History of the Russian Revolution

History of the Russian Revolution

Leon Trotsky

Language: English

Pages: 1040

ISBN: 1931859450

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


“During the first two months of 1917 Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later the Bolsheviks stood at the helm. They were little known to anybody when the year began, and their leaders were still under indictment for state treason when they came to power. You will not find another such sharp turn in history especially if you remember that it involves a nation of 150 million people. It is clear that the events of 1917, whatever you think of them, deserve study.”
--Leon Trotsky, from History of the Russian Revolution

Regarded by many as among the most powerful works of history ever written, this book offers an unparalleled account of one of the most pivotal and hotly debated events in world history. This book reveals, from the perspective of one of its central actors, the Russian Revolution’s profoundly democratic, emancipatory character.

Originally published in three parts, Trotsky’s masterpiece is collected here in a single volume. It serves as the most vital and inspiring record of the Russian Revolution to date.

“[T]he greatest history of an event that I know.”
--C. L. R. James

“In Trotsky all passions were aroused, but his thought remained calm and his vision clear.... His involvement in the struggle, far from blurring his sight, sharpens it.... The History is his crowning work, both in scale and power and as the fullest expression of his ideas on revolution. As an account of a revolution, given by one of its chief actors, it stands unique in world literature.”
--Isaac Deutscher

Eco-Republic: Ancient Thinking for a Green Age

Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard

In the Spirit of Critique: Thinking Politically in the Dialectical Tradition (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)

Between the Norm and the Exception: The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law

Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compromisers had begun just in the first days of April to reveal an increasing nervousness and fussiness upon questions of foreign policy, for upon these questions the lower classes were unceasingly pressing them. The government needed a loan. But the masses, with all their defensism, were ready to defend a peace loan but not a war loan. It was necessary to give them at least a peep at the prospect of peace. Developing his policy of salvation by commonplaces, Tseretelli proposed that they demand.

Strategy. This proposal of compromise was significant first of all as an object lesson to the Bolshevik Party itself. It demonstrated that in spite of their experience with Kornilov, there was no longer a possibility of the Compromisers turning down the road of revolution. The Bolshevik Party now conclusively felt itself to be the sole party of revolution. The Compromisers refused to play the part of a transmitting mechanism carrying the power from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat, as they had.

For it means letting weeks pass. But weeks and even days now decide everything.” Where, and when, and from which side, did the soviet publish abroad the date of the insurrection? It is difficult even to invent motives which might induce it to perform so nonsensical an act. In reality it was not the insurrection, but the opening of the Congress of Soviets, which was publicly and in advance set for the 25th, and this was done not by the Petrograd Soviet but by the compromisist Central Executive.

Not last forever. “We have now passed from war to peace,” said Lenin in 1920. “But we have not forgotten that war will come again. So long as both capitalism and socialism remain, we cannot live in peace. Either the one or the other in the long run will conquer. There will be a funeral chant either for the Soviet Republic or for world capitalism. This is a moratorium in a war.” The transformation of the original “breathing spell” into a prolonged period of unstable equilibrium was made possible.

Solution of this most difficult of all problems depends in the last analysis upon the quantitative and qualitative correlations between industry and agriculture. The peasantry will the more voluntarily and successfully take the road of collectivization, the more generously the town is able to fertilize their economy and their culture. Does there exist, however, enough industry for the transformation of the country? This problem, too, Lenin carried beyond the national boundaries. “If you take the.

Download sample

Download