Trotsky Lev Davidovich activities. Trotsky Lev Davidovich: biography, photos and interesting facts

Among the people who left their mark on the history of Russia, there are not many politicians with such a complicated biography as Leon Trotsky. There is still fierce debate about his role in many events that took place in Russia and then in the USSR in the first 40 years of the 20th century.

So who was Lev Davidovich Trotsky? The biography of a famous political figure presented in this article will help you learn about some of his decisions that influenced the fate of millions of people.

Childhood

Trotsky Lev was the 5th child of David Leontievich and Anna Lvovna Bronstein. The couple were wealthy Jewish landowners-colonists who moved to the Kherson province from the Poltava region. The boy was named Leiba, and he was fluent in Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Yiddish.

By the time of the birth of their youngest son, the Bronsteins had 100 acres of land, a large garden, a mill and a repair shop. Next to Yanovka, where Leiba’s family lived, there was a German-Jewish colony. There was a school there, where he was sent at the age of 6. After 3 years, Leiba was sent to Odessa, where he entered the Lutheran real school of St. Pavel.

The beginning of revolutionary activity

After graduating from 6 classes of school, the young man moved to Nikolaev, where in 1896 he joined a revolutionary circle.

To obtain higher education, Leibe Bronstein had to leave his new comrades and go to Novorossiysk. There he easily entered the physics and mathematics department of the local university. However, the revolutionary struggle had already captured the young man, and he soon left this university to return to Nikolaev.

Arrest

Bronstein, who took the underground nickname Lvov, became one of the organizers of the South Russian Workers' Union. At the age of 18, he was arrested for anti-government activities, and for two years he wandered around prisons. There he became a Marxist and managed to marry Alexandra Sokolovskaya.

In 1990, the young family was exiled to Irkutsk, where Bronstein had two daughters. They were sent to Yanovka. In the Kherson region, the girls found themselves under the care of their grandparents.

Abroad

In 1992, the opportunity arose to escape from exile. Leiba randomly wrote the name Lev Trotsky into his fake passport. With this document he was able to go abroad.

Finding himself beyond the reach of the Russian secret police, Trotsky headed to London, where he met with V. Lenin. There he repeatedly spoke to emigrant revolutionaries. Leon Trotsky (the biography of his early youth is presented above) amazed everyone with his intellect and oratorical talent. Lenin, who sought to weaken the “old men,” proposed including him on the editorial board of Iskra, but Plekhanov categorically opposed this.

While in London, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova. However, Alexandra Sokolova officially remained his wife until the end of his life.

In 1905

When revolution broke out in the country, Trotsky and his wife returned to Russia, where Lev Davidovich organized the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. On November 26, he was elected its chairman, but on November 3 he was arrested and sentenced to lifelong settlement in Siberia. At the trial, Trotsky made a fiery speech against violence. She made a strong impression on those gathered, among whom were his parents.

Second emigration

On the way to the place where he was to live in exile, Trotsky was able to escape and moved to Europe. There he made several attempts to unite disparate socialist parties, but was unsuccessful.

In 1912-1913 Trotsky, as a military correspondent for the Kyiv Mysl newspaper, wrote 70 reports from the fronts of the Balkan Wars. This experience helped him organize work in the Red Army in the future.

When World War I began, Leon Trotsky fled from Vienna to Paris, where he began publishing the newspaper “Our Word.” In it, he published his pacifist articles, which became the reason for the revolutionary’s expulsion from France. He moved to the USA, where he hoped to settle, since he did not believe in the possibility of an imminent revolution in Russia.

In 1917

When the February Revolution broke out, Trotsky and his family went by ship to Russia. However, along the way, he was removed from the ship and sent to a concentration camp because he could not produce a Russian passport. Only in May 1917, after long ordeals, Trotsky and his family arrived in Petrograd. He was immediately included in the Petrograd Soviet.

In the following months, Leon Trotsky, whose brief biography before the revolution is already known to you, was engaged in the demoralization of the garrison of the Northern capital. In the absence of Lenin, who was in Finland, he actually led the Bolsheviks.

During the days of the revolution

On October 12, Trotsky headed the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, and a few days later he ordered the Red Guards to be given 5,000 rifles.

During the days of the October Revolution, Lev Davidovich was one of the main leaders of the rebels.

In December 1917, it was he who announced the beginning of the “Red Terror”.

In 1918-1924

At the end of 1917, Trotsky was included in the first composition of the Bolshevik government as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. During Lenin's ultimatum demanding the acceptance of German conditions, he took the side of Vladimir Ilyich, which ensured his victory.

In the fall of 1918, Trotsky was appointed chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, i.e., he became the first commander-in-chief of the newly formed Red Army. In subsequent years, he practically lived on a train, on which he traveled on all fronts.

During the defense of Tsaritsyn, Leon Trotsky 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.

In 1924, Trotsky was removed from his post as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council.

In the second half of the 20s

By the beginning of 1926, it became clear that the long-awaited world revolution would not come in the near future. Leon Trotsky became close to the Zinoviev/Kamenev group on the basis of unity of political views on the issue of “building socialism in one country.” Soon the number of oppositionists increased, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya joined them.

In 1927, the Central Control Commission examined the cases of Trotsky and Zinoviev, but did not expel them from the party, but issued a severe reprimand.

Exile

In 1928, Trotsky was exiled to Alma-Ata, and a year later he was expelled from the USSR.

In 1936, Lev Davidovich settled in Mexico, where he was sheltered by the family of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. There he wrote a book entitled “The Revolution Betrayed,” in which he harshly criticized Stalin.

2 years later, Trotsky announced the creation of an alternative communist organization to the Comintern, the “Fourth International,” which gave rise to many political movements that currently exist in different parts of the world.

Until the last day of his life, Lev Davidovich worked on a book in which he proved the version of Lenin’s poisoning on the orders of the “father of all nations.”

On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was assassinated by NKVD agent Ramon Mercader. However, attempts on his life were made from the very first days of his arrival in Mexico.

After his death, Trotsky turned out to be one of the few victims of Stalin who was never rehabilitated.

Now you know what path Lev Davidovich Trotsky took in life. A short biography of the politician tells only about a small part of the events in which he was directly involved. Many consider him a villain, and for some, Trotsky is a strong personality, true to his ideals.

TROTSKY (real name Bronstein) Lev Davidovich (1879-1940), Russian political figure. In the Social Democratic movement since 1896. Since 1904 he advocated the unification of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. In 1905, he basically developed the theory of “permanent” (continuous) revolution: according to Trotsky, the Russian proletariat, having realized the bourgeois one, will begin the socialist stage of the revolution, which will win only with the help of the world proletariat. During the revolution of 1905-07 he proved 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. In 1908-12, editor of the newspaper Pravda. In 1917, chairman of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, one of the leaders of the October armed uprising. In 1917-18, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; in 1918-25, People's Commissar for Military Affairs, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic; one of the founders of the Red Army, personally led its actions on many fronts of the Civil War, and made extensive use of repression. Member of the Central Committee in 1917-27, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee in October 1917 and in 1919-26. Trotsky's fierce struggle with I.V. Stalin for leadership ended in Trotsky's defeat - in 1924 Trotsky's views (so-called Trotskyism) were declared a “petty-bourgeois deviation” in the RCP(b). In 1927 he was expelled from the party, exiled to Alma-Ata, and in 1929 - abroad. He sharply criticized the Stalinist regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of proletarian power. Initiator of the creation of the 4th International (1938). Killed in Mexico by an NKVD agent, Spaniard R. Mercader. Author of works on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, literary critical articles, and memoirs “My Life” (Berlin, 1930).

Trotsky Lev Davidovich* * *

TROTSKY Lev Davidovich (real name and last name Leiba Bronstein), Russian and international political figure, publicist, thinker.

Childhood and youth

Born into the family of a wealthy landowner from among the Jewish colonists. His father only learned to read in his old age. Trotsky's childhood languages ​​were Ukrainian and Russian; he never mastered Yiddish. He studied at a real school in Odessa and Nikolaev, where he was the first student in all disciplines. He was interested in drawing and literature, wrote poetry, translated Krylov's fables from Russian into Ukrainian, and participated in the publication of a school handwritten magazine. During these years, his rebellious character first appeared: due to a conflict with a French teacher, he was temporarily expelled from the school.

Political universities

In 1896 in Nikolaev, young Lev joined a circle whose members studied scientific and popular literature. At first he sympathized with the ideas of the populists and vehemently rejected Marxism, considering it a dry and alien teaching. Already during this period, many traits of his personality appeared - a sharp mind, polemical gift, energy, self-confidence, ambition, and a penchant for leadership.

Together with other members of the circle, Bronstein taught political literacy to workers, took an active part in writing proclamations, publishing a newspaper, and acted as a speaker at rallies, putting forward demands of an economic nature.

In January 1898 he was arrested along with like-minded people. During the investigation, Bronstein studied English, German, French and Italian from the Gospels, studied the works of Marx, becoming a fanatical adherent of his teachings, and became acquainted with the works of Lenin. He was convicted and sentenced to four years of exile in Eastern Siberia. While under investigation in Butyrka prison, he married a fellow revolutionary, Alexandra Sokolovskaya.

Since the fall of 1900, the young family was in exile in the Irkutsk province. Bronstein worked as a clerk for a millionaire Siberian merchant, then collaborated with the Irkutsk newspaper Eastern Review, where he published literary critical articles and essays about Siberian life. It was here that his extraordinary ability to use a pen first appeared. In 1902, Bronstein, with the consent of his wife, leaving her with two small daughters, Zina and Nina, fled alone abroad. When escaping, he entered into a false passport his new surname, borrowed from the warden of an Odessa prison, Trotsky, by which he became known throughout the world.

First emigration

Arriving in London, Trotsky became close to the leaders of Russian Social Democracy living in exile. He read abstracts defending Marxism in the colonies of Russian emigrants in England, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Four months after his arrival from Russia, Trotsky, at the suggestion of Lenin, who highly appreciated the abilities and energy of the young adept, was co-opted to the editorial office of Iskra.

In 1903 in Paris, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova, who became his faithful companion and shared all the ups and downs that abounded in his life.

In the summer of 1903, Trotsky participated in the Second Congress of Russian Social Democracy, where he supported Martov’s position on the issue of the party charter. After the congress, Trotsky, together with the Mensheviks, accused Lenin and the Bolsheviks of dictatorship and destruction of the unity of the Social Democrats. But in the fall of 1904, a conflict broke out between Trotsky and the leaders of Menshevism over the issue of attitude towards the liberal bourgeoisie and he became a “non-factional” Social Democrat, claiming to create a movement that would stand above the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Revolution 1905-1907

Having learned about the beginning of the revolution in Russia, Trotsky returned to his homeland illegally. He spoke in the press, taking radical positions. In October 1905 he became deputy chairman, then chairman of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. In December, he was arrested along with the council.

In prison he created the work “Results and Prospects”, where the theory of “permanent” revolution was formulated. Trotsky proceeded from the uniqueness of the historical path of Russia, where tsarism should be replaced not by bourgeois democracy, as the liberals and Mensheviks believed, and not by the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, as the Bolsheviks believed, but by the power of the workers, which was supposed to impose its will on the entire population of the country and rely on the world revolution.

In 1907, Trotsky was sentenced to eternal settlement in Siberia with deprivation of all civil rights, but on the way to his place of exile he fled again.

Second emigration

From 1908 to 1912, Trotsky published the newspaper Pravda in Vienna (this name was later borrowed by Lenin), and in 1912 he tried to create an “August bloc” of Social Democrats. This period included his most acute clashes with Lenin, who called Trotsky “Judas”.

In 1912, Trotsky was a war correspondent for “Kyiv Thought” in the Balkans, and after the outbreak of World War I - in France (this work gave him military experience that was later useful). Having taken a sharply anti-war position, he attacked the governments of all the warring powers with all the might of his political temperament. In 1916 he was expelled from France and sailed to the USA, where he continued to appear in print.

Return to revolutionary Russia

Having learned about the February Revolution, Trotsky headed home. In May 1917 he arrived in Russia and took a position of sharp criticism of the Provisional Government. In July, he joined the Bolshevik Party as a member of the Mezhrayontsy. He showed his talent as an orator in all its brilliance in factories, educational institutions, theaters, squares, and circuses; as usual, he acted prolificly as a publicist. After the July days he was arrested and ended up in prison. In September, after his liberation, professing radical views and presenting them in a populist form, he became the idol of the Baltic sailors and soldiers of the city garrison and was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. In addition, he became chairman of the military revolutionary committee created by the council. He was the de facto leader of the October armed uprising.

At the pinnacle of power

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Participating in separate negotiations with the powers of the “quadruple bloc,” he put forward the formula “we stop the war, we don’t sign peace, we demobilize the army,” which was supported by the Bolshevik Central Committee (Lenin was against it). Somewhat later, after the resumption of the offensive by German troops, Lenin managed to achieve the acceptance and signing of the terms of the “obscene” peace, after which Trotsky resigned as People’s Commissar.

In the spring of 1918, Trotsky was appointed to the post of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and chairman of the revolutionary military council of the republic. In this position he showed himself to be a highly talented and energetic organizer. To create a combat-ready army, he took decisive and cruel measures: taking hostages, executions and imprisonment in prisons and concentration camps of opponents, deserters and violators of military discipline, and no exception was made for the Bolsheviks. Trotsky did a great job of recruiting former Tsarist officers and generals (“military experts”) into the Red Army and defended them from attacks by some high-ranking communists. During the Civil War, his train ran on railroads on all fronts; The People's Commissar of Military and Marine supervised the actions of the fronts, made fiery speeches to the troops, punished the guilty, and rewarded those who distinguished themselves.

In general, during this period there was close cooperation between Trotsky and Lenin, although on a number of issues of a political (for example, discussion about trade unions) and military-strategic (the fight against the troops of General Denikin, the defense of Petrograd from the troops of General Yudenich and the war with Poland) between them there were serious disagreements.

At the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 1920s. Trotsky's popularity and influence reached their apogee, and a cult of his personality began to take shape.

In 1920-21, he was one of the first to propose measures to curtail “war communism” and transition to the NEP.

The fight against Stalin

Before Lenin's death and especially after it, a struggle for power broke out among the Bolshevik leaders. Trotsky was opposed by the majority of the country's leadership, led by Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, who suspected him of dictatorial, Bonapartist plans. In 1923, Trotsky, with his book “Lessons of October,” began the so-called literary discussion, criticizing the behavior of Zinoviev and Kamenev during the October revolution. In addition, in a number of articles, Trotsky accused the “triumvirate” of bureaucratization and violation of party democracy, and advocated the involvement of young people in solving important political problems.

Trotsky's opponents relied on the bureaucracy and, showing great determination, unprincipledness and cunning, speculating on the topic of his previous disagreements with Lenin, dealt a strong blow to Trotsky's authority. He was removed from his posts; his supporters are ousted from the leadership of the party and state. Trotsky's views (“Trotskyism”) were declared a petty-bourgeois movement hostile to Leninism.

In the mid-1920s, Trotsky, joined by Zinoviev and Kamenev, continued to sharply criticize the Soviet leadership, accusing it of betraying the ideals of the October Revolution, including abandoning the world revolution. Trotsky demanded the restoration of party democracy, the strengthening of the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat and an attack on the positions of the Nepmen and kulaks. The majority of the party again sided with Stalin.

In 1927, Trotsky was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee, expelled from the party, and in January 1928 exiled to Alma-Ata.

Last exile

By decision of the Politburo in 1929 he was expelled from the USSR. Together with his wife and eldest son Lev Sedov, Trotsky ended up on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of ​​Marmara (Turkey). Here Trotsky, continuing to coordinate the activities of his followers in the USSR and abroad, began publishing the “Bulletin of the Opposition” and wrote his autobiography “My Life”. The memoirs were a response to anti-Trotskyist propaganda in the USSR and a justification for his life.

His main historical work was written at Prinkipo - “The History of the Russian Revolution”, dedicated to the events of 1917. This work was intended to prove the historical exhaustion of Tsarist Russia, to justify the inevitability of the February Revolution and its development into the October Revolution.

In 1933 he moved to France, in 1935 to Norway. Trotsky tirelessly criticized the policies of the Soviet leadership, refuted the claims of official propaganda and Soviet statistics. The industrialization and collectivization carried out in the USSR was sharply criticized by him for adventurism and cruelty.

In 1935, Trotsky created his most important work on the analysis of Soviet society - “The Betrayed Revolution”, where it was examined in the focus of the contradiction between the interests of the main population of the country and the bureaucratic caste led by Stalin, whose policies, according to the author, undermined the social foundations of the system. Trotsky proclaimed the need for a political revolution, the task of which would be to eliminate the dominance of the bureaucracy in the country.

At the end of 1936 he left Europe, finding refuge in Mexico, where he settled in the house of the artist Diego Rivera, then in a fortified and carefully guarded villa in the city of Coyocan.

In 1937-38, after the unfolding of trials against the opposition in the USSR, in which he himself was tried in absentia, Trotsky paid a lot of attention to exposing them as falsified. In 1937 in New York, an international commission of inquiry into the Moscow trials, chaired by the American philosopher John Dewey, rendered a not guilty verdict against Trotsky and his associates.

All these years, Trotsky did not abandon attempts to rally supporters. In 1938, the IV International was proclaimed, which included small and disparate groups from various countries. This brainchild of Trotsky, which he considered the most important for himself during this period, turned out to be unviable and disintegrated shortly after the death of the founder.

The Soviet intelligence services kept Trotsky under close surveillance, having agents among his associates. In 1938, under mysterious circumstances in Paris, his closest and tireless colleague, his eldest son Lev Sedov, died in a hospital after surgery. From the Soviet Union there was news not only of 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 USSR at this time became the most terrible and dangerous.

Last days

In 1939, Stalin gave the order to liquidate his longtime enemy.

Having turned into a Koyokan recluse, Trotsky worked on his book about Stalin, in which he considered his hero as a fatal figure for socialism. From his pen came an appeal to the working people of the Soviet Union with a call to throw off the power of Stalin and his cliques, articles in the “Bulletin of the Opposition”, in which he, sharply condemning the Soviet-German rapprochement, justified the USSR’s war against Finland and supported the entry of Soviet troops into the territory Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. 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 Fourth International and in the imminent world socialist revolution.

In May 1940, the first attempt on Trotsky's life, which ended in failure, was made, led by the Mexican artist Siqueiros.

On August 20, 1940, Ramon Mercader, an NKVD agent who had infiltrated Trotsky's entourage, mortally wounded him. On August 21, Trotsky died. He was buried in the courtyard of his house, where his museum is now located.

P.S. Tatiana Moreva

1. Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo in the summer of 1926 (and not in 1927).

2. “Struggle for leadership” with Stalin is, to put it mildly, an incorrect formulation. Firstly, in 1923-24. Stalin was not so popular or influential as to compete for leadership, and Zinoviev really competed with Trotsky (since 1920) (he did not just read the traditionally “Leninist” report at the first without Lenin, the Twelfth Congress); Stalin simply quietly seized power in the apparatus, taking advantage of the fact that Zinoviev was in St. Petersburg, and Kamenev was swamped with other work. Secondly, it would be more correct to talk about the struggle for influence; under a democratic regime in the party, real power was wielded by the one who ruled the minds, and Trotsky’s trouble is precisely that here no one could really compete with him. Both Zinoviev and especially Stalin annoyed Trotsky too much even under Lenin, which is why - being vindictive and vindictive themselves - they feared that Trotsky would reckon with them (using his influence); That is why it was necessary to curtail democracy - so that the “leaders” (the rulers of thoughts) would be replaced by “officials” endowed with simple bureaucratic power.

3. I give the author credit for mentioning that it was Trotsky who proposed the NEP, back in early 1920 (by the way, after its introduction, it was Trotsky, and not Bukharin, who became the main theorist of the NEP: he explained what the NEP was to foreign communists in Comintern, he also made the main economic report at the XII Congress); but it’s high time to sort out the “discussion about trade unions.” It is not by chance that Lenin, in his “Letter to the Congress,” recalling this story, writes “on the question of the NKPS” (the People’s Commissariat of Railways, which Trotsky headed at that time), and not “about the trade unions.” The “discussion about trade unions” was invented by Zinoviev, and Lenin and Trotsky argued about something completely different: is it possible to make scapegoats of people who at a critical moment saved transport using not entirely democratic methods...

Leon Trotsky is an outstanding revolutionary of the 20th century, who went down in history as one of the founders of the Civil War, the Red Army and the Comintern. He was actually the second person in the first Soviet government and headed the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs, where he proved himself to be a tough and implacable fighter against the enemies of the world revolution. After his death, he led the opposition movement, speaking out against politics, for which he was deprived of Soviet citizenship, expelled from the Union and killed by an NKVD agent.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name at birth - Leiba Davidovich Bronstein) was born on November 7, 1879 in the Ukrainian outback near the village of Yanovka, Kherson province, into a Jewish family of wealthy landowners. His parents were illiterate people, which did not prevent them from earning capital from the brutal exploitation of peasants. The future revolutionary grew up alone - he had no peer friends with whom he could fool around and play, since he was surrounded only by the children of farm laborers, whom he looked down on. According to historians, this laid down the main character trait in Trotsky, in which a sense of his own superiority over other people prevailed.

In 1889, young Trotsky’s parents sent him to study in Odessa, since even then he showed interest in education. There he entered the St. Paul School under the quota for Jewish families, where he became the best student in all disciplines. At that time, he did not even think about revolutionary activity, being carried away by drawing, poetry and literature.

But in his final years, 17-year-old Trotsky ended up in a socialist circle that was engaged in revolutionary propaganda. At the same time, he became interested in studying the works of Karl Marx and subsequently became a fanatical supporter of Marxism. It was during that period that a sharp mind, a penchant for leadership, and a polemical gift began to manifest in him.

Immersed in revolutionary activity, Trotsky organizes the “South Russian Workers' Union”, which was joined by workers of the Nikolaev shipyards. At that time, they were of little interest in wages, since they received quite high salaries, and were worried about social relations under the tsarist rule.

Young Leon Trotsky | liveinternet.ru

In 1898, Leon Trotsky went to prison for the first time for his revolutionary activities, where he had to spend 2 years. This was followed by his first exile to Siberia, from which he escaped a few years later. Then he managed to make a fake passport, in which Lev Davidovich randomly entered the name Trotsky, like the senior warden of the Odessa prison. It was this surname that became the future pseudonym of the revolutionary, with whom he lived for the rest of his life.

Revolutionary activities

In 1902, after escaping from exile in Siberia, Leon Trotsky traveled to London to join Lenin, with whom he established contact through the Iskra newspaper, founded by Vladimir Ilyich. The future revolutionary became one of the authors of Lenin’s newspaper under the pseudonym “Pero”.

Having become close to the leaders of Russian Social Democracy, Trotsky very quickly gained popularity and fame, delivering propaganda speeches to migrants. He amazed those around him with his eloquence and oratory, which allowed him to win serious attention in the Bolshevik movement, despite his youth.

Books by Leon Trotsky | inosmi.ru

During that period, Leon Trotsky supported Lenin’s policies as much as possible, for which he was dubbed “Lenin’s club.” But this did not last long - literally in 1903, the revolutionary went over to the side of the Mensheviks and began to accuse Lenin of dictatorship. But he “didn’t get along” with the leaders of Menshevism either, because he wanted to try on and unite the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, which caused great political disagreements. As a result, he declared himself a “non-factional” member of the Social Democratic society, setting out to create his own movement, which would be superior to the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

In 1905, Leon Trotsky returned to his homeland, to St. Petersburg, seething with revolutionary sentiments, and immediately burst into the thick of things. He quickly organized the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies and gave fiery speeches to crowds of people who were already maximally electrified with revolutionary energy. For his active work, the revolutionary was again imprisoned, as he advocated the continuation of the revolution even after the Tsar’s manifesto appeared, according to which the people received political rights. At the same time, he was also deprived of all civil rights and exiled to Siberia for eternal settlement.

Leon Trotsky - organizer of the revolution | imgur.com

On the way to the “polar tundra,” Leon Trotsky manages to escape from the gendarmes and get to Finland, from where he will soon move to Europe. Since 1908, the revolutionary settled in Vienna, where he began publishing the newspaper Pravda. But four years later, the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin, intercepted this publication, as a result of which Lev Davidovich went to Paris, where he began publishing the newspaper “Our Word”.

After the February Revolution in 1917, Trotsky decided to return to Russia. Directly from the Finlyandsky Station he went to the Petrosovet, where he was granted membership with the right of advisory vote. In just a few months of his stay in St. Petersburg, Lev Davidovich became the informal leader of the Mezhrayontsev, who advocated the creation of a unified Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

Photo by Leon Trotsky | livejournal.com

In October 1917, the revolutionary created the Military Revolutionary Committee, and on October 25 (November 7, new style) he carried out an armed uprising to overthrow the provisional government, which went down in history as the October Revolution. As a result of the revolution, the Bolsheviks came to power under the leadership of Lenin.

Under the new government, Leon Trotsky received the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and in 1918 became People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. From that moment on, he began forming the Red Army, taking tough measures - he imprisoned and shot all violators of military discipline, deserters and all his opponents, giving no mercy to anyone, even the Bolsheviks, which went down in history under the concept of “Red Terror”.

In addition to military affairs, he worked closely with Lenin on issues of domestic and foreign policy. Thus, by the end of the Civil War, the popularity of Leon Trotsky reached its apogee, but the death of the “leader of the Bolsheviks” did not allow him to carry out the planned reforms for the transition from “War Communism” to the New Economic Policy.

yandex.ru

Trotsky was never able to become Lenin’s “successor” and his place at the helm of the country was taken by Joseph Stalin, who saw Lev Davidovich as a serious opponent and hastened to “neutralize” him. In May 1924, the revolutionary was subjected to real persecution by opponents under the leadership of Stalin, as a result of which he lost the post of People's Commissar of Naval Affairs and membership in the Central Committee of the Politburo. In 1926, Trotsky tried to restore his position and organized an anti-government demonstration, as a result of which he was exiled to Alma-Ata and then to Turkey with the deprivation of Soviet citizenship.

In exile from the USSR, Leon Trotsky did not stop his struggle with Stalin - he began publishing the “Bulletin of the Opposition” and created an autobiography “My Life”, in which he justified his activities. He also wrote a historical work, “The History of the Russian Revolution,” in which he proved the exhaustion of Tsarist Russia and the need for the October Revolution.

Books by Leon Trotsky | livejournal.com

In 1935, Lev Davidovich moved to Norway, where he came under pressure from the authorities who did not want to worsen relations with the Soviet Union. All of the revolutionary’s works were taken away and he was put under house arrest. This led to Trotsky deciding to leave for Mexico, from where he “safely” followed the development of affairs in the USSR.

In 1936, Leon Trotsky completed his book “The Revolution Betrayed,” in which he called the Stalinist regime a counter-revolutionary coup. Two years later, the revolutionary proclaimed the creation of an alternative to “Stalinism”, the Fourth International, the heirs of which still exist today.

Personal life

Leon Trotsky's personal life was inextricably linked with his revolutionary activities. His first wife was Alexandra Sokolovskaya, whom he met at the age of 16, when he had not even thought about his revolutionary future. According to historians, it was Trotsky’s first wife, who was 6 years older than him, who became the young man’s guide to Marxism.

Trotsky with his eldest daughter Zina and first wife Alexandra Sokolovskaya

Sokolovskaya became Trotsky's official wife in 1898. Immediately after the wedding, the newlyweds were sent into exile in Siberia, where they had two daughters, Zinaida and Nina. When his second daughter was only 4 months old, Trotsky fled from Siberia, leaving his wife with two small children in her arms. In his book “My Life,” Lev Davidovich, when describing this stage of his life, indicated that his escape was carried out with the full consent of Alexandra, who helped him escape abroad unhindered.

While in Paris, Leon Trotsky met his second wife Natalya Sedova, who participated in the work of the Iskra newspaper under the leadership of Lenin. As a result of this fateful acquaintance, the revolutionary’s first marriage broke up, but he maintained friendly relations with Sokolovskaya.

Trotsky with his second wife Natalya Sedova | liveinternet.ru

In his second marriage to Sedova, Leon Trotsky had two sons - Lev and Sergei. In 1937, a series of misfortunes began in the revolutionary’s family. His youngest son Sergei was shot for his political activity, and a year later Trotsky's eldest son, who was also an active Trotskyist, died under suspicious circumstances during an operation to remove appendicitis in Paris.

The daughters of Leon Trotsky also suffered a tragic fate. In 1928, his youngest daughter Nina died of consumption, and his eldest daughter Zinaida, who along with her father was deprived of Soviet citizenship, committed suicide in 1933, being in a state of deep depression.

Following his daughters and sons, in 1938 Trotsky also lost his first wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who until her death remained his only legal wife. She was shot in Moscow as a stubborn supporter of the Left Opposition.

Leon Trotsky's second wife, Natalya Sedova, despite the fact that she had lost both sons, did not lose heart and supported her husband until his last days. She and Lev Davidovich moved to Mexico in 1937 and after his death lived there for another 20 years. In 1960 she moved to Paris, which became for her the “eternal” city, where she met Trotsky. Sedova died in 1962, she was buried in Mexico next to her husband, with whom she shared his difficult revolutionary fate.

Murder

On August 21, 1940 at 7:25 am Leon Trotsky died. He was killed by NKVD agent Ramon Mercader in the revolutionary's house in the Mexican city of Cayoacan. The murder of Trotsky was a consequence of his struggle in absentia with Stalin, who at that time was the head of the USSR.

The operation to liquidate Trotsky began back in 1938. Then Mercader, on instructions from the Soviet authorities, managed to infiltrate the revolutionary’s entourage in Paris. He appeared in the life of Lev Davidovich as a Belgian subject Jacques Mornard.

Trotsky with Mexican comrades | liveinternet.ru

Despite the fact that Trotsky turned his house in Mexico into a real fortress, Mercader managed to penetrate it and carry out Stalin’s orders. In the two months preceding the murder, Ramon managed to ingratiate himself with the revolutionary and his friends, which allowed him to appear frequently in Cayoacan.

12 days before the murder, Mercader arrived at Trotsky's house and presented him with an article he had written about the American Trotskyists. Lev Davidovich invited him into his office, where for the first time they managed to be alone. That day, the revolutionary was alarmed by Ramon’s behavior and his attire - in the extreme heat he appeared in a raincoat and hat, and while Trotsky was reading an article, he stood behind his chair.

Ramon Mercader - Trotsky's killer

On August 20, 1940, Mercader again came to Trotsky with an article, which, as it turned out, was a pretext allowing him to retire with the revolutionary. He was again dressed in a cloak and hat, but Lev Davidovich invited him into his office without taking any precautions.

Having settled down behind Trotsky’s chair, who was carefully reading the article, Ramon decided to carry out the order of the Soviet authorities. He took an ice ax from his coat pocket and struck the revolutionary with a strong blow to the head. Lev Davidovich let out a very loud scream, to which all the guards came running. Mercader was grabbed and began to be beaten, after which he was handed over to special police agents.

gazeta.ru

Trotsky was immediately taken to the hospital, where two hours later he fell into a coma. The blow to the head was so strong that it damaged vital centers of the brain. Doctors desperately fought for the life of the revolutionary, but he died 26 hours later.

Death of Leon Trotsky | liveinternet.ru

For the murder of Trotsky, Ramon Mercader received 20 years in prison, which was the maximum penalty under Mexican law. In 1960, the revolutionary killer was released and immigrated to the USSR, where he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. According to historians, the preparation and execution of the operation to kill Lev Davidovich cost the NKVD $5 million.

Trotsky Lev Davidovich (real name Leiba Bronstein) (1879-1940), Soviet party and statesman, one of the organizers of the October Revolution, one of the creators of the Red Army. Born on October 26 (November 7), 1879 in the village of Yanovka, Elizavetgrad district, Kherson province, into a wealthy Jewish family; his father was a wealthy landowner-tenant. From the age of seven he attended a Jewish religious school - cheder, which he did not graduate from. In 1888 he was sent to study in Odessa at a secondary school, then moved to Nikolaev; He was fond of drawing and literature, showed a willful character, and entered into conflicts with teachers.

I became imbued with the ideas of the populists. In 1896, in Nikolaev, he took part in the creation of the South Russian Workers' Union, which set as its task the political education of workers and the fight for their economic interests; wrote leaflets, spoke at rallies, and published an underground newspaper together with like-minded people. Arrested in January 1898; sent to Moscow. During the investigation in Butyrka prison, he intensively studied European languages ​​and became familiar with Marxism; married revolutionary Alexandra Sokolovskaya. Sentenced to four years of exile in Siberia. Since the spring of 1900, he and his wife lived in a settlement in the Irkutsk province; In exile, he had two daughters. He served as a clerk for a local merchant, then collaborated with the Irkutsk newspaper “Eastern Review”; speaking with articles of a literary-critical and ethno-everyday nature. In August 1902, having left his wife and daughters forever, he fled abroad with a fake passport, in which he entered the name of the warden of the Odessa prison, Trotsky, which later became a well-known pseudonym.

Settled in London; became close to the leaders of Russian Social Democracy; in October 1902 he met V.I. Lenin, on whose recommendation he was co-opted to the editorial office of Iskra. He promoted Marxism among Russian emigrants in England, France, Germany and Switzerland. In 1903 he married N. Sedova. In July-August 1903 he participated in the Second Congress of the RSDLP. In a discussion about the party charter, he spoke together with Yu.O. Martov and the Mensheviks against the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. After the congress, he criticized V.I. Lenin and the Bolsheviks for their desire to establish a dictatorship in the party and considered them to be the culprits of its split. In the fall of 1904, he parted company with the Mensheviks, condemning their idea of ​​the leading role of the liberal bourgeoisie in the coming revolution. He tried to create a special movement within Russian Social Democracy.

In February 1905, shortly after the start of the First Russian Revolution, he returned to Russia illegally. He actively promoted revolutionary ideas in the press and at workers' meetings. In October 1905, he was elected deputy chairman and then chairman of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies; was the editor of its printed organ, Izvestia. Arrested in December 1905. In conclusion, he wrote the book Results and Prospects, in which he formulated the theory of permanent revolution, developed together with Parvus (A.L. Gelfand): as a result of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, neither the power of the bourgeoisie (Mensheviks) nor the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry (Bolsheviks) will be established ), and the dictatorship of the workers; The socialist revolution will win in Russia only in the conditions of the world proletarian revolution. At the end of 1906 he was sentenced to permanent settlement in Siberia and deprived of all civil rights. From the stage he fled abroad.

In May 1907 he participated in the V Congress of the RSDLP in London as the leader of the centrist movement in the party. Wrote articles for Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines. In 1908-1912 he published the newspaper Pravda in Vienna, which was distributed underground in Russia. He made efforts to develop a compromise platform and overcome the split in the party. He condemned the decisions of the VI (Prague) Conference of the RSDLP, convened by the Bolsheviks in Prague in January 1912, which set a course for the complete ousting from the party of all groups opposed to V.I. Lenin. At the all-party conference in Vienna in August 1912, together with the leaders of the Mensheviks, he created the anti-Bolshevik “August Bloc”. During the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 he was a correspondent for “Kyiv Thought” at the theater of military operations.

With the outbreak of World War I, he settled in Switzerland, then in France. He published the brochure War and the International, where he took a sharply anti-war position and called for the creation of a “United States of Europe” by revolutionary means. In 1916 he was expelled from France to Spain, where he was arrested and deported to the USA. From January 1917 he collaborated with the Russian newspaper Novy Mir, published in New York; met N.I. Bukharin.

He welcomed the February Revolution of 1917 as the beginning of the long-awaited permanent revolution. In March 1917 he tried to leave for his homeland through Canada, but was detained by Canadian authorities and spent more than a month in an internment camp. He returned to Petrograd only on May 4 (17), 1917. He joined the group of “Mezhrayontsy” close to the Bolsheviks. He harshly criticized the Provisional Government and advocated, like Lenin, for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. During the July Crisis of 1917, he tried to direct anti-government demonstrations of workers and soldiers into a peaceful direction; after the order of the Provisional Government to arrest the Bolshevik leaders, he publicly stood in solidarity with them and rejected their accusations of espionage and conspiracy.

Arrested and imprisoned in Kresty. At the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) in late July - early August, as part of the “Mezhrayontsy”, he was accepted in absentia into the Bolshevik Party and elected to its Central Committee. Released on September 2 (15) after the collapse of the Kornilov rebellion. With his extreme radical actions he gained popularity among the workers and soldiers. On September 25 (October 8) he was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He actively supported Lenin's proposal for the immediate organization of an armed uprising. On October 12 (25), he initiated the creation by the Council of the Military Revolutionary Committee to protect Petrograd from counter-revolutionary forces. Led the preparation of the October Revolution; was its de facto leader.

After the Bolshevik victory on October 25 (November 7), 1917, he entered the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Supported Lenin in the fight against plans to create a coalition government of all socialist parties. At the end of October, he organized the defense of Petrograd from the advancing troops of General P.N. Krasnov.

As People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Trotsky was unable to achieve international recognition of the Bolshevik regime and support for the peace initiatives of the Soviet government. He led the negotiations with the powers of the Quadruple Alliance in Brest-Litovsk. He delayed them in every possible way, hoping for a quick start to the world revolution. He put forward the formula “we will stop the war, we will demobilize the army, but we will not sign peace.” On January 28 (February 9), 1918, he rejected the ultimatum demand of Germany and its allies to agree to the terms of the peace treaty put forward by them, announced Russia’s withdrawal from the war and gave the order for the general demobilization of the army; although this order was canceled by V.I. Lenin, it increased disorganization at the fronts and contributed to the success of the German offensive that began on February 18. On February 22, he resigned from the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

On March 14, 1918 he was appointed People's Commissar for Military Affairs, on March 19 - Chairman of the Supreme Military Council, and on September 6 - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Led the work to create the Red Army; made energetic efforts to professionalize it, actively recruited former officers (“military experts”) into it; established strict discipline in the army and resolutely opposed its democratization; applied severe repression, being one of the theorists and practitioners of the “red terror” (“whoever renounces terrorism must renounce the political domination of the working class”). He strengthened the Red Army with punitive measures. One of his orders said: “if any unit retreats without permission, the unit commissar will be shot first, the commander second.” He was one of the initiators of terror against “unreliable” people and the practice of hostage-taking. At the same time, according to military historian D.A. Volkogonov, Trotsky “loved to have a good rest. Even during the most difficult years of the Civil War, he managed to go to resorts, hunting, and fishing. Several doctors constantly monitored his health.”

In March 1919 he became a member of the first Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Participated in the creation of the Comintern; was the author of his Manifesto. From March 20 to December 10, 1920, he temporarily served as People's Commissar of Railways; took strict measures to restore the operation of railway transport. He showed a penchant for administration and the use of force, advocating the need to create labor armies and strict distribution.

In the Trade Union discussion of November 1920 - March 1921, he demanded the preservation of the methods of “war communism” and the militarization of trade unions in governing the country. He insisted that industrialization in the RSFSR must be built on a system of forced labor and total collectivization. In March 1921 he led the bloody suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion.

During Lenin's illness (from May 1920), a struggle for power in the party began with the triumvirate of I.V. Stalin, G.E. Zinoviev and L.B. Kamenev. In October 1923, in an open letter, he accused them of departing from the principles of the NEP and violating internal party democracy.

After Lenin's death on January 21, 1924, he found himself isolated in the top party leadership. At the XIII Congress in May 1924, he was sharply criticized by almost all the delegates who spoke. In response, in the fall of 1924 he published the article Lessons of October, where he condemned the behavior of Zinoviev and Kamenev during the October Revolution and held them responsible for the failure of the communist uprising in Germany in 1923. He criticized the triumvirate for the bureaucratization of the party; called for the active involvement of young personnel in its ranks.

On January 26, 1925, he was removed from the post of chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. In 1926 he entered into an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev against the Stalin group. He demanded freedom of internal party discussions, strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the fight against the kulaks; accused the party leadership of betraying the ideals of October and abandoning the idea of ​​world revolution; condemned Stalin's theory about the possibility of building socialism in one single country. For “anti-party activities” and “petty-bourgeois deviation” he was expelled from the Politburo in October 1926, from the Central Committee in October 1927 at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and after organizing an open entry with his supporters on November 7, 1927, on the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, he was expelled from the party. There were especially many Trotsky supporters among the leadership of the Red Army (M.N. Tukhachevsky, Ya.B. Gamarnik, etc.).

In January 1928 he was exiled to Alma-Ata, and at the beginning of 1929 he and his family were expelled from the USSR.

In 1929-1933 he lived with his wife and eldest son Lev Sedov in Turkey on the Princes Islands (Sea of ​​Marmara), because the Turkish government refused to accept him. The governments of other countries also refused to accept Trotsky, and he was forced to move from country to country, publishing the anti-Stalinist Opposition Bulletin. He wrote an autobiography, My Life and his main historical work, The History of the Russian Revolution. He criticized industrialization and collectivization in the USSR.

In 1933 he moved to France, and in 1935 to Norway. He published the book The Betrayed Revolution, in which he characterized the Stalinist regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of the dictatorship of the proletariat and revealed deep contradictions between the interests of the bureaucratic caste and the interests of the bulk of the population. At the end of 1936 he left for Mexico, where he settled thanks to the help of the Trotskyist artist Diego Rivera, living in his fortified and guarded villa in Coyocan (a suburb of Mexico City). Sentenced in absentia to death in the USSR; his first wife and youngest son Sergei Sedov, who pursued an active Trotskyist policy, were shot.

In 1938 he united groups of his supporters around the world into the IV International. I started writing a book about I.V. Stalin as a fatal figure for the socialist movement. He addressed an appeal to the working people of the USSR with a call to overthrow the Stalinist clique. Condemned the Soviet-German non-aggression pact; at the same time, he approved the entry of Soviet troops into Western Ukraine and Western Belarus and the war with Finland.

In 1939, Stalin gave the order for its liquidation. At the beginning of 1940 he drew up a political will, in which he expressed hope for an imminent proletarian world revolution. In May 1940, the first attempt to assassinate Trotsky, organized by the Mexican communist artist David Siqueiros, failed. On August 20, 1940, he was mortally wounded by the Spanish communist and NKVD agent Ramon Mercader, who had penetrated his inner circle.

He died on August 21 and, after cremation, was buried in the courtyard of a house in Coyocan. Soviet authorities publicly denied any involvement in the murder. R. Mercader was sentenced by a Mexican court to twenty years' imprisonment; after his release in 1960 he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

L. D. Trotsky is an outstanding revolutionary of the twentieth century. He entered world history as one of the founders of the Red Army and the Comintern. L. D. Trotsky became the second person in 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 Trotsky’s character trait, 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 the 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 qualities, and 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. He was first imprisoned for revolutionary activities 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 his 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 domestic policy. His popularity peaked towards the end of the Civil War, but due to Lenin's death, Trotsky was unable to carry out all the reforms aimed at transitioning from War Communism to the New 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 was working on creating an autobiography, writing 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 breakdown 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 cannot 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 made a significant contribution to Russian history. There is no exact 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 for 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.