When all else fails a bit of Anti-Putin propaganda is always welcome at The Financial Times! But the choice of Mr. Service to deliver this inflammatory polemic is neither surprising nor out of place, as The Financial Times is, to say the least, conservative. But Mr. Service’s status as scholar is- judge for yourself , three reviews of his Trotsky biography are illustrative of his historical practice.

From The World Socialist Web Site, completely anathema to Financial Times readers :

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/06/pers-j28.html

From Inside Higher Ed:

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee_on_trotsky_in_ahr

And from an impeccable source, hard for an FT reader to challenge, the first page of the American Historical Review:

http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/116/3/900.extract

The first two reviews cite the American Historical Review essay. Read just the first page that is available without charge. How often are readers confronted with such scholarly ineptitude in service to an ideological end?

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/905f29de-610b-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#axzz3mZHoZ6QJ