- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; First Edition edition (18 Jun 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571228755
- ISBN-13: 978-0571228751
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 14.7 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
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- #40 in Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Central & South America
Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky
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Product Description
Book Description
Revolution, politics, exile, art, literature and murder - the astonishing true story of the demise of Stalin's fiery adversary.
Product Description
Leon Trotsky was the charismatic intellectual of the Russian Revolution, a brilliant writer and orator who was also an authoritarian organizer. He might have succeeded Lenin and become the ruler of the Soviet Union. But by the time the Second World War broke out he was in exile, living in Mexico in a villa borrowed from the great artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, guarded only by several naïve young Americans in awe of the great theoretician. The household was awash with emotional turmoil - tensions grew between Trotsky and Rivera, as questions arose over his relations with Frida Kahlo. His wife was restless and jealous.
Outside of the villa, Mexican communists tried to storm the house and kill the man they regarded as a traitor, the Trotskys' sons were being persecuted and killed in Europe, and in Moscow, Stalin personally ordered his secret police to kill his fiercest left-wing critic - at any cost. By the summer of 1940, they had found a man who could penetrate the tight security around the house in far-away Mexico . . .
A brilliant reconstruction of one of the most infamous state crimes, and a panoramic view of Trotsky's incredible life. Here is all the squalor, glory, fanaticism and bloodshed of a deadly rivalry.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Stalin's Nemesis is a fascinating and well written history.
It deals with a claustrophobic subject - the life of a small community of Russian exiles and their supporters in a Mexican villa over a three year period, ending with Trotsky's assassination.
I had worried that this narrow focus might flounder over the course of the book, but the author successfully avoids the pitfalls. Minor events in the life of the household are used as an opportunity to discuss the major events of Trotsky's life and what emerges is a much broader biography than the title would suggest. Trotsky's relationship with Lenin and Stalin is explored, as is the place Trotsky played in the Russian Revolution, and through it all the assassin's move ever closer.
A difficult subject navigated by a skilled writer. If I had one criticism it's that I didn't get a clear view of what Trotsky believed as a politician - but then the author never said I would.
It deals with a claustrophobic subject - the life of a small community of Russian exiles and their supporters in a Mexican villa over a three year period, ending with Trotsky's assassination.
I had worried that this narrow focus might flounder over the course of the book, but the author successfully avoids the pitfalls. Minor events in the life of the household are used as an opportunity to discuss the major events of Trotsky's life and what emerges is a much broader biography than the title would suggest. Trotsky's relationship with Lenin and Stalin is explored, as is the place Trotsky played in the Russian Revolution, and through it all the assassin's move ever closer.
A difficult subject navigated by a skilled writer. If I had one criticism it's that I didn't get a clear view of what Trotsky believed as a politician - but then the author never said I would.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Bertrand Patenaude is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer in history and international relations at Stanford University. He has ransacked the Trotsky archives to compile this detailed account of Trotsky's last days in Mexico City. Trotsky is a virtual prisoner, surrounded by armed guards, besieged by Stalinist hit squads and subjected to the corrosive vitriol of the Soviet regime, ably echoed by the Stalinist left in Mexico. Most people know that the Russian secret police, the GPU, inserted a covert assassin into Trotsky's household - Ramon Mercader - who finally and ineptly dealt the fatal blow on August 20th 1940 with an ice pick. Trotsky survived just a few more days.
This book offers many insights. Trotsky is supported both financially and with `muscle' by the American Socialist Workers Party. The proletarian `toughs' (Hansen, Cannon) back Trotsky's views all the way while barely understanding them, while the intellectuals (Shachtman, Burnham) have increasing difficulties with Trotsky's defence of the Stalinist regime against the capitalist powers and eventually split the SWP.
Trotsky's personality is also scrutinised. He comes across as incredibly smart, arrogant and brusque: like Marx, a man of cruel humour incapable of long-term human relationships. In fact his only sustained friendship seems to have been his wife Natalia Sedova, and even here he was not adverse to having an affair with his protector Diego Rivera's wife, the artist Frida Kahlo.
The author takes Trotsky to task for his apparently obsessional defence of dialectical materialism in the vicious faction fight within the SWP which led to the split. He takes this to be typical of Trotsky's arrogance and incompetent managerial skills. As a member of the Fourth International in the early seventies I must defend the `Old Man' here: American pragmatism and the resulting inability to understand how mutable human activities underlie and `implement' all `social structures' have been the bane of Marxist thought in that country. Trotsky was right to try to educate the comrades, although sadly with little success.
Was Trotsky a world-historic figure or merely a man of extreme intellectual talents who ended up espousing a failed ideology? Both can be true. Perhaps humanity needed to try Marxism in its most conceptually-sophisticated form in order to understand the true nature of its failure as a political strategy of liberation. Its Achilles' heel is not dialectics but its 19th century utopian view of human nature.
Patenaude has done a great service to the truth in this book, but has also constructed a thrilling historical account of a great but flawed man brought down by a truly evil empire. Poignant and gripping throughout.
This book offers many insights. Trotsky is supported both financially and with `muscle' by the American Socialist Workers Party. The proletarian `toughs' (Hansen, Cannon) back Trotsky's views all the way while barely understanding them, while the intellectuals (Shachtman, Burnham) have increasing difficulties with Trotsky's defence of the Stalinist regime against the capitalist powers and eventually split the SWP.
Trotsky's personality is also scrutinised. He comes across as incredibly smart, arrogant and brusque: like Marx, a man of cruel humour incapable of long-term human relationships. In fact his only sustained friendship seems to have been his wife Natalia Sedova, and even here he was not adverse to having an affair with his protector Diego Rivera's wife, the artist Frida Kahlo.
The author takes Trotsky to task for his apparently obsessional defence of dialectical materialism in the vicious faction fight within the SWP which led to the split. He takes this to be typical of Trotsky's arrogance and incompetent managerial skills. As a member of the Fourth International in the early seventies I must defend the `Old Man' here: American pragmatism and the resulting inability to understand how mutable human activities underlie and `implement' all `social structures' have been the bane of Marxist thought in that country. Trotsky was right to try to educate the comrades, although sadly with little success.
Was Trotsky a world-historic figure or merely a man of extreme intellectual talents who ended up espousing a failed ideology? Both can be true. Perhaps humanity needed to try Marxism in its most conceptually-sophisticated form in order to understand the true nature of its failure as a political strategy of liberation. Its Achilles' heel is not dialectics but its 19th century utopian view of human nature.
Patenaude has done a great service to the truth in this book, but has also constructed a thrilling historical account of a great but flawed man brought down by a truly evil empire. Poignant and gripping throughout.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Trotsky. Trotsky, Trotsky, Trotsky.
One of the most famous intellectuals of the twenty-first century, instrumental in the February Revolution of 1917, which disposed of the Romanov rule that had gripped the country for the last 300 years, and also key in the Bolshevik coup of October that year. He was, at one time, deemed by many to be the most powerful man in Russia - he formed and controlled the Red Army. Ironically, many in the post-Lenin government feared that he would become a Bonaparte-type figure - a military dictator. To avoid the goatee-d, bespectacled intellectual from becoming the leader of Communist Russia, many turned to a relatively unremarkable member of the Party as a moderate figure - a man called Joseph Stalin...
Though this book does touch upon those events to a certain extent, it is largely focussed on the period after Trotsky's expulsion from Russia, his last few years in Mexico where he eked out a living writing (all his books are recommended, if tendentious, reading on Soviet Russia) and, of course, his death.
The Strangler's song, No More Heroes, contains the lyric: "Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? He got an ice pick / that made his ears burn." Well, that is essentially it. There is no conspiracy. Nonetheless, Patenaude's highly readable account of Trotsky's final years is one of the best I've read. There were occasions when it felt like one was drowning in obscure Mexican names, but for the most part the prose was simple and effective, and very revealing.
This book is probably of most interest to those who already have some knowledge of the basis facts of pre-Revolution Russia, but it's written in such a way that, even if you don't, it's still a remarkable account of the desperate last days of one of the most contentious historical figures of all time. I was impressed.
(For the history student of the recent Edexcel course, it makes good background reading on a key figure in Russian/Communist history, but for a better overview I would recommended the indispensable The Russian Revolution.)
One of the most famous intellectuals of the twenty-first century, instrumental in the February Revolution of 1917, which disposed of the Romanov rule that had gripped the country for the last 300 years, and also key in the Bolshevik coup of October that year. He was, at one time, deemed by many to be the most powerful man in Russia - he formed and controlled the Red Army. Ironically, many in the post-Lenin government feared that he would become a Bonaparte-type figure - a military dictator. To avoid the goatee-d, bespectacled intellectual from becoming the leader of Communist Russia, many turned to a relatively unremarkable member of the Party as a moderate figure - a man called Joseph Stalin...
Though this book does touch upon those events to a certain extent, it is largely focussed on the period after Trotsky's expulsion from Russia, his last few years in Mexico where he eked out a living writing (all his books are recommended, if tendentious, reading on Soviet Russia) and, of course, his death.
The Strangler's song, No More Heroes, contains the lyric: "Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? He got an ice pick / that made his ears burn." Well, that is essentially it. There is no conspiracy. Nonetheless, Patenaude's highly readable account of Trotsky's final years is one of the best I've read. There were occasions when it felt like one was drowning in obscure Mexican names, but for the most part the prose was simple and effective, and very revealing.
This book is probably of most interest to those who already have some knowledge of the basis facts of pre-Revolution Russia, but it's written in such a way that, even if you don't, it's still a remarkable account of the desperate last days of one of the most contentious historical figures of all time. I was impressed.
(For the history student of the recent Edexcel course, it makes good background reading on a key figure in Russian/Communist history, but for a better overview I would recommended the indispensable The Russian Revolution.)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very readable and memorable
This book was given to me as a present, and although fairly familiar with 20th century Russian history I was reluctant to start this book. Read more
Published 6 days ago by El Pan
Slow read, needed more depth
I read the book in its draft form, and felt the story lacked depth. I did not really understand some elements of it, and there were some foreign expressions which I obviously could... Read more
Published 17 months ago by zenadox
History as Thriller?
This is a pacy account of a complicated set of events.
It doesn't champion Trotsky or his ideas but it does illustrate the personal cost of the 'Old Man's' rivalry with... Read more
It doesn't champion Trotsky or his ideas but it does illustrate the personal cost of the 'Old Man's' rivalry with... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mr. V. Thurgood
Hard Going
Trotksy's last years as an exile in Mexico has provided fare for historians, novelists, dramatists and film makers for years. Read more
Published 23 months ago by John Fitzpatrick
Difficult
I ordered this with great anticipation as I knew little of Trotsky the man. This account details Trotsky's troubled times in Mexico and his ultimate death in great detail, the... Read more
Published 24 months ago by A. Betts
A Cracking Good Read
Most books (and reviews) about Trotsky are written either by true believers or dedicated enemies. This book doesn't fit into these pitfalls and is mercifully free of polemic and... Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2010 by Andrew Howell
The backwaters of history?
This is a good book that digs much deeper into the history and day to day life of this enigmatic character. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2009 by P. MARTIN
A bit of a shocker for a modern political observer
For someone who only knows late 20th/easly 21st century politics, the depth of feeling and variety of viewpoint surrounding political movements of the early 20th century seems a... Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2009 by Maclennane
Excellent
I have, over the past year or so, gained a bit of an interest in Russian history especially that focusing around the Russian revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. Read more
Published on 20 Sep 2009 by Steven Stewart
the possibilities of non-fiction
There has been a growing trend in recent mainstream writing to write good quality nonfiction, nonfiction that uses fictional techniques. Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2009 by N. A. Bakhshov
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