Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on 7 November 1879 in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire, was a central figure in the revolutionary politics of early twentieth-century Russia. A leading participant in the 1905 Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917, and the Russian Civil War, he played a decisive role in the establishment of the Soviet state. Trotsky emerged as one of the most prominent Bolshevik leaders alongside Vladimir Lenin until Lenin’s death in 1924. His political thought, later known as Trotskyism, developed into a distinct branch of Marxism centred on international revolution and opposition to Stalinist doctrine.
From his early political activities in Ukraine to his assassination in Mexico in 1940, Trotsky’s life encompassed revolutionary action, administrative leadership, ideological development, and exile. His legacy remains deeply influential within socialist theory, anti-Stalinist politics, and studies of the Soviet Union.

Childhood and Family Background

Trotsky was born into a prosperous Jewish farming family in the village of Yanovka, now Bereslavka in Ukraine. His father, David Bronstein, was a Russified Jewish colonist, and his mother, Anna Lvovna, came from the Zhivotovsky family. Though sometimes assumed to have had the Yiddish name Leiba, historical analysis indicates that his childhood name was Lyova, a common diminutive of Lev, reflecting the family’s use of Russian and Ukrainian rather than Yiddish.
He excelled academically from an early age. Sent to Odessa at the age of eight, he attended a German-language Lutheran school and was influenced by the city’s cosmopolitan atmosphere. He demonstrated strong talent in mathematics and science and became an avid reader, often pursuing material beyond the school curriculum. Odessa’s international environment contributed to his early political awareness and his later interest in European socialist movements.

Early Revolutionary Activity and Imprisonment

Trotsky became active in revolutionary circles in 1896 after moving to Mykolaiv. Initially drawn to narodnik populism, he was soon converted to Marxism by Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, who later became his first wife. He engaged in organising the South Russian Workers’ Union, produced pamphlets, and advocated socialist ideas among workers and students.
Arrested in 1898 along with over 200 union members, Trotsky spent two years moving through prisons in Nikolayev, Kherson, Odessa, and Moscow. During this period, he familiarised himself with Lenin’s writings and with the political debates shaping the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), which had held its first congress shortly after his arrest.

Siberian Exile and First Marriage

In 1900 Trotsky was sentenced to four years of exile in Siberia, where he and Sokolovskaya lived in the Lake Baikal region. They had two daughters, Nina and Zinaida, both of whom later died young. Exile provided Trotsky with time to study Marx, political economy, and contemporary socialist debates. He aligned himself with the editorial position of Iskra (The Spark), a newspaper founded by Lenin and other exiled Marxists.
Trotsky escaped Siberia in 1902, concealed in a load of hay, adopting the pseudonym Trotsky, which became his permanent political name. His wife and children escaped later, though his marriage would eventually dissolve as his revolutionary responsibilities and travel increased.

Emigration and Party Factionalism

After escaping Siberia, Trotsky travelled to London where he met Lenin and joined the wider émigré socialist community. During the RSDLP’s 1903 split, he initially sided with the Mensheviks, opposing what he perceived as Lenin’s overly centralised model of party organisation. By 1904 he declared himself non-aligned, criticising both factions while seeking unity within the socialist movement.
Following the 1905 Revolution, in which he served as chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet, Trotsky was again arrested and exiled to Siberia. He escaped in 1907 and resumed life in exile, residing in various European cities and continuing to write on political and revolutionary issues.

Role in the 1917 Revolutions

After the February Revolution of 1917, Trotsky returned to Russia and joined the Bolsheviks, whose strategy now aligned more closely with his own. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he became one of the leading organisers of the October Revolution, contributing to the overthrow of the Provisional Government.
As People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, he negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, withdrawing Russia from the First World War. From 1918 to 1925, he served as People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, founding and commanding the Red Army. Under his leadership, the Red Army achieved victory in the Russian Civil War, despite facing numerous domestic and foreign opponents.

Power Struggles and Exile

By the early 1920s, Trotsky opposed growing bureaucratisation in the Soviet state. In 1922, Lenin formed a political alliance with Trotsky against the emerging nomenklatura system, though Trotsky refused Lenin’s suggestion that he become Deputy Premier. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Trotsky’s opposition to Joseph Stalin sharpened.
Trotsky led the Left Opposition, which criticised the New Economic Policy and advocated rapid industrialisation and international revolution. Stalin gradually consolidated power, and Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo in 1926, from the Communist Party in 1927, and eventually deported from the Soviet Union in 1929.
Trotsky lived in Turkey, France, and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. There he continued to write extensively, denouncing Stalinism and defending the principles of proletarian internationalism.

Theoretical Contributions

Trotsky advanced several key Marxist ideas:

• Permanent Revolution: The belief that in countries with delayed bourgeois development, socialist revolution must be led by the proletariat and must spread internationally to survive.
• Critique of “Socialism in One Country”: Trotsky argued that socialism required global revolution, contrary to Stalin’s domestically oriented doctrine.
• Theory of the Degenerated Workers’ State: In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), he argued that the USSR remained a workers’ state but had undergone bureaucratic degeneration.
• Fourth International: Founded in 1938 as a counterweight to the Stalin-dominated Comintern, representing Trotskyist revolutionary movements worldwide.

Assassination and Legacy

In 1940 Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, an agent of Stalin’s secret police. Trotsky had been sentenced to death in absentia during the Moscow show trials, and Stalin pursued his elimination as part of the wider policy of erasing political rivals.
Unlike many figures purged under Stalin, Trotsky was never rehabilitated in the Soviet Union. In contrast, he became a symbol of the anti-Stalinist left, admired for his advocacy of socialist democracy and internationalism. His prolific writings on revolution, bureaucracy, and Marxist theory have continued to influence political movements, historical scholarship, and debates on the nature of the Soviet system.