12. Leon Trotsky – Flashcards

Number-two man in the Bolshevik party and Lenin's obvious successor Crucial figure for almost the entirety of the revolution, from the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet in 1905, to the crushing of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921 Performed several significant roles: -chairman of the Petrograd Soviet -creator and overseer of the Military Revolutionary Committee (Milrevcom) -chief negotiator with the Germans in 1918 -the architect and leader of the Red Army -Commissar for War and an influential economic strategist While Lenin was the party's intellectual figurehead Trotsky was in many respects its chief organiser. He possessed some of the charisma and leadership qualities that Lenin lacked His parents were Jewish - targeted with hateful anti-semitism that infected Tsarist Russia (also exhbited in anti-bolshevik propaganda by the whites and foreign countries) In 1903 he attended the Social Democrats' congress, where he initially sided with the Mensheviks.

Unlike Lenin, Trotsky was in Russia during the 1905 Revolution. He was elected vice-chairman, then chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, despite being just 26 years old. After the Soviet was crushed by tsarist troops Trotsky was again sent to Siberia, though he quickly escaped. He spent most of the next decade in exile, mainly in France, Switzerland, Spain and the United States Trotsky was in New York when the February Revolution toppled Nicholas II from power. After hearing this news he immediately returned to Russia, arriving in May 1917

Perhaps the most pivotal moment in Trotsky's political transformation was the failed 'July Days' uprising, which convinced him that without strong leadership from the Bolsheviks, the people were incapable of seizing power Trotsky himself worked for the Bolshevik cause in the Petrograd Soviet (he was elected chairman there again in early October). He also took a leading role in organising the Red Guards, a militia comprised of factory workers.

It is no overstatement to suggest that Trotsky was the individual most responsible for the success of the October Revolution. Early in the month he introduced a resolution into the Bolshevik-controlled Petrograd Soviet, calling for the formation of a military committee to prepare the "revolutionary defence of Petrograd". The resolution was passed and the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC, or Milrevcom) was formed. In theory, the Milrevcom and the Red Guards were formed to protect the Bolsheviks; but in reality they tools for an armed insurrection against the Provisional Government.

He was an important member of the Communist Party Politburo lead negotiator with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk rotsky's organisation of the Red Army and political and military leadership during the Civil War was also critical rousing public speaker and a brilliant theorist and organiser Trotsky was also prone to arrogance, dismissiveness and sarcasm, qualities that made him unpopular with other Bolsheviks Trotsky's over-confidence eventually proved fatal when Stalin, his arch-nemesis, outmaneuvered him and seized control of the party in the early 1920s. By Lenin's death in early 1924, Trotsky had been virtually excluded from power. Stalin eventually had him expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929.

Trotsky spent the rest of his life in exile in France and then Mexico, where he wrote prolifically. In 1930 he penned a history of the Russian Revolution; several years later he wrote a scathing criticism of Russia under Stalin, titled 'The Revolution Betrayed'. Back in Russia, Stalinist propaganda demonized Trotsky as a traitor, a saboteur and an enemy of the state. Trotsky was virtually written out of official Soviet histories of the revolution, while many of the problems of the new society were laid at his feet. In 1940 a Stalinist agent, Ramon Mercardor, was able to enter Trotsky's home in Mexico and stab him in the head with an icepick. Trotsky died the following day.