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Leon Trotsky (photo by Alex Buchman, 1940)

About the Lubitz' Leon Trotsky Bibliographies
– Survey –


The online version of our

Lubitz' Leon Trotsky Bibliography (LLTB)

[ISSN 2190-0183]

A short feature

As an ongoing project and continuing, developing and improving our printed Trotsky Bibliographies (published as 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition, respectively, between 1982 and 1999 by Saur-Verlag, Munich), we proudly present the online version of our Lubitz' Leon Trotsky Bibliography (LLTB) within the framework of TrotskyanaNet. Going online for the first time on August 21, 2009 - just 69 years after Trotsky's assassination and some 130 years after his birth - this international systematic bibliography itemizes a considerable amount and a great variety of resources on Trotsky, Trotskyism and Trotskyists; it is updated, revised and amended on an approximately semi-annual basis.

It is hoped that this online publication - considering both its thoroughness and professionalism - will be used and welcomed by many people engaged in Trotsky(ism) research. It goes without saying, that we appreciate any feedback (praise and criticism, notification concerning broken links, etc.) from its users.

As at January 2024, the present version of our online bibliography contains 22,310 records (some 18,000 main entries plus some 4,300 cross references) which are derived from our Trotsky database (nicknamed LEON) which we are running since 1993 and which is a computerized database created for the gathering, processing and output of bibliographic data; the software tool used is called Allegro-C, developed by Braunschweig University Library under the direction of Mr. Bernhard Eversberg (*1949). Our Trotsky database is an ongoing project which as at January 2024 contains some 30,500 data records (including 'authority files' concerning authors, sources etc.)

We can process special database researches on users' demand; thus, don't hesitate to contact us in case that you need some specific bibliographic information, compilation or the like.

To use our online Lubitz' Leon Trotsky Bibliography (LLTB), you may simply choose any of the following access points:


Looking back:
the printed versions of our Trotsky Bibliography
(1982-1999)
 

Background and publication history

With the first publication of Louis Sinclair's (1909-1990) monumental Leon Trotsky : a bibliography (Stanford, Cal., Hoover Inst. Pr., 1972) it had become easier to get an impression of what Leon Trotsky had written, to locate certain items or to find out bibliographical details concerning his numerous books and pamphlets in various languages and about the even more numerous contributions from his pen published or reprinted in collections, journals, newsletters, bulletins and the like.

At the same time it was quite impossible to find any more or less comprehensive account or compilation of what had been written about Leon Trotsky and the movement he gave his name; and it remained a quite time-consuming and frustrating endeavour to obtain a more or less authentic survey about the state-of-the-art in the field of research on Trotsky and Trotskyism. This and the fact that about the mid-1970s we had started collecting the writings on Trotsky and Trotskyism systematically (including a good deal of primary sources, too), were some of the main motives to become Trotsky bibliographers by gathering data of the widespread and dispersed, often hardly to locate secondary literature about the subject.

The work on this bibliographical project originally started in the second half of the 1970s. German publisher K.G. Saur (Munich) endeavoured to publish the manuscript of the first edition in 1982 as a book. Since the printrun sold quite well, since Trotsky research flourished and since we were able to open new gold mines of information again and again, a second edition appeared as soon as 1988, considerably amended and with some fundamental changes and improvements with regard to layout, arrangement, indexing etc.

During the 1990s the work on the Trotsky Bibliography continued, and acquisition of relevant material could be considerably intensified; and again some fundamental changes took place: beginning in 1993, all hitherto collected bibliographical data were transferred into a newly created computerized database (see above) to which a very considerable number of new items could be added during the following years. Since the 1988 edition went out of print around 1996, it was decided to produce a new (3rd) edition which saw the light in November 1998 (with the imprint and copyright year "1999"); it was published in 2 separate volumes and again some fundamental alterations occured: thus a new chapter (dealing with items about some deceased Trotskyists) was added; additionally there were more cross-references than ever before and the layout was considerably improved; last not least there was nearly a doubling of entries compared to the second edition. The 3rd edition (1999) at the same time was the last one published in book form (i.e. as printed edition). Some years later it has been continued and replaced by the online version described above

Here is a short bibliographic survey concerning the Lubitz' printed Trotsky bibliographies:

By the way, it should be mentioned that in 1981 we produced 4 copies of an (unpublished) manuscript titled Lev Davydovich Trotskii (1879-1940) : Bibliographie selbständiger und unselbständiger Schriften über L.D. Trotskii und den Trotzkismus from which one copy must have found its way to France; this may explain the fact that this unpublished (!) manuscript was reviewed by Michel Dreyfus in Cahiers Léon Trotsky, 1982 (9), pp. 122-123.


Table of contents of the 3rd (printed) edition

Here we provide the Title page & Table of contents [PDF, 157 KB] of the 3rd (printed) edition of our Trotsky Bibliography.


Publisher's flyer in German and English

Here we provide the Publisher's flyer in German [PDF, 371 KB] of the 3rd (printed) edition of our Trotsky Bibliography.

What follows is a short presentation and abstract of the 3rd (printed) edition of our Trotsky Bibliography. This slightly abridged and altered text has been taken from a flyer issued by K.G. Saur Verlag (Munich) in 1998 which was translated into English from our original German text.

"This bibliography provides a record of the life, works and reception of the politician, theoretician and revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Certainly one of the most fascinating and charismatic figures of the 20th century, Leon Trotsky has also been the subject of one of the century's liveliest debates.
The purpose of this bibliography is to give its users (historians, social scientists, experts of Eastern European culture and politics, journalists, students, librarians) the fullest and most detailed survey possible of the state of research on Trotsky. The work is designated also to speed up the search for secondary literature on Trotsky and the movement named after him.
This third, substantially enlarged, up-dated and revised edition contains records for c. 9,500 titles in 25 languages. This amounts to virtually double the number given in the second edition. Around two thirds of the total number of titles appeared between the end of the 1960s and 1998, about a quarter in the period from 1987 to 1998 alone. Only works written in European languages have been registered and the majority of them are in English, Russian, French, German and Italian. Writings recorded here were published in c. 50 European and non-European (here mainly anglophone) countries. Virtually the full range of printed media was taken into account for the bibliography: books and pamphlets, essays from periodicals, contributions for anthologies, festschrifts etc., dissertations and other university publications, papers delivered at congresses, reviews, bibliographies, photograph albums and others. No works were excluded from the bibliography on grounds of provenance or academic value. The bibliography thus contains material written not only by authoritative academic writers but also by political supporters and opponents of Trotsky, who make no attempt to disguise or deny their allegiance.
The present edition contains a number of substantial new features. Non-English titles, for example, have been translated into English. Title descriptions are now more detailed [...] and numerous large monographs and anthologies have been listed with details of contents. Six indexes help users find their way to bibliographic items [...] The foreword also indicates the most important archives in possession of material on Trotsky.
Established items of information from the previous edition, such as cross references to related works and to other editions of the same work under a different title have been included again. Users of the previous edition will also recognize the 'see also' references at the end of the chapters, which point you towards writings treating a variety of themes and which might justifiably be sought in a number of different sub-chapters.
The bibliography is arranged in nine thematic chapters, which have been divided in turn into more than 100 sub-chapters. The main section of the bibliography is preceded by a detailed outline of the classification system. This explains the systematic arrangement of chapters. The contents of chapter three ('Trotsky's political, socio-economic and military thought') and seven ('The International Trotskyist movement') have been greatly expanded. A further sub-chapter [...] has been added. Chapter 9 ('Biographical material about some deceased Trotskyists') is also new to the third edition."

Reviews and quotations regarding the printed editions

The three printed editions of our Trotsky Bibliography (1982, 1988, 1999) met with lively response by reviewers, commentators, and users. Here we provide:


List of reviews

Please note: some of the reviews listed here have been scanned as PDF files.


Some quotations/assessments from reviews:

Klaus Schreiber (2000):

"Der russische Revolutionär und Politiker [...] Lev Trockij (Leo Trotzkij) [...] gehört dank zweier hingebungsvoller Bibliographen zu den am besten dokumentierten Politikern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Auf die 1. Aufl. 1982 und die 2. Aufl. 1988 [...] der Bibliographie von Lubitz folgte 1989 das bibliographische Lebenswerk von Louis Sinclair, dem die vorliegende 3. Aufl. 1999 mit ihren 9534 durchnumerierten Titeln neben Isaac Deutscher und Ernest Mandel, den beiden Trotzkij-Biographen, gewidmet ist. [...] Es ist ein Vergnügen, eine Bibliographie vorzustellen, an der alles stimmt: Berücksichtigung aller Schriftengattungen mit Ausnahme von Zeitungsartikeln (Nichtbuchmaterialien sind freilich ausgeschlossen, ohne dass dies ein Manko darstellte), politische Neutralität (Anhänger wie Gegner sind berücksichtigt) und inhaltliche Breite (Leben und Werk, politische und kulturelle Wirkung), Internationalität der Berichterstattung (Publikationen in allen europäischen Sprachen, davon ca. 40% in Englisch), sorgfältige Titelaufnahmen unter Berücksichtigung der ISBD mit Annotationen, die den Inhalt referieren, feinsystematische Anlage, die zum Lesen animiert und über Verweisungen zu anderen Stellen führt sowie letztendlich ein System von sechs Registern (Verfasser und sonstige beteiligte Personen, alle Sachtitel, Quellen [...], Schriftenreihen, Dissertationen nach dem Universitätsort, Kongresse) [...]".

Al Richardson (1989):

"This book is a useful tool designed as a companion to the study of Trotskyism, if not to the work of Trotsky himself (dealt with already by Louis Sinclair in his Leon Trotsky - A Bibliography). With an amazing conscientiousness it lists some 5,000 items covering anti-Trotskyist polemics as well as matter written within the tradition [...] If the book is open to criticism at all, perhaps it lies in the minute listing of academic research dissertations, some of them amazing in their triviality and obscurity. From a political standpoint we may also question the wisdom of identifying political pseudonyms, some of them adopted for very good reason, and wonder at the motives of those who co-operated with this part of the research [...]"

Jean-Guillaume Lanuque (1999):

"[...] Par rapport aux travaux bibliographiques déjà existant [...] celui de Wolfgang et Petra Lubitz est beaucoup plus complet, dans le sens où il essaye de couvrir la totalité des écrits portant sur Trotsky et le mouvement trotskyste. 9500 titres en 25 langues sont ainsi survolés. Une diversité linguistique qui ne peut qu'inciter à mettre en place une collaboration internationale des chercheurs pour réussir à croiser toutes ces informations. [...]"

Gerd Callesen (2001):

"This bibliography is quite an impressive effort: extensive, thorough, sound in terms of structure, excellent indexes - in short, a truly useful tool for anyone who, for scholarly or political reasons, take an interest in Trotsky and Trotskyism. Of course, the concept of Trotskyism is somewhat blurred - too many people have used the concept subjectively, either with a positive or a negative connotation, for it to signify anything unambiguous; the Lubitzes have done their utmost to remedy this state of affairs by disregarding the sectarian restraints and by choosing a broad approach to the subject, and have even gone to the extreme of including some anti-Trotskyite effusions of no real scholarly or current political value. [...] We have been provided with an extensive and useful tool. [...] It is essential for a bibliography to have a sound structure and good indexes to enable users to find the articles they are looking for. In the present bibliography both requirements are amply fulfilled. [...] Each entry contains all the requisite bibliographical information, and in some cases an additional note provides a list of contents, the original title, references to any translations, other publications of the same text, and finally a reference to reviews included in chapter eight. [...] The editors deserve considerable recognition for having prepared this work - similarly to what was the case following their formidable editorial survey of the Trotskyite press [Trotskyist Serials Bibliography, 1927-1991, K.G. Saur, München 1993], recriminations are sure to be voiced by some of the Trotskyite sects. This might seem only fair from a narrow, sectarian position, but the point of the exercise as far as the editors are concerned, has been precisely that of transregressing sectarianism."

Morris Slavin (1999):

"[...] Il est difficile d'imaginer bibliographie mieux organisée que l'a été par Wolfgang et Petra Lubitz celle dont nous rendons compte ici. Chercheurs, militants politiques et curieux ont un outil de travail sur l'histoire et la signification du trotskysme et le rôle historique de Trotsky qui sera indispensable dans les années qui viennent."

Manfred Behrend (1999/2001):

"Seit der Erstausgabe der vorliegenden, international renommierten Bibliographie 1982 stieg die Zahl der verzeichneten Titel von 3327 auf 9534 [...]. Mit Büchern, Broschüren, Artikeln und weiteren, auch unveröffentlichten Arbeiten sind 50 Länder und rund 25 Sprachen vertreten [...]. Die Titelnachweise sind exakt. Bei Büchern werden alle bisherigen Auflagen sowie die Kapitel resp. die in Sammelbänden vorhandenen Aufsätze aufgeführt. Lubitz/Lubitz haben zahlreiche, auch weniger bekannte Zeitschriften ausgewertet. [...] Außer durch die Kapiteleinteilung und viele Querverweise werden die bibliographischen Angaben durch sechs Register leicht erschließbar gemacht [...]. Die Trotzki-Archive und -Institute, ebenso die 9 internationalen Konferenzen über ihn von 1979 bis 1996 sind schon im Vorwort annotiert. Es fehlt allerdings das Trotzki-Museum, verbunden mit dem Institut für Asylrecht, an seinem letzten Wohnsitz in der Avenida Viena 45 in Coyoacán, heute Mexico City [...]"

Reiner Tosstorff (1991):

"[...] Das Buch ist zweifellos eine beeindruckende Fleißarbeit, die, wie der Verfasser im Vorwort andeutet, das Ergebnis jahrelanger Sammel-Leidenschaft ist. Neben der von Louis Sinclair erstellten und zum ersten Mal 1972 erschienenen Bibliographie der Schriften Trotzkis ist sie ein unverzichtbares Hilfsmittel zur Beschäftigung mit seinem Leben und Werk, auch wenn sie sicherlich schon in einigen Jahren um die nun zum ersten Mal nach wissenschaftlichen Kriterien verfaßten sowjetischen Publikationen ergänzt werden muß. Aber dass ihn so die Geschichte gleichsam überholt, wird sicherlich auch Lubitz begrüßen [...]"

Rolf Binner (1990):

"Die Voraussetzungen zur Erforschung von Leben, Werk und Rezeption L.D. Trockijs haben sich seit Anfang der siebziger Jahre enorm verbessert. [...] Ein weiterer Meilenstein auf diesem Weg war das Erscheinen (1982) der 'Trotsky Bibliography' von W. Lubitz, von der jetzt diese erheblich erweiterte und ganz neu konzipierte Ausgabe vorliegt. [...] Lubitz mußte sich durch einen riesigen Berg von Büchern, Broschüren, Zeitschriften etc. hindurchwühlen; schon allein die Erfassung des umfangreichen, nicht enden wollenden, aber meist geisttötenden Schrifttums der Antitrockismus-Kampagnen erfordert vom Bibliographen das Durchhaltevermögen eines Sisyphos, die Arbeitsdisziplin eines Mönches und eine mens sanissima. Angesichts der breiten Streuung des Materials waren kleinere Lücken in der Bibliographie wohl nur schwer zu vermeiden. [...] Sie ist ein höchst nützliches und sorgfältig gearbeitetes Hilfsmittel für die Forschung, für das jeder Benutzer dem Verfasser danken wird."

Heinz Brahm (1991):

"[...] Insgesamt ist ein Werk mit unglaublicher Akkuratesse entstanden, das jedem, der sich mit Trockij und dessen Nachwirken befaßt, von großer Hilfe sein wird."

Siegfried Bahne (1990):

"[...] Bei dieser zweiten Auflage der Bibliographie der Schriften über Trotzki und den Trotzkismus von Wolfgang Lubitz handelt es sich um ein zuverlässiges und sehr brauchbares Hilfsmittel, das in jeder Hinsicht den bibliographischen Standards entspricht."

Richard B. Day (1988):

"[...] This is a thoroughly professional compilation which will be extremely useful to everyone from Trotsky specialists to students preparing undergraduate essays."

Peter Beilharz (1988):

"The first edition was indispensable for those interested in Trotsky and Trotskyism; this new edition is even more a labour of love. It is the best working bibliography I have ever seen. So clear and thorough is its organization that it makes works readily identifiable to those who would otherwise steer clear of the labyrinths of Trotskyism. As for the committed, friends and enemies of Trotskyism alike will ever be in Lubitz' debt, even as they continue to shoot across each others bows."

David S. Law (1986):

"[...] Wolfgang Lubitz has produced a bibliographical reference work of great importance to anyone working on Trotsky. [...]"

Horst Röhling (1983):

"[...] Es erübrigt sich, diese Bibliographie als unabdingbar für die Trockij-Forschung zu bezeichnen. Damit ist ihre Bedeutung aber nur im engsten Sinn erfaßt. Alle an der Sozialismusdiskussion Interessierten brauchen sie ebenso nötig. Schließlich ist es der Erforscher der sovetischen Zeitgeschichte, besonders ihrer theoretischen, ideologischen Grundlagen, der mit dieser Bibliographie ein unersetzliches Hilfsmittel in die Hand bekommt. Alle Forscher und Studenten mit diesen wissenschaftlichen Interessen sind dem Bibliographen zu ungewöhnlich großem Dank verpflichtet."

Richard B. Day (1984):

"Wolfgang Lubitz has provided an extremely useful instrument to facilitate further study of the life and influence of Leon Trotsky. [...] With a stimulus like this, it seems reasonable to expect that interest in Trotsky's legacy will continue to grow, as it has over the past decade. All who share this interest [...] will derive great benefit from this worthwhile publication."
Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz, Aug. 2004
last (slightly) rev. January 2024
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