My Life

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) was a revolutionary, a Marxist theorist, and a central figure in the international communist movement. He was one of the main leaders of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and played a crucial role in the communist victory in the Russian Civil War, in which he founded and commanded the Red Army. After Lenin's death, he clashed with Joseph Stalin over the leadership of the Soviet Union, advocating permanent revolution on an international scale and opposing the increasing bureaucratization of Soviet society. He lived in various countries until his assassination in 1940 in Mexico by a Soviet agent acting on Stalin's orders.