User:Balabinrm/Trotsky and World War I

Main articles: Leon Trotsky and World War I

Pamphlet «The War and the International» (Trotsky, 1914)

Leon Trotsky and World War I was a period in the life of Leon Trotsky, associated with the First World War. In August 1914, after the outbreak of hostilities, Trotsky and his family fled from Vienna to Zurich, fearing to be interned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. In Switzerland Trotsky wrote his pamphlet "The War and the International", in which he criticized the West-European Social Democrats for supporting their governments in their war efforts; he also formulated the slogan of the "United States of Europe". After Zurich, the revolutionary moved to Paris, where he became a military correspondent for a Russian newspaper "Kievskaja mysl" (Russian: Киевская мысль) and created another newspaper - "Nashe slovo" (Russian: Наше слово; "Our Word"). In his articles Trotsky repeatedly spoke out for the cessation of the war with the subsequent onset of the socialist revolution.

In September 1915, Trotsky - accompanied by Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov - participated in the international Zimmerwald Conference. Having repeatedly presented his anti-war political position, Trotsky became "an extremely undesirable element" from the perspective of French authorities: so, he was forcibly deported to Spain. During the World War I Trotsky broke off his political connections with the August bloc and "took his first and decisive step along the road that would finally lead him to the Bolshevik Party". Starting from 1914, against the position of the majority, the revolutionary predicted that the fighting of the new war would be protracted and bloody. After the October Revolution of 1917, the experience gained by Trotsky as a military correspondent became the basis for his activities as Soviet People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs.

Literature

• Thatcher I. D. Leon Trotsky and World War One: August 1914 — February 1917. — Springer, 2000. — 262 p. — ISBN 9781403913968.
  • Geifman A. Review of Leon Trotsky and World War One: August 1914—February 1917 // The American Historical Review. — 2001. — Vol. 106, iss. 4. — P. 1500–1501. — DOI:10.2307/2693153.
  • McKean R. B. Review of Leon Trotsky and World War One: August 1914—February 1917 // The English Historical Review. — 2002. — Vol. 117, iss. 472. — P. 742–743.
  • Williams B. Review of Leon Trotsky and World War One: August 1914—February 1917 // The Russian Review. — 2001. — Vol. 60, iss. 3. — P. 445—446.
• Erickson J. Trotsky and the Red Army // The Purnell History of the First World War — Vol. 6, No. 9. — P. 2482—2489.
• Gankin O. H., Fisher H. H. The Bolsheviks and the World War: The Origin of the Third International. — Stanford University Press, 1940. — 856 p. — (Hoover Library on War, Revolution, and Peace, Vol. 15). — ISBN 9780804703451. — ISBN 0804703450.
• Rosmer A. Trotsky in Paris During World War One // New International. — 1950. — September—October. — P. 263—278.
• Фельштинский Ю., Чернявский Г. В годы мировой войны // Лев Троцкий. Книга 1. Революционер. 1879—1917 гг. — М.: Центрполиграф, 2012. — 448 с. — ISBN 978-5-227-03783-1. — ISBN 5457227391. — ISBN 9785457227392. [in Russian]
• Киршин Ю. Я. Лев Троцкий — военный теоретик. — Клинцы: Изд-во Клинц. гор. тип., 2003. — 335 с. — ISBN 5-88898-185-0. [in Russian]
• Donnert E. Die Stellung der russischen Sozialdemokratie zum 1. Weltkrieg // East European Quarterly. — Boulder, 1990. — Summer (Bd. 24, H. 2). — S. 151. [in German]
• Brahm H. Trotzkis journalistische Lehr- und Wanderjahre // Österreichische Osthefte. — Peter Lang GmbH, 2001. — Bd. 43, Nr. 3. — S. 297—310. — ISSN 0029-9375. [in German]