The Revolution Betrayed

English language

Published Feb. 21, 2004

ISBN:: 978-0-486-43398-1

(2 reviews)

The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? (Russian: Преданная революция: Что такое СССР и куда он идет?) is a book published in 1937 by the exiled Soviet Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky. This work analyzed and criticized the course of historical development in the Soviet Union following the death of Lenin in 1924 and is regarded as Trotsky's primary work dealing with the nature of Stalinism. The book was written by Trotsky during his exile in Norway and was originally translated into Spanish by Victor Serge. The most widely available English translation is by Max Eastman.

20 editions

ilchinealach reviewed The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky

Review of 'The Revolution Betrayed' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

one-stop shop for why the Russian revolution deteriorated. Trotsky lays out the correlation of forces immediately after the civil war, how the NEP created a bourgeois stratum among the peasantry and how the vacillations / incoherent policies of the rightists strengthened their hand, enriched a new party bureaucracy and created resentment among the lower peasantry.

thankfully doesn't go in for the usual who said what at which party conference and who got the blank cheque from Lenin to what he wanted, there's a lot of worthwhile data. funny bit when Trotsky says the 'automobile-harem atmosphere' among the wives of party officials played a significant role in the moral deterioration of the bureaucracy

Shtakser

rated it

Sept. 22, 2013