Lev Davidovich Trotsky

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky) was born on October 25, 1879 in the village of Yanovka near Kherson, into the family of a wealthy landowner.

An eight-year-old boy was sent to study in Odessa, in a real school. Here he was considered one of the best students. I read a lot and with enthusiasm, especially the works of Russian classics.

Like many of his peers, 17-year-old Lev Bronstein became interested in the ideas of populism. He began to intensively study "seditious" literature.

In 1897, together with friends, Lev Bronstein created the South Russian Workers' Union. Members of the secret society printed leaflets and handed them out to workers. Soon, in 1898, inexperienced underground workers were tracked down and arrested by the police. Lev spent about two years in prisons, and then he was sent into exile near Irkutsk.

In August 1902, Lev Bronstein decided to escape from exile abroad. It was not difficult to do this: they did not follow the exiles too strictly. The comrades got him a fake passport in the name of Nikolai Trotsky. So, by a coincidence, he began to bear a surname that applied to him all his subsequent life.

In the autumn of 1902, 23-year-old Trotsky arrived in London. Russian emigrants already knew him from bright newspaper articles. The first emigration lasted 2.5 years. During this time, the young journalist managed to earn considerable prestige among the Social Democrats. After a split in their ranks in 1903, he joined the Mensheviks. However, Trotsky's independence and the independence of his thinking prevented him from having permanent allies. In the next 14 years, he sometimes departed from the Mensheviks, but did not join the ranks of the Bolsheviks either.

In February 1905 Trotsky returned home with a false passport. Here he wrote leaflets and appeals, spoke to the workers, ardently called for strikes and other forms of protest.

In November 1905, Trotsky was elected chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. He stayed in this position for only a few days, but became famous for his decisive behavior at an acute moment: when a gendarme entered the meeting room on December 3 to announce the arrest of deputies, Trotsky did not stop his speech. Like the rest, Trotsky went to prison - straight from the chairman's rostrum. His self-control earned him considerable respect.

A year later, the court sentenced him and 13 other defendants to “eternal settlement” in Siberia. On the way to exile in February 1907, Trotsky again conceived an escape. He pretended to be sick, and when he was allowed to stay on the road, he fled abroad.

Trotsky's second emigration lasted more than 10 years. 7 of them he spent in Vienna. Then, when the First World War began, in order to avoid arrest, he hastily moved to France.

During these years, L. Trotsky, like Julius Martov, Viktor Chernov, Vladimir Lenin, found himself in the ranks of the few opponents of the war. He passionately agitated against her - orally and in print. At the end of 1916, he was arrested for anti-war activities and expelled, first from France, then from Spain. Together with the Trotsky family, the Spanish authorities were put on a steamer and sent overseas to the United States.

In America, Trotsky found unexpected news about the revolution in Russia. Like other emigrants, he immediately began to gather for his homeland. However, as an opponent of the war and a "German agent" he was arrested in a Canadian port. Even in the prisoner of war camp, Lev Davidovich did not stop anti-war agitation.

However, the Russian Provisional Government demanded the release of a prominent Russian socialist. On May 5, he finally arrived safely in Petrograd. Here, at the Finland Station, he was solemnly received by his comrades.

Trotsky's political position almost coincided with that of the Bolsheviks, but at the same time old disagreements prevented unity with them. After the events of July 3-4, arrests were made among the leaders of the Bolsheviks. Vladimir Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev went underground. It seemed that the party was almost defeated.

It was in those days that Trotsky decided on a defiant and spectacular step: he demanded in the press his own arrest. The authorities did not tolerate such insolence and soon arrested Trotsky. In the prison cell of the Petrograd "Crosses" he spent more than 40 days. During this time, the Bolsheviks not only accepted him into their party, but even elected him to the Central Committee. By September, the situation in the country had changed dramatically again: now the Bolsheviks, on the contrary, were released from custody. On September 2, Leon Trotsky was released as one of their recognized leaders.

A week later, his new pariah won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 9, 1917, Leon Trotsky became chairman of the Moscow Council for the second time in his life. He soon led the preparations for the October Revolution and set to work with extraordinary energy. Lev Davidovich himself wrote later in his diary: "If there were neither Lenin nor me in St. Petersburg, there would be no October Revolution." During the October days, Trotsky's oratorical talent was especially revealed.

In the first Soviet government, Trotsky received the portfolio of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. His relations with Lenin at that time were very close: they even worked in the same office in Smolny.

Almost none of the Bolshevik leaders believed that they could hold power alone. Only Trotsky and Lenin did not hesitate for a minute and did not go to anyone "to bow." With their steadfast faith in success, they instilled firmness in the wavering.

In March 1918, L. Trotsky took the post of People's Commissar for Military Affairs (People's Commissar of War). Many were surprised by this appointment: after all, Trotsky was a purely civilian person. But with great enthusiasm he set about this new business for him. Trotsky did not hesitate to step over many of the old principles of Bolshevism - after all, the question was about the life or death of the Soviet Republic.

At every step, one had to overcome the fierce resistance of party comrades: after all, the Bolsheviks had always been opponents of a standing army, and were in favor of the people's militia. Even greater objections were raised by the involvement of officers and generals of the old regime in the Red Army.

The next step was the restoration of the death penalty at the front. In August 1918, the People's Commissar of War issued an order stating: "I warn you: if any unit retreats without permission, the commissar of the unit will be shot first, the commander second."

Later, L. Trotsky never hid the cruelties that were committed during the entire civil war. For many of the merciless measures during the civil war, Trotsky took full responsibility.

In the first years after the civil war, Trotsky continued to be considered the second person after Lenin in the country. He was called "the leader of the Red Army." But in the top leadership, his influence gradually weakened.

The remaining members of the Politburo feared the sole power of L. Trotsky: in 1923 they secretly agreed never to speak among themselves in his presence. All issues were resolved in advance, behind his back.

In 1923, the first signs of restlessness of the "old Bolsheviks" appeared in the party. They were alarmed by the fact that power was "floating away" from them into the hands of a new force - party officials, the apparatus.

Leon Trotsky turned out to be the main spokesman for these sentiments. On October 8, 1923, he sent a letter to the Central Committee, in which he expressed concern about the situation in the party. He noticed that the secretaries of party committees were no longer elected, but appointed from above. A week later, a very congenial letter from 46 "Old Bolsheviks" appeared.

In January 1924, the XIII Party Conference called the position of Trotsky and his supporters "a direct departure from Bolshevism."

In January 1925, the Central Committee of the party removed Trotsky from the post of people's commissar for military affairs.

Opposition speeches gradually became sharper. In society, the opposition believed, the bourgeois strata remained - the Nepmen, the village "kulaks". If the "bureaucracy" finds contact with them, the revolution will perish. Therefore, Trotsky and his supporters called for an intensification of the struggle "against the Nepmen, kulaks and bureaucrats." The opposition called itself "left". The “rightists” (Bukharin, Rykov) fought desperately with her.

On the side of the opposition in 1925-1926. more and more supporters from among the "old Bolsheviks" passed. But the influence of the opposition as a whole was steadily weakening, and the blows against it became more and more crushing. In October 1926, Trotsky was removed from the Politburo.

In the autumn of 1927 the Left Opposition gave its last fierce battle. On October 23, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the party, Stalin made a big speech against the Trotskyists. The Plenum decided to expel Trotsky from the Central Committee. Under the influence of what happened, the opposition two weeks later, on the anniversary of October, decided on a desperate step. "Trotskyists" held demonstrations in Moscow and Leningrad. After that, the "Left Opposition" was finally crushed. On November 14, Trotsky was expelled from the ranks of the CPSU (b).

On January 17, 1928, employees of the OGPU came to Leon Trotsky's apartment and announced to him that he was being expelled from the country for anti-Soviet activities and should immediately follow to Alma-Ata.

But even in Alma-Ata, Trotsky did not stop his political activity, he corresponded with his exiled supporters. But then the authorities tried to make this correspondence almost stop.

In December 1928, Trotsky, in response to the demand of the representative of the OGPU to stop political activity, categorically refused.

On January 20, 1929, Trotsky was given the decision of the Special Meeting of the OGPU that he was being sent abroad. He was accused of "counter-revolutionary activities" and "organization of an illegal anti-Soviet party."

The last, third emigration of Trotsky began. All these years, being away from his homeland, Trotsky did not stop the political struggle. He wrote books, articles, published the Bulletin of the Opposition magazine. He expressed the essence of his position: “The hatred towards me of the bureaucracy is determined by the fact that I am fighting against its monstrous privileges and criminal arbitrariness. This struggle is the essence of so-called "Trotskyism".

On February 20, 1932, Leon Trotsky and his relatives, who had gone abroad, were deprived of their Soviet citizenship.

Since 1936, the trials of the former leaders of the Bolshevik Party began in Moscow: Trotsky was charged with the murder of Kirov, links with the Gestapo.

At the end of 1936, a true admirer of Trotsky, the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, obtained permission for Trotsky to live in Mexico.

In Mexico, Leon Trotsky continued his passionate struggle for the refutation of the Moscow "Bolshevik Trials".

On the night of May 24, 1940, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trotsky took place, the main organizer of which was the famous communist artist David Alfaro Siqueiros.

On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was attacked by a man who introduced himself to him as Frank Jackson. On August 21, Leon Trotsky died.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Sochi State University of Tourism and Resort Business

ITSI

Department of History

abstract

“Political portrait of L.D. Trotsky”

Performed:

student group 99-st2

Bagautdinova R.V.

checked

teacher

Novikov Evgeny Viktorovich.

------- Sochi 1999-------

CHAPTER 1. CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, ADOLESCENT ...............3

CHAPTER 2. THE COUNCIL OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES .............................13

CHAPTER 3. SECOND EMIGRATION ..............................................15

CHAPTER 4. MEMBER OF THE GOVERNMENT ...............................................18

CHAPTER 6. TROTSKYSM WITHOUT TROTSKY ..............................................34

CONCLUSION................................................. ...............................38

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................ .............39

CHAPTER 1. CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, ADOLESCENT.

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (pseudonym - Trotsky) was born on the same day with the October Revolution - October 25 (November 7) - and in the same year - 1879 - with his future implacable rival I.V. Stalin. The coincidence of these dates is purely coincidental. As Trotsky later joked, it is possible that mystics and Pythagoreans will see a special meaning in it, but he himself did not attach any importance to it.

Trotsky grew up in an environment that did not at all contribute to the formation in him of the qualities of a "subverter of foundations." His childhood and youth passed away from the main road of the development of Marxism in Russia - outside the major university centers, without close contact with the working suburbs, acquaintance with the daily needs of ordinary people.

Trotsky's father rented several hundred acres of land in the south of Ukraine, in the village of Yanovka, Kherson province, where the relatively small Bronstein family lived at that time. In addition to his father and his silent mother, who passionately loved Trotsky, he had an older brother and sister, as well as a younger sister, Olga, who was especially beloved by him, who later became the wife of L. B. Kamenev (Rosenfeld).

Although the Bronstein family was not distinguished by either special prosperity or a privileged social position, its members never experienced financial difficulties. At the beginning of his life path for Trotsky, there was no particular obstacle and such a circumstance that created insurmountable difficulties for many in the conditions of tsarist Russia, like his Jewish origin. In addition, Trotsky's father did not seek to close his children in a narrow small-town world,

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1 See:Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. Berlin, 1930. T. I. S. 12.

so brilliantly described by Sholom Aleichem. On the contrary, being a very enterprising man, he did everything in his power to give the children the opportunity to receive a good education.

Father gave Trotsky to the Odessa real school of St. Paul. The boy stood out sharply among his peers with his mind, eloquence, the need that manifested itself in him early and, most importantly, the ability to turn to

the attention of those around you. Trotsky very soon became, as we say today, the informal leader of a group of young people who were looking for an outlet for their overwhelming desire to be active "for the good of society." This largely predetermined Trotsky's choice of his future activities. In Nikolaev, where Trotsky was finishing his last year at a real school, he and his friends were able to form the South Russian Workers' Union, which had up to 200 members, mostly city workers.

Being a member of a semi-legal organization, and even more so one of its leaders, flattered Trotsky's vanity, gave him special weight, perhaps not so much in his own eyes as in the opinion of those around him. It was these qualities that were distinguished later in Trotsky, who knew him closely from the years of study and communication in Odessa and Nikolaev, professor of medicine G. A. Ziv. In his opinion, Trotsky’s individuality was expressed not in knowledge and not in feeling, but in will, “To actively manifest one’s will, to rise above everyone, to be everywhere and always first—this has always been the main essence of Bronstein’s personality,” Ziv wrote, “the rest of the sides his psychologies were only service superstructures and outbuildings” 2 .

At this time, Trotsky's views were very far from Marxist. He

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2 Ziv G.A. Trotsky. Characteristic (By personal memories). New York, 1921, p. 12,

he did not even strive to master Marxism, showing indifference to systematic, purposeful work to form strong convictions. “In 1996 and early 1997,” Trotsky wrote to the historian V.I. Nevsky after the victory of October, “I considered myself an opponent of Marx, whose books, however, I did not read. I judged Marxism according to Mikhailovsky. It seems to us that Trotsky was not familiar with the works of Mikhailovsky himself from the original source. Possessing an excellent memory, he grasped the most "noisy" ideas and attitudes on the fly, and then fiercely defended them in disputes with his peers. Of course, this does not negate Trotsky's great work in self-education. Later, during the years of emigration, Trotsky graduated from the University of Vienna.

It is hardly possible to consider Trotsky's activity in the South Russian Workers' Union itself as truly revolutionary. Today it is especially clearly seen how harmless from the point of view of the threat to the powers that be was the position of his Nikolaev organization. Its members were mainly engaged in enlightenment. They issued 200-300 copies of the newspaper Nashe Delo printed on a hectograph, where they opposed the city authorities and some wealthy entrepreneurs.

Recalling these years, Trotsky wrote: “The influence of the Union grew faster than the formation of a core of fully conscious revolutionaries. The most active workers told us; as for the tsar and the revolution, be more careful for the time being. After such a warning, we took a step back to economic positions, and then moved to a more revolutionary line. Our tactical views, I repeat, were very vague.

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3 See: Nevsky V.I. South Russian Workers' Union. M., 1922. S, 90.

4 cm: Nevsky V.I. South Russian worker union. FROM. 24.

But even in this, and then in other organizations that clearly stood on the platform of economism, Trotsky often found himself on the right flank. Thus, having moved from Nikolaev to Odessa, he opposed the concentration of forces of local Marxists on work among factory workers, insisted on shifting the center of gravity of agitation and propaganda to the ranks of artisans and other petty-bourgeois elements.

All this gives reason to believe that if the Tsarist Okhrana had shown great flexibility and tact towards many members of the leading core of the South Russian Workers' Union, it is possible that such leaders of the union as Trotsky would most likely be on a par with legal Marxists like Struve or Tugan-Baranovsky. However, the Russian police at the end of the XIX century. has not yet brought out from its bowels persons like Colonel Zubatov. In January 1898 the union was crushed. Trotsky and his other leaders ended up in an Odessa prison.

An investigation began, during which, according to Ziv, who was arrested in the same case, Trotsky defended himself in every possible way. His choice of his pseudonym is also connected with the Odessa prison. Under the surname Trotsky, a senior warder served in the prison. The 19-year-old young man was greatly impressed by the majestic figure of the warden, imperiousness, the ability to subjugate those around him and keep, as they say, not only those arrested, but the entire administration of the prison in “hedgehogs”. How Trotsky would have taken his surname as his pseudonym in revenge on the overseer for his dictatorial habits, in order to prove to everyone that the surname of the hardened defender of the autocracy can also serve other goals - the revolution.

The investigation lasted for about two years. During this time, Trotsky, in the words

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5 See:Nevsky V.I. Essays on the history of the RCP(b). M., 1925.T, 1. S. 520.

Ziva, became "the same determined and straightforward "Marxist" that he had previously been his opponent." Trotsky's first literary opus was an attempt to write an article on Freemasonry from the point of view of a materialistic understanding of history. "He," Ziv remarked, "got out three or four books on the subject and thought that was enough." Trotsky's seizure of an epileptic nature, noticed by the prisoners, also dates back to this time. Ziv, who was present at the same time, recalled that such fainting spells happened to Trotsky later on as well. By the way, Trotsky himself was repeatedly forced to confess to such fainting spells. About one of them. which happened to him at the most inopportune moment - on the night of October 24-25, 1917, that is, during the October armed uprising, he told in his autobiographical book "My Life".

The court sentenced Trotsky to four years of exile in Eastern Siberia. On the way to the place of exile, Trotsky became close friends with Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who had sympathized with him back in Nikolaev. She was almost 10 years older than Trotsky, and, naturally, his parents strongly objected to the marriage. However, Trotsky insisted on his own - in Butyrki, in a transit prison, he married Sokolovskaya.

In exile in the Irkutsk province, Trotsky took an active part in the life of the settlers. Under the pseudonym Antid Oto, he contributed to the local newspaper Vostochnoye Obozreniye. His sharp, brightly written articles attracted attention to him in foreign circles of the RSDLP. Soon Trotsky received an invitation from the editorial staff of Iskra to work in the newspaper. It strengthened the decision

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6 See: Ziv G.A. Trotsky. Characteristics (according to personal recollections). pp. 30, 31.

Who really was unlucky in Soviet historiography is Trotsky! Crossed out from everywhere, all merits disavowed. They physically destroyed both him and almost all close relatives. The truth came out decades later. Unsightly, bloody, uncomfortable - but what is it.

Biography and activities of Leon Trotsky

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name - Bronstein) was born in 1879 on the Yanovka farm in southern Russia. He was the fifth child in the family of a very wealthy landowner. The father of the family did not even know how to read, which, however, did not prevent him from succeeding in life. Both parents worked in the field along with numerous farm laborers. The father of the family grew rich year by year, and the family continued to live in a dugout with a thatched roof.

Lev received a certain education - first in Nikolaev, then in Odessa. He was always first in school. He had an excellent memory, fresh thinking and a paternal bulldog grip. The youth of the future revolutionary fell on the time of the cult of the Narodnaya Volya. They were almost deified. Leo was ambitious, smart and extremely ambitious. He was completely devoid of any fine soul and did not build utopian dreams. He quickly becomes a mature person.

Leva Bronstein at the beginning of the journey was far from revolutionary impulses. He was torn between mathematics and social activities. In the end, he dropped out of school and gave himself up to revolutionary ideas. He started as a populist, in the late 90s. XIX century. He was arrested for campaigning and spent two years in prison. Communication with other prisoners made him a convinced Marxist.

In 1900, Lev was sent into exile in the Irkutsk province. There he spent two years, married, became the father of two daughters. Then he left his wife and left for Europe, explaining that revolutionary duty is above all. To escape, he used a fake passport, where he entered the name of the former prison guard - Trotsky. She became the party pseudonym of Lev Bronstein.

Trotsky came to London, met Lenin, began to collaborate in the Iskra newspaper. Agreement reigned between the two leaders only until Trotsky showed his own ambitions. It was then that he was awarded the labels that stuck to him tightly - "Jew" and "political prostitute." Lenin, as you know, was not shy in expressions, even to the allies. They quarreled with Trotsky and reconciled again.

In 1905, Trotsky was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress. There he did not feel disadvantaged: he wrote a lot, and then handed over the manuscripts to his lawyers, whom no one examined at the exit. According to the verdict of the court, an eternal settlement in Siberia awaited him. However, Trotsky did not even reach his destination and again fled abroad, to France, where he took an active part in the production of socialist newspapers. Now he finally becomes an independent political figure.

The French authorities send him to America. There he learned about the February Revolution. In a hurry to return to Russia. He plunges headlong into business. He is elected Chairman of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. It was Trotsky who was the organizer and inspirer of the October Revolution. Lenin seizes the initiative a little later. Trotsky forms Red Guard detachments. Lenin and Trotsky stimulated the lawlessness of the masses in every possible way.

The climax in Trotsky's biography is the civil war and the formation of the Red Army. This "demon of the revolution" on a personal armored train travels on all fronts, agitates, shoots, gives orders. He was not a commander - he relied on unbridled terror and intimidation of dissidents. After the war, Trotsky became People's Commissar of Railways. The period of his factional activity begins, in opposition to the rising Stalin and many other party comrades.

Trotsky found himself alone and lost in the struggle for power. They were afraid of him. Trotsky lost not so much to Stalin - he was defeated by other former party comrades, in particular Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. Bukharin was the main ideologist of the party, Rykov headed the government, Tomsky headed the trade unions. In 1925, Trotsky was removed from the post of people's commissar for military and naval affairs.

In 1926, he was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The following year, he was removed from all posts and sent into exile in Alma-Ata. In 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR, and then deprived of Soviet citizenship. His wife, Natalia Sedova, and son Leo left with him. Trotsky turned out to be of no use to anyone and a burden to everyone. He often changed his place of residence, rushing around the world (France, Denmark, Norway), until he settled in Mexico. Here he breathed freely. He began to form parties around the world. Founded the 4th International.

Stalin gave the order to destroy Trotsky at any cost. Entering Trotsky's confidence, the Soviet agent Ramon Mercader broke his head with an ice pick on August 20, 1940.

• Trotsky's killer served a twenty-year sentence, returned to Moscow, where already under Khrushchev he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Lev (Leiba) Davidovich Trotsky (real name - Bronstein) was born on October 26, 1879 near Yanovka (Kherson province, Little Russia), in the family of a wealthy Jewish landowner. Already in his early youth, he became interested in revolutionary ideas and began their propaganda among the workers of Nikolaev, where he took a course at a real school. In January 1898, Leo was arrested, spent about two years in prison, and then was exiled to Lena.

In 1902, he escaped from exile on a false passport issued under the name Trotsky, went to London and began to work there in the Marxist newspaper " Spark". In terms of his views, Trotsky stood closer to the left wing of the Iskra editorial board. But, not wanting to submit to the primacy of the leader of this wing, Lenin, he II Congress of the RSDLP(1903) joined not to Bolsheviks, and to Mensheviks. Soon Trotsky put forward the theory of "permanent revolution", according to which the working class in Russia should take power before the bourgeoisie, assist the proletarian revolution in Europe and go with it to socialism.

Leon Trotsky. Photo ok. 1920-1921

Trotsky. Series. Series 1-2

Trotsky and Bolshevism. Polish poster, 1920

After education Council of People's Commissars Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs there. In December 1917 - January 1918, he led the Soviet delegation in negotiations with the Germans on the Brest Peace. During them, Trotsky put forward the famous slogan: "no peace, no war, but disband the army" - that is, stop the war without recognizing the German conquests as a formal peace treaty.

In March 1918 Trotsky assumed the post of military people's commissar and took an active part in the creation of the Red Army. Leading it during the Civil War, he acted with merciless cruelty. Trotsky reinforced the discipline of the Red Army by shooting every tenth in badly fought units, and ordered the whites and the insurgent people to be destroyed without pity. Through " decossackization"He tried to exterminate the Cossacks - the most organized and militant part of the Russians. At the end of the Civil War, Trotsky was going to drive the entire population of the Soviet state into military prisons arranged according to the model " labor armies", but the growth of widespread uprisings in 1920 - early 1921 forced the Bolsheviks to make a "strategic retreat" and proclaim NEP.

Leon Trotsky and the Red Army

In 1922-1923, due to Lenin's illness, a struggle for power began in the RCP (b). The "troika" of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. The Trotskyists were defeated in a fight with her at the top. In January 1925, Trotsky lost the posts of military people's commissar and chairman Revolutionary Military Council.

Trotsky. Series. Series 3-4

However, soon after this, Stalin entered into rivalry with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The last two began to seek support from their former enemy Trotsky and formed with him " united opposition”, mainly from the “old Bolsheviks”. She demanded to start "accelerated industrialization" by plundering the "petty-bourgeois" village - that is, to roll up the NEP. Stalin, at this stage, for personal purposes, deceitfully presented himself as a supporter of its preservation.

Dispersed November 7, 1927 demonstrations, arranged by the opposition in honor of the 10th anniversary of October, Stalin achieved the expulsion of Trotsky to Alma-Ata (January 1928), and then his deportation from the USSR (February 1929).

Trotsky settled in Turkey, on the island of Prinkipo (near Istanbul). He did not stop his political and writing activities there, vehemently condemning the "gravedigger of the revolution" Stalin. Trotsky conducted his agitation not only for the USSR, but also for Western communists. He won over to his side a considerable part of them, which broke with the "Stalinist" Comintern and founded her own Fourth International.

In 1933 Trotsky moved to France, and in 1935 to Norway. Forced to leave this country because of Soviet pressure, he moved (1937) to Mexico, to the "left" President Lazaro Cardenas. Trotsky lived there in a villa in Coyoacan, a guest of the radical artist Diego Rivera.

Stalin, meanwhile, ordered an operation to assassinate him. In May 1940, Trotsky survived a dangerous attack by a group led by a famous artist. A. Siqueiros, but on August 20, 1940, another NKVD agent, Ramon Mercader, dealt him a fatal blow with an ice ax on the head.

See also articles:

The following text is the 176th chapter of the novel by A. I. Solzhenitsyn "April the Seventeenth" (part of the epic "Red Wheel"). In our opinion, he very clearly characterizes the personality and views of Leon Trotsky, especially his attitude towards Russia and Russians. We strongly recommend this passage to the reader interested in the subject.

... Dr. Fedonin, having been captured by the Germans during the Samson catastrophe, almost three years later, in the first days of May 1917, returns to his homeland. On the train, he unexpectedly meets with a group of socialist émigrés who are going to stir up a revolution. Trotsky is at their head. Fedonin, who knows firsthand what the German yoke can turn out for Russia, starts with Zimmerwaldist Trotsky conversation...

Thirty-two months, even more than nine hundred and eighty days, Dr. Fedonin spent in German captivity. And with the current return road, it has become 994, almost up to a thousand. Out of 32 years of life - 32 months in captivity, a month was torn out of each year of life.

A month of captivity lasts longer than a month of combat life. And such a resentment - to be out of place, and inactive.

Trotsky. Biography

Valeryan Akimovich has changed a lot over the years, much more than if he had served them in a front-line hospital. Somehow, all the processes of life in him slowed down, the pace of thought, all reactions to the environment, the character itself became rationally slow, inhibited beyond his years. As much as psychiatry says, this change should not be irreversible; in a familiar environment, a person returns to his former mental type. Theoretically yes, but it seems to me; No, the former will not return. Here are two more days - and Moscow, the house, the wife, the daughter Nastenka, left a year and a half, and now four, hotly rushes: so this is the return, and everything is healed? But it seems not: what he experienced and learned can never be taken back from his chest. Yes, a month later - again to the front, and again face to face with Germany, but now how is it recognized?

Before the war, Fedonin loved Germany, and he visited there - he heartily loved her music, appreciated her poets, highly respected her incomparable order, however, he already guessed cruelty in the language; and very painfully survived the Bosnian crisis of 1909, feeling, along with all of Russia, raped. But even Germany's attack on us has not yet cut the threads to her.

And Fedonin hated Germany - having survived captivity. You can understand falling into a war. And you get used to the fact that the front is murder and murder. But by the treatment of defenseless prisoners, the soul of the people is recognized. How can you think of - crucify, hang? And then: power and military needs can infuse a cruel regime, but thousands of performers can perform in different ways. In German captivity, it was terrible that every line of cruel rules was executed to the fullest extent, and even tougher than that.

Were not ready to take prisoners from Samson's army, 90 thousand at once? But even for a few more autumn months they kept it like this: under the open sky, on bare ground, and dysentery, cholera and typhus carried away six thousand. However, the prisoners were not diagnosed with typhus, but with Russian influenza. But even later, when it had dissipated and seemed to be in order, there was a stench and a stench in uncleaned barracks, non-replaceable straw mattresses, the same lice, bedbugs, fleas, worms, unheated dugouts, and the contagious were locked up together with the healthy. Trout soup, flour talker, even the officers are pretty hungry, although they don’t work, their punishment is to reduce walks or light in the barracks, salute the German sergeants, and in the penal camp to sleep on the floor and wash their own clothes. Against all conventions, soldiers are forced to dig trenches for the enemy, or develop military equipment, or even work in chemical plants. And here the soldiers do not need letters to understand: this is against their own brothers. The soldier's heart breaks, and the punishment: rods, rifle butts, shackles. On the neck - a pood of sand, and stop. Or put in cold water. Or - close to a red-hot coke oven. Only a German could come up with such torture. And in Russia, apparently, they don’t know anything about us. Recently, Russian doctors have received the right to help their own, but almost without medicines. Half a million Russians died without waiting for the end of captivity. And it threatens hundreds of thousands.

And having escaped, the more grasping you think: what about those, ours, who remained there?

Fedonin would have stayed further there, if long negotiations on the mutual release of some of the doctors had not succeeded. The Germans corrected the lists for a long time, crossed out those requested by the Russian side, inserted their own candidates. In total, ninety doctors were now returning to Russia in three groups. Their second group was supposed to arrive in Petrograd late yesterday evening, but the train was greatly delayed on the way - and now it reached only on the morning of May 5th.

From Torneo, in the same car with doctors, seven returnees were traveling - all from New York, where they were huddled in some kind of newspaper and so, in a bunch, they were now in a hurry to the revolution. Their leader Trotsky, about forty years old, springy, fast, with a high forehead, with a rich mop of black hair, in pince-nez, was traveling with his family - his wife and two sons, about ten and eight years old, rather spoiled, but already with a father's sharpness, greedily listening to adults talk.

Doctors from captivity had to raster this road neighborhood.

“Revolutionary emigrants” during these years also made themselves known to prisoners of war - but not with crackers or medicines, but with leaflets in some kind of jargon-lined language, and a lot - for secession of Ukraine, for pan-Islamism. And - with pamphlets, furious all the abomination about Russia; signed: "Committee of intellectual assistance to Russian prisoners of war." (And the Germans carefully handed this over to the camps, everything free of charge.) And now, the revolution has taken place, these wits, not those, but these, were in a hurry to it.

Such doctors got the first compatriots.

They were in a hurry - and the British detained them in Canada for more than three weeks - and they were all very indignant, and Trotsky was especially caustic:

- Canals! We, revolutionary internationalists, withstood the greatest world catastrophe on the positions of analysis, criticism and foresight,” he sounded in a clear voice in the carriage corridor, “we are impeccable Russian revolutionaries, and they know this, but they have the audacity to treat us like criminals! And they were released - also with violence, without explaining where to take things - and under escort. Well, I'll pin Buchanan to the wall now! And Milyukov will not be in trouble either!

He was very nervous, and others were with him.

For Trotsky himself, the story dragged on even more complicated: he had only recently been expelled to America from Spain, and scolded the Spanish authorities with great resentment. And before that, he was expelled from France - and he was looking for France and its leaders sarcastically. And everything happened because, he believed, that Europe, until the last gasp of tsarism, lay under his paw.

From the haste that beat out of the mouths and eyes of emigrants, the doctors were seized with anxiety: what is really going on ahead? Maybe - irreversible, which we do not know at all and where we do not have time, are we late? After stagnant months, felt the chilling pressure of this sudden pace.

And of course, disputes ensued between doctors and emigrants. And all day yesterday, they were not so much looking out the windows at the thick fir trees, at the ridge of the lakes, still under the ice and snow, at the wondrous boulders run in - but at each other, with surprise and irritation, these others were so unexpected: the suffering of the prisoners was nothing to them? and Germany is not an enemy? and England is worse than Germany?

The émigrés twitchingly made no secret of their disdain for the ingenuous patriotism of doctors.

“Views that I can’t accept,” Trotsky twisted his large, mocking lips, “just as I can’t eat wormy food.” They drive human locusts to the war, I have seen this even in the Balkan. They forget that soldiers also have a nervous system. And that sailors are not the least valuable part of a warship. And sailors in all uprisings are always the most explosive. No, the war is over, the war is lost, we must leave it immediately!

Doctors were amazed: so what? let our provinces, and a piece of France, and all of Belgium and Serbia remain under the Germans - and we betray those who are loyal to us, and stretch out our hand to those who want to strangle us? Simply - do not fight further, and let Russia be robbed and disgraced? How can a new Russian life begin with a waste of the national heritage?

The émigrés responded: the war was a reactant of the plans of the capitalists of all countries… the socially seduced proletariat… they cut each other’s throats in the name of the interests of the pack of the rich, the purse of the capitalists…

So? it turns out - does not matter who started the war? she would does not matter started? the capitalists of all countries have planned, it doesn’t matter what Germany started, it’s as if she didn’t start? ..

At first, Fedonin talked more with some extremely unpleasant, ignorant, but aggressive type, Volodarsky, with feverish eyes and feverish, rapid speech, with a strong accent. He tossed:

- Yes, the Russian army was invariably beaten in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is suitable only against backward tribes!

It was impossible to hear! what did he say to the officers of that same army! But here the eloquent, resourceful Trotsky hurried to his rescue:

- And what can be found more mediocre than Russian wars and Russian foreign policy over the past hundred years? They could only drive the Turkmens and push the Chinese. And then always: the wrong allies, the wrong goals, the wrong methods and in the wrong places! Who benefited - Austria, Bulgaria, all pulled Russia's nose. From the Crimean - lost all the wars in a row. They won one - on the winter passes, with great bloodshed - they lost even worse at the Berlin green table. It’s still a miracle that Russia didn’t collapse earlier, tsarist diplomacy was leading to this.

And hurry up. And you won't find it right away. Remember the Patriotic War? Only remains. Well, now:

“Did Germany attack us first?” Yes, Fedonin attacked the wrong one.

– We do not need this treacherous impartiality on the plane of false objectivism!

Here, in the carriage conversation, Trotsky, it seems, did not even give a twentieth of his energy, but attentively probing his eyes behind his pince-nez sometimes did not hold back flashes.

“War is so incredibly terrible that the working class of every country will not forgive it. And, returning from the war, he will sweep away the bourgeois order in each.

- And if it doesn't sweep away?

- Well, - his plentiful semi-erect hair trembled, - then I will become a misanthrope. It will be in every country, and therefore it does not matter who is now formally the winner, it is important to throw down weapons and not support the war for an hour. The world is moving towards full unification. And any attempt to defend the independence of a separate country is reactionary.

Well, Germany will take over everything!

No, everything will be taken over by the international revolutionary proletariat. But as a transitional step, - he made a reservation not quite willingly, - well? Germany has gone so far in its capitalist development and possesses such colossal economic and cultural resources that she alone could, in the event of victory, unite the entire civilized world and thus play a progressive role.

No, Fedonin could not understand this! Simply - do not fight further, but will the socialists work out the conditions for peace at some conference? But how can the instinct of people's life accept non-resistance to evil in the name of some kind of International?

And Trotsky - not only thought so, he - was invincibly sure that it was so! He showed with all his appearance that there was nothing to try to convince him. (And, of course, he really liked himself, but that was not the main thing in him, no.)

“Do you know,” Fedonin told him from experience, “that every third person in the German army is a Social Democrat?” But they are all ironically subordinate to the Chancellor.

In the eyes of Trotsky danced the lights that he surpasses you both in intelligence and knowledge of the truth, and even what would he talk to you? But the process of speaking gave him obvious pleasure, it seems that he himself was looking for a fresh interlocutor, he was already tired of his companions.

“These are the social democrats of the past. The future is no longer theirs.

Are the Social Democrats also different? Fedonin, and in general now slowed down, did not have time to answer him.

- And you yourself - what party?

On Trotsky's large-eared head, held high, his unkempt hair shook a little.

What class is this? Fedonin didn't ask.

Behind all this, it seems, was both the strength of character and the strength of thoughts that were not hastily invented. If we ignore his extreme judgments, there was something attractive and disposed in him.

– The method of the bourgeoisie is war between states, the method of the proletariat is revolution. The development of peoples raises tasks that cannot be solved by other methods than revolution. Revolution is the furious inspiration of history. And in Russia, the revolution was irrevocably decided back in 1905 - and it could not have happened now. And now the cogwheels of war will break off their cogs on the cogs of revolution.

Aphoristic phrases came out of his mouth with ease. He didn’t even seem to be looking for how to turn them to shine, they themselves went like this:

– We take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development, in the mighty possibilities of class thinking. Anyone who understands the language of history even a little, these facts need no explanation. The great driving forces of history, of course, have a supra-personal character, but I do not deny the importance of the personal in the mechanics of the historical process. How could this moral castrato, a trivial, devoid of imagination, the same noodles as Louis XVI, stay on the Russian throne? He repeated it to amazingness, and the queens are the same, both have chicken heads. Yes, in general, Charles I and Henrietta of France were the same couple, and he also left his head at the crossroads. But it is not our function to dry the tears of the anointed. The English and French revolutions were great because they turned their nations to the bottom. And the semi-Asian dynasty of the Romanovs was, of course, doomed!

Absolutely confident in the power of his word and thought, he screwed it in, no-doubt-no-but, so that he could hold on tighter. (Yes, and you can’t argue, now - did it look like that?) Moreover, it seems that he was sure in advance and that the next thought that was just ripening in him was still unclear to him:

All this is historical dialectics. This is a great natural-historical process that goes from the amoeba to us and further from us. Centuries pass until the thick skull of mankind breaks through. It learns so slowly! But the self-satisfied narrow-mindedness of the ruling classes always helps to ripen the next stage of the revolution. That our nobility did not learn from the experience of the Great French, may seem contrary to the class theory of society? No, only a primitive understanding of it.

It sparked like that. And with all his intonation he inspired the futility of any objections.

And both of his boys stood right there, listening keenly. Maybe he said more for them.

And the revolution did not happen spontaneously. Fire of the Court? burnt notarial deeds of ownership? Horrible! Not spontaneity and not parties, but the molecular work of the revolutionary thought of class-conscious proletarians, and so they directed. The best generations of revolutionaries burned out in the fire of dynamite struggle - and now ordinary workers have stepped in.

Fedonin peered - he had never met anyone like him.

And how much life energy is in it.

- The scarcity of failed Russian history. The friability of the old Russian society, the thinness of the pretentious intelligentsia. And Russia is also insanely behind, and is forced to go through its political history at a very shortened course. And the Russian revolution is not over even today.

- Not finished yet? Fedonin was horrified. What else do you want for our unfortunate country?

“Events are unfolding in all their natural coercion,” Trotsky cut inexorably. - This revolution will have a second stage, and the proletariat will take power and establish its own dictatorship.

- Excuse me, - here Fedonin rested. Why a dictatorship? Still, we have ideas about revolutionaries, although they throw bombs there, why do they want freedom? democracy? The revolution was made for freedom, as I understand it?

- No not like this! - condescendingly minted Trotsky. – Every revolution is a spasmodic movement of ideas and passions. Russia already stepped over formal democracy, we do not need it.

- What are you talking about! Fedonin almost cried out, the others in the corridor turned around. - Democracy is no longer needed? But it seems that the devices above have not yet been invented?

- No need - vulgar democracy. It has already historically degenerated.

- Is that what happened in Petrograd now? - shooting into the crowd, and in order to throw off Milyukov already?

Trotsky's strong lips, under a thick brush of dark mustache and above a hooked beard, formed a contemptuous line:

- Milyukov is a prosaic gray clerk. It is not his fault that he does not have pathetic ancestors, and that he does not even possess the Byzantine buffoonery of Rodzyanka. Archimedes undertook to turn the earth over if he was given a point of support. Milyukov, on the contrary, was looking for a point of support in order to save the landlords' land from an upheaval. The Cadets will break their necks on questions about land and war. Their dependence on the old ruling class has long stuck out like a spring from an old sofa. Yes, Pobedonostsev understood people's life more soberly and deeper than them. He understood that if the nuts were loosened, the entire cover would be torn off entirely. So it will be!

And his expressive mobile mouth was formed predatory.

Leiba ("Lion") Trotsky

He explained everything in the revolution so confidently, as if he was going not there, but from there.

Trotsky and Bolshevism. Polish poster, 1920

And, seeing how Fedonin recoiled, he still affirmed:

– Yes, in the school of great historical upheavals one must be able to learn. And for the weak - life beats!

But for all his passionate speech and fiery eyes, some kind of arrogant cold alienation is impaled on him like armor. He was hot, but he was also cold at the same time.

By nightfall the conversations had stopped.

And the train arrived in Beloostrov at four o'clock in the morning, at first light, and then a noisy company of friends of these emigrants poured into the car. They spoke sharply, in a fluffy way, only among themselves, in gibberish terms, in revolutionary jargon.

And on their own train, but in a different carriage, was the well-known Belgian socialist Vandervelde, even, it seems, the chairman of their own International, but they did not go to him, and Trotsky did not go yesterday. When the train arrived in Petrograd at 6 o'clock in the morning - the sun was no longer low, and the city was sleeping - Vandervelde was met from the side entrance by three Belgians with a black-yellow-red flag on the car. Doctors - two officials from the Red Cross. And seven emigrants - hundreds of people who had gathered since the evening, did not leave the station and during the night: workers with red flags, with red armbands, a working detachment armed with rifles. And they carried Trotsky in their arms to the front rooms of the station, where speeches were made.

The greeters adopted the suitcases from the emigrants who arrived - all these revolutionaries traveled, however, with good leather ones. And the doctors with meager bundles and bags went to the square, waiting for what to go. In the morning glowing sun, the first vision of the homeland appeared: a dirty, tattered square.

Trotsky's group came out of the main doors of the station to fresh applause. And one of them, Chudnovsky, climbed onto the truck to make a speech here as well. All about the same thing: enough of this war! finish it immediately! brotherhood of peoples, and the Germans are not so bad at all.

Then they announced from those who met: Uritsky.

Such a small handful of them - but if everywhere they make speeches all the time, and they are listened to?

Fedonin handed the back bag to his companion - and climbed onto the same truck to answer from the prisoners of war.

WHERE THE HELL DO YOU - AND WITH FLOUR TO US IN THE YARD