Book Review from the March 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard
History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky, Sphere Books (3 volumes) 30s.
This is the first paper-back edition of Trotsky’s masterly book. The three volumes are here unabridged and also contain the valuable appendices. Together they are an essential reference work and, at the same time, a refreshing antidote to the official Stalinist “histories" of the revolution. Even when his revolutionary enthusiasm gets the better of his theoretical grasp of Marxism (the "law” of combined development and so on) Trotsky remains an immensely attractive thinker and writer. But in the end socialists must apply to Trotsky the verdict which he himself gave on Stalin: “It is well known that people make history without understanding its laws . . . ”
John Crump
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