Leon Trotsky Assassination

The definition of assassination is “to kill someone, such as a famous or important person, usually for political reasons” (Merriam-Webster). Numerous assassinations have occurred throughout history. One such assassination was of Communist theorist Leon Trotsky, a man from Ukraine, who was the successor to Vladimir Lenin, however this led to his assassination while he was in exile.
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in Yanovka, Ukraine, which was a part of the Russia at that time (World Book Advanced). His parents were David and Anna Bronstein, who were wealthy Jewish farmers (Leon Trotsky Biography). Trotsky began his schooling at age 8, and he was very intelligent. Many years later, while in Nikolayev, he became fascinated with
Marxism. He was involved in revolutionary activities, and as a result, Trotsky was arrested and sent to Siberia. He eventually escaped, and adopted the name Leon Trotsky. He joined the Mensheviks, but later broke off ties with them in favor of becoming comrades with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was exiled to Siberia again, and he escaped. Afterwards, he traveled around Europe and the United States until the death of Tsar Nicholas II, then he returned to Russia. He worked with Vladimir Lenin to install a Bolshevik government during the October Revolution.
Following the revolution, Leon Trotsky became one of the most powerful men in Russia. Lenin made Trotsky the commissar of foreign affairs and later on, the commissar of war. Trotsky was thought to have been the person who would succeed Lenin after his death, but he was outsmarted by his rival, Joseph Stalin. Trotsky was later exiled from Russia by Stalin.
Trotsky criticized Stalin in his writings.
Eventually, because of Stalin’s paranoia and his regret for sparing Trotsky, Stalin sent his secret police, the GPU, to kill Trotsky (Stalin Seeks My Death). While in exile in Mexico City, Mexico, an attempt was made on Trotsky’s life. On May 24, 1940, twenty-five armed Stalinist agents stormed into Trotsky’s home in the borough of Coyoacan (Hansen, Joseph). The men were armed with machine guns and bombs. Trotsky and his wife escaped the machine gun fire by lying flat on the floor. However, the second assassination attempt was much more successful. On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was in Mexico City when he was stabbed with an ice-pick in the head by a man named Ramon Mercader. The blow did not kill Trotsky instantly, and he was taken to the Cruz Verde Hospital, where doctors endeavored to save his life (The Death of Leon Trotsky). The doctors’ efforts proved to be in vain, and Leon Trotsky died the next day on August 21, 1940. Trotsky’s assassin, Ramon Mercader, who was a member of the Communist Party of Catalonia, had used the assumed name Frank Jacson when he gained the trust of the Trotsky household (El Asesino De Trotsky). Trotsky’s wife, Natalia Sedova, recalled in her writings how nervous Mercader had looked on the day of the assassination and how he had been wearing a coat even though the weather that day was warm (Leon Trotsky). Mercader had hidden the ice-pick underneath his coat. After the murder, Ramon Mercader was put on
trial and sentenced to twenty years in Mexican prison (El Asesino De Trotsky). When Mercader was released, he traveled to Cuba, and later to Russia. Stalin had died and was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, before Mercader moved to Russia. Mercader was hailed as a hero by Khrushchev, and the assassin spent the rest of his life going back and forth from Russia to Cuba until he died on October 18, 1978, in Havana, Cuba. Had Trotsky not been assassinated, he might have been able to overthrow Joseph Stalin which may have saved many people who would have been killed by Stalin.