Leon Davidovich Trotsky (1879-1940)

Leader of the opposition in the Communist Party (Bolshevik); founder of the Fourth International. Born on November 7, 1879, to a wealthy peasant family in Kherson County, Ukraine. His real surname was Bronstein, of Jewish ethnicity.

In 1896, Trotsky began to participate in the workers’ movement. In 1897, he joined in the establishment of the South Russian Workers’ Union and opposed the autocratic system of the Tsar.

In 1898, he was arrested along with the members of the union in Nikolayev and exiled to Siberia. In the autumn of 1902, he fled with a fake passport signed by Trotsky. At the end of 1902, he went to London to participate in the work of Iskra edited by Lenin, Plekhanov and others. In 1903, the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party he stood with the Mensheviks. After 1904, he oscillated between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. During the 1905 Revolution, Trotsky returned from Finland and was elected as the chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet by the council of workers. He developed the theory of “permanent Revolution”, which undermined the role of peasants in the revolution, advocating the overthrow of the Tsar in order to establish a Socialist Workers’ government immediately. In February 1907, by disguising himself as an escort he escaped, eventually making his way abroad. In 1912, the anti-party “August Bloc” was organized in Vienna. During the World War I, he took an anti-war stance. He returned to Russia after the February Revolution in 1917. In July of the same year, he joined the Bolshevik party, was elected as a member of the Central Committee in August, and was elected as a member of the Political Bureau in October. In his capacity as chairman of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, he conducted the uprising at the palace of Smolny.

After the victory of the October Revolution, Trotsky assumed duties as People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. On the issue of signing the “Treaty of Brest-Litovsk” with Germany in January 1918, he proposed to take a stance of “No War, No Peace”, refusing to sign the treaty. In March, he resigned from his post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Later on, he carried out several duties as chairman of the Supreme Military Council of Soviet Russia, chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission, People’s Commissar of Military and Naval affairs and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. During the civil war, he fought to defend the Soviet regime.

During 1923-1924, Trotsky initiated a debate on democracy within the party, and led more than 40 old Bolsheviks to jointly issue the New Course pamphlet, which suggested halting the New Economic Policy, implementing the planned economy, and expanding workers’ democratic participation. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Trotsky and others (known as “Trotskyists”) insisted on the theory of “Permanent Revolution”, believing that the Russian proletariat could continue to advance on the domestic revolution only with the support of the international proletariat; before the realization of the world revolution, the proletarian revolution that occurred can only establish a “working class state”, not a true socialism. In January 1925, the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) adopted the resolution against Trotsky’s speech, criticizing him for “attempting to use Trotskyism to replace Leninism”; Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union decided to remove him from his post of People’s Commissar of Military and Naval affairs and chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee. From April to May 1926, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev joined forces to argue within the party about the way of industrialization and the constructing of socialism in a single country. He set up a secret printing house and distributed pamphlets such as “Declaration of the Eighty-three”, “Platform of Fifteen” and “Platform of the United Opposition”. On the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1927, demonstrations were organized in Moscow and Leningrad against the Soviet regime. He was expelled from the party on November 14 of the same year. After being exiled to Almaty in 1928, he made suggestions for the rest of the party, worked on “The Draft Program of the Communist International (A Criticism of the Fundamentals)” consisting of hundreds of thousands of words and continued to attack the Communist Party (Bolshevik) and the Communist International. He was deported on January 20, 1929, and his Soviet citizenship was cancelled in 1932. He settled in Mexico in 1937. In September 1938, the World Socialist Revolutionary Party (“Fourth International”) was established in Paris to engage in activities against the Soviet Union and the Communist International. On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico and died the next day.

Trotsky’s works include Results and Prospect (1906), The Year 1905 (written in 1906), The Revolution Betrayed (1936), The Third International After Lenin (also known as A Draft Criticism of the Communist International)( 1928), The Permanent Revolution (1930), Stalin and the Chinese Revolution (1930), My Life (1929), The History of the Russian Revolution (1930), In Defense of Marxism (1939-40), Stalin:An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence (unfinished), etc.