Audio only
Length25h 27m
About this audiobook
"My Life" is an amazing story of an amazing life, regardless of your thoughts on Leon Trotsky's political views and stances. It is one of the most historically important autobiographies of the past century. Well worth reading and re-reading.
“This book is not an objective photograph of my life,” Trotsky writes in his foreword to "My Life", “but a component of it. In these pages I am continuing the struggle to which my whole life is devoted… Recounting events, I analyse and appraise them; telling my story, I defend myself, and even more frequently attack.”
When he wrote these words in 1929, Trotsky was fifty years old. He had left his old name of Lev Bronstein behind twenty-seven years ago, and in that interval he had escaped from Siberia twice, been imprisoned a number of times by a number of governments, met Lenin, fallen out with Lenin, fallen back in with Lenin, led the Petrograd Soviet, founded the Red Army, won the Civil War, produced a vast quantity of journalism, theory and even literary criticism and finally, after years of struggle against the rising Stalinist faction, found himself stripped of all power and exiled from the USSR. Once Lenin’s friend and equal, he was now reviled. His views, integral to the formation of Bolshevik and then Soviet policy, no longer had any expression. His face was being excised from pictures, his words from pages. His allies were dead, exiled or surrendered. These are the circumstances in which he began to write his memoirs.
"My Life" is primarily a very carefully constructed testimony. Trotsky’s life and reputation were at stake. His story had to be watertight, explaining away his class origins (his parents were landowners), smoothing over his early conflicts with Lenin and ensuring that his religious and ethnic origins were not prominent. Every action had to be accounted for, every wrong step justified.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.3 (1.9K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, StoryGraph
GenreBiography and Memoir, History, Philosophy
Length25 hrs 27 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 28, 2019
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Foreword
2Chapter 1. Yanovka
3Chapter 2. Our Neighbors And My First School
4Chapter 3. Odessa: My Family And My School
5Chapter 4. Books And Early Conflicts
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 5. Country And Town
7Chapter 6. The Break
8Chapter 7. My First Revolutionary Organization
9Chapter 8. My First Prisons
10Chapter 9. My First Exile
11Chapter 10. My First Escape
12Chapter 11. An Émigré For The First Time
13Chapter 12. The Party Congress And The Split
14Chapter 13. The Return To Russia
15Chapter 14. The Year 1905
16Chapter 15. Trial, Exile, Escape
17Chapter 16. My Second Foreign Exile: German Socialism
18Chapter 17. Preparing For A New Revolution
19Chapter 18. The Beginning Of The War
20Chapter 19. Paris, And Zimmerwald
21Chapter 20. My Expulsion From France
22Chapter 21. Through Spain
23Chapter 22. New York
24Chapter 23. In A Concentration Camp
25Chapter 24. In Petrograd
26Chapter 25. Concerning Slanderers
27Chapter 26. From July To October
28Chapter 27. The Deciding Night
29Chapter 28. “Trotskyism” In 1917
30Chapter 29. In Power
31Chapter 30. In Moscow
32Chapter 31. Negotiations At Brest-Litovsk
33Chapter 32. Peace
34Chapter 33. A Month At Sviyazhsk
35Chapter 34. The Train
36Chapter 35. The Defense Of Petrograd
37Chapter 36. The Military Opposition
38Chapter 37. Disagreements Over War Strategy
39Chapter 38. The Transition To The New Economic Policy, And My Relations With Lenin
40Chapter 39. Lenin’s Illness
41Chapter 40. The Conspiracy Of The Epigones
42Chapter 41. Lenin’s Death And The Shift Of Power
43Chapter 42. The Last Period Of Struggle Within The Party
44Chapter 43. The Exile
45Chapter 44. The Deportation
46Chapter 45. The Planet Without A Visa
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