[citation needed] Leon Trotsky was a leading figure in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October 1917.

[3] When speaking of himself, Trotsky writes in the third person in order to avoid subjectivism stating that: "the subjective tone, inevitable in autobiographies or memoirs, is not permissible in a work of history.

The first volume explains the historical reasons why the democratic regime that replaced tsarism "proved wholly non-viable.

[9] In his note about the author in the first English translation, Eastman wrote: this present work [...] will take its place in the record of Trotsky's life [...] as one of the supreme achievements of this versatile and powerful mind and will.

[10] In 2017, on the centennial of the Russian Revolution, writer Tariq Ali reviewed the book and wrote:This passionate, partisan, and beautifully written account by a major participant in the revolution, written during his exile on the isle of Prinkipo in Turkey, remains one of the best accounts of 1917.