How did stalin take trotsky down through propaganda? what did he do, make up lies about him? bring up his past?

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1. Spellbound says

   He didn’t use propaganda, he used the political system.
   Stalin controlled the party secretariat – the body that decided who was in the important bodies of the Communist Party, and who was out. He packed the Central Committee, and Politburo, with his supporters. He was then able to manipulate Trotsky into forming a faction – banned under party rules – and appearing to be a “bonapartist”.

   Stalin 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.

   The three things that Stalin used against Trotsky were:
   His Jewishness – Stalin knew that Russians would (probably) not accept a Jewish leader.
   He had not joined the Bolsheviks until 1917, so his political stance was suspect to many Bolsheviks.
   He was an intellectual and could appear aloof – he often read French novels during meetings, and was bored by the day to day running of the country.
   He was a radical left winger. Stalin, in the mid 1920s, was a moderate, he wanted to consolidate the revolution. Trotsky wanted to risk the revolution by increasing the tempo, industrialising and modernising the country. Exactly the policies that Stalin himself would employ in the early 1930s.

   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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