Trotsky: A Biography

For years I’d heard the USSR would have been radically different had Trotsky won the struggle for power. A main contention of Service is that Trotsky was never going to come out the victor for a variety of well documented reasons. Service presents a convincing argument that this unlikely result would only have been totalitarianism of a slightly different flavor. Well written account of a fascinating man and times.

The photo of Trotsky on the book's jacket is one of the most arresting I've ever seen. The face -- young, intelligent, earnest and, unobscured by the beard, appealing -- explains much about this man's complex character. And the book is billed by The New Yorker as, "unlike much work about Trotsky...the work of a historian, not an ideologue," alluding presumably to Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky's Marxist biographer. So I was well-disposed towards this book.There's obviously much an historian's work behind Robert Service's book, but alas, I can't see much of the historian's craft in it. I was a history major and attended Oxford, and my impression was that the historian's prime directive is rigor. I fail to see much of that here. Besides editorial sloppiness and uneven annotation, there's a lack of detachment. It belies an eagerness to announce, "See, see, I told you he was a bad guy!" which I find unseemly in an historian.Specifically:Service makes it clear early on that his mission is to serve as an antidote to what he regards as the hagiography surrounding Trotsky. What he comes up with is this rather mean-spirited effort to bring Trotsky down a notch or two, mainly by gratuitous and petty personal jabs, often following faint praise. While admitting to Trotsky's intellect, organizing acumen and faithfulness to his creed, Service apparently finds the revolutionary's narcissism a worthy counterweight.Service relates Trotsky's scrupulous reading of a friend's book:"[T]he exclamation marks in the margins testify to angry self-righteousness and intellectual self-regard."I've done that before -- exclamation marks noting something interesting or that I agree with strongly. Was I being self-righteous or egotistical? Risibly, Service opens himself to the same charge later, when he quotes Trotsky relating how, after being on a prison barge for three weeks in Siberia, he "was put ashore with one of the women exiles, a close associate of mine from Nikolaev". Service then uses his own exclamation mark, as he observes: "The last sentence refers to his pregnant wife Alexandra. Just possibly Trotsky was trying to spare her feelings at the time of writing. Even so, what misleading primness!" A rather innocent remark is construed (with that Trotskyist exclamation mark) as marking a character flaw.Service thanks a half-dozen people for reading his manuscript. Apparently their only task was to tell the author how brilliant he is (or maybe how brilliant they are), because they certainly did a lousy job of proofreading.Service identifies one figure as Karlson, then the same person in following passages as Carlson.Service's use of commas evidently depends on his mood. Sometimes he uses them to separate independent clause, but usually not. So we are treated to the likes of (speaking of a Trotsky cousin): "He had recently married Fanni who was the principal of the state school for Jewish girls in Odessa and it was her salary that kept the couple afloat...." This kind of run-on is everywhere.In one paragraph, Service starts calling Bronstein, Trotsky; then in the next calls him Bronstein again. In fact, Service gives a sloppy, off-hand treatment of Lev Bronstein's becoming Leon Trotsky. When did Bronstein finally settle on calling himself Trotsky? Did colleagues and intimates call him Trotsky or did they call him Bronstein or Lev or some nickname?Service gives no explanation about how Bronstein/Trotsky got busted the first couple of times. What exactly were the charges? (Sedition?) We aren't told -- only the rather vague connection with Lev's published polemics, but nothing specific about Trotsky as an agitator, even though Service says Trotsky believed that street agitation was necessary. You'd think there would be transcripts for Service to access.Service is inconsistent in his digs. He says Trotsky "disliked boastfulness," then in the next sentence describes how Trotsky "went on loudly about himself". Service says Trotsky was not well regarded, yet in next passage says he was "marked for leadership". Really?Service is sketchy about Trotsky's unifying beliefs; he doesn't provide at the outset a précis of Trotsky's political philosophy. He talks about Trotsky's "permanent revolution" without explaining what he meant by it.The footnotes are haphazard. Example amongst many: "His eloquence was recognized but the feeling was strong that..." (no footnote). Here Service belies his membership in the Wikipedia school of weasel words.Service tells us of Trotsky's scorn for the Red Cross, as an imperialist tool, then opines that this exposes Trotsky's "lack of humanity". A proper historian would allow the reader to draw his own conclusion or at least limit this kind of stuff to a preface or end chapter.By the way, I don't see any anti-Semitism here, as others claim to have found. Service's coverage of Trotsky's Jewish background seems mattter-of-fact and uncolored by prejudice.In summary:The charitable view of this book is that the enormous body of research Service claims to have done has biased him unfavorably against Trotsky and informs every detail of his narrative. I think it more likely that Service has approached Trotsky like Trevor-Roper approached Hitler: "Trotsky as monster -- a Russian Robespierre -- is a given, and I must remind readers from time to time that I've not fallen in love with my subject."This may work for a polemic but not for a purportedly sober history. And this is very frustrating for a book that is, if you can filter out the editorial sloppiness, the gratuitous asides and the run-on sentences, quite readable and informative, which is why I give it three stars.

In this book, Robert Service completes his biographical trilogy of the protagonists of the October Revolution and its aftermath - Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. As he has in the two earlier accounts, Service meticulously lays bare the influences upon and generated by his subject. While disclosing Trotsky's personal faults, his inability to coalesce factions into a realistic governing role, his inability to empathize on a personal level, his failure at critical times to seize the moment and exercise sound judgment, the author reveals that the heart of Trotsky's downfall was his utopian vision, a worldview historically untenable, philosophically unsustainable, and psychologically misanthropic.Contrary to the assessment offered by Trotsky's apologists throughout the years, Service rightfully concludes that the man was no more likely to have brought to fruition the workers' paradise than was his bête noire, Stalin. "He was close to Stalin in intentions and practice. He was no more likely than Stalin to create a society of humanitarian socialism even though he claimed and assumed that he would. Totsky failed to work out how to move from party dictatorship to universal freedom. He reveled in Terror. . . . Trotskyists invented a man and a leader who bore only an erratic kinship to Lev Davidovich Trotsky." (pp. 497-8)I strongly recommend that you read Trotsky: "Downfall of a Revolutionary," Bertrand M. Patenaude, Harper Collins (2009), in conjunction with Service's "Trotsky: A Biography." Patenaude provides a detailed account of Trotsky's years in exile that is unrivalled. The reader will gain greater insight into the man's later years as he grew older yet unflexible in his commitment to his faith in the ultimate triumph of Marxism.The reality is that even Trotsky was unable to set forth a consistent explication of what all the nonsense was about "dialectical materialism." "Few comrades even professed to understand its meaning." (Patenaude, p. 222) Many of his followers and fellow-travelers were enthusiastic about Trotsky and his views because of their own naivety. "They were blind to Trotsky's contempt for their values. They overlooked the damage he aimed to do to their kind of society if ever he got the chance." (Service, p.466) The truth is that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and his acolytes were (and still are) iconoclasts and sloganeers, and nothing more. "Civilization can only be saved by the socialist revolution. . . . Only that which prepares the complete and final overthrow of imperialist bestiality is moral, and nothing else. The welfare of the revolution - that is the supreme law." - Trotsky, "Their Morality and Ours: The Moralists and Sychophants against Marxism" (1938) (Service pp. 470-1)There is an interesting little book written by a child of American Trotskyists, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, "When Skateboards Will be Free," Dial Press (2009), that reveals the vacuity of blind faith in bankrupt ideology. He notes that his father, a life-long social revolutionary activist, "will gladly hold forth on the largest of subjects: the social evolution of human beings since Homo habilis; the materialist underpinnings of ancient civilization; the French Revolution; the Cold War. . . . The subjects he chooses are usually so vast, so breathtaking, that one can be forgiven for failing to realize how hollow the information is that he imparts. . . . It doesn't matter if he himself knows the intimate details of the topics on which he expounds; his concern is with Truth." (Sayrafiezadeh, p. 134; to his credit, Sayrafiezadeh, when confronted by his girlfriend with the questions: What does it mean to be a communist; what is socialism? ultimately concludes: "I guess I don't know what I'm talking about." pp. 253-4) Despite Trotsky's literary flair and his historic role in dramatic 20th century events, one rightly wonders whether, in the end, he knew what he was talking about.Robert Service has done a masterful job recounting the life and ideas of Trotsky. Typically for him, his research is exhaustive, his writing is insightful, his style exquisite.

As one who minored in Soviet History in graduate school, I eagerly awaited Robert Service's "Trotstky". His biography of Stalin was the best that I have read. But I was disappointed in his book on Trotstky.For one, the book offered little perspective or context on the social democratic groups that grew up in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite my own strong background in the field, I found the book rough going. The narrative included too many people about whom too little was said.The book contains many glaring stylisitc weaknesses. For example, on page 156, Service writes, in the middle of a paragraph that on "2 March [1917]" Czar Nicholas II abdicated. This was a monumental event, yet Service treats it almost like little more than a footnote.The Harvard Ph.D. who taught me Soviet history might find the book rewarding. I found it quite frustrating.

Purchased for my husband after watching documentary. He’s found some major differences in it from the documentary which he finds very interesting and thinks it’s excellent!! Hooray! Thank you! Arrived quickly and very very well packaged- like a precious gift!

As it was expected! I will buy more items from this company.

I found this less satisfying that Service's biography of Lenin - but this partly reflects the material: the Lenin book traces the fascinating shifts in dogma of Lenin to justify splits and short-term political ends, whereas Trotsky remained outside the Bolsheviks until 1917 and remained more interested in panache, oratory, appearance and writing than in party politics. Service shows how Trotsky's haughtiness led him to underestimate Stalin right through until he was murdered in 1940.Unlike Lenin, Trotsky had to deal with the consequences of the regime he created, and his convulsions in doing so forms a good part of Service's excellent book. Trotsky never developed any moral compass or revised his decision to crush opposition like the Mensheviks, the Kronstadt sailors, peasants who wanted to feed ther children, or the Poles. Everything and anything was justified for the "proletarian" cause as interpreted by Trotsky.

As usual from Service, a brilliantly researched, thorough, detailed and impartial portrayal of one of history's most important and divisive figures. Not to mention that it is a fascinating life full of epic events, incredible characters and long-lasting legacy. I always recommend Service to any of my students reading about the Russian Revolution, he gives you everything you need!

Haven't quite finished reading this book. Overall I'm not sure about it, but perhaps reading to the end will clear up some of those doubts.

Read this if you think you can trust the current media

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