Trotsky, << TROT skee, >> Leon (1879-1940), also spelled Trotzky, was a leader of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia (see Bolsheviks ). While Lenin lived, Trotsky was the second most powerful man in Russia. After Lenin’s death, Trotsky lost the leadership to Joseph Stalin. Trotsky was later exiled. Until his assassination in Mexico City, Trotsky waged a bitter fight against Stalin from abroad. See Lenin, V. I. ; Stalin, Joseph .
Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in Ukraine of well-to-do parents on Nov. 7, 1879. After two years of revolutionary activity as a Social Democrat, he was arrested in 1898. He escaped from Siberian exile in 1902 and went to London, where he met Lenin. He returned to Russia to take an active part in the revolution in 1905.
Trotsky was jailed for his leadership in the St. Petersburg Soviet of 1905. But he escaped in 1907. For 10 years he was a revolutionary writer and editor in western Europe. During World War I, he was expelled from France and Spain and went to New York, where he heard of the czar’s downfall in 1917. He returned to Russia. With Lenin, he plotted the seizure of power that brought about a Bolshevik government in November 1917 (October on the old Russian calendar). Trotsky became the first Soviet commissar of foreign affairs and was soon the commissar of war.
In the civil war of 1918-1920, Trotsky was an efficient organizer of the triumphant Red Army. After Lenin’s death, many believed that Trotsky would be the new head of the Soviet government. However, Stalin outsmarted him. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, and the next year was exiled to Soviet Central Asia. He was deported to Turkey in 1929. He later moved to Norway and then to Mexico.
By 1940, Stalin apparently regretted his “leniency” with Trotsky. His secret police sent an agent to Mexico. Trotsky was stabbed there on Aug. 20, 1940, and died of his wounds the next day. In 1930, Trotsky wrote My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography. See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (The October Revolution) .
