Isaac Deutscher

Isaac Deutscher was planning to write a biography of Lenin after he completed the Trotsky trilogy. However, he changed his mind and wrote one of Stalin instead. This was necessary, he argued, to show that Stalin is an objective fact. He won the faction fight. We lost. He can't be ignored. The tome on Stalin duly appeared and was respectfully...

Isaac Deutscher is widely recognised as one of the foremost political biographers of the twentieth century. His full-scale studies of Trotsky and Stalin, translated into many world languages, have played a major role in elucidating the character and fate of the Russian Revolution. He died on 19 August 1967, at the height of his powers. From his papers, his widow,...