Lev Davidovich Trotsky- revolutionary, statesman, writer and ideologue of Trotskyism. One of the organizers October revolution 1917 One of the founders of the Red Army and the Comintern. Was right hand Vladimir Lenin, as a result of which he had huge powers in the newly formed USSR.
After the death of Lenin, Trotsky became the main opponent of Joseph Stalin in the struggle for power. But having been defeated, he was stripped of all ranks, expelled from the country and later killed.
So in front of you short biography Trotsky.
Biography of Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name Leiba Davidovich Bronstein) was born on October 26, 1879 in the Ukrainian village of Yanovka, Kherson province. He grew up and was raised in a wealthy Jewish family. The father and mother of the future politician made a fortune by exploiting the peasants.
Most of his childhood, Trotsky spent alone, as he was surrounded only by peasant children, whom he treated with contempt. According to biographers, this is what could develop in him selfish inclinations and vanity.
Childhood and youth
During the biography of 1889-1895. Leon Trotsky studied at the Odessa School of St. Paul. He received high marks in all disciplines, and was also interested in drawing, poetry and reading books.
9-year-old Lev Bronstein Having reached the age of 17, the young man became interested in the ideas of Karl Marx, as a result of which he became a sincere follower of Marxism.
In 1897, Lev Davidovich was one of the founders of the underground political organization "South Russian Workers' Union", which opposed the current government. The very next year, the young revolutionary was arrested. As a result, he spent 2 years in prison.
Then Leo was exiled to Siberia, from where he later managed to escape on forged documents.
An interesting fact is that in a fake passport, he decided to indicate the name of the prison warden - Trotsky. It is under this pseudonym that in the future he will receive worldwide fame.
revolutionary activity
By getting to know the leading Social Democrats better, Trotsky was able to quickly gain their trust. He was actively engaged in propaganda and could speak for hours in front of an audience, which surprised not only listeners, but also colleagues.
Leon Trotsky in his youth Since Leon Trotsky supported Lenin in everything, they began to call him "Lenin's club." However, later he expressed disagreement with some of the ideas of Vladimir Ilyich. As a result, Lev ended up in the Menshevik camp, but he did not stay there for a long time due to a number of disagreements.
In this regard, Trotsky wanted to create a political movement that would have his views and principles. In 1905, he returned to, where revolutionary sentiment prevailed at that time. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he founds the "Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies."
Leon Trotsky, just as in London, began to gather crowds of people, calling on them to overthrow the tsarist regime. For this reason, he was again arrested, deprived of all rights and exiled to an eternal settlement in Siberia. However, this time too, the agitator manages to escape from custody on the way to exile.
Trotsky's biographers believe that this escape was a turning point in his life. After moving to Vienna in 1908, he began publishing the newspaper Pravda. Initially, everything went well, but after 4 years the Bolsheviks seized the initiative, so the revolutionary went to where he founded the new newspaper Our Word.
In May 1917, Leon Trotsky arrived in Petrograd, becoming the ideological leader of the Mezhraiontsy, who advocated the formation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
On October 12 of the same year, the politician founded the "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee", which was dominated by the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs. During this period of his biography, he again became close to Lenin.
On October 25, 1917, Trotsky, with the help of a committee, organizes an armed coup to overthrow the provisional government, better known as the October Revolution. Ultimately, power was in the hands of Lenin.
After the successful coup, Leon Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. During this period of his biography, he took up the creation of the Red Army, in the process of which he often resorted to radical measures.
Trotsky speaks to the Red Army For any disobedience or cowardice, a soldier could be shot on the spot without trial or investigation. Without Trotsky, no serious issues concerning both domestic and foreign policy were resolved.
In the struggle for power, Leon Trotsky lost the confrontation. After Lenin's death, he began to be harassed by the majority of party leaders who took sides. He was removed from all positions, and the theory of Trotskyism was declared poisonous to society.
In 1926, Trotsky made an attempt to return to power by staging an anti-government demonstration, but failed. He was exiled to with the deprivation of Soviet citizenship. But even there he did not stop fighting Stalin, but with the help of a pen.
In 1935, Leon Trotsky went to, where he turned out to be persona non grata, because the country's government did not want to spoil relations with. Documents and manuscripts were confiscated from him, after which he was placed under house arrest. For this reason, Trotsky fled to where he continued to observe developments in Soviet Russia.
Personal life
Leon Trotsky met his first wife Alexandra Sokolovskaya at the age of 16. At that time, he was still far from politics, and even more so from revolutionary activity. According to biographers, it was his wife, who was 6 years older than him, who prompted Trotsky to familiarize himself with the works of Marx.
An interesting fact is that immediately after the painting, the spouses were sent into exile. Later they had girls Zinaida and Nina. A few years later, Trotsky made a successful escape, leaving his wife and children in his arms. According to him, he escaped from exile with the consent of his wife.
While in France, Leon Trotsky became interested in Natalya Sedova, who soon became his 2nd wife. The girl worked in the Iskra newspaper.
Natalia Sedova and Leon Trotsky in 1938 (two years before the assassination) In this marriage, they had boys - Lev and Sergey. Later, Leo would die under mysterious circumstances (during the removal of his appendix), and Sergei would be shot on charges of Trotskyism.
Both daughters of Trotsky were also waiting for quick death. Nina died of consumption, and Zinaida committed suicide while in severe depression. In 1938, the first wife of a revolutionary was shot, who did not want to give up her political convictions.
In 1937, Sedova, together with Trotsky, went to Mexico, having lived there for about 20 years after the murder of her husband. Then the woman moved to France, where she died in 1962.
Murder
Lev Davidovich Trotsky died at the hands of the NKVD agent Ramon Mercader on August 21, 1940 in the Mexican settlement of Coyoacan. The murder of the politician was the result of his irreconcilable confrontation with Stalin.
The secret operation to eliminate Leon Trotsky was developed over the course of 2 years. Mercader managed to win over Trotsky by revealing himself to him under the name of Jacques Mornard. And although Trotsky constantly monitored the safety of his home, the NKVD agent was still able to carry out the "liquidation of the enemy."
Ramon Mercader On the day of the assassination, Mercader met with Trotsky at his home, taking with him a manuscript about American Trotskyists. An interesting fact is that Lev Davidovich was surprised that the man was dressed in a long raincoat, since the weather was hot outside. As it soon turns out, an ice pick was hidden under the cloak, with which a fatal blow to the politician's head would be dealt.
Entering the office, Trotsky began to study the manuscript, allowing the killer to stand behind him. At that moment, Ramon delivered a precise blow to the back of the head of his victim, who let out a heartbreaking cry. Guards immediately ran to the sound and started beating Mercader.
Surprisingly, after the ice ax broke through the skull of Leon Trotsky 7 cm deep, he managed to live for more than a day. For the murder of Ramon Mercader, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which was the highest measure punishment in Mexico. In 1960, the killer was released, after which he went to Russia, where he was awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.
Photo by Leon Trotsky
Trotsky, 50 (photo taken in 1929) 
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Lev Davidovich Trotsky is a Russian revolutionary figure of the 20th 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 creators of the Red Army. One of the founders and ideologists of the Comintern, a member of its Executive Committee.
Leon Trotsky (real name Leiba Bronstein) was born on November 7, 1879 into a family of wealthy tenant landowners. In 1889, his parents sent him to study in Odessa with his cousin, the owner of a printing house and a scientific publishing house, Moses Schnitzer. Trotsky was the first student in the school. He was fond of drawing, literature, composed poetry, translated Krylov's fables from Russian into Ukrainian language, participated in the publication of the school handwritten magazine.
He began to conduct revolutionary propaganda at the age of 17, joining a revolutionary circle in Nikolaev. On January 28, 1898, he was arrested for the first time 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, 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 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 in Kyiv, he lived only in a transit prison. In 1902, Trotsky decided to escape from exile. It was then, when receiving a fake passport, that he entered the name Trotsky there (the name of the senior warden of the Odessa prison, where the revolutionary was kept for two years).
Trotsky went to London, where Vladimir Lenin was then. The young Marxist quickly gained fame by making presentations at meetings of émigrés. He was extremely eloquent, ambitious and educated, everyone, without exception, considered him an amazing speaker. At the same time, for supporting Lenin, he was nicknamed "Lenin's club", while Trotsky himself was often critical of Lenin's organizational plans.
In 1904, serious disagreements began between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. By that time Trotsky had established himself as a follower of " 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, together they illegally returned to Russia, where Trotsky became one of the founders of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. On December 3, he was arrested and, as part of a loud litigation was sentenced to eternal exile in Siberia with the deprivation of all civil rights, but fled on the way to Salekhard.
The 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 unification of the party, organizing the "August Bloc", which the Bolsheviks ignored. This cooled Trotsky's desire for a truce, he preferred to step aside.
In 1917, after the February Revolution, Trotsky and his family tried to get to Russia, but were removed from the ship and sent to a concentration camp for interned sailors. The reason for this was the lack of documents from the revolutionary. However, he was soon released at the written request of the Provisional Government as a well-deserved 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 decomposing Petrograd garrison, which had 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 VRC (Military Revolutionary Committee) was formed, consisting mainly of Bolsheviks. It was the committee that was engaged in armed preparations for the revolution: already on October 16, the Red Guards received five thousand rifles; rallies were held among the hesitant, 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 needs no justification. What happened is an uprising, 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, and not for a conspiracy.”
After the October Revolution, the Military Revolutionary Committee remained the only authority for a long time. Under him, a commission for combating counter-revolution, a commission for combating drunkenness and pogroms were formed, and food supplies were established. At the same time, Leni and Trotsky took a tough stance against political opponents. On December 17, 1917, in his address to the Cadets, Trotsky announced the beginning of the stage of mass terror against the enemies of the revolution in a more severe form: “You should know that within a month the terror will take very strong forms, following the example of the great French revolutionaries. The guillotine will await our enemies, and not just prison. It was then, formulated by Trotsky, that the concept of "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 dissolved, Trotsky handed over his affairs to Zinoviev and completely immersed himself in the affairs of the Petrograd Soviet. The "counter-revolutionary sabotage" of the civil servants of the old Ministry of Foreign Affairs began, suppressed by the publication of the secret treaties of the tsarist government. The situation in the country was also complicated by diplomatic isolation, which was not easy for Trotsky to overcome.
To improve the situation, he announced that the government would take an intermediate position "neither peace nor war: we do not sign treaties, 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 did not actually exist. Trotsky admitted the failure of his policy and resigned from the post of People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
Leon Trotsky with his wife Natalia 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 maritime 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 not capable, Trotsky is forced to support its reorganization, gradually restoring unity of command, insignia, mobilization, a single 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 from Moscow to nominate himself as "heir" and consolidate his position.
In 1926, Trotsky allied himself with Zinoviev and Kamenev, whom Stalin began to oppose. However, this did not help him, and soon followed by exclusion from the party, deportation to Alma-Ata, and then to Turkey.
Hitler's victory in February 1933 was regarded by Trotsky as the biggest defeat of the international workers' movement. He concluded that the Comintern was rendered incapacitated by Stalin's openly counter-revolutionary policies and called for the creation of the Fourth International.
In 1933, Trotsky was granted a secret asylum in France, which the Nazis soon discovered. Trotsky leaves for Norway, where he writes his most significant work, The Revolution Betrayed. In 1936, at a show trial in Moscow, Stalin called Trotsky an agent of Hitler. Trotsky is expelled from Norway. The only country that gave 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 to Investigate the Moscow Trials was organized. The commission concluded that the accusations were slanderous and that Trotsky was not guilty.
The Soviet secret services kept Trotsky under close surveillance, having agents among his associates. In 1938, under mysterious circumstances in Paris, his closest colleague, the eldest son Lev Sedov, died after an operation in a hospital. His first wife and his youngest son Sergei Sedov were arrested and subsequently shot.
Leon Trotsky was killed with an ice pick in his home near Mexico City on August 24, 1940. The executor was an NKVD agent, the Spanish Republican Ramon Mercader (pictured), who infiltrated Trotsky's entourage under the name of Canadian journalist Frank Jackson.
Mercader received 20 years in prison for the murder. 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 five million dollars.
The ice pick that killed Trotsky
From the testament of Leon Trotsky: “There is no need for me to refute the stupid and vile slander of Stalin and his agents here again: there is not a single spot on my revolutionary honor. Neither directly nor indirectly have I entered into any behind-the-scenes agreements or even negotiations with the enemies of the working class. Thousands of Stalin's opponents died 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 these or those mistakes, but the general direction of my life would remain unchanged. I see a bright green strip of grass under the wall, a clear blue sky above the wall and sunlight everywhere. Life is Beautiful. May future generations cleanse it of evil, oppression, violence, and enjoy it fully.
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name Leiba Davidovich Bronstein; October 26, 1879, Yanovka farm, Kherson province, Russian Empire - August 22, 1940, Villa Coyacana, Mexico) - figure in the international workers' and communist movement, Marxist theorist, ideologist of one of its currents - Trotskyism. One of the organizers of the October Revolution of 1917 and one of the creators of the Red Army. One of the founders and ideologists of the Comintern, a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. In the Soviet government - People's Commissar for foreign affairs; in 1918–1925 - People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, then the USSR. Member of the Politburo of the CPSU(b) in 1919-1926.
encyclopedic reference
From the family of a wealthy colonist, he was educated at the Nikolaev real school. He joined a circle of revolutionary-minded youth, who tried to conduct propaganda among the workers. Together with the Sokolovsky brothers, in 1897 he formed the Social Democratic South Russian Workers' Union. Arrested in January 1898. He spent about 2 years in prison, after which he was sentenced to 4 years in the settlement. Initially, he served the link in the village of Ust-Kutsky (since August 1900), from February 1901 - in Nizhneilimsky, then in Verkholensk, Irkutsk province. Here L.D. Trotsky actively studied Marxism, studied literary activity. The newspaper Vostochnoye Obozreniye published his articles under the pseudonym Antid Oto.
In February 1902 L.D. Trotsky arrived in , where he delivered a lecture to the local Social Democrats, and in August, with the help of the Siberian Social Democratic Union, he fled to Samara. In , before entering the train car, he entered the name Trotsky on a blank passport form.
In the autumn of the same year he went to V.I. Lenin in London. After January 9, 1905, he returned to Russia, joined the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and then, after the arrest of G. S. Nosar (Khrustalev), was elected its chairman. In December 1905 he was arrested and in October 1906 exiled to Obdorsk, Tobolsk province, but fled to Finland from the road.
In 1907-1917 he tried to distance himself from both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, taking his own position on issues socialist revolution. On September 25, 1917, at the suggestion of the Bolsheviks, he was again elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, took an active part in preparing the coup, and was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
After the October Revolution, L.D. Trotsky was People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Communications, Military and Naval Affairs, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. He was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), took part in a number of all-Russian discussions. In November 1927 he was expelled from the party, in 1928 he was expelled from Moscow, and a year later from the country. Abroad L.D. Trotsky continued to fight against Stalin. Organizer of the IV International (1938). Last years spent his life in Mexico. On August 19, 1940, he was mortally wounded by GPU agent R. Mercader.
Irkutsk. Historical and local lore dictionary. - Irkutsk, 2011
Trotsky in Siberia
Almost two years at the very beginning of the 20th century, Trotsky spent in exile in the Irkutsk province (his daughters were born here). It was on the Irkutsk land that Leiba Bronstein, thinking before escaping, what name to enter in the handed over false passport, remembering his prison guard, entered in the passport: "Trotsky". In Irkutsk, through which he fled (to Samara), his comrades brought him a suitcase with underwear, a tie, and, as he put it, " other attributes of civilization". In the book" My life. The experience of autobiography" he recalled:
Biography
Childhood and youth
Leiba Bronstein was born the fifth child in the family of David Leontievich Bronstein (1843-1922) and his wife Anna (Annetta) Lvovna Bronstein (nee Zhivotovskaya) - wealthy landowners from among the Jewish colonists of an agricultural farm near the village of Yanovka, Elisavetgrad district, Kherson province (now the village of Bereslavka Bobrinetsky district of the Kirovohrad region, Ukraine). Leon Trotsky's parents came from the Poltava province. As a child, he spoke Ukrainian and Russian, and not the then widespread Yiddish. He studied at St. Paul's School in Odessa, where he was the first student in all disciplines. During the years of study in Odessa (1889-1895), Leon Trotsky lived and was brought up in the family of his cousin (on the maternal side), the owner of the printing house and scientific publishing house "Mathesis" Moses Filippovich Shpentzer and his wife Fanny Solomonovna, the parents of the poetess Vera Inber.
Beginning of revolutionary activity
In 1896, in Nikolaev, Lev Bronstein participated in a circle, together with other members of which he conducted revolutionary propaganda. In 1897, he participated in the founding of the South Russian Workers' Union. January 28, 1898 was first arrested. In the Odessa prison, where Trotsky spent 2 years, he becomes a Marxist. “A decisive influence,” he said on this occasion, “two studies by Antonio Labriola on the materialistic understanding of history had on me. Only after this book did I move on to Beltov and Capital. The appearance of his pseudonym Trotsky dates back to the same time, it was the name of the local jailer who impressed the young Lyova (he would write it in his fake passport after escaping). In 1898, in prison, he married Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who was one of the leaders of the Union. Since 1900, he was in exile in the Irkutsk province, where he established contact with Iskra agents and, on the recommendation of G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, who gave him the nickname "Pen" for his obvious literary gift, was invited to cooperate in Iskra. In 1902 he fled from exile abroad; “at random” entered the name Trotsky in a fake passport, after the name of the senior warden of the Odessa prison.
Arriving in London to Lenin, Trotsky became a regular employee of the newspaper, spoke with essays at meetings of emigrants and quickly gained fame. A. V. Lunacharsky wrote about the young Trotsky:
“... Trotsky struck the foreign audience with his eloquence, significant for young man education and aplomb. ... They didn’t take him very seriously because of his youth, but everyone resolutely recognized his outstanding oratorical talent and, of course, felt that this was not a chicken, but an eagle.”
First emigration
Insoluble conflicts in the editorial board of Iskra between the “old men” (G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod, V. I. Zasulich) and the “young” (V. I. Lenin, Yu. O. Martov and A. N. . Potresov) prompted Lenin to propose Trotsky as the seventh member of the editorial board; however, supported by all members of the editorial board, Trotsky was voted down by Plekhanov in an ultimatum form.
At the II Congress of the RSDLP, in the summer of 1903, he supported Lenin so ardently that D. Ryazanov dubbed him "Lenin's club." However, the new composition of the editorial board proposed by Lenin: Plekhanov, Lenin, Martov - the exclusion of Axelrod and Zasulich from it prompted Trotsky to go over to the side of the offended minority and criticize Lenin's organizational plans.
In 1903, in Paris, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova (this marriage was not registered, since Trotsky never divorced A. L. Sokolovskaya).
In 1904, when serious political differences emerged between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, Trotsky moved away from the Mensheviks and became close to A. L. Parvus, who fascinated him with the theory of "permanent revolution". At the same time, like Parvus, he advocated the unification of the party, believing that the impending revolution would smooth out many contradictions.
Revolution of 1905-1907.In 1905, Trotsky illegally returned to Russia with Natalya Sedova. He was one of the founders of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, joined its Executive Committee. Formally, G. S. Khrustalev-Nosar was the chairman of the Council, but in fact the Council was led by Parvus and Trotsky; after the arrest of Khrustalev on November 26, 1905. The Executive Committee of the Soviet officially elected Trotsky chairman; but on December 3 he was arrested along with a large group of deputies. In 1906, at the widely publicized trial of the St. Petersburg Soviet, he was sentenced to permanent settlement in Siberia with the deprivation of all civil rights. On the way to Obdorsk (now Salekhard) he fled from Berezov.
Second emigration
In 1908-1912, he published the newspaper Pravda in Vienna (in 1912 the Bolsheviks founded their own newspaper Pravda with the same name, which caused much controversy). Trotsky recalled in 1923:
« During several years of my stay in Vienna, I came into fairly close contact with the Freudians, read their works and even attended their meetings at that time.».
In 1914-1915 he published the daily newspaper Nashe Slovo in Paris.
In September 1915 he took part in the work of the Zimmerwald Conference together with Lenin and Martov.
In 1916 he was expelled from France to Spain, from where he was already deported by the Spanish authorities to the United States, where he continued his publicistic activities.
Return to Russia
Immediately after the February Revolution, Trotsky headed from America to Russia, but along the way, in the Canadian port of Halifax, together with his family, he was removed from the ship by the British authorities and sent to an internment camp for German sailors. merchant fleet. The reason for the detention was the lack of Russian documents (Trotsky had an American passport issued personally by President Woodrow Wilson, with attached visas to enter Russia and a British transit visa), as well as British fears about Trotsky's possible negative influence on stability in Russia. However, soon, at the written request of the Provisional Government, Trotsky was released as a well-deserved fighter against tsarism and continued his journey to Russia. On May 4, 1917, Trotsky arrived in Petrograd and became the informal leader of the Mezhraiontsy, who took a critical position in relation to the Provisional Government. After the failure of the July uprising, he was arrested by the Provisional Government and accused, like many others, of espionage; while he was charged with passing through Germany.
In July, at the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), the “mezhraiontsy” united with the Bolsheviks; Trotsky himself, who at that time was in the "Crosses", which did not allow him to speak at the congress with the main report - "On the Current Situation", - was elected to the Central Committee. After the failure of the Kornilov speech in September, Trotsky was released, along with other Bolsheviks arrested in July.
Exile from the USSR
In 1929 he was exiled outside the USSR - to Turkey on the island of Buyukada or Prinkipo - the largest of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul. In 1932 he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. In 1933 he moved to France, in 1935 to Norway. Norway, fearing to worsen relations with the USSR, tried with all its might to get rid of the unwanted immigrant, confiscating all the works from Trotsky and placing him under house arrest, and Trotsky was also threatened to extradite him to the Soviet government. Unable to withstand the harassment, Trotsky emigrated to Mexico in 1936, where he lived in the house of the family of artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
In early August 1936, Trotsky finished work on the book The Revolution Betrayed, in which he called what was happening in the Soviet Union "Stalin's Thermidor." Trotsky accused Stalin of Bonapartism.
Trotsky wrote that " the lead backside of the bureaucracy outweighed the head of the revolution', while he stated that ' with the help of the petty bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy managed to tie the proletarian vanguard hand and foot and crush the Bolshevik opposition»; the strengthening of his family in the USSR aroused real indignation in him, he wrote: “ The revolution made a heroic attempt to destroy the so-called “family hearth”, that is, an archaic, musty and inert institution ... The place of the family ... was, according to the plan, to be occupied by a complete system public care and service…».
In 1938 he proclaimed the creation of the Fourth International, whose heirs still exist.
In 1938, Trotsky's eldest son, Lev Sedov, died in a hospital in Paris after an operation.
Trotsky archive
During his exile from the USSR in 1929, Trotsky was able to take out his personal archive. This archive included copies of a number of documents signed by Trotsky during his time in power in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the Central Committee, the Comintern, a number of Lenin's notes addressed personally to Trotsky and not published anywhere else, as well as a number of valuable information for historians about the revolutionary movement before 1917, thousands letters received by Trotsky, and copies of letters sent to him, telephone and address books, etc. Based on his archive, Trotsky in his memoirs easily quotes a number of documents he signed, including sometimes even secret ones. In total, the archive consisted of 28 boxes.
Stalin turned out to be unable to prevent (or he was allowed, which Stalin later called in personal conversations a big mistake, like expulsion) Trotsky to take out his archive, however, in the 30s, GPU agents repeatedly tried (sometimes successfully) to steal some of their fragments, and in March 1931, part of the documents burned down during a suspicious fire. In March 1940, Trotsky, in dire need of money and fearing that the archive would still fall into the hands of Stalin, sold most of his papers to Harvard University.
At the same time, a number of other documents related to Trotsky's activities are, according to the historian Yu. G. Felshtinsky, also in other places, in particular, in the president's archive Russian Federation, in the archives of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, etc.
Murder
In May 1940, an unsuccessful attempt was made on Trotsky's life. The assassination attempt was led by a secret agent of the NKVD Grigulevich. The group of raiders was led by the Mexican artist and staunch Stalinist Siqueiros. Bursting into the room where Trotsky was, the attackers fired aimlessly at all the cartridges and hurriedly disappeared. Trotsky, who managed to hide behind the bed with his wife and grandson, was not injured. According to Siqueiros, the failure was due to the fact that the members of his group were inexperienced and very worried.
Early in the morning of August 20, 1940, the NKVD agent Ramon Mercader, who had previously penetrated Trotsky's entourage as a staunch supporter, came to Trotsky to show his manuscript. Trotsky sat down to read it, and at that time Mercader hit him on the head with an ice pick, which he carried under his cloak. The blow was struck from behind and from above on the seated Trotsky. The wound reached 7 centimeters in depth, but Trotsky, after receiving the wound, lived for almost a day and died on August 21. After cremation, he was buried in the courtyard of a house in Koyokan.
The Soviet authorities publicly denied their involvement in the murder. The killer was sentenced by a Mexican court to twenty years in prison; in 1960, Ramon Mercader, who was released from prison and arrived in the USSR, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin.
Compositions
- Trotsky L. My life. Experience of autobiography, in 2 volumes. Berlin: Granit, 1930.
Literature
- Shaposhnikov V. N. Trotsky - an employee of the "Eastern Review" // Izv. Sib. Department of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR: Ser. history, philology and philosophy. 1989. Issue. 3.
- Startsev V.I. L. D. Trotsky: Pages watered, biographies. M., 1989;
- Ivanov A. Leon Trotsky in Siberian exile // Irkutsk Land. 1998. No. 10.
- Trotsky L.D. My life. Autobiographical experience. M., 1991.
Links
- Trotsky, Lev Davidovich. // Wikipedia
Lev Davidovich Trotsky is a Russian revolutionary figure of the 20th 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 creators of the Red Army. One of the founders and ideologists of the Comintern, a member of its Executive Committee.
Leon Trotsky (real name Leiba Bronstein) was born on November 7, 1879 into a family of wealthy tenant landowners. In 1889, his parents sent him to study in Odessa with his cousin, the owner of a printing house and a scientific publishing house, Moses Schnitzer. Trotsky was the first student in the school. He was fond of drawing, literature, composed poetry, translated Krylov's fables from Russian into Ukrainian, participated in the publication of a school handwritten magazine.
He began to conduct revolutionary propaganda at the age of 17, joining a revolutionary circle in Nikolaev. On January 28, 1898, he was arrested for the first time and spent two years in prison, it was then that he joined the ideas of Marxism. During the investigation, he studied the Gospels in English, German, French and Italian, 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 agents, and soon began to cooperate with them, receiving the nickname "Pero" for his penchant for writing.
It was in exile that it was discovered that Trotsky was suffering from epilepsy inherited from his mother. He often lost consciousness and constantly had to be under the supervision of doctors.
“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 in Kyiv, he lived only in a transit prison. In 1902, Trotsky decided to escape from exile. It was then, when receiving a fake passport, that he entered the name Trotsky there (the name of the senior warden of the Odessa prison, where the revolutionary was kept for two years).
Trotsky went to London, where Vladimir Lenin was then. The young Marxist quickly gained fame by making presentations at meetings of émigrés. He was extremely eloquent, ambitious and educated, everyone, without exception, considered him an amazing speaker. At the same time, for supporting Lenin, he was nicknamed "Lenin's club", while Trotsky himself was often critical of Lenin's organizational plans.
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", moved away from the Mensheviks and married a second time to Natalia Sedova (the marriage was not registered, but the couple lived together until Trotsky's death). In 1905, together they illegally returned to Russia, where Trotsky became one of the founders of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. On December 3, he was arrested and, as part of a high-profile trial, was sentenced to eternal exile in Siberia with the deprivation of all civil rights, but fled on the way to Salekhard.
The 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 unification of the party, organizing the "August Bloc", which the Bolsheviks ignored. This cooled Trotsky's desire for a truce, he preferred to step aside.
In 1917, after the February Revolution, Trotsky and his family tried to get to Russia, but were removed from the ship and sent to a concentration camp for interned sailors. The reason for this was the lack of documents from the revolutionary. However, he was soon released at the written request of the Provisional Government as a well-deserved 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 Bolshevik side of the soldiers of the rapidly decomposing 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 VRC (Military Revolutionary Committee) was formed, consisting mainly of Bolsheviks. It was the committee that was engaged in armed preparations for the revolution: already on October 16, the Red Guards received five thousand rifles; rallies were held among the hesitant, 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 needs no justification. What happened is an uprising, 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, and not for a conspiracy.”
After the October Revolution, the Military Revolutionary Committee remained the only authority for a long time. Under him, a commission for combating counter-revolution, a commission for combating drunkenness and pogroms were formed, and food supplies were established. At the same time, Leni and Trotsky took a tough stance against political opponents. On December 17, 1917, in his address to the Cadets, Trotsky announced the beginning of the stage of mass terror against the enemies of the revolution in a more severe form: “You should know that within a month the terror will take very strong forms, following the example of the great French revolutionaries. The guillotine will await our enemies, and not just prison. It was then, formulated by Trotsky, that the concept of "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 dissolved, Trotsky handed over his affairs to Zinoviev and completely immersed himself in the affairs of the Petrograd Soviet. The "counter-revolutionary sabotage" of the civil servants of the old Ministry of Foreign Affairs began, suppressed by the publication of the secret treaties of the tsarist government. The situation in the country was also complicated by diplomatic isolation, which was not easy for Trotsky to overcome.
To improve the situation, he announced that the government would take an intermediate position "neither peace nor war: we do not sign treaties, 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 did not actually exist. Trotsky admitted the failure of his policy and resigned from the post of People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
Leon Trotsky with his wife Natalia 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 maritime 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 not capable, Trotsky is forced to support its reorganization, gradually restoring unity of command, insignia, mobilization, uniform uniforms, 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 from Moscow to nominate himself as "heir" and consolidate his position.
In 1926, Trotsky allied himself with Zinoviev and Kamenev, whom Stalin began to oppose. However, this did not help him, and soon followed by exclusion from the party, deportation to Alma-Ata, and then to Turkey.
Hitler's victory in February 1933 was regarded by Trotsky as the biggest defeat of the international workers' movement. He concluded that the Comintern was rendered incapacitated by Stalin's openly counter-revolutionary policies and called for the creation of the Fourth International.
In 1933, Trotsky was granted a secret asylum in France, which the Nazis soon discovered. Trotsky leaves for Norway, where he writes his most significant work, The Revolution Betrayed. In 1936, at a show trial in Moscow, Stalin called Trotsky an agent of Hitler. Trotsky is expelled from Norway. The only country that gave 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 to Investigate the Moscow Trials was organized. The commission concluded that the accusations were slanderous and that Trotsky was not guilty.
The Soviet secret services kept Trotsky under close surveillance, having agents among his associates. In 1938, under mysterious circumstances in Paris, his closest colleague, the eldest son Lev Sedov, died after an operation in a hospital. His first wife and his youngest son Sergei Sedov were arrested and subsequently shot.
Leon Trotsky was killed with an ice pick in his home near Mexico City on August 24, 1940. The executor was an NKVD agent, the Spanish Republican Ramon Mercader (pictured), who infiltrated Trotsky's entourage under the name of Canadian journalist Frank Jackson.
Mercader received 20 years in prison for the murder. 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 five million dollars.
The ice pick that killed Trotsky
From the testament of Leon Trotsky: “There is no need for me to refute the stupid and vile slander of Stalin and his agents here again: there is not a single spot on my revolutionary honor. Neither directly nor indirectly have I entered into any behind-the-scenes agreements or even negotiations with the enemies of the working class. Thousands of Stalin's opponents died 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 these or those mistakes, but the general direction of my life would remain unchanged. I see a bright green strip of grass under the wall, clear blue skies above the wall, and sunshine everywhere. Life is Beautiful. May future generations cleanse it of evil, oppression, violence, and enjoy it fully.
Grigory Zinoviev
| People's Commissar of the RSFSR for Foreign Affairs | |
| November 8, 1917 - March 13, 1918 | |
post established
Georgy Chicherin
| September 6, 1918 - January 26, 1925 | |
post established
Mikhail Frunze
| People's Commissar of the RSFSR - USSR for Military and Naval Affairs | |
| August 29, 1918 - January 26, 1925 | |
Nikolai Podvoisky
Mikhail Frunze
Leiba Davidovich Bronstein
Feather, Antid Otho, L. Sedov, Old Man
Yanovka village, Elisavetgrad district, Kherson province, Russian Empire
Mexico City, Mexico
RSDLP → RCP(b) → VKP(b)
party and state building, journalism
Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Leiba Bronstein)(October 26 (November 7, new style) 1879, Yanovka estate, Kherson province Russian Empire(now the village of Bereslavka, Bobrynetsky district, Kirovograd region of Ukraine) - August 21, 1940, Mexico City, Mexico) - figure in the international communist revolutionary movement, one of the organizers, founder of one of the largest currents of Marxist thought -. The first People's Commissar Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia (October 26, 1917 - April 8, 1918), People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (April 8, 1918 - January 26, 1925). The first chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, then the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR (1918 - 1925).
Childhood and youth
He was the fifth child in the family of David Leontievich Bronstein and Anna (Anetta) Lvovna Bronstein (nee Zhivotovskaya). In 1879, the family moved from the Jewish agricultural colony Gromokley to the Yanovka estate, partly bought and partly rented from the widow of Colonel Yanovsky. In Yanovka in the same year, the son of Leib, Leo, was born, and in 1883, the youngest daughter, Olga. Leo had an older brother, Alexander (b. 1870) and a sister, Elizabeth (b. 1875). In total, eight children were born in the Bronstein family, but four children died in childhood from various diseases.
As a child, he was sent to study at a Jewish religious school (cheder), but he did not show a great desire for learning there, he did not really learn Hebrew. But early on he learned to read and write in Russian, as a child he became addicted to writing poetry (not preserved). In 1888 he was sent by his parents to study in Odessa, in the real school of St. Paul. He studied with honors, "all the time he was the first student." He was an impressionable child. Read a lot since childhood fiction, both European and Russian (favorite domestic author -). As a student of the second grade, he tried to publish a handwritten magazine - only one issue was made, almost completely prepared by himself.
His uncle M.F. Shpentzer (father of the once quite famous poetess Vera Inber), a journalist, and then the owner of a printing house and publishing house, contributed a lot to the fact that Trotsky, in his early youth, was already seriously “sick” with writing: as a process of writing a book or articles, and delivery to the press, typing, proofreading, the operation of the printing press, a heated discussion of upcoming and newly published books - the love of journalism and the printed word remained for life.
Start of political activity
In 1896, Trotsky went to finish his studies (the seventh grade of a real school) in Nikolaev, where he began to be introduced to political life: he is part of a kind of political circle, consisting, in his words, of "visiting students, former exiles and local youth." There were heated discussions in the circle. The young Trotsky, who took an ardent part in them, possessed, according to I. Deutscher, "a wonderful gift for bluffing" - he could get involved in a dispute and lead it with dignity, without really knowing the subject of the dispute. This does not mean that this state of affairs suited Trotsky: he greedily pounces on political literature, at first he does not even read books, but “swallows” them. However, the members of the circle study the most interesting things together. Create a circle for the distribution of literature "Redspring". In 1896-97. Trotsky at first leans not towards Marxism, but towards.
Parents learn about Trotsky's new acquaintances (from Nikolaev to Yanovka not so far), and after a stormy explanation, Trotsky declares his independence and refuses material assistance. For several months, Trotsky lives in the "commune" created by the members of the circle. He earns money by tutoring. The members of the commune rush from one project to another: having failed in the dissemination of literature, they try to create a "university on the basis of mutual learning", then they try to write a grandiose political sounding play, which, despite the large amount of time and effort expended, was never brought to fruition. end.
Having reconciled with his parents, Trotsky thought about entering the mathematical faculty of the Novorossiysk University (located in Odessa), but revolutionary work became the activity that really occupied him in Nikolaev. The result of the acquaintance of the members of the "commune" with the electrical worker Mukhin, who was engaged in the propaganda of revolutionary ideas under the guise of a return to true Christianity, is the creation of the group "". According to Trotsky, it all started rather spontaneously:
It was like this: I was walking along the street with the youngest member of our commune, Grigory Sokolovsky, a young man of about my age. "We ought to start all the same," I said. "We must begin," Sokolovsky answered. "But how?" "That's it: how? - We must find workers, do not wait for anyone, do not ask anyone, but find workers and start." "I think you can find it," Sokolovsky said.
Sokolovsky that same day went to the boulevard to the bible. That hasn't been for a long time. There was a woman, and this woman had an acquaintance, also a sectarian. Through this acquaintance of a woman unknown to us, Sokolovsky on the same day met several workers, among whom was the electrical engineer Ivan Andreevich Mukhin, who soon became the main figure in the organization. Sokolovsky returned from the search with burning eyes. "Here it is people so people!"
The young organization has a success that is unexpected even for its creators:
The workers came to us by gravity, as if they had been waiting for us at the factories for a long time. Everyone brought a friend, some came with their wives, a few elderly workers entered circles with their sons. We were not looking for workers, but they were looking for us. Young and inexperienced leaders, we soon began to choke on the movement we had called forth.
According to Trotsky's close friend, Dr. G. A. Ziva, during the years of work in the "South Russian Workers' Union" Trotsky departs from the ideas of populism - "only genuine social democracy." (Ziv G. A. Trotsky. Characteristics (According to personal recollections)
Arrest and exile
On January 28, 1898, Trotsky and other organizers of the "Union" were arrested. He himself later wrote about this: “There was no serious conspiracy in our organization. We were all quickly arrested. The provocateur Schrenzel betrayed. From the Nikolaev prison, Trotsky was transferred to Odessa, and from there to Kherson. By the end of 1899, those arrested in the case of the "South Russian Union" without trial, "in an administrative order" were sentenced: 4 years of exile in Eastern Siberia. Before the exile, they had to spend several more months in the Butyrka transit prison, where Trotsky marries a woman close to him in the "commune" and the "Union" - Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya.
Place of exile - the village of Ust-Kut on the Lena River (currently - a city in Irkutsk region), also lived on the Ilim River, later moved to Verkholensk. Shortly after his arrival, Trotsky begins to contribute to the Irkutsk newspaper Vostochnoye Obozreniye, whose editor at the time was a former exiled Narodnaya Volya member. Takes a literary pseudonym Antid Oto (from the Italian "antidoto", which means "antidote"). In the Ust-Kut exile, Trotsky gets acquainted with and. Trotsky spends two years in exile, during which time two daughters are born to him and Sokolovskaya.
Escape and work in Iskra
In the summer of 1902, news reached the exiles about a new upsurge in the revolutionary movement, about the creation of a Marxist newspaper abroad, and also that several Siberian articles by Trotsky got into the editorial office of Iskra and caused benevolent reviews. Trotsky (then, of course, still Bronstein) decides to escape from exile and by all means get to the center of the revolutionary movement. In exile, he leaves his wife with two young daughters. In Irkutsk, friends give the fugitive decent clothes and a blank passport, where he enters his new name: Trotsky.
It is known that such a surname was worn by the jailer in the Odessa prison, where those arrested in the case of the "South Russian Union" served about a year and a half - a domineering, stately and self-satisfied man. Why the young Bronstein chose this particular surname is not exactly known.
Trotsky's first stop was in Samara. There he spends about a week with, who at that time led the Russian "headquarters" of Iskra. Krzhizhanovsky accepts Trotsky into an organization that still exists unofficially and gives the young journalist the conspiratorial nickname "Pero". On the instructions of Krzhizhanovsky, Trotsky makes a trip to Ukraine, with the aim of meeting with the Ukrainian "Iskrists" and trying to attract revolutionaries who did not stand on "Iskra" positions to the organization - in this respect, according to Trotsky, the trip gave almost nothing. From there comes an order to send Trotsky to the editorial office of Iskra, in London. Illegally (with smugglers) having crossed the Austrian border, Trotsky through Vienna (where the head of the Austrian Social Democrats helps him with money for the further journey) and Zurich (where he meets him) arrives in October 1902 London and from the station goes straight to Lenin. meets him with the words: - The pen has arrived!
As early as November 1902, an article by Trotsky appeared in Iskra. On the advice of Lenin, Trotsky begins to give lectures, first in London, and then on the continent - in Brussels, Zurich, Paris. In Paris (in 1903) Trotsky met with his parents, who had come from Russia especially for this purpose. His parents promise him financial support for his family remaining in Russia and, if necessary, for himself. In Paris, Trotsky meets Natalya Ivanovna Sedova, a student from Russia, expelled for reading forbidden literature from the Kharkov Institute for Noble Maidens and studying art history at the Sorbonne. Sedova recalled their first meeting as follows:
The autumn of 1902 was full of essays in the Russian colony of Paris. The Iskra group, to which I belonged, first saw Martov, then Lenin. There was a struggle with the "Economists" and with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. In our group, they talked about the arrival of a young comrade who had escaped from exile ... The performance was very successful, the colony was delighted, the young Iskra-born exceeded expectations.
Subsequently, Sedova would become Trotsky's wife.
At Lenin's suggestion, in March 1903, Trotsky was accepted into the editorial board of Iskra with the right of an advisory vote. The editorial board at that time included six people: three "old men" (,), and three "young" (Lenin,). The sympathies of the 23-year-old revolutionary are more likely on the side of the “old people” - he admires Vera Zasulich, who was already a “living legend” then (she repays him in return), highly appreciates the scholarship of P. B. Axelrod, and only relations with Plekhanov do not add up - recognized authority in the revolutionary movement is inclined to consider the young revolutionary an upstart and a creature of Lenin.
A few months later, on where Trotsky represented, a gap occurred between Lenin and Trotsky. The “external” reason was in the personalities: Trotsky could not agree with Lenin’s proposal to reduce the composition of the editorial board of Iskra by excluding less active members from it (although Trotsky personally would have benefited from this). Trotsky would later write about this:
It was only a question of placing Axelrod and Zasulich outside the editorial office of Iskra. My attitude towards both of them was imbued not only with respect, but also with personal tenderness. Lenin also held them in high esteem for their past. But he came to the conclusion that they are increasingly becoming a hindrance to the future. And he made an organizational conclusion: to eliminate them from leadership positions. I couldn't put up with this. My whole being protested against this ruthless cutting off of old people who had finally reached the threshold of the party. It was from this indignation that I broke with Lenin at the Second Congress. His behavior seemed unacceptable, terrible, outrageous to me. Meanwhile, it was politically correct and, consequently, organizationally necessary.
Revolution of 1905 and further struggle against the party
Trotsky met the revolution of 1905 with the notorious theory of "permanent" revolution. It was the theory of the disarmament of the proletariat, the demobilization of its forces. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, Trotsky supported the Menshevik liquidators. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote the following about Trotsky:
"Trotsky behaved like the meanest careerist and factionalist... He talks about the party, but behaves worse than all other factionalists."
Trotsky was, as you know, the organizer of the August *anti-revolutionary* Menshevik bloc of all groups and trends that opposed Lenin.
Trotsky met the imperialist war that began in August 1914, as one would expect, on the other side of the barricades - in the camp of the defenders of the imperialist slaughter. He covered up his betrayal of the proletariat with "Left" phrases about fighting the war, phrases calculated to deceive the working class. On all the most important questions of the war and socialism, Trotsky spoke out against Lenin, against the Bolshevik Party.
The ever-increasing strength of the influence of the Bolsheviks on the working class, on the masses of soldiers after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, the enormous popularity of Lenin's slogans among the masses of the people, the Menshevik Trotsky regarded in his own way. He joined our party in July 1917, along with a group of his like-minded people, declaring that he had "disarmed" to the end.
Subsequent events showed, however, that the Menshevik Trotsky did not disarm, did not for a moment stop fighting against Lenin, and entered our party in order to blow it up from within.
Already a few months after the Great October Revolution in the spring of 1918, Trotsky, together with a group of so-called "Left" Communists and Left Social Revolutionaries, organized a villainous conspiracy against Lenin, seeking to arrest and physically destroy the leaders of the proletariat, Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov. As always, Trotsky himself - a provocateur, an organizer of murderers, an intriguer and an adventurer - remains in the shadows. His leading role in the preparation of this atrocity, which, fortunately, failed, was fully revealed only two decades later, at the trial of the anti-Soviet “right-wing Trotskyist bloc” in March 1938. Only twenty years later, the dirty tangle of crimes of Trotsky and his henchmen was finally unraveled.
In the years civil war When the country of the Soviets repulsed the onslaught of numerous hordes of White Guards and interventionists, Trotsky, with his treacherous actions and wrecking orders, in every possible way weakened the strength of the resistance of the Red Army, as a result of which Lenin was forbidden to visit Vostochny and southern fronts. It is a well-known fact that Trotsky, due to his hostile attitude towards the old Bolshevik cadres, tried to shoot a number of responsible front-line communists who were objectionable to him, thus acting into the hands of the enemy.
At the same trial of the anti-Soviet "Right-Trotskyist bloc" the whole treacherous path of Trotsky was revealed to the whole world: the defendants in this trial, the closest associates of Trotsky, admitted that they, and together with them and their boss Trotsky, had already been agents of foreign intelligence agencies were international spies. They, headed by Trotsky, zealously served the intelligence services and the general staffs of England, France, Germany, and Japan.
When in 1929 the Soviet government expelled the counter-revolutionary, the traitor Trotsky, from our homeland, the capitalist circles of Europe and America embraced him. It was no accident. It was natural. For Trotsky had long since passed into the service of the exploiters of the working class.
Trotsky has become entangled in his own nets, having reached the limit of human fall. He was killed by his own supporters. It was the very terrorists whom he taught to kill from behind a corner, betrayal and atrocities against the working class, against the country of the Soviets, who finished with him. Trotsky, who organized the villainous murder of Kirov, Kuibyshev, M. Gorky, became a victim of his own intrigues, betrayals, betrayals, atrocities.
So ingloriously ended his life this despicable man, descending into the grave with the seal of an international spy and murderer on his forehead.
Compositions
| Year | Name | First publication | Notes | Text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | "An inconspicuous, but very important cog in the state machine" | "Eastern Review" N 230, October 15, 1900 | ||
| 1900 | Something about the philosophy of the "superman" | "Eastern Review" NN 284, 286, 287, 289, 22, 24, 25, December 30, 1900 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1900 | Something about land | "Eastern Review" N 285, December 23, 1900 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | "Old house" | "Eastern Review" N 10, January 14, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | "Tear-off" calendar as a culture tracker | "Eastern Review" N 19, January 25, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Herzen and the "young generation" | "Bulletin of World History" N 2, January 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | About one old question | "Eastern Review" N 33 - 34, February 14 - 15, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | About pessimism, optimism, the 20th century and much more | "Eastern Review" N 36, February 17, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | "Declaration of Rights" and "Velvet Book" | "Eastern Review" NN 56, 57, 13, 14 March 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | About Balmont | "Eastern Review" N 61, March 18, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Ordinary village ( Unsaid words about the village in general, etc.) | "Eastern Review" N 70, March 29, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Hauptmann's last drama and comments on it by Struve | "Eastern Review", NN 99, 102, 5, May 9, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Ordinary village ( More about "district" medicine, etc.) | "Eastern Review" N 117, May 30, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | About Ibsen | "Eastern Review" NN 121, 122, 126, 3, 4, June 9, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Penitentiary ideals and humane prison outlook | "Eastern Review" NN 135, 136, 20, 21 June 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | We are ripe | "Eastern Review" N 154, July 13, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | New times - new songs | "Eastern Review" NN 162, 164, 165, 22, 25, July 26, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Ordinary village ( Belated preface, etc.) | "Eastern Review" N 173 - 176, August 4 - 9, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Two writer's souls in the grip of a metaphysical demon | "Eastern Review" N 189, August 25, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | The "illiberal" moment of "liberal" relations | "Eastern Review" N 194, September 2, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | Poetry, the machine and the poetry of the machine | "Eastern Review" N 197, September 8, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | ordinary rustic | "Eastern Review" N 212, September 26, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | S. F. Sharapov and German farmers | "Eastern Review" N 225, October 13, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | "Russian Darwin" | "Eastern Review" N 251, November 14, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | N. A. Dobrolyubov And "Whistle" | "Eastern Review" N 253, November 17, 1901 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1901 | History of literature, Mr. Boborykin and Russian criticism | ? | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1902 | Something about the "freedom of creative spasm" | "Eastern Review" N 8, January 10, 1902 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1904 | political letters. "Before the Disaster" | "Iskra" N 75, October 5, 1904 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | |
| 1904 | political letters. Foundation for Public Education, etc. | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov | ||
| 1904 | The Appearance of the Liberals to the People | "Iskra" N 76, October 20, 1904 | in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov |
Biographies
- Vasetsky N. A. Trotsky. The experience of political biography. - M.: Respublika, 1992. ISBN 5-250-01159-4
- Volkogonov D. A. Trotsky / political portrait. - In two books. - M .: JSC "Publishing House" Novosti ", 1994. ISBN 5-7020-0216-4
- Deutscher I. Trotsky. Armed Prophet. 1879-1921 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2147-4
- Deutscher I. Trotsky. Unarmed prophet. 1921-1929 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2155-5
- Deutscher I. Trotsky. Exiled prophet. 1929-1940 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2157-1
- Ziv G. A. Trotsky: Characteristics (according to personal recollections). New York: People's Rights, 1921
- David King. Trotsky. Biography in photo documents. - Yekaterinburg: "SV-96", 2000. ISBN 5-89516-100-6
- Paporov Yu. N. Trotsky. The murder of the "big entertainer" - St. Petersburg: ID "Neva", 2005. ISBN 5-7654-4399-0
- “Was there an alternative?”: “Trotskyism – a look through the years”, “Power and opposition”, “Stalin’s neo-onep”, “1937”, “Party of the executed”, “World Revolution and World War"," The end means the beginning ".
- Startsev V. I. L. D. Trotsky. Pages of political biography. - M.: Knowledge, 1989. ISBN 5-07-000955-9
- Chernyavsky G. I. Lev Trotsky - M .: Young Guard, 2010. ISBN 978-5-235-03369-6
- Isaac Don Levine. The Mind of an Assassin, New York, New American Library/Signet Book, 1960.
- Dave Renton. Trotsky, 2004.
- Leon Trotsky man and His work. Reminiscences and Appraisals, ed. Joseph Hansen. New York, Merit Publishers, 1969.
- The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press (1996) ISBN 0-300-06919-7
