Product Description
Volume seven of fourteen volumes covering the period of Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929 until his assassination at Stalin's orders in 1940.

Photos, chronology, notes, other writings of 1934-35, index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

DEFEATED, BUT UNBOWED
If you are interested in the history of the International Left in the first half of the 20th century or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the communist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. I have reviewed elsewhere Trotsky's writings published under the title The Left Opposition, 1923-1929 (in three volumes) dealing with Trotsky's internal political struggles for power inside the Russian Communist Party (and by extension, the political struggles insidethe Communist International) in order to save the Russian Revolution.This book is part of a continuing series of volumes in English of his writings from his various points of external exile from 1929 up until his death in 1940. These volumes were published by the organization that James P. Cannon, early American Communist Party and later Trotskyist leader founded, the Socialist Workers Party, during the 1970's and 1980's. (Cannon's writings in support of Trotsky's work are reviewed elsewhere in this space). Look in the archives in this space for other related reviews on and by this important world communist leader.

After the political defeat of the various Trotsky-led Left Oppositions 1923 to 1929 by Stalin and his state and party bureaucracy he nevertheless found it far too dangerous to keep Trotsky in Moscow. He therefore had Trotsky placed in internal exile at Ata Alma in the Soviet Far East in 1928. Even that turned out to be too much for Stalin's tastes and in 1929 he arranged for the external exile of Trotsky to Turkey. Although Stalin probably rued the day that he did it this exile was the first of a number of places which Trotsky found himself in external exile. Other places included, France, Norway and, finally, Mexico where he was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in 1940. As these volumes, and many others from this period attest to, Trotsky continued to write on behalf of a revolutionary perspective. Damn, did he write. Some, including a few of his biographers, have argued that he should have given up the struggle, retired to who knows where, and acted the role of proper bourgeois writer or professor. Please! These volumes scream out against such a fate, despite the long odds against him and his efforts on behalf of international socialist revolution. Remember this is a revolutionary who had been through more exiles and prisons than one can count easily, held various positions of power and authority in the Soviet state and given the vicissitudes of his life could reasonably expect to return to power with a new revolutionary upsurge. Personally, I think Trotsky liked and was driven harder by the long odds.

The political prospects for socialist revolution in the period under discussion are, to say the least, rather bleak, or ultimately turned out that way. The post-World War I revolutionary upsurge has dissipated leaving Soviet Russia isolated. Various other promising revolutionary situations, most notably the aborted German revolution of 1923 that would have gone a long way to saving the Russian Revolution, had come to nought. In the period under discussion there is a real sense of defensiveness about the prospects for revolutionary change. The specter of fascism loomed heavily and we know at what cost to the international working class. The capitulation to fascism by the German Communist and Social Democratic Parties in 1933, the defeat of theheroic Austrian working class in 1934, the defeat in Spain in 1939, and the outlines of the impending Second World War colored all political prospects, not the least Trotsky's.

Organizationally, Trotsky developed two tactical orientations. The first was a continuation of the policy of the Left Opposition during the 1920's. The International Left Opposition as it cohered in 1930 still acted as an external and unjustly expelled faction of the official Communist parties and of the Communist International and oriented itself to winning militants from those organizations. After the debacle in Germany in 1933 a call for new national parties and a new, fourth, international became the organizational focus. Many of the volumes here contain letters, circulars, and manifestos around these orientations. The daunting struggle to create an international cadre and to gain some sort of mass base animate many of the writings collected in this series. Many of these pieces show Trotsky's unbending determination to make a breakthrough. That these effort were, ultimately, militarily defeated during the course of World War Two does not take away from the grandeur of the efforts. Hats off to Leon Trotsky.


THE WRITINGS OF LEON TROTSKY, 1934-35, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971

Asto the 1934-35 writings this reviewer recommends a careful reading of the following articles: Bonapartism and Fascism (an extremely subtle and well-thought article on the similarities and differences between these two political forms of government, The Case of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Others (the first inkling of the later Moscow show trials of the old Bolsheviks and others); The Workers' State, Thermidor and Bonapartism (an important theoretical and political correction about when the degeneration of the Russian Revolution began in earnest); and, the Seventh Congress of the Communist International (an analysis of the new `popular front' strategy at what turned out to be the last Congress of the Communist International).



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Product Description
Volume thirteen of fourteen volumes covering the period of Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929 until his assassination at Stalin's orders in 1940.

Photos, notes, index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

DEFEATED, BUT UNBOWED
If you are interested in the history of the International Left in the first half of the 20th century or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the communist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. I have reviewed elsewhere Trotsky's writings published under the title The Left Opposition, 1923-1929 (in three volumes) dealing with Trotsky's internal political struggles for power inside the Russian Communist Party (and by extension, the political struggles insidethe Communist International) in order to save the Russian Revolution.This book is part of a continuing series of volumes in English of his writings from his various points of external exile from 1929 up until his death in 1940. These volumes were published by the organization that James P. Cannon, early American Communist Party and later Trotskyist leader founded, the Socialist Workers Party, during the 1970's and 1980's. (Cannon's writings in support of Trotsky's work are reviewed elsewhere in this space). Look in the see all my reviews aection in this space for other related reviews on and by this important world communist leader.

After the political defeat of the various Trotsky-led Left Oppositions 1923 to 1929 by Stalin and his state and party bureaucracy he nevertheless found it far too dangerous to keep Trotsky in Moscow. He therefore had Trotsky placed in internal exile at Ata Alma in the Soviet Far East in 1928. Even that turned out to be too much for Stalin's tastes and in 1929 he arranged for the external exile of Trotsky to Turkey. Although Stalin probably rued the day that he did it this exile was the first of a number of places which Trotsky found himself in external exile. Other places included, France, Norway and, finally, Mexico where he was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in 1940. As these volumes, and many others from this period attest to, Trotsky continued to write on behalf of a revolutionary perspective. Damn, did he write. Some, including a few of his biographers, have argued that he should have given up the struggle, retired to who knows where, and acted the role of proper bourgeois writer or professor. Please! These volumes scream out against such a fate, despite the long odds against him and his efforts on behalf of international socialist revolution. Remember this is a revolutionary who had been through more exiles and prisons than one can count easily, held various positions of power and authority in the Soviet state and given the vicissitudes of his life could reasonably expect to return to power with a new revolutionary upsurge. Personally, I think Trotsky liked and was driven harder by the long odds.

The political prospects for socialist revolution in the period under discussion were, to say the least, rather bleak, or ultimately turned out that way. The post-World War I revolutionary upsurge has dissipated leaving Soviet Russia isolated. Various other promising revolutionary situations, most notably the aborted German revolution of 1923 that would have gone a long way to saving the Russian Revolution, had come to nought. In the period under discussion there is a real sense of defensiveness about the prospects for revolutionary change. The specter of fascism loomed heavily and we know at what cost to the international working class. The capitulation to fascism by the German Communist and Social Democratic Parties in 1933, the defeat of theheroic Austrian working class in 1934, the defeat in Spain in 1939, and the outlines of the impending Second World War colored all political prospects, not the least Trotsky's.

Organizationally, Trotsky developed two tactical orientations. The first was a continuation of the policy of the Left Opposition during the 1920's. The International Left Opposition as it cohered in 1930 still acted as an external and unjustly expelled faction of the official Communist parties and of the Communist International and oriented itself to winning militants from those organizations. After the debacle in Germany in 1933 a call for new national parties and a new, fourth, international became the organizational focus. Many of the volumes here contain letters, circulars, and manifestos around these orientations. The daunting struggle to create an international cadre and to gain some sort of mass base animate many of the writings collected in this series. Many of these pieces show Trotsky's unbending determination to make a breakthrough. That these effort were, ultimately, militarily defeated during the course of World War Two does not take away from the grandeur of the efforts. Hats off to Leon Trotsky.

As to the 1929-33 Supplement the reviewer recommends a careful reading of the following articles: Tactics in the USSR (on how the opposition should conduct its propaganda campaign toward the rank and file of the Russian Communist Party); Prospects of the Communist League of America (on the internal difficulties facing the leadership and how to keep it from wreaking the fragile organization in the `dog days' of its existence), Andreas Nin and Victor Serge (notes on two key Left Oppositionists who would later break ranks with Trotsky): On an Entry into the SAP (an important organizational article on the tactics of revolutionary regroupment with forces moving to the left of the Socialist and Communist Parties in Germany); and Trouble in the French Section (how the personal squabbles of a propaganda group paralyze a small organization).

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Customer Reviews (2)

Homage to a Fallen Revolutionary
As far as I know Victor Serge's biography of Leon Trotsky was the first comprehensive evaluation from a left-wing perspective of the Bolshevik leader's life and work after his death. From that perspective it is valuable for two reasons.Serge himself was a secondary Communist leader after the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 and witnessed many of the events described in the book. Moreover, for a long period of time he was a member of the Trotsky-led Left Opposition to the rise of Stalinism which formed in the Russian Communist Party and the Communist International in the 1920's. Additionally, Serge wrote this book in collaboration with Trotsky's widow, Natalia Sedova who provides many of the personal insights into Trotsky's life, work and behavior that round out Serge's historical narrative. This is a task she also performed in Trotsky's memoir My Life and there is some overlap of the material used.Most importantly this biography fills out the last ten years of Trotsky's life not covered in his memoir.If a reader wants a rewarding insider's view of the whirlwind of Trotsky's life from prophetic rise to leadership to subsequent fall and isolation for his steadfast beliefs I would recommend reading both books.

The main task Serge sets himself here is to place the dramatic and ultimately fateful events of Trotsky's life in the content of his role in the peaks and valleys of the Russian revolutionary movement from the turn of the 20th century under his assassination in 1940. Those included his leadership of the defeated Revolution of 1905, his internationalist fight against World War I, his organizing the October Revolution, his creation of the Red Army in the Civil War against the Whites, his various positions as a Soviet official, the defeat of the Left Opposition led by him by Stalin and his henchmen and his failure to create a viable leftwing alternate Stalinist rule in exile. Just to summarize the highlights of his career above indicates that we are dealing with a very big task and a very big historical figure. Although Serge had broken politically with Trotsky several years before this biography was written he senses this and mainly lets Trotsky's accomplishments and mistakes speak for themselves.

As I noted in my review of Trotsky's My Lifemany of the events depicted in this biography such as the seemingly arcane disputes within the Russian revolutionary movement, the very real attempts of the Western Powers to overthrow the Bolsheviksby force of arms in the Civil War after their seizure of power and the struggle of the various tendencies inside the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist Internationalin the 1920's discussed in the book may not be familiar to today's audience. Nevertheless one can take the measure of the man from the strength of Trotsky's commitment to his cause and the fight to preserve his personal and political integrity against overwhelming odds.As the organizer of the October Revolution, creator of the Red Army in the Civil War, theorist, orator, writer and fighter Trotsky was one of the most feared men of the early 20th century to friend and foe alike. Today, the natural audience for the book, especially those trying to find a way out of the impasse that the international labor movement as the victim of aone-sided class war finds itself in, needs to critically assess Trotsky's life and times. This book will help.

Crushed
Victor Serge sketches the itinerary of the international revolutionary within the general history of Russia, for Trotsky's fate is exemplary for that of nearly all the leaders of the bolshevik party. Trotsky's theories and decisions were intimately mingled with all national and international political options.

The author reminds us of the important free elections in Russia in 1919 where the bolsheviks got only 16 % of the votes. However, Lenin swept the results of the table in order to keep the bolshevik party (and himself) in power. From that moment on democracy in Russia was dead.
Trotsky as head of the Red Army provided the ultimate proof of this state of affairs. When in Cronstadt the mariners went on strike for free elections of the soviets, he crushed them to death.

To the amazement of most communist leaders the bolshevik party turned into a monstrous (the words of Lenin himself) bureaucratic organization with a secretary general becoming its untouchable leader. Those leaders made the fatal mistake not to understand that power is an end, not a means.

Stalin consolidated his power and the bureaucracy by installing his apparatchiks all over the country. He promulgated his theory of communism in one country. Trotsky called him 'the gravedigger of the revolution'.
Stalin forced Trotsky out of the party, then out of the country and ultimately sent a secret agent to Mexico to crush him with a sledgehammer.

Victor Serge provides also valuable information about the industrial production in the USSR, the deadly agricultural collectivisation, the Shanghai disaster or Western policies against the USSR.
His book is an excellent, but rather partial evaluation of Trotsky's important role in the creation of, and the opposition to, a regime that influenced forcefully world politics for nearly a century. ... Read more

Product Description
A primer on revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky and his courageous fight against Stalinism. Fifth booklet in the Red Banner Reader series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good booklet
This is a good little reader. It is certainly not a 'book", if that is what you are looking for... ... Read more

Product Description
Volume ten of fourteen volumes covering the period of Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929 until his assassination at Stalin's orders in 1940. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Ever more relevant lessons from the 1930s
This volume contains many gems, including Trotsky's introduction to the first Afrikaans version of the Communist Manifesto and his memorial to his son, murdered by Stalin's agents: "Leon Sedov - Son, Friend, Fighter". But there is something else the reader can gain from reading through this and the other "miscellaneous" Trotsky Writings collections, that you don't get from Trotsky's major books of the 1930s: the picture of a revolutionary leader dealing day by day with every challenge, with issues big and small ranging from world politics to party organisation, providing a political lead in response to revolutionary opportunities and other explosive events as world war II approached. In the early 21st century, with depression conditions and class polarisation extending relentlessly, these lessons from the 1930s become ever more relevant to class conscious fighters seeking a way out of capitalism's terminal crisis.

not a hell black night but basis of victory
Isaac Deutscher, the great historican and biographer of Trotsky, called these years "The Hell Black Night."Then these were years Deutscher, then a Polish Trotskyist, used to slink away in fear from Trotsky's revolutionary perspectives, the only delegate to vote against the founding of the Fourth International.Read these articles, speeches, and interviews and you will understand why during the height of Stalin's purges when the victims were not only comrades, people he fought the Russian revolution with, fought Stalin with, but his own dearest son and closest political collaborator, that Trotsky extended the vision of a new revolutionary international, that Trotsky led his movement to new growth and expansion, politically and numerically on a world scale.Read here how to fight Stalinism and fascism, see here as Trotsky builds a movement on principle. see the faith in history and the revolutionary potential of working people that allowed Trotsky to understand there would be new revolutions, revolutionary communists like Che and Fidel. revolutionists like Thomas Sanakara and Malcolm X.Read the basis for victory for working people around the world.

not a hell black night but basis of victory
Isaac Deutscher, the great historican and biographer of Trotsky, called these years "The Hell Black Night."Then these were years Deutscher, then a Polish Trotskyist, used to slink away in fear from Trotsky's revolutionary perspectives, the only delegate to vote against the founding of the Fourth International.Read these articles, speeches, and interviews and you will understand why during the height of Stalin's purges when the victims were not only comrades, people he fought the Russian revolution with, fought Stalin with, but his own dearest son and closest political collaborator, that Trotsky extended the vision of a new revolutionary international, that Trotsky led his movement to new growth and expansion, politically and numerically on a world scale.Read here how to fight Stalinism and fascism, see here as Trotsky builds a movement on principle. see the faith in history and the revolutionary potential of working people that allowed Trotsky to understand there would be new revolutions, revolutionary communists like Che and Fidel. revolutionists like Thomas Sanakara and Malcolm X.Read the basis for victory for working people around the world.

Moving and scientific pieces
The article on the death of his son, Leon Sedov, is heart-rending and inspiring - a father who must write his child's obituary, a leader who salutes another leader and faces his loss. As always with Trotsky's writings, a rich mixture of political clarity - like the article explaining the difference between the economic foundations of the Soviet economy and its perfidious government - and nuggets of insight - such as the single page on art and revolution. Includes simple, short exposés of the Moscow Trials. Gives the reader a feel for deep, historical truths learned during the Russian revolution that drove Trotsky to keep fighting as the world crumbled into World War II.

Addicting Books
The Trotsky Writings books are addicting. The short pithy, wise articles, interviews, polemics, the illuminating and interesting notes, and the drama of Trotsky's struggle in exile are available on a week to week, month to month, year to year basis across from 1929 until 1940. You end up reading the next article, and the next article, and you have to discipline yourself to put it down if you can. A constant feature is the continued interviews by newspapers, magazines, international press services from the US,Britain, and around the world, because even in exile, even these bourgeois forces knew that Trotsky was one man who could puttogether the trends in the world. As much as they teach us about history,these books teach us revolutionary answers to questionswe need to answer today: how to go from small revolutionary movements to a revolution like Trotsky and Lenin led in 1917,how to fight the middle class bureaucrats in the former Soviet Union and China, how to win workers, farmers, women and oppressed women. ... Read more