Military Writings

By Leon Trotsky

The central organizer of the Red Army discusses the challenge of organizing an army made up of peasants and workers, based on a shared interest in defending the young Soviet republic. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873480295
• ISBN13: 9780873480291
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Pathfinder
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

"War is Military Extension of Politics"

"Military Writings," Leon Trotsky, NY, Merit Publishers, 1969 Lib CCC 72-92843, PC, 160 pgs. plus Append. I-II of 11 pgs. 8" x 5 1/2" (AKA Pathfinder Press, ISBN 0873480295). An interesting political diatribe over important minutiae affecting military stratagems utilized by protetarian leaders to reconstitute a formerly defeated Imperialistic White Russian Army into a pragmatic Red Army militia. Born Russian Jew in 1879, Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (Brunshtein), later assumed name of Leon Trotsky, becoming a major Lenin supporter (latter died 1924) of 1917 Revolution & fighting against Soviet military bureaucratism (mouldy functionarsim) of Social Democrats (Stalin led Marxist dictatorship), formulating Bolsheviks' (splinter) party but later rejoined Lenin's Mensheviki. A complex man of many talents, Trotsky was eventually appointed Russian Civil War Commissar (for war 1918-1925) & charged with creating the Red Army. He regarded war as an extension of politics, argued militarism was an art (not a science!), and emphasized importance of platoon leaders, demanding soldiers' hygiene (to rid lice), oiling of guns & greasing of boots. He was exacting & vocal on military policies of need to use both attack (offensive) & retreat (defensive) maneuvers and necessity of formulating positionist versus maneuverist engagements. He based his tenets on the essentials of war on his detailed study of both recent & historical battle outcomes, refutating vulgar dogmas, nostalgic or otherwise. Trotsky was a significant journalist, a pacifist & energetic vocal political agitator pushing for International Communism (permanent revolution) finally ousted by Stalin in 1929, & after several attempts was assassinated by axe in his home near Mexico City (Communist stronghold) by Stalin's agent Mornard (?AKA Jacques Dreschd). I'm confident this book is required reading for West Point Cadets. Diatribes are useful in so far they seek to rivet points, but for some, like myself, prolixity can assume features of black holes. Still, it is a good read.

A Gem for Workers

This book is a witty gem with great relevance for today. Trotsky points out that the military practice that defended the Russian Revolution against imperialist invasion was based on a political orientation-one that we can understand and fight for today, the workers and farmers alliance. He brilliantly defends this alliance against the ultralefts who unknowingly threatened it with their foolishness. He also debunks the so-called science of the reactionary stuffed shirts-like those military figures we see briefing the press today with their talk about smart bombs and surgically precise warfare. Read it, as a worker who wants to clarify your thinking about war.

war and politics, politics and war from a practical manual

This book is a selection of the best of Trotsky's many writings, speeches, and debates on the military strategy that won the Russian civil war and defeated not only the Russian counterrevolutionaries, but 21 different capitalist nations including the USA that sent troops to aid them. Some of these writings come from the public debates in the leaders of the Soviet Government with other political parties or within the leadership of the Communist Party. All of them illustrate the triumphant strategy of advancing politics, the politics of the liberation and empowerment of working people, oppressed nationalities, and peasants as the key to military victory. This should be read for the battles of the future.

The art of politics and war

This is a fascinating collection of articles and speeches by Leon Trotsky, one of the central leaders of the 1917 Russian revolution. Trotsky was assigned to organize and lead the new Red Army that defended revolutionary Russia (later the Soviet Union) from foreign capitalist intervention and counterrevolutionary civil war from 1918-1923. Here, Trotsky takes up questions about political and military strategy and tactics posed in wide-ranging debates that went on in the Bolshevik Party and Red Army at that time. He provides though-provoking analysis of the shifting relations among the major world powers in the early 1900s, especially under the impact of WWI and the Russian Revolution, and the necessary decisions made at different points by the leaders of the Soviet workers and peasants. Best of all, this is a detailed example of the Marxist method of orienting oneself in face of changing circumstances and figuring out what to do next, the art of politics as well as war. Trotsky stresses that this cannot be done by hasty generalizations or simplifications, or by finding and just applying a few general principles. It takes hard work, careful attention to facts and details, and accurate assessment of the relations between different social classes, starting on a world scale. Workers today can learn a lot from this rich experience!