Bolshevik revolutionary and one-time rival of Josef Stalin. Trotsky was brilliant, charismatic and a gifted speaker, but also vain and aloof. One reason Stalin, rather than he, succeeded Vladimir Lenin was that Trotsky "took no time to meet the Bolshevik faithful" after his electrifying speeches. One of his most ardent admirers admitted that his capacity for friendship was "about on the level of a barnyard fowl".
Trotsky first met Stalin in 1907, at a conference for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in London; the two felt an immediate revulsion for each other. Trotsky was eloquent and authoritative; Stalin apparently said nothing for three weeks of meetings. They never saw each other again after Stalin exiled Trotsky in 1929.
Trotsky helped create the NKVD, the Soviet internal police. While still in Russia he approved summary executions and village burnings in response to a peasant rebellion. "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of life," he once said.
In exile Trotsky lived with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico for as long as they could tolerate each other. Natalia, Trotsky's doting wife, acted as an intermediary between her husband and the world. By the time of his death he was isolated and powerless, living on the cinders of his reputation.
Trotsky was murdered in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish communist and NKVD secret agent, acting on Stalin's orders. The weapon was a mountaineering axe—not, as commonly supposed, an ice pick. Mercader was charming, handsome, eloquent and "a gifted actor who appeared to actively enjoy deceit…in short, the perfect spy". A first attempt involving machineguns and liquor failed. Stalin murdered Trotsky out of personal hatred and paranoia, not because he had any actual reason to fear him. Trotsky has long been one of the left's great "what ifs"—some believe the Soviet Union might never have endured so much violence had he outmanoeuvred Stalin—but in fact he was just as eager to kill as any other Bolshevik.
Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.