#leontrotsky

Russian Civil War: The Failed Fightback Against Bolshevism

The Russian Civil War (1917-22) began shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917. The Bolsheviks (the Reds) immediately found themselves in conflict with various opposition forces who disagreed with Bolshevik policies like abolishing the monarchy, redistributing land to peasants, and withdrawing from the First World War (1914-18). The anti-Bolsheviks were by no means united and included reactionaries, monarchists, those on the right or centre of politics, and members of the military (the Whites), militant peasant groups (the Greens), and Anarchists (the Blacks), as well as rival socialist groups and several foreign powers, notably Japan, Britain, France, and the United States. The Bolsheviks, who called themselves the Communist Party from 1918, eventually won the war, but at a tremendous cost to millions of people across the former Russian Empire in terms of unemployment, famine, and loss of life.

Dating the War

Historians do not agree on when the civil war actually started. Some historians point to the violent repression of opposition by the Bolsheviks immediately after the revolution, that is, between November 1917 and May 1918. Others prefer to begin the civil war with the Czechoslovak Legion uprising in May 1918. There is a similar debate as to when the civil war ended, some historians preferring 1920 when foreign intervention in the west ended, others after the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 was quashed, and still others as late as October 1922, when Japanese forces withdrew from Siberia and the government could finally claim full control over all of its territories. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was declared.

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Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, journalist, political theorist and founder of the Red Army. He was a central figure in the October Revolution, Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union. 

Born: 7 November 1879, Bereslavka, Ukraine

LEON TROTSKY

1879-1940

Russian Revolutionary, Communist, Assassinated

            Leon Trotsky was born in Yanovka, Ukraine to Jewish parents and was a follower of Karl Marx. He was a communist and was exiled in Siberia but escaped to London three years later, met Vladimir Lenin and worked as a revolutionary journalist. He joined the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and created the Red Army, Trotsky was one of the architects of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Lenin died in 1924, and Stalin and Trotsky struggled for power.

            When Stalin was elected general secretary in 1922, Lenin warned the party of Stalin’s ambition. Stalin denounced Trotsky and kicked him out of the party and forced him into exile in Central Asia. Trotsky fled overseas in 1929 but continued to criticise Stalin in print. Stalin wanted Trotsky silenced and had his family and supporters killed. Trotsky tried to find a country he could settle down in with his wife, Natalie and during this time they lived in France and Mexico. Stalin put Trotsky on a ‘show trial’ in his absence in 1937 and Trotsky was sentenced to death, and Stalins secret police were sent to assassinate him.

            Trotsky, his wife and son were living in a small village, Coyoacan when a Soviet agent raided his home in 1940, Trotsky and his family hid under a bed, a bomb which was left behind failed to go off which saved their life.

            Secret Soviet Agent, Ramon Mercader (codename ‘gnome’) pretended to be a French-Canadian supporter of Trotsky to gain access to him. On 20 August 1940, he visited Trotsky to ‘discuss an article he had written’. Mercader had an ice-pick hidden in his raincoat, and when Trotsky was sitting in his chair reading the article, Mercader stabbed him in the head with it. Trotsky didn’t immediately die, his wife in the next room heard him and Trotsky and Mercader struggled until his bodyguards arrived. The bodyguards almost beat Mercader to death and was then handed over to Mexican authorities. Trotsky was operated on but died the next day aged 60.

            Mercader refused to reveal his identity or who ordered Trotskys assassination (he was believed to have been one of Stalin’s agents). Mercader was sentenced to 20-years imprisonment, and his identity was revealed in 1953 and more information was came to light after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was released in 1960 and moved to Cuba where the Castro regime welcomed him as a hero, and he died in Havana in 1978, aged 65.