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The Third International after Lenin
Written in 1928, this is Trotsky's alternative to Stalin's course toward gutting the revolutionary program of the Communist International. "An international communist program is in no case the sum total of national programs or an amalgam of their common features," Trotsky wrote. "In the present epoch, to a much larger extent than in the past, the national orientation of the proletariat must and can flow only from a world orientation and not vice versa." Suppressed by Stalin in the Soviet Union, its publication elsewhere in the world helped gather the forces that continued the fight to build a revolutionary international movement of the working class. Notes, index. Now with enlarged type. Also available Spanish
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
412 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1930
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About the author
Leon Trotsky
1,090 books800 followersSee also Лев Троцкий
Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.
The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.
People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.
After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.
Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.
The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.
People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.
After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.
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January 28, 2023خواندنی. البته ترجمهٔ هوشنگ امید؛ نشر طلایه پرسو رو خوندم.
September 17, 2025
collection of 5 long-ish essays in which Trotsky denounces the official leadership of the Communist party and the post 1924 Comintern. It's very good, Trotsky's a great writer with a cutting turn of phrase, but I can't see myself taking on another one of these; its pretty tedious reading Lenin bandied back and forth. Thinking about Trotsky piling his desk up with issues of Pravda and Politburo minutes of the past 7 years while the apparatus under Stalin is bedding itself deeper and deeper in all around him.
Big part of Trotsky's critique is aimed at the socialism in one country doctrine on the basis that the market is not a neutral instrument and gains to date are due to a stabilisation in global capitalism - thanks to the US which he has noticed is creating a new extensive world order - and it'll roll back on them to their detriment before long, also because of the United States. One thing I can't shake in reading these is the lack of consideration of his own position or what role he might have had in preventing a culture of socialist administration getting out into the masses. or indeed the Comintern's putschism in Germany, if I recall correctly he was actually to the fore in pushing that forward.
Still annoyed by that way Losurdo argued the anti-Stalin critiques of the USSR treated his personal psychology as a deus-ex machina, which is not the line here, rather it's the recession of prospects for international revolution; in this sense the rightist administrative turn is a drift of the party line towards a new class of enriched peasants. If I ever read another book about the prewar USSR I'd like to see stuff on whether the bureaucracy constituted a class - or a 'strata' or 'formation' or any of those other words people use - and if rich peasants were actually a prime mover as set out here.
Highlight is the final essay which is just a list of enemies: Trotsky denounces 16 Comintern representatives from Hungary, Japan, Germany and others and says all the stupid stuff they've said in the emigré period, how Lenin was unable to contain his laughter when Zetkin said x one time etc. Man could not help himself
Big part of Trotsky's critique is aimed at the socialism in one country doctrine on the basis that the market is not a neutral instrument and gains to date are due to a stabilisation in global capitalism - thanks to the US which he has noticed is creating a new extensive world order - and it'll roll back on them to their detriment before long, also because of the United States. One thing I can't shake in reading these is the lack of consideration of his own position or what role he might have had in preventing a culture of socialist administration getting out into the masses. or indeed the Comintern's putschism in Germany, if I recall correctly he was actually to the fore in pushing that forward.
Still annoyed by that way Losurdo argued the anti-Stalin critiques of the USSR treated his personal psychology as a deus-ex machina, which is not the line here, rather it's the recession of prospects for international revolution; in this sense the rightist administrative turn is a drift of the party line towards a new class of enriched peasants. If I ever read another book about the prewar USSR I'd like to see stuff on whether the bureaucracy constituted a class - or a 'strata' or 'formation' or any of those other words people use - and if rich peasants were actually a prime mover as set out here.
Highlight is the final essay which is just a list of enemies: Trotsky denounces 16 Comintern representatives from Hungary, Japan, Germany and others and says all the stupid stuff they've said in the emigré period, how Lenin was unable to contain his laughter when Zetkin said x one time etc. Man could not help himself
January 8, 2021
This expands upon much of what was touched on in “The New Course” though it is not intentionally related as the focus was the program of the Comintern, the recent failures of communist parties in Europe & Asia & how the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union in it dominance of the Comintern played a role. Written as a critique as well as a defense against accusations of the label of “Trotskyism”, a caricature being made by the bureaucracy.
Trotsky’s concise & seemingly effortless explanation of the pertinent events in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution up & all attempts at repeating it in other nations with unfortunately improper programs makes a lot more of the last 100 years more understandable. There is a heavy focus on the failures of Germany & the farce in China & why they were both doomed to failure. There is also mention of other Eastern European countries but nothing approaching heavy analysis.
I’m highlighting these failures & an incorrect programs, Trotsky laid out what the next Comintern should have been about so as to correct the course if the proletariat were to have a chance at victory & maintaining it.
It might seem mundane or inconsequential to most but I found it helpful as this is the second of three works by Trotsky, which are supposed to show his developing thoughts on the phenomenon that is Stalinism. The first being “The New Course” & the third being “ The Class Nature of the Soviet State”. You can see a clear progression in his analysis & given how much of the history of Stalinism & what it truly is serves to distort the picture, I believe reading & understanding these works are invaluable.
Trotsky’s concise & seemingly effortless explanation of the pertinent events in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution up & all attempts at repeating it in other nations with unfortunately improper programs makes a lot more of the last 100 years more understandable. There is a heavy focus on the failures of Germany & the farce in China & why they were both doomed to failure. There is also mention of other Eastern European countries but nothing approaching heavy analysis.
I’m highlighting these failures & an incorrect programs, Trotsky laid out what the next Comintern should have been about so as to correct the course if the proletariat were to have a chance at victory & maintaining it.
It might seem mundane or inconsequential to most but I found it helpful as this is the second of three works by Trotsky, which are supposed to show his developing thoughts on the phenomenon that is Stalinism. The first being “The New Course” & the third being “ The Class Nature of the Soviet State”. You can see a clear progression in his analysis & given how much of the history of Stalinism & what it truly is serves to distort the picture, I believe reading & understanding these works are invaluable.
June 8, 2018
The Third International After Lenin by Leon Trotsky is a Good book highlighting the correct Marxist Leninist course that should be pursued and followed in the Communist International and supported by workers today. Glaring mistakes made by Stalin are pointed out; moreover the proletarian dictatorship of the Soviet Union ceased to be such for a privileged, petty bourgeois group (Stalin) controlled CPSU rejecting the revolutionary international outlook of Lenin, Marx and Trotsky.
November 25, 2025
Un ouvrage important pour mieux comprendre certains aspects de la théorie de la révolution permanente mais surtout qui montre comment les échecs en Allemagne en 1923, en Angleterre en 1926 et en Chine en 1927 sont liés à la théorie du socialisme dans un seul pays et la dégénérescence de l'URSS. Cela dit pas forcément le livre de Trotsky le plus agréable à lire, les articles qui le composent se répétant par endroit.
November 7, 2025
The document that won Communist Party leader James P. Cannon to Trotsky's ideas
This is an important book. After the death of Lenin, the degeneration of the Russian Revolution proceeded quite rapidly (it had started before, see Lenin's Final Fight: Speeches and Writings, 1922-23). It is a criticism of Stalinism all along the line from the perspective of a revolutionary who was loyal to the views of V.I. Lenin.
Trotsky was the organizer of the insurrection in October 1917 (old calendar). Then, he had been People's Commissar of War and led the Red Army to victory against not only the White Army, but intervention by most European powers, and even the United States. He was a major figure in the Communist International, and Lenin had asked him to take up his fight against the bureaucracy.
Communist Party leader James P. Cannon attended the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928 and came upon this more or less by accident (see The History of American Trotskyism, 1928—1938: Report of a Participant) and was soon expelled and started to build anew a genuine communist party.
"Socialism in one country" vs. world revolution, the errors of the Communist Party in Germany in 1923, the betrayal of the Chinese Revolution by Stalin's support of the Kuomintang (see also On China), The betrayal of the 1926-28 general strike in Britain by the support of Stalin for the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Unity Committee (see also On Britain, now republished as Where is Britain Going?), and much more! (Also see 'The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?).
This fourth edition includes Cannon's introduction to the first edition as an appendix.
This is an important book. After the death of Lenin, the degeneration of the Russian Revolution proceeded quite rapidly (it had started before, see Lenin's Final Fight: Speeches and Writings, 1922-23). It is a criticism of Stalinism all along the line from the perspective of a revolutionary who was loyal to the views of V.I. Lenin.
Trotsky was the organizer of the insurrection in October 1917 (old calendar). Then, he had been People's Commissar of War and led the Red Army to victory against not only the White Army, but intervention by most European powers, and even the United States. He was a major figure in the Communist International, and Lenin had asked him to take up his fight against the bureaucracy.
Communist Party leader James P. Cannon attended the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928 and came upon this more or less by accident (see The History of American Trotskyism, 1928—1938: Report of a Participant) and was soon expelled and started to build anew a genuine communist party.
"Socialism in one country" vs. world revolution, the errors of the Communist Party in Germany in 1923, the betrayal of the Chinese Revolution by Stalin's support of the Kuomintang (see also On China), The betrayal of the 1926-28 general strike in Britain by the support of Stalin for the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Unity Committee (see also On Britain, now republished as Where is Britain Going?), and much more! (Also see 'The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?).
This fourth edition includes Cannon's introduction to the first edition as an appendix.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews