pick up on the strains in history and in Trotsky's own character that made it impossible for a Jew to command Lenin's legacy.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joshua Rubenstein’s biography of Leon Trotsky was published in 2011. Joshua Rubenstein is a professor of Russian and Eurasian Center at Harvard University. Rubenstein tried to write a balanced view of Trotsky. The book is for Yale University Press and the Leon D. Black Foundation's Jewish Lives series. Due to this, the book is interested in Trotsky's relationship with his Jewish identity. The book is also interested in giving a short overview of Trosky’s life. Trotsky lived for an eventful sixty years. Trotsky was also a complex figure with a complex legacy. I am not an expert on the life of Trotsky, but I believe that Rubenstein’s book does an excellent job of navigating these different elements in this short book. The book has a section entitled “Notes on Sources.” The book has an index. Rubenstein writes that “Trotsky asserted that he and Vladimir Lenin had wanted to fashion a different kind of dictatorship than Joseph Stalin. History is full of such tragic heroes. They dream of justice and then wreak havoc” (Rubenstein “Preface”). The epilogue was interesting in that it briefly covered what happened to people who assassinated Trotsky and also briefly several of his loyal followers. I thought Joshua Rubenstein’s biography of Trotsky to be well done biography.

[Beth Trautmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, concise, fascinating biography of Trotsky.

Trotsky's early life was marked by loneliness brought about by his parents lack of warmth towards him; his ambivalence about his Jewishness; his passivity towards Stalin's devious manipulation, and his willingness to use extreme violence for the cause of furthering his revolutionary ideals.

We all have known brilliant people who refuse or are unable to see reality. The author quotes French diplomat Louis de Robien who describes Trotsky as "lost is his dreams which to him are reality and on which he bases all his actions." (page 105).. I believe this is the key to understanding Trotsky's life. His had a mind populated by false hopes. He never let go of these hopes. He never gave up fighting a futile battle.

Rubenstein provides a clear analysis of Trotsky, the unloved child, the Jewish atheist, the father who abandoned two of his children, the misguided revolutionary, the permanent exile always on the run, and finally a murder victim who was unable to elude his nemesis.

Outstanding work of biography.

[Nano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta biografía sirve para aquellos que intentan saber acerca de la vida del gran personaje histórico. En ese sentido cumple su objetivo. Y si bien no se detiene a profundizar o realizar un análisis político de su vida, menciona los avatares de su trayectoria. El tema con las biografías de este tipo de actores destacados de los procesos históricos, cuando no son acompañadas de una evaluación contextual y política, tal vez para evitar polémicas o mostrarse como por fuera de éstas, o incluso tal vez pensando en hacerlos más humanos, le quitan lo que precisamente caracteriza a estos personajes y los hace tan interesantes, que es la indisoluble interrelación entre individuo y sujeto histórico. Queda claro la opinión del autor acerca del comunismo, el marxismo y la URSS, incluso del propio biografiado y ello lo enrieda en una valoración axiológica de la cual no puede despegarse. Tengo que leer la de Dreuscher.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I knew a fair amount about the Russian Revolution but I really learned a lot from reading this biography of Leb Bronstein (yes, that was Trotsky's real name, and he did take the name of one of his jailers when he has to quickly fill out a false passport). He was a brilliant strategist, journalist and orator but also ruthless -- if a unit of the Red Army defected, he ordered every tenth man as well as the commander and commisar to be executed. He was imprisoned under the Tsar several times, and escaped prison and exile, but he couldn't escape Stalin's forces, His home in Mexico was assaulted by armed gunmen (led by the muralist David Siqueiros!) and though he miraculously came through that, he was assassinated by a Stalinist posing as the boyfriend of one of his secretaries. Geez! One of the first people to see his corpse in the hospital was Saul Bellow!

[Keith W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this fine little book very much. The author writes well and seems to provide a fresh look at Trotsky, who has been much studied over the years. I was especially interested to read about Trotsky's relationships with his two wives and other family members. On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed by what seemed to me to be a somewhat vague account of what happened to Trotsky in Russia between the time of Lenin's death and his expulsion from the country but perhaps less is know about that period of his life since Russia then was so cut off from the West. I agreed with many of the author's appraisals and judgments about Trotsky and his life. Like most good books, this one left me wanting to learn more about its subject and, for that, I thank author Rubenstein.

[Voyt · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn what and who caused Revolution in Russia read this essential book. You will learn about Revolution as well..Lenin, and Stalinism through the prism of Trotsky's life. In this compact objective biography, Joshua Rubenstein makes it clear from the outset that he is not an “admirer or a follower” of the historic socialist revolutionary. Neither does the author “seek to savage” Trotsky for his “personal failing, real or alleged”. Page 163 triggered my attention (qote): "In 1931....Hitler ranted to them about his enemies......the communists, the Vatican, the Jews, Freemasonry, the press, Karl Marx, Trotsky, and the city of Berlin" (I presume 'the government').
This is stunning as we observe the same today, nothing much has changed.

[Mark Matzeder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary's Life was offered in a series of biographies of prominent Jewish individuals. Trotsky himself only identified as Jewish superficially, and sometimes cynically.
Rubenstein seeks to walk the via media between ravaging Trotsky and lionizing him. His Trotsky comes across as a tragic figure who built his own gallows through personal and ideological compromises of his principles.
Trotsky is known for having advocated "perpetual revolution," which, within Marxist orthodoxy concerned spreading proletarian revolution globally, but is just as valid as a recognition that Power corrupts and there will always be a need to overthrow corruption in government. Trotsky's Tragic Flaw was becoming what he railed against.

[Rob Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up off the street one day as I didn't really know enough about Trotsky when I read about his visitations to Spain during that Spanish Civil War book I read a while ago. Short book at 200 pages and moves rather quickly. It is part of a Jewish lives series but it's focus on his Judaism is no more than I would expect from any other biography and I found it additive. An interesting character and this has me interested in reading his actual biography but still want to read more about anarchy first.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A first rate exercise in historical scholarship that is simultaneously in-depth and concise. Short, sweet, to the point, yet brimming with detail and drama. Joshua Rubenstein conveys a tragedy of ideology, dogma, atrocity, and preposterous naivety with methodical clarity.

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of Trotsky's life and death. Well researched and highly readable.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illuminating deconstruction of a brilliant. intellectual who believed in brutality, terrorism, and mass murder.

[Banbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a well written history that contains a tremendous amount of information. It tells the story well and truly, and has a point of view.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear and concise

[James Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and well-written introduction to the life of Leon Trotsky.

[S C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short biography. A couple of small grammatical mistakes. An addition to the conversation on Trotsky.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leon Trotsky was a central figure of the Russian Revolution, one of the most significant historical events of the 20th century. But he is a challenging biography subject because his most interesting and dramatic activities occurred in 1905 (when he was 25-26) and 1917 (when he was 37-38), but he lived to the age of 60. His later years, in exile, were spent writing (he produced histories of both Russian revolutions and biographies of both Lenin and Stalin, as well as his own memoirs), unsuccessfully trying to move to countries (the U.S. and France) that wouldn't have him, and enduring family tragedies. But not much else. Rubenstein takes a balanced approach, and succeeds in bringing his subject to life within the 200-page constraint he was given by his publisher (the book is part of Yale University Press's Jewish Lives series), but the result for me was too much information on the exile years and too few details on the Russian Revolutions.

That being said, the book is very well written and organized, thoroughly researched, and ideologically balanced. A useful short introduction to the life and ideas of one of the 20th century's most important historical figures.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not long ago I read "Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell's memoir of the Spanish Civil War. In his discussion of the political complexities of the war, he repeatedly mentions how the various Socialist and Anarchist factions were derisively dismissed as "Trotskyites" by the Soviet-backed hardline Communists. This made me realize that I only had a sketchy knowledge of Leon Trotsky. I picked this book up as a short, light biography of the man. It serves that purpose admirably, laying out the whos, whats and wherefores of Trotskty's life. There is very little editorializing for or against. In fact, a little more analysis would have been welcome. Rubenstein keeps his writing concise and to the point. Some background in the intellectual framework of Russian Communism would be helpful, as Rubenstein apppears to assume that the reader has some prior knowledge of Marx and Lenin, as well as Stalin's purges and reign of terror.