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The Firebrand

A new biography tries to extinguish the myth of the kinder, gentler Trotsky
By Adam Kirsch | 7:00 AM Nov 24, 2009

When Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City by an agent of Stalin, in 1940, the American novelist James T. Farrell took to the pages of Partisan Review to memorialize him. “The life of Leon Trotsky is one of the great tragic dramas of modern history,” Farrell’s obituary began, and it only gets more idolatrous ...