The Heretic (Life and Work of Isaac Deutscher)

Long awaited biography of the masterly biographer of Trotsky and Stalin

Polish and British, non-Jewish Jew, critic, journalist, essayist, historian… above all, Marxist thinker, Isaac Deutscher (1907-67), was both one of the most celebrated and most controversial intellectuals of Cold War. Best known for his biographies of Stalin (1949) and Trotsky (1953-62), he was born in an observant Yiddish-speaking family in Chrzanów, a shtetl only a few miles away from Auschwitz. Still in his teens, he moved to Warsaw where he published poetry and literary journalism. A member of the Communist party from late 1926, his open opposition to Stalinist orthodoxy resulted in his expulsion in 1932. His clear-eyed anticipation of a joint Nazi-Soviet invasion, pushed him to abandon Poland for London in 1939. After a successful career at the news desks at The Economist and The Observer, he turned himself into a freelance historian, thinker and internationally-renowned expert on Russian and Eastern European affairs. His voluminous writing, his clairvoyance and courage, and his compelling style, made him an essential intellectual resource during the fifties and sixties, and left a lasting impact on the New Left even after his death. Based on extensive international research, The Heretic draws on new archival material and interviews, offering the most comprehensive study of Deutscher’s life and work to date. Focusing on his political and intellectual evolution, Gonzalo Pozo maps Deutscher’s numerous international dialogues and controversies both on the left and on the right, and critically interrogates his historical and ethical actuality for our time.