Leon Trotsky: Firm conviction in defense of social causes (+birth)

Trotsky opposed the government of the Soviet Union and led to his expulsion from the country in 1929, so he spent periods in Turkey, France or Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In the North American state, he radicalized his criticism of Stalinism, causing him to be the victim of two attacks in 1940, the second of which cost his life.

Although he sympathized with the Mensheviks and had ideological and personal disputes with the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky was one of the key organizers of the October Revolution, which allowed the Bolsheviks to take power in November 1917 in Russia. During the ensuing civil war, he served as commissioner for military affairs.

He was responsible for the creation of the Red Army, which would definitely consolidate revolutionary achievements by defeating fourteen foreign armies and white armies during the Russian civil war, and was awarded the Order of the Red Flag.

Later, he politically and ideologically confronted Iósif Stalin, leading the left-wing opposition, which caused his exile and subsequent assassination. After his exile from the Soviet Union, he was the leader of an international revolutionary left movement identified with the name of Trotskyism and characterized by the idea of “permanent revolution”. In 1938 he founded the Fourth International.

Ramón Mercader, a Spanish agent of the Soviet NKVD, assassinated Trotsky in Mexico. During the previous months, this man gained the trust of the Russian politician by appearing to be an admirer born in Belgium. In his approach, Mercader even became the boyfriend of the sister of Trotsky's secretary, so he managed to gradually get her to trust him to the point of letting him go to his office without being registered.

Thus, on August 20, 1940, he appeared in his office with the excuse of reviewing an article that he was going to publish in an office, a moment he took the opportunity to stick an ice axe in his head. However, the assaulted person did not die immediately and shouted to alert the guards, even asking them not to kill him to find out who was sending Mercader. Then he died the next day.

Mazo News Team