I know Comrades, i'm sure some of you are intrested in learning about the ideas and views of Trotsky. However before we induldge ourselfs into the "bread and butter" issues, I think its essential to know a basic overveiw of the life of this man.

Thanks to Communism online!


LEON TROTSKY, named Lev Davidovich Bronstein by his Russified Jewish parents, was born in the Kherson Province of the Ukraine on Novermber 7, 1879. He went to a prestigious grammar school in Odessa and then to the Odessa University. Like many college students in his time, Bronstein became interested in radical politics, first attracted by the Mykolayiv Populists but later converted to Marxism. Leon's first arrest and exile came in 1897 due to his organization of the Southern Russian Worker's Union. Leon spent two years in Siberian exile before escaping and fleeing to Europe. During those two years, Leon married another Marxist radical, Alexandra Sokolovskaya. Leon left her and their two daughters when he fled to England.

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In England, Bronstein adopted his pseudonym Trotsky. Here he also joined such great Russian Social-Democrats as Vladimir Lenin, Martov and Plekhanov who were working on the revolutionary paper "Iskra" (the Spark). His oratorial prowess and passion quickly gained him popularity and stature in his new party. In 1903, he attended the second Party Congress and opposed Lenin's faction, the Bolsheviks.




Trotsky criticized Lenin's policy of foregoing the democratic step in Marx's theory of the steps leading to Communism. Lenin's idea that the "end justifies the means" was the essence of his revolutionary actions and the concept behind his robbery, fraud and terrorism used to begin the new Communist government.



This initial "estrangement" allowed Trotsky the freedom to return to Russia in time to participate in the 1905 revolution. As chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, he gained even more popularity as a Russian revolutionary. The revolution attempt would fail, however, and Trotsky would be arrested. On his way to Siberia, Trotsky again escaped and moved with his new commonlaw wife, Natalia Sedova and two sons, Lyova and Sergei, to Vienna in 1907. He lived in Vienna until the breakout of war in 1914 at which time he moved to Paris. For the next few years, Trotsky's reputation preceded him and Europe's governments never allowed to stay in one country for long. He bounced around Europe for awhile and ended up in New York writing articles for a Russian newspaper. In 1917, he found out that the Bolsheviks were planning a revolution and tried to return home. In the attempt, he was captured by the British and held as a prisoner of war in Canada. In an ironic twist of fate, the (pseudo-democratic) Provisional Government that had replaced the defeated tsardom intervened on his behalf with the British Government and he was allowed to return to Russia where he promptly began consolidating power among the leftist Social-Democrats. Although he soon became known as the most eloquent agitator of the Socialist left, he was swayed soon after by Lenin to join the Bolsheviks in the revolution.





Trotsky became the chairman of the Soviet and headed up the movement to overthrow the same Provisional Government that had freed him from British imprisonment in Canada. Trotsky proved a ruthless yet extremely effective leader. The Provisional Government turned out not to be a terribly difficult obstacle to overcome; the Mensheviks and other leftist factions whom Trotsky had "betrayed," however, proved more difficult of a foe.



Once the Bolsheviks had taken power, it is rumored that Lenin offered Trotsky to head the new government, Trotsky declined, however, and became the Soviet government's first Commissar of Foreign Affairs, whose first accomplishment was to negotiate a separate peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. Trotsky is also credited with the formation and inspiration of the infamous Red Army. Trotsky is also seen as a saviour of the Revolution due to his ruthless tactics leading to the Bolsheviks' victory in the civil war. Due to his successes, Trotsky became a Communist icon in the minds of Bolshevik loyalists. Only Stalin's calculated and determined brainwashing tactics would cause Trotsky's fall from grace.




Trotsky remained Lenin's second-in-command throughout Lenin's rule. He backed almost all of Lenin's policies but still held his own views as to the industrialization of Russia. Trotsky was never extremely adept at party politics and upon Lenin's incapacitation in 1922, he was in no position to take over as head of the Soviet. After Lenin's death, although he aligned himself with the leftist opposition, he was unable to overcome Stalin's expert political maneuvering. Stalin, however, was very aware of the threat to his power that Trotsky still was. In 1925, Trotsky was removed from the Commissariat of War; in 1926, he was expelled from the Politburo; in 1928, he was exiled to Turkestan on trumped-up counter-revolutionist charges and in 1929, he was kicked out of the USSR. Later, in 1932, Stalin removed his Soviet nationality to further dispel any chances of him returning to Russia. A further proof of Stalin's paranoia became evident when he had Trotsky assassinated in Mexico on August 20, 1940.