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From International Socialism, No.21, Summer 1965, p.32.
Transcribed & marked up by by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Essential Trotsky
Unwin Books, 8s. 6d.
The Trotsky of this book is the Trotsky of October and neither the Trotsky of the Petrograd Soviets nor the Trotsky of the Fourth International. The one volume includes three not easily obtainable works: The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest Litovsk, Trotsky’s first historical essay on the revolution; The Lessons of October, Trotsky’s reply to Zinoviev’s attack in late 1923; and Stalin Falsifies History, answers to a questionnaire from the Commission for the Study of Party History in 1927. From these books one can obtain the clearest impression of Trotsky’s Leninism. Here is the Leninist emphasis on tactics and on leadership delivered with all Trotsky’s integrity. But upon Trotsky’s own distinctive contributions to Marxism, whether in the theory of permanent revolution, of combined and uneven development, or of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet state the material here has only an oblique and indirect bearing.
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Last updated on 11.9.2007