Editing Isaac Deutscher (section)

==Biographer and academic (1947–1967)==

Deutscher published his first major work, ''Stalin, A Political Biography'' in 1949. In the book he gave Stalin what he saw as his due for building a form of socialism in the Soviet Union, even if it was, in Deutscher's view, a perversion of the vision of {{awrap|[[Karl Marx]]}}, [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} The Stalin biography made Deutscher a leading authority on Soviet affairs and the [[Russian Revolution]]. He followed it up with his most ambitious work, a three-volume biography of Trotsky: ''The Prophet Armed'' (1954), ''The Prophet Unarmed'' (1959) and ''The Prophet Outcast'' (1963). These books were based on detailed research into the Trotsky Archives at [[Harvard University]]. Much of the material contained in the third volume was previously unknown, since Trotsky's widow, [[Natalia Sedova]], gave Deutscher access to the closed section of the archives. Deutscher planned to conclude his series with a study of Lenin, but ''The Life of Lenin'' remained incomplete at the time of Deutscher's death, partly due to a politically motivated denial of a university position to him.<ref>M. Ignatieff, ''Isaiah Berlin: A Life'' (London, 1998), pp. 93, 235; cited in Neil Davidson, [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj104/davidson.htm "The prophet, his biographer and the watchtower"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506080243/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj104/davidson.htm |date=6 May 2021 }}, International Socialism 104, 2004.</ref> As later revealed, [[Isaiah Berlin]], who was asked to evaluate the academic credentials of Deutscher, argued against such a promotion because of the profoundly pro-communist militancy of the candidate.<ref>David Caute, ''Isaac and Isaiah''.</ref>

In the 1960s, the upsurge of [[left-wing]] sentiment that accompanied the [[Vietnam War]] made Deutscher a popular figure on university campuses in both Britain and the United States. By this time Deutscher had broken with conventional Trotskyism, although he never repudiated Trotsky himself and remained a committed Marxist. In 1965, Deutscher took part in the first "Teach-In" on Vietnam at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where thousands of students listened to his indictment of the [[Cold War]].<ref name=TD68/> He was [[G. M. Trevelyan]] Lecturer at the [[University of Cambridge]] for 1966–67 and also lectured for six weeks at the [[State University of New York]].<ref name=TD68/> In spring 1967, he guest-lectured at [[New York University]], [[Princeton University|Princeton]], Harvard and [[Columbia University|Columbia]].<ref name=TD68/> The G. M. Trevelyan Lectures, under the title ''The Unfinished Revolution'', were published after Deutscher's sudden and unexpected death in [[Rome]] in 1967, where he went for an [[Italy|Italian]] TV broadcast. It was a play about the fall of Trotsky, written and directed by [[Marco Leto]], starring [[Franco Parenti]] as Trotsky and [[Renzo Giovampietro]] as Stalin. A memorial prize honouring Deutscher, called the [[Deutscher Memorial Prize]], is awarded annually to a book "which exemplifies the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition". In his works Deutscher [[Dialectical materialism|made the distinction]] between [[classical Marxism]] and [[Orthodox Marxism|vulgar Marxism]].<ref name="Deutscher lecture">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1965/marxism.htm Deutscher lecture 1965].</ref>