First published in France in 1951, this volume is a biography of Russian Marxist revolutionary, military leader, and political theorist Leon Trotsky (1879-1940). Written by Trotsky's wife and one of his closest friends, it provides many personal insights into Trotsky's life, work and behavior. The authors pay particular attention to the last ten years of Trotsky's life and attempt to place the dramatic and ultimately fateful events of his life in context with his role in the peaks and valleys of the Russian revolutionary movement from the turn of the 20th century until his assassination in 1940.