Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky

Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky

by Bertrand Patenaude (Author)

Synopsis

Leon Trotsky was the charismatic intellectual of the Russian Revolution, a brilliant writer and orator who was also an authoritarian organizer. He might have succeeded Lenin and become the ruler of the Soviet Union. But by the time the Second World War broke out he was in exile, living in Mexico in a villa borrowed from the great artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, guarded only by several naive young Americans in awe of the great theoretician. The household was awash with emotional turmoil - tensions grew between Trotsky and Rivera, as questions arose over his relations with Frida Kahlo. His wife was restless and jealous. Outside of the villa, Mexican communists tried to storm the house and kill the man they regarded as a traitor, the Trotskys' sons were being persecuted and killed in Europe, and in Moscow, Stalin personally ordered his secret police to kill his fiercest left-wing critic - at any cost. By the summer of 1940, they had found a man who could penetrate the tight security around the house in far-away Mexico. This title offers a brilliant reconstruction of one of the most infamous state crimes, and a panoramic view of Trotsky's incredible life. Here is all the squalor, glory, fanaticism and bloodshed of a deadly rivalry.

$3.25

Save:$21.83 (87%)

Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 18 Jun 2009

ISBN 10: 0571228755
ISBN 13: 9780571228751
Book Overview: Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky by Bertrand Patenaude: revolution, politics, exile, art, literature and murder - the astonishing true story of the demise of Stalin's fiery adversary.

Author Bio
Bertrand Patenaude teaches history at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California. He is the author of The Big Show in Bololand, a remarkable account of the US relief expedition to the Soviet Union during the famine of 1921.