Trotsky

Thatcher, Ian D.

doi:10.4324/9780203987094

Cited by 3 publications

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“…62 However, there are some surprising things that the series gets right. A scene in the first episode in which Trotsky presides over a literal decimation of a retreating Red Army regiment seems gratuitously brutal, but Trotsky really did order the shooting of every tenth man refusing to fight for the Red Army 63 and at least once personally presided over the execution of dozens of Red Army soldiers for desertion, including a commissar, near Svyazhsk in 1918. 64 Trotsky really did personally rally fleeing Red Army soldiers on horseback on at least one occasion as dramatically depicted in the series, showing considerable personal courage.…”

Section: Reception Of Trotskymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…68 Jacson really was an alias used by Ramon Mercader in order to gain access to Trotsky. 69 Furthermore, the series captures some of the haughtiness and pride inherent in Trotsky's personalityqualities which made him an excellent wartime leader but led to his rapid alienation from many of his colleagues once the war had been concluded. 70 However, as with many of those who demonise Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, the series overlooks the critical historical context in which Trotsky made his often brutal decisionsa bloody Civil War in which violence was "cruel and indiscriminate" 71 and victory for revolutionary forces by no means certain.…”

Section: Reception Of Trotskymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*

McCallum

2020

Aus J of Politics History

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Trotsky, an eight‐part miniseries made in 2017 for the centenary of the Russian Revolution, has recently been made available on Netflix for global audiences. This article analyses Trotsky through the theoretical lens of neo‐Eurasianism, especially as developed by the political theorist Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin's philosophy posits a civilisational divide between the “Atlantic” values of secularism, open markets, cosmopolitanism and sexual profligacy represented by the Anglo‐Atlantic cultural sphere, and the “Eurasian” values of authoritarianism, cultural conservatism and religious nationalism present in a revived Russia. I argue that Trotsky's interpretation of Leon Trotsky's legacy reflects the popularisation of Dugin's neo‐Eurasianist political philosophy in Russia. The article covers some of the key historical events depicted in Trotsky, discussing their accuracy with reference to existing academic biographies of Leon Trotsky. I then discuss the series’ apparent fixation on the Jewish heritage of Trotsky (who was born Lev Bronstein), which has been the focus of much of the media coverage of the series, before addressing the fraught place that Trotsky occupies in Russian historical memory. I then move on to a discussion of the political philosophy of neo‐Eurasianism and its relevance and application to the political climate of modern Russia. Finally, I consider what Dugin has said about Trotsky himself. Despite (or perhaps because of) its distortions of history, the series serves as a fascinating reflection of the values and political climate of modern Russia.

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Section: Reception Of Trotskymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reception Of Trotskymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*

McCallum

2020

Aus J of Politics History

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“…His 1901 essay "On Optimism, Pessimism, the Twentieth Century, and Many Other Things" is typical of his intellectual and emotional 1 Biographies of Trotsky's life range from sympathetic (especially [Deutscher 1954] to hostile (notably [Service 2009]), and from factually careful to error-ridden. See also [Thatcher 2003;Swain 2006;North 2010;Rubenstein, Trotsky 2013]. An incomplete edition of Trotsky's works was published in the Soviet Union in the 1920 as Lev Trotskii [Trotsky 1925a].…”

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Lev Trotsky and the utopian imagination in the Russian revolution

Steinberg¹

2017

Vestnik SPbSU. History

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LEV TROTSKY AND THE UTOPIAN IMAGINATION IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONThis article -the second part of a three-part series that reinterprets the "utopianism" of Russian revolutionaries, especially the Bolsheviks-focuses on the evolving views of Lev Trotsky. Part 1 described the basic theoretical approach: an alternative definition of the utopian imagination developed after 1917 in the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and others. In brief, this sees utopia as a critical analysis of conventional constructions of reality, time, and the possible: as a critical negation of that which merely is in the name of what should be, as a radical challenge to assumptions about what is possible and impossible in the present, as a vision of time and history as containing the possibility of an explosive "leap in the open air of history" (Benjamin). Utopian consciousness breaks into the normativized world of knowledge and expectations about reality and possibility in history to reveal the new and unexpected. This is utopia as radical epistemology, hermeneutics, and praxis. In this article, the focus is on Lev Trotsky (the previous article considered Alexandra Kollontai and the following concludes with Vladimir Mayakovsky), who, like all Marxists, denied he was a "utopian. " Although Trotsky's ideological positions and political power evolved and shifted, we see a variety of expressions of a fundamental utopian imagination during the years from 1901 through 1921: his critique of pessimism, his optimism about the power of unleashed popular passions, his insistence that what was truly impossible was to imagine that the revolution could be "interrupted" (what he called "непрерывная революция" and later "перманентная революция"), his faith in the coming of world revolution, his conception of the historical place of violence for unleashing the possibilities of the new-for allowing an explosive "leap in the open air of history. " Refs 40.Keywords: Lev Trotsky, the Russian revolution, utopianism, Russian revolutionaries.For citation: Steinberg M. D. Lev Trotsky and the utopian imagination in the Russian revolution. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2017, vol. 62, issue 4, pp. 664-673. https

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Leon Trotsky, the Cultural Debates, and the Political Struggle in 1923

Reznik

2020

Hist. Mater.

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This article examines interconnections between politics and culture in the early Soviet era, using Leon Trotsky’s activities in the campaign for a new everyday life (novyi byt) in 1923 as a case-study. Traditionally, scholars pay attention primarily to Trotsky’s writings on literature and art. In contrast, this article shows the important role of Trotsky’s brochure ‘Problems of Everyday Life’ in the development of a new field of political communication that became the space for criticism of different political and cultural aspects of Soviet power and Bolshevik rule. Using archival and press sources, it shows how the campaign was spread both from below and above, and what were the reasons for its failure to become an alternative cultural revolution.

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Trotsky

Cited by 3 publications

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Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*

Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*

Lev Trotsky and the utopian imagination in the Russian revolution

Leon Trotsky, the Cultural Debates, and the Political Struggle in 1923

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Trotsky

Cited by 3 publications

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Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy*

Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy*

Lev Trotsky and the utopian imagination in the Russian revolution

Leon Trotsky, the Cultural Debates, and the Political Struggle in 1923

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Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*

Perviy Kanal's Trotsky and the “Atlanticisation” of Leon Trotsky's Legacy^*