<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: The Siren's call
Review: "The entire structure of Leninism is at present based on lies and falsification and carries within it the poisonous seeds of its own destruction." Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, known as Trotsky, the one time Social Democrat, one time political opponent of Lenin, one time war correspondent, one time toast of radical society dilatants, one time People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, one time member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, and finally political fugitive and Stalinist purge victim wrote the above quote in 1913. Dmitri Volkogonov's book, Trotsky, provides a stimulating portrait of this fascinating personality and the various roles/political outlooks that he struggled through. To start let's consider Volkoganov's view of the 2nd Party Congress held in London in the summer of 1903. Far from repeating the usual interpretation, he offers a new one, namely that instead of being simply a question of party organization which divided the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, it was "over a difference in the theory and practice of revolutionary methodology. The congress formalized the coexistence of two parallel tendencies: one radical, revolutionary and uncompromising, which would characterize the Bolsheviks; the other reformist, evolutionary and parliamentary, which was to become the hallmark of those henceforth known as Mensheviks" page 29. As the author mentions, it is also interesting to note that the original platform of the RSDLP advocated democracy, secret suffrage, inviolability of the person, freedom of thought, speech, press, movement, assembly, strikes and trade unions as well as other similar goals. How did all these noble dreams of a great humanist state end up as a mass gulag? The answer in one word is Lenin. Lenin, the egotistical nihilist, rejected out of hand any "bourgeois theory", relying solely instead on his own interpretation of Marx and Engels. Any non-Bolshevik political opponent was subject to the worst sort of derogatory comments and personal attack. In March of 1917, Lenin arrived in revolutionary Petrograd unwilling to compromise with anyone and enjoying unlimited financial resources thanks to the German General Staff. Trotsky, who had since joined the Bolsheviks, supported Lenin's hard line unquestioningly. While the Provisional Government worried of an attack from the right, Lenin, ever the cynical opportunist, promised an end to the war and land to the peasants. Bolshevik agitators spread through the army to convince the troops to desert or simply ignore the orders of their officers. By October the stage was set, a radical party of limited support and scope was able to overthrow what remained of the Provisional Government with little effort or bloodshed, but by rejecting all compromise and by ruthlessly exercising complete power, Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks made the Russian Civil War a reality. After the October "Revolution" Trotsky became ever more important to Lenin, whose effectiveness as a speaker was limited. As Yaroslavsky described him at the time, Trotsky was "a man most profoundly dedicated to the revolution, a man who has grown up to be a tribune, with a tongue as finely honed and flexible as steel, a tongue that can cut his enemies down, and a pen which scatters a wealth of ideas like handfuls of artistic pearls." Page 82. Perhaps the author's most important view is that the tragedy that became the Soviet Union required each of the Bolshevik triumvirate to play the part he was most suited for. Lenin was the ruthless opportunist, his unquestioning will to destroy and control by terror setting the tone and shape of the entire system. Stalin was the pathological paranoid master of conspiracy, the consolidator, basically a fascistic criminal, who had got his start in the Party as a bank robber. And Trotsky? He provided the siren's song for the masses, the pure light of his reason projected to attract a storm of adolescent and unquestioning human devotion and energy willing to follow whoever held the red flag. Is it any wonder that Trotsky didn't outlast the Civil War period by very long? After his expulsion, Trotsky provided the excuse for Stalin's tyranny, even supplying the ideological framework for the disasterous "Second October Revolution" of 1928-40. The Bolshevik system required all three and played itself out in a very mechanical, a very deterministic way, success meant retaining absolute power and in that one sense, the only goal with any meaning for Lenin, it was successful until 1991 when the machinary collapsed. Why do unrepentant Leninists in the West continue with the charade that Bolshevism held any hope for mankind? Pride and egotism, along with a cynical and patronizing view of humanity blind them to the shambles all around them, block their noses from the smell of the grimacing, yet rancid Leninist corpse that they have strapped to their backs. That and the role they play as scarecrow/whipping boy for the reactionary and Reaganist right which automatically labels any opposition to the corporate-dominated national security state as "communism" gives them a false, yet ego-enhancing, sense of importance. In other words they'd love to stop acting like trick dogs, but they can't give up the attention they get. This book and the author's biography on Lenin tell the whole sordid history. Time for the "left" to finally bury the Leninist corpse and decide on a counter-argument that exposes Reaganist "behind-closed-doors-government". What America especially needs is a new urge and will to protect our basic human rights and liberties, such as the original goals of our Founding Fathers or, for that matter, of the RSDLP. Nobody needs another utopian ideology, such as Leninism or some deluted, "people-friendly" version of Reaganism, but a pragmatic program that sees humanity, its natural physical environment and its artifical economic environment for what they are and responds accordingly.
Rating:
Summary: The Siren's call
Review: "The entire structure of Leninism is at present based on lies and falsification and carries within it the poisonous seeds of its own destruction." Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, known as Trotsky, the one time Social Democrat, one time political opponent of Lenin, one time war correspondent, one time toast of radical society dilatants, one time People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, one time member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, and finally political fugitive and Stalinist purge victim wrote the above quote in 1913. Dmitri Volkogonov's book, Trotsky, provides a stimulating portrait of this fascinating personality and the various roles/political outlooks that he struggled through. To start let's consider Volkoganov's view of the 2nd Party Congress held in London in the summer of 1903. Far from repeating the usual interpretation, he offers a new one, namely that instead of being simply a question of party organization which divided the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, it was "over a difference in the theory and practice of revolutionary methodology. The congress formalized the coexistence of two parallel tendencies: one radical, revolutionary and uncompromising, which would characterize the Bolsheviks; the other reformist, evolutionary and parliamentary, which was to become the hallmark of those henceforth known as Mensheviks" page 29. As the author mentions, it is also interesting to note that the original platform of the RSDLP advocated democracy, secret suffrage, inviolability of the person, freedom of thought, speech, press, movement, assembly, strikes and trade unions as well as other similar goals. How did all these noble dreams of a great humanist state end up as a mass gulag? The answer in one word is Lenin. Lenin, the egotistical nihilist, rejected out of hand any "bourgeois theory", relying solely instead on his own interpretation of Marx and Engels. Any non-Bolshevik political opponent was subject to the worst sort of derogatory comments and personal attack. In March of 1917, Lenin arrived in revolutionary Petrograd unwilling to compromise with anyone and enjoying unlimited financial resources thanks to the German General Staff. Trotsky, who had since joined the Bolsheviks, supported Lenin's hard line unquestioningly. While the Provisional Government worried of an attack from the right, Lenin, ever the cynical opportunist, promised an end to the war and land to the peasants. Bolshevik agitators spread through the army to convince the troops to desert or simply ignore the orders of their officers. By October the stage was set, a radical party of limited support and scope was able to overthrow what remained of the Provisional Government with little effort or bloodshed, but by rejecting all compromise and by ruthlessly exercising complete power, Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks made the Russian Civil War a reality. After the October "Revolution" Trotsky became ever more important to Lenin, whose effectiveness as a speaker was limited. As Yaroslavsky described him at the time, Trotsky was "a man most profoundly dedicated to the revolution, a man who has grown up to be a tribune, with a tongue as finely honed and flexible as steel, a tongue that can cut his enemies down, and a pen which scatters a wealth of ideas like handfuls of artistic pearls." Page 82. Perhaps the author's most important view is that the tragedy that became the Soviet Union required each of the Bolshevik triumvirate to play the part he was most suited for. Lenin was the ruthless opportunist, his unquestioning will to destroy and control by terror setting the tone and shape of the entire system. Stalin was the pathological paranoid master of conspiracy, the consolidator, basically a fascistic criminal, who had got his start in the Party as a bank robber. And Trotsky? He provided the siren's song for the masses, the pure light of his reason projected to attract a storm of adolescent and unquestioning human devotion and energy willing to follow whoever held the red flag. Is it any wonder that Trotsky didn't outlast the Civil War period by very long? After his expulsion, Trotsky provided the excuse for Stalin's tyranny, even supplying the ideological framework for the disasterous "Second October Revolution" of 1928-40. The Bolshevik system required all three and played itself out in a very mechanical, a very deterministic way, success meant retaining absolute power and in that one sense, the only goal with any meaning for Lenin, it was successful until 1991 when the machinary collapsed. Why do unrepentant Leninists in the West continue with the charade that Bolshevism held any hope for mankind? Pride and egotism, along with a cynical and patronizing view of humanity blind them to the shambles all around them, block their noses from the smell of the grimacing, yet rancid Leninist corpse that they have strapped to their backs. That and the role they play as scarecrow/whipping boy for the reactionary and Reaganist right which automatically labels any opposition to the corporate-dominated national security state as "communism" gives them a false, yet ego-enhancing, sense of importance. In other words they'd love to stop acting like trick dogs, but they can't give up the attention they get. This book and the author's biography on Lenin tell the whole sordid history. Time for the "left" to finally bury the Leninist corpse and decide on a counter-argument that exposes Reaganist "behind-closed-doors-government". What America especially needs is a new urge and will to protect our basic human rights and liberties, such as the original goals of our Founding Fathers or, for that matter, of the RSDLP. Nobody needs another utopian ideology, such as Leninism or some deluted, "people-friendly" version of Reaganism, but a pragmatic program that sees humanity, its natural physical environment and its artifical economic environment for what they are and responds accordingly.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding.
Review: A brilliant insight into the life and times of a man dedicated to the Idea of Revolution first, and socialism, etc, second
Rating: 
Summary: Very poorly written bio of a great man
Review: Attempting to make the most interesting political figure of the twentieth century seem absolutely boring would be quite an obstacle for most people, especially when you have access to the Soviet Presidential Archive, but Dmitri Volkogonov has somehow achieved this task with flying colors. The historian Isaac Deutscher wrote a three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky in the 1950's, and his writings were far superior to this biography of Trotsky by Volkogonov, which was written within the past decade! The playright Edvard Radzinsky had the same access to the Presidential Archive that Volkognov had, yet his biography of Stalin was one of the most informative books I have ever read. Perhaps Volkogonov attempted to take advantage of the newly established market economy in Russia by producing as many books as he could(at the expense of research and lucidity of writing), and after they attained a respectable amount of success, he walked away with all the money(of course he died in 1995, so I guess his family now is now taking the money). He tells the reader everything they could have found elsewhere(even on Microsoft Encarta!), such as Trotsky's birth in Yanavka in 1879, the Russian Social Democratic split in 1903, his first encounter with Lenin, his role as the founder of the Red Army, etcetera, and etcetera. This is all fine if you're not familiar with Trotsky life, but it's not fine if the author has access to as exclusive as documents as the Presidential archive. A prospective reader would have expected a book that claims to be a "breakthrough reinterpetration" of Trotsky to live up to it's name, but I found that it almost certainly didn't. Although [this] is a good price for a Hardback book with a dustjacket, I would still recommend that you just look at MSN Encarta's description of Trotsky, you learn all of the same stuff that Volkogonov somehow crammed into 488 pgs(maybe this is what he did to write the book, who knows?). Edvard Radzinsky has written books about Rasputin, Nicholas II, and Stalin, so there's always the possibility that he'll write a biography of Trotsky, and maybe even Lenin(tasks which would undo all of the damage that Volkogonov has done to the prestige of the Presidential Archive).
Rating:
Summary: Very very very good!!!
Review: Highly recommended for all those really interested in soviet History.
Academically well researched.
Amazon shoul make a special discount for it.!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Trotsky - A Fitting Life for Shakespearean Tragedy
Review: If Shakespeare had been of an era after Trotsky, the immortal playwright could have added another classic to his grand tragedies about Caesar, Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet. The life of Lev Davidovich Bronshtein -- Trotsky -- had all the elements that Shakespeare found essential for his great dramas: a larger-than-life personality, magnificent talents, gigantic flaws, monumental historic wars, pursuit by an incarnate villain and a tragic, violent death. The Shakesperean Trotsky would have lived for ages. Dmitri Volkogonov's biography of the Number Two man (after Lenin) of the Bolshevik Revolution would have given grist to Shakespeare's mill for the Russian biographer's study of Leon Trotsky gives a good view of the man caught up in the spell binding events that shaped Trotsky's time. Volkogonov, a former general in the Soviet army, became chairman of the Russian Declassifying Commission after the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus had access to the super secrets of the old regime. But it is not necessarily the revelations of some of those ultra secrets which makes this biography such a compelling drama. It was Trotsky himself, his life, his great talents, his impossible dreams and his pursuit by one of the Twentieth Century's most vile villains which rivets the attention, plus Volkogonov's hard-driving narrative so admirable translated by Harold Shukman. A leading member of the October Revolution which abruptly transformed Russian history, Trotsky was one of the most prominent Marxist intellectuals. He was considered by many to have been Lenin's heir-apparent. Writer, historian, spell-binding speaker, Trotsky led the Red Army in the Civil War which followed the Revolution and was one of those in the inner circle who helped create the disaster that became the Soviet Union. Early on, however, he saw Joseph Stalin as his nemesis. And Stalin recognized Trotsky as an obstacle to his own ambitions. Thus began an historic persecution, and finally the international flight of Trotsky to avoid being killed by Stalin's doctrinaire assassins. Oh, this is high drama, indeed, and the Volkogonov-Shukman description makes the most of it. The electrifying description of Trotsky's ultimate death in the surrealist surroundings of Mexico after a zealot Stalinist jams an ice-pick into his skull reads like a movies script -- as the actually event certainly must have seemed. This book is a must for the general reader interested in Russia of the 20th Century and a valuable addition to those who are serious historians.
Rating:
Summary: Trostsky Comes Alive
Review: Volkogonov has written a very sensitive portrait of Trotsky. For specialists, of course, it should be combined with a reading of Deutscher's three-volume biography, but for general readers Volkogonov should suffice. Volkogonov's "Trotsky" is not as scholarly as Deutscher's masterly work, but it's more balanced. The author, a disillusioned former Communist, recognizes Trotsky's genius and portrays him in sympathetic and tragic terms, yet frequently reminds us that his subject was working under fatally flawed premises. Since he doesn't take communism seriously on an intellectual level, he spares us most of the details about theoretical clashes among the Bolsheviks over Marxist interpretations. He also reminds us that even though Trotsky never ceased criticizing Stalin's tyranny, his own role in the development of the murderous role of the CPSU was not innocent. Some readers may justly criticize Volkogonov's haphazard organization of his materials, but I find it doesn't detract from his work, and I rather enjoyed his more personal observations.
Rating:
Summary: Trostsky Comes Alive
Review: Volkogonov has written a very sensitive portrait of Trotsky. For specialists, of course, it should be combined with a reading of Deutscher's three-volume biography, but for general readers Volkogonov should suffice. Volkogonov's "Trotsky" is not as scholarly as Deutscher's masterly work, but it's more balanced. The author, a disillusioned former Communist, recognizes Trotsky's genius and portrays him in sympathetic and tragic terms, yet frequently reminds us that his subject was working under fatally flawed premises. Since he doesn't take communism seriously on an intellectual level, he spares us most of the details about theoretical clashes among the Bolsheviks over Marxist interpretations. He also reminds us that even though Trotsky never ceased criticizing Stalin's tyranny, his own role in the development of the murderous role of the CPSU was not innocent. Some readers may justly criticize Volkogonov's haphazard organization of his materials, but I find it doesn't detract from his work, and I rather enjoyed his more personal observations.
<< 1 >>
|
