There are few more divisive names in history than the Soviet communist Leon Trotsky. To some, he was a betrayer, a hypocrite, and a totalitarian, and yet to many others he was a revolutionary of high esteem, who battled an outdated, oppressive dynasty and helped to usher in a new political era, and whose name became a political moniker: trotskyist. Whether colored by disdain or admiration, one thing is certain: Trotsky was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. In Leon Trotsky, Paul Le Blanc delves deep into Trotsky’s life and relationships to reveal and make sense of his complex character and decisive actions. Interweaving dramatic historical events with examinations of Trotsky’s multi-faceted personality, he offers incisive views of the key facets of Trotsky’s life: his involvement with Soviet bureaucracy, the Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Hitler in the years before World War II. Illuminating Trotsky’s personal and political struggles and achievements, this balanced portrait will be invaluable to history students or anyone interested in the extraordinary lives that made up the twentieth century.

Short of the founder of the Red Army later out-manoeuvered by Stalin

This new biography provides a full account of Leon Trotsky's political life, based upon a wealth of primary sources, including previously unpublished material. Ian D. Thatcher paints a new picture of Trotsky's standing in Russian and world history. Key myths about Trotsky's heroic work as a revolutionary, especially in Russia's first revolution of 1905 and the Russian Civil War, are thrown into question. Although Trotsky had a limited understanding of crucial contemporary events such as Hitler's rise to power, he was an important thinker and politician, not least as a trenchant critic of Stalin's version of communism.

With characteristic clarity and insight, historian and activist Paul Le Blanc offers a sweeping survey of the key contributions of Marxist theory, exploring its relevance to twentieth-century revolutionary movements and figures. Paul Le Blanc Has written on and participated in the US labor, radical and civil rights movements, and is author of numerous books.

This collection presents all of Earle Birney’s known published and unpublished writings on Trotsky and Trotskyism for the very first time. It includes their correspondence as well as a selection of Birney’s letters and literary writings. Before he became one of Canada’s most influential and popular twentieth century poets, Earle Birney lived a double life. To his students and colleagues, he was an engaging university lecturer and scholar. But for seven years—from 1933 to 1940—the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was the focus of his writing and much of his life. During his years as a Trotskyist in Canada, the United States and England, Birney wrote extensively about Trotsky, corresponded with him, organized Trotskyist cells in two countries, and recruited on behalf of Trotskyism; he also lectured on Trotsky and interviewed him over the course of several days. One of his two novels is based on some of these activities. The collection traces the origins of Trotsky’s mistrust of “the British” to his experiences in Canada; shows Birney’s influence on a major shift in Trotsky’s policy of “entrism” in British politics; includes the largest body of Trotskyist criticism in Canadian literary history; and demonstrates the need for a radical re-reading of Birney’s poetry in light of his Trotskyism.

Powerful new insights into a key twentieth-century political thinker

In the 1930s he established himself as a wide-ranging Shakespearean actor. His marriage in 1940 to Vivien Leigh (his second wife) seemed to complete the image of the romantic star. From the mid-40s he excelled in directing himself in Shakespeare on film, such as his dramatically-shot Henry V (1944), with its timely excesses of patriotism. When the new wave of British drama began in the late 1950s, Olivier was immediately part of it. As an actor of such wide range, and a successful producer and director, Olivier was a natural choice to bring the National Theatre into existence in 1963. Together with his new wife Joan Plowright (they had married in 1961), he built up a brilliant company and repertoire at the Old Vic. Olivier became the first actor to be given a peerage.

Davidson discusses how Marxism can retain a sense of historical tradition without becoming fossilized.

Essays on nationalism, revolution, and other relevant topics from the author of The Origins of Scottish Nationhood. Prize-winning scholar and author Neil Davidson explores classic themes of nation, state, and revolution in this collection of essays. Ranging from the extent to which nationalism can be a component of left-wing politics to the difference between bourgeois and socialist revolutions, the book concludes with an extended discussion of the different meanings history has for conservatives, radicals, and Marxists.