For many years, the accepted version of Leon Trotsky’s importance to history came from the three-volume biography Trotsky, penned by his Polish-born former follower Isaac Deutscher. Written with the same literary flair and dramatic story-telling that led many to embrace Trotsky’s own account of the Russian Revolution, the biography enshrines Trotsky as a prophet whose leadership first led the Bolsheviks to capturing the seat of power from the weak Provisional Government of Russia in March of 1917, only to find himself condemned to exile and, finally, assassination, as Stalin acted to prevent Trotsky’s voice from being heard and perhaps having any influence.

As Deutscher saw the Soviet experience, Trotsky and Lenin had created a true worker’s state, that nationalized the means of production and successfully instituted the basis for eventual communism. Stalin’s dictatorial control distorted the essential humanism of the Bolshevik cause, but the grand project of Soviet Union would eventually recover from its betrayal—a new socialist order of the kind foretold by Trotsky would come into being, since Stalin had at least produced the economic basis for real socialism.

Now, decades after the appearance of Deutscher’s trilogy, two new biographies of Trotsky have appeared, both written by scholars affiliated with the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California. Neither is afflicted by the illusions about Trotsky held by Deutscher and his followers. Indeed, both Robert Service, who has written what will undoubtedly be the definitive