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Among the people who have left their mark on the history of Russia, there are not so many politicians with as confusing biographies as those of Leon Trotsky. Fierce debates are still going on 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 Trotsky Lev Davidovich? The biography of a famous politician 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 spouses 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, big garden, mill and repair shop. A German-Jewish colony was located near Yanovka, where Leiba's family lived. There was a school 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. Paul.
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 receive higher education Leiba 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 wandered through prisons for two years. 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 were under the care of their grandparents.
Abroad
In 1992, the opportunity arose to escape from exile. In Leib's fake passport, he added the name Trotsky Lev at random. With this document, he was able to go abroad.
Finding himself out of the reach of the Russian "secret police", Trotsky went 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 was striving to weaken the "old men," proposed that he be included in the editorial board of Iskra, but Plekhanov categorically opposed this.
While in London, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova. However, officially, until the end of his life, Alexandra Sokolova remained his wife.
In 1905
When the revolution broke out in the country, Trotsky and his wife returned to Russia, where Lev Davidovich organized the Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. On November 26, he was elected its chairman, but on November 3 he was arrested and sentenced to life in Siberia. At the trial, Trotsky delivered a fiery speech against violence. She made a strong impression on the audience, among whom were his parents.
Second emigration
On the way to the place where he was supposed to live in exile, Trotsky was able to escape and moved to Europe. There he made several attempts to unite the scattered parties of the socialist wing, but did not succeed.
In 1912-1913. Trotsky, as a military man of the newspaper "Kievskaya Mysl", wrote 70 reports from the fronts of the Balkan Wars. This experience helped him in the future to organize work in the Red Army.
When the First began World War, Trotsky Lev fled from Vienna to Paris, where he began to publish the newspaper "Nashe Slovo". In it, he published his articles of a pacifist orientation, which became the reason for the expulsion of the revolutionary outside France. He moved to the United States, where he hoped to settle, as 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, on the way, he was removed from the ship and sent to a concentration camp, since he could not present a Russian passport. Only in May 1917, after long ordeals, Trotsky and his family arrived in Petrograd. He was immediately included in the Petrosovet.
In the following months, Leon Trotsky, whose brief biography is already known to you before the revolution, was engaged in demoralizing the garrison of the Northern capital. In the absence of Lenin, who was in Finland, he actually became the leader of the Bolsheviks.
During the days of the revolution
On October 12, Trotsky became the head of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, and a few days later ordered the delivery of 5,000 rifles to the Red Guards.
In 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 the years 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 acceptance of German conditions, he sided with Vladimir Ilyich, thereby ensuring his victory.
In the fall of 1918, Trotsky was appointed chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, that is, he became the first commander-in-chief of the newly formed Red Army. In the following years, he practically lived on a train, on which he traveled on all fronts.
During the defense of Tsaritsyn, Leon Trotsky entered into an 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 in the Red Army, seeking to reorganize it and return to the traditional principles of building the armed forces.
In 1924, Trotsky was removed from the post of 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 the unity of political views on the question of "building socialism in one country." Soon the number of oppositionists increased, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya joined them.
In 1927, the Central Control Commission considered 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 Revolution Betrayed, in which he sharply criticized Stalin.
2 years later, Trotsky announced the creation of an alternative to the Comintern communist organization "Fourth International", which gave rise to many political movements that exist in this moment in different parts of the planet.
Before last day his life, Lev Davidovich worked on a book, where he proved the version of the poisoning of Lenin 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 was one of the few victims of Stalin who was never rehabilitated.
Now you know which life path Trotsky Lev Davidovich passed. A short biography of the politician tells only 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.
Leon Trotsky was born in 1879 in the village of Yanovka, Kherson province. He was the fifth child in a classical Jewish family.
Lev was educated first in Odessa, and then in Nikolaev, where he became a member of the local Marxist circle. After graduating from the Nikolaev real school, he entered the Novorossiysk University.
The start of revolutionary work
In 1897 he participated in the organization of the workers' union. In 1898 he went to prison for the first time. He was convicted of revolutionary activity and exiled.
First emigration to London
In 1902, he managed to escape abroad with false documents. In emigration, he closely collaborated with V. Lenin, O. Martov, G. Plekhanov, taking the side of the "old guard" headed by the latter, then on the side of the young members of the RSDLP headed by V. Lenin.
Trotsky in 1905-1907
In 1905, Lev Davydovich illegally returned to Russia and headed the work of the Petrograd Soviet. In 1906 he was detained, sentenced to eternal exile in Siberia and lost all civil rights, but on the way to exile he managed to escape again.
Second emigration
According to short biography Trotsky Lev Davydovich, during the second emigration (1906-1917), Trotsky traveled a lot. He lived in Vienna, Zurich, Paris, New York (the United States made a great impression on Trotsky).
He published various newspapers, was a freelance newspaper correspondent, covering events on the Eastern and Western fronts of the First World War.
Trotsky after 1917
In 1917, Trotsky returned to Russia and immediately became a member of the Petrograd Soviet, which was in opposition to the Provisional Government. For his activities in promoting Bolshevism, he went to prison, from where he left after the failure of the Kornilov revolt. Immediately became a member of the Central Committee, the head of the Petrograd Soviet and a member of the faction from the RSDLP in the Constituent Assembly. In fact, he was the second person in the state and the leading organizer of the October Revolution (as pointed out by I. Stalin in his memoirs).
From 1917 to 1918 he served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, from 1918 to 1924 was the People's Commissar for Military Affairs. In 1919 he took part in the organization of the Comintern, and also became a member of the first Politburo of the Central Committee.
Power struggle
Since 1922, Trotsky begins an active struggle for political supremacy. I. Stalin, M. Zinoviev and D. Kamenev oppose him. In 1924, immediately after the death of Lenin, Trotsky was removed from the post of People's Commissariat for Military Affairs (M. Frunze was appointed).
In 1924-1925. Trotsky was almost completely removed from affairs, but in 1927 he united with M. Zinoviev and D. Kamenev against Stalin. The activities of the "new opposition" were a failure. In the same year, Trotsky was expelled from the Comintern.
In 1928-1929, he was actually in exile in Alma-Ata, from where he was exiled outside the country.
Last emigration
Since 1929, Trotsky has been engaged in literary work. They wrote several monographs on the history of the Russian revolution. In 1938 he announced the creation of the Fourth International.
It is known that Trotsky took with him into exile an archive, the contents of which in many ways compromised Stalin. That is why in 1940, Trotsky, who was then living in Mexico, was killed by an employee of the NKVD, Ramon Markeder. The USSR officially “disowned” its involvement in the murder, Markeder was imprisoned for 20 years in a Mexican prison, but after his release he moved to the USSR, where he received the title of Hero of the USSR and was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Other biography options
- The surname "Trotsky" was inscribed in the first false passport of Lev Davydovich when he fled abroad in 1902. It is interesting that the real "owner" of this surname was the warden of the Odessa prison.
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Lev Davidovich Trotsky - Russian revolutionary leader of the XX century, the ideologist of Trotskyism - one of the currents of Marxism. Twice exiled under the monarchy, deprived of all civil rights in 1905. One of the organizers of the October Revolution of 1917, one of the founders of the Red Army. One of the founders and ideologists of the Comintern, a member of its Executive Committee.
Leon Trotsky (real name Leib Bronstein) was born on November 7, 1879 in a family of wealthy landowners-tenants. In 1889, his parents sent him to study in Odessa to his cousin, the owner of a printing house and a scientific publishing house, Moses Schnitzer. Trotsky was the first student at the school. He was fond of drawing, literature, wrote poetry, translated Krylov's fables from Russian into Ukrainian, participated in the publication of a school manuscript magazine.
He began to conduct revolutionary propaganda at the age of 17, joining a revolutionary circle in Nikolaev. On January 28, 1898, he was first arrested and spent two years in prison, it was then that he joined the ideas of Marxism. During the investigation, he studied English, German, French and italian languages, read the works of Marx, got acquainted with the works of Lenin.
Leiba Bronstein at the age of nine, Odessa
A year before going to prison for the first time, Trotsky joined the South Russian Workers' Union. One of its leaders was Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who became Trotsky's wife in 1898. Together they went into exile in the Irkutsk province, where Trotsky contacted Iskra's agents, and soon began to cooperate with them, receiving the nickname "Pero" for his penchant for writing.
“I came to London as a big provincial, and in every sense. Not only abroad, but also in St. Petersburg, I had never been before. In Moscow, as well as in Kiev, he lived only in a transit prison ”. In 1902, Trotsky decided to escape from exile. It was then, receiving a fake passport, that he entered there the name Trotsky (the name of the senior warden of the Odessa prison, where the revolutionary was held for two years).
Trotsky left for London, where Vladimir Lenin was then. The young Marxist quickly rose to prominence by giving lectures at émigré meetings. He was extremely eloquent, ambitious and educated, everyone, without exception, considered him an amazing speaker. At the same time, for his support of Lenin, he was nicknamed "Lenin's club", while Trotsky himself was often critical of organizational plans Lenin.
In 1904, serious disagreements began between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. By that time, Trotsky had established himself as a follower of the "permanent revolution", departed from the Mensheviks and married a second time to Natalya Sedova (the marriage was not registered, but the couple lived together until Trotsky's death). In 1905, they together illegally returned to Russia, where Trotsky became one of the founders of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. On December 3, he was arrested and, as part of a high-profile trial, was sentenced to eternal exile to Siberia with the deprivation of all civil rights, but fled on his way to Salekhard.
A split between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks was brewing, supported by Lenin, who in 1912 at the Prague conference of the RSDLP announced the separation of the Bolshevik faction into an independent party. Trotsky continued to advocate for the unification of the party, organizing the "August bloc", which the Bolsheviks ignored. This cooled Trotsky's desire for an armistice, he preferred to step aside.
In 1917, after the February Revolution, Trotsky and his family tried to get to Russia, but was removed from the ship and sent to a concentration camp for interned sailors. The reason for this was the fact that the revolutionary had no documents. However, he was soon released at the written request of the Provisional Government as an honored fighter against tsarism. Trotsky criticized the Provisional Government, so he soon became the informal leader of the "Mezhraiontsy", for which he was accused of espionage. His influence on the masses was enormous, so he played a special role in the transition to the side of the Bolsheviks of the soldiers of the rapidly decaying Petrograd garrison, which was of great importance in the revolution. In July 1917, the "Mezhraiontsy" united with the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky was soon released from prison, where he was on charges of espionage.
While Lenin was in Finland, Trotsky actually became the leader of the Bolsheviks. In September 1917, he headed the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, and also became a delegate to the II Congress of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly. In October, the VRK (Military Revolutionary Committee) was formed, which consisted mainly of Bolsheviks. It was the committee that was engaged in the armed preparation of the revolution: on October 16, the Red Guards received five thousand rifles; rallies were held among the wavering, at which Trotsky's brilliant oratorical talent was again manifested. In fact, he was one of the main leaders of the October Revolution.
Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin, Lev Kamenev
“The uprising of the masses does not need justification. What happened was a rebellion, not a conspiracy. We tempered the revolutionary energy of the Petersburg workers and soldiers. We openly forged the will of the masses for an uprising, not for a conspiracy. "
After the October Revolution, the Military Revolutionary Committee remained for a long time the only organ of power. There were formed: a commission to combat counter-revolution, a commission to combat drunkenness and pogroms, food supplies were established. At the same time, Leni and Trotsky adhered to a tough position in relation to political opponents. On December 17, 1917, in his address to the Cadets, Trotsky declares the beginning of the stage of mass terror against the enemies of the revolution in a harsher form: “You should know that not later than a month later, terror will take very strong forms, following the example of the great French revolutionaries. Our enemies will be awaited by a guillotine, and not just a prison ”. It was then, formulated by Trotsky, that the concept of the "Red Terror" appeared.
Soon, Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the first composition of the Bolshevik government. On December 5, 1917, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee was disbanded, Trotsky transferred his affairs to Zinoviev and completely immersed himself in the affairs of the Petrograd Soviet. The "counter-revolutionary sabotage" of civil servants of the old Ministry of Foreign Affairs began, suppressed thanks to the publication of secret treaties of the tsarist government. The situation in the country was complicated by diplomatic isolation, which was not easy for Trotsky to overcome.
To improve the situation, he said that the government would take an intermediate position "neither peace, nor war: we do not sign an agreement, we stop the war, and we demobilize the army." Germany refused to tolerate such a position and announced an offensive. By this time, the army actually did not exist. Trotsky admitted the failure of his policy and resigned from the post of Commissar.
Leon Trotsky with his wife Natalya Sedova and son Lev Sedov
On March 14, 1918, Trotsky was appointed to the post of people's commissar for military affairs, on March 28 to the post of chairman of the Supreme Military Council, in April - military commissar for naval affairs and on September 6 - chairman of the revolutionary military council of the RSFSR. At the same time, the formation of a regular army begins. Trotsky became, in fact, its first commander-in-chief. In August 1918, Trotsky's regular trips to the front began. Several times Trotsky, risking his life, speaks even to deserters. But practice has shown that the army is incapable, Trotsky is forced to support its reorganization, gradually restoring one-man command, insignia, mobilization, uniform uniform, military greetings and awards.
In 1922, Joseph Stalin was elected general secretary of the Bolshevik party, whose views did not coincide with those of Trotsky. Stalin was supported by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who believed that the rise of Trotsky threatened with anti-Semitic attacks on the Soviet regime, condemned him for factionalism.
Lenin dies in 1924. Stalin took advantage of Trotsky's absence in Moscow to promote himself as an "heir" and to consolidate his position.
In 1926, Trotsky united with Zinoviev and Kamenev, whom Stalin began to oppose. However, this did not help him and soon followed by expulsion from the party, deportation to Alma-Ata, and then to Turkey.
Trotsky regarded Hitler's victory in February 1933 as the greatest defeat for the international labor movement. He concluded that the Comintern was incapacitated because of Stalin's openly counter-revolutionary policies and called for the creation of the Fourth International.
In 1933, Trotsky was granted secret asylum in France, which the Nazis soon discovered. Trotsky leaves for Norway, where he writes his most significant work, Revolution Betrayed. In 1936, at a show trial in Moscow, Stalin named Trotsky as Hitler's agent. Trotsky is expelled from Norway. The only country that provided refuge to the revolutionary was Mexico: he settled in the house of the artist Diego Rivera, then in a fortified and carefully guarded villa on the outskirts of Mexico City - in the city of Coyocan.
After Stalin's speeches in Mexico, an International Joint Commission was organized to investigate the Moscow trials. The commission concluded that the charges were libelous and that Trotsky was not guilty.
The Soviet secret services kept Trotsky under close scrutiny, with agents among his associates. In 1938, under mysterious circumstances in Paris in a hospital after an operation, his closest associate, the eldest son Lev Sedov, died. His first wife and his youngest son Sergei Sedov were arrested and subsequently shot.
Leon Trotsky was killed by an ice pick at his home near Mexico City on August 24, 1940. The perpetrator was an NKVD agent, the Spanish republican Ramon Mercader (pictured), who infiltrated Trotsky's entourage under the name of Canadian journalist Frank Jackson.
For the murder, Mercader received 20 years in prison. After his release in 1960, he emigrated to the USSR, where he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. According to some estimates, the assassination of Trotsky cost the NKVD about $ 5 million.
The ice ax that killed Trotsky
From the will of Leon Trotsky: “There is no need for me here to refute once again the stupid and vile slander of Stalin and his agents: there is not a single stain on my revolutionary honor. Neither directly nor indirectly have I ever entered into any behind-the-scenes agreements or even negotiations with the enemies of the working class. Thousands of Stalin's opponents died as victims of similar false accusations.
For forty-three years of my conscious life I remained a revolutionary, of which forty-two I fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to start over, I would, of course, try to avoid this or that mistake, but the general direction of my life would remain unchanged. I see a bright green band of grass under the wall, clear blue skies above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is Beautiful. May the coming generations cleanse it of evil, oppression, violence and enjoy it completely ”
Soviet party and statesman Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name Leiba Bronstein) was born on November 7 (October 26, O.S.), 1879 in the village of Yanovka, Elisavetgrad district, Kherson province (Ukraine) into a well-to-do family. From the age of seven he attended a Jewish religious school, which he did not finish. In 1888 he was sent to study in Odessa, then moved to Nikolaev, where in 1896 he entered the Nikolaev real school, and upon graduation he began to attend lectures at the Faculty of Mathematics of Odessa University. Here Trotsky met with radical, revolutionary-minded youth and took part in the creation of the South Russian Workers' Union.
In January 1898, Trotsky, along with like-minded people, was arrested and sentenced to four years of exile in Eastern Siberia. While under investigation in the Butyrka prison, he married a colleague in revolutionary activity Alexandra Sokolovskaya.
In September 1902, leaving his wife and two daughters, he escaped from exile, using false documents on the name of Trotsky, which later became a well-known pseudonym.
In October 1902, he arrived in London and immediately established contact with the leaders of the Russian Social Democracy living in exile. Lenin highly appreciated Trotsky's abilities and energy and proposed him as a candidate for the Iskra editorial board.
In 1903, in Paris, Leon Trotsky married Natalya Sedova, who became his faithful companion.
In the summer of 1903, Trotsky participated in the Second Congress of Russian Social Democracy, where he supported Martov's position on the question of the party charter. After the congress, Trotsky, together with the Mensheviks, accused Lenin and the Bolsheviks of dictatorship and the destruction of the unity of the Social Democrats. Since 1904, Trotsky advocated the unification of the factions of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
When the first Russian revolution began, Trotsky returned to Petersburg and in October 1905 took an active part in the work of the Petersburg Soviet, becoming one of its three co-chairmen.
By this time, Trotsky, together with Alexander Parvus (Gelfand), developed the theory of the so-called. "permanent" (continuous) revolution: in his opinion, the revolution will win only with the help of the world proletariat, which, having carried out its bourgeois stage, will pass to the socialist one.
During the 1905-1907 revolution, Trotsky showed himself to be an outstanding organizer, orator, and publicist. He was the de facto leader of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, editor of its newspaper Izvestia.
In 1907 he was sentenced to eternal settlement in Siberia with deprivation of all civil rights, but on the way to the place of exile he fled.
From 1908 to 1912, Trotsky published the newspaper Pravda in Vienna and 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 Kievskaya Mysl in the Balkans, two years later, after the outbreak of the First World War, he moved to Switzerland, and then to France and Spain. Here he entered the editorial office of the newspaper of the left socialists "Nashe Slovo".
In 1916 he was expelled from France and sailed to the United States.
Trotsky hailed the February Revolution of 1917 as the beginning of a long-awaited permanent revolution. In May 1917 he returned to Russia, in July he joined the "Mezhraiontsy" in the Bolshevik Party. He was the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, one of the leaders of the October armed uprising.
After the victory of the Bolsheviks on October 25 (November 7) 1917, Trotsky entered the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. He supported Lenin in the struggle against plans to create a coalition government of all socialist parties. At the end of October he organized the defense of Petrograd from the troops of General Krasnov advancing on it.
In 1918-1925, Trotsky was the people's commissar for military affairs, the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. He was one of the founders of the Red Army, personally directed its actions on many fronts of the Civil War. He did a great job of attracting former tsarist officers and generals ("military experts") to the Red Army. He widely used repression to maintain discipline and "establish revolutionary order" at the front and in the rear, being one of the theorists and practitioners of the "red terror".
Member of the Central Committee in 1917-1927, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee in October 1917 and in 1919 1926.
At the end civil war and in the early 1920s, Trotsky's popularity and influence reached a climax, and a cult of his personality began to take shape.
In 1920-1921, Trotsky was one of the first to propose measures to curtail "war communism" and the transition to NEP. He participated in the creation of the Comintern; was the author of his Manifesto. In his well-known Letter to the Congress, noting Trotsky's shortcomings, Lenin called him the most outstanding and capable man of the entire Central Committee of that time.
Before Lenin's death and especially after it, a struggle for power flared up among the leaders of the Bolsheviks. After Lenin's death, the bitter struggle between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin for leadership ended in Trotsky's defeat.
In 1924, the views of Trotsky (so-called Trotskyism) were declared a "petty-bourgeois deviation" in the RCP (b). For his leftist opposition views, he was expelled from the party, in January 1928 he was exiled to Alma Ata, and in 1929, by decision of the Politburo, he was expelled from the USSR.
In 1929-1933, Trotsky lived with his wife and eldest son Lev Sedov in Turkey on the Princes' Islands (Sea of Marmara). In 1933 he moved to France, in 1935 - to Norway. At the end of 1936, he left Europe and settled in Mexico, at the home of the artist Diego Rivera, then at a fortified and heavily guarded villa on the outskirts of Mexico City, the city of Coyocan.
He sharply criticized the policies of the Soviet leadership, denied the statements of official propaganda and Soviet statistics.
Trotsky was the initiator of the creation of the 4th International (1938), the author of works on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, literary critical articles, the books "Lessons of October", "History of the Russian Revolution", "Revolution Betrayed", memoirs "My Life", etc.
In the USSR, Trotsky was sentenced in absentia to death penalty; his first wife and youngest son Sergei Sedov, who pursued an active Trotskyist policy, were shot.
In 1939, Stalin gave the order to liquidate Leon Trotsky. In May 1940, the first attempt to kill him, organized by the Mexican communist artist David Siqueiros, failed.
On August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was mortally wounded by a Spanish communist and NKVD agent Ramon Mercader. He died on August 21, and after cremation was buried in the courtyard of the house in Koyokan, where his museum is now located.
The material was prepared on the basis of open sources
Leon Trotsky in his youth
Leiba Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) is a prominent figure in the history of Russia and the whole world. He is the organizer of the October Revolution, which many call a coup, and the founder of the Red Army. The 100th anniversary of the Revolution has already been celebrated, and the messages created by it are felt all over the world to this day.
An interesting coincidence is that the birthday of Leon Trotsky converges with the date of the Red Revolution - October 26 (old style).
The future ideologist of the Permanent Revolution was born in 1879 in the Kherson region, in the village of Yanovka, Elisavetgrad district, he was the fifth child in the family of a wealthy Jewish landowner who could not even read. According to the memoirs of the theoretician of Marxism, his father was a terrible exploiter and greatly mocked his workers and neighbors. But at the same time, both of Leiba's parents worked in the field together with their farm laborers. And even getting rich from year to year, the family lived in a dugout under a straw.
First arrest
Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya, Trotsky's first wife Trotsky studied at the Odessa and Nikolaev real school. Having a wonderful memory and pragmatic views, he was torn between math and social activities(just at that time the People's Will were popular). At the same time, Leiba was a very ambitious young man, devoid of kindness, without utopian dreams. In the end, he became carried away by leftist ideas and became a member of the Marxist circle. After graduating from the last real school in 1896, he entered the Novorossiysk University and married the Marxist Alexandra Sokolovskaya. He completely shared her ideas and created the South Russian Workers' Union with her in 1897, and a year later the newlyweds were convicted of revolutionary activity and exiled to Lena, to Irkutsk, where they were until 1902. The Bronstein Jr. family had two daughters.
But in exile, Lev Davidovich and his wife continued their activities and became members of the Iskra newspaper circle. Then he abandons his spouse and children and, with the help of sympathetic comrades, runs abroad on a fake passport. The most remarkable thing is that the revolutionary takes the surname - the warden from the Odessa prison - Trotsky.
"Pen", "Juda" and "political prostitute"
Having escaped from exile, the revolutionary leaves for England. In London, he meets with Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), collaborates with the "old guard" G. Plekhanov and O. Martov, writes notes for the newspaper Iskra. For his undoubted literary talent, he received the nickname "Pen". However, Leib shows ambition in speed and not wishing to completely submit to Lenin at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, he sided with the Mensheviks. In general, Leiba and the Leader of the World Proletariat developed an ambiguous relationship, which will manifest itself more than once in their confrontation in the early 1920s. It was during this period that the nicknames given by Lenin were firmly assigned to him: "Jew" and "political prostitute."
Revolution of 1905
Lenin and Trotsky 1918 Despite his conviction, Lev Davidovich returned to his homeland in 1905. In the midst of unrest, he heads the Petrograd Soviet, leads an uprising and strikes. He is arrested by the tsarist special services and "imprisoned alone" in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In contrast to the Soviet camps of the 1920s and 1950s, the oppositionist and state criminal objectionable to the tsarist government is loyal. He writes anti-government works and publishes them without any problems, sending them to his lawyer, who is not even searched by the "secret police". At the end of the trial, Leiba receives eternal exile to Siberia and is deprived of all civil rights on the territory of the Empire. But here the underground workers again help him to flee with his second wife abroad to Austria. After 1914, Trotsky moved to Zurich and then to Paris.
In Paris, there is still a restaurant Le pavillon Montsouris restaurant, in which the future creators of the red terror loved to conduct highly intellectual conversations.
They also enjoyed playing chess at La Closerie des Lilas, where the waiters knew them personally. In Europe, Trotsky becomes an independent political figure, writes in socialist newspapers, for which the government of the French Republic expelled him to the United States. Unlike modern times, our hero did not need visas and obligatory money in a bank account, he freely travels around Europe and the USA on the money of those who sympathize with the revolutionaries.
In 1916, Trotsky was expelled from France to Spain, where he was arrested and deported again. Throughout the second emigration (which lasted 10 years, from 1906 to 1917), Trotsky "hangs out" abroad, living in family mansions and the best hotels, eating exclusively in restaurants. So by February 1917, the revolutionary found himself in New York (of all his foreign epic, it was the "states" that had the greatest influence on him).
"Demon of the revolution"
Photo from the archive of MAMM / MDF Leon Trotsky speaks to the soldiers While in the United States, Trotsky learns about the February Revolution and hastily tries to return to his homeland. But the British arrest him on his way to Halifax, Canada, as a politician advocating for Russia's withdrawal from the war. Only the intervention of the interim government helps to free the revolutionary. Already on May 4, Trotsky arrived in Petrograd. He is elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, where he is actively preparing the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. He is considered the main ideological inspirer of the October coup (Lenin will seize the initiative a little later). The fiery orator Bronstein inspires the masses for unrest, forms the Red Guard units.
After the October events, successful for the Bolsheviks, Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, it was he who took part in negotiations with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk.
Without a military education, Leo manages to organize "iron discipline" in the Red Army, restore order and attract former tsarist generals to manage the units. As a result, the army turned out to be efficient and disciplined.
Leon Trotsky with his bodyguards, 1919 Most historians tend to view the Russian Civil War as the culmination of Trotsky's career. It was during this period that he proved himself as a ruthless executioner, sending thousands to be shot. "Demon of the revolution", as Trotsky was called, fellow party members travels through the theaters of military operations of the Civil War on a personal armored train and gives non-trivial orders, preferring the merciless Red Terror to tactics and strategies.
Leon Trotsky (right) in the carriage of his staff train, 1920 By nature, Trotsky was an unrestrained, overly straightforward and energetic person, which did not allow him to get along even with like-minded people. Everyone who worked with him was afraid of him and tried to avoid him. After civil unrest, Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar of Railways and Communications. But his opposition to Stalin's policy quickly wipes out his career. Already in 1929 he was expelled from the RSFSR and deprived of Soviet citizenship.
Exile
Trotsky, because of his bloody antics during the revolution, could not find refuge in Europe. He was denied political asylum by Germany, Switzerland. For a short period he was able to live in France, but eventually he was expelled in Norway, which was under pressure from the Soviet government. I managed to live in Turkey for several years. However, Leiba Davidovich was afraid of an attempt on the life of white officers, of whom there were a large number in this country. Trotsky repeatedly tried to leave for the United States, but neither personal connections nor official inquiries helped. Only Mexico agreed to shelter the exile. Trotsky arrived in Mexico City in 1937.
Natalia Sedova, Frida Kahlo and Trotsky, the port of Tampico 01/07/1937 Trotsky's archive, with documents incriminating Stalin, which he took out of the country, brought many problems to the political leadership of the USSR. It was possible to get the documents only partially, through an agent of the NKVD. Nevertheless, part of the archive was transferred to the Paris branch of the Amsterdam Institute of History.
