The Life and Death of Trotsky torrent

The Life and Death of Trotsky - Robert Payne [mobi]

Who was Trotsky? Leon Trotsky was a Jew, a Russian, a European, a cosmopolitan.

Handsome, eloquent, possessing physical courage and grace of manner, he strode across the world as though it belonged to him. Like Napoleon he dared to do impossible things, and like Napoleon he was deeply troubled when he learned that not everyone admired him.

He was a man whose revolutionary passion and brilliance inspired a nation of millions to rebellion, whose influence spanned continents, whose flamboyant and formidable aura spawned Trotskyites from Petrograd to London.

Payne penetrates the web of myth that for years has distorted the real Trotsky — the man of boundless contradictions : a devoted family man, who abandoned his first wife; a civilized scholar with a pronounced streak of cruelty; an anti-imperialist who contemplated the conquest of India and schemed revolution in the U.S.; a man who never succeeded in reconciling his absolutism and his love of freedom.

In this compelling biography, Payne recreates the man in all his facets. He reveals Trotsky's inner seeds of self-destruction, his terrible errors, his excessive pride, his supreme contempt for others. He unravels power plays at the highest levels of the Russian government, the immense struggle between Stalin and Trotsky, the twisted path of international intrigue that led to Trotsky's political downfall and, ultimately, his death at the hands of a mysterious assassin