Leon Trotsky
Leon Davidovich Trotsky (Bronstein) is one of the most contradictory characters in the history of Russian and international revolution movement-he was well known as a loyal leader of the masses and the Party, but on the other hand, his own ambitions often conflicted with interests of the Party members and other Communist leaders. Trotsky was born in 1879. His real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein. His father was a well-to-do Jewish farmer in the Ukrainian province of Kherson. His mother, Anna, was of the educated middle class. He had an older brother and sister and two siblings who died in infancy. At the age of eight, he was sent to school in Odessa, where he spent eight years with the family of his mother's nephew, a liberal intellectual. He attended school in Odessa, developing an early brilliance and bookishness. He reports his observation of the composition of his class: "the tale-bearers and envious at one pole, the frank, courageous boys at the other, and the neutral, vacillating mass in the middle." (Leon Trotsky, My Life) He was to apply the same classification to his fellow revolutionaries and fellow citizens of the Empire and the world. When he moved to Nikolayev
Between Lenin's position and Bukharin's outright call for revolutionary war, Trotsky proposed the formula "no war, no peace". The point at issue in the controversy was the future role of the trade unions. Stalin moved rapidly to consolidate his hold on the Central Committee at the 12th Party Congress in April 1923. The first, a machine gun attack on his house, failed. The Soviet government disclaimed any responsibility, and the ax murderer was sentenced to the maximum 20-year term under Mexican law. During the Civil War and War Communism phase of the Soviet regime, Trotsky was clearly established as the number-two man next to Lenin. Shortly before this, in Paris, Trotsky had met and married Natalya Sedova, by whom he subsequently had two sons, Lev and Sergey. Trotsky was undoubtedly the most brilliant intellect brought to prominence by the Russian Revolution, outdistancing Lenin and other theoreticians both in the range of his interests and in the imaginativeness of his perceptions. 1His wife remained behind, and the separation became permanent. When the 13th Party Congress, in May 1924, repeated the denunciations of his violations of party discipline, Trotsky vainly professed his belief in the omnipotence of the party. The evidence of treasonable plotting, however, was later proven to be fictitious. London, Oxford University Press, 1963.
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Acceptance Essays
