History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–27) the position of People's Commissar of War before the end of the year. In 1925, Trotsky was denounced for his essay "Lessons of October," which criticized Zinoviev and Kamenev for initially opposing Lenin's plans for an insurrection in 1917. Trotsky was also denounced for his theory of permanent revolution which contradicted Stalin's position that socialism could be built in one country, Russia, without a worldwide revolution. As the prospects for a revolution in Europe, particularly Germany, became increasingly dim through the 1920s, Trotsky's theoretical position began to look increasingly pessimistic as far as the success of Russian socialism was concerned.
The Revolution Betrayed sensational public announcement of the first of three great public Moscow Trials generated by the secret police terror known to history as the "Great Purge" ("Ezhovshchina"")". When Trotsky became aware of the trial, which would ultimately end in the execution of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and other prominent Soviet political figures, a short postscript was tagged on to his introduction in which Trotsky claimed that his current book constituted "advance exposure" of the Stalin regime's effort at "deliberate mystification." "The Revolution Betrayed" has been characterized by historian Baruch Knei-Paz as Trotsky's "major work on Stalinism" and constituted the chief primary