My Life
An Attempt at an Autobiography
Written in exile in 1930, covering a childhood in Ukraine, the revolution, and the loss of the struggle with Stalin.
Trotsky wrote his autobiography in exile on the island of Prinkipo in 1930, after Stalin had expelled him from the Soviet Union. It covers a Ukrainian farm childhood, Siberian exile and escape, the 1905 soviet, the seizure of power in 1917 and the creation of the Red Army, in prose of unusual force. It is also a brief for the defence, written to establish his version of the revolution against the one being manufactured in Moscow.
Recommended by 1 Person
Robert Service
This is one of the books I read when I was starting to move into historical study. It’s a wonderful memoir of a childhood and young adulthood. Trotsky is a wonderful writer. I think he is one of the two great political writers of the 20th century, the other being Winston Churchill. But, as you move through the book, you get a very strong sense of a man who is justifying his own politics and his own career choices.
Interview · January 2010
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