Leon Trotsky who was formerly known as Lev Davidovich Bronshtein was born in 1879 in Yanovka in Ukraine. He was a well-known communist theorist and played a key role in the October revolution. He went to school in Odessa where he was an excellent mathematician. He became a revolutionary populist at the age of 17 years. He was imprisoned in 1898 in Siberia for fighting for the rights of the workers. He was a writer for the political newspaper known as the Ikra which gave him an opportunity of meeting and interacting with other revolutionary populists (Daniels.,n.d). 1
Between 1917 and 1918, he served as the Commissar of Foreign Affairs in Soviet. Further in 1918–1924 he served as the Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. This was before he was removed from the by Stalinist faction of the Party from the Communist Party after which he was flown by force to the then Soviet Union. In Russia, he founded the Fourth International, which was a socialist party in Soviet in 1938. In 1940, he was assassinated while in exile in Mexico by Stalinist assassin.
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Leon Trosky was a writer for a number of newspapers during the revolutionary period in Russia. Leon Trotsky was author of a lot of books some of them which were published when he was alive and other after his death. This paper looks at three of his books namely the lesson of October, history of the Russian revolution, revolution betrayed and the struggle against fascism. 2
Lessons of October
Lessons of october an essay that was written by Leon Trotsky which is composed of 60 pages. The publication of the work took place in October of 1924 in Moscow. The book looks at the two revolutionist of the Soviet Russia known as Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev . The publication of the lessons of October was done in order to criticize the leadership of Leon Trotsky who was seen as a potential leader for Soviet Russia after the fall of the leadership of Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. 3
Leon was the obvious leader for the Soviet after Lenin suffered from cerebral hemorrhage in 1922. This was because of his desirable character, as Leon was charismatic. However, his colleagues ganged up against him and they made the decision to support the Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinovyev and Stalin. When Lenin stared recovering from his condition, he sought guidance from Trotsky on how he would deal with the mistakes committed by the troika especially on how they handled the minorities, bureaucracy reforms and foreign trade policy. Lenin had tried to convince Trotsky to attack Stalin but Trotsky was adamant to do so because he was eyeing a coalition against Zinovyev. Trotsky attacked the leadership of Stalin in October in a meeting by talking about lack of economic planning and also the party being undemocratic. This public attacks on the leadership were fruitful as the leaders promised that they would make reforms and Trotsky responded by letting them know some of the issues which badly needed to be reformed. This however was a ploy by the two leaders to place at attack against Trotsky as they accused him of opportunism and factionalism. The political part ruled by Stalin won as Trotsky was sick and he could not advance for the struggle. The death of Lenin made Trotsky to even lose the struggle further and also the fact that he couldn’t attend the burial of Lenin because his opponents cheated him on the date when the burial would take place as he was not able to go to Moscow on time (Daniels.,n.d). 4
Trotsky’s opponents continued to attack him further as they talked of how he abused the discipline of the party. He as lucky because he was able to use his essay of the lessons of October to link leaders Kamenev and Zinovyev with the October revolution. The leaders again attacked Trotsky by rubbishing all his theories and also by removing him from the war. Later, due to the split between Zinovyev and Kamnev and also between Stalin and Bukharin, Trotsky was able to form to form an alliance with his opponents Kamenev and Zinovyev. The alliance aimed at economic planning, democracy and were also against the Stalin theory of socialism. However, the attacks against Trotsky continued as he was removed from the Politburo and later from the central committee. Trotsky and Zinovyev lost further as they were completely removed from the party (Daniels.,n.d).
History of the Russia revolution
This book was written in 1917 by Leon Trotsky and it is composed of three parts. In this book, Trotsky talks about the historical and political happenings of 1917in Russia and the things that prepared Russia for a revolution in 1917. The book talks about how the revolution began and its uniqueness. The people are very resourceful in a revolution especially when they are tired of a certain regime. In this book, Leon talks about the political theory. This book was translated by Max Eastman into English who had good knowledge with the Russia’s revolution (Fan.,2017). 5
Leon talks about the things that forced Russia to go for revolution. One of the reasons is because of industrialization that had been realized in most western countries and this exerted a lot of pressure on Russia because it was behind both economically and politically. This forced Russia to undergo what became to be known as the law of combined development in which Russia omitted most of the steps it was required to undergo to realize industrialization. This lead to an imbalance in the number of the people who were employed and these people were the once who started talking about the revolution. In addition, the masses were frustrated with the long period that the country was at war and this pushed for a revolution (Fan.,2017)..
In the book, Trotsky also talks about the Romanovs and their supporters. He talks negatively about them and mush of his words are because of the hatred that he has for the Romanovs. He gives reference to other kingdoms such as the English and the French that have failed in the past and believes that even the Romanovs will be brought out of power by the people. The type of writing that Trotsky uses in this book is poetic and at the same time it is emotional as he spews venom on the Romanovs and the imperialists (Fan.., 2017). 6
The book clearly indicates that Trotsky was active in the revolution as he explains the happenings with a lot of ease. Though he negatively speaks about Lenin, they shared the same political philosophies (Fan., 2017).
Revolution betrayed
This is another book by Trotsky which talks about the events which occurred in during the revolution in Russia after the death of Lenin. In the book, Trotsky talks about the economy shift that occurred in Russia in the October revolution and transformed the economy into the most powerful economy in the world. The most interesting thing about this revolution is that it occurred in a country whose economy was primitive. This is the same country where almost six million people died of hunger. Revolution in a socialist country requires that the country to have developed in terms of science and technology and also in agriculture so that it would not be adversely affected by the days that they will be away from work talking part in the revolution (Weston.,2008).
The struggle against fascism
Leon was a strong believer of the Marxism and he committed the last ten years of his life working for it. He did this because the Social democracy and the Stalinist were involved in abusing the Marxism. Trotsky was a strong fighter of the rights of the workers in Russia and he ensured that he talked about the problems that were facing the workers (Weston.,2008). He talked about the fascism which was a new problem facing the international working class and most people did not understand it. This was an idea that really bothered Leon as struggles occurred all over the world. This was during the rule of Mussolini in Italy which occurred in 1922 which was closely followed by the rule of Hitler in Germany which took place in 1930 and finally by the occurrences in Spain and France (Weston.,2008).
Fascism was a very important term during the time of Leon, however nowadays the word is abused and it rarely gets the status it held then as most people do not understand its historical background. The period after the end of the second world war was very tough for communist societies like Russia while capitalist like the United States were able to recover very fast from the war and this enabled them to make some reforms (Weston.,2008).
Conclusion
Leon was a revolutionist who fought for the rights of the people of Russia especially the workers at a time when they are being oppressed by the leaders in power. He was imprisoned more than one because of fighting for a course that he strongly believed in and was ready to die for. He mostly recorded most of the events which occurred during the revolution in Russia in the many books that he authored including the struggle against fascism and the revolution betrayed. According to Trotsky, the rapid industrialization that occurred in Russia was the genesis of the economic and political problems that occurred in Russia. The life of this revolutionist was cut short by his assassin nevertheless, his contribution to the fight for democracy and communalism still lives in his books.
References
Fan (2017). History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky
www.google.com/amp/s/fictionfanblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/history-of-the-russian-revolution-by-leon-trotsky/amp/
Daniels.R.V.,(n.d). Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leon-Trotsky/The-struggle-for-the-succession
Weston.F (2008). Trotsky and the struggle against fascism.
https://www.socialist.net/trotsky-struggle-against-fascism.htm
1 Leon Trotsky was a revolutionist leader in the Soviet republic
2 Fascism is a powerful political movement that is ruled by a powerful leader
3 Lessons of October I one of the writings by Leon Trotsky
4 Leon was a founder of the communist party and he took an active role in the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917
5 Max Eastman was a diehard supporter of Leon and his translator
6 Romanov was the second dynasty to govern Russia and they ruled between 1913 and 1917. This dynasty took power after the rule of House of Rurik.
