1940: The murder of Trotsky

Of the events of 1940, 10 out of 15 experts and readers chose the murder of Leo Trotsky. He died at his villa in Mexico by the hands of the NKVD agent Ramon Mercader on August 20, 1940.

Of the events of 1940, 10 out of 15 experts and readers chose the murder of Leo Trotsky. He died at his villa in Mexico by the hands of the NKVD agent Ramon Mercader on August 20, 1940. Trotsky was perhaps the only vowel opponent of Stalin, the Stalinist autocracy - from the moment he was expelled from the country until his death in 1940. His fate is tragic. In January 1928, Trotsky was sent from Moscow. Thirty years before, the young Lev Bronstein (he took Trotsky in 1902) for the first time saw this city from the window of the prison car when he was transferred from Odessa prison to exile in Siberia. Now, in 1928, he threw the last look at Moscow. What has changed over these thirty years? He came to this city with a persecuted revolutionary and left him again - a persecuted revolutionary. My generation, which lived its best years in the post -Stalinsky period, has never faced the mention of Trotsky’s name in a positive context. For example, I did not know that he was the author of a hundred volumes of works published in America and the Federal Republic of Germany. We never thought about the fact that it was Trotsky that was one of the organizers of the October Revolution, the first chairman of the Petrograd Council, the creator and founder of the Red Army, the first Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs and, in general, the first person of the era of the formation of Soviet power. In 1917, the names of Trotsky and Lenin were on a par. It is enough to turn the "Petersburg diary" of Zinaida Gippius, who hated the Bolsheviks to see: she refers primarily to Trotsky (by no means to Lenin) as a person who realized the ideas of the October Revolution. Trotsky before anyone, I realized what Stalin is. And he called him an unprincipled intriguer, subordinating everything to the thirst for power and knowing only revenge and a knife in the back. Stalin was well aware of Trotsky's attitude towards him. Therefore, he sent him - first to Alma -Ata, and then to Turkey. On January 22, 1929, Trotsky and his family were taken out of Alma-Ata under an enhanced escort. Mountain deserts were transported through the pass. They put it in a special train, which was heading to Central European Russia. And twelve days and nights, while he was on the way, they were not allowed to leave the car. On February 10, 1929, in the Odessa port, the exiles were transferred to an empty steamer called "Ilyich". So Trotsky and his family left Russia. The sea was covered with ice. For a hundred kilometers, an icebreaker laid the ship. In Constantinople, a farce broke out: Trotsky expelled from the country was brought from the pier to the Soviet consulate. He, branded in the Soviet Union as a political criminal, was met with honors, which was to be provided to the head of October and the creator of the Red Army. The fact is that Stalin did not announce the expulsion officially. And the Turkish government at the time of the arrival of Trotsky also did not know that he was an exile, since our embassy turned to the Turkish government with a request to give Trotsky an entry visa for reasons of the correction of his health. The position of the exile and his family was humiliating - there was not enough money for decent housing. We settled on the Princess Islands in the Sea, an hour and a half on the steamer from Constantinople. The literary earnings of Trotsky abroad were not God the news as great. But still, his book "My Life" was printed both in America and England. The English newspaper "Satedi Ivoning Post" published a series of articles "History of the Russian Revolution." Trotsky took his archive from Russia and at the time of the lack of money sold it to Harvard University for 15 thousand dollars. The Kremlin exile was one of the largest monsters of the revolution. Stalin was afraid and hated him and hated him, and the ruling parties in the West were afraid of. And even Winston Churchill, who later included an essay about him in his book "Great Contemporaries" and called Trotsky "evil skin." The political statements that Trotsky made in Turkey exposed the unshakable enemy of capitalism in him. He was just as defiantly self -confident from his homeland as in the days when he made incendiary speeches before the fighters of the Red Army. And he turned to the world - as if from the stands of the communist International. Trotsky called for revolutionary internationalism, proclaimed the interests of communism supranational. He defended the idea of the World Revolution, which completely owned it in the same way as Lenin. He said that the working class could come to socialism only through the greatest sacrifices, giving its blood and nerves, but these cleansing sacrifices are necessary ... Trotsky’s force was in his great talent, mind and charm. However, this man who has been generously gifted with nature committed a huge number of mistakes, sins, and crimes. His own tragic fate and the tragic fate of his family (the sons of Trotsky were killed, one daughter died, and the other committed suicide) - to some extent, probably, were a reckoning for this. If we can talk about a kind of highest square behind the super -sork ... In the Soviet Union of the Stalinist era, propaganda purposefully formed the image of Trotsky as an enemy of the people. The word "Trotskyism" was the most terrible word and served as the basis for the physical destruction of people. The processes of Rykov, Bukharin, Tomsk, Rakovsky, Krestinsky, Enukidze and others went under the flag of the struggle with the hydra of "Trotskyism". When Trotsky was in Mexico, his son Leo published in Paris the opposition ballot, where he refuted the fact that, according to the Soviet press, occurred on the processes of the Trotskyists. A friend named Etienne helped Leo, to whom he completely trusted, not suspecting that under the name of Etienne, an employee of the NKVD Mark Zborovsky entered his trust. In the end, the "friend" killed a lion in Paris. The Kremlin dictator sought to destroy his sworn enemy with all his might. The Stalinist agents were relentlessly followed by the exile on the heels, arranged arson and explosions of the houses, where he and his archive were. Hunting was crowned with success. A young man named Ramon Merkader managed to charm the sister of Trotsky’s secretary and penetrate his well -guarded villa under the pretext that he wants to show his article for the newspaper the famous revolutionary. At that moment, when Trotsky bowed over the manuscript brought in his office, Merkader killed him with several blows of the ice ax. After serving twenty years in prison, the killer settled in Cuba. Shortly before his death, October 18, 1978, he received the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. It may seem that Stalin defeated his worst enemy. But, in my opinion, this victory contains a taste of defeat. While the defeat of Trotsky brings the taste of victory. Today, even in prosperous England, there is a Trotskyist party created by the famous English actress Vanessa Redgrave. Among American and English intellectuals, Trotskyist ideas are in use. These ideas are especially popular where the polarization of society is strong, where between the poor and the rich is the abyss, where illusions are alive, that we can achieve social equality and hope for a fair structure of society. These illusions and hopes were not erased in the minds of people even after the Apostle of the Doctrine of the Bloody, but necessary and cleansing path to the earthly paradise, Lev Trotsky, was killed.

Trotsky was perhaps the only vowel opponent of Stalin, the Stalinist autocracy - from the moment he was expelled from the country until his death in 1940.

His fate is tragic. In January 1928, Trotsky was sent from Moscow. Thirty years before, the young Lev Bronstein (he took Trotsky in 1902) for the first time saw this city from the window of the prison car when he was transferred from Odessa prison to exile in Siberia. Now, in 1928, he threw the last look at Moscow. What has changed over these thirty years? He came to this city with a persecuted revolutionary and left him again - a persecuted revolutionary.

My generation, which lived its best years in the post -Stalinsky period, has never faced the mention of Trotsky’s name in a positive context. For example, I did not know that he was the author of a hundred volumes of works published in America and the Federal Republic of Germany. We never thought about the fact that it was Trotsky that was one of the organizers of the October Revolution, the first chairman of the Petrograd Council, the creator and founder of the Red Army, the first Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs and, in general, the first person of the era of the formation of Soviet power. In 1917, the names of Trotsky and Lenin were on a par. It is enough to turn the "Petersburg diary" of Zinaida Gippius, who hated the Bolsheviks to see: she refers primarily to Trotsky (by no means to Lenin) as a person who realized the ideas of the October Revolution.

Trotsky before anyone, I realized what Stalin is. And he called him an unprincipled intriguer, subordinating everything to the thirst for power and knowing only revenge and a knife in the back. Stalin was well aware of Trotsky's attitude towards him. Therefore, he sent him - first to Alma -Ata, and then to Turkey.

On January 22, 1929, Trotsky and his family were taken out of Alma-Ata under an enhanced escort. Mountain deserts were transported through the pass. They put it in a special train, which was heading to Central European Russia. And twelve days and nights, while he was on the way, they were not allowed to leave the car. On February 10, 1929, in the Odessa port, the exiles were transferred to an empty steamer called "Ilyich". So Trotsky and his family left Russia. The sea was covered with ice. For a hundred kilometers, an icebreaker laid the ship.

In Constantinople, a farce broke out: Trotsky expelled from the country was brought from the pier to the Soviet consulate. He, branded in the Soviet Union as a political criminal, was met with honors, which was to be provided to the head of October and the creator of the Red Army. The fact is that Stalin did not announce the expulsion officially. And the Turkish government at the time of the arrival of Trotsky also did not know that he was an exile, since our embassy turned to the Turkish government with a request to give Trotsky an entry visa for reasons of the correction of his health.

The position of the exile and his family was humiliating - there was not enough money for decent housing. We settled on the Princess Islands in the Sea, an hour and a half on the steamer from Constantinople.

The literary earnings of Trotsky abroad were not God the news as great. But still, his book "My Life" was printed both in America and England. The English newspaper "Satedi Ivoning Post" published a series of articles "History of the Russian Revolution." Trotsky took his archive from Russia and at the time of the lack of money sold it to Harvard University for 15 thousand dollars.

The Kremlin exile was one of the largest monsters of the revolution. Stalin was afraid and hated him and hated him, and the ruling parties in the West were afraid of. And even Winston Churchill, who later included an essay about him in his book "Great Contemporaries" and called Trotsky "evil skin." The political statements that Trotsky made in Turkey exposed the unshakable enemy of capitalism in him. He was just as defiantly self -confident from his homeland as in the days when he made incendiary speeches before the fighters of the Red Army. And he turned to the world - as if from the stands of the communist International.

Trotsky called for revolutionary internationalism, proclaimed the interests of communism supranational. He defended the idea of the World Revolution, which completely owned it in the same way as Lenin. He said that the working class could come to socialism only through the greatest sacrifices, giving its blood and nerves, but these cleansing sacrifices are necessary ... Trotsky’s force was in his great talent, mind and charm. However, this man who has been generously gifted with nature committed a huge number of mistakes, sins, and crimes. His own tragic fate and the tragic fate of his family (the sons of Trotsky were killed, one daughter died, and the other committed suicide) - to some extent, probably, were a reckoning for this. If we can talk about a certain Highest Kare for the Superheet ...

In the Soviet Union of the Stalinist era, propaganda purposefully formed the image of Trotsky as an enemy of the people. The word "Trotskyism" was the most terrible word and served as the basis for the physical destruction of people. The processes of Rykov, Bukharin, Tomsk, Rakovsky, Krestinsky, Enukidze and others went under the flag of the struggle with the hydra of "Trotskyism". When Trotsky was in Mexico, his son Leo published in Paris the opposition ballot, where he refuted the fact that, according to the Soviet press, occurred on the processes of the Trotskyists. A friend named Etienne helped Leo, to whom he completely trusted, not suspecting that under the name of Etienne, an employee of the NKVD Mark Zborovsky entered his trust. In the end, the "friend" killed a lion in Paris.

The Kremlin dictator sought to destroy his sworn enemy with all his might. The Stalinist agents were relentlessly followed by the exile on the heels, arranged arson and explosions of the houses, where he and his archive were. Hunting was crowned with success.

A young man named Ramon Merkader managed to charm the sister of Trotsky’s secretary and penetrate his well -guarded villa under the pretext that he wants to show his article for the newspaper the famous revolutionary. At that moment, when Trotsky bowed over the manuscript brought in his office, Merkader killed him with several blows of the ice ax. After serving twenty years in prison, the killer settled in Cuba. Shortly before his death, October 18, 1978, he received the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

It may seem that Stalin defeated his worst enemy. But, in my opinion, this victory contains a taste of defeat. While the defeat of Trotsky brings the taste of victory. Today, even in prosperous England, there is a Trotskyist party created by the famous English actress Vanessa Redgrave. Among American and English intellectuals, Trotskyist ideas are in use. These ideas are especially popular where the polarization of society is strong, where between the poor and the rich is the abyss, where illusions are alive, that we can achieve social equality and hope for a fair structure of society. These illusions and hopes were not erased in the minds of people even after the Apostle of the Doctrine of the Bloody, but necessary and cleansing path to the earthly paradise, Lev Trotsky, was killed.