Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Leiba Bronstein) (born November 7, 1879 - died August 21, 1940) - revolutionary, ideologist of Trotskyism. One of the organizers of the 1917 revolution. Member of the Bolshevik Party from August 1917 to November 14, 1927. Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) - RCP (b) - VKP (b). He was a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) between the VIII and IX party congresses, a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) from September 25, 1923 to June 2, 1924.
1924 – confrontation between Trotsky and I.V. Stalin's battle for leadership ended in Trotsky's defeat. 1927 - expelled from the party, exiled to Alma-Ata, 1929 - abroad. He sharply criticized the Stalinist regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of proletarian power. 1938 - initiator of the creation of the 4th International. 1940 - was killed in Mexico by an NKVD agent, Spaniard R. Mercader.
Childhood. early years
Leiba Bronstein was born in 1879 in the village of Yanovka, Elisavetgrad district, Kherson province, into the family of a wealthy landowner from among the Jewish colonists. His father was able to learn to read only in old age. He studied at a real school in Odessa and Nikolaev, where he was the first in all disciplines. Leiba loved to draw, was fond of literature, wrote poetry, translated I. A. Krylov’s fables from Russian to Ukrainian language, took part in the publication of a school handwritten magazine. At that time, his rebellious character began to manifest itself for the first time: due to a conflict with a teacher French he was temporarily expelled from the school.
Trotsky in childhood and youth
The beginning of revolutionary activity. Arrest. Link
1896 - in Nikolaev (where he moved) he joined a revolutionary circle. To obtain higher education Leiba had to leave her new comrades and go to Novorossiysk. There he was easily able to enter the physics and mathematics department of the local university. But the revolutionary struggle had already captured the young man, and he soon left this university and returned to Nikolaev.
1898, January - he was arrested, imprisoned, first in Nikolaev, from there transferred to Kherson, then to Odessa and Moscow transit centers. In a Moscow prison he married A.L., an activist of the South Russian Workers' Union. Sokolovskaya, whom I knew from the Nikolaev period of participation in this organization. Sentenced to four years of exile in Eastern Siberia, where he and his wife were delivered in the fall of 1900. At the stage I met F.E. Dzerzhinsky. In exile, he collaborated with the Irkutsk newspaper “Eastern Review”, writing under the pseudonym Antid Oto. He joined the Mensheviks.
Trotsky with his daughter Zina and first wife Alexandra Sokolovskaya
Emigration
1902, August - leaving his wife with two daughters, the youngest of whom was three months old, he fled from Siberian exile with a passport in the name of Trotsky, which he himself entered, not foreseeing that it would become his name for the rest of his life.
Leon Trotsky went to London, where he met with V.I. Lenin. There he spoke more than once to emigrant revolutionaries. Trotsky amazed everyone with his intellect and oratorical abilities. Lenin proposed to include him on the editorial board of Iskra, but Plekhanov categorically opposed this.
1903 - in Paris, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova. But officially Alexandra Sokolova remained his wife until the end of his life.
Return to Russia
After the revolution of 1905, Lev Davidovich and his wife returned to Russia. During the revolution, he showed himself to be an extraordinary organizer, speaker, and publicist; the de facto leader of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, editor of its Izvestia. He belonged to the most radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
Arrest. Second emigration
After the publication of the Financial Manifesto, he was arrested and convicted. 1906 - was sentenced to lifelong settlement in Siberia with deprivation of all civil rights. On the way to Obdorsk, he fled from Berezov.
He moved to Europe, where he made several attempts to unite disparate parties of a socialist orientation, but could not achieve success. In 1912-1913, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, as a military correspondent for the Kiev Thought newspaper, wrote 70 reports from the fronts of the Balkan Wars. Subsequently, this experience will help him organize work in the Red Army.
After the outbreak of the First World War, he fled from Vienna to Paris, where he published the newspaper “Our Word”. In it, he published his pacifist articles, which became the reason for Trotsky’s expulsion from France. The revolutionary moved to America, where he hoped to settle, since he doubted the possibility of an imminent revolution in Russia.
Trotsky at a rally in Yekaterinodar (1919)
October Revolution
May 1917 - returned to Petrograd, joined the United Social Democratic Internationalists (“Mezhrayontsy”). Soon he became the informal leader of the “Mezhrayontsy”, who took a critical position towards the Provisional Government. After the failure of the July uprising, he was arrested by the Provisional Government.
At the 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b) he was elected one of the honorary chairmen of the congress and a member of the party Central Committee. 1917, September - after being released from prison, he is elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Was one of the organizers of the armed uprising in Petrograd, in the days October revolution played a leading role in the PVRK, led the suppression of the Kerensky-Krasnov rebellion.
Fall from the pinnacle of power
1918, autumn - Trotsky is appointed chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, i.e. he becomes the first commander-in-chief of the newly formed Red Army. For the next few years, he essentially lived on a train, on which he traveled on all fronts. During the defense of Tsaritsyn, Lev Davidovich entered into open confrontation with Stalin. Over time, he began to understand that there could be no equality in the army, and began to introduce the institution of military experts into the Red Army, striving for its reorganization and a return to the traditional principles of building the armed forces. 1924 - Trotsky was removed from his post as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council.
In exile
1927 - Lev Davidovich Trotsky was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee and expelled from the party. 1928, January - was exiled to Alma-Ata. 1929, February - deported from Soviet Union to Turkey.
He settled on the island of Prinkipo (Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul), wrote works there about his life and the revolution and harshly criticized Stalin's policies. Considering the Comintern “captured” by the Stalinists to be politically bankrupt, Lev Davidovich began organizing a new, Fourth International.
He sharply opposed it, calling for the unification of all leftist forces in Europe against German National Socialism. 1933, summer - after the Fuhrer came to power, the radical French government of E. Daladier provided Trotsky with asylum in France. 1935 - Trotsky was forced to leave this country. He was granted new asylum by the Norwegian Labor government, but at the beginning of 1937 he was expelled from there, apparently due to Soviet pressure.
Last years
The revolutionary was now given refuge by the “leftist” President of Mexico Lazaro Cardenas. Leon Trotsky settled in Coyoacan as a guest of the radical artist Diego Rivera. 1938 - The Fourth International was officially founded by Trotskyists.
Meanwhile, the USSR intelligence services did not cease to keep Trotsky under close surveillance, having agents among his associates. 1938 - under strange circumstances, his closest and tireless colleague, his eldest son Lev Sedov, died in a Paris hospital after an operation. News came from the USSR not only about unprecedentedly cruel repressions against the “Trotskyists”. His first wife and his youngest son, Sergei Sedov, were arrested and subsequently shot. The accusation of Trotskyism in the Soviet Union became the most terrible and dangerous in those days.
Death
In recent years, Lev Davidovich worked on his book about Stalin, in which he considered Stalin as a fatal figure for socialism. Anticipating his imminent death, at the beginning of 1940, Trotsky wrote a will, where he spoke of his satisfaction with his fate as a Marxist revolutionary, proclaimed his unshakable faith in the triumph of the 4th International and in the imminent world socialist revolution.
1940, May - an attempt was made on the revolutionary himself in Mexico by a group of killers led by the famous artist A. Siqueiros. However, it failed, but on August 20, 1940, NKVD agent Ramon Mercader struck Trotsky on the head with an ice pick.
Lev Davidovich Trotsky died the next day, August 21, 1940 in Coyocan (Mexico). He was buried in the courtyard of his house, where his museum is now located.
Date of birth: October 26, 1879
Place of birth: Yanovka, Russian empire
Date of death: August 21, 1940
Place of Death: Coyoacan, Mexico
Leib Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky)- Russian revolutionary, politician.
Leon Trotsky was born on October 26, 1879 in Ukraine. He studied at a real school in the city of Nikolaev and in the last classes he became interested in socialism. In 1896 he graduated from a real school, and before that he attended the Odessa School. He married Marxist Alexandra Sokolovskaya and became passionate about her ideas.
Together they created the South Russian Workers' Union, for which they were arrested and exiled to Irkutsk, where they stayed from 1898 to 1902. There they continued their ideas of Marxism and became members of the Iskra newspaper circle.
In 1902, he escaped from exile using forged documents in the name of Trotsky, arrived in London and began communicating with Lenin. In London he wrote articles for Iskra. In 1903 he joined the Mensheviks and broke with Lenin, accusing him of authoritarianism. In 1905, after the January conflict, he returned to his homeland and began to direct the activities of the councils there.
In October 1905 he led a general strike and uprising, for which he was arrested and exiled in December. In exile, he wrote the book Results and Prospects, and in court he blamed tsarism for everything. He escaped from exile and arrived in Vienna in 1907 with his second wife. In Vienna he wrote articles for the press in Germany and Austria. In 1908 he created the newspaper Pravda, which he redirected from Vienna to St. Petersburg for distribution among workers.
In 1914 he published the work War and the International, written by him in Switzerland, the idea of which was the creation of the United States of Europe. After that, he went to Paris and wrote articles for the Kyiv press and for his newspaper Nashe Slovo. In 1915 he became a participant in the Zimmerwald Conference, for which he wrote a manifesto. In the future, this conference grew into the 3rd International.
From Paris in 1916 he was deported to Spain, where he was arrested and deported again. So in January 1917, Trotsky ended up in New York, began collaborating with left-wing socialists and publishing a newspaper together with Bukharin New world in Russian. In it, he covered the events of February, where he recognized them as positive. After this, he tried to return to Petrograd, but on the way he was captured by British intelligence and released only after the Provisional Council demanded that he be extradited.
So in May 1917 he ended up in Russia and became a member of the Interdistrict Organization of United Social Democrats. He soon retrained from a Menshevik to a Bolshevik and became a famous speaker. In July 1917, he was again arrested for rebellion and released after Kornilov's defeat. Took part in October events, and after them it became people's commissar foreign affairs
He also owned the name new country and her government by the Council People's Commissars. In December 1917, he became the head of the USSR at the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. There he behaved strangely, calling for an end to the war, but without concluding a peace treaty. He also spoke out there against Lenin and Bukharin.
In March 1918, he became military commissar and created the Red Army, and also took part in the civil war of 1918-1922. In 1920 he became head of the restoration commission railways and introduced strict discipline on the structures under his control.
However, in 1921, Lenin did not support his idea about the militarization of trade unions along with Zinoviev and Stalin.
In 1922, Lenin invited him to become an ally in the fight against Stalin and his party, where Stalin was general secretary and wanted to bring everything to bureaucratic principles.
Zinoviev and Kamenev began to ally with Stalin, to which Trotsky responded to Lenin by refusing an alliance due to fear of anti-Semitic attacks.
After that, he worked together with Germany and prepared an uprising with the participation of the Red Army with its Communist Party; in October 1923, the uprising was canceled, and a crisis ripened within the Bolshevik Party.
On the day of Lenin's death, Trotsky was abroad and was not summoned by Stalin, as he wanted to establish himself as Lenin's successor. Trotsky was unable to refute this and soon lost his post as military commissar.
In 1925, a struggle began between the power of Stalin and Trotsky, who found himself in opposition. Trotsky called on all his allies and in April 1926 formulated a declaration to restore democracy by eliminating Stalin. In 1927, the opposition waited for failure on the part of Talin, but was taken by surprise on the other side - Stalin accused them that White Guards were active in their ranks.
Trotsky held several rallies and demonstrations, published the newspaper Platform of the Opposition, but in October 1927 he was expelled from the party, and in November 1927 he was not allowed to hold a demonstration in honor of 10 years of the overthrow of the tsarist regime.
In January 1928 he was deported to Alma-Ata, and a year later to Turkey, where he wrote his autobiography My Life and the book The History of the Russian Revolution in three volumes. At the same time, he began to see a threat from Germany, where the mobilization of the left and the creation of the Nazis began to gain power. He wrote to Stalin with the aim of unification, and after Hitler's victory in 1933 he called on him to form the 4th International, but never received a response.
In July 1933 he emigrated to France, but the Germans quickly discovered him there and in 1934 forced him to leave. In 1936 he arrived in Norway and wrote the work The Revolution Betrayed. Six months later he was slandered by Stalin, who called Trotsky an agent of Hitler and in December 1936, Trotsky arrived in Mexico. There, the Mexicans set up a commission on his case and Stalin’s accusation of pandering to the Nazis and gave a negative answer and found him innocent.
In 1938, Trotsky, together with Breton and Rivera, issued a manifesto for free revolutionary art, after which his son was killed by Stalin's agents in Paris. And soon he himself was killed on August 21, 1940.
Achievements of Leon Trotsky:
First People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
Many works on the revolution
Created the Red Army
Dates from the biography of Leon Trotsky:
October 26, 1879 – born in Ukraine
1896 – graduated from real school
1898-102 - first exile
1902 - escape to London and meeting with Lenin
1917 - return to Russia, creation of the Red Army
1925 - struggle for power, removal from party affairs
1936 – emigration to Mexico
August 21, 1940 - death
Interesting facts about Leon Trotsky:
He was married twice, had 4 children, who all died during the struggle for power
He was killed with an ice ax, six months before his death an attempt was made on his life, for the murder of Trotsky Ramon Mrkader received the title of Hero of the USSR
Only in May 1992 was he rehabilitated
Streets, squares and cities were named after him, but with the collapse of the USSR, all were renamed to historical names
Who's really unlucky in Soviet historiography, so this is to Trotsky! They were crossed out from everywhere, all merits were disavowed. They physically destroyed both himself and almost all his close relatives. The truth emerged only decades later. Unsightly, bloody, uncomfortable - but what it is.
Biography and activities of Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name Bronstein) was born in 1879 on the Yanovka farm in southern Russia. He was the fifth child in the family of a very wealthy landowner. The father of the family did not even know how to read, which, however, did not in the least prevent him from succeeding in life. Both parents worked in the fields along with numerous farm laborers. The father of the family grew richer year by year, and the family continued to live in a dugout with a thatched roof.
Lev received a certain education - first in Nikolaev, then in Odessa. I was always the first in my studies. He had an excellent memory, fresh thinking and a fatherly bulldog grip. The youth of the future revolutionary fell during the cult of the Narodnaya Volya. They were almost deified. Leo was ambitious, tenacious and extremely ambitious. He was completely devoid of any good spirit and did not build utopian dreams. He is quickly becoming a mature man.
At the beginning of her journey, Leva Bronstein was far from revolutionary impulses. He was torn between mathematics and social activities. In the end, he dropped out of school and devoted himself to revolutionary ideas. He started as a populist in the late 90s. XIX century. He was arrested for campaigning activities and spent two years in prison. Communication with other prisoners made him a convinced Marxist.
In 1900, Lev was sent into exile in the Irkutsk province. There he spent two years, got married, and became the father of two daughters. Then he left his wife and left for Europe, explaining that revolutionary duty was above all else. To escape, he used a false passport, where he entered the name of the former prison guard - Trotsky. She became the party pseudonym of Lev Bronstein.
Trotsky came to London, met Lenin, and began collaborating with the Iskra newspaper. There was agreement between the two leaders only until Trotsky showed his own ambitions. It was then that he received the labels that stuck firmly to him - “Judas” and “political prostitute.” Lenin, as you know, did not mince words, even towards his allies. They quarreled with Trotsky and made peace again.
In 1905, Trotsky was arrested and put in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress. There he did not feel disadvantaged: he wrote a lot, and then handed over the manuscripts to his lawyers, whom no one inspected on the way out. According to the court verdict, eternal settlement in Siberia awaited him. However, Trotsky does not even reach his destination and again flees abroad, to France, where he takes an active part in the publication of socialist newspapers. Now he is finally becoming an independent political figure.
The French authorities deport him to America. There he learned about the February Revolution. He is in a hurry to return to Russia. He plunges headlong into business. He is elected Chairman of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. It was Trotsky who was the organizer and inspirer of the October Revolution. Lenin seizes the initiative a little later. Trotsky forms Red Guard detachments. Lenin and Trotsky in every possible way stimulated the lawlessness of the masses.
The culminating moment in Trotsky's biography is the civil war and the formation of the Red Army. This “demon of the revolution” travels on all fronts on his personal armored train, agitates, shoots, gives orders. He was not a commander - he relied on unbridled terror and intimidation of dissidents. After the war, Trotsky became People's Commissar of Railways. The period of his factional activity begins, in opposition to the rising Stalin and many other party comrades.
Trotsky found himself alone and lost in the struggle for power. They were afraid of him. Trotsky lost not so much to Stalin - he was defeated by other former party comrades, in particular Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. Bukharin was the main ideologist of the party, Rykov headed the government, Tomsky headed the trade unions. In 1925, Trotsky was removed from his post as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs.
In 1926, he was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The next year he was removed from all posts and sent into exile in Alma-Ata. In 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR and then deprived of Soviet citizenship. His wife, Natalya Sedova, and son Lev left with him. Trotsky turned out to be of no use to anyone and a burden to everyone. He often changed his place of residence, rushing around the world (France, Denmark, Norway) until he settled in Mexico. Here he breathed freely. He began to form parties all over the world. Created the IV International.
Stalin gave the order to destroy Trotsky at any cost. Having gained Trotsky's trust, Soviet agent Ramon Mercader broke his head with an ice pick on August 20, 1940.
- Trotsky's killer served a twenty-year sentence and returned to Moscow, where under Khrushchev he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
L. D. Trotsky is an outstanding revolutionary of the twentieth century. IN world history he entered as one of the founders of the Red Army, the Comintern. L. D. Trotsky became the second person of the first Soviet government. It was he who headed the people's commissariat, was involved in naval and military affairs, and showed himself to be an outstanding fighter against the enemies of the world revolution.
Childhood
Leiba Davidovich Bronstein was born on November 7, 1879 in the Kherson province. His parents were illiterate people, but quite wealthy Jewish landowners. The boy had no friends the same age, so he grew up alone. Historians believe that it was at this time that such a character trait of Trotsky as a sense of superiority over other people was formed. From childhood, he looked at the children of farm laborers with disdain and never played with them.
Youth period
What was Trotsky like? His biography has many interesting pages. For example, in 1889 he was sent by his parents to Odessa, the purpose of the trip was to educate the young man. He managed to enter the St. Paul School under a special quota allocated for Jewish children. Quite quickly Trotsky (Bronstein) became best student in all subjects. In those years, the young man did not think about revolutionary activities; he was interested in literature and drawing.
At the age of seventeen, Trotsky found himself in a circle of socialists engaged in revolutionary propaganda. It was at this time that he began to study with interest the works of Karl Marx.
It’s hard to believe that his books were studied by millions of people and quickly turned into a real fanatic of Marxism. Even then, he differed from his peers in his sharp mind, showed leadership skills, knew how to conduct discussions.
Trotsky immersed himself in an atmosphere of revolutionary activity and created the “South Russian Workers' Union,” whose members were workers of the Nikolaev shipyards.
Persecution
When was Trotsky first arrested? The biography of the young revolutionary contains information about many arrests. The first time he was imprisoned was for revolutionary activity in 1898 for two years. Next was his first exile to Siberia, from which he managed to escape. The name Trotsky was entered in the false passport, and it became his pseudonym for the rest of his life.
Trotsky - revolutionary
After escaping from Siberia, the young revolutionary leaves for London. It was here that he met Vladimir Lenin and became the author of the newspaper Iskra, publishing under the pseudonym “Pero”. Having found common interests with the leaders of Russian Social Democrats, Trotsky quickly became popular and accepted active agitators among migrants.
Trotsky easily established a trusting relationship with the Bolsheviks, using his oratorical abilities and eloquence.
Books
During this period of his life, Leon Trotsky fully supported Lenin’s ideas, which is why he received the nickname “Lenin’s club.” But a few years later, the young revolutionary goes over to the side of the Mensheviks and accuses Vladimir Ulyanov of dictatorship.
He failed to find mutual understanding with the Mensheviks, since Trotsky tried to unite them with the Bolsheviks. After unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the two factions, he declares himself a "non-factional" member of the Social Democratic society. Now, as his main goal, he chooses to create his own movement, different from the views of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.
In 1905, Trotsky returned to revolutionary St. Petersburg and found himself in the thick of events taking place in the city.
It is he who creates the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, voices revolutionary ideas to people who have a revolutionary mood.
Trotsky actively advocated the revolution, so he ended up in prison again. It was at this time that he was deprived of his civil rights and sent to Siberia for eternal settlement.
But he manages to escape from the gendarmes, cross to Finland, and then leave for Europe. Since 1908, Trotsky settled in Vienna and began publishing the newspaper Pravda. A couple of years later, the publication was intercepted by the Bolsheviks, and Lev Davidovich left for Paris, where he managed the publishing house of the newspaper “Our Word”. In 1917, Trotsky decides to return to Russia and sets off from the Finlyandsky Station to the Petrograd Soviet. He is given membership and given the right to an advisory vote. A couple of months after his stay in St. Petersburg, Lev Davidovich manages to become the informal leader of those who advocate the creation of one common social democratic labor party.
In October of the same year, Trotsky formed the Military Revolutionary Committee, and on November 7 carried out an armed uprising, the goal of which was to overthrow the provisional government. This event in history is known as the October Revolution. As a result, the Bolsheviks come to power, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin becomes their leader.
The new government gives Trotsky the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; a year later he becomes People's Commissar for Naval and Military Affairs. It was from this time that he was involved in the formation of the Red Army. Trotsky imprisons and shoots deserters and violators of military discipline, not sparing those who interfere with him active work. This period in history was called the Red Terror.
In addition to military affairs, Trotsky at this time actively collaborated with Lenin on issues related to foreign and internal politics. His popularity peaked towards the end of the Civil War, but due to the death of Lenin, Trotsky was unable to carry out all the reforms aimed at the transition from War Communism to New Communism. economic policy. He failed to become Lenin's full-fledged successor; Joseph Stalin took this place. He saw Leon Trotsky as a serious rival, so he tried to take steps to neutralize the enemy. In the spring of 1924, the real persecution of Trotsky began, as a result of which Lev Davidovich was deprived of his post and membership in the Central Committee of the Politburo.
Who replaced Trotsky as People's Commissar of Defense? In January 1925, this position was taken by Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze. In 1926, Trotsky tried to return to the political life of the country; he organized an anti-government demonstration. But the attempts were unsuccessful, he was exiled to Alma-Ata, then to Turkey, and deprived of Soviet citizenship.
We have already noted who replaced Trotsky as People's Commissar of Defense, but he himself did not stop his active struggle against Stalin. Trotsky began to publish the “Bulletin of the Opposition,” in which he tried to write about Stalin’s barbaric activities. In exile, Trotsky worked on creating an autobiography, wrote the essay “History of the Russian Revolution,” talking about the necessity and inevitability of the October Revolution.
Personal life
In 1935, he moved to Norway and came under pressure from the authorities, who did not plan to spoil relations with the Soviet Union. The revolutionary's works were taken away and he was put under house arrest. Trotsky did not want to put up with such an existence, so he decides to go to Mexico, monitoring from a distance the events unfolding in the USSR. In 1936, he completed work on the book “The Betrayed Revolution,” in which he called the Stalinist regime an alternative counter-revolutionary coup.
Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya became Trotsky's first wife. He met her at the age of 16, when he had not yet thought about revolutionary activity.
Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya was six years older than Trotsky. It was she, according to historians, who became his guide to Marxism.
She became an official wife only in 1898. After the wedding, the young couple went into exile in Siberia, where they had two daughters: Nina and Zinaida. The second daughter was only four months old when Trotsky managed to escape from exile. The wife was left alone in Siberia with two babies. Trotsky himself wrote about that period of his life that he escaped with the consent of his wife, and it was she who helped him move to Europe.
In Paris, Trotsky met an active participant in the publication of the Iskra newspaper. This led to the breakup of his first marriage, but Trotsky managed to maintain friendly relations with Sokolovskaya.
A series of troubles
In his second marriage, Trotsky had two sons: Sergei and Lev. Since 1937, Trotsky's family began to face numerous misfortunes. The youngest son was shot for political activity. A year later, his eldest son dies during an operation. A tragic fate befalls the daughters of Lev Davydovich. In 1928, Nina dies of consumption, and in 1933, Zina commits suicide; she fails to get out of a state of severe depression. Soon, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, Trotsky’s first wife, was shot in Moscow.
Lev Davydovich’s second wife lived for another 20 years after his death. She died in 1962 and was buried in Mexico.
Mystery biography
Trotsky's death still remains an unsolved mystery for many people. Who is he, the secret agent who is associated with the death of Lev Davydovich? Who killed Trotsky? This issue deserves separate consideration. Pavel Sudoplatov, whose name is associated with the death of Trotsky, was born in 1907 in Melitopol. Since 1921, he became an employee of the Cheka, then was transferred to the ranks of the NKVD.
Some historians believe that it was he who committed the murder of Trotsky on the orders of Stalin. The task from the “leader of the peoples” was to eliminate Stalin’s enemy, who at that time lived in Mexico.
Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was appointed to the position of deputy head of the 1st department of the NKVD, where he worked until 1942.
Perhaps it was the murder of Trotsky that allowed him to rise so high in the ranks. Lev Bronstein was Stalin's personal enemy and opponent all his life. No one knows exactly how Trotsky was killed; many legends are associated with the name of this man. Some consider Trotsky a state criminal who fled abroad trying to save his life.
How was Trotsky killed? This question still plagues domestic and foreign historians. It was Lev Bronstein who introduced significant contribution V Russian history. No accurate information about how Trotsky was killed, but Stalin tried to eliminate his rival by any means throughout his political life.
Lenin's and Trotsky's views on the reality of Soviet Russia differed significantly. Lev Bronstein considered the Stalinist regime to be a bureaucratic degeneration of the proletarian regime.
Secrets of death
How was Trotsky killed? In 1927, he was charged seriously with carrying out counter-revolutionary activities under Art. 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, Trotsky was expelled from the party.
The investigation into his case was short. Just a few days later, a car with prison bars was taking Trotsky’s family to Alma-Ata, far from the capital. This journey became for the founder of the Red Army his farewell to the capital's streets.
For Stalin, the death of Trotsky would have been an excellent way to eliminate a strong enemy, but he was afraid to deal with him directly.
In search of an answer to the question of who killed Trotsky, we note that many KGB agents tried to deal with Trotsky.
In exile, his family was given shelter by the Mexican artist Rivera. He protected Trotsky from attacks from local communists. Police were constantly on duty at Rivera's house; American supporters of Trotsky reliably protected their leader and helped him conduct active propaganda work.
Soviet counterintelligence in Europe was led at that time by Ignacy Reiss. He decided to stop his spy work and informed Trotsky that Stalin was trying to end his life with his supporters outside the Soviet Union. To do this, it was supposed to use various methods: blackmail, cruel torture, terrorist acts, interrogations. A few weeks after sending this letter to Trotsky, Reiss was found dead on the way to Lausanne, and about ten bullets were found in his body. Mexican police found out that the people who killed Reiss were spying on Trotsky's son. In 1937, Stalin's supporters were preparing an assassination attempt on Leo, but Trotsky's son did not arrive in Mulhouse on time. This incident made Stalin's supporters think about a possible leak of information, and they began searching for an informant. Trotsky's family, having learned about the planned murder, became even more circumspect and cautious.
Lev Davydovich wrote to his son that if an attempt was made on his life, Stalin would be the orderer of the murder.
In September 1937, an international commission headed by Dewey published the results of the Leon Trotsky case. They spoke of the complete innocence of Lev Sedov (son) and Lev Trotsky (father) of the charges brought against them in Moscow. This news gave Stalin's opponent strength to work and creative activity. But his joy was overshadowed by the death of his son Lev during the operation. The young man became a victim of the NKVD; death overtook him at the age of 32. The death of his son crippled Trotsky, he grew a beard, and the sparkle in his eyes disappeared.
The youngest son refused to renounce his father, for which he was sentenced to five years in the camps and deported to Vorkuta.
Only Zina's son, Seva (Trotsky's grandson), who was born in 1925 and lived in Germany, managed to survive.
Life in exile
Historians put forward different versions regarding the place where Trotsky was killed. In the spring of 1939, he settled in a house near Coyoacan in Mexico. An observation tower was built at the gate, police were on duty outside, and an alarm system was installed in the house. Trotsky grew cacti and raised rabbits and chickens.
Conclusion
In the winter of 1940, Trotsky wrote a will, where in every line one could read the expectation of tragic events. By that time, his relatives and supporters had been destroyed, but Stalin did not want to stop there. Criticism of Trotsky, sounded from the other end of the earth, cast a shadow on the bright image of the leader that had been created over so many years.
Lev Davydovich, in his messages addressed to Soviet sailors, soldiers, and peasants, tried to warn them about the corruption of GPU agents and commissars. He called Stalin the main source of danger for the Soviet Union. Of course, such statements were painfully perceived by the “leader of the peoples”; he could not allow Trotsky to live. On Stalin's orders, NKVD agent Jackson, who was the son of the Spanish communist Caridad Mercader, is sent to Mexico.
The operation was carefully planned, thought out to the smallest detail. Jackson met Sylvia Agelof, Trotsky's secretary, and gained access to the house. On the night of May 24, 1940, an attempt was made on Lev Davydovich.
Together with his wife and grandson, Trotsky was hiding under the bed. Then they managed to survive, but on August 20, Stalin’s plans to eliminate the enemy were realized. Trotsky, who was hit in the head with an ice drill, did not die immediately. He managed to give some orders regarding his wife and grandson to his devoted workers.
When the doctor arrived at the house, part of Trotsky’s body was paralyzed. Lev Davydovich was taken to the hospital and began to prepare for surgery. The craniotomy was performed by five surgeons. Most of the brain was damaged by bone fragments, and part of it was destroyed. Trotsky survived the operation, and for almost a day his body desperately fought for life.
Trotsky died on August 21, 1940, without regaining consciousness after the operation. Trotsky's grave is located in the courtyard of a house in the Coyoacan area of Mexico City; a white stone was erected over it and a red flag was placed.
Lev Davidovich Bronstein was born on October 26, 1879 in the Yanovka farm of Elizavetgrad district of the Kherson province in the family of a wealthy Jewish landowner, who by that time had 100 acres of purchased and over 200 leased land. In 1888 he entered the Lutheran Real School of St. Paul in Odessa; the first student, however, repeatedly came into conflict with teachers; communicated with the local liberal intelligentsia, became familiar with Russian classical literature and European culture. In 1896 he graduated from a real school in Nikolaev and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Novorossiysk University as a volunteer, but soon left it. He joined a populist circle in Nikolaev, and learned about Marxism for the first time from a member of the circle, Alexandra Sokolovskaya. In 1897, together with her and her brothers, he formed the social democratic “South Russian Workers' Union”, which began revolutionary propaganda among the workers. In January 1898, he was arrested, after 2 years of imprisonment in Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa and Moscow, he was administratively exiled for 4 years to Eastern Siberia (to Ust-Kut, then Nizhneilimsk and Verkholensk, Irkutsk province). In 1899, in Butyrka prison, he married Alexandra Sokolovskaya. Political parties Russia late XIX- first third of the 20th century. Encyclopedia - M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 1996, p. 613
In August 1902, with the consent of his wife, who was left with two young daughters in his arms, he escaped from exile, using a false passport in the name of the warden of the Odessa prison, Trotsky. Arriving in Samara, where the bureau of the Russian organization Iskra was located, having carried out a number of instructions from the bureau in Kharkov, Poltava and Kyiv, he illegally crossed the border and at the end of October 1902 came to London, where he met V.I. Lenin. On his recommendation, Trotsky worked at Iskra and gave lectures for Russian emigrants and students.
In 1903, in Paris, he married Natalya Ivanovna Sedova. Participated in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party with a mandate from the Siberian Union of the RSDLP.
At the end of 1904, he moved away from the Mensheviks, but did not join the Bolsheviks, and advocated the unification of both Social Democratic factions. After the events of January 9, 1905, he was one of the first to return to Russia (Kyiv, then St. Petersburg), collaborated with member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP Leonid Borisovich Krasin, who stood in the position of Bolshevik conciliators, as well as with the Mensheviks, disagreeing, however, with them in assessing the role of the liberal bourgeoisie in the revolution. Together with Parvus (A.L. Gelfand), Trotsky developed the theory of “permanent revolution”.
During the revolution of 1905-1907, from denying the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, Trotsky gradually came to the conclusion about the importance of the participation of the peasantry in the revolution with the obligatory leadership of the proletariat.
In 1905, Trotsky’s qualities as a political figure, organizer of the masses, orator, and publicist were directly revealed. In the autumn of 1905, Trotsky was one of the leaders of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, a speaker and author of resolutions on the most important issues. In December 1905 he was arrested, at the end of 1906 he was sentenced to “eternal settlement” in Siberia, but escaped along the way. In 1907, at the 5th Congress of the RSDLP, he headed the center group, not joining either the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks. Political figures of Russia in 1917: Biographical Dictionary/Chief Editor: P.V. Volobuev - M: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1993, p.321
Since 1908, Trotsky collaborated in many Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines. In 1908, together with A.A. Ioffe and M.I. Skobelev established the publication in Vienna of a newspaper for workers, Pravda, in Russian. Not recognizing the legitimacy of the Prague Party Conference organized by the Bolsheviks in 1912, Trotsky, together with Martov, F.I. Danom convened a general party conference in Vienna in August 1912, the anti-Bolshevik bloc (Augustovsky) created at it disintegrated in 1914, and Trotsky himself left it. In 1914 he published a brochure on German"War and the International". In September 1916, Trotsky was expelled from France to Spain for anti-war propaganda, where he was soon arrested and sent to the United States with his family. Since January 1917, Trotsky was an employee of the Russian international newspaper Novy Mir. In March 1917, upon returning to Russia, Trotsky and his family were arrested in Halifax (Canada) and temporarily imprisoned in an internment camp for German sailors. merchant fleet. On May 4, 1917, he arrived in Petrograd, headed the organization of “Mezhrayontsev”, with whom he was accepted into the RSDLP (b) and elected to the Central Committee of the party, of which he was a member until 1927. On March 4, 1918, Trotsky was appointed chairman of the Supreme Military Council, on March 13 - people's commissar for military affairs, and with the creation of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic on September 2 - its chairman. In 1920-21, while remaining at military posts, he was temporarily appointed People's Commissar of Railways, and was one of the leaders of the restoration railway transport and other industries National economy. Based on hostile relations between Stalin and Trotsky, a split formed within the Politburo and the Central Committee, which resulted in an intense intra-party struggle, where Stalin and his supporters gained the upper hand. In January 1925, Trotsky was released from work in the Revolutionary Military Council, in October 1926 he was removed from the Politburo, and in October 1927 - from the Central Committee. In November 1927, Trotsky was expelled from the party, after which he was expelled from Moscow to Alma-Ata, then to Turkey. Political figures of Russia in 1917: Biographical Dictionary/Chief Editor: P.V. Volobuev - M: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1993, p.324
After being expelled from the USSR, Trotsky launched literary and journalistic activities. He fought against Stalin, whom he considered a traitor to the ideals of October. Trotsky spent the last years of his life in Mexico. Stalin set his intelligence services the task of destroying the hated enemy. The NKVD decided to carry out the murder of Trotsky through the hands of its agent Ramon Mercador. The 26-year-old son of an influential Spanish communist was a participant civil war in Spain, which ended in the defeat of the republican forces. Jacques Mornard (according to documents), who instantly turned into Frank Jackson, at first unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the local Trotskyists. Meanwhile, the Mexican Communist Party, apparently on instructions from Moscow, decided to “duplicate” the actions of the special agent and organized its own plot to assassinate Trotsky. On May 24, 1940, his villa came under armed attack. More than twenty masked militants literally turned the entire house upside down, but the owners managed to hide. It was only fate itself that protected the Kremlin exile: Trotsky, his wife and grandson were not harmed. After this scandalous incident, which became known to the world press, Trotsky turned his house into a real fortress, where only people especially devoted to him were allowed. Among them were Sylvia (Trotsky’s courier) and her husband Frank Jackson, who managed to gain the trust of the “teacher.” At first, the young man, who showed an increased interest in Marxism, seemed too annoying to Trotsky. But in the end, the old underground worker, who considered it his sacred duty to raise a young generation of fighters for the “world revolution,” gained confidence in the charming American. Despite the hot day, on August 20, 1940, Frank Jackson showed up at Trotsky’s villa wearing a tightly buttoned raincoat and hat. Under the “family friend’s” cloak there was a whole arsenal: a mountaineering ice axe, a hammer and a large-caliber automatic pistol. The guards, who often saw this man in the house and habitually considered him “one of their own,” led the guest to the owner, who was feeding rabbits in the garden. Natalia, Trotsky's wife, found it strange that Sylvia's husband arrived without warning, but the guest was invited to stay for lunch. Declining the invitation, Mercador-Jackson asked to review an article he had just written. The men went into the office. As soon as Trotsky was deep in reading, Jackson pulled out an ice pick from under his raincoat and plunged it into the back of the victim’s head. Considering the blow not reliable enough, the killer swung the ice ax again, but Trotsky, who miraculously retained consciousness, grabbed him by the hand, forcing him to drop the weapon. Then, staggering, he made his way out of the office into the living room. “Jackson!” he shouted. “Look what you’ve done!” The guards who came running in response to the scream knocked down Jackson, who was aiming a pistol at his victim. “Don’t kill him,” Trotsky stopped the guards. “He needs to tell everything...” With these words, the wounded man lost consciousness. A few minutes later, Mercador Jackson and his victim were taken to the capital's hospital by ambulance. The tenacity with which this mortally wounded man fought for life shocked even the doctors. In their practice, there has never been a case where a victim with such a monstrous injury - a split skull - lived, periodically regaining consciousness, for more than a day... Ramon Mercador, aka Frank Jackson, aka Jacques Mornard, was sentenced to twenty years in prison . After being released from a Mexican prison in March 1960, he settled in Cuba. Shortly before his death in Havana on October 18, 1978, Trotsky's killer received Gold Star Hero of the Soviet Union.
