The Silent Prophet

Examining the mind of a revolutionary and the impersonality of ideology, The Silent Prophet is Roth’s self-described Trotsky novel—written around 1928 but never published in the author’s lifetime.

Based on his own observations during an extended stay in Moscow in the winter of 1926, The Silent Prophet is Roth’s vivid attempt to explain the Russian Revolution and its betrayal by exposing the personal motivations of its leaders. The illegitimate and rootless Friedrich Kargan—the Trotsky figure—goes compulsorily but willingly into exile in Siberia after openly defying the coldly amoral Savelli—the novel’s Stalin figure. Written at the height of speculation about Trotsky’s fate, The Silent Prophet is a brilliant portrayal of revolutionary idealism-turned-cynicism.