| Leon Trotsky, who only became known by this name in 1902, was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in Yanovka in the Ukraine in 1879. His father, David Bronstein, was an uneducated but prosperous Jewish farmer. A Bolshevik revolutionary and a Marxist theorist, Trotsky was was influential in the early days of the Soviet Union. He was amongst the first members of the Politburo and founder and commander of the Red Army.
His mother, Anna, was partially literate and her eight children had the benefit of her education and listened to the stories that she would read to them. She was instrumental in their being educated too. However, she passed away in 1910 and subsequently Leon Trotsky lost most of his brothers and sisters in one calamity or the other.
An enthusiastic disciple of Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky was arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1898. However, he managed to escape four years later and travelled to England on a forged passport. There he met Lenin and was instrumental in the publication of a journal called Iskara – The Spark, and later on established several other publications which were mainly used as propagation of his views. As a revolutionary he was once again exiled to Siberia and managed to escape. He was imprisoned several times during his lifetime.
Trotsky's memoirs and other articles made him one of the most eminent writers and revolutionaries of his time. He was assassinated by one of Stalin’s agents in Mexico in 1940. |
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