The Revolution Betrayed
by Leon Trotsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: Leon TrotskyEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-06-15
ISBN: 1934568244
Number of pages: 252
Publisher: Synergy International of the Americas, Ltd
Book Reviews of The Revolution Betrayed
Book Review: Worthwhile for the insights for people with open minds, and revolutionaries too
Summary: 5 Stars
I decided I wanted to explore Trotsky. I began by reading Isaac Duetscher's Prophet Armed, and then this book. In my distant past I read about the Revolution mainly through the eyes Anarchists (Emma Goldman among them), Rosa Luxembourg, and at Maknho (spelling?), and have also read a little Lenin (such as State and Revolution) for a political science college course, a long time ago. My guess and my rough experience is disciplined revolutionary elites must be filled with cadres who are focused and narrow and can bring great danger because they are eager to follow and very often do not reflect. A great movement is apt to commit acts as bad as many of the ones they fight. Revolutions and wars more often than not bring terrible things to and from all sides.
I sympathize with the 1917 Russian Revolution. The orders of the day, from the Czars to the Robber Barons were unjust, not free, not equal. For the majority of people, ordidnary people who worked for a living, racial and ethnic minorities (in particular ways) throughout the world, and women have not enjoyed freedom and democracy. This is more sharpley true if we go back to 1917, and examine the world as it was then. To be sure, freedom and democracy, declared as the foundations of many countries, were never more than formal or were facades, more a decoration than a reality anywhere. So imagine having a revolution for the lower class, the proletariat, and having it be Interantionalist and universal.
That is what happened in Russia, it was the first workers republic that existed for any longer than a few weeks or months. From this book and the earlier book, things did not happen well at all. These Revolutionaries had an opportunity and they took it, and this book tells the story very well of what then happened. I can gather from the whole of it that it was not quite the right place or time for it to be a good revolution. Trotsky's belief is that Socialism requires the abundance of production of the most productive Capitalist country's, so there is enough for the abundance to go around for everyone. It was also true that ounce this abundance and socialism was achieved, 'the State would begin to wilt away'. Classes are empowered by limited resources. People want to be on top where there is great need. When Socialism is achieved, authority, the police and strong armed methods of running things would not be needed because there was no one on top who had to be protected from the people below who had much less than they needed. (Just as Trotksy was proclaiming this wonderful world of human production and abundance, I immediately reflected about the limitations nature puts on us if we are not to destroy our world, but that is not a subject very many were thinking about in 1936. Back to the book Russia was not close in anyway to where such Socialism or the Revolution could succeed, and never by itself. However, it was the right place to have something different that can survive, being so huge and having the physcical attributes that buried Napoleon's army and would bury Hitler's as well. This gets to the core of Trotsky's theory of the Permanent Revolution. If the Revolution to succeed, or one that is worthy, It requires revolutions in at least some of the highest developed abundant Capitalist countries by the working class to achieve socialism, and aid poor Russia in it's development out of the pit and toward socialism.
Getting back to the beginning of the Revolution. Trotsky, the devoted Revolutionary, at this point was willing to commit some brutal acts, but not more brutal than most other welders of power under similar circmstances all over the world. It appears later, still as one of the major leaders, he fought hard and vocally for better things until he was driven out of power and into exile, and continued until he was assasinated 11 years later. I think this was in keeping with whom Trotsky the man was. He was reflective and critical, and he was for a revolution for the sake of all humanity. He was against Totalitarianism and reducing art and literature to be an instrument of Regime. he was insightful enough to recognize how a priveleged bureaucracy where industry was state owned,(but where there was a great lack of abundanceand a great amount for the priveleged to have to protect) became a ruthless ruling class.
One thing I recognized about the Revolution Betrayed is how it can in fact be taken more than one way. I can read between the lines how conservative supporters of the Capitalist ruling class could and did use Trotksy's very perceptive ideas for their own purposes. However Trotsky was a revolutionary Communist and he wrote in defense of Communists and the Communist revolution, and he was writing in favor of Communists such as his friend Lenin. Lenin was a very interesting man, whom I cannot judge because have not read enough of or about him. I do understand, to use an metaphor of this book, that Lenin was not like Stalin, he was not the Bonapartist face of a bureaucratic class sponsored totalitarian dictactorship. Whatever hope there is the honor and future of Communism, maybe springs from this book, which is a defense of the Communist Revolution and a comdemnation of Stalinism Totalitarianism by one of the great Communists. Maybe it stands like Atlas in keeping it from being obliterated.
In closing, I cannot descibe myself as a Trotskist or any other kind of
-IST, I do appreciate the man, but I am not going to make him into an idol to be worshipped. I also realize he was a man of war, he had a tough side. This is a very educating and worthwhile book, and I look forward to reading some more of his books. One negative, I don't know if the translator is to blame, but his style of writing is sometimes a little difficult, and I found myself having to read carefully, sometimes rereading a confusing expressed phrase to understand what he was writing.
Summary of The Revolution Betrayed
This book by Leon Trotsky makes a profound analysis and evaluation of Stalinism and the Soviet burreacracy. It was written in 1936 before Trotsky was murdered in Mexico by Stalin's secret police. Trotsky's thinking prophesied the collapse of the Soviet Union 60 years before it happened. This collapse was instigated by the buffon and drunk Boris Yeltsin as his leadership has led to the 'new oligarchy' in Russia. Trotsky was a very important leader in the October Revolution and it is thought that Lenin wanted him to take the leadership rather than the tyrant Stalin. This book is very impotant reading to everyone interest in Marxist theory and the history of Russia. A Collector's Edition.Russia Books
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