--- product_id: 66463274 title: "Trotsky: A Biography" price: "MOP$514" currency: MOP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://macau.desertcart.com/products/66463274-trotsky-a-biography store_origin: MO region: Macau --- # Trotsky: A Biography **Price:** MOP$514 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Trotsky: A Biography - **How much does it cost?** MOP$514 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [macau.desertcart.com](https://macau.desertcart.com/products/66463274-trotsky-a-biography) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Robert Service completes his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union in an eagerly anticipated, authoritative biography of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky is perhaps the most intriguing and, given his prominence, the most understudied of the Soviet revolutionaries. Using new archival sources including family letters, party and military correspondence, confidential speeches, and medical records, Service offers new insights into Trotsky. He discusses Trotsky’s fractious relations with the leaders he was trying to bring into a unified party before 1914; his attempt to disguise his political closeness to Stalin; and his role in the early 1920s as the progenitor of political and cultural Stalinism. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial and schematic approach to making revolution. Service recounts Trotsky’s role in the botched German revolution of 1923; his willingness to subject Europe to a Red Army invasion in the 1920s; and his assumption that peasants could easily be pushed onto collective farms. Service also sheds light on Trotsky’s character and personality: his difficulties with his Jewish background, the development of his oratorical skills and his preference for writing over politicking, his inept handling of political factions and coldness toward associates, and his aversion to assuming personal power. Although Trotsky’s followers clung to the stubborn view of him as a pure revolutionary and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin, the reality is very different. This illuminating portrait of the man and his legacy sets the record straight. Review: Trotsky: Another Utopian Visionary - In this book, Robert Service completes his biographical trilogy of the protagonists of the October Revolution and its aftermath - Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. As he has in the two earlier accounts, Service meticulously lays bare the influences upon and generated by his subject. While disclosing Trotsky's personal faults, his inability to coalesce factions into a realistic governing role, his inability to empathize on a personal level, his failure at critical times to seize the moment and exercise sound judgment, the author reveals that the heart of Trotsky's downfall was his utopian vision, a worldview historically untenable, philosophically unsustainable, and psychologically misanthropic. Contrary to the assessment offered by Trotsky's apologists throughout the years, Service rightfully concludes that the man was no more likely to have brought to fruition the workers' paradise than was his bête noire, Stalin. "He was close to Stalin in intentions and practice. He was no more likely than Stalin to create a society of humanitarian socialism even though he claimed and assumed that he would. Totsky failed to work out how to move from party dictatorship to universal freedom. He reveled in Terror. . . . Trotskyists invented a man and a leader who bore only an erratic kinship to Lev Davidovich Trotsky." (pp. 497-8) I strongly recommend that you read Trotsky: "Downfall of a Revolutionary," Bertrand M. Patenaude, Harper Collins (2009), in conjunction with Service's "Trotsky: A Biography." Patenaude provides a detailed account of Trotsky's years in exile that is unrivalled. The reader will gain greater insight into the man's later years as he grew older yet unflexible in his commitment to his faith in the ultimate triumph of Marxism. The reality is that even Trotsky was unable to set forth a consistent explication of what all the nonsense was about "dialectical materialism." "Few comrades even professed to understand its meaning." (Patenaude, p. 222) Many of his followers and fellow-travelers were enthusiastic about Trotsky and his views because of their own naivety. "They were blind to Trotsky's contempt for their values. They overlooked the damage he aimed to do to their kind of society if ever he got the chance." (Service, p.466) The truth is that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and his acolytes were (and still are) iconoclasts and sloganeers, and nothing more. "Civilization can only be saved by the socialist revolution. . . . Only that which prepares the complete and final overthrow of imperialist bestiality is moral, and nothing else. The welfare of the revolution - that is the supreme law." - Trotsky, "Their Morality and Ours: The Moralists and Sychophants against Marxism" (1938) (Service pp. 470-1) There is an interesting little book written by a child of American Trotskyists, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, "When Skateboards Will be Free," Dial Press (2009), that reveals the vacuity of blind faith in bankrupt ideology. He notes that his father, a life-long social revolutionary activist, "will gladly hold forth on the largest of subjects: the social evolution of human beings since Homo habilis; the materialist underpinnings of ancient civilization; the French Revolution; the Cold War. . . . The subjects he chooses are usually so vast, so breathtaking, that one can be forgiven for failing to realize how hollow the information is that he imparts. . . . It doesn't matter if he himself knows the intimate details of the topics on which he expounds; his concern is with Truth." (Sayrafiezadeh, p. 134; to his credit, Sayrafiezadeh, when confronted by his girlfriend with the questions: What does it mean to be a communist; what is socialism? ultimately concludes: "I guess I don't know what I'm talking about." pp. 253-4) Despite Trotsky's literary flair and his historic role in dramatic 20th century events, one rightly wonders whether, in the end, he knew what he was talking about. Robert Service has done a masterful job recounting the life and ideas of Trotsky. Typically for him, his research is exhaustive, his writing is insightful, his style exquisite. Review: Not the (potential) savior of the revolution - For years I’d heard the USSR would have been radically different had Trotsky won the struggle for power. A main contention of Service is that Trotsky was never going to come out the victor for a variety of well documented reasons. Service presents a convincing argument that this unlikely result would only have been totalitarianism of a slightly different flavor. Well written account of a fascinating man and times. ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #1,100,252 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #520 in Historical Russia Biographies #1,661 in Russian History (Books) #4,398 in Political Leader Biographies | | Customer Reviews | 4.2 out of 5 stars 258 Reviews | ## Images ![Trotsky: A Biography - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51zt-t-+ZoL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Trotsky: Another Utopian Visionary *by G***D on December 28, 2009* In this book, Robert Service completes his biographical trilogy of the protagonists of the October Revolution and its aftermath - Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. As he has in the two earlier accounts, Service meticulously lays bare the influences upon and generated by his subject. While disclosing Trotsky's personal faults, his inability to coalesce factions into a realistic governing role, his inability to empathize on a personal level, his failure at critical times to seize the moment and exercise sound judgment, the author reveals that the heart of Trotsky's downfall was his utopian vision, a worldview historically untenable, philosophically unsustainable, and psychologically misanthropic. Contrary to the assessment offered by Trotsky's apologists throughout the years, Service rightfully concludes that the man was no more likely to have brought to fruition the workers' paradise than was his bête noire, Stalin. "He was close to Stalin in intentions and practice. He was no more likely than Stalin to create a society of humanitarian socialism even though he claimed and assumed that he would. Totsky failed to work out how to move from party dictatorship to universal freedom. He reveled in Terror. . . . Trotskyists invented a man and a leader who bore only an erratic kinship to Lev Davidovich Trotsky." (pp. 497-8) I strongly recommend that you read Trotsky: "Downfall of a Revolutionary," Bertrand M. Patenaude, Harper Collins (2009), in conjunction with Service's "Trotsky: A Biography." Patenaude provides a detailed account of Trotsky's years in exile that is unrivalled. The reader will gain greater insight into the man's later years as he grew older yet unflexible in his commitment to his faith in the ultimate triumph of Marxism. The reality is that even Trotsky was unable to set forth a consistent explication of what all the nonsense was about "dialectical materialism." "Few comrades even professed to understand its meaning." (Patenaude, p. 222) Many of his followers and fellow-travelers were enthusiastic about Trotsky and his views because of their own naivety. "They were blind to Trotsky's contempt for their values. They overlooked the damage he aimed to do to their kind of society if ever he got the chance." (Service, p.466) The truth is that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and his acolytes were (and still are) iconoclasts and sloganeers, and nothing more. "Civilization can only be saved by the socialist revolution. . . . Only that which prepares the complete and final overthrow of imperialist bestiality is moral, and nothing else. The welfare of the revolution - that is the supreme law." - Trotsky, "Their Morality and Ours: The Moralists and Sychophants against Marxism" (1938) (Service pp. 470-1) There is an interesting little book written by a child of American Trotskyists, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, "When Skateboards Will be Free," Dial Press (2009), that reveals the vacuity of blind faith in bankrupt ideology. He notes that his father, a life-long social revolutionary activist, "will gladly hold forth on the largest of subjects: the social evolution of human beings since Homo habilis; the materialist underpinnings of ancient civilization; the French Revolution; the Cold War. . . . The subjects he chooses are usually so vast, so breathtaking, that one can be forgiven for failing to realize how hollow the information is that he imparts. . . . It doesn't matter if he himself knows the intimate details of the topics on which he expounds; his concern is with Truth." (Sayrafiezadeh, p. 134; to his credit, Sayrafiezadeh, when confronted by his girlfriend with the questions: What does it mean to be a communist; what is socialism? ultimately concludes: "I guess I don't know what I'm talking about." pp. 253-4) Despite Trotsky's literary flair and his historic role in dramatic 20th century events, one rightly wonders whether, in the end, he knew what he was talking about. Robert Service has done a masterful job recounting the life and ideas of Trotsky. Typically for him, his research is exhaustive, his writing is insightful, his style exquisite. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not the (potential) savior of the revolution *by L***. on March 9, 2023* For years I’d heard the USSR would have been radically different had Trotsky won the struggle for power. A main contention of Service is that Trotsky was never going to come out the victor for a variety of well documented reasons. Service presents a convincing argument that this unlikely result would only have been totalitarianism of a slightly different flavor. Well written account of a fascinating man and times. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing Researched Bio *by P***E on February 4, 2017* A superb detailed biography. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://macau.desertcart.com/products/66463274-trotsky-a-biography](https://macau.desertcart.com/products/66463274-trotsky-a-biography) --- *Product available on Desertcart Macau* *Store origin: MO* *Last updated: 2026-10-16*