Leon Trotsky (or Trotski ; in), of its true name Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (in), born on November 7th, 1879 with Ianovka (current Ukraine) and dead assassinated on August 21st, 1940 with Mexico City (Mexico), was a Politician Russo - Soviet. He is the founder of the Red Army and one with the principal leaders of the Russian Révolution. Being opposed to Stalin, this last makes it assassinate.

Biography

Trotsky is born in a family from peasants Juif S from Ukraine, which forms part of the empire tsarist then. It starts academic works in mathematics with Odessa then with Nikolaïev and ends up giving up them under the influence of a populist group.

Political commitment

A time tried by the populist ideas, which see in the Russian farming community and its frequent Jacqueries the leaven of the future revolution, it adheres to the political positions social democrat (1896). Under the pseudonym of Lvov, Trotsky takes part in the creation of a revolutionary organization, in particular by the drafting of articles reproduced by means of a Hectographe and distributed to the exit of the factories.

In 1898, the police force carries out arrests of mass during which Trotsky is stopped. It is transferred from prison in prison, initially in Nikolaïev then with Kherson, Odessa where it starts to study, under the conditions which the prison allows him. Trotsky studies the many religious texts at its disposal with the library of the prison, including one certain number relates to the Franc-maçonnerie. It is also initiated with the Marxist theory through the writings of Antonio Labriola. According to max Eastman, the bringing together of Trotsky of the Marxism is also partly related to its relation with the young Marxist Alexandra Lvovna.

Envoy in deportation in Siberia with Oust-Kout in 1900, Trotsky Marie with the latter in the prison of Moscow to avoid being separate about it. They have two girls. Not supporting more enfermement in front of its task to achieve, it succeeds in escaping in 1902, by leaving his wife and her daughters, and emigrates then towards the England.

Exiles

It is with London that it meets Lénine about of which it heard for the first time speak in 1900 and of which it started to read the political treaty That to make? little before its escape from Siberia. Lénine inserts it in the editorial board of the newspaper Iskra ( the Spark ), by co-optation.

With the congress of London of the POSDR which sees the scission between Bolcheviks and Mencheviks, its conciliating position pushes it to briefly adopt the Menchevik S, then to preserve an intermediate position, for the unit of the party. It keeps its distances with respect to Lénine, reproaching him its methods of dictator and its attitude, which it describes as Jacobin E . It is only after the Russian Révolution of 1917 that it adhered to the party Bolchevik and affirmed that its conciliating position of then was erroneous.

In 1905, at the time of the first Russian revolution, it becomes, at the 26 years age, vice-president then president of the Soviet of Saint-Pétersbourg, Soviet made up as a majority of mencheviks. During the repression of the revolution of 1905, approximately a year after this one, he is condemned with fifteen other people to the deportation. However, he escapes during the voyage towards Siberia and starts its second exile then.

It is at this time that with Alexander Helphand (also known under the pseudonym of Parvus) he formulates the Théorie of the permanent revolution: analyzing the situation in the “postponed” countries like Russia, he forecasts the impossibility of a “middle-class” revolution bringing a democratic regime and liquidating feudalism. For him, the weakness of the Russian middle-class would not enable him to carry out these tasks and to found capitalism, and it is the working class which should take in hand the destiny of the country.

Founder of the newspaper Pravda in 1912 with Vienna, where it makes in addition knowledge with Adolf Joffe, it is posed as a defender of the unit of the whole of the social democrats, all confused tendencies, including most radical. That is worth sharp tensions with Lénine to him. It organizes, in August of the same year, a conference for the unification, in answer to the Conférence of Prague; but the Bolchevik S refuse to take part in it. Trotsky leaves the “block of August” little time afterwards.

The First World War

At the beginning of the First World War, whereas the whole of the social democrat parties of the II {{E}} Internationale succumb to nationalism and support their respective governments in the war (vote of the appropriations of war, governmental participation), Trotsky belongs to the rare leaders of the International one which continue to denounce the character imperialist of the war, with inter alia Lénine and the Parti Bolshevik, the tendency of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg in the SPD in Germany, Pierre Monatte and Alfred Rosmer resulting from the CGT in France, and the Socialist party of Serbia . He works a time for Nache Slovo, of which he is a collaborator with Paris, while being in relation to the Organization interrayons of Saint-Pétersbourg.

The September 5th 1915, on the initiative of the Swiss Socialist Grimm, is held with Zimmerwald an international socialist conference against the war, in which Trotsky takes part and with which it is charged to write proclamation. With that of Kienthal which is held in 1916, Trotsky contributes to the gathering of those which one then calls the Internationalists or Zimmerwaldiens and who will form for the majority in 1919 IIIe Internationale, known as also Internationale Communist.

Decree, then expelled of France in September 1916, it is led to Irun, in Spain. There, it is stopped by the Spanish police force and is embarked of force with its family for the the United States. Installed to New York, it contributes to the newspaper Novy Mir .

Russian revolution of 1917

After the bursting of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Trotsky turns over to Russia, being of agreement with the Thèses of April of Lénine: he regards them as a signal of rallying to his own ideas of permanent revolution. He then gave up the hope to arrive to a general union of all the currents, but however continues to work on the fusion of the organization interrayons and the Bolsheviks.

When the congress of unification takes place, in August 1917, it is arrested and imprisoned by the provisional government. In spite of its detention, he is elected at the Central committee by the congress. Released following the fallen through putsch of the General Kornilov, he becomes president of the Soviet of Saint-Pétersbourg, renamed Petrograd since 1914, and of the revolutionary Military committee in October, becoming one of the principal leaders Bolsheviks of the Révolution of October.

He occupies then the post of Police chief to the foreign affairs until in 1918, of which he resigns after having signed the agreements of Brest-Litovsk. He becomes then Commissaire with the war of 1918 with 1925, setting up the Red Army during the civil war. In parallel, it belongs to the Political office of 1919 with 1927.

In 1920 (in particular at the time of the 9th congress of the party), in order to mitigate the catastrophic economic situation of the the USSR, Trotsky proposes the provisional militarization of work: according to him, this measurement was made necessary by the context of the civil war and the world revolution. It posed already this alternative in 1917: “Or the Russian Revolution will raise the swirl of the fight in Occident, or the capitalists of all the countries will choke our revolution. ” In this vision, all Grève is regarded as a desertion, and any claim is regarded as an insubordination.

The fight against the bureaucracy

In 1923, Lénine and Trotsky, noting the bureaucratization of the mode resulting from the revolution, enter in conflict with the troika Zinoviev - Kamenev - Stalin. In its book Course new , in which it analyzes the evolution of the party Bolshevik and puts forward measures to limit the tendency to the bureaucratization which is done day, by ensuring a greater democracy within the party.

The death of Lénine makes it possible the bureaucracy to be essential in spite of the formation of the international Left opposition. It approaches tactiquement, starting from 1926, of Zinoviev and Kamenev in the unified Opposition and directs with them a current which is opposed to Stalin.

This opposition is worth to him to be excluded from the party in 1927, and to be off-set with Alma-ATA. According to Trotsky, the bureaucratization of the mode is due to the typical location of Russia: the revolution overcame there, but in a postponed country, isolated after the failure from the revolutions, exhausted by the war, lack of all, a bureaucratic layer was constituted on the basis of ruin of the country. Stalin ends up making it expel the USSR in 1929, while repression falls down on its partisans, who are sent in the Gulag. During this exile, he wrote many works and continued to militate for Communism and the international revolution.

Expelled of the USSR

In 1929, Trotsky is led to Istanbul where it gives to the Turkish authorities a letter declaring that it came against its liking, after some time spent in the Soviet embassy it carries out several removals and ends up being placed in release on probation on the island of Büyükada ( Prinkipo ) to broad of Istanbul. It publishes a monthly bulletin of opposition in Russian language as of July 1929. In April 1930, it organizes a conference which led to the installation of a provisional international secretariat of the communist Opposition. After four last years in Turkey, it remains in France, of July 1933 at June 1935, then expelled again, it finds refuge in Norway.

All its life, it continued to defend the assets of the Russian Révolution and the State Ouvrier which in is resulting, while denouncing some what it calls a monstrous bureaucratic degeneration. According to him, the Russian bureaucracy is a parasitic social layer, which chokes the country by taking a share of the richnesses, and whose Stalin is the political representative and the defender. In front of the rise of the Fascism in Italy, then Nazism in Germany, it recommends the constitution of single faces on behalf of all the organized labor, in spite of their divergences. He is not listened and the policy of Stalin ends in the crushing of the German proletariat, most powerful and more organized world. After 1934, Stalin will end up imposing the creation of Popular fronts.

With the Spanish Revolution, the partisans of the opposition are massacred per thousands. The Procès of Moscow are held in August 1936 and lead to the execution of the principal defendants: it was one of rare absent. It leaves Norway in September 1936, to go to settle with the Mexico thanks to the president Lazaro Cardenas, where it is accommodated in the " Bleue" house; painters Diego Will rivet and Frida Kahlo. It has a connection impassioned with the latter, which dedicates even a table to him: " Self-portrait dedicated to Leon Trotski".

Work of Trotsky as for the organization of the left opposition leads to the creation of the IV {{E}} Internationale the September 3rd 1938 with 25 delegated, representing 11 countries. With its militant activity can be associated that with his/her son Leon Sedov.

Trotsky is assassinated on August 20th 1940 with Mexico City, in the district of Coyoacán, of a blow of ice axe by an agent of Stalin (Jacques Mornard or Franck Jackson, of its true name Ramón Mercader). Its assassin is stopped by two American comrades, being used to him voluntarily as bodyguards and secretaries, Joseph Hansen and Charles Cornell. This last is present at the time of the murder but does not succeed in preventing it. Ramón Mercader will be given to the police force Mexican and condemned thereafter to twenty years of reclusion, maximum sentence then in force in Mexico. It will be decorated about Lénine in the USSR.

Anecdote

Of its true name Lev Davidovitch Bronstein , " Leon Trotsky" is a pseudonym which it adopted after a stay in prison. Trotsky was the name of one of its geôliers.

Works

See also: Works and bibliography de/sur Leon Trotsky

Among the many writings of Leon Trotsky, one can retain inter alia:

• Assessment and perspective (1905) - According to the Russian edition of 1919: “The character of the Russian revolution, such was the fundamental question compared to which, according to the answer that they brought there, the various ideological tendencies and the political organizations of the Russian revolutionary movement gathered. ”

• the International Communist after Lénine (or the large organizer of the defeats) (1928) - Trotsky explains how and why the development of the bureaucracy in the USSR caused the failure of the proletariat in all the parts of the world as from 1923, and at the same time why it was nourished of these failures.
• the Permanent revolution (1928-1931).
• History of the Russian revolution (1930) - “the history of the revolution is, above all, the account of a violent irruption of the masses in the field where their own destinies are regulated”.
• My life (1930) - Autobiography.
• the Youth of Lénine (1936) - Biography.
• the betrayed Revolution (1936) - Critical of the nature of the capacity in the USSR.
• the Program of transition (1938).

See too

Random links:

Anthony Perkins | Botanical garden Jose Celestino Mutis | Jacopo Amigoni | The Eye of Hermes | Permittivity of the vacuum