Question by Laura: Need information on Leon Trotsky?
Was he Stalin’s enemy or did he oppose him often?
What did he stand for?
Was he exiled?
Did Stalin blame him for Russia’s problems or treat him as a scapegoat?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Casey
http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=hts&oq=&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADFA_enCA457CA457&q=Leon+Trotsky
Answer by Spellbound
Trotsky was a maverick, disagreeing with both Menshevik and Bolshevik factions and only joining Lenin and the Bolsheviks in October 1917.
Before and during the October Revolution Trotsky was the chairman of the the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. It was this organisation that, under Lenin’s direction, that staged the takeover of the state known as the October Revolution.
As the Revolution descended into Civil War, Trotsky was given the task of organising the Bolshevik Red Army to fight the anti-Bolshevik forces, the Whites and other groups hostile to the Bolshevik takeover – including the UK, USA, France and Japanese who took over ports around the country trying to force Russia back into WWI – and later to try to depose the new regime.
After the Civil War he was considered one of the front runners for the role of leading the country after the death of Lenin – but he fell foul of the master manipulator (who hated his popularity, his organisational skills and was wary that the army may be loyal to him – Stalin). He was the leader of the Left Opposition, and because of this Stalin had him exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929.
Trotsky wrote a number of books, articles and pamphlets decrying what had happened to the revolution and proposed alternative policies for the country – leading to the branch of communism known as Trotskyism. Stalin took action against him, and, in 1940, in Mexico, he was stabbed to death.
His birth name was Leiba, not Lev or Leon.
He took the name Trotsky from one of his gaolers.
He had four children, two each by his two wives: Nina and Zinaida by Aleksandra
and Lev and Sergei by his second wife – Natal’ia
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/trotsky_leon.shtml
For an in depth examination of his life, works and ideas see:
http://www.trotsky.net/
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