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Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
revolutionary,
political theorist A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized by their ...
and politician. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
. Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Yanovka (now
Bereslavka, Ukraine Bereslavka ( uk, Береславка, formerly known as Yanovka or Yanivka) is a village in Kropyvnytskyi Raion, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine. The village has a population of 139 (2001). Bereslavka was part of the Vasilyevka village council and bel ...
), Trotsky embraced Marxism after moving to
Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( uk, Миколаїв, ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Southern Ukraine, the Administrative centre, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv city, which provides U ...
in 1896. In 1898, he was arrested for revolutionary activities and subsequently exiled to
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
. He escaped from Siberia in 1902 and moved to London, where he befriended
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
. In 1903, he sided with
Julius Martov Julius Martov or L. Martov (Ма́ртов; born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum; 24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was a politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the Mensheviks in early 20th-century Russia. He was arguably the closes ...
's
Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...
against Lenin's
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
during the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
's initial organisational split. Trotsky helped organize the failed
Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, after which he was again arrested and exiled to Siberia. He once again escaped, and spent the following 10 years working in Britain,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, Switzerland, France, Spain, and the United States. After the 1917
February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
brought an end to the Tsarist monarchy, Trotsky returned from New York via Canada to Russia and became a leader in the Bolshevik faction. As chairman of the
Petrograd Soviet The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (russian: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, ''Petrogradskiy soviet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of P ...
, he played a key role in the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
of November 1917 that overthrew the new
Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
. Once in government, Trotsky initially held the post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs and became directly involved in the 1917–1918 Brest-Litovsk negotiations with Germany as Russia pulled out of the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. From March 1918 to January 1925, Trotsky headed the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
as
People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs The Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union refers to the head of the Ministry of Defence who was responsible for defence of the socialist Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917 to 1922 and the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1992. Pe ...
and played a vital role in the Bolshevik victory in the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
of 1917–1922. He became one of the seven members of the first Bolshevik Politburo in 1919. After the death of Lenin in January 1924 and the
rise Rise or RISE may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * '' Rise: The Vieneo Province'', an internet-based virtual world * Rise FM, a fictional radio station in the video game ''Grand Theft Auto 3'' * Rise Kujikawa, a vide ...
of
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, Trotsky gradually lost his government positions; the
Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
eventually expelled him from the Soviet Union in February 1929. He spent the rest of his life in exile, writing prolifically and engaging in open critique of
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
. In 1938 Trotsky and his supporters founded the
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
in opposition to Stalin's
Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
. After surviving multiple attempts on his life, Trotsky was assassinated in August 1940 in
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
by
Ramón Mercader Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (7 February 1913 – 18 October 1978),Photograph oMercader's Gravestone/ref> more commonly known as Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and NKVD agent, who assassinated Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Tr ...
, an agent of the Soviet
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
. Written out of Soviet history books under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few rivals of Stalin to not be rehabilitated by either
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
or
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
. Trotsky's rehabilitation came in 2001 by the
Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.


Childhood and family (1879–1895)

Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to David Leontyevich Bronstein (1847–1922) and Anna Lvovna (née Zhivotovskaya, 1850–1910) on 7 November 1879, the fifth child of a wealthy Jewish landowner family in Yanovka,
Kherson governorate The Kherson Governorate (1802–1922; russian: Херсонская губерния, translit.: ''Khersonskaya guberniya''; uk, Херсонська губернія, translit=Khersonska huberniia), was an administrative territorial unit (als ...
,
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now Bereslavka, Ukraine). His father, David Leontyevich, had lived in
Poltava Poltava (, ; uk, Полтава ) is a city located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the capital city of the Poltava Oblast (province) and of the surrounding Poltava Raion (district) of the oblast. Poltava is administratively ...
, and later moved to Bereslavka, as it had a large Jewish community. Trotsky's younger sister, Olga, who also grew up to be a
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
and a Soviet politician, married the prominent Bolshevik
Lev Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev. (''né'' Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. Born in Moscow to parents who were both involved in revolutionary politics, Kamenev attended Imperial Moscow Uni ...
. Some authors, notably Robert Service, have claimed that Trotsky's childhood first name was the
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
''Leiba''. The American
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
David North said that this was an assumption based on Trotsky's Jewish birth, but, contrary to Service's claims, there is no documentary evidence to support his using a Yiddish name, when that language was not spoken by his family. Both North and political historian
Walter Laqueur Walter Ze'ev Laqueur (26 May 1921 – 30 September 2018) was a German-born American historian, journalist and political commentator. He was an influential scholar on the subjects of terrorism and political violence. Biography Walter Laqueur was ...
wrote that Trotsky's childhood name was ''Lyova'', a standard Russian diminutive of the name ''Lev.'' North has compared the speculation on Trotsky's given name to the undue emphasis given to his having a Jewish surname. The language spoken at home was not Yiddish but a mixture of Russian and
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
(known as Surzhyk). When Trotsky was eight, his father sent him to
Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
to be educated. He was enrolled in a Lutheran German-language school (''Realschule zum Heiligen Paulus'' or school of the Lutheran St. Pauls Cathedral, a school of
Black Sea Germans The Black Sea Germans (german: Schwarzmeerdeutsche; russian: черноморские немцы; uk, чорноморські німці) are ethnic Germans who left their homelands (starting in the late-18th century, but mainly in the e ...
which also admitted students of other faiths and backgrounds), which became Russified during his years in Odessa as a result of the Imperial government's policy of
Russification Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
. Trotsky and his wife Natalia later registered their children as Lutheran, since Austrian law at the time required children to be given religious education "in the faith of their parents". As
Isaac Deutscher Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...
notes in his biography of Trotsky, Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook. Although Trotsky spoke French, English, and German to a good standard, he said in his autobiography ''
My Life My Life may refer to: Autobiographies * ''Mein Leben'' (Wagner) (''My Life''), by Richard Wagner, 1870 * ''My Life'' (Clinton autobiography), by Bill Clinton, 2004 * ''My Life'' (Meir autobiography), by Golda Meir, 1973 * ''My Life'' (Mosley a ...
'' that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian.
Raymond Molinier Raymond Molinier (1904–1994) was a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France and a pioneer of the Fourth International. Molinier was born in Paris. In 1929, founded the journal ''La Vérité'', and in March 1936 he and Pierre Frank co-fou ...
wrote that Trotsky spoke French fluently.


Early political activities and life (1896–1917)


Revolutionary activity and imprisonment (1896–1898)

Trotsky became involved in revolutionary activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev (now
Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( uk, Миколаїв, ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Southern Ukraine, the Administrative centre, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv city, which provides U ...
) on the Ukrainian coast of the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
. At first a ''
narodnik The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...
'' (revolutionary
agrarian socialist Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes “the equal distribution of landed resources among collectivized peasant villages” This socialist system places agriculture at the center of the economy instead of the industrialization ...
populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
), he initially opposed
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
but was won over to Marxism later that year by his future first wife,
Aleksandra Sokolovskaya Aleksandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya (; 1872 – 29 April 1938) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and Leon Trotsky's first wife. She perished in the Great Purges no earlier than 1938. Sokolovskaya's father, Lev Sokolovsky, was a Narodnik, who en ...
. Instead of pursuing a mathematics degree, Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name "Lvov",chapter XVII of his autobiography
''My Life''
, Marxist Internet Archive
he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students. In January 1898, more than 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested. He was held for the next two years in prison awaiting trial, first in Nikolayev, then
Kherson Kherson (, ) is a port city of Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers appr ...
, then Odessa, and finally in Moscow. In the Moscow prison, he came into contact with other revolutionaries, heard about Lenin and read Lenin's book, ''
The Development of Capitalism in Russia ''The Development of Capitalism in Russia'' () was an early economic work by Lenin written whilst he was in exile in Siberia. It was published in 1899 under the pseudonym of "Vladimir Ilyin".Paul Le Blanc (2008) ''Revolution, Democracy, Socialism ...
''. Two months into his imprisonment, on 1–3 March 1898, the first Congress of the newly formed
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
(RSDLP) was held. From then on Trotsky identified as a member of the party.


First marriage and Siberian exile (1899–1902)

While in the prison in Moscow, in the summer of 1899, Trotsky married Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (1872–1938), a fellow Marxist. The wedding ceremony was performed by a Jewish chaplain. In 1900, he was sentenced to four years in exile in
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
. Because of their marriage, Trotsky and his wife were allowed to be exiled to the same location in Siberia. They were exiled to
Ust-Kut Ust-Kut (russian: Усть-Кут) is a town and the administrative center of Ust-Kutsky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located from Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Located on a western loop of the Lena River, the town ...
and the Verkholensk in the
Baikal Lake Lake Baikal (, russian: Oзеро Байкал, Ozero Baykal ); mn, Байгал нуур, Baigal nuur) is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сиб ...
region of Siberia. They had two daughters, Zinaida (1901–1933) and Nina (1902–1928), both born in Siberia. In Siberia, Trotsky studied philosophy. He became aware of the differences within the party, which had been decimated by arrests in 1898 and 1899. Some social democrats known as "economists" argued that the party should focus on helping industrial workers improve their lot in life and were not so worried about changing the government. They believed that societal reforms would grow out of the worker's struggle for higher pay and better working conditions. Others argued that overthrowing the monarchy was more important and that a well-organized and disciplined revolutionary party was essential. The latter position was expressed by the London-based newspaper ''
Iskra ''Iskra'' ( rus, Искра, , ''the Spark'') was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History Due to political repression under Tsar Nicho ...
'' (''The Spark''), which was founded in 1900. Trotsky quickly sided with the ''Iskra'' position and began writing for the paper. In the summer of 1902, at the urging of his wife, Aleksandra, Trotsky escaped from Siberia hidden in a load of hay on a wagon. Aleksandra later escaped from Siberia with their daughters. Both daughters married, and Zinaida had children, but the daughters died before their parents. Nina Nevelson died from
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in 1928, cared for in her last months by her older sister. Zinaida Volkova followed her father into exile in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, taking her son by her second marriage but leaving behind a daughter in Russia. Suffering also from tuberculosis and depression, Zinaida committed suicide in 1933. Aleksandra disappeared in 1935 during the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
s in the Soviet Union under Stalin and was murdered by Stalinist forces three years later.


First emigration and second marriage (1902–1903)

Until this point in his life, Trotsky had used his birth name: Lev (Leon) Bronstein. He changed his surname to "Trotsky", the name he would use for the rest of his life. It is said he adopted the name of a jailer of the Odessa prison in which he had earlier been held. This became his primary revolutionary pseudonym. After his escape from Siberia, Trotsky moved to London, joining
Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
,
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
,
Julius Martov Julius Martov or L. Martov (Ма́ртов; born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum; 24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was a politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the Mensheviks in early 20th-century Russia. He was arguably the closes ...
and other editors of ''Iskra''. Under the pen name ''Pero'' ("feather" or "pen"), Trotsky soon became one of the paper's leading writers. Unknown to Trotsky, the six editors of ''Iskra'' were evenly split between the "old guard" led by Plekhanov and the "new guard" led by Lenin and Martov. Plekhanov's supporters were older (in their 40s and 50s), and had spent the previous 20 years together in exile in Europe. Members of the new guard were in their early 30s and had only recently emigrated from Russia. Lenin, who was trying to establish a permanent majority against Plekhanov within ''Iskra,'' expected Trotsky, then 23, to side with the new guard. In March 1903 Lenin wrote: Because of Plekhanov's opposition, Trotsky did not become a full member of the board. But from then on, he participated in its meetings in an advisory capacity, which earned him Plekhanov's enmity. In late 1902, Trotsky met
Natalia Sedova Natalia Ivanovna Sedova (russian: Ната́лья Ива́новна Седо́ва; 5 April 1882 Romny, Russian Empire – 23 January 1962, Corbeil-Essonnes, Paris, France) is best known as the second wife of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutio ...
(1882–1962), who soon became his companion. They married in 1903, and she was with him until his death. They had two children together,
Lev Sedov Lev Lvovich Sedov (russian: Лев Львович Седов, also known as Leon Sedov; 24 February 1906 – 16 February 1938) was the first son of the Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky and his second wife Natalia Sedova. He was born when his f ...
(1906–1938) and Sergei Sedov (1908–1937), both of whom would predecease their parents. Regarding his sons' surnames, Trotsky later explained that after the 1917 revolution: Trotsky never used the name "Sedov" either privately or publicly. Natalia Sedova sometimes signed her name "Sedova-Trotskaya".


Split with Lenin (1903–1904)

In the meantime, after a period of secret police repression and internal confusion that followed the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, ''Iskra'' succeeded in convening the party's Second Congress in London in August 1903. Trotsky and other ''Iskra'' editors attended. The first congress went as planned, with ''Iskra'' supporters handily defeating the few "economist" delegates. Then the congress discussed the position of the Jewish Bund, which had co-founded the
RSDLP The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a Socialism , s ...
in 1898 but wanted to remain autonomous within the party.Trotsky, Leon. ''My life: an attempt at an autobiography''. Courier Corporation, 2007. Shortly after that, the pro-Iskra delegates unexpectedly split into two factions. The split was initially over an organisational issue. Lenin and his supporters, the Bolsheviks, argued for a smaller but highly organized party where only party members would be seen as members, while Martov and his supporters, the
Menshevik The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...
s, argued for a bigger and less disciplined party where people who assisted the party would also be seen as members. In a surprise development, Trotsky and most of the Iskra editors supported Martov and the Mensheviks, while Plekhanov supported Lenin and the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
. During 1903 and 1904, many members changed sides in the factions. Plekhanov soon parted ways with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky left the Mensheviks in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. From 1904 until 1917, Trotsky described himself as a "non-factional social democrat". He worked between 1904 and 1917, trying to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members. Trotsky later maintained that he had been wrong in opposing Lenin on the issue of the party. During these years, Trotsky began developing his theory of
permanent revolution Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and ...
and developed a close working relationship with
Alexander Parvus Alexander Lvovich Parvus, born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand (8 September 1867 – 12 December 1924) and sometimes called Helphand in the literature on the Russian Revolution, was a Marxist theoretician, publicist, and controversial activist in the ...
in 1904–07. During their split, Lenin referred to Trotsky as "Little Judas" (''Iudushka'', based on the character from
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin ( rus, Михаи́л Евгра́фович Салтыко́в-Щедри́н, p=mʲɪxɐˈil jɪvˈɡrafəvʲɪtɕ səltɨˈkof ɕːɪˈdrʲin; – ), born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during ...
's novel ''
The Golovlyov Family ''The Golovlyov Family'' (russian: Господа Головлёвы, translit=Gospoda Golovlyovy; also translated as ''The Golovlevs'' or ''A Family of Noblemen: The Gentlemen Golovliov'') is a novel by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, written in the ...
''), a "scoundrel" and a "swine".


1905 revolution and trial (1905–1906)

The unrest and agitation against the Russian government came to a head in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
on 3 January 1905 (
Julian Calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...
), when a strike broke out at the
Putilov Works The Kirov Plant, Kirov Factory or Leningrad Kirov Plant (LKZ) ( rus, Кировский завод, Kirovskiy zavod) is a major Russian mechanical engineering and agricultural machinery manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was establ ...
in the city. This single strike grew into a general strike, and by 7 January 1905, there were 140,000 strikers in Saint Petersburg. On Sunday, 9 January 1905, Father Georgi Gapon knowingly led a procession of radicals mixed within larger groups of ordinary working citizens through the streets to the
Winter Palace The Winter Palace ( rus, Зимний дворец, Zimnij dvorets, p=ˈzʲimnʲɪj dvɐˈrʲɛts) is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the Emperor of all the Russias, Russian Emperor from 1732 to 1917. The p ...
to supposedly beseech the Tsar for food and relief from the government. According to Gapon himself, he led the people into a Palace Guard already on the defensive due to the crowd instigating violence against them. They will eventually fire on the demonstration, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of violent radicals, peaceful demonstrators and police caught within the melee. Although Sunday, 9 January 1905, became known as
Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
, Gapon's own biography points to a conspiracy. This will later be confirmed by Russian police records listing the number of known militant radicals found among the dead. Following the events of Bloody Sunday, Trotsky secretly returned to Russia in February 1905, by way of
Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
. At first he wrote leaflets for an underground printing press in Kyiv, but soon moved to the capital, Saint Petersburg. There he worked with both Bolsheviks, such as
Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
member
Leonid Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (russian: Леони́д Бори́сович Кра́син; 15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and a Soviet diplomat. In 1 ...
, and the local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, were betrayed by a secret police agent in May, and Trotsky had to flee to rural
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
. There he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution. On 19 September 1905, the typesetters at the Ivan Sytin's printing house in Moscow went out on strike for shorter hours and higher pay. By the evening of 24 September, the workers at 50 other printing shops in Moscow were also on strike. On 2 October 1905, the typesetters in printing shops in Saint Petersburg decided to strike in support of the Moscow strikers. On 7 October 1905, the railway workers of the
Moscow–Kazan Railway The Moscow-Kazan railway was opened in 1893. In 1890 the ''Moscow-Kazan Railway Association'' was established after negotiations with the government. In 1891 Nikolai von Meck, the son of Karl Otto Georg von Meck was appointed with the patronage ...
went out on strike. Amid the resulting confusion, Trotsky returned from Finland to Saint Petersburg on 15 October 1905. On that day, Trotsky spoke before the Saint Petersburg Soviet Council of Workers Deputies, which was meeting at the Technological Institute in the city. Also attending were some 200,000 people crowded outside to hear the speeches—about half of all workers in Saint Petersburg. After his return, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper ''Russian Gazette,'' increasing its circulation to 500,000. Trotsky also co-founded, together with Parvus and Julius Martov and other Mensheviks, "Nachalo" ("The Beginning"), which also proved to be a very successful newspaper in the revolutionary atmosphere of Saint Petersburg in 1905. Just before Trotsky's return, the Mensheviks had independently come up with the same idea that Trotsky had: an elected non-party revolutionary organization representing the capital's workers, the first
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
("Council") of Workers. By the time of Trotsky's arrival, the
Saint Petersburg Soviet The Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Delegates (later the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies) was a workers' council, or soviet, in Saint Petersburg in 1905. Origins The Soviet had its origins in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, when Nicholas II ...
was already functioning, headed by Khrustalyev-Nosar (Georgy Nosar, alias Pyotr Khrustalyov). Khrustalyev-Nosar had been a compromise figure when elected as the head of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was a lawyer that stood above the political factions contained in the Soviet. However, since his election, he proved to be very popular with the workers in spite of the Bolsheviks' original opposition to him. Khrustalev-Nosar became famous in his position as spokesman for the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Indeed, to the outside world, Khrustalev-Nosar was the embodiment of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Trotsky joined the Soviet under the name "Yanovsky" (after the village he was born in, Yanovka) and was elected vice-chairman. He did much of the actual work at the Soviet and, after Khrustalev-Nosar's arrest on 26 November 1905, was elected its chairman. On 2 December, the Soviet issued a proclamation which included the following statement about the Tsarist government and its foreign debts: The following day, the Soviet was surrounded by troops loyal to the government and the deputies were arrested. Trotsky and other Soviet leaders were tried in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion. On 4 October 1906 he was convicted and sentenced to internal exile to Siberia.


Second emigration (1907–1914)

While en route to exile in
Obdorsk Salekhard (russian: Салеха́рд; Khanty: , ''Pułñawat''; yrk, Саляʼ харад, ''Saljaꜧ harad'') is a town in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia, serving as the okrug's administrative centre. It crosses the Arctic Circle, th ...
, Siberia, in January 1907, Trotsky escaped at Berezov and once again made his way to London. He attended the 5th Congress of the RSDLP. In October, he moved to
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
, Austria-Hungary. For the next seven years, he often took part in the activities of the
Austrian Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...
and, occasionally, of the
German Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...
. In Vienna, Trotsky became close to
Adolph Joffe Adolph Abramovich Joffe (russian: Адо́льф Абра́мович Ио́ффе, alternative transliterations Adol'f Ioffe or, rarely, Yoffe) (10 October 1883 in Simferopol – 16 November 1927 in Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a Bo ...
, his friend for the next 20 years, who introduced him to
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
. In October 1908 he was asked to join the editorial staff of ''
Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
'' ("Truth"), a bi-weekly, Russian-language social democratic paper for Russian workers, which he co-edited with Adolph Joffe and
Matvey Skobelev Matvey Ivanovich Skobelev (russian: Матве́й Ива́нович Ско́белев; November 9, 1885, Baku – July 29, 1938, Moscow) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and politician. Biography Trotsky's Disciple in Vienna (1908–1912) S ...
. It was smuggled into Russia. The paper appeared very irregularly; only five issues were published in its first year. Avoiding factional politics, the paper proved popular with Russian industrial workers. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks split multiple times after the failure of the 1905–1907 revolution. Money was very scarce for the publication of ''Pravda''. Trotsky approached the Russian Central Committee to seek financial backing for the newspaper throughout 1909. A majority of Bolsheviks controlled the Central Committee in 1910. Lenin agreed to the financing of "Pravda", but required a Bolshevik to be appointed as co-editor of the paper. When various Bolshevik and Menshevik factions tried to re-unite at the January 1910 RSDLP Central Committee meeting in Paris over Lenin's objections, Trotsky's ''Pravda'' was made a party-financed 'central organ'. Lev Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910. Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. Trotsky continued publishing ''Pravda'' for another two years until it finally folded in April 1912. The Bolsheviks started a new workers-oriented newspaper in Saint Petersburg on 22 April 1912 and also called it ''Pravda''. Trotsky was so upset by what he saw as a usurpation of his newspaper's name that in April 1913, he wrote a letter to
Nikolay Chkheidze Nikoloz Chkheidze ( ka, ნიკოლოზ (კარლო) ჩხეიძე; russian: Никола́й (Карло) Семёнович Чхеи́дзе, translit=Nikolay (Karlo) Semyonovich Chkheidze) commonly known as Karlo Chkheidze ( ...
, a Menshevik leader, bitterly denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Though he quickly got over the disagreement, the message was intercepted by the
Russian police The Police of Russia () is the national law-enforcement agency in Russia, operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs from . It was established by decree from Peter the Great and in 2011, replacing the Militsiya, the former police service. ...
, and a copy was put into their archives. Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky's opponents within the Communist Party to portray him as Lenin's enemy. The 1910s were a period of heightened tension within the RSDLP, leading to numerous frictions between Trotsky, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The most serious disagreement that Trotsky and the Mensheviks had with Lenin at the time was over the issue of "expropriations", i.e., armed robbery of banks and other companies by Bolshevik groups to procure money for the Party. These actions had been banned by the 5th Congress, but were continued by the Bolsheviks. In January 1912, the majority of the Bolshevik faction, led by Lenin, as well as a few defecting Mensheviks, held a conference in
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
and decided to break away from the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
, and formed a new party, the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
. In response, Trotsky organized a "unification" conference of social democratic factions in Vienna in August 1912 (a.k.a. "The August Bloc") and tried to re-unite the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks into one party. The attempt was generally unsuccessful. In Vienna, Trotsky continuously published articles in radical Russian and Ukrainian newspapers, such as ''Kievskaya Mysl,'' under a variety of pseudonyms, often using "Antid Oto". In September 1912, ''Kievskaya Mysl'' sent him to the Balkans as its war correspondent, where he covered the two
Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...
for the next year. While there, Trotsky chronicled the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian army against the Albanian civilian population. He became a close friend of
Christian Rakovsky Christian Georgievich Rakovsky (russian: Христиа́н Гео́ргиевич Рако́вский; bg, Кръстьо Георги́ев Рако́вски; – September 11, 1941) was a Bulgarian-born socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevi ...
, later a leading Soviet politician and Trotsky's ally in the Soviet Communist Party. On 3 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, in which
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
fought against the Russian Empire, Trotsky was forced to flee Vienna for neutral Switzerland to avoid arrest as a Russian
émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...
.


World War I (1914–1917)

The outbreak of World War I caused a sudden realignment within the RSDLP and other European social democratic parties over the issues of war, revolution, pacifism and internationalism, redividing the party into defeatists and defencists. Within the RSDLP, Lenin, Trotsky and Martov advocated various internationalist anti-war positions that saw defeat for your own country's ruling class imperialists as the "lesser evil" in the war, while they opposed all imperialists in the imperialist war. These anti-war believers were known as "defeatists". Those who supported one side over the other in the war were known as "defencists". Plekhanov and many other defencist social democrats (both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) supported the Russian government to some extent and wanted them to win the war, while Trotsky's ex-colleague Parvus, now a defencist, sided against Russia so strongly that he wanted Germany to win the war. In Switzerland, Trotsky briefly worked within the
Swiss Socialist Party The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz; SP; rm, Partida Socialdemocrata da la Svizra) or Swiss Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste suisse, it, Partito Socialista Svizzero; PS), is a polit ...
, prompting it to adopt an internationalist resolution. He wrote a book opposing the war, ''The War and the International,'' and the pro-war position taken by the European social democratic parties, primarily the German party. As a war correspondent for the ''Kievskaya Mysl'', Trotsky moved to France on 19 November 1914. In January 1915 in Paris, he began editing (at first with Martov, who soon resigned as the paper moved to the left) ''
Nashe Slovo ''Nashe Slovo'' ( rus, Наше Слово, Our Word) was a daily Russian language socialist newspaper published in France during the First World War. Although it only appeared for a little over a year and a half, it had an impact across Europe. ...
'' ("Our Word"), an internationalist socialist newspaper. He adopted the slogan of "peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered." Lenin advocated Russia's defeat in the war and demanded a complete break with the
Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...
. Trotsky attended the
Zimmerwald Conference The Zimmerwald Conference was held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 to 8, 1915. It was the first of three international socialist conferences convened by anti-militarist socialist parties from countries that were originally neutral d ...
of anti-war socialists in September 1915 and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a
Third International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
. The conference adopted the middle line proposed by Trotsky. At first opposed, in the end Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. In September 1916, Trotsky was deported from France to Spain for his anti-war activities. Spanish authorities did not want him and deported him to the United States on 25 December 1916. He arrived in New York City on 13 January 1917. He stayed for nearly three months at 1522 Vyse Avenue in
The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. In New York he wrote articles for the local
Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...
socialist newspaper, ''
Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (russian: links=no, Новый мир, , ''New World'') is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet ...
,'' and the Yiddish-language daily, ''Der Forverts'' (''The Jewish Daily Forward''), in translation. He also made speeches to Russian émigrés. Trotsky was living in New York City when the
February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
of 1917 overthrew
Tsar Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
. He left New York on 27 March 1917, but his ship, the '' SS Kristianiafjord,'' was intercepted by British naval officials in Canada at
Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...
. He was detained for a month at
Amherst Internment Camp Amherst Internment Camp was an internment camp that existed from 1914 to 1919 in Amherst, Nova Scotia. It was the largest internment camp camp in Canada during World War I; a maximum of 853 prisoners were housed at one time at the old Malleable I ...
in
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...
. While imprisoned in the camp, Trotsky established an increasing friendship with the workers and sailors amongst his fellow inmates, describing his month at the camp as "one continual mass meeting".''Leon Trotsky: My Life – In a Concentration Camp''
, ns1758.ca; accessed 31 January 2018.
Trotsky's speeches and agitation incurred the wrath of German officer inmates who complained to the British camp commander, Colonel Morris, about Trotsky's "anti-patriotic" attitude. Morris then forbade Trotsky to make any more public speeches, leading to 530 prisoners protesting and signing a petition against Morris' order. Back in Russia, after initial hesitation and facing pressure from the workers' and peasants' Soviets, the Russian foreign minister
Pavel Milyukov Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov ( rus, Па́вел Никола́евич Милюко́в, p=mʲɪlʲʊˈkof; 31 March 1943) was a Russian historian and liberal politician. Milyukov was the founder, leader, and the most prominent member of the Con ...
was compelled to demand the release of Trotsky as a Russian citizen, and the British government freed him on 29 April 1917. He reached Russia on 17 May 1917. After his return, Trotsky substantially agreed with the Bolshevik position, but did not join them right away. Russian social democrats were split into at least six groups, and the Bolsheviks were waiting for the next party Congress to determine which factions to merge with. Trotsky temporarily joined the
Mezhraiontsy The Mezhraiontsy ( rus, межрайонцы, p=mʲɪʐrɐˈjɵnt͡sɨ), usually translated as the "Interdistrictites,"''Mezhraionka'' and ''Mezhraiontsy'' are derived from the Russian ''"mezh-"'' (meaning "inter-" or "between'") + ''"raion"'' (me ...
, a regional social democratic organization in Saint Petersburg, and became one of its leaders. At the First
Congress of Soviets The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917 to 1936 and a somewhat similar Congress of People's Deputies from 1989 to 1991. After the crea ...
in June, he was elected a member of the first
All-Russian Central Executive Committee The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
("VTsIK") from the Mezhraiontsy faction. After an unsuccessful pro-Bolshevik uprising in Saint Petersburg, Trotsky was arrested on 7 August 1917. He was released 40 days later in the aftermath of the failed counter-revolutionary uprising by Lavr Kornilov. After the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the
Petrograd Soviet The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (russian: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, ''Petrogradskiy soviet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of P ...
, Trotsky was elected chairman on . He sided with Lenin against
Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
and Lev Kamenev when the Bolshevik Central Committee discussed staging an armed uprising, and he led the efforts to overthrow the
Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
headed by
Aleksandr Kerensky Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early Novembe ...
. The following summary of Trotsky's role in 1917 was written by Stalin in ''Pravda'', 6 November 1918.In One And The Same Issue
New International, Vol. 2 No. 6, October 1935, p. 208
Although this passage was quoted in Stalin's book ''The October Revolution'' (1934), it was expunged from Stalin's ''Works'' (1949). After the success of the uprising on 7–8 November 1917, Trotsky led the efforts to repel a
counter-attack A counterattack is a tactic employed in response to an attack, with the term originating in "war games". The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, while the specific objectives typically seek ...
by
Cossacks The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
under General
Pyotr Krasnov Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov ( rus, Пётр Николаевич Краснов; 22 September (old style: 10 September) 1869 – 17 January 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was a Don Cossack historian and officer, promot ...
and other troops still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government at
Gatchina The town of Gatchina ( rus, Га́тчина, , ˈɡatːɕɪnə, links=y) serves as the administrative center of the Gatchinsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies south-south-west of St. Petersburg, along the E95 highway which ...
. Allied with Lenin, he defeated attempts by other Bolshevik Central Committee members (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, etc.) to share power with other socialist parties. By the end of 1917, Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin. He overshadowed the ambitious Zinoviev, who had been Lenin's top lieutenant over the previous decade, but whose star appeared to be fading. This reversal of position contributed to continuing competition and enmity between the two men, which lasted until 1926 and did much to destroy them both. On 23 November 1917, Trotsky revealed the secret treaty arrangements which had been made between the Tsarist Regime, Britain and France, causing them considerable embarrassment.


Russian Revolution and aftermath


Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Brest-Litovsk (1917–1918)

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became the
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs The Ministry of External Relations (MER) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (russian: Министерство иностранных дел СССР) was founded on 6 July 1923. It had three names during its existence: People's Co ...
and published the
secret treaties A secret treaty is a treaty ( international agreement) in which the contracting state parties have agreed to conceal the treaty's existence or substance from other states and the public.Helmut Tichy and Philip Bittner, "Article 80" in Olivier D ...
previously signed by the
Triple Entente The Triple Entente (from French '' entente'' meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as well a ...
that detailed plans for post-war reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and the representatives of the other Central Powers leading up to the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
, Leon Trotsky appointed his old friend Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks. When the Soviet delegation learned that Germans and Austro-Hungarians planned to annex slices of Polish territory and to set up a rump Polish state with what remained, while the Baltic provinces were to become client states ruled by German princes, the talks were recessed for 12 days. The Soviets' only hopes were that, given time, their allies would agree to join the negotiations or that the western European proletariat would revolt, so their best strategy was to prolong the negotiations. As Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky wrote, "To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying". Therefore, Trotsky replaced Joffe as the leader of the Soviet delegation during the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from 22 December 1917 to 10 February 1918. At that time the Soviet government was split on the issue.
Left Communists Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
, led by
Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
, continued to believe that there could be no peace between a Soviet republic and a capitalist country, and that only a revolutionary war leading to a pan-European Soviet republic would bring a durable peace. They cited the successes of the newly formed (15 January 1918) voluntary
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
against Polish forces of Gen.
Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki (Iosif Romanovich while in the Russian military; sometimes also Dowbór-Muśnicki; ; 25 October 1867 – 26 October 1937) was a Russian military officer and Polish general, serving with the Imperial Russian and then Poli ...
in Belarus,
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
forces in the
Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...
region, and newly independent Ukrainian forces as proof that the Red Army could repel German forces, especially if propaganda and asymmetrical warfare were used. They were willing to hold talks with the Germans as a means of exposing German imperial ambitions (territorial gains,
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from G ...
, etc.) in the hope of accelerating the hoped−for Soviet revolution in the West. Still, they were dead set against signing any peace treaty. In the case of a German ultimatum, they advocated proclaiming a revolutionary war against Germany to inspire Russian and European workers to fight for socialism. This opinion was shared by
Left Socialist Revolutionaries The Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (russian: Партия левых социалистов-революционеров-интернационалистов) was a revolutionary socialist political party formed during the Russian Revol ...
, who were then the Bolsheviks' junior partners in a coalition government. Lenin, who had earlier hoped for a speedy Soviet revolution in Germany and other parts of Europe, quickly decided that the imperial government of Germany was still firmly in control and that, without a strong Russian military, an armed conflict with Germany would lead to a collapse of the Soviet government in Russia. He agreed with the Left Communists that ultimately a pan-European Soviet revolution would solve all problems, but until then the Bolsheviks had to stay in power. Lenin did not mind prolonging the negotiating process for maximum propaganda effect, but, from January 1918 on, advocated signing a separate peace treaty if faced with a German ultimatum. Trotsky's position was between these two Bolshevik factions. Like Lenin, he admitted that the old Russian military, inherited from the monarchy and the Provisional Government and in advanced stages of decomposition, was unable to fight: But he agreed with the Left Communists that a separate peace treaty with an imperialist power would be a terrible morale and material blow to the Soviet government, negate all its military and political successes of 1917 and 1918, resurrect the notion that the Bolsheviks secretly allied with the German government, and cause an upsurge of internal resistance. He argued that any German ultimatum should be refused, and that this might well lead to an uprising in Germany, or at least inspire German soldiers to disobey their officers since any German offensive would be a naked grab for territories. Trotsky wrote in 1925: Germany resumed
military operations A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations may ...
on 18 February. Within a day, it became clear that the German army was capable of conducting offensive operations and that Red Army detachments, which were relatively small, poorly organized and poorly led, were no match for it. On the evening of 18 February 1918, Trotsky and his supporters in the committee abstained, and Lenin's proposal was accepted 7–4. The Soviet government sent a radiogram to the German side, taking the final Brest-Litovsk peace terms. Germany did not respond for three days and continued its offensive, encountering little resistance. The response arrived on 21 February, but the proposed terms were so harsh that even Lenin briefly thought that the Soviet government had no choice but to fight. But in the end, the committee again voted 7–4 on 23 February 1918; the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
was signed on 3 March and ratified on 15 March 1918. Since Trotsky was so closely associated with the policy previously followed by the Soviet delegation at Brest-Litovsk, he resigned from his position as Commissar for Foreign Affairs to remove a potential obstacle to the new policy.


Head of the Red Army (spring 1918)

The entire Bolshevik leadership of the Red Army, including People's Commissar (defence minister)
Nikolai Podvoisky Nikolai Ilyich Podvoisky (russian: Николай Ильич Подвойский; February 16 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S_February_4.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S_February_4">Old_Style_and_New_S ...
and commander-in-chief
Nikolai Krylenko Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko ( rus, Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко, p=krɨˈlʲenkə; May 2, 1885 – July 29, 1938) was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet politician. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Sovie ...
, protested vigorously and eventually resigned. They believed that the Red Army should consist only of dedicated revolutionaries, rely on propaganda and force, and have elected officers. They viewed former imperial officers and generals as potential traitors who should be kept out of the new military, much less put in charge of it. Their views continued to be popular with many Bolsheviks throughout most of the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, and their supporters, including Podvoisky, who became one of Trotsky's deputies, were a constant thorn in Trotsky's side. The discontent with Trotsky's policies of strict discipline, conscription and reliance on carefully supervised non-Communist military experts eventually led to the Military Opposition, which was active within the Communist Party in late 1918–1919. On 13 March 1918, Trotsky's resignation as Commissar for Foreign Affairs was officially accepted, and he was appointed People's Commissar of Army and Navy Affairs—in place of Podvoisky—and chairman of the Supreme Military Council. The post of commander-in-chief was abolished, and Trotsky gained full control of the Red Army, responsible only to the Communist Party leadership, whose Left Socialist Revolutionary allies had left the government over Brest-Litovsk.Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Left SRs)
; Glossary of organizations on Marxists.org


Civil War (1918–1920)


1918

The military situation soon tested Trotsky's managerial and organization-building skills. In May–June 1918, the
Czechoslovak Legions , image = Coat of arms of the Czechoslovak Legion.svg , image_size = 200px , alt = , caption = Czechoslovak Legion coat of arms , start_date ...
''en route'' from European Russia to
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...
rose against the Soviet government. This left the Bolsheviks with the loss of most of the country's territory, an increasingly well-organized resistance by Russian anti-Communist forces (usually referred to as the
White Army The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв ...
after their best-known component) and widespread defection by the military experts whom Trotsky relied on. Trotsky and the government responded with a full-fledged
mobilisation Mobilization is the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war. The word ''mobilization'' was first used in a military context in the 1850s to describe the preparation of the Prussian Army. Mobilization theories and ...
, which increased the size of the Red Army from fewer than 300,000 in May 1918 to one million in October, and an introduction of political commissars into the army. The latter had the task of ensuring the loyalty of military experts (mostly former officers in the imperial army) and co-signing their orders. Trotsky regarded the organisation of the Red Army as built on the ideas of the October Revolution. As he later wrote in his autobiography: In response to Fanya Kaplan's failed assassination of Lenin on 30 August 1918, and to the successful assassination of the Petrograd
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
chief
Moisei Uritsky Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky ( ua, Мойсей Соломонович Урицький; russian: Моисей Соломонович Урицкий; – 30 August 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revol ...
on 17 August 1918, the Bolsheviks instructed
Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky ( pl, Feliks Dzierżyński ; russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official, born into Poland, Polish n ...
to commence a
Red Terror The Red Terror (russian: Красный террор, krasnyj terror) in Soviet Russia was a campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It started in lat ...
, announced in the 1 September 1918 issue of the ''Krasnaya Gazeta'' (''Red Gazette''). Regarding the Red Terror Trotsky wrote: In dealing with deserters, Trotsky often appealed to them politically, arousing them with the ideas of the Revolution. Given the lack of manpower and the 16 opposing foreign armies, Trotsky also insisted on the use of former Tsarist officers as military specialists within the Red Army, in combination with Bolshevik political commissars to ensure the revolutionary nature of the Red Army. Lenin commented on this: In September 1918, the Bolshevik government, facing continuous military difficulties, declared what amounted to martial law and reorganized the Red Army. The Supreme Military Council was abolished, and the position of commander-in-chief was restored, filled by the commander of the Latvian Riflemen, Loakim Vatsetis (a.k.a.
Jukums Vācietis Jukums Vācietis (russian: Иоаким Иоакимович Вацетис, link=no, ''Ioakim Ioakimovich Vatsetis''; 11 November 1873 – 28 July 1938) was a Latvian Soviet military commander. He was a rare example of a notable Soviet leader w ...
), who had formerly led the Eastern Front against the Czechoslovak Legions. Vatsetis took charge of the day-to-day operations of the army. At the same time, Trotsky became chairman of the newly formed Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and retained overall control of the military. Trotsky and Vatsetis had clashed earlier in 1918, while Vatsetis and Trotsky's adviser Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich were also on unfriendly terms. Nevertheless, Trotsky eventually established a working relationship with the often prickly Vatsetis. The reorganization caused yet another conflict, this time between Trotsky and Stalin, in late September. Trotsky appointed former imperial general Pavel Pavlovich Sytin to command the Southern Front, but in early October 1918 Stalin refused to accept him and so he was recalled from the front. Lenin and
Yakov Sverdlov Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (russian: Яков Михайлович Свердлов; 3 June Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._22_May.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S ...
tried to make Trotsky and Stalin reconcile, but their meeting proved unsuccessful.


1919

Throughout late 1918 and early 1919, there were a number of attacks on Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army, including veiled accusations in newspaper articles inspired by Stalin and a direct attack by the Military Opposition at the VIIIth Party Congress in March 1919. On the surface, he weathered them successfully and was elected one of only five full members of the first
Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
after the Congress. But he later wrote: In mid-1919, the dissatisfied had an opportunity to mount a serious challenge to Trotsky's leadership: the Red Army grew from 800,000 to 3,000,000 and fought simultaneously on sixteen fronts. At the 3–4 July Central Committee meeting, after a heated exchange, the majority supported Kamenev and Smilga against Vācietis and Trotsky. Trotsky's plan was rejected, and he was much criticized for various alleged shortcomings in his leadership style, much of it of a personal nature. Stalin used this opportunity to pressure LeninChapter XXXVII o
''My Life''
to dismiss Trotsky from his post. However, some significant changes to the leadership of the Red Army were made. Trotsky was temporarily sent to the Southern Front, while Smilga informally coordinated the work in Moscow. Most members of the Revolutionary Military Council who were not involved in its day-to-day operations were relieved of their duties on 8 July, and new members, including Smilga, were added. The same day, while Trotsky was in the south, Vācietis was suddenly arrested by the Cheka on suspicion of involvement in an anti-Soviet plot, and replaced by Sergey Kamenev. After a few weeks in the south, Trotsky returned to Moscow and resumed control of the Red Army. A year later, Smilga and Tukhachevsky were defeated during the Battle of Warsaw, but Trotsky refused this opportunity to pay Smilga back, which earned him Smilga's friendship and later his support during the intra-Party battles of the 1920s. By October 1919, the government was in the worst crisis of the Civil War: Denikin's troops approached Tula and Moscow from the south, and General
Nikolay Yudenich Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich ( – 5 October 1933) was a commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I. He was a leader of the anti-communist White movement in Northwestern Russia during the Civil War. Biography Early life Yuden ...
's troops approached Petrograd from the west. Lenin decided that since it was more important to defend Moscow, Petrograd would have to be abandoned. Trotsky argued that Petrograd needed to be defended, at least in part to prevent
Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
and Finland from intervening. In a rare reversal, Trotsky was supported by Stalin and Zinoviev, and prevailed against Lenin in the Central Committee.


1920

With the defeat of Denikin and Yudenich in late 1919, the Soviet government's emphasis shifted to the economy. Trotsky spent the winter of 1919–20 in the Urals region trying to restart its economy. A false rumor of his assassination circulated in Germany and the international press on New Year's Day 1920. Based on his experiences, he proposed abandoning the policies of
War Communism War communism or military communism (russian: Военный коммунизм, ''Voyennyy kommunizm'') was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. According to Soviet histo ...
, which included confiscating grain from peasants, and partially restoring the grain market. Still committed to War Communism, Lenin rejected his proposal. In early 1920, Soviet–Polish tensions eventually led to the
Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921) * russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
. In the run-up and during the war, Trotsky argued that the Red Army was exhausted and the Soviet government should sign a peace treaty with Poland as soon as possible. He did not believe that the Red Army would find much support in Poland proper. Lenin later wrote that he and other Bolshevik leaders believed the Red Army's successes in the Russian Civil War and against the Poles meant "The defensive period of the war with worldwide imperialism was over, and we could, and had the obligation to, exploit the military situation to launch an offensive war." Poland defeated the Red Army, and the offensive was turned back during the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920, in part because of Stalin's failure to obey Trotsky's orders in the run-up to the decisive engagements. Back in Moscow, Trotsky again argued for a peace treaty, and this time prevailed.


Trade union debate (1920–1921)

Trotsky's position formed while he led a special commission on the Soviet transportation system, Tsektran. He was appointed there to rebuild the rail system ruined by the Civil War. Being the Commissar of War and a revolutionary military leader, he saw a need to create a militarized "production atmosphere" by incorporating trade unions directly into the State apparatus. His unyielding stance was that in a worker's state, the workers should have nothing to fear from the State, and the State should fully control the unions. In the Ninth Party Congress, he argued for:
"....a regime in which every worker feels himself a soldier of labour, who cannot dispose of himself freely; if the order is given to transfer him, he must carry it out; if he does not carry it out, he will be a deserter who is punished. Who looks after this? The trade unions. It creates the new regime. This is the militarisation of the working class."
Lenin sharply criticized Trotsky and accused him of "bureaucratically nagging the trade unions" and of staging "factional attacks." His view did not focus on State control as much as the concern that a new relationship was needed between the State and the rank-and-file workers. He said, "Introduction of genuine labour discipline is conceived only if the whole mass of participants in productions takes a conscious part in the fulfillment of these tasks. Bureaucratic methods and orders from above cannot achieve this." This was a debate that Lenin thought the party could not afford. His frustration with Trotsky was used by Stalin and Zinoviev with their support for Lenin's position, to improve their standing within the Bolshevik leadership at Trotsky's expense. Disagreements threatened to get out of hand, and many Bolsheviks, including Lenin, feared that the party would splinter. The Central Committee was split almost evenly between Lenin's and Trotsky's supporters, with all three Secretaries of the Central Committee (Krestinsky,
Yevgeny Preobrazhensky Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky ( rus, Евге́ний Алексе́евич Преображе́нский, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ prʲɪəbrɐˈʐɛnskʲɪj; 1886–1937) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet economi ...
and
Leonid Serebryakov Leonid Petrovich Serebryakov (russian: Леонид Петрович Серебряков) (11 June 1890 – 1 February 1937) was a Russian Soviet politician and Bolshevik who became a victim of the Great Purge. Early life Born at Samara, the son ...
) supporting Trotsky. At a meeting of his faction at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, Lenin's faction won a decisive victory, and a number of Trotsky's supporters (including all three secretaries of the Central Committee) lost their leadership positions. Krestinsky was replaced as a member of the Politburo by Zinoviev, who had supported Lenin. Krestinsky's place in the secretariat was taken by
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
. The congress also adopted a secret resolution on "Party unity", which banned factions within the Party except during pre-Congress discussions. The resolution was later published and used by Stalin against Trotsky and other opponents. At the end of the Tenth Congress, after peace negotiations had failed, Trotsky gave the order for the suppression of the
Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion ( rus, Кронштадтское восстание, Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian SFSR port city of Kronstadt. Locat ...
, the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule. Trotsky's role was questioned by other socialists, including ex-Trotskyists. In the United States,
Dwight Macdonald Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, literary critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist maga ...
broke with Trotsky and left the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party by noting the Kronstadt rebellion. A similar critique of Trotsky's role in the Kronstadt rebellion was raised by American
anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
. In her essay "Trotsky Protests Too Much", she states, "I admit, the dictatorship under Stalin's rule has become monstrous. That does not, however, lessen the guilt of Leon Trotsky as one of the actors in the revolutionary drama of which Kronstadt was one of the bloodiest scenes". Some Trotskyists, most notably Abbie Bakan, have argued that the claim that the Kronstadt rebels were "counterrevolutionary" has been supported by evidence of White Army and French government support for the Kronstadt sailors' March rebellion. Other historians, most notably Paul Avrich, claimed the evidence did not point towards this conclusion, and saw the Kronstadt Rebellion as spontaneous.


Trotsky's contribution to the Russian Revolution

Vladimir Cherniaev, a leading Russian historian, sums up Trotsky's main contributions to the Russian Revolution: Historian Geoffrey Swain argues that: Lenin said in 1921 that Trotsky was "in love with organisation," but in working politics, "he has not got a clue." Swain explains the paradox by arguing that Trotsky was not good at teamwork; he was a loner who had mostly worked as a journalist, not as a professional revolutionary like the others.


Lenin's illness (1922–1923)

In late 1921, Lenin's health deteriorated and he was absent from Moscow for longer periods of time. He had three strokes between 25 May 1922 and 9 March 1923, which caused paralysis, loss of speech and finally death on 21 January 1924. With Lenin increasingly sidelined throughout 1922, Stalin was elevated to the newly created position of the Central Committee
general secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
. Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev became part of the ''
troika Troika or troyka (from Russian тройка, meaning 'a set of three') may refer to: Cultural tradition * Troika (driving), a traditional Russian harness driving combination, a cultural icon of Russia * Troika (dance), a Russian folk dance Pol ...
'' (triumvirate) formed by Stalin to ensure that Trotsky, publicly the number-two man in the country and Lenin's
heir presumptive An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question. ...
, would not succeed Lenin. The rest of the recently expanded Politburo (Rykov,
Mikhail Tomsky Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (Russian: Михаи́л Па́влович То́мский, born ''Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov''sometimes transliterated as ''Efremov''; Михаи́л Па́влович Ефре́мов; 31 October 1880 – 22 Augus ...
, Bukharin) was at first uncommitted, but eventually joined the ''troika.'' Stalin's power of patronage in his capacity as general secretary clearly played a role, but Trotsky and his supporters later concluded that a more fundamental reason was the process of slow bureaucratisation of the Soviet regime once the extreme conditions of the Civil War were over. Much of the Bolshevik elite wanted 'normality,' while Trotsky was personally and politically personified as representing a turbulent revolutionary period that they would much rather leave behind. Although the exact sequence of events is unclear, evidence suggests that at first the ''troika'' nominated Trotsky to head second-rate government departments (e.g., Gokhran, the State Depository for Valuables). In mid-July 1922, Kamenev wrote a letter to the recovering Lenin to the effect that "(the Central Committee) is throwing or is ready to throw a good cannon overboard". Lenin was shocked and responded: From then until his final stroke, Lenin spent much of his time trying to devise a way to prevent a split within the Communist Party leadership, which was reflected in ''
Lenin's Testament Lenin's Testament is a document dictated by Vladimir Lenin in late 1922 and early 1923. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies. Sensing his impending death, he also gave criticism of Bolshevik lea ...
.'' As part of this effort, on 11 September 1922 Lenin proposed that Trotsky become his deputy at the
Council of People's Commissars The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
(Sovnarkom). The Politburo approved the proposal, but Trotsky "categorically refused". In late 1922, Trotsky secured an alliance with Lenin against Stalin and the emerging Soviet bureaucracy. Stalin had recently engineered the creation of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
(USSR), further centralising state control. The alliance proved effective on the issue of foreign trade but was hindered by Lenin's progressing illness. In January 1923, Lenin amended his Testament to suggest that Stalin should be removed as the party's general secretary, while also mildly criticising Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders. The relationship between Stalin and Lenin had broken down completely by this time, as was demonstrated during an event where Stalin crudely insulted Lenin's wife,
Nadezhda Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya ( rus, links=no, Надежда Константиновна Крупская, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə kənstɐnˈtʲinəvnə ˈkrupskəjə; 27 February 1939) was a Russian revolutionary and the wife of Vladimir Lenin ...
. In March 1923, days before his third stroke, Lenin asked Trotsky to denounce Stalin and his so-called "Great-Russian nationalistic campaign" at the XIIth Party Congress. At the XIIth Party Congress in April 1923, however, just after Lenin's final stroke, Trotsky did not raise the issue. Instead, he made a speech about intra-party democracy while avoiding any direct confrontation of the ''troika.'' Stalin had prepared for the congress by replacing many local party delegates with those loyal to him, mostly at the expense of Zinoviev and Kamenev's backers. The delegates, most of whom were unaware of the divisions within the Politburo, gave Trotsky a
standing ovation A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim. In Ancient Rome returning military commanders (such as Marcus Licinius Crassus a ...
. This upset the ''troika'', already infuriated by
Karl Radek Karl Berngardovich Radek (russian: Карл Бернгардович Радек; 31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and a C ...
's article, "Leon Trotsky – Organiser of Victory" published in ''Pravda'' on 14 March 1923. Stalin delivered the key reports on organisational structure and questions of nationality; while Zinoviev delivered the Central Committee political report, traditionally Lenin's prerogative. Among the resolutions adopted by the XIIth Congress were those calling for greater democracy within the Party, but these were vague and remained unimplemented.


Left opposition (1923–1924)

Starting in mid-1923, the Soviet economy ran into significant difficulties, which led to numerous strikes countrywide. Two secret groups within the Communist Party, "
Workers' Truth The Workers' Truth (russian: Рабочая Правда) was a Russian socialist opposition group founded in 1921. They published a newspaper with the same name, ''Workers' Truth'', which first appeared in September 1921. The Workers' Truth con ...
" and " Workers' Group", were uncovered and suppressed by the Soviet secret police. On 8 October 1923 Trotsky sent a letter to the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, attributing these difficulties to lack of intra-Party democracy. Trotsky wrote: Other senior communists who had similar concerns sent ''
The Declaration of 46 The Declaration of 46 was a secret letter sent by a group of 46 leading Soviet communists to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party on 15 October 1923. The declaration followed Leon Trotsky's letter sent to the Polit ...
'' to the Central Committee on 15 October, in which they wrote: Although the text of these letters remained secret at the time, they had a significant effect on the Party leadership and prompted a partial retreat by the ''troika'' and its supporters on the issue of intra-Party democracy, notably in Zinoviev's ''Pravda'' article published on 7 November. Throughout November, the ''troika'' tried to come up with a compromise to placate, or at least temporarily neutralise, Trotsky and his supporters. (Their task was made easier by the fact that Trotsky was sick in November and December.) The first draft of the resolution was rejected by Trotsky, which led to the formation of a special group consisting of Stalin, Trotsky and Kamenev, which was charged with drafting a mutually acceptable compromise. On 5 December, the Politburo and the Central Control Commission unanimously adopted the group's final draft as its resolution. On 8 December, Trotsky published an open letter, in which he expounded on the recently adopted resolution's ideas. The ''troika'' used his letter as an excuse to launch a campaign against Trotsky, accusing him of factionalism, setting "the youth against the fundamental generation of old revolutionary Bolsheviks" and other sins. Trotsky defended his position in a series of seven letters which were collected as ''The New Course'' in January 1924. The illusion of a "monolithic Bolshevik leadership" was thus shattered and a lively intra-Party discussion ensued, both in local Party organizations and in the pages of ''Pravda''. The discussion lasted most of December and January until the XIIIth Party Conference of 16–18 January 1924. Those who opposed the Central Committee's position in the debate were thereafter referred to as members of the
Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...
.Left Opposition
; Glossary of organizations on Marxists.org
In 1924, in a series of conferences at Sverdlov University; Stalin cited several times, in a critical way 'the Permanentists', as the followers of Trotsky 'Permanent revolution'. Since the ''troika'' controlled the Party apparatus through Stalin's Secretariat and ''Pravda'' through its editor Bukharin, it was able to direct the discussion and the process of delegate selection. Although Trotsky's position prevailed within the Red Army and Moscow universities and received about half the votes in the Moscow Party organisation, it was defeated elsewhere, and the Conference was packed with pro-''troika'' delegates. In the end, only three delegates voted for Trotsky's position, and the Conference denounced "Trotskyism" as a "petty bourgeois deviation".


After Lenin's death (1924)

There was little overt political disagreement within the Soviet leadership throughout most of 1924. On the surface, Trotsky remained the most prominent and popular Bolshevik leader, although his "mistakes" were often alluded to by ''troika'' partisans. Behind the scenes, he was completely cut off from the decision-making process. Politburo meetings were pure formalities since all key decisions were made ahead of time by the ''troika'' and its supporters. Trotsky's control over the military was undermined by reassigning his deputy, Ephraim Sklyansky, and appointing
Mikhail Frunze Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (russian: Михаил Васильевич Фрунзе; ro, Mihail Frunză; 2 February 1885 – 31 October 1925) was a Bolshevik leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Born in the modern-day ...
, who was being groomed to take Trotsky's place. At the thirteenth Party Congress in May, Trotsky delivered a conciliatory speech: In the meantime, the Left Opposition, which had coagulated somewhat unexpectedly in late 1923 and lacked a definite platform aside from general dissatisfaction with the intra-Party "regime", began to crystallise. It lost some less dedicated members to the harassment by the ''troika'', but it also began formulating a program. Economically, the Left Opposition and its theoretician
Yevgeni Preobrazhensky Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky ( rus, Евге́ний Алексе́евич Преображе́нский, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ prʲɪəbrɐˈʐɛnskʲɪj; 1886–1937) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet economi ...
came out against further development of capitalist elements in the Soviet economy and in favour of faster industrialisation. That put them at odds with Bukharin and Rykov, the "Right" group within the Party, who supported the ''troika'' at the time. On the question of world revolution, Trotsky and Karl Radek saw a period of stability in Europe while Stalin and Zinoviev confidently predicted an "acceleration" of revolution in Western Europe in 1924. On the theoretical plane, Trotsky remained committed to the Bolshevik idea that the Soviet Union could not create a true socialist society in the absence of the world revolution, while Stalin gradually came up with a policy of building '
Socialism in One Country Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged the ...
'. These ideological divisions provided much of the intellectual basis for the political divide between Trotsky and the Left Opposition on the one hand and Stalin and his allies on the other. At the thirteenth Congress Kamenev and Zinoviev helped Stalin defuse Lenin's Testament, which belatedly came to the surface. But just after the congress, the ''troika'', always an alliance of convenience, showed signs of weakness. Stalin began making poorly veiled accusations about Zinoviev and Kamenev. Yet in October 1924, Trotsky published ''
Lessons of October ''Lessons of October'' (Russian: ''Уроки Октября)'' is a polemical essay of about 60 printed pages in length by Leon Trotsky, first published in Moscow in October 1924 as the preface to the third volume of his ''Collected Works.'' The ...
,'' an extensive summary of the events of the 1917 revolution. In it, he described Zinoviev's and Kamenev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, something that the two would have preferred be left unmentioned. This started a new round of intra-party struggle, which became known as the ''Literary Discussion'', with Zinoviev and Kamenev again allied with Stalin against Trotsky. Their criticism of Trotsky was concentrated in three areas: * Trotsky's disagreements and conflicts with Lenin and the Bolsheviks prior to 1917. * Trotsky's alleged distortion of the events of 1917 in order to emphasise his role and diminish the roles played by other Bolsheviks. * Trotsky's harsh treatment of his subordinates and other alleged mistakes during the Russian Civil War. Trotsky was again sick and unable to respond while his opponents mobilised all of their resources to denounce him. They succeeded in damaging his military reputation so much that he was forced to resign as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council on 6 January 1925. Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party, but Stalin refused to go along and played the role of a moderate. Trotsky kept his Politburo seat, but was effectively put on probation.


A year in the wilderness (1925)

For Trotsky, 1925 was a difficult year. After the bruising ''Literary Discussion'' and losing his Red Army posts, he was effectively unemployed throughout the winter and spring. In May 1925, he was given three posts: chairman of the Concessions Committee, head of the electro-technical board, and chairman of the scientific-technical board of industry. Trotsky wrote in ''My Life''Chapter 22 o
''My Life''
that he "was taking a rest from politics" and "naturally plunged into the new line of work up to my ears". Some contemporary accounts paint a picture of a remote and distracted man. Later in the year, Trotsky resigned his two technical positions (maintaining Stalin-instigated interference and sabotage) and concentrated on his work in the Concessions Committee. In one of the few political developments that affected Trotsky in 1925, the circumstances of the controversy over Lenin's Testament were described by American Marxist
Max Eastman Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radical ...
in his book ''Since Lenin Died'' (1925). Trotsky denied these statements made by Eastman in an article he wrote. In the meantime, the ''troika'' finally broke up. Bukharin and Rykov sided with Stalin while Krupskaya and Soviet Commissar of Finance
Grigory Sokolnikov Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (born Hirsch Brilliant or Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant; 1888–1939) was a Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician. Early career Grigori Sokolnikov was born Girsh Yankelevich Brillia ...
aligned with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The struggle became open at the September 1925 meeting of the Central Committee and came to a head at the XIV Party Congress in December 1925. With only the Leningrad Party organization behind them, Zinoviev and Kamenev, dubbed ''The New Opposition'', were thoroughly defeated, while Trotsky refused to get involved in the fight and did not speak at the Congress.


United Opposition (1926–1927)

In early 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters in the "New Opposition" gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters, and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party. The alliance became known as the United Opposition. The United Opposition was repeatedly threatened with sanctions by the Stalinist leadership of the Communist Party, and Trotsky had to agree to tactical retreats, mostly to preserve his alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The opposition remained united against
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
throughout 1926 and 1927, especially on the issue of the Chinese Revolution. The methods used by the Stalinists against the Opposition became more and more extreme. At the XV Party Conference in October 1926, Trotsky could barely speak because of interruptions and catcalls, and at the end of the Conference he lost his Politburo seat. In 1927, Stalin started using the
GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...
(Soviet secret police) to infiltrate and discredit the opposition. Rank-and-file oppositionists were increasingly harassed, sometimes expelled from the Party and even arrested. Soviet policy toward the Chinese Revolution became the ideological line of demarcation between Stalin and the United Opposition. The Chinese Revolution began on 10 October 1911, resulting in the abdication of the Chinese Emperor,
Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...
, on 12 February 1912.
Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...
established the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. In reality, however, the Republic controlled very little of the country. Much of China was divided between various regional warlords. The Republican government established a new "nationalist people's army and a national people's party"—the
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
. In 1920, the Kuomintang opened relations with Soviet Russia. With Soviet help, the Republic of China built up the nationalist people's army. With the development of the nationalist army, a
Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...
was planned to smash the power of the warlords of the northern part of the country. This Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin tried to persuade the small Chinese
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
to merge with the Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalists to bring about a bourgeois revolution before attempting to bring about a Soviet-style working class revolution. Trotsky wanted the Communist Party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and have clear class independence from the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition. Stalin countered Trotskyist criticism by making a secret speech in which he said that Chiang Kai-shek's right-wing Kuomintang were the only ones capable of defeating the imperialists, that Chiang had funding from the rich merchants, and that his forces were to be utilized until squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the
Shanghai massacre The Shanghai massacre of 12 April 1927, the April 12 Purge or the April 12 Incident as it is commonly known in China, was the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations and leftist elements in Shanghai by forces supportin ...
of 12 April 1927 by massacring the Communist Party in Shanghai midway through the Northern Expedition.


Defeat and exile (1927–1928)

Trotsky gave the eulogy at the funeral of his friend, the Soviet diplomat
Adolph Joffe Adolph Abramovich Joffe (russian: Адо́льф Абра́мович Ио́ффе, alternative transliterations Adol'f Ioffe or, rarely, Yoffe) (10 October 1883 in Simferopol – 16 November 1927 in Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a Bo ...
, in November 1927. It would be the last speech that Trotsky would give in the Soviet Union. When the XV Party Congress made United Opposition views incompatible with membership in the Communist Party, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters capitulated and renounced their alliance with the Left Opposition. Trotsky and most of his followers, on the other hand, refused to surrender and stayed the course. Trotsky was exiled to Alma Ata, Kazakhstan on 31 January 1928. He was expelled from the Soviet Union to Turkey in February 1929, accompanied by his wife Natalia Sedova and their eldest son, Lev.


Fate of Left Oppositionists after Trotsky's exile (1929–1941)

After Trotsky's expulsion from the Soviet Union, Trotskyists within the Soviet Union began to waver. Between 1929 and 1932, most leading members of the Left Opposition surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes" and were reinstated in the Communist Party. One initial exception to this was
Christian Rakovsky Christian Georgievich Rakovsky (russian: Христиа́н Гео́ргиевич Рако́вский; bg, Кръстьо Георги́ев Рако́вски; – September 11, 1941) was a Bulgarian-born socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevi ...
, who inspired Trotsky between 1929 and 1934 with his refusal to capitulate as state suppression of any remaining opposition to Stalin increased by the year. In late 1932, Rakovsky had failed with an attempt to flee the Soviet Union and was exiled to
Yakutia Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Eas ...
in March 1933. Answering Trotsky's request, the French mathematician and Trotskyist
Jean Van Heijenoort Jean Louis Maxime van Heijenoort (; July 23, 1912 – March 29, 1986) was a historian of mathematical logic. He was also a personal secretary to Leon Trotsky from 1932 to 1939, and an American Trotskyist until 1947. Life Van Heijenoort was born ...
, together with his fellow activist
Pierre Frank Pierre Frank (24 October 1905, Paris – 18 April 1984, Paris) was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979. Educated as a chemical engineer, Frank was one of the first French Trotsky ...
, unsuccessfully called on the influential Soviet author
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
to intervene in favor of Christian Rakovsky, and boarded the ship he was traveling on near Constantinople.Tova Yedlin, ''Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography'', Praeger/Greenwood, Westport, 1992, pp. 201–02. According to Heijenoort, they only managed to meet Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, who reportedly told them that his father was indisposed, but promised to pass on their request. Rakovsky was the last prominent Trotskyist to capitulate to Stalin in April 1934, when Rakovsky formally "admitted his mistakes" (his letter to ''Pravda'', titled ''There Should Be No Mercy'', depicted Trotsky and his supporters as "agents of the German
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
"). Rakovsky was appointed to high office in the Commissariat for Health and allowed to return to Moscow, also serving as Soviet ambassador to Japan in 1935.Feofanov & Barry, p. 22 However, Rakovsky was cited in allegations involving the killing of
Sergey Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...
, and was arrested and imprisoned in late 1937, during the Great Purge.Fagan, Gus; Biographical Introduction to Christian Rakovsky; chapter
Opposition and Exile
''
Almost all Trotskyists who were still within the Soviet Union's borders were executed in the Great Purges of 1936–1938, although Rakovsky survived until the
Medvedev Forest massacre The Medvedev Forest massacre (russian: Медведевский расстрел) or Orel massacre (Орловский расстрел) was a mass execution in the Soviet Union carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD on 11 September 1941. Tak ...
of September 1941, where he was shot dead along with 156 other prisoners on Stalin's orders, less than three months into the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Also among the Medvedev Forest victims was Trotsky's sister/Kamenev's first wife,
Olga Kameneva Olga Davidovna Kameneva (russian: Ольга Давыдовна Каменева, uk, Ольга Давидiвна Каменева; 1883 – 11 September 1941) (née Bronstein — Бронште́йн) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and ...
.


Exile (1929–1940)


Turkey

After being deported from the Soviet Union, in February 1929, Trotsky arrived in Turkey. During his first two months in Turkey, Trotsky lived with his wife and eldest son at the Soviet Union Consulate in
Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
and then at a nearby hotel in the city. In April 1929, Trotsky, his wife and son were moved to the island of
Büyükada Büyükada ( el, Πρίγκηπος or Πρίγκιπος, rendered ''Prinkipos'' or ''Prinkipo''), meaning "Big Island" in Turkish, is the largest of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul, with an area of about . It is offic ...
by the Turkish authorities. On Büyükada, they were moved into a house called the Yanaros mansion. During his exile in Turkey, Trotsky was under the surveillance of the Turkish police forces of
Mustafa Kemal Pasha Mustafa ( ar, مصطفى , Muṣṭafā) is one of the names of Prophet Muhammad, and the name means "chosen, selected, appointed, preferred", used as an Arabic given name and surname. Mustafa is a common name in the Muslim world. Given name Mou ...
. Trotsky was also at risk from the many former White Army officers who lived on Prinkipo, officers who had opposed the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
and who had been defeated by Trotsky and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. However, Trotsky's European supporters volunteered to serve as bodyguards and assured his safety. At this time, he made requests to enter Belgium, France, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom, but all refused access. In 1931, Trotsky wrote a letter to a friend entitled "What is Fascism" in which he attempted to define fascism and asserted that the
Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
was wrong to describe the
Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera General Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship over Spain began with a coup on 13 September 1923 and ended with his resignation on 28 January 1930. It took place during the wider reign of King Alfonso XIII. In establishing his dictatorship, ...
as "fascist" because it was not a mass movement arising from a base in the lower classes. On 20 February 1932, Trotsky and all of his family lost their Soviet citizenship and were forbidden to enter the Soviet Union. In 1932, Trotsky entered via a port into the fascist
Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
on his way to a socialist conference in Denmark. By the end of 1932, Trotsky had joined a conspiratorial political bloc with the anti-Stalin opposition inside the USSR. There was no evidence of any alliance with
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
or
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, as the Soviet Union government claimed. The alleged members of the anti-Stalin bloc were Zinovievites,
rightists Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authori ...
and Trotskyists who "capitulated" to Stalin. Kamenev and Zinoviev were also alleged members of the bloc. Trotsky wanted by no means that the alliance became a fusion, and he was afraid of the right gaining much power inside the bloc. Historian
Pierre Broué Pierre Broué (8 May 1926 – 27 July 2005) was a French historian and Trotskyist revolutionary militant whose work covers the history of the Bolshevik Party, the Spanish Revolution and biographies of Leon Trotsky. Background Broué was born in ...
concluded that the bloc dissolved in early 1933, since some of its members like Zinoviev and Kamenev joined Stalin again, and because there were no letters in the Trotsky Harvard archive mentioning the bloc after 1932.


France

In July 1933, Trotsky was offered asylum in France by Prime Minister
Édouard Daladier Édouard Daladier (; 18 June 1884 – 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II. Daladier was born in Carpentr ...
. Trotsky accepted the offer, but he was forbidden to live in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and soon found himself under the surveillance of the French police. From July 1933 to February 1934, Trotsky and his wife lived in
Royan Royan (; in the Saintongeais dialect; oc, Roian) is a commune and town in the south-west of France, in the department of Charente-Maritime in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Its inhabitants are known as ''Royannais'' and ''Royannaises''. Capi ...
. The philosopher and activist
Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...
also arranged for Trotsky and his bodyguards to stay for a few days at her parents' house. Following the
6 February 1934 crisis 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...
in France, the French minister of internal affairs,
Albert Sarraut Albert-Pierre Sarraut (; 28 July 1872 – 26 November 1962) was a French Radical politician, twice Prime Minister during the Third Republic. Biography Sarraut was born on 28 July 1872 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. On 14 March 1907 Sarraut, ...
, signed a decree to deport Trotsky from France. However, no foreign government was found willing to accept Trotsky within its borders. Accordingly, the French authorities instructed Trotsky to move to a residence in the tiny village of
Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is name ...
under the strict surveillance of the French police, where Trotsky found his contact with the outside world to be even worse than during his exile in Turkey. In May 1935, soon after the French government had agreed to the
Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance The Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was a bilateral treaty between France and the Soviet Union with the aim of enveloping Nazi Germany in 1935 to reduce the threat from Central Europe. It was pursued by Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet foreig ...
with the Soviet Union government, Trotsky was officially told that he was no longer welcome in France. After weighing his options, Trotsky applied to move to Norway.


Norway

After obtaining permission from Justice Minister
Trygve Lie Trygve Halvdan Lie ( , ; 16 July 1896 – 30 December 1968) was a Norwegians, Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian foreign minister during the critical years of the Nygaardsvold's Cabinet, N ...
to enter the country, Trotsky and his wife became a guest of Konrad Knudsen at
Norderhov Norderhov is a former municipality located within Ringerike in Buskerud county, Norway. Municipality Norderhov municipality was established on January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). According to the 1835 census the municipality had a popul ...
, near
Hønefoss __NOTOC__ Hønefoss is a town and the administrative center of the municipality of Ringerike in Buskerud county, Norway. Hønefoss is an industrial center of inner Østlandet, containing several factories and other industry. As of 1 January 2008, ...
, and spent over a year living at Knudsen's house, from 18 June 1935 to 2 September 1936. Trotsky was hospitalized for a few weeks at the nearby Oslo Community Hospital, from 19 September 1935.Oddvar Høidal's ''Trotsky in Norway: Exile, 1935–1937.''  Following French media complaints about Trotsky's role in encouraging the mass strikes in France in May and June 1936 with his articles, the
Johan Nygaardsvold Johan Nygaardsvold (; 6 September 1879 – 13 March 1952) was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party who served as the 21st prime minister of Norway from 1935 to 1945. From June 1940 until May 1945, he oversaw the Norwegian Government-in-ex ...
-led Norwegian government began to exhibit disquiet about Trotsky's actions. In the summer of 1936, Trotsky's asylum was increasingly made a political issue by the fascist
Nasjonal Samling Nasjonal Samling (, NS; ) was a Norwegian far-right political party active from 1933 to 1945. It was the only legal party of Norway from 1942 to 1945. It was founded by former minister of defence Vidkun Quisling and a group of supporters such a ...
, led by
Vidkun Quisling Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (, ; 18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the country's occupation by Nazi Germ ...
, along with an increase in pressure from the Soviet government on the Norwegian authorities. On 5 August 1936, Knudsen's house was burgled by fascists from the Nasjonal Samling while Trotsky and his wife were out on a seashore trip with Knudsen and his wife. The burglars targeted Trotsky's works and archives for vandalism. The raid was largely thwarted by Knudsen's daughter, Hjørdis, although the burglars did take a few papers from the nearest table as they left. Although the perpetrators were caught and put on trial, the "evidence" obtained in the burglary was used by the government to make claims against Trotsky.  On 14 August 1936, the Soviet Press Agency
TASS The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
announced the discovery of a "Trotskyist–Zinovievist" plot and the imminent start of the
Moscow Trials The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
of the accused. Trotsky demanded a complete and open enquiry into Moscow's accusations. The accused were sentenced to death, including Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, and executed on 25 August 1936. On 26 August 1936, eight policemen arrived at Knudsen's house demanding that Trotsky sign new conditions for residing in Norway. These conditions included agreeing to write no more about current political matters, to give no interviews, and to have all his correspondence (incoming and outgoing) inspected by the police. Trotsky categorically refused the conditions, and Trotsky was then told that he and his wife would soon be moved to another residence. The following day Trotsky was interrogated by the police about his political activities, with the police officially citing Trotsky as a "witness" to the fascist raid of 5 August 1936. On 2 September 1936, four weeks after the break-in at Knudsen's house, Trygve Lie ordered that Trotsky and his wife be transferred to a farm in
Hurum Hurum was a municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. As of 1 January 2020 Hurum has merged with the municipalities of Røyken and Asker to form the new Asker Municipality located in the newly formed Viken county. The administrative centre of the ...
, where they were under house arrest. The treatment of Trotsky and his wife at Hurum was harsh, as they were forced to stay indoors for 22 hours per day under the constant guard of thirteen policemen, with only one hour permitted twice a day for a walk on the farm. Trotsky was prevented from posting any letters and prevented from arguing back against his critics in Norway and beyond. Only Trotsky's lawyers and the
Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party ( nb, Arbeiderpartiet; nn, Arbeidarpartiet; A/Ap; se, Bargiidbellodat), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party ( no, Det norske Arbeiderparti, DNA), is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centr ...
Parliamentary leader,
Olav Scheflo Olav Andreas Scheflo (9 September 1883 – 25 June 1943) was a Norwegian Communist politician and journalist. Olav Scheflo was a member of the Norwegian Labour Party from 1905. After the October Revolution he fought hard to convince the Labor ...
, were permitted to visit. From October 1936, even the outdoor walks were prohibited for Trotsky and his wife. Trotsky did eventually manage to smuggle out one letter on 18 December 1936, titled ''The Moscow "Confessions"''. On 19 December 1936, Trotsky and his wife were deported from Norway after being put on the Norwegian oil tanker ''Ruth'', under guard by Jonas Lie. When later living in Mexico, Trotsky was utterly scathing about the treatment he received during his 108 days at
Hurum Hurum was a municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. As of 1 January 2020 Hurum has merged with the municipalities of Røyken and Asker to form the new Asker Municipality located in the newly formed Viken county. The administrative centre of the ...
, and accused the Norwegian government of trying to prevent him from publicly voicing his strong opposition to the Moscow Trials and other show trials, saying:


Mexico

The ''Ruth'' arrived in Mexico on 9 January 1937. On Trotsky's arrival, the Mexican president,
Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the M ...
, welcomed Trotsky to Mexico and arranged for his special train ''The Hidalgo'' to bring Trotsky to Mexico City from the port of
Tampico Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fifth ...
. From January 1937 to April 1939, Trotsky and his wife lived in the
Coyoacán Coyoacán ( , ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. The former village is now the borough's "historic center". The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means "place of coyotes", when the Aztecs named a pre-Hispanic vil ...
area of Mexico City at La Casa Azul (The Blue House), the home of the painter
Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
and Rivera's wife and fellow painter,
Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...
, with whom Trotsky had an affair.Patenaude, Bertrand M. (2009) ''Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary'' New York: HarperCollins. His final move was a few blocks away to a residence on Avenida Viena in April 1939, following a break with Rivera. Trotsky wrote prolifically while in exile, penning several key works, including his ''
History of the Russian Revolution ''History of the Russian Revolution'' is a two-volume book by Leon Trotsky on the Russian Revolution of 1917. The first volume is dedicated to the political history of the February Revolution and the October Revolution, to explain the relations bet ...
'' (1930) and ''
The Revolution Betrayed ''The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?'' (russian: Преданная революция: Что такое СССР и куда он идет?) is a book published in 1937 by the exiled Soviet Bolshevik leader ...
'' (1936), a critique of the Soviet Union under
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
. He argued that the Soviet state had become a "
degenerated workers' state In Trotskyist political theory, a degenerated workers' state is a dictatorship of the proletariat in which the working class' democratic control over the state has given way to control by a bureaucratic clique. The term was developed by Leon Tro ...
" controlled by an undemocratic bureaucracy, which would eventually either be overthrown via a
political revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
establishing a workers' democracy, or degenerate into a capitalist class. While in Mexico, Trotsky also worked closely with James P. Cannon, Joseph Hansen, and
Farrell Dobbs Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist, trade unionist, politician, and historian. Early years Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri, where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. The family ...
of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, and other supporters. Cannon, a long-time leading member of the American communist movement, had supported Trotsky in the struggle against Stalinism since he had first read Trotsky's criticisms of the Soviet Union in 1928. Trotsky's critique of the Stalinist regime, though banned, was distributed to leaders of the Comintern. Among his other supporters was
Chen Duxiu Chen Duxiu ( zh, t=陳獨秀, w=Ch'en Tu-hsiu; 8 October 187927 May 1942) was a Chinese revolutionary socialist, educator, philosopher and author, who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Li Dazhao in 1921. From 1921 to 1927, he ser ...
, founder of the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
. While in Mexico, Trotsky worked with
André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
and Diego Rivera to write the
Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art The International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI) was a short-lived organization established in 1938 until 1939 on the initiative of Andre Breton and Diego Rivera following the publication of the ''Manifesto for an Independent ...
, which inspired the creation of the organization, the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI) in 1938. This organization was short-lived and ended before 1940.


Moscow show trials

In August 1936, the first Moscow show trial of the so-called "Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center" was staged in front of an international audience. During the trial, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 other accused, most of them prominent Old Bolsheviks, confessed to having plotted with Trotsky to kill Stalin and other members of the Soviet leadership. The court found every defendant guilty, sentencing them to death, Trotsky,
in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...
. The second show trial of Karl Radek,
Grigori Sokolnikov Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (born Hirsch Brilliant or Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant; 1888–1939) was a Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician. Early career Grigori Sokolnikov was born Girsh Yankelevich Brillia ...
,
Yuri Pyatakov Georgy (Yury) Leonidovich Pyatakov (russian: Гео́ргий Леони́дович Пятако́в; 6 August 1890 – 30 January 1937) was a leader of the Bolsheviks and a key Soviet politician during and after the 1917 Russian Revolutio ...
and 14 others, took place in January 1937, during which more alleged conspiracies and crimes were linked to Trotsky. The findings were published in the book "Not Guilty".


Fourth International

For fear of splitting the Communist movement, Trotsky initially opposed the idea of establishing parallel Communist parties or a parallel international Communist organization that would compete with the Third International. In mid-1933, after the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
takeover in Germany and the Comintern's response to it, he changed his mind. He said: In 1938, Trotsky and his supporters founded the
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
, which was intended to be a revolutionary and internationalist alternative to the Stalinist Comintern.


The Dies Committee

Towards the end of 1939, Trotsky agreed to go to the United States to appear as a witness before the Dies Committee of the House of Representatives, a forerunner of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
. Representative
Martin Dies Jr. Martin Dies Jr. (November 5, 1900 – November 14, 1972), also known as Martin Dies Sr., was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and after ...
, chairman of the committee, demanded the suppression of the
American Communist Party The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
. Trotsky intended to use the forum to expose the NKVD's activities against him and his followers. He made it clear that he also intended to argue against the suppression of the American Communist Party and to use the committee as a platform for a call to transform
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
into a world revolution. Many of his supporters argued against his appearance. When the committee learned the nature of the testimony Trotsky intended to present, it refused to hear him, and he was denied a visa to enter the United States. On hearing about it, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union immediately accused Trotsky of being in the pay of the oil magnates and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
.


Final months

After quarreling with Diego Rivera, Trotsky moved to his final residence on Avenida Viena in April 1939. On 27 February 1940, Trotsky wrote a document known as "Trotsky's Testament", in which he expressed his final thoughts and feelings for posterity. He was suffering from
high blood pressure Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long-term high bl ...
, and feared that he would suffer a
cerebral haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
."Trotsky's Testament"
(27 February 1940) Retrieved 12 June 2011
After forcefully denying Stalin's accusations that he had betrayed the working class, he thanked his friends and above all his wife, Natalia Sedova, for their loyal support:


Assassination

After a failed attempt to have Trotsky murdered in March 1939, Stalin assigned the overall organization of implementing the task to the NKVD officer
Pavel Sudoplatov Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (russian: Пáвел Aнатóльевич Cудоплáтов; ua, Павло Анатолійович Судоплатов, translit=Pavlo Anatoliiovych Sudoplatov; July 7, 1907 – September 24, 1996) was a member ...
, who, in turn, co-opted
Nahum Eitingon Nahum Isaakovich Eitingon (russian: Наум Исаакович Эйтингон ''Naum Isaakovič Ejtingon''), also known as Leonid Aleksandrovich Eitingon (russian: Леонид Александрович Эйтингон)Special Tasks ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster'' is the autobiography of Pavel Sudoplatov, who was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. When it was publis ...
'', the NKVD proceeded to set up three NKVD agent networks to carry out the murder; these three networks were designed to operate entirely autonomously from the NKVD's hitherto-established spy networks in the U.S. and Mexico. On 24 May 1940, Trotsky survived a raid on his villa by armed assassins led by the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
agent
Iosif Grigulevich Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich (russian: Иосиф Ромуальдович Григулевич; May 5, 1913 – June 2, 1988) was a Soviet secret police (NKVD) operative active between 1937 and 1953, when he played a role in assassination plots ...
and Mexican painter
David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
. Trotsky's 14-year-old grandson, Vsevolod Platonovich "Esteban" Volkov (born 7 March 1926), was shot in the foot. A young assistant and bodyguard of Trotsky,
Robert Sheldon Harte Robert Sheldon Harte (1915 – May 24, 1940) was an American Communist who worked as one of Leon Trotsky’s assistants and bodyguards in Coyoacán, Mexico. During the Stalinist attack against Trotsky’s household on May 24, 1940, Harte was abduc ...
, disappeared with the attackers and was later found murdered; it is probable that he was an accomplice who granted them access to the villa. Trotsky's other guards fended off the attackers. Following the failed assassination attempt, Trotsky wrote an article titled "Stalin Seeks My Death" on 8 June 1940, in which he stated that another assassination attempt was certain. On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was attacked in his study by Spanish-born NKVD agent
Ramón Mercader Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (7 February 1913 – 18 October 1978),Photograph oMercader's Gravestone/ref> more commonly known as Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and NKVD agent, who assassinated Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Tr ...
, who used an
ice axe An ice axe is a multi-purpose hiking and climbing tool used by mountaineers in both the ascent and descent of routes that involve snow, ice, or frozen conditions. Its use depends on the terrain: in its simplest role it is used like a walking ...
as a weapon. A mountaineering ice axe has a narrow end, called the pick, and a flat wide end called the
adze An adze (; alternative spelling: adz) is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing ...
. The adze of the axe wounded Trotsky, fracturing his
parietal bone The parietal bones () are two bones in the Human skull, skull which, when joined at a fibrous joint, form the sides and roof of the Human skull, cranium. In humans, each bone is roughly quadrilateral in form, and has two surfaces, four borders, an ...
and penetrating into his brain. The blow to his head was bungled and failed to kill Trotsky instantly. Witnesses stated that Trotsky spat on Mercader and began struggling fiercely with him, which resulted in Mercader's hand being broken. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky's bodyguards burst into the room and nearly beat Mercader to death, but Trotsky stopped them, laboriously stating that the assassin should be made to answer questions. Trotsky was then taken to a hospital and operated on, surviving for more than a day, but dying, at the age of 60, on 21 August 1940 from
exsanguination Exsanguination is death caused by loss of blood. Depending upon the health of the individual, people usually die from losing half to two-thirds of their blood; a loss of roughly one-third of the blood volume is considered very serious. Even a sing ...
and shock. Mercader later testified at his trial: According to James P. Cannon, the
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
secretary of the American Socialist Workers Party, Trotsky's last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before." Mercader was tried and convicted of the murder and spent the next 20 years in a Mexican prison. Stalin wrote that the assassin of Trotsky was a dangerous Trotskyist. This is why Mercader had no awards initially, though his mother was presented with the
Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...
for her own part of the operation. Ramón Mercader could not be either assassinated or freed from prison by the Soviets. When he was released from jail in 1960 and arrived to the USSR in 1961,
Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
signed a sentence to award Mercader the Order of Lenin, the Gold Star, and the title of the
Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union (russian: Герой Советского Союза, translit=Geroy Sovietskogo Soyuza) was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for ...
"for the special deed". The
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
boss
Alexander Shelepin Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (; 18 August 1918 – 24 October 1994) was a Soviet politician and security and intelligence officer. A long-time member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he served as First Depu ...
presented all these awards to Ramón Mercader in person.


Legacy

Trotsky's house in Coyoacán has been preserved in much the same condition as it was on the day he was assassinated there, and is now the Leon Trotsky House Museum in Mexico City, run by a board which includes his grandson Esteban Volkov. Trotsky's grave is located on its grounds. The foundation "International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum" has been organized to raise funds to improve the museum further. Shortly before his assassination, Trotsky agreed to sell the bulk of the papers he still had to
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. After his assassination, his widow, Natalya Sedova collected his remaining papers and shipped them to Harvard, and in the years following, Harvard managed to collect additional papers that had been hidden from both Soviet and Nazi agents in Europe. These papers now occupy of shelf space in Harvard's
Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of Art ...
. Trotsky was never formally rehabilitated during the rule of the Soviet government, despite the
de-Stalinization De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...
-era rehabilitation of most other
Old Bolshevik Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Par ...
s killed during the Great Purges. His son, Sergei Sedov, who died in 1937, was rehabilitated in 1988, as was Nikolai Bukharin. Beginning in 1989, Trotsky's books, forbidden until 1987, were published in the Soviet Union. Trotsky was rehabilitated on 16 June 2001 by the General Prosecutor's Office (Certificates of Rehabilitation No. 13/2182-90, No. 13-2200-99 in Archives Research Center "Memorial").


Contributions to Marxist theory

Trotsky considered himself to be a "Bolshevik-Leninist," arguing for the establishment of a
vanguard party Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organi ...
. He viewed himself as an advocate of
orthodox Marxism Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Firs ...
. His politics differed in some aspects from those of Stalin or
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, most importantly in his rejection of the theory of
Socialism in one country Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged the ...
and his declaring of the need for an international "permanent revolution." Numerous Fourth Internationalist groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyists and see themselves as standing in this tradition. However, they have different interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from this. Supporters of the Fourth International echo Trotsky's opposition to Stalinist
totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
, advocating political revolution and arguing that socialism cannot sustain itself without democracy.


Permanent Revolution

The Permanent Revolution concept is the theory that the
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
democratic tasks in countries with delayed bourgeois democratic development can only be accomplished through the establishment of a workers' state, and that the creation of a workers' state would inevitably involve inroads against capitalist property. Thus, the accomplishment of bourgeois democratic tasks passes over into
proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...
tasks. Although most closely associated with Leon Trotsky, the call for a "Permanent Revolution" is first found in the writings of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' 1848 Revolution, in thei
Address
of the Central Committee to the
Communist League The Communist League (German: ''Bund der Kommunisten)'' was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and the ...
: Trotsky's conception of the Permanent Revolution is based on his understanding, drawing on the work of the founder of Russian Marxism
Georgy Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
, that in 'backward' countries the tasks of the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution could not be achieved by the bourgeoisie itself. Trotsky first developed this conception in collaboration with Alexander Parvus in late 1904–1905. The relevant articles were later collected in Trotsky's books ''1905'' and in "Permanent Revolution", which also contains his essay " Results and Prospects." Some Trotskyists have argued that the state of the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
shows that capitalism offers no way forward for underdeveloped countries, thus again proving the central tenet of the theory.


United front

Trotsky was a central figure in the Comintern during its first four congresses. During this time, he helped to generalize the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks to newly formed Communist parties across Europe and further afield. From 1921 onwards, the
united front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political a ...
, a method of uniting revolutionaries and reformists in the common struggle while winning some of the workers to revolution, was the central tactic put forward by the Comintern after the defeat of the German revolution. After he was exiled and politically marginalized by Stalinism, Trotsky continued to argue for a united front against fascism in Germany and Spain. According to Joseph Choonara of the British Socialist Workers Party in ''
International Socialism Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...
'', his articles on the united front represent an essential part of his political legacy.


In popular culture

* In the grand strategy game called ''
Hearts of Iron IV ''Hearts of Iron IV'', also known as HOI4, is a grand strategy computer wargame developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released worldwide on 6 June 2016. It is the sequel to 2009's '' Hearts of Iron ...
'', Trotsky can become the leader of either the Soviet Union by rallying the Left Opposition and deposing Stalin though a civil war or a communist Mexico, by giving him a government role when he first seeks exile in the country. * The comedic film, ''
The Trotsky ''The Trotsky'' is a 2009 Canadian comedy film directed and written by Jacob Tierney and starring Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Colm Feore, Saul Rubinek, and Michael Murphy. Plot High School student Leon Bronstein believes that he is the rein ...
'', centers around a protagonist named Leon Bronstein, played by
Jay Baruchel Jonathan Adam Saunders Baruchel (; born April 9, 1982) is a Canadian actor, comedian, director and screenwriter. He is known for his voice role as Hiccup Haddock in the ''How to Train Your Dragon'' franchise, and for his roles in comedy movies ...
, who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky.https://tiff.net/events/the-trotsky
Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
Official Selection 2009 webpage


See also

*
Trotsky_(TV_series) ''Trotsky'' (russian: Троцкий) is a Russian biographical eight-episode television mini-series about Leon Trotsky directed by Alexander Kott and Konstantin Statsky. The series stars Konstantin Khabensky in the title role. It debuted on Cha ...
*
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
*
Foreign relations of the Soviet Union After the Russian Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks took over parts of the collapsing Russian Empire in 1918, they faced enormous odds against the German Empire and eventually negotiated terms to pull out of World War I. They then went to war ag ...
*
Group of Democratic Centralism The Group of Democratic Centralism, sometimes called the Group of 15, the Decists, or the Decemists, was a dissenting faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. History The Group was formed in March 1919 at the 8t ...
*
Labor army The notion of the Labor army (трудовая армия, трудармия) was introduced in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War in 1920. Initially the term was applied to regiments of Red ...
*
Leon Trotsky bibliography The following is a chronological list of books by Leon Trotsky, a Marxist theoretician, including hardcover and paperback books and pamphlets published during his life and posthumously during the years immediately following his assassination in ...
*
List of Trotskyist internationals This is a list of Trotskyist internationals. It includes all of the many political internationals which self-identify as Trotskyist. Of the organizations listed, three claim to be the original Fourth International founded in 1938: the reunified F ...
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List of Trotskyist organizations by country The following is a list of Trotskyist organizations by country. This article lists only those currently existing parties which self-identify ideologically as Trotskyist. Included are Trotskyist factions, but not youth organizations or party allian ...
* ''
Frida ''Frida'' is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Julie Taymor which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Starring Salma Hayek in an Academy Award–nominated portrayal as Kahl ...
'', 2002 film * ''
Variations on the Death of Trotsky ''Variations on the Death of Trotsky'' is a short one-act comedy-drama written by David Ives for the series of one-act plays titled ''All in the Timing''. The play fictionalizes the death of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky through a number of ...
'', 1991 play


Notes


References


Bibliography

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External links

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Trotsky in Havana
by Dimitri Prieto from ''Havana Times''


''The Contradiction of Trotsky''
by
Claude Lefort Claude Lefort (; ; 21 April 1924 – 3 October 2010) was a French philosopher and activist. He was politically active by 1942 under the influence of his tutor, the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (whose posthumous publications Lefort late ...

''Uncommon Knowledge''
Interview with
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
and Robert Service about Leon Trotsky *
"How We Made the October Revolution"
by Leon Trotsky. The New York Times, 1919.


Works

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trotsky, Leon * 1879 births 1940 deaths 1940 murders in Mexico 20th-century Russian writers Anti-Stalinist left Assassinated Russian politicians Assassinated Soviet people Comintern people Russian Communist writers Deaths by stabbing in Mexico Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Foreign ministers of Russia Jewish anti-fascists Jewish Mexican history Jewish socialists Jewish Soviet politicians Male murder victims Marxist theorists Soviet Marxist writers Mensheviks Nonpersons in the Eastern Bloc Odesa Jews Old Bolsheviks Orthodox Marxists People excommunicated by synagogues People denaturalized by the Soviet Union People from Kirovohrad Oblast People from Yelisavetgradsky Uyezd People killed in NKVD operations People murdered in Mexico People of the 1905 Russian Revolution People of the Polish–Soviet War People of the Russian Civil War People of the Russian Revolution People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Refugees in Mexico Russian anti–World War I activists Russian communists Russian exiles Russian expatriates in Mexico Russian expatriates in Norway Russian Marxist writers Russian revolutionaries Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Soviet emigrants to France Soviet emigrants to Mexico Soviet expellees Soviet Ministers of Defence Soviet Trotskyists Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiators Ukrainian people murdered abroad Russian people of Jewish descent Russian Ashkenazi Jews Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress