Seventy years ago the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was murdered.
Esme Choonara looks at his life, ideas and his legacy
from Socialist Worker UK
Leon Trotsky addresses Red Army troops in 1918
Seventy years ago this week an agent of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin murdered the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky by smashing his skull with an ice pick.
Trotsky was at his home in Mexico when the assassin came into his study and attacked him. This was not Stalin’s first attempt.
Only a few weeks earlier, a group of his Mexican followers had launched an armed attack on Trotsky’s household, killing a guard.
In fact, Stalin was so determined to crush Trotsky and his legacy that he had already murdered, or driven to suicide, most of Trotsky’s immediate family.
He forced Trotsky into exile in 1929 and slandered him as a fascist spy and enemy of the workers”.
An exhibition at a museum in St Petersburg last year exposed some of the ludicrous lengths the Russian regime went to wipe out any trace of Trotsky’s real legacy.
Among the exhibits was a teachers’ union scarf from 1925 bearing portraits of revolutionary leaders. The picture of Trotsky had been carefully cut out and replaced with blank cloth.
Hundreds of photographs from the revolutionary years were also doctored to remove Trotsky from his place in history.
Yet by the time he was killed Trotsky had been in exile for 11 years.
He had only a small handful of supporters scattered in different countries and no real influence on world events. His allies in Russia had either been killed or broken by Stalin’s terror.
So why did Stalin still see him as a threat?
