TROTSKY
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the scattered groups of the non-Communist left he won more ad–
miration than adherence.
The most enduring portion of Trotsky's writings during the
years of exile was not, however, directly polemical or narrowly
political.
It
was directed to the world at large, rather than the
constricted circles of radicalism, and today it is surely the most im–
mediately accessible to readers untrained in radical ideology. Trotsky's
autobiography, his unfinished book on Lenin, his severely controlled
study of Stalin, that masterful compression of his basic views on
Stalinism called
The Revolution Betrayed,
but above all,
The History
of the Russian Revolution-these
are among the major works of his
eleven years of exile. The
History
is Trotsky's masterpiece.
It
is a work
on the grand scale, epic in proportion, brilliant in color, vibrant
with the passions of strongly-remembered events. Throughout the
book there is a rising tension, so characteristic of modern writing,
between the subjective perceptions of a highly self-conscious author
and the unfolding of a sequence of history taken to be determined
by objective law. The book unfolds into great complexity-the com–
plexity of revolutionary craft and assurance-from a simple but
commanding image: the meeting of Russian worker and Russian
peasant, often in his guise as soldier or Cossack, their first hesitant
gropings toward each other, the subsequent drama of retreat and
reconciliation, and finally, a clasp of unity. Apart from its claim to
being a faithful record and true interpretation, the
History
is a major
work of twentieth-century literature, deserving to be placed beside
the masterpieces of modern writing.
During the last years of his life Trotsky not merely wrote with
great vigor in reply to the calumnies of the Moscow trials, not merely
composed a number of major works, not merely produced a steady
barrage of topical pieces on political and literary themes; he also
engaged in sharp debates with intellectual opponents ranging from
independent Marxists who disagreed with him on the "class nature"
of the Russian state to liberals and socialists who challenged his as–
sumption that between Bolshevism and Stalinism there was a funda–
mental conflict rather than a deep continuity. To support this as–
sumption he wrote an ambitious essay, "Their Morals and Ours," in
which he argued for the historical relativity of moral standards, tried
to show the social causes of the moral distance between Bolshevism
