Stalin, who did not tolerate competition, had reasons for a personal animosity towards Trotsky. In the aftermath of the Show Trials, he believed an even more important reason would drive Stalin to come to an agreement with Berlin: survival. Can you add some more details to this answer, fleshing it out a bit more? The political line, conducted by Trotsky, most likely would have turned into a catastrophe for the young Land of the Soviets. If Lenin had been in better health in his last days, Trotsky might have won because Lenin preferred him. His ignorance of foreign languages compels him to follow the political life of other countries at second-hand. After Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet head of state, suffered a stroke in early 1923, Trotsky and Stalin engaged in a contest for power. Its aim was to provide a revolutionary alternative to the Moscow-led Third or Communist International (Comintern). Although Trotsky had absolutely no prospect of overthrowing Stalin as leader of the USSR, he could have made it much harder to galvanise foreign communists, and get sympathy and support from Western governments. By early November, Trotsky had all but sacked the capital city. Blyukher had no problem with an innocent man been executed, the only thing he was against in this brilliant plan, is the mother of his child being such a man. Isaac Babel, whom Trotsky once termed the most talented of our younger writers, confessed to working as a spy and terrorist mastermind for Trotsky. When he read the infamous sentence uttered by Stalins Prosecutor-General, Andrey VyshinskyI demand that these dogs gone mad should be shotevery one of them!Trotsky knew this was no idle threat. Collective ownership and control of the means of production (e.g. His answer was absolutely unequivocal. Credit: Hulton Archive/Toronto Star. This revolution, Trotsky made clear, would resemble the European upheavals of 1830 and 1848 more than the October Revolution. At the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party, held in Brussels and London in July 1903, Trotsky sided with the Menshevik factionadvocating a democratic approach to socialismagainst Lenin and the Bolsheviks. I get it that Trotsky may have had some respect in certain parts of the army's top brass, being a political figure who had run the army with skill during the civil war and who had never abased himself by recanting after losing in the internal power struggle among leading Bolshevik politico figures. The evidence of treasonable plotting, however, was later proved to be fictitious. Why was the leader of nations so afraid of his former ally? The secret police put him to death in January 1940. One of the closest associates of Lenin and the leader of the October Revolution was killed in Mexico by Soviet agent Ramon Mercader. Trotsky defeated Kerensky, and the Bolsheviks achieved total control of Petrograd. The physical liquidation of old revolutionaries, known to the whole world was at hand. Why was Trotsky exiled by Stalin? After his exile, Leon Trotsky sought asylum in Mexico. Extremely Right. I think you need to reverse your question: why not kill him? But there is one pretty solid, I think, evidence, that he wasn't tortured, as well as his arrested in 1937 fellows. Kirov was gunned down in December 1934. He played a key role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. If he was a political fugitive in far off Mexico, why bother dealing with him? "We, who've been connected by blood to Prussia's throne and people since Dppel". Many workers who survived the conflict had moved into administrative positions in the Soviet government or relocated to the countryside. The importance of World War II to Jean-Paul Sartres life and thought is often overlooked. He communicated with Left Oppositionists still holding on inside Russia, edited the Bulletin of the Opposition, the most significant forum for Trotskys analyses of the contemporary world, and wrote an expos of the Show Trials then taking place in the USSR. Radek and Rakovsky, former allies of Trotsky who later submitted to Stalin, were killed. Stalin had Trotsky assassinated for personal reasons. More defeats soon followed in Germany, Estonia, and Bulgaria in 1923-25. Squabbles between Stalinists and Trotskyists inside the Spanish Republicans cost them dearly and demonstrated that Trotsky was still a force to be reckoned with. Only one of the members, Alfred Rosmer, a syndicalist and early supporter of the October Revolution, could be described as a Trotsky supporter. This was a guy who murdered 13 out of 15 of his Army Marshals. Besides links to the Gestapo, Soviet investigators claimed to have uncovered Trotskys connections to Mussolini, the government of Imperial Japan, and the capitalist democracies. Yet Trotsky fought back vigorously. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Trotsky proclaimed in defiance, in the annals of history Stalins name will forever be recorded with the infamous mark of Cain. When the May attempt failed, the GPU decided to go with Mercader. History . Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Trotsky provided a slightly different interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which was a threat for Stalin who derived his legitimacy from claiming Lenin's heritage. With its electrified wires, alarms, and enforced doors, their house in Coyocan looked more like a fortress than a home. After his trial and life sentence to Siberia for his revolutionary activities, he escaped and resumed life as a radical intellectual in Vienna, capital of the multinational Habsburg Empire. Against Stalin's stated policies, Trotsky called for a continuing world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the Soviet state. How is Jesus " " (Luke 1:32 NAS28) different from a prophet (, Luke 1:76 NAS28)? Suppose that in 2016 in Turkey president Erdogan had not waited for the military to bomb the parliament and arrested them before the active stage of the coup. What was the relationship between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin? Answer by Jamez Metcalfe Why did Stalin kill anyone? Robert O. Paxtons work continues to educate the world about the history of Vichy France, the emergence of fascism, and the Holocaust in France. On the other hand, Trotsky was not successful as a leader of men, partly because he allowed his brilliance and arrogance to antagonize the lesser lights in the communist movement. This disaster forced a profound shift in Trotskys thinking. comments sorted by Best Top New Controversial Q&A Add a Comment . The fact is, that he didn't plead guilty until in 1937 the Soviet intelligence got compromising materials from Germany about the military coup, which was being planned by Tukhachevsky and others. Vyshinskys words became murderous reality in the USSR in the late 1930s and '40s. Pt 2/2) Nor was the tiny Trotskyist group very influential in Spain. Granted refuge by the leftist Cardnas government of Mexico, their arrival in Coyocan in January 1937 was greeted with derision and menace by the countrys pro-Stalin Communist Party. Did the USSR use trotskyism as a bogeyman in the post Stalin period? 113 votes, 37 comments. It only takes a minute to sign up. With the Japanese in China, Hitler moving into Austria, and threatening Czechoslovakia, and Mussolini dreaming of a Roman Empire in the Mediterranean, the prospect of a new world war soon overtook him. But there are fragmentary evidences of what he was telling the Japanese in earnest. Which is why Lenin initiated the New Economic Plan after the Russian revolution failed to spread. Had Trotsky won the struggle to succeed Lenin, the character of the Soviet regime would almost certainly have been substantially different, particularly in foreign policy, cultural policy, and the extent of terroristic repression. Leon Trotsky was a leading Marxist revolutionary of the first half of the 20th century. Despite a difficult relationship with his father, Leon worked tirelessly for him in Paris. Some three months later, however, Ramn Mercader, a Spanish communist who had won the confidence of the Trotsky household, fatally struck him with an ice pick. I banished him from Moscow; X. In 1922, Lenin, appreciating his organizational talents, chose Stalin for the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party. From the fictionalized version in Unforgiving Years, the excellent novel by Victor Serge, his one-time comrade, to the 1972 movie, The Assassination of Trotsky, where Richard Burton portrayed him, the lurid details of Trotskys death have often commanded more attention than his extraordinary life. Stalin: A biography by Robert Service see Pg: 143, 168, 182, 184-185, 208-209, 212, 217, 226, 246. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead, who, in all other respects, differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.. As it says in the title, I cannot find a good explanation for why Trotsky was exiled and not immediately killed. True, they had an influence out of proportion with their numbers in Barcelona in 1937, but that isn't saying much and they were of FAR less weight than the Spanish anarchists and the Marxist POUM. As late as 1933, he thought, however, the Soviet system could be reformed by working through the structures of the Communist Party. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. From the Show Trials, ever more outlandish tales about Trotsky were spun. The following sample essay on Why Did Stalin Succeed Lenin and not Trotsky. As long as political parties did not try to restore capitalism, they could operate, recruit, and compete for power. Leon Trotskyonce a vocal critic of Lenin and the Bolshevik Partyjoined the Bolsheviks in August 1917. Among the Bolshevik leaders, it was Leon Trotsky who seemed most likely to take over the Soviet Union after Lenin's demise. To be fair, it needs to be noted that fear of competition was far from the only reason for Stalin to fight Trotsky. Trotsky's Results and Prospects (1906) outlined his brilliant conception of "permanent revolution," a Marxist theory of how a bourgeois-democratic revolution in Imperial Russia would inevitably transform into a socialist revolution that would engender revolution far beyond Russian territory. He organized and supervised the forces that broke Kerenskys efforts at the Battle of Pulkovo on November 13. . Please, cite your sources (apart from Glasha's tale). Why did Stalin rather than Trotsky emerge as leader of the USSR in 1929? The secretary wrote down his last words: Please, tell my friends that Im confident in the victory of the Fourth International Carry on. Ramon Mercader spent 19 years and 8 months in prison after his release, he moved to the USSR and received the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. In August, while still in jail, Trotsky was formally admitted to the Bolshevik Party and was also elected to membership on the Bolshevik Central Committee. So, too, was Nikolai Bukharin, one of Bolshevisms leading theoreticians, a sharp critic of Trotsky and the Left Opposition, and a onetime backer of Stalin. After Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet head of state, suffered a stroke in early 1923, Trotsky and Stalin engaged in a contest for power. He gathered many supporters such as Karl Radek, Christian Rakovsky, and Victor Serge. The latter, in turn, would form part of a World Federation of Socialist Republics. The Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939, the beginning of the Winter War, made him wonder how far Stalin was willing to go to create a sphere of interest for himself. Isn't this a considerable circumstantial evidence of something very strange happening in the Red Army under Tukhachevsky's command? The two favourite's were about to embark on a political campaign; trying to eliminate each other out of the running with their popularity, ideas for the future dedication. The achievements of the Bolshevik Revolution had to be defended. In May 1940, men armed with machine guns attacked his house, but Trotsky survived. Yet socialism, he realized, ultimately could not be built on the tips of the Red Armys bayonets. Stalin must have been worried that Trotsky could be recruited to participate in some project by one of Russia's potential enemies. In 1924, he introduced the notion of socialism in one country. A socialist society could be built, Stalin contended, in the Soviet Union alone, regardless of the international context. Major events are often rooted deeply in the pastthe long fuse that leads to explosions. He died at the age of 74 from a stroke and is buried near the Kremlin walls Important Historical Topics Stalin's Five Year Plan 1. What transpired in Spain in 1936-37 was not only a civil war but a social revolution. On the night of May 23, Siqueiross men broke into the home and fired over 200 shots. By hook or by crook, I defeated him in the power struggle after Lenin's death in '24. The violence swept away both supporters and opponents of Stalin and Stalinism. Trotsky predicted that the workers and peasants of the USSR, their revolutionary energies revitalized, would put an end to the Stalinist bureaucracy. The same story is with Putna, who was arrested on August, 20, 1936. Trotsky survived the incident. The following years were dark, awful times for Trotsky, Natalia, and their inner circle. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. With his nemesis murdered and Mercader, the murderer, denying any Soviet involvement (he would eventually serve 20years in a Mexican prison), Stalin could feel a deep satisfaction. It is generally believed that Mercader was acting on orders from Trotskys rival, Joseph Stalin. He settled in Vienna and supported himself as a correspondent in the Balkan Wars of 191213. At the end of February, Trotsky wrote a final testament, fearing death was near. Trotsky disagreed and said permanent revolution was possible to deal with nations lacking economic development. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Henceforth, throngs of people uttered their names togetherLenin and Trotsky. As a member of the Bolshevik-led Military Revolutionary Committee, Trotsky played a decisive role in the insurrection in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg), events he would later chronicle in his famed History of the Russian Revolution. Sudoplatov, the main organizer of Trotskys assassination, later recalled that Stalin explained the necessity to get rid of his former ally in such words: Trotsky has to be eliminated within a year, before inevitable war commences. An even bigger problem posed itself. The stories relayed by the accused placed him at the center of a massive, worldwide anti-Soviet conspiracy. He is famous for playing leading roles in the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and for organising the Red Army during the ensuing Russian Civil War. Trotsky had no doubt Hitler would do so at the earliest opportunity. They borrow from Marx the obvious; the need for a revolution; the need for a post-revolutionary state; the basic concept of capitalist exploitation, etc. Why are non-Western countries siding with China in the UN? Trotsky was a Left wing Bolshevik party member whom Stalin once opposed in the power struggle of 1924-1928. As the de facto leader of what became known as the Left Opposition, Trotsky assailed the growing bureaucratization of political life, the retreat from the old ideal of revolutionary internationalism, and the transformation of Marxism into Marxism-Leninism, a dogma not to be questioned. He advocated full-scale terror and dictatorship within the country, as well as spreading the fire of Revolution across the entire world. Why did Stalin and the Soviet leadership have Leon Trotsky assassinated? This gave him authority over party membership and appointments. But he lost out to Joseph. Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were political rivals. (Note that the. Like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini would meet the severe justice of the proletariat. @user907860 - I think you misunderstand. Know about the life of Leon Trotsky and his role in the October Revolution. In Prinkipo, a suburb of Istanbul, Trotsky wrote his autobiography, My Life. On the afternoon of August 20, 1940, Ramn Mercader, a young Spaniard in the hire of the GPU, Joseph Stalins secret police, seized the moment. Early life, education, and revolutionary career. Why did Stalin exile Trotsky instead of killing or imprisoning him? He clung to it as his own health deteriorated and, as he had long feared, Stalins assassins closed in on him. Trotsky in a conscious way, Stalin unconsciously. When Trotsky criticises his plans, Stalin has him exiled. The method of murder chosen was interesting. In his books and articles, written in emigration, Trotsky called his opponent Hitlers intendant and criticized his cult of personality, totalitarianism and especially bureaucracy.
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