Keywords: Leon Trotsky, Lenin the Bolshevik Leader, Iskra, Red Army, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky) in 1897

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) was born on October 26, 1879, son of a hard-working, thrifty, and well-to-do jewish farmer, in the southern part of Ukraine.  The family valued education highly, and when Lev was about nine years old they let him move to the city of Odessa, to stay with his 'uncle' and to go to school.  This is where Lev developed his nice manners and intellectual personality.

Lev was an exeptionally bright and capable student, and in 1896 he moved to Nicolayev to complete his secondary education and to study matematics.  This is where Lev turned revolutionary. In 1897 he was instrumental in founding the South Russia Workers Union and in 1898 the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).  However, Lev was arrested for his political activities, put in prison, and in 1900 deported to Siberia.  In 1902 he adopted the name Trotsky as he escaped, and met Lenin in London.

Trotsky then joined Lenin on the staff of Iskra (The Spark), the Communist newspaper.  Trotsky and Lenin, as intellectuals, had much respect for each other, however, in 1903 at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, the Bolsheviks were led by Lenin, while Trotsky was among the Menshevik leaders.

In 1905 Trotsky returned to Russia, where he participated actively in the first Russian Revolution, and in December that year he was elected President of the St Petersburg Soviet.  However, Trotsky and several other members of the St. Petersburg Soviet were soon arrested, and after a trial they were deported to Western Siberia in January 1907.

Trotsky in his cell in the Peter-Paul Fortress, awaiting trial, in 1906

That year Trotsky escaped Siberia, and at the Fifth Party Congress in London he met Stalin for the first time.  For the next several years Trotsky was busy publishing several papers, among them Pravda.

In 1917, as the Tsar abdicated, Leon Trotsky went to Russia, and in August that year he became a member of the Central Committe of the Bolshevik Party, which had Lenin as its uncontested leader and visionary.  In this capacity Trotsky became second in command after Lenin.  In 1918 Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, and as such he managed the founding of the Red Army.

Leon Trotsky addresses Red Army soldiers in Moscow in 1918

Leon Trotsky with Lenin (speaking!) at Sverdlov Square in Moscow, May 05, 1920

Leon Trotsky inspects the Red Army in 1921

As Lenin became ill in 1922, and died two years later, Stalin gained the control of the Soviet Union.  Stalin disliked and opposed Trotsky, and in 1927 he was expelled from the Excecutive Committe of Comintern.  In 1928 Trotsky was banished to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, and from there deported to Turkey in 1929.

Stalin and Trotsky represented opposite directions for Communism.  But while Trotsky used the mighty pen, Stalin implemented communist policies that were exceedingly costly both in lives, and in depriving the Soviet people from freedom.

Trotsky's Bloody Pen, by Deni, 1930

Trotsky used his writings to oppose Stalin, and to establish an alternative direction for communism, and his followers became known as Trotskyists.  While Stalin was struggling with practical problems in the Soviet Union, the Trotskyists were fighting for class equality between intellectuals and capitalists.

Leon Trotsky in Stockholm in 1932

One of Trotsky's loyal sympathizers was Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist, and Trotsky appears, together with Lenin, in two of Diego's murals.  The first was the 'Communist Unity Panel' at the New Workers School in New York, and the second the 'Man, Controller of the Universe' mural in Mexico City.

Leon Trotsky makes an appearance in Diego Rivera's 'Man, Controller of the Universe' mural, in Palacia de Bella Artes, Mexico City, 1934

Being a communist leader expelled from his homeland, Leon Trotsky had a hard time finding a country where he would be allowed to reside.  He stayed temporarily in several countries, until he was allowed to come to Mexico in 1937, after Diego Rivera had used his influence to make this possible.

Trotsky at his arrival in Mexico in 1937

August 20th 1940 Leon Trotsky was attacked with an ice-axe in his office in Mexico City by one of Stalin's followers, and the following day Leon Trotsky died.

Andre Breton, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky, ca 1938

King et al., Trotsky, Basil Blackwell, p33, p112, p254, p256, 1986

Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Trotsky, McGraw-Hill, p246, 1977

Ronald Hingley, RUSSIA a Concise History, Thames and Hudson, p159, 1991

Dmitri Volkogonov, TROTSKY the Eternal Revolutionary, The Free Press, p189, p317, 1996

Andrea Kettenmann, Rivera, Taschen, p55, 1997

Cynthia Newmann Helms, Diego Rivera, Norton, p96, 1986

Leon Trotsky with Diego Rivera