Trotsky on Stalinism
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-11-17Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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The classic Marxist analy of Stalinism is Leon Trotsky's 'Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where It Going?' Available via Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8: £2.50 plus 50p postage.
I found it, therefore, inevitably, unsatisfactory and disappointing.
One of the best things about it was Tom Bell's convincing Felix Dzerzhinsky, the semimystical Polish Bolshevik who founded the Cheka, the political police of the revolution. He plays him like a priest.
By chance I came across the book the TV series is based on, "Reilly, Ace of Spies" by Robin Bruce Lockhart, son of Reilly's British associate in Russia in 1918.
It would be a cert to win the "worst book ever written" contest. Dzerzhinsky killed his own mother, his staring tanatic's eyes were never known to blink, and so on.
Scan page 12
Socialist Organiser no.155 November 17 1983 Page 12 Where we stand