Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

1. Personal life

   • His Parents are called David and Anna Bronstein
     • They were Jewish farmers
   • When he was 8 he went to school in Odessa
   • he moved in 1896 to Nikolaye , Ukraine to do his final year at school
     • Here he became enchanted by Marxism

2. 1896 -1900

   • He helped organize the south Russian Workers unions in Nikolayev in early 1897
   • He wrote and printed, proclamations , distributed revolutionary pamphlets , and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students.
     • using the name of Lvov
   • He was arrested in January 1898 along with 200 of the members of the union
   • He spent two years in Prison , awaiting trial
     • First in Nikolayev then Kherson then Odessa and finally Moscow
       • In Moscow Prison he met other revolutionaries and first read Lenins book and became a Marxist
         • " the development of capitalism in Russia"
   • Two months into his prison time on the 1-3 march 1898 the first Congress of the newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was held , he identified as a party member

3. 1900 - 1902

   • in the summer of 1900 in prison he met and married Aleksandra Sokolovskaya a marxist
   • In 1900 he was sentenced to 4 years in exile to Ust-Kut and Verkholensk
     • him and his wife were alowed to be exiled to the same place
       • They had 2 daughters born in Siberia called Zinaida and Nina
   • he sided with iskraa ( London based newspaper) position and ideas about what should happen to russia and began writing for them
   • in the summer of 1902 at the urging of his wife he escaped Siberia hidden in a load of hay on a wagon
     • Aleksandra escaped later with their daughters
       • They soon divorced and the daughters were later raised by his parents
         • The daughters died before the parents
         • She disappeared in 1935 during the Great Purges and was murdered by Stalinist forced 3 years later

4. 1902 - 1903

   • First time he used the name Trotsky
     • said he adopted the name after a jailer of the odessa prison
   • He moved to london with other editors of the iskra under the pen name Pero, he became one of the leading authors
   • in late 1902 he met a new wife and she later died

5. 1903 - 1904

   • Trotsky and most of iskra editors suppoted the Menshaviks
   • He left the Menshaviks in September 1904
     • because of the instances on a alliance with Russian Liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with lenin and the bolshiveks
   • from 1904 - 1907 he described himself as a non - factional social democrat.

6. 1905 - 1906

   • After the bloody sunday he returned to russia in feburuary 1905
     • by kiev
   • he worked with both the boshaviks and local menshaviks
     • he was betrayed b the secret police in may and fled to finland
   • confusion from multiple industaries going on strike meant he was able to return to st petersberg on 15th october 1905
   • he joined the st petersberg soviet under the name yanovsky
     • and was elected vice president
       • was elected chairmen 26th november 1905 after Khrustavle-Nosars arrest
   • they issued a proclamation against the tsar system
     • this caused them to be arrested
       • they were tried in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion
         • the trail was on the 4th october 1906 he delivered one of his bsest speeches
           • he was convicted and and sentenced to internal exile in siberia

7. 1907 - 1914

   • while on route to exile in january 1907 he escaped at berezov
   • because of the start of ww1 he was forced to flee vienna for neutral switizland to avoid arrest as a russian emigre
   • in went to vienna and while their he wrote for a newspaper called Pravda
     • money was not there to publish it so he went to russian central committe to get finical backing throughout 1909
       • the russian central committe was mainy controlled by bolsheviks at the time of 1910 Lenin agreed to help but wanted a bolshivik to be co - editior
       • the paper folded in april 1912

8. 1914 - 1917

   • he wrote a book opposing the war called the war and the internatioanl
   • he moved to france on 19 november 1914
     • he began editing for Nashe Slovo a internationalist socialist paper
   • he attended the Zimmerwald conference in september 1915 and a middle solution between ideas likes Lenins and ideas like martov
     • in the end Lenin voted for this middle ground
   • on march 31 he was deported to spain for his anti - war activities
     • spain did not want his so he was deported to usa on 25th december 1916
       • he arrived in new york on 13 january 1917
   • after the feburay revolution he went back to ruusia
     • he left on the 27th march but his ship was intercepted by British navel
       • he was detained for a month and was freed on the 29 april
   • he reached russia on the 4th may
     • Temp joined the Mezhraionsty and became one of their leaders
   • at the first congress of soviets in june he was elected a member of All Russian central executive committe
   • was arrested on the 7 augest 1917
   • he was elected chairman on 8 october and was with lenin
   • after the succseful uprising of 7 -8 he led the efforts to repel a counter attack on by Cossacks
   • by the end of 1917 he was second man in the bolshivek party