Trotsky

Born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, Leon Trot sky (1879-1940) assumed his name inrder to escape the work camps of Siberia in 1898. Born to a Russian-Jewishamily in the Ukraine, he became the leading spokesman of the Russianevolution, the founder of the victorious Red Army of 1918-1921, and did morehan anyone to create the early Soviet State. Yet despite being identified asenin's obvious successor, Trot sky was out-manoeuvered by Stalin. In theears that followed, he developed the first systematic critique of Stalin'sictatorship. In 1929, he and his wife were forced out of Russia, moving fromurkey, to France, and finally to Mexico, where he was brutally assassinatedy a Spanish communist in 1940. Through a series of books including Theistory of the Russian Revolution, My Life, and The Revolution Betrayed, Trotky established the possibility of a democratic socialism and the theory ofermanent revolution, identifying the struggle against bureaucracy andomplacency. Reputed to have been friends at one point with the Mexicanevolutionary artists, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, his influence resonates

Dave Renton is a Senior Research Fellow in History at Sunderland University.