Anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s death

IN reading about the Soviet Union, we see terrifying accounts of the prison camps in Siberia and how being sent there was tantamount to a death sentence. One man, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in the Ukraine, wasn’t just sent to Siberia, he was exiled there three times and escaped each time.

He dropped out of university and helped organise an underground workers’ union. He was arrested in 1898 and exiled to Siberia in 1900. Two years later, he managed to escape and reach London using a false passport bearing the name Leon Trotsky, a name he retained for the rest of his life.
In London, he joined the Bolsheviks and worked with Lenin. He returned to Russia to join in the ill-fated revolution of 1905. Following his arrest, he was again sent to Siberia and again after two years, he escaped. For the next 10 years, he moved from country to country but was expelled from Switzerland, France, Spain and the United States because of his radical views.
When revolution started again in Russia in 1917, he returned once more. He conquered much of the country around St Petersburg and became a member of the new Government. He was one of the first members of the Communist Party Politburo and his first major position was that of foreign minister.
He negotiated an end to Russia’s involvement in the First World War, in spite of great internal opposition. Following this, he was appointed war commissioner and it was he more than anyone who drove the reorganisation of the famous Red Army.
Trotsky recognised that the Russian Army had no hope against the Germans. The leaders believed only members of the revolution should be in the army and the officers should be elected. Trotsky succeeded in getting former Russian generals to act as an advisory council and slowly but surely the army was reformed. That reformed army saved the new country against the White Russian in the Civil War of the 1920s.
Trotsky was seen in some quarters as the obvious successor to Lenin. However, because he was Jewish and very intellectually arrogant, this worked against him, as did the enemies he had created within the Communist power base in the army. When Lenin died in 1924, he was sidelined and Joseph Stalin became leader. He retained his position in government but openly criticised Stalin and the new regime.
He was powerful enough to stop Stalin removing him but slowly and surely the propaganda started. He lost his position as war minister, was then removed from the Politburo and was finally expelled from the Communist Party. Then in 1928 Stalin had him, once again, exiled to Siberia. This time he did not escape but instead Stalin had him banished from the country.
He was given refuge in Turkey, where he wrote The History of the Revolution. He moved to France and then Norway before finally settling in Mexico, all the time criticising Stalin. During one of Stalin’s many purges, he was tried in his absence and found guilty of treason.
He survived a machine gun attack but was finally killed with an ice pick by a Spanish Communist Ramon Mercader, supposedly acting on Stalin’s orders.
Leon Trotsky was killed in Mexico on August 21, 1940 – 72 years ago this week.