Written in the last years before the explosion of the 1905 revolution, the texts collected together and introduced by Tariq Ali here are among Trotsky's most vigorous polemics. Exiled from Russia for his revolutionary activities, these essays portray some of the young socialist's reflections on the early Russian left. His divergences with Lenin, the problems with liberalism, the state of the workers' movement and the organizational debates tearing through Russian social-democracy are just some of the themes dealt with in this volume, which includes some translated for the first time in English.