Without emotion or attitude, Nicholas Mosley gives a "blow-by-blow" account of the murder of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), between the time of the first assassination attempt on his life on May 24, 1940, and the last, successful one when he died the day after being stabbed by an ice pick*, August 20, 1940.
Regrettably, Mr. Mosley's documentation is omitted, save for the short bibliography at the end with six titles listed. The best insight into the person is Trotsky's autobiography and his writings, Mr. Mosley says.
Mr. Trotsky left "works of some genius"; he was "a man with a marvelous literary eye and style," Mr. Mosley writes.
I ran across the book title in the Wall Street Journal's column by Peter Stothard of the "Five Best [Books] on Political Vengeance," and per usual, the best library, the Fairfax County Library, got it for me on interlibrary loan.
The book is short (184 pages) and a fast read, written in 1972 in the "encyclopedic" style when Trotsky's grandson, Seva, was still living in the house.
The first attempt on Trotsky's life saw about 20 assassins invade his home and shoot up the house (bullet holes, extant). Trotsky, his wife, Natalie Sedova, and Seva, miraculously survived without severe injury (Seva was shot in the foot while hiding under his bed) causing the chief of Mexico's secret police to question whether the attempt was fake and even happened.
Later that summer, bodyguards surrounding the house were lulled by the familiarity of a Trotsky acquaintance, a secret Stalinist, who arrived at the house on August 20 to discuss "a document" with "the old man" but stabbed him instead.
The murderer had several names and backgrounds: Jacques Mornard, Frank Jacson, Ramon Mercader. At the time, Mexico had no death penalty, and he was sentenced to 19.5 years for premeditated murder and six months for illegal possession of arms.
Later, his parole request was rejected because the killer was considered "socially dangerous," and the courts decided it was hard to grant parole to a person "if no one knew officially who he was."
Trotsky lived until the next day when he died at a hospital. When it lay in state, an estimated 300,000 filed past his body.
Lenin had ostensibly "appointed" Trotsky his successor of the Soviet Union. Stalin was "rude" and unpolished, rough like the countryside, his origin.
Chasing Trotsky, his greatest rival, throughout Europe, Stalin delayed Trotsky's execution for years to avoid public fallout. After all, it was good public relations to keep him alive and have a scapegoat; Stalin could blame him for everything: the wheat crop failure, the pig swine fever, railway problems, factory destructions, even "nails in butter"!
Trotsky knew he was a targeted man.
Eventually, after their itinerant European residencies, Trotsky and his wife found their way to Mexico in 1937 and the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the latter who claimed credit for getting them admitted to the country. (After Trotsky's death, Rivera, man of honor that he was, said he was working for Stalin to lure Trotsky to his death site.)
The Trotskys lived with the artists for about two years until, several stories go, Rivera flirted with Trotsky's wife (and vice-versa) which, combined with political disagreements, ended the happy arrangement.
American supporters helped raise money for Trotsky's last residence which became the scene of the murder.
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