Items related to The Defence of Terrorism (Routledge Revivals): Terrorism...

The Defence of Terrorism (Routledge Revivals): Terrorism and Communism - Softcover

Trotsky, Leon

 
9781138015302: The Defence of Terrorism (Routledge Revivals): Terrorism and Communism
Softcover
ISBN 10: 113801530X ISBN 13: 9781138015302
Publisher: Routledge, 2015

Synopsis

The Defence of Terrorism, originally written in 1920 on a military train during the Russian Civil War, represents one of Trotsky’s most wide-ranging and original contributions to the debates that dominated the 1920s and ‘30s.

Trotsky’s intention is "far away from any thought of defending terrorism in general". Rather, he seeks to promote an historical justification for the Revolution, by demonstrating that history has set up the ‘revolutionary violence of the progressive class’ against the ‘conservative violence of the outworn classes’. The argument is developed in response to the influential Marxist intellectual Karl Kautsky, who refuted Trotsky’s ‘militarisation of labour’ and Lenin’s wholesale rejection of a ‘bloodless revolution’. The introduction, written for the second edition of 1935, presents Trotsky’s reflections on the similarities between Kautsky and the burgeoning British Labour Party: specifically, it recapitulates Trotsky’s belief that revolution conducted according to the norms of Parliamentarianism is no revolution at all.

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About the Author

Leon Trotsky

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Routledge
Publication date
2015
Language
English
ISBN 10 
113801530X
ISBN 13 
9781138015302
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
190