Trotsky Lev Davidovich: biography, photos and interesting facts. Lev Davidovich Trotsky - biography

Predecessor:Nikolai Chkheidze Successor:

Grigory Zinoviev

	People's Commissar of the RSFSR for Foreign Affairs
November 8, 1917 - March 13, 1918

Predecessor:

position established

Successor:

Georgy Chicherin

September 6, 1918 - January 26, 1925

Predecessor:

position established

Successor:

Mikhail Frunze

	People's Commissar of the RSFSR - USSR for Military and Naval Affairs
August 29, 1918 – January 26, 1925

Predecessor:

Nikolai Podvoisky

Successor:

Mikhail Frunze

Birth name:

Leiba Davidovich Bronstein

Nicknames:

Pero, Antid Oto, L. Sedov, Old Man

Date of Birth: Place of Birth:

Yanovka village, Elisavetgrad district, Kherson province, Russian Empire

Date of death: A place of death:

Mexico City, Mexico

Religion: Education: The consignment:

RSDLP → RCP(b) → VKP(b)

Key ideas: Occupation:

party and state building, journalism

Awards and prizes:

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Leiba Bronstein)(October 26 (November 7, new style) 1879, Yanovka estate, Kherson province of the Russian Empire (now the village of Bereslavka, Bobrinetsky district, Kirovograd region of Ukraine) - August 21, 1940, Mexico City, Mexico) - figure in the international communist revolutionary movement, one of the organizers, founder of one one of the largest currents of Marxist thought - . First People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Soviet Russia(26.10.1917 - 8.04.1918), People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (8.4.1918 - 26.1.1925). The first chairman of the RVSR, then the RVS of the USSR (1918 - 1925).

Childhood and youth

He was the fifth child in the family of David Leontievich Bronstein and Anna (Anetta) Lvovna Bronstein (nee Zhivotovskaya). In 1879, the family moved from the Jewish agricultural colony of Gromokley to the Yanovka estate, partly purchased and partly rented from the widow of Colonel Yanovsky. In Yanovka, in the same year, Leib’s son Lev was born, and in 1883 - youngest daughter Olga. Leo had older brothers Alexander (b. 1870) and sister Elizaveta (b. 1875). In total, eight children were born into the Bronstein family, but four children died in childhood from various diseases.

As a child, he was sent to study at a Jewish religious school (cheder), but did not show much desire for learning there, and never really learned Hebrew. But he learned to read and write in Russian early, and even as a child he became addicted to writing poetry (not preserved). In 1888, he was sent by his parents to study in Odessa, at the St. Paul Real School. He studied with honors, “all the time I was the first student.” He was an impressionable child. I read a lot since childhood fiction, both European and Russian (favorite domestic author -). As a second-grade student, he tried to publish a handwritten magazine - only one issue was made, almost entirely prepared by himself.

His uncle M. F. Shpenzer (the father of the quite famous poetess Vera Inber), a journalist and then the owner of a printing house and publishing house, contributed greatly to the fact that Trotsky, in his early youth, was already seriously “ill” with writing: as the process of writing a book or articles, as well as submitting for printing, typesetting, proofreading, running the printing press, heated discussion of upcoming and just published books - the love for journalism and the printed word remained for life.

Beginning of political activity

In 1896, Trotsky went to finish his studies (seventh grade at a real school) in Nikolaev, where his introduction to political life: He is part of a kind of political circle, consisting, in his words, of “visiting students, former exiles and local youth.” There were heated discussions in the circle. The young Trotsky, who took an ardent part in them, possessed, according to I. Deicher, a “wonderful gift of bluff” - he could get involved in a dispute and lead it with dignity, without really knowing the subject of the dispute. This does not mean that Trotsky was happy with this state of affairs: he greedily pounces on political literature, at first he does not even read books, but “swallows” them. However, the members of the circle study the most interesting things together. They are creating a literature distribution circle “Rassadnik”. In 1896-97 Trotsky at first leans not towards Marxism, but towards.

The parents learn about Trotsky's new acquaintances (it is not so far from Nikolaev to Yanovka), and after a stormy explanation, Trotsky declares his independence and refuses financial assistance. For several months, Trotsky lives in a “commune” created by members of the circle. He earns money by tutoring. Members of the commune rush from one project to another: having failed in distributing literature, they try to create a “university on the basis of mutual education,” then try to write a grandiose political play, which, despite a large number of time and effort expended, it was never completed.

Having reconciled with his parents, Trotsky thought about entering the mathematics department of Novorossiysk University (located in Odessa), but the activity that really occupied him in Nikolaev was revolutionary work. As a result of the acquaintance of the members of the “commune” with the electrical worker Mukhin, who was engaged in the propaganda of revolutionary ideas under the guise of a return to true Christianity, the creation of the group “” occurs. According to Trotsky, it all started quite spontaneously:

It happened like this: I was walking down the street with the youngest member of our commune, Grigory Sokolovsky, a young man about my age. “We should start after all,” I said. “We need to start,” Sokolovsky answered. “But how?” “Exactly: how? - We need to find workers, don’t wait for anyone, don’t ask anyone, but find workers and start.” “I think it’s possible to find it,” said Sokolovsky. “I had a friend who was a watchman on the boulevard, a biblical scholar. So I’ll go see him.”

On the same day, Sokolovsky went to the boulevard to see the biblical scholar. That hasn't happened for a long time. There was some woman, and this woman had an acquaintance, also a sectarian. Through this acquaintance of a woman unknown to us, Sokolovsky on the same day met several workers, among whom was electrical engineer Ivan Andreevich Mukhin, who soon became the main figure of the organization. Sokolovsky returned from the search with sparkling eyes. “These people are just people!”

The young organization has achieved success, unexpected even for its creators:

The workers came to us by gravity, as if they had been waiting for us at the factories for a long time. Everyone brought a friend, some came with their wives, several older workers entered into circles with their sons. We were not looking for workers, but they were looking for us. Young and inexperienced leaders, we soon began to choke in the movement we had caused.

According to the testimony of Trotsky’s close friend, Dr. G. A. Ziv, during the years of work in the “South Russian Workers’ Union,” Trotsky moved away from the ideas of populism - “only genuine social democracy.” (Ziv G. A. Trotsky. Characteristics (According to personal recollections)

Arrest and exile

On January 28, 1898, Trotsky and other organizers of the “Union” were arrested. He himself later wrote about this: “There was no serious conspiracy in our organization. We were all quickly arrested. It was the provocateur Schrenzel who betrayed him.” Trotsky was transferred from Nikolaev prison to Odessa prison, and from there to Kherson prison. By the end of 1899, those arrested in the case of the “South Russian Union” without trial, “administratively,” were given a sentence: 4 years of exile in Eastern Siberia. Before exile, they had to spend several more months in the Butyrka transit prison, where Trotsky married a woman close to him in the “commune” and “Union” - Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya.

Place of exile - the village of Ust-Kut on the Lena River (currently a city in the Irkutsk region), also lived on the Ilim River, later moved to Verkholensk. Soon after his arrival, Trotsky began to collaborate in the Irkutsk newspaper "Eastern Review", the editor of which at that time was a former exiled Narodnaya Volya member. He takes the pseudonym Antid Oto (from the Italian “antidoto”, which means “antidote”). In Ust-Kutsk exile, Trotsky met and. Trotsky spent two years in exile, during which time he and Sokolovskaya had two daughters.

Escape and work at Iskra

In the summer of 1902, news reached the exiles about a new upsurge in the revolutionary movement, about the creation of a Marxist newspaper abroad, and also that several of Trotsky’s Siberian articles had reached the editorial board of Iskra and aroused favorable reviews. Trotsky (then, of course, still Bronstein) decides to escape from exile and get to the center of the revolutionary movement at any cost. In exile, he leaves his wife and two young daughters. In Irkutsk, friends give the fugitive decent clothes and a blank passport, where he writes his new name: Trotsky.

It is known that this was the name of the jailer in the Odessa prison, where those arrested in the case of the “South Russian Union” served about a year and a half - a powerful, stately and self-satisfied man. Why young Bronstein chose this particular surname is not known for sure.

Trotsky's first stop was Samara. There he spends about a week with, who at that time headed the Russian “headquarters” of Iskra. Krzhizhanovsky accepts Trotsky into the organization that still exists unofficially and gives the young journalist the secret nickname “Pero”. On instructions from Krzhizhanovsky, Trotsky makes a trip to Ukraine, with the goal of meeting with Ukrainian “Iskraists” and trying to attract revolutionaries who did not take “Iskra” positions to the organization - in this regard, according to Trotsky, the trip yielded almost nothing. An order came from him to send Trotsky to the editorial office of Iskra in London. Having crossed the Austrian border illegally (with smugglers), Trotsky arrived in London in October 1902 through Vienna (where the head of the Austrian Social Democrats helped him with money for his further journey) and Zurich (where he was met) and went straight from the station to Lenin. greets him with the words: - The feather has arrived!

Already in November 1902, an article by Trotsky appeared in Iskra. On the advice of Lenin, Trotsky begins to give lectures, first in London, and then on the continent - in Brussels, Zurich, and Paris. In Paris (in 1903), Trotsky meets with his parents, who came from Russia especially for this purpose. His parents promise him to provide financial support to his family remaining in Russia and, if necessary, to himself. In Paris, Trotsky meets Natalya Ivanovna Sedova, a student from Russia who was expelled for reading prohibited literature from the Kharkov Institute of Noble Maidens and studied art history at the Sorbonne. Sedova recalled their first meeting like this:

The autumn of 1902 was abundant with abstracts in the Russian colony of Paris. The Iskra group, to which I belonged, saw first Martov, then Lenin. There was a struggle with the “economists” and with the socialist revolutionaries. In our group we talked about the arrival of a young comrade who had escaped from exile... The performance was very successful, the colony was delighted, the young Iskraist exceeded expectations.

Subsequently, Sedova would become Trotsky's wife.

At the suggestion of Lenin, in March 1903, Trotsky was accepted into the editorial board of Iskra with the right of an advisory vote. The editorial board at that time included six people: three “old people” (,), and three “young” (Lenin,). The sympathies of the 23-year-old revolutionary are more likely on the side of the “old people” - he admires Vera Zasulich, who was already a “living legend” at that time (she reciprocates him), highly values ​​the scholarship of P. B. Axelrod, and only relations with Plekhanov do not work out - recognized authority in the revolutionary movement is inclined to consider the young revolutionary an upstart and a creation of Lenin.

Within a few months, at where Trotsky presented, a break occurred between Lenin and Trotsky. The “external” reason was in personalities: Trotsky could not agree with Lenin’s proposal to reduce the composition of the Iskra editorial board by excluding not very active members from it (although Trotsky personally would have benefited from this). Subsequently, Trotsky would write about this:

The whole point was simply to place Axelrod and Zasulich outside the editorial board of Iskra. My attitude towards both of them was imbued not only with respect, but also with personal tenderness. Lenin also valued them highly for their past. But he came to the conclusion that they were increasingly becoming an obstacle to the future. And he made an organizational conclusion: remove them from leadership positions. I couldn't put up with this. My whole being protested against this merciless cutting off of the old people who had finally reached the threshold of the party. This indignation of mine resulted in my break with Lenin at the Second Congress. His behavior seemed to me unacceptable, terrible, outrageous. Yet it was politically correct and, therefore, organizationally necessary.

Revolution of 1905 and further struggle against the party

Trotsky met the revolution of 1905 with the notorious theory of “permanent” revolution. This was the theory of the disarmament of the proletariat, the demobilization of its forces. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, Trotsky supported the Menshevik liquidators. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote about Trotsky then:

“Trotsky behaved like the most vile careerist and factionalist... He talks about the party, but behaves worse than all the other factionalists.”

Trotsky, as is known, was the organizer of the August *anti-revolutionary* Menshevik bloc of all groups and movements that opposed Lenin.

Trotsky met the imperialist war that began in August 1914, as one would expect, on the other side of the barricades - in the camp of the defenders of the imperialist massacre. He covered up his betrayal of the proletariat with “leftist” phrases about the fight against the war, phrases designed to deceive the working class. By all the most important issues war and socialism Trotsky opposed Lenin, against the Bolshevik party.

The Menshevik Trotsky assessed the ever-increasing power of the Bolsheviks’ influence on the working class, on the masses of soldiers after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, and the enormous popularity of Lenin’s slogans among the masses in his own way. He joined our party in July 1917 along with a group of like-minded people, declaring that he had “disarmed” to the end.

Subsequent events showed, however, that the Menshevik Trotsky did not disarm, did not stop fighting against Lenin for a minute, and entered our party in order to blow it up from within.

Just a few months after the Great October Revolution in the spring of 1918, Trotsky, together with a group of so-called “left” communists and left Socialist Revolutionaries, organized a villainous conspiracy against Lenin, seeking to arrest and physically destroy the leaders of the proletariat Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov. As always, Trotsky himself - a provocateur, organizer of murderers, intriguer and adventurer - remains in the shadows. His leading role in the preparation of this atrocity, fortunately unsuccessful, was fully revealed only two decades later, at the trial of the anti-Soviet “right-Trotskyist bloc” in March 1938. Only twenty years later the dirty tangle of crimes of Trotsky and his henchmen was finally unraveled.

During the years of the Civil War, when the country of the Soviets repelled the onslaught of numerous hordes of White Guards and interventionists, Trotsky, with his treacherous actions and sabotage orders, in every possible way weakened the strength of resistance of the Red Army, which is why he was forbidden by Lenin to visit the Eastern and Southern fronts. It is a well-known fact that Trotsky, due to his hostile attitude towards the old Bolshevik cadres, tried to shoot a number of responsible front-line communists he disliked, thus acting into the hands of the enemy.

At the same trial of the anti-Soviet “right-Trotskyist bloc,” the entire treacherous, traitorous path of Trotsky was revealed to the whole world: the defendants in this trial, Trotsky’s closest associates, admitted that they, and together with them, and their boss Trotsky, had already been agents of foreign countries since 1921 intelligence services, were international spies. They, led by Trotsky, zealously served the intelligence services and general staffs of England, France, Germany, and Japan.

When in 1929 the Soviet government expelled the counter-revolutionary and traitor Trotsky from our homeland, the capitalist circles of Europe and America accepted him into their arms. This was no accident. It was natural. For Trotsky had long ago gone into the service of the exploiters of the working class.

Trotsky became entangled in his own networks, reaching the limit of human degradation. He was killed by his own supporters. He was finished off by the same terrorists whom he taught to kill from behind the corner, betrayal and atrocities against the working class, against the country of the Soviets. Trotsky, who organized the villainous murder of Kirov, Kuibyshev, M. Gorky, became a victim of his own intrigues, betrayals, betrayals, and atrocities.

This is how this despicable man ended his life ingloriously, going to his grave with the seal of an international spy and murderer on his forehead.

Essays

Year	Name	First publication	Notes	Text
1900	"A little visible, but very important cog in the state machine"	"Eastern Review" N 230, October 15, 1900
1900	Something about the philosophy of the "superman"	"Eastern Review" NN 284, 286, 287, 289, 22, 24, 25, 30 December 1900		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1900	Something about zemstvo	"Eastern Review" N 285, December 23, 1900		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	"An old house"	"Eastern Review" No. 10, January 14, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	"Tear-off" calendar as a cultural organizer	"Eastern Review" No. 19, January 25, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Herzen and the "young generation"	"Bulletin World History"N 2, January 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	About an old question	"Eastern Review" N 33 - 34, February 14 - 15, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	About pessimism, optimism, the 20th century and much more	"Eastern Review" No. 36, February 17, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	"Declaration of Rights" and "Velvet Book"	"Eastern Review" NN 56, 57, 13, 14 March 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	About Balmont	"Eastern Review" No. 61, March 18, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Ordinary village ( Unsaid words about the village in general, etc.)	"Eastern Review" N 70, March 29, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Hauptmann's last drama and Struve's comments to it	"Eastern Review", NN 99, 102, 5, 9 May 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Ordinary village ( More about “local” medicine, etc.)	"Eastern Review" N 117, May 30, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	About Ibsen	"Eastern Review" NN 121, 122, 126, 3, 4, 9 June 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Penitentiary ideals and the humane prison outlook	"Eastern Review" NN 135, 136, 20, 21 June 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	We have matured	"Eastern Review" N 154, July 13, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	New times - new songs	"Eastern Review" NN 162, 164, 165, 22, 25, 26 July 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Ordinary village ( Belated preface, etc.)	"Eastern Review" N 173 - 176, August 4 - 9, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Two writer's souls in the grip of a metaphysical demon	"Eastern Review" N 189, August 25, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	The “illiberal” moment of “liberal” relations	"Eastern Review" N 194, September 2, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Poetry, the machine and the poetry of the machine	"Eastern Review" N 197, September 8, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	Ordinary rustic	"Eastern Review" N 212, September 26, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	S. F. Sharapov and German farmers	"Eastern Review" N 225, October 13, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	"Russian Darwin"	"Eastern Review" N 251, November 14, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	N. A. Dobrolyubov And "Whistle"	"Eastern Review" N 253, November 17, 1901		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1901	History of literature, Mr. Boborykin and Russian criticism	?		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1902	Something about "freedom of creative spasm"	"Eastern Review" No. 8, January 10, 1902		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1904	Political letters. "Before the Disaster"	"Iskra" No. 75, October 5, 1904		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1904	Political letters. Public Education Fund, etc.			in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov
1904	The appearance of liberals to the people	"Iskra" No. 76, October 20, 1904		in the library of Oleg Kolesnikov

Biographies

• Vasetsky N. A. Trotsky. Experience political biography. - M.: Republic, 1992. ISBN 5-250-01159-4
• Volkogonov D. A. Trotsky / Political portrait. - In two books. - M.: JSC Publishing House "Novosti", 1994. ISBN 5-7020-0216-4
• Deutscher I. Trotsky. Armed prophet. 1879-1921 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2147-4
• Deutscher I. Trotsky. Unarmed Prophet. 1921-1929 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2155-5
• Deutscher I. Trotsky. Exiled Prophet. 1929-1940 - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2006. ISBN 5-9524-2157-1
• Ziv G. A. Trotsky: Characteristics (according to personal recollections). New York: People's Law, 1921
• David King. Trotsky. Biography in photographic documents. - Ekaterinburg: "SV-96", 2000. ISBN 5-89516-100-6
• Paporov Yu. N. Trotsky. The murder of the "big entertainer" - St. Petersburg: Publishing House "Neva", 2005. ISBN 5-7654-4399-0
• “Was there an alternative?”: ““Trotskyism” - a look through the years”, “Power and oppositions”, “Stalin’s neo-NEP”, “1937”, “Party of the executed”, “World revolution and World War", "The end means the beginning."
• Startsev V.I.L.D. Trotsky. Pages of political biography. - M.: Knowledge, 1989. ISBN 5-07-000955-9
• Chernyavsky G. I. Leon Trotsky - M.: Young Guard, 2010. ISBN 978-5-235-03369-6
• Isaac Don Levine. The Mind of an Assassin, New York, New American Library/Signet Book, 1960.
• Dave Renton. Trotsky, 2004.
• Leon Trotsky: the Man and His Work. Reminiscences and Appraisals, ed. Joseph Hansen. New York, Merit Publishers, 1969.
• The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press (1996) ISBN 0-300-06919-7

Leiba Bronstein was born on October 26 (November 7), 1879 in the village of Yanovka, Kherson province, in the family of landowner David Bronstein. In 1888 he entered St. Paul's School in Odessa and graduated from his final classes in Nikolaev. Lev Bronstein, 1888

The Second Congress was a big milestone in my life, if only because it separated me from Lenin for a number of years

Trotsky L.
"My life"

In 1904, Trotsky left the Menshevik Party. He and his wife came to Munich and settled in the apartment of Alexander Parvus. Trotsky, having learned about the strike movement that had begun in Russia, arrived illegally in St. Petersburg, where, together with Parvus, they actually led the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. During the workers' strike in October, Trotsky was in the thick of things.

The fifty-two days of the existence of the first Council were full of work to capacity: the Council, the Executive Committee, continuous meetings and three newspapers. It’s unclear to me how we lived in this whirlpool.

Trotsky L.
"My life"

On December 3, Trotsky was arrested for his “Financial Manifesto,” which called for accelerating the financial collapse of tsarism. In 1906, at the trial of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, which received a wide public response, Trotsky was sentenced to eternal settlement in Siberia with deprivation of all civil rights. In 1907, he escaped from the prison camp through Germany to Vienna, where he settled with his wife and children. Trotsky in a cell in the Peter and Paul Fortress, 1905

During this period, his relationship with Lenin became tense. Trotsky publishes the newspaper Pravda for workers and opposition intellectuals, and actively promotes the idea of ​​​​unifying Social Democrats. A hostile campaign by the Bolsheviks unfolded against the Vienna Pravda. Lenin called Trotsky a “Judass” in the article “On the color of shame in Judas Trotsky,” which was published only in 1932 in the Pravda newspaper in the USSR. Lenin sent letters and articles to party bodies and the press in which he wrote that Trotsky and “Trotskyism” were dangerous. As a result, Lenin borrowed the name of Trotsky’s newspaper and began publishing the Bolshevik Pravda in St. Petersburg. It became the most influential newspaper in the Soviet Union.

On July 28, 1914, the First World War began. Trotsky becomes a war correspondent and actively publishes. For revolutionary propaganda in the newspaper Nashe Slovo in September 1916 he was expelled from France.

In January 1917, Trotsky arrived in New York by ship, where he worked for the Russian newspaper " New world" Having received the news, he and his family went to Russia by ship. In Halifax, Canada, he and several other socialists were dropped off and sent to concentration camp for prisoners of war. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, Miliukov, under pressure from the Council of Workers' Deputies, requested the release of the detainees. French passport of Leon Trotsky

Trotsky arrived in Petrograd through Sweden and Finland, where he joined the Interdistrict Organization and became its leader. By mid-1917 the group had grown from several hundred to four thousand members. Lenin sought to unite with the Mezhrayontsy. The unification took place at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP(b), at which time Trotsky was elected to the party’s Central Committee.

Lenin and Trotsky celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution, 1919

In this struggle, Trotsky was defeated - on January 26, 1925, he was deprived of military leadership. In 1926, Trotsky formed an opposition bloc with Kamenev and Zinoviev, his former opponents, and begins to openly oppose Stalin’s line. Soon the opposition platform went underground. There was organized persecution against her.

accept the Mexican authorities. Trotsky settled in Coyoacan, first in the Blue House of artist Frida Kahlo, and then in a villa nearby.

Leon Trotsky (second from left) with Frida Kahlo.

Meanwhile, a show trial was organized in Moscow, at which Trotsky was called an agent of Hitler and sentenced in absentia to death penalty.
Trotsky began writing a book about Stalin, met with journalists from various publications, and proclaimed the creation of the Fourth International - a Trotskyist international organization that aimed main goal world revolution and the victory of the working class.

Trotsky, in response to the Moscow trials, recorded a video message to the world community, in which he accused Stalin of despotism. “It was not communism and socialism that gave birth to this court, but Stalinism,” says Trotsky. He claims that the trial of him and his former opposition comrades (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Pyatakov and others) is based on false evidence in the interests of the ruling elite.

There were two attempts on Trotsky's life. On May 24, the Mexican artist, Stalinist José David Alfaro Siqueiros and a group of militants drove up to Trotsky’s villa and fired about two hundred bullets into the walls, doors and windows of the house. Trotsky and his family survived. In parallel with the Siqueiros group, an NKVD agent infiltrated Trotsky’s trust. He entered his house and on August 20, 1940, dealt a fatal blow with an ice ax, from which Trotsky died the next day.

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Leon Trotsky biography, children - Many historians call Leon Trotsky the second person in the first Soviet government, who headed the People's Commissariat for Naval and Military Affairs. After Vladimir Lenin died, it was Trotsky who led the opposition movement. He even spoke out against Joseph Stalin, which led to Trotsky being deprived of Soviet citizenship and also expelled from Soviet Union and killed.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (real name Leiba Bronstein) was born on November 7, 1879. Lev Davidovich was born near the village of Yanovka. Trotsky's parents were not literate people, so the family was not able to earn capital properly. Lev Davidovich grew up alone, because he was surrounded by the children of peasants, whom he always looked down on and never communicated.

In 1889, Trotsky’s parents sent their son to study in Odessa. It was then that Lev Davidovich became interested in education. The future revolutionary studied so well that he became the best student in all disciplines. He studied, was fond of drawing, wrote poetry and read various books, and did not even think about revolutionary activity.

However, when Lev Davidovich was seventeen years old, he began studying in a socialist circle. All members of this group studied revolutionary propaganda. Of course, this fact influenced Trotsky. He began to actively study the works of Karl Marx and as a result became an adherent of the theory of Marxism.

When Lev Davidovich began to immerse himself even more in revolutionary activity, he decided to organize a union, which he called the “South Russian Workers' Union.”

In 1898, Trotsky was sent to prison. The reason for this was the very revolutionary activity to which Lev Davidovich began to devote all his time. However, two years later the revolutionary was released.

Leon Trotsky biography, children - In 1902, Lev Davidovich travels to London, where he joins Vladimir Lenin. They begin to publish Trotsky in the newspaper, but the revolutionary decides to hide his name, so he takes the pseudonym “Pero”.

Lev Davidovich managed to quickly become close to Lenin. He begins to actively speak to migrants with a campaigning vocation. Trotsky, despite his young age, managed to deliver this or that speech so well and beautifully that he found an approach to literally everyone and, as a result, they began to trust him.

Trotsky supported Lenin’s policies, which eventually led to him even being called “Lenin’s Bludgeon”. However, this did not last long. Already in 1903, Lev Davidovich switched sides and began to continually accuse Vladimir Lenin of dictatorship. However, the revolutionary failed to find a common language with these leaders. As a result, he declares himself a “non-factional” member of the Social Democratic society.

In 1905, Trotsky returned to his native land. In St. Petersburg, Lev Davidovich manages to quickly organize new advice. Lev Davidovich begins to give his fiery speeches again, which lead to the revolutionary being sent to prison again. He was stripped of his citizenship and sent to Siberia. However, Trotsky manages to escape. He ends up in Finland, from where he moves to Europe. In 1908, Leon Trotsky settled in Vienna, where he began publishing a newspaper called Pravda. However, this publication is praised by the Bolsheviks of Vladimir Lenin. As a result, the revolutionary goes to London, where he begins to publish another newspaper, Nashe Slovo.

In 1917, Lev Davidovich decides to return to his native land. In the fall, Trotsky again managed to create the Military Revolutionary Committee. On the twenty-fifth of October or the seventh of November according to the New Style, the revolutionary will decide to begin carrying out armed uprisings, with the help of which Trotsky wanted to remove the government. This uprising even went down in history - the October Revolution.

In 1918, Trotsky became People's Commissar for Naval and Military Affairs. Lev Davidovich begins to form the Red Army. In addition to military affairs, the revolutionary works closely with Vladimir Lenin. However, Trotsky never manages to become Lenin's successor, because Joseph Stalin takes his place.

In 1924, Lev Davidovich began to be persecuted so much by opponents led by Stalin that he lost his post and ceased to be a member of the Central Committee of the Politburo. Several times the revolutionary tried to restore his position and even organized demonstrations, but the result of this was that Trotsky was sent to Turkey. In exile, the revolutionary did not stop fighting Stalin. He published essays, articles and books.

Leon Trotsky biography, children - Trotsky’s first wife was Alexandra Sokolovskaya, with whom they had known each other for a very long time; in those days, Lev Davidovich did not even think about becoming a revolutionary in the future. Historians report that Trotsky's first wife was six years older than him. Alexandra and Leo officially legalized their relationship in 1898. Immediately after the wedding, Trotsky had two daughters - Nina and Zinaida. However, when the revolutionary was expelled to Siberia and he fled to Paris, where he met Natalya Sedova. As a result of such an acquaintance, Trotsky’s first marriage breaks up, and Natalya becomes his second wife. In his second marriage, Lev Davidovich had two sons - Sergei and Lev.

In 1937, a series of misfortunes began in the revolutionary’s family. His younger son Sergey for his political activity was shot, and a year later Trotsky's eldest son, who was also an active Trotskyist, died under suspicious circumstances during an operation to remove appendicitis in Paris.

The daughters of Leon Trotsky also suffered a tragic fate. In 1928, his youngest daughter Nina died of consumption, and his eldest daughter Zinaida, who along with her father was deprived of Soviet citizenship, committed suicide in 1933, being in a state of deep depression.

Following his daughters and sons, in 1938, Trotsky also lost his first wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who until her death remained his only legal wife. She was shot in Moscow as a stubborn supporter of the Left Opposition.

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At the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 1920s. Trotsky's popularity and influence reached their apogee, and a cult of his personality began to take shape. Who is he? This man is a legend, who was overtaken by an NKVD bullet 20 years later?

TROTSKY (real name Bronstein) Lev Davidovich (1879-1940), Russian political figure. In the Social Democratic movement since 1896. Since 1904 he advocated the unification of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. In 1905, he mainly developed the theory of “permanent” (continuous) revolution: according to Trotsky, the Russian proletariat, having realized the bourgeois one, will begin the socialist stage of the revolution, which will win only with the help of the world proletariat. During the revolution of 1905-07 he proved himself to be an extraordinary organizer, speaker, and publicist; the de facto leader of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, editor of its Izvestia. He belonged to the most radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. In 1908-12, editor of the newspaper Pravda. In 1917, chairman of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, one of the leaders of the October armed uprising. In 1917-18, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; in 1918-25, People's Commissar for Military Affairs, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic; one of the founders of the Red Army, personally led its actions on many fronts of the Civil War, and made extensive use of repression. Member of the Central Committee in 1917-27, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee in October 1917 and in 1919-26. Trotsky's fierce struggle with I.V. Stalin for leadership ended in Trotsky's defeat - in 1924 Trotsky's views (so-called Trotskyism) were declared a “petty-bourgeois deviation” in the RCP(b). In 1927 he was expelled from the party, exiled to Alma-Ata, and in 1929 - abroad. He sharply criticized the Stalinist regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of proletarian power. Initiator of the creation of the 4th International (1938). Killed in Mexico by an NKVD agent, Spaniard R. Mercader. Author of works on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, literary critical articles, and memoirs “My Life” (Berlin, 1930).

Trotsky Lev Davidovich* * *

TROTSKY Lev Davidovich (real name Leiba Bronstein), Russian and international political figure, publicist, thinker.

Childhood and youth

Born into the family of a wealthy landowner from among the Jewish colonists. His father only learned to read in his old age. Trotsky's childhood languages ​​were Ukrainian and Russian; he never mastered Yiddish. He studied at a real school in Odessa and Nikolaev, where he was the first student in all disciplines. He was interested in drawing, literature, wrote poetry, translated Krylov's fables from Russian to Ukrainian language, participated in the publication of a school handwritten magazine. During these years, his rebellious character first appeared: due to a conflict with a teacher French he was temporarily expelled from the school.

Political universities

In 1896 in Nikolaev, young Lev joined a circle whose members studied scientific and popular literature. At first he sympathized with the ideas of the populists and vehemently rejected Marxism, considering it a dry and alien teaching. Already during this period, many traits of his personality appeared - a sharp mind, polemical gift, energy, self-confidence, ambition, and a penchant for leadership.

Together with other members of the circle, Bronstein taught political literacy to workers, took an active part in writing proclamations, publishing a newspaper, and acted as a speaker at rallies, putting forward demands of an economic nature.

In January 1898 he was arrested along with like-minded people. During the investigation, Bronstein studied English, German, French and Italian languages, studied the works of Marx, becoming a fanatical adherent of his teachings, and became acquainted with the works of Lenin. He was convicted and sentenced to four years of exile in Eastern Siberia. While under investigation in Butyrka prison, he married a fellow revolutionary, Alexandra Sokolovskaya.

Since the fall of 1900, the young family was in exile in the Irkutsk province. Bronstein worked as a clerk for a millionaire Siberian merchant, then collaborated with the Irkutsk newspaper Eastern Review, where he published literary critical articles and essays about Siberian life. It was here that his extraordinary ability to use a pen first appeared. In 1902, Bronstein, with the consent of his wife, leaving her with two small daughters, Zina and Nina, fled alone abroad. When escaping, he entered into a false passport his new surname, borrowed from the warden of an Odessa prison, Trotsky, by which he became known throughout the world.

First emigration

Arriving in London, Trotsky became close to the leaders of Russian Social Democracy living in exile. He read abstracts defending Marxism in the colonies of Russian emigrants in England, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Four months after his arrival from Russia, Trotsky, at the suggestion of Lenin, who highly appreciated the abilities and energy of the young adept, was co-opted to the editorial office of Iskra.

In 1903 in Paris, Trotsky married Natalya Sedova, who became his faithful companion and shared all the ups and downs that abounded in his life.

In the summer of 1903, Trotsky participated in the Second Congress of Russian Social Democracy, where he supported Martov’s position on the issue of the party charter. After the congress, Trotsky, together with the Mensheviks, accused Lenin and the Bolsheviks of dictatorship and destruction of the unity of the Social Democrats. But in the fall of 1904, a conflict broke out between Trotsky and the leaders of Menshevism over the issue of attitude towards the liberal bourgeoisie and he became a “non-factional” Social Democrat, claiming to create a movement that would stand above the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Revolution 1905-1907

Having learned about the beginning of the revolution in Russia, Trotsky returned to his homeland illegally. He spoke in the press, taking radical positions. In October 1905 he became deputy chairman, then chairman of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. In December, he was arrested along with the council.

In prison he created the work “Results and Prospects”, where the theory of “permanent” revolution was formulated. Trotsky proceeded from the uniqueness of the historical path of Russia, where tsarism should be replaced not by bourgeois democracy, as the liberals and Mensheviks believed, and not by the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, as the Bolsheviks believed, but by the power of the workers, which was supposed to impose its will on the entire population of the country and rely on the world revolution.

In 1907, Trotsky was sentenced to eternal settlement in Siberia with deprivation of all civil rights, but on the way to his place of exile he fled again.

Second emigration

From 1908 to 1912, Trotsky published the newspaper Pravda in Vienna (this name was later borrowed by Lenin), and in 1912 he tried to create an “August bloc” of Social Democrats. This period included his most acute clashes with Lenin, who called Trotsky “Judas”.

In 1912, Trotsky was a war correspondent for “Kyiv Thought” in the Balkans, and after the outbreak of World War I - in France (this work gave him military experience that was later useful). Having taken a sharply anti-war position, he attacked the governments of all the warring powers with all the might of his political temperament. In 1916 he was expelled from France and sailed to the USA, where he continued to appear in print.

Return to revolutionary Russia

Having learned about February Revolution, Trotsky headed home. In May 1917 he arrived in Russia and took a position of sharp criticism of the Provisional Government. In July, he joined the Bolshevik Party as a member of the Mezhrayontsy. He showed his talent as an orator in all its brilliance in factories, in educational institutions, in theaters, squares, and circuses, as usual, he performed prolifically as a publicist. After the July days he was arrested and ended up in prison. In September, after his liberation, professing radical views and presenting them in a populist form, he became the idol of the Baltic sailors and soldiers of the city garrison and was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. In addition, he became chairman of the military revolutionary committee created by the council. He was the de facto leader of the October armed uprising.

At the pinnacle of power

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Participating in separate negotiations with the powers of the “quadruple bloc,” he put forward the formula “we stop the war, we don’t sign peace, we demobilize the army,” which was supported by the Bolshevik Central Committee (Lenin was against it). Somewhat later, after the resumption of the offensive by German troops, Lenin managed to achieve the acceptance and signing of the terms of the “obscene” peace, after which Trotsky resigned as People’s Commissar.

In the spring of 1918, Trotsky was appointed to the post of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and chairman of the revolutionary military council of the republic. In this post he showed himself to be highest degree talented and energetic organizer. To create a combat-ready army, he took decisive and cruel measures: taking hostages, executions and imprisonment in prisons and concentration camps of opponents, deserters and violators of military discipline, and no exception was made for the Bolsheviks. Trotsky did a great job of recruiting former Tsarist officers and generals (“military experts”) into the Red Army and defended them from attacks by some high-ranking communists. During the Civil War, his train ran through railways on all fronts; The People's Commissar of Military and Marine supervised the actions of the fronts, made fiery speeches to the troops, punished the guilty, and rewarded those who distinguished themselves.

In general, during this period there was close cooperation between Trotsky and Lenin, although on a number of issues of a political (for example, discussion about trade unions) and military-strategic (the fight against the troops of General Denikin, the defense of Petrograd from the troops of General Yudenich and the war with Poland) nature between them there were serious disagreements.

At the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 1920s. Trotsky's popularity and influence reached their apogee, and a cult of his personality began to take shape.

In 1920-21, he was one of the first to propose measures to curtail “war communism” and transition to the NEP.

The fight against Stalin

Before Lenin's death and especially after it, a struggle for power broke out among the Bolshevik leaders. Trotsky was opposed by the majority of the country's leadership, led by Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, who suspected him of dictatorial, Bonapartist plans. In 1923, Trotsky, with his book “Lessons of October,” began the so-called literary discussion, criticizing the behavior of Zinoviev and Kamenev during the October revolution. In addition, in a number of articles, Trotsky accused the “triumvirate” of bureaucratization and violation of party democracy, and advocated the involvement of important political problems youth.

Trotsky's opponents relied on the bureaucracy and, showing great determination, unprincipledness and cunning, speculating on the topic of his previous disagreements with Lenin, dealt a strong blow to Trotsky's authority. He was removed from his posts; his supporters are ousted from the leadership of the party and state. Trotsky's views (“Trotskyism”) were declared a petty-bourgeois movement hostile to Leninism.

In the mid-1920s, Trotsky, joined by Zinoviev and Kamenev, continued to sharply criticize the Soviet leadership, accusing it of betraying the ideals of the October Revolution, including abandoning the world revolution. Trotsky demanded the restoration of party democracy, the strengthening of the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat and an attack on the positions of the Nepmen and kulaks. The majority of the party again sided with Stalin.

In 1927, Trotsky was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee, expelled from the party, and in January 1928 exiled to Alma-Ata.

Last exile

By decision of the Politburo in 1929 he was expelled from the USSR. Together with his wife and eldest son Lev Sedov, Trotsky ended up on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of ​​Marmara (Turkey). Here Trotsky, continuing to coordinate the activities of his followers in the USSR and abroad, began publishing the “Bulletin of the Opposition” and wrote his autobiography “My Life”. The memoirs were a response to anti-Trotskyist propaganda in the USSR and a justification for his life.

His main historical work was written at Prinkipo - “The History of the Russian Revolution”, dedicated to the events of 1917. This work was intended to prove the historical exhaustion of Tsarist Russia, to justify the inevitability of the February Revolution and its development into the October Revolution.

In 1933 he moved to France, in 1935 to Norway. Trotsky tirelessly criticized the policies of the Soviet leadership, refuted the claims of official propaganda and Soviet statistics. The industrialization and collectivization carried out in the USSR was sharply criticized by him for adventurism and cruelty.

In 1935, Trotsky created his most important work on the analysis of Soviet society - “The Betrayed Revolution”, where it was considered in the focus of the contradiction between the interests of the main population of the country and the bureaucratic caste led by Stalin, whose policies, in the author’s opinion, undermined social foundations building. Trotsky proclaimed the need for a political revolution, the task of which would be to eliminate the dominance of the bureaucracy in the country.

At the end of 1936 he left Europe, finding refuge in Mexico, where he settled in the house of the artist Diego Rivera, then in a fortified and carefully guarded villa in the city of Coyocan.

In 1937-38, after the unfolding of trials against the opposition in the USSR, in which he himself was tried in absentia, Trotsky paid a lot of attention to exposing them as falsified. In 1937 in New York, an international commission of inquiry into the Moscow trials, chaired by the American philosopher John Dewey, rendered a not guilty verdict against Trotsky and his associates.

All these years, Trotsky did not abandon attempts to rally supporters. In 1938, the IV International was proclaimed, which included small and disparate groups from various countries. This brainchild of Trotsky, which he considered the most important for himself during this period, turned out to be unviable and disintegrated shortly after the death of the founder.

The Soviet intelligence services kept Trotsky under close surveillance, having agents among his associates. In 1938 at mysterious circumstances In Paris, his closest and tireless ally, his eldest son Lev Sedov, died in a hospital after an operation. From the Soviet Union there was news not only of unprecedentedly cruel repressions against the “Trotskyists”. His first wife and his youngest son Sergei Sedov were arrested and subsequently shot. The accusation of Trotskyism in the USSR at this time became the most terrible and dangerous.

Last days

In 1939, Stalin gave the order to liquidate his longtime enemy.

Having turned into a Koyokan recluse, Trotsky worked on his book about Stalin, in which he considered his hero as a fatal figure for socialism. From his pen came an appeal to the working people of the Soviet Union with a call to throw off the power of Stalin and his cliques, articles in the “Bulletin of the Opposition”, in which he sharply condemned the Soviet-German rapprochement, justified the USSR’s war against Finland and supported the entry Soviet troops to the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Anticipating his imminent death, at the beginning of 1940 Trotsky wrote a will, where he spoke of satisfaction with his fate as a Marxist revolutionary, proclaimed an unshakable faith in the triumph of the Fourth International and in the imminent world socialist revolution.

In May 1940, the first attempt on Trotsky's life, which ended in failure, was made, led by the Mexican artist Siqueiros.

On August 20, 1940, Ramon Mercader, an NKVD agent who had infiltrated Trotsky's entourage, mortally wounded him. On August 21, Trotsky died. He was buried in the courtyard of his house, where his museum is now located.

P.S. Tatiana Moreva

1. Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo in the summer of 1926 (and not in 1927).

2. “Struggle for leadership” with Stalin is, to put it mildly, an incorrect formulation. Firstly, in 1923-24. Stalin was not so popular or influential as to compete for leadership, and Zinoviev really competed with Trotsky (since 1920) (it was not for nothing that he read the traditionally “Leninist” report at the first without Lenin, the Twelfth Congress); Stalin simply quietly seized power in the apparatus, taking advantage of the fact that Zinoviev was in St. Petersburg, and Kamenev was swamped with other work. Secondly, it would be more correct to talk about the struggle for influence; under a democratic regime in the party real power possessed the one who dominated the minds, and Trotsky’s trouble is precisely that here no one could really compete with him. Both Zinoviev and especially Stalin annoyed Trotsky too much even under Lenin, which is why - being vindictive and vindictive themselves - they feared that Trotsky would reckon with them (using his influence); That’s why we had to curtail democracy - so that the “leaders” (the rulers of thoughts) would be replaced by “ officials", endowed with simple bureaucratic power.

3. I give the author credit for mentioning that it was Trotsky who proposed the NEP, back in early 1920 (by the way, after its introduction, it was Trotsky, and not Bukharin, who became the main theorist of the NEP: he explained what the NEP was to foreign communists in Comintern, he also made the main economic report at the XII Congress); but it’s high time to sort out the “discussion about trade unions.” It is not by chance that Lenin, in his “Letter to the Congress,” recalling this story, writes “on the question of the NKPS” (the People’s Commissariat of Railways, which Trotsky headed at that time), and not “about the trade unions.” The “discussion about trade unions” was invented by Zinoviev, and Lenin and Trotsky argued about something completely different: is it possible to make scapegoats of people who at a critical moment saved transport using not entirely democratic methods...

Trotsky, briefly personality

Lev Davidovich Trotsky short biography for children

Lev Davidovich Trotsky, in short, is one of the most prominent participants in the revolutionary movement of the 20th century, the founder of Trotskyism, one of the directions of Marxism. The scope of the activities of this international politician is simply amazing. He was one of the organizers of the 1917 revolution along with Lenin. Trotsky was involved in the creation of the Red Army and was its first leader. Occupied high positions in the new Soviet government.

Speaking about Trotsky, we need to briefly dwell on his pseudonym. The real name of the revolutionary is Leib Bronstein. He chose the name Trotsky at random. That was the name of the warden in the prison where the revolutionary was imprisoned.

Trotsky was born in 1879 into a large, wealthy family of a landowner in the Kherson province. Having entered the school in Odessa, he immediately became the first student. He continued his studies in the city of Nikolaev, where he began to attend a revolutionary circle. In 1898, he went to prison for revolutionary activities, where two things happened to Trotsky. important events in his life. He becomes a Marxist and gets married.

After two years of imprisonment, he goes into exile in Siberia, but soon flees from there abroad under the pseudonym of Trotsky. Since then, this name has been assigned to him for the rest of his life.
Abroad, Trotsky begins active work. He ardently supports Lenin, works as a correspondent for the revolutionary newspaper Iskra, and marries (unofficially) a second time. He will never divorce his first wife.

During the revolution of 1905, Trotsky secretly returned to Russian Empire. There he was arrested a second time, and during trial, which received great publicity, was deprived of all rights and exiled to Siberia forever. He safely escaped from the country right from under the convoy carrying convicts to a settlement. For a long time lived in exile in Austria, France and the USA.

Trotsky's talent as an extraordinary organizer and speaker was most clearly revealed during the 1917 revolution and the Civil War. At one time he headed the Bolshevik faction. He was one of the leader-organizers of the 1917 uprising.

During the Civil War, Trotsky became the first leader of the Red Guard. The army he created with the help of iron discipline was able to defeat the enemy, but after the end of the Civil War, Trotsky with his authoritarian management style was no longer needed.
After Lenin's death, Trotsky participated in the struggle for power. Gradually he is removed from all posts.