Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was a participant with V. I. Lenin in the communist revolution in Russia in 1917. However, he had previously been a member of the Mensheviks, a communist party that had once been aligned with the Bolsheviks. They did not believe in actively pursuing revolution, that it would happen when the people were ready, unlike the Bolsheviks who believed that the people needed to be led. From 1904 until 1917 Trotsky had a stormy relationship with Lenin, with him accusing Lenin of wanting to become a dictator. But the two of them resolved their differences in 1917, and after that point arguably Trotsky was totally loyal to Lenin.

Trotsky was the most powerful orator in the Bolshevik party, and due to his numerous spells in jail and his active role in the failed 1905 revolution he was much more famous than Lenin was to ordinary Russians. He was the actual organizer behind the October revolution, as Lenin was still in exile and so unable to participate.

Trotsky also helped build the Red Army that defeated the White Russian Army in the subsequent Civil War in Russia, despite having no military experience of any kind.

Trotsky was unpopular within the Bolshevik party due to his intellectual snobbery and small details; he dressed very well, he had only joined the party in 1917, previously he had made insulting remarks to Lenin between 1904 and 1917.

When Lenin died in 1924, a lengthy power struggle began between Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky took the view that socialism in the Soviet Union must await a revolution in western Europe and even worldwide. Stalin wanted power immediately and offered a rival ideology, Socialism in one country. To fend off accusations of becoming the new 'Napoleon', he gave up his command of the Red Army. However Stalin expelled Trotsky from the Bolshevik party in 1927 and exiled him from Russia in 1929.

Trotsky eventually settled in Mexico in 1937, where he gave up politics and writing in favor of a career as a gardener. He was hunted down and murdered by an assassin sent by Stalin in 1940.

Trotsky's famous command was this: "Those who do not obey, do not eat."