Book review: Stalin’s Nemesis

Stalin's Nemesis is a reconstruction of Trotksy's exile and assassination in Mexico that "grips from start to finish", said Ian Thomson in the Sunday Times.

Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotksy, arrived in Mexico City in 1937, having been hounded out of the Soviet Union after branding Stalin an "outstanding mediocrity" and "the gravedigger of the revolution". There, he came under the protection of Mexico's most famous artist, Diego Rivera (one of whose murals depicts a "wild-eyed" Trotsky commanding the Red Army).

But Stalin's agents were not far behind: in May 1940, 20 armed men, led by another Mexican artist, stormed his house, machine-gunning his bedroom. Trotksy and his wife survived by hiding under their bed. Soon after, a Stalinist Spaniard named Ramon Mercader infiltrated Trotsky's circle, passing himself off as a fellow traveller. He inveigled his way into his target's study, on the pretext of asking his opinion about a tract he had written, and buried an ice axe in Trotsky's head. "Death solves all problems," Stalin is supposed to have said: "No man, no problem."

Patenaude, a historian at Stanford University, "displays a novelist's verve to match his deep knowledge of Russian history", said Paul Riddell in the Scotsman. "His narrative agility - suspense, flashbacks and lots of seemingly incidental but crucial bits of detail - will surely help to propel this book into the same league as Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin."

It is "an engaging character study of a failed leader", said Paddy Docherty in the FT. Trotksy was a great orator who inspired extraordinary loyalty in his followers, but who was also ruthless, erratic and deeply flawed. Stalin's Nemesis also "provides fascinating insights into the strange world that he inhabited". Hanging round his Mexican villa, among the bodyguards, schemers and killers, were the Surrealist poet Andre Breton, Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo (who had an affair with Trotsky and called him "Little Goatee").

"The strength of Patenaude's account is in his detective work on the last weeks of Trotsky's life," said Robert Service in the Observer. He has a good feel for the subject matter, and tells the story well. He is, however, perhaps a little too kind to his subject. The book glosses over the fact that Trotksy, though a brilliant writer and a magnetic personality, helped design and build a political order that persecuted millions. He heartily supported the harsh dictatorial regime imposed after 1917, and the application of terror against supposed "enemies of the people".

Stalin's Nemesis, by Bertrand M Patenaude, 352pp (Faber, £20) The Week Bookshop £18 (incl p&p) ·