Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary

What a great find, as I've been looking for this particular book at a good price for ages in second hand bookshops that have a good political history section. Cost me a fiver, and is in perfect condition despite being an ex-library loaner. Maybe it never got lent out much?Anyway, Stanford lecturer Bertrand M Patenaude does a great job of documenting the demise of Trotsky. Yes, as other have said, this covers the years in exile in Mexico leading up to his death - but to be honest the title is something of a giveaway in this regard. Don't buy this if you are after a rounded biography of Trotsky's life and legacy, it never promises to be that and it isn't. What it is, is a well written and easily readable account of the events that led to Trotsky being killed.If you want the answer to the question posed by The Stranglers in No More Heroes "Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?" and want it answered in more historical and political depth than "He got an ice pick, that made his ears burn" then this is the book for you!

At the beginning of 1939,a man by the name of Pavel Sudoplatov was on his way to meet Stalin.The meeting between these two men sealed the fate of Trotsky, who was at that time living in Mexico.As Stalin put it then:"Trotsky should be eliminated within a year".And so,the process towards the assassination of Stalin's arch-enemy has begun.Trotsky was among many Jews who thought that Communism would deliver them and the world of all the social evils in the world.His real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein and was born in the Ukraine in 1879.After his rise and quarrels in the Bolshevik party, he was exiled by Koba (aka Stalin )and was dispatched to Turkey, where he was doing all he could in order to get a visa which would enable him to live in another country.From Turkey he and his wife moved to Norway, where the much- awaited visa for Mexico has finally arrived.After some days ,the couple has landed on the Mexican shores and it was there where they would spend the rest of their days, until the Spanish-born assassin Ramon Mercader had terminated the life of Trotsky.In this biography, we get a panoramic description of Trotsky's final years in Mexico.Based on Trotsky's private correspondence and diaries as well as his archives and testimonies of his American bodyguards and many secretaries,Mt.Patenaude offers the reader a fascinating and thrilling story about Trotsky.This is done in a series of flashbacks, in which Trotsky's various life episodes are brilliantly told and analyzed.The reader is informed about Trotsky the revolutionary, the lover, the husband and grandfather, the author and thinker,the paranoiac and the naive one.He had a brief affair with the painter Frida Kahlo, who was Diego Rivera's wife.Rivera, the mural painter, fell under the spell of Communism and both men had an admiration for each other until this came to an end for reasons the reader will find out when he/she finishes reading this book.The author also discusses in detail the hearings of the Dewey Commission which set out to inquire the charges made against Leo Trotsky in the Moscow trials.Another excellent aspect of this book is the way the thirties are described:the age of Stalinistic terror and the the Spanish Civil War.There were many parts to Trotsky:the intellectual, the military commander, the jealous and erotic husband, the ideologue and revolutionary.Besides Trotsky, there are other minor characters accompanying the hero of this study, and they are mainly artists and left-wing intellectuals of the thirties.Many of them belonged the bohemic world of those years.Read this book and you will get a detective as well as a very serious historical tale and study of one of the most controversial and intriguing personalities that peopled this earth.All this in spite of the fact that the end of the story is well-known.

Extremely well-written and researched about the last year or so of Trotsky's life. A lot of detail about his life and the context of Mexico is described. The talented and influential painter Sequieros is shown to be a murderous thug. The vast and vicious conspiracies against Trotsky by Stalin, Hitler, and the FBI demonstrate Trotsky's continued importance in the fight for human liberation.

Leon Trotsky: revolutionary, Red Army commissar, dreamer, exile, assassination victim. There are few people who have lived the life of Trotsky. He was certainty at the vanguard of 20th century history.Bertrand Patenaude has written a biography of Trotsky that covers his time in Mexico after fleeing Europe and seeking sanctuary in a more distant third country. And sanctuary was key. Trotsky was forever and increasingly in the sights of Joseph Stalin. Trotsky was everything that Stalin was not. He was bold, daring and spellbinding while Stalin was cautious, plodding and cruel.I found Patenaude's book to be quite compelling. I knew little of the details of Trotsky's time in Mexico and it was fascinating for them to be brought to life. Patenaude is a good writer who has mastered his brief. He also clearly showed that Trotsky for all his boldness and daring could be spectacularly naïve. Nowhere was this more the case than with his assassination. How could a man who had survived previous attempts on his life be so trusting of people? How could a man smuggle an ice pick into Trotsky's house underneath a raincoat on a hot day?I recommend this book to readers of general history. Trotsky was with little doubt one of the more influential figures of the 20th century. Ignore his politics. Here he had both admirers and detractors. Indeed, he still does. However, his impact was significant. Read this book to understand a small portion of the enigma that was Leon Trotsky.

Trotsky's career & personality have important lessons for anyone who operates in an leadership role. An idealogue who eventually lost all perspective in reality, his career demonstrates how arrogance and a self-created righteouness with an over-ambudance of self-confidence can destroy an otherwise promising career. Trotsky went from the heights of power and respect of his party to total disrepute.This book chronicles all of his foibles and his tragic downfall. By the time you finish, you feel you know him very well. You understand he is a tragic figure like in the classical myths, except he was never a hero really. You don't hate him really, you don't feel sorry for him, but you do understand his hubris and how it did him in as his career spiraled downward. The author brings the Trotsky "heritage" beyond his death; and some will find the author's final judgment rather amusing, if not correct.Unfortunately, the book overlooks Trotsky's Jewish background and how his repudiation of that background contributed to his self-destruction and policies which destroyed the lives of millions of Russians.

Although the book is filled with details of Trotsky's last years in Mexico, it also gives detailed insights into his previous history, the beginnings of his split with Stalin and his ongoing journeys across Europe to escape the dictator's vengeance. It also goes into many of the internecine wars of the Left in America during the 1930s. A thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile read.