21 August this year marks the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. The biography of this famous revolutionary is well known. But the following circumstance is striking: he became an enemy not only for those who are quite deservedly referred to as counter-revolutionaries - the enemies of the October Revolution of 1917, but also for those who, together with him, prepared and carried it out. At the same time, he never became an anti-communist and did not revise revolutionary ideals (at least the initial ones). What is the reason for such a sharp break with his like-minded people, which eventually led to his death? Let's try to find the answer to this question together. Let's start with a biographical note.
Leo Trotsky: short biography
It's hard to describe briefly, but let's try. Lev Bronstein (Trotsky) was born on November 7 (what an amazing coincidence of dates, how can you not believe in astrology?) 1879 in the family of a we althy Jewish landowner (more precisely, a tenant) in Ukraine, in a smallvillage, which is now in the Kirovograd region.
He began his studies in Odessa at the age of 9 (we note that our hero left his parental home as a child and never returned to it for a long time), continued it in 1895-1897. in Nikolaev, first at a real school, then at Novorossiysk University, but soon stopped studying and plunged into revolutionary work.
So, at the age of eighteen - the first underground circle, at nineteen - the first arrest. Two years in different prisons under investigation, the first marriage with the same as himself, concluded Alexandra Sokolovskaya directly in the Butyrka prison (appreciate the humanism of the Russian authorities!), Then exile to the Irkutsk province with his wife and brother-in-law (humanism is still in action). Here, Trotsky Lev does not waste time - he and A. Sokolovskaya have two daughters, he is engaged in journalism, published in Irkutsk newspapers, sends several articles abroad.
Followed by an escape and a dizzying journey with forged documents for the surname Trotsky (according to Lev Davidovich himself, that was the name of one of the guards in the Odessa prison, and his surname seemed to the fugitive so euphonious that he offered it to make a fake passport) all the way to London.
Our hero got there by the very beginning of the second congress of the RSDLP (1902), at which the famous split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks took place. Here he met Lenin, who appreciated Trotsky's literary gift and tried to introduce him to the editorial board of the Iskra newspaper.
BeforeDuring the first Russian revolution, Trotsky Lev occupied an unstable political position, oscillating between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. This period includes his second marriage to Natalya Sedova, which he concludes without divorcing his first wife. This marriage turned out to be very long, and N. Sedova was with him until his death.
1905 - the time of an unusually rapid political rise of our hero. Arriving in St. Petersburg, which was seething after the Bloody Resurrection, Lev Davidovich organized the St. Petersburg Council and first became its deputy chairman, G. S. his arrest and chairman. Then, at the end of the year - arrest, in 1906 - trial and exile in the Arctic (the area of present-day Salekhard) forever.
But Trotsky Lev would not be himself if he allowed himself to be buried alive in the tundra. On the way to exile, he makes a daring escape and single-handedly makes his way through half of Russia abroad.
After this, a long period of emigration follows until 1917. At this time, Lev Davidovich starts and abandons many political projects, publishes several newspapers, tries in every possible way to gain a foothold in the revolutionary movement as one of its organizers. He does not take the side of either Lenin or the Mensheviks, he constantly wavers between them, maneuvers, tries to reconcile the warring wings of the Social Democracy. He is desperately trying to take a leadership position in the Russian revolutionary movement. But he does not succeed, and by 1917 he finds himself on the sidelines of the politicallife, which leads Trotsky to the idea of leaving Europe and trying his luck in America.
Here he made very interesting acquaintances in various circles, including financial ones, which allowed him to arrive in Russia after the February Revolution, in May 1917, obviously not with an empty pocket. The former chairmanship of the Petrosoviet secured him a place in the new reincarnation of this institution, and financial opportunities put forward the leadership of the new Council, which, under the leadership of Trotsky, enters the struggle for power with the Provisional Government.
He eventually (in September 1917) joined the Bolsheviks and became the second man in the Leninist party. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and Bubnov are the seven members of the first Politburo founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik revolution. At the same time, from September 20, 1917, he was also the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. In fact, all the practical work of organizing the October Revolution and its defense in the first weeks of Soviet power was the work of Leon Trotsky.
In 1917-1918. he served the revolution first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and then as the founder and commander of the Red Army in the position of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Trotsky Lev was a key figure in the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War (1918-1923). He was also a permanent member (1919-1926) of the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party.
After the defeat of the Left Opposition, which waged an unequal struggle against the rise of Joseph Stalin and his policy in the 1920s aimed at increasing the role ofbureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was removed from power (October 1927), expelled from the Communist Party (November 1927), and expelled from the Soviet Union (February 1929).
As head of the Fourth International, Trotsky in exile continued to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. On Stalin's orders, he was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940 by Ramon Mercader, a Soviet agent of Spanish origin.
Trotsky's ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a major branch of Marxist thought that opposed the theory of Stalinism. He was one of the few Soviet politicians who was not rehabilitated either under the government of Nikita Khrushchev in the 1960s or during the period of "Gorbachev's" perestroika. In the late 1980s, his books were released for publication in the Soviet Union.
Only in post-Soviet Russia was Leon Trotsky rehabilitated. His biography was researched and written by a number of well-known historians, including, for example, Dmitry Volkogonov. We will not retell it in detail, but will analyze only some selected pages.
The Origins of Character Formation in Childhood (1879-1895)
In order to understand the origins of the formation of the personality of our hero, you need to take a closer look at where Leon Trotsky was born. It was the Ukrainian hinterland, the steppe agricultural zone, which remains the same to this day. And what did the Jewish Bronstein family do there: father David Leontievich (1847-1922), who was born in the Poltava region, mother Anna, from Odessa (1850-1910), their children? The same as other bourgeoisfamilies in those places - earned capital by cruel exploitation of Ukrainian peasants. By the time our hero was born, his illiterate (note this circumstance!) father, who, in fact, lives surrounded by people alien to him by nationality and mentality, already owned an estate of several hundred acres of land and a steam mill. Dozens of laborers bent their backs on him.
Does this remind the reader of something from the life of the Boer planters in South Africa, where instead of black Kaffirs there are swarthy Ukrainians? It was in such an atmosphere that the character of little Leva Bronstein was formed. No friends of the same age, no reckless boyish games and pranks, only the boredom of a bourgeois home and a look from above on Ukrainian laborers. It is from childhood that the roots of that sense of one's own superiority over other people grow, which constituted the main trait of Trotsky's character.
And he would be a worthy assistant to his dad, but, fortunately, his mother, being a slightly educated woman (after all, from Odessa), felt in time that her son was capable of more than the unpretentious exploitation of peasant labor, and insisted that he be sent to study in Odessa (to live in an apartment with relatives). Below you can see how Leon Trotsky was as a child (photo provided).
The hero's personality begins to emerge (1888-1895)
In Odessa, our hero was enrolled in a real school according to a quota that was allocated for Jewish children. Odessa was then a bustling, cosmopolitan port city, very different from the typical Russian andUkrainian cities of that time. In the serial film by Sergei Kolosov “Split” (we recommend watching it to anyone who is interested in the history of the Russian revolution) there is a scene when Lenin meets Trotsky, who had fled from his first exile, in London in 1902 and is interested in the impression that the capital of Great Britain made on him. He replies that it is simply impossible to experience a greater impression than Odessa made on him after moving to it from a rural outback.
Leo is an excellent student, all the years in a row becoming the first student in his course. In the memoirs of his peers, he appears as an unusually ambitious person, the desire for superiority in everything distinguishes him from his fellow students. By adulthood, Leo turns into an attractive young man, to whom, in the presence of we althy parents, all doors in life should be opened. How did Leon Trotsky live on (a photo of him during his studies is presented below)?
First love
Trotsky planned to study at Novorossiysk University. To this end, he transferred to Nikolaev, where he completed the last course of a real school. He was 17 years old, and he did not think about any revolutionary activity at all. But, unfortunately, the sons of the landlord were socialists, they dragged the high school student into their circle, where various revolutionary literature was discussed - from populist to Marxist. Among the participants of the circle was A. Sokolovskaya, who had recently completed obstetric courses in Odessa. Being six years older than Trotsky, she made an indelible impression on him. Wishing to show off his knowledge in front of the subject of his passion, Lev intensively engaged in the study of revolutionary theories. This played a cruel joke on him: having started once, he never got rid of this occupation again.
Revolutionary activity and imprisonment (1896-1900)
To all appearances, it suddenly dawned on the young ambitious man - after all, here it is, the very thing to which you can devote your life, which can bring the coveted fame. Together with Sokolovskaya, Trotsky plunged into revolutionary work, printed leaflets, conducted social-democratic agitation among the workers of the Nikolaev shipyards, and organized the South Russian Workers' Union.
In January 1898, more than 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested. He spent the next two years in prison awaiting trial - first in Nikolaev, then in Kherson, then in Odessa and in Moscow. In the Butyrka prison, he made contact with other revolutionaries. There he first heard about Lenin and read his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia, gradually becoming a true Marxist. Two months after its conclusion (March 1-3, 1898), the first congress of the newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was held. Since then, Trotsky identified himself as a member.
First marriage
Alexandra Sokolovskaya (1872-1938), for some time before being sent into exile, was imprisoned in the same Butyrka prison in Moscow, where Trotsky was also at that time. He wrote romantic letters to her, begging her to agree to marry him. Whatcharacteristically, her parents and the prison administration supported the ardent lover, but the Bronstein couple were categorically against it - apparently, they had a presentiment that they would have to raise children of such unreliable (in the everyday sense) parents. In defiance of his father and mother, Trotsky nevertheless marries Sokolovskaya. The marriage ceremony was performed by a Jewish priest.
The first Siberian exile (1900-1902)
In 1900 he was sentenced to four years of exile in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. Because of the marriage, Trotsky and his wife are allowed to settle in one place. Accordingly, the couple was exiled to the village of Ust-Kut. Here they had two daughters: Zinaida (1901-1933) and Nina (1902-1928).
However, Sokolovskaya failed to keep such an active nature as Lev Davidovich next to her. Received a certain fame due to the articles written in exile and tormented by a thirst for activity, Trotsky lets his wife know that he is unable to stay away from the centers of political life. Sokolovskaya meekly agrees. In the summer of 1902, Lev flees from Siberia - first on a cart hidden under hay to Irkutsk, then with a false passport in the name of Leon Trotsky by rail to the borders of the Russian Empire. Alexandra subsequently fled Siberia with her daughters.
Leo Trotsky and Lenin
After escaping from Siberia, he moved to London to join Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin, Martov and other editors of Lenin's Iskra newspaper. Under the pseudonym "Pero", Trotsky soon became one of its leading authors.
At the end of 1902, Trotskymet with Natalya Ivanovna Sedova, who soon became his companion, and from 1903 until his death - his wife. They had 2 children: Lev Sedov (1906-1938) and Sergei Sedov (March 21, 1908 - October 29, 1937), both sons predeceased their parents.
At the same time, after a period of repression by the secret police and internal turmoil that followed the first congress of the RSDLP in 1898, Iskra managed to convene the 2nd congress of the party in London in August 1903. Trotsky and other Iskra-ists took part in it.
The congress delegates were divided into two groups. Lenin and his Bolshevik supporters advocated a small but highly organized party, while Martov and his Menshevik supporters sought to create a large and less disciplined organization. These approaches reflected the difference in their goals. If Lenin wanted to create a party of professional revolutionaries for the underground struggle against the autocracy, then Martov dreamed of a European-style party with an eye on parliamentary methods of fighting tsarism.
At the same time, the closest associates gave Lenin a surprise. Trotsky and most of the Iskra editors supported Martov and the Mensheviks, while Plekhanov supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks. For Lenin, Trotsky's betrayal was a strong and unexpected blow, for which he called the latter Judas and, apparently, never forgave him.
During 1903-1904 many faction members switched sides. Thus, Plekhanov soon parted ways with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky also left the Mensheviks in September 1904 and until 1917 called himselfa "non-factional social democrat", trying to reconcile various groups within the party, as a result of which he took part in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent members of the RSDLP.
How did Leon Trotsky personally feel about Lenin? Quotations from his correspondence with the Menshevik Chkheidze quite clearly characterize their relationship. Thus, in March 1913, he wrote: “Lenin… a professional exploiter of any backwardness in the Russian labor movement… The entire building of Leninism at the present time is built on lies and falsification and carries within itself the poisonous beginning of its own decay…”
Later, during the struggle for power, he will be reminded of all his hesitations about the general course of the party set by Lenin. Below you can see what Lev Davidovich Trotsky was like (photo with Lenin).
Revolution (1905)
So, everything that we know about the personality of our hero so far does not characterize him very flatteringly. His undoubted literary and journalistic talent is offset by morbid ambition, posturing, selfishness (remember A. Sokolovskaya, left in Siberia with her two little daughters). However, during the period of the first Russian revolution, Trotsky unexpectedly shows himself from a new side - as a very courageous person, an outstanding orator, capable of inflaming the masses, as a brilliant organizer of them. Arriving in the seething revolutionary Petersburg in May 1905, he immediately rushes into the thick of things, becomes an active member of the Petrograd Soviet, writes dozens of articles, leaflets, speaks to electrified revolutionary energy.crowds with fiery speeches. After some time, he was already deputy chairman of the Council, actively participating in the preparations for the October general political strike. After the appearance of the tsarist manifesto of October 17, which granted political rights to the people, he sharply opposes it, calls for the continuation of the revolution.
When the gendarmes arrested Khrustalev-Nosar, Lev Davidovich takes his place, is preparing combat workers' squads, the strike force of the future armed uprising against the autocracy. But at the beginning of December 1905, the government decided to disperse the Soviet and arrest its deputies. An absolutely amazing story takes place at the time of the arrest itself, when the gendarmes burst into the meeting room of the Petrograd Soviet, and the presiding Trotsky, only by the force of his will and the gift of persuasion, escorts them out of the door for a while, which makes it possible for those present to prepare: destroy some documents dangerous to them, get rid of weapons. But the arrest nevertheless took place, and Trotsky finds himself in a Russian prison for the second time, this time in the St. Petersburg "Crosses".
Second escape from Siberia
The biography of Lev Davidovich Trotsky is replete with bright events. But it is not our task to describe it in detail. We will confine ourselves to a few vivid episodes in which the character of our hero is most clearly manifested. Among them is the story of Trotsky's second exile to Siberia.
This time after a year of imprisonment (however, in quite decent conditions, including access to any literature and press) LevDavidovich was sentenced to eternal exile in the Arctic, in the region of Obdorsk (now Salekhard). Before leaving, he handed over a farewell letter with the words: “We are leaving with deep faith in the quick victory of the people over their age-old enemies. Long live the proletariat! Long live international socialism!”
It goes without saying that he was not ready to sit for years in the polar tundra, in some wretched dwelling, and expect a saving revolution. Besides, what kind of revolution could one talk about if he himself did not participate in it?
So the only way out for him was to run away immediately. When the caravan with prisoners reached Berezovo (the famous place of exile in Russia, where the former Highness Prince A. Menshikov spent the rest of his life), from where the path to the north was, Trotsky feigned an attack of acute sciatica. He achieved that he was left with a couple of gendarmes in Berezovo until his recovery. Having deceived their vigilance, he flees from the town and gets to the nearest settlement of the Khanty. There, in some incredible way, he hires deer and travels almost a thousand kilometers through the snowy tundra (it takes place in January 1907) to the Ural Mountains, accompanied by a hunt guide. And having reached the European part of Russia, Trotsky easily crosses it (let's not forget that the year is 1907, the authorities like him tie "Stolypin ties" around their necks) and ends up in Finland, from where he moves to Europe.
This, so to speak, adventure ended quite safely for him, although the risk to which he exposed himself was incredibly high. Its easythey could stab him with a knife or stun him and throw him into the snow to freeze, coveting the rest of the money that he had with him. And it would have been the murder of Leon Trotsky not in 1940, but three decades earlier. Then neither the enchanting take-off during the years of the revolution, nor all that followed it, would have happened. However, the history and fate of Lev Davidovich himself decreed otherwise - fortunately for himself, but on the grief of long-suffering Russia, and to no lesser extent his homeland.
The last act of life's drama
In August 1940, the news spread around the world that Leon Trotsky had been killed in Mexico, where he lived in the last years of his life. Was it a global event? Doubtful. It has been almost a year since Poland was defeated, and two months have already passed since the capitulation of France. The fire of war blazed between China and Indochina. The USSR was feverishly preparing for war.
So, except for a few supporters from among the members of the Fourth International created by Trotsky and numerous enemies, from the authorities of the Soviet Union to most world politicians, few people commented on this death. The Pravda newspaper published a murderous obituary composed by Stalin himself and filled with hatred for the killed enemy.
It should be mentioned that Trotsky was tried to be killed repeatedly. Among the potential killers, even the great Mexican artist Siqueiros was noted, who participated in the raid on Trotsky's villa in Mexico as part of a group of orthodox communists and personally released Lev Davidovich on an empty bedautomatic burst, not suspecting that he was hiding under it. Then the bullets missed.
But what killed Leon Trotsky? The most surprising thing is that the weapon of this murder was not a weapon - cold or firearms, but an ordinary ice ax, a small pick used by climbers during their ascents. And it was held in the hands of the NKVD agent Ramon Mercador, a young man whose mother was an active participant in the Spanish Civil War. Being an orthodox communist, she blamed the defeat of the Spanish Republic on Trotsky's supporters, who, although they participated in the civil war on the side of the republican forces, refused to act in line with the policy set from Moscow. This conviction she passed on to her son, who became the true instrument of this murder.
