Likely, Stalin himself was responsible for the assassination. The murder gave him the pretext for systematically and publicly purging the Communist Party. Old Bolsheviks, such as Zinoviev and Kamenev, stood accused of conspiring against the Soviet government. Following their death sentences, several successor trials ensued through Trotsky knew that a combination of torture, threats to family members, and promises of freedom, if confessions were given, allowed the travesties to occur.
The violence swept away both supporters and opponents of Stalin and Stalinism. Radek and Rakovsky, former allies of Trotsky who later submitted to Stalin, were killed. Others were murdered in labor camps, the infamous Gulags, or in prisons. The secret police put him to death in January In this period, the Soviet Union was perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for independent-thinking Marxists, an astounding thing to say, given the records of the fascist regimes.
From the Show Trials, ever more outlandish tales about Trotsky were spun. The stories relayed by the accused placed him at the center of a massive, worldwide anti-Soviet conspiracy.
Turning his calls for an anti-Stalin revolution against him, Vyshinsky pilloried Trotsky, the inveterate adversary of fascism, as the master fascist, as the string-puller and puppet-master. Yet Trotsky fought back vigorously. Its aim was to provide a revolutionary alternative to the Moscow-led Third or Communist International Comintern.
This Fourth International would bolster radical, anti-Stalinist working-class parties and unions around the world. When it came to repudiating the preposterous charges raised in the Show Trials, he received considerable help. Similar organizations were founded elsewhere. Only one of the members, Alfred Rosmer, a syndicalist and early supporter of the October Revolution, could be described as a Trotsky supporter.
Traveling to the Mexican capital, the Commission held thirteen sessions in April Trotsky, speaking in his quite imperfect English, responded to every accusation leveled by the Stalinists.
He cast a powerful impression on those present, including the liberal Dewey, no admirer of his politics. In September , the Commission issued its findings, clearing Trotsky of all the charges. The following years were dark, awful times for Trotsky, Natalia, and their inner circle.
Losing two sons and innumerable comrades and friends to Stalin did not break his spirit, but the losses threw a shadow over everything he had done.
With the Japanese in China, Hitler moving into Austria, and threatening Czechoslovakia, and Mussolini dreaming of a Roman Empire in the Mediterranean, the prospect of a new world war soon overtook him.
Following the Munich Agreement of September , Trotsky expected the Soviet government to seek an agreement with Hitler. Whatever anti-Nazi sentiments issued from the Kremlin, Trotsky thought, were not worth the paper they were written on.
In the aftermath of the Show Trials, he believed an even more important reason would drive Stalin to come to an agreement with Berlin: survival.
The Stalin regime was too despotic and unpopular to weather the storm of total war. According to Trotsky, a settlement with Nazi Germany might secure some stability for the dictatorship. When Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, and Joachim von Ribbentrop, his German counterpart, signed a Non-Aggression Pact between the two nations on August 23, , Trotsky was scarcely surprised. In a steady stream of articles and interviews, he condemned the role of the Soviet Union, a state that, at least in its rhetoric, had sided with the colonized against imperialism.
The betrayal of the principles of Red October had reached a new level of treachery. Perhaps Stalin, Trotsky surmised, now seemed content with partitioning Eastern Europe with the German fascists. The Soviet attack on Finland in November , the beginning of the Winter War , made him wonder how far Stalin was willing to go to create a sphere of interest for himself.
While he again damned Soviet aggression, Trotsky, at the same time, despised Marshal Mannerheim, the right-wing Finnish leader rallying his people. This was a huge dilemma for Trotsky. After eight years as president of the United States, Ronald Reagan gives his farewell address to the American people. In his speech, President Reagan spoke with particular enthusiasm about the foreign policy achievements of his administration.
In his speech, Reagan declared that The victory secured central Arkansas for the Union and lifted Northern morale just three weeks after the disastrous Battle of Francis Salvador, the first Jewish person to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress on January 11, Born in , Salvador was descended from a line of prominent Sephardic Jews who made their home in London.
Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. US Government. Early 20th Century US. Sign Up. It is true that Radck's name is not mentioned in the Sklarz materials, but it surfaces in connection with the January assassinations of Licbknccht and Luxemburg.
Karl Licbknccht's brother Theodore devoted his life to the investigation of these murders. Theodore Licbknccht, a German Social Democrat, came to the conclusion that Karl Radek was definitely involved in the murders. The materials he collected in the course of his investigation perished during a bombing raid on Germany in November of Archives of the International Iastitutc of Social History in Amsterdam, Theodore Licbknccht collection, folder 10, diary notations in German by T.
But in , Boris I. Nicolacvsky, the famous Russian emigre historian and archivist, wrote Theodore Licbknccht a letter asking about Karl Moore, a secret collaborator with the German government among the Social Democrats. Nicolaevsky to T. Licbknccht dated 15 December , in German. In response, Theodore Licbknccht told Nicolacvsky about his conclusions concerning the role of Radek in the deaths of his brother and Rosa Luxemburg.
The correspondence between Licbknccht. However, there is an allusion to this correspondence in a letter from Nicolaesvsky to a third person. That meeting never took place, and Theodore felt that Radck had betrayed Karl. Nicolaevsky to R. In a letter to the Italian socialist A. Balabanova collection , Nicolaevsky spelled out what precisely Karl Licbknccht had found out about Radck: "Especially frequently now I recall my past conversations with Theodore Licbknccht, who indicated to me that Radek betrayed Karl [Licbknccht].
On the eve of Karl Liebknecht's arrest he met Theodore on the street and on the way said that he had received information regarding Radck's tics with military circles, and coasidcrcd him a traitor. They made arrangements to meet the next day, at which time Karl was to have recounted the details - but that night Karl Licbknccht was arrested and killed.
All through the next years Theodore gathered evidence, and told me that he was convinced of the accuracy of his brother's suspicioas [ He assured me that the same conclusion regarding Radck had also been reached by Karl Licbknccht, who had a conversation on this subject with Theodore at their last meeting. Karl, in Theodore's words, was completely crushed by information he had received then from someone - from whom Theodore did not know.
Souvarinc, letter from Nicolaevsky to B. Souvarinc dated 1 1 April And in he wrote to M. Pavlovskii, who was studying Bolshcvik-Gcrman collaboration in the pre -revolutionary period: « Of course, Radck did not participate directly in the assassination [of Karl Licbknccht - Y.
The subject was something else, the fact that Radck provided them [the German secret service - Y. He was an absolutely honest man, very knowledgeable, he was totally correct regarding Karl Moore, he brought much to light in the affair of his brother's murder, [and] had some good informants.
To me it is unquestionable that Radck was linked with very major German secret agents. Stalin did not shoot him in , undoubtedly because he figured on using his old contacts , and therefore in this matter we can still run across much that is unexpected. Nicolaevsky to M.
Pavlovskii dated 2 September Of course, these materials arc not in themselves sufficient to allow Radck to be definitively considered one of the organizers behind the assassinations of Licbknccht and Luxemburg.
Bui they are more than adequate to place Radck under suspicion of participating in the murders in some fashion. For the Left Communists, for the supporters of Trotsky, and for the majority of the Left SRs distinguished from the Bolsheviks by their greater dogmatism , the issue of building Communism in a single country did not exist: they considered it an impossibility. It is necessary to stipulate one reservation at this point. Ultimately, building Communism in an "isolated country" turned out to be entirely possible, but doing so, as we now know, necessitated the destruction of those Communist romantics who would agree to build it only in accordance with maximalist dogma, rather than proceeding from the actual state of affairs in Soviet Russia.
In retrospect, cognizant as we arc of Stalin's campaign to purge the old Bolsheviks in , it is appropriate to salute the intuition of those who opposed "socialism in one country": they may not have known it at the time, but in defending their views, they were fighting for their lives.
Stalin's intentions were shown by the so-called "Georgian affair", by his quarrel with Krupskaia, which was followed by a rift in his personal relations with the dying Lenin, and also his announcement to members of he Politburo - Trotsky, Zinov'cv and Kamene v - that Lenin had asked him for poison with which to commit suicide see L. Trotsky later thought that Stalin wished to use this method to hasten Lenin's death. For a more detailed discussion see the appendix entitled, "From the documents of , " in Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia Eastman indicated elsewhere that he took down the quotations from the "Testament" from the words of three prominent Bolsheviks.
The question of how Lenin's "Testament" was transmitted to the West, and Trotsky's related famous denial, also require clarification. One source indicates that during a break between scssioas of the XIHth Congress, Trotsky, while strolling the corridor, recited the text of Lenin's "Testament" to Eastman, who was a guest at the congress Nicolacvsky, box , folder 14, two-page letter from R.
Abramovitch to N. Valcntinov-Vol'skii dated January Trotsky spoke with care so that he would not be overheard, but did not extract a pledge of silence from Eastman. At about the same time a Menshevik who had been working on the staff of A.
The Menshevik organ published the document, but its source was discovered, and, in , executed sec Nicolacvsky, box , folder 13, letter from B. Nicolacvsky to N. Scdova-Trotskaia dated 23 December 1 The text of the "Testament" held by the Trotsky Archive at Harvard University is a copy of the Sotsialisticheskii vestnik version, retyped for Trotsky by Nicolaevsky himself. There is reason to suppose that the text of Lenin's "Testament" was also carried abroad by Kh. Therefore when Max Eastman quoted from the "Testament" in his book published in English in , Since Lenin died, it should not have caused any particular scasation.
Nevertheless, a coasidcrable sensation resulted. Time magazine carried a reprint of the story of Lenin's "Testament" from Eastman's book. And whereas the Soviet government had chosen not to react to publication of the document in Sotsialislicheskii vestnik, Trotsky himself responded to the article in Time.
Acting on the instructions of the Politburo he issued a formal statement denying that a document called "Lenin's Testament" existed, and accused Eastman of lying. Krupskaia came out in print with a similar statement. Somewhat later, Eastman received the full text of the "Testament" through Rakovskii and Souvarinc, and then, castigated by Trotsky and Krupskaia, Time published the full text of the document.
But in late , Bolshevik leader Lenin decided that the conditions in Russia were ripe for revolution. At once he took control and direction over the Bolsheviks. He prepared to seize power using a clear plan:. Lenin's energy and drive convinced the Bolsheviks to agree on this course of action. For the plan to work, it was necessary to increase Bolshevik support within the Soviets.
Lenin developed Bolshevik policies with this aim in mind. These policies were outlined in his April Theses.
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