Very scarce with the wrapper

Trotsky, Leon ~ The Revolution Betrayed : what is the Soviet Union and where is it going?

First UK Printing : Faber & Faber : 1937

The First UK Printing published by Faber & Faber in 1937. The BOOK and WRAPPER are both in Very Good++ condition. Original publisher’s black cloth boards, gilt lettering to spine; light toning to page edges, small nick to the upper spine tip ; contemporary newspaper clipping revealing Trotsky’s murder pasted-in to the front blank end-paper, small bookshop label to the lower front paste-down. The wrapper is complete and is priced '12s. 6d. net' to the front flap. Some toning and light rubbing to the spine, light edge wear to extremities, more-so at the spine ends. The wrapper is protected in removable Brodart archival cover. Written in exile in 1936 and first published the following year, 'The Revolution Betrayed' is Trotsky’s major analysis of the transformation of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and one of his most sustained attempts to explain what had become of the Revolution he had helped to make. Rather than arguing that socialism itself had failed, Trotsky distinguishes between the economic achievements of the Revolution and the political degeneration of the Soviet state. Nationalised industry and the planned economy, he argues, remain important achievements, but political power has passed into the hands of an increasingly privileged and autonomous bureaucracy. One of the especially prescient predictions made by Trotsky was that the USSR would come before a disjuncture: either the toppling of the ruling bureaucracy by means of a political revolution, or capitalist restoration led by the bureaucracy, “The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.” The book is regarded as Trotsky's primary work dealing with the nature of Stalinism and socialist democracy. The book was written by Trotsky during his exile in Norway and was originally translated into Spanish by Victor Serge. The postscript to his introduction notes that the manuscript had been completed before Stalin’s show trials inaugurated the Great Purge, and therefore “the proceedings of the trial could not be evaluated in its pages.” The translator, Max Eastman, remained close with Trotsky up to his assassination in Mexico in 1940. The book was also published in the USA by Doubleday, Doran & Company. The UK edition is considerably more scarce.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good++
JACKET: Very Good++