Where to start with Trotsky?

[palotin]

I've never read the man. Only works by American and French Trotskyists and then only for intellectual context. What should I look at first?

[mrmikhail]

Try this (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-1/ch07.htm) one then "The Revolution Betrayed"

[RedZezz]

The Revolution Betrayed is argueably his best known work.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

His History of the Russian Revolution is a masterpiece.After that The Revolution Betrayed.

http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/index.htm

http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm

[Commissar Rykov]

I started with The Revolution Betrayed and thought it was an excellent work.

http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#op
That is a good one as well.

[Искра]

The Revolution Betrayed is like Bible of Trotskyism. It's like Capital for Marxists, even though more boring, and less important, so I guess you should try this.

Yugoslav edition has really nice frontcover, which is the only reason why I have this book:

http://www.elibar.net/thumbnail.php?pic=uplimg/img_169011_545a3446b23d738caac1283a342475db.jpg&w=500&sq=Y&b=Y

[mrmikhail]

The Revolution Betrayed is like Bible of Trotskyism. It's like Capital for Marxists, even though more boring, and less important, so I guess you should try this.


Right, even though we are Orthodox Marxists. "The Revolution Betrayed" is the criticism of the Soviet Union, the argument for a perpetual revolution and why socialism cannot stand in one state, not a bible, which we as atheists do not have :rolleyes:

Here is another good one to read on Trotsky as a military commander though: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1919/military/ch08.htm

[Q]

In addition to what others suggested already, I'll add A program of action for France (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/06/paf.htm) and The Transitional Program (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm) for programmatical texts. Be it that the latter needs to be read within a certain context of impending world war and the idea of a total collapse of capitalism (a prediction which wasn't correct) and within the context of tiny Trotskyist grouplets at the time of the founding of the Fourth International. The former places more emphasis on the democratic tasks, which was more in line with the Orthodox Marxism of Erfurt and the Bolsheviks.

[Rooster]

I recently got The Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology which I found to be pretty good for a really brief introduction to Trotsky. It might be better to buy Revolution Betrayed or some of his other better known works, but as for an introduction I think it's pretty good. It shows off his thoughts on many different subjects. You could probably get it second hand for mere pennies.

[The Insurrection]

Don't do it.

[Art Vandelay]

I would suggest My Life, the only Trotskyist work I have really read, regardless of the dudes politics the man could write. His prose is down right beautiful at times in it, plus it gives a decent overview of his life and main thoughts.

[citizen of industry]

I enjoyed The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. It is a good analysis and outlines well the need for united fronts. History of the Russian Revolution is fantastic and beautifully written.

[Rooster]

I posted this in another thread but this is probably my favourite piece of Trotsky's work:

The First Five Years of the Communist International (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-1/ch07.htm)

It displays his knack for writing, his take on historical materialism encompassing his ideas on Permanent Revolution and Combined and Uneven Development.

[graymouser]

I would go in this order:
The Transitional Program (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm)
Results and Prospects (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp-index.htm) (usually in the same book with The Permanent Revolution)
The Permanent Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/pr-index.htm)
The Lessons of October (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lessons/index.htm)
The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm)
The USSR in War (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/09/ussr-war.htm) (from In Defense of Marxism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/index.htm))
Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm)
Whither France? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/whitherfrance/index.htm)

That's a lot, and it doesn't include his longest works (My Life and History of the Russian Revolution), both of which are excellent. But the reason I lay it out like this is that, while it's a good deal of reading, I think this is the quickest way to get the full range of Trotsky's thought. The Transitional Program is key to understand the political method of Trotsky. Results and Prospects is an excellent historic survey of Russia and the 1905 revolution, and derives the theory of permanent revolution from there; his 1931 polemic The Permanent Revolution finishes the job. "Lessons of October" gives much of the important history of the Russian Revolution in well under 1000 pages, which we cannot say for his magnum opus History.

The Revolution Betrayed is where the theory of the degenerated workers' state is developed, and the reasons for Soviet defensism are described best in "The USSR in War." (The whole of In Defense of Marxism is worth reading, but it gets wrapped up in a polemic about dialectics that isn't quite as fundamental.) Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It gives you the short version of Trotsky's much lengthier analysis of the crisis posed by European fascism and the inadequate response of the Comintern to it. Finally, Whither France? is important because it brings out most of the important factors in Trotsky's politics: opposition to the Popular Front, the handling of pre-revolutionary situations, dealing with Stalinists and opportunists of all stripes.

It's a hefty reading list, but unless I'm mistaken the total page count is less than the History of the Russian Revolution.

[el_chavista]

Yugoslav edition has really nice frontcover, which is the only reason why I have this book:


You may want to print this image and use it as a frontcover of trotskyist books, just for another reason to have them :lol:

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1029/trotdraw.jpg

[Nuvem]

http://bococaland.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Books-in-trash-can.jpg

Here.

[Lea Trompsky]

I agree with reading The History of the Russian Revolution. It is fascinating (I'm reading it right now). However, he tries to take a birds eye view if the revolution and his ideologies only leak out a little

[Kornilios Sunshine]

Do not do so.

[Per Levy]

Do not do so.

indeed, instead let marxist-leninists/stalinists tell you that trotsky was the spawn of satan and his writing is "bourgeois, fascist and revisionist". seriously, read whatever you want of any leftist you feel like and judge for yourself what is good and what is bad.

on a more serious note, the permanent revolution is a nice book. if it is a good book to start with trotsky is hard to say. or if there is one, get a selected works book of him, there you probally get a better overview.

[graymouser]

Do not do so.
Here's a telling difference: no Trotskyist is going to tell you not to read Stalin or any Stalinist author. (In point of fact, Stalin's essay "Marxism and the National Question" is very much worth reading and has been widely read among Trotskyists.)

[S.Artesian]

Here's a telling difference: no Trotskyist is going to tell you not to read Stalin or any Stalinist author. (In point of fact, Stalin's essay "Marxism and the National Question" is very much worth reading and has been widely read among Trotskyists.)


You're right, comrade. I'm not a Trotskyist but I do make it a point of telling people there's no point to reading Stalin, including "Marxism and the National Question" [which I have read].

As for reading Trotsky. If you want to something to start with, start at the beginning with Results and Prospects. Then go to 1905. Then History of the Russian Revolution.

PS Somebody tell Nuvem that the Workers' World Party claims its lineage from Trotsky.