When Stalin sentenced someone, there was no escape. His wetboys chased his victim to death - even if she hid on the other side of the world. Lev Trotsky found this out especially hard, reaching the tentacles of his former colleague from the Bolshevik Party as far as Mexico. It was by no means a quick and painless death.
Historian, prof. Edmund Malinowski claimed that: "there was such a difference between Trotsky and Stalin as between Lucifer and Beelzebub" . And he was right about that.
Lew Trotsky (or rather Lejba Dawidowicz Bornsztejn) was one of the founding fathers of the USSR. He graduated with honors from the St. Paul in Odessa. This favorite of the Bolsheviks was rapidly climbing the career ladder. He returned to Russia when the February Revolution of 1917 broke out. Lenin himself wrote about him that he was the most talented man in the Central Committee. Chairman of the Petrograd Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Delegates, People's Commissar (Minister) of Foreign Affairs. On September 4, 1918, as the commissioner of military affairs and navy, he became the head of the Revolutionary War Council. He took part in creating the Red Army. Before 1927, 30 volumes of the works of the communist ideologist were published.
The scythe hit the stone
However, after Lenin's death, this idyll in the Bolshevik Party ended overnight. Lev Trotsky came into conflict with Stalin and fell out of favor. First, he was removed from his functions and removed from the Politburo, and finally "for counter-revolutionary activities" he was forced to emigrate and deprived of his citizenship.
Through Alma-Ata, he went to Turkey (the only country that agreed to accept him), and then to Norway and France. Eventually, Trotsky landed as far as Mexico. However, anyone who thought that sending the enemy to the other end of the world would be enough for Stalin would be wrong. The leader of the USSR acted uncompromisingly when it came to getting rid of his opponents. Trotsky Leo could speak of happiness anyway, because he lived several years longer than other members of the opposition.
Lev Trotsky
Besides, the ideologist spared no effort and resources to get Stalin under his skin even from a distance. Under the wings of the liberal Mexican president Lázar Cárdenas del Río, he campaigned against the leader of the USSR, criticizing him for betraying the ideals of the October Revolution and degenerating the essence of the Soviet state. He published critical texts, openly commented on current events and founded the Fourth International, which set itself the goal of fighting Stalinism.
He must have been aware that his actions were spinning the whip on himself. As reported by forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier:
He was still followed, however. On May 24, 1940, an attempt was made on his life. A group of armed men fired one hundred shots at Trotsky's mansion without injuring him. (...) Since then, Trotsky no longer felt safe anywhere. A hermit's life began. He locked himself in a house in Coyoacán, guarded by local policemen and security guards paid by American friends.
The revolution ate its own child
These precautions, however, had little effect. A few months later, on August 20, the NKVD agent Ramón Mercader, who had been hanging around Trotsky's mansion for some time, trying - as it turned out to be effective - to gain his trust (for this he even got into an affair with one of his associates, Sylvia Ageloff), he managed to get close enough to the revolutionary that he managed to hit him in the back of the head, smuggled under his clothes ... with a powerful pickaxe .
Leo Trotsky, who was currently working on a biography of Stalin, expected nothing. Philippe Charlier describes:
Both men had been in Trotsky's locked office for several minutes, when suddenly there was a scream of pain from there. Trotsky had just sat down behind his desk when the criminal hit him with the blunt blade of the ice ax. Natalia Sedowa, the Russian's partner, hearing the scream ran up to the wounded man and saw him lying on the floor with blood on it. The weapon had penetrated deep into the harness to the right, but Trotsky was still alive.
Leaders of the Left Opposition in 1927
His painful agony was to continue for another 26 long hours. Meanwhile, doctors from the Creuz Verde Hospital tried to save his life without success. Dr. Wenceslau Dutrem (the inventor of erotil, the predecessor of Viagra) was the first to examine it - still at the scene of the attack. He made a very optimistic diagnosis - he only found paralysis of the right hand and uncontrolled movements of the left side of the body. In his defense, Lev Trotsky was still able to talk and even joke at that time (when his head was shaved in the hospital, he laughed that he had finally managed to find a hairdresser ...).
He came to the operating room three hours after the attack. The surgeons performed a trepanation of the skull measuring five by five centimeters. They removed the shattered pieces of bone and cleaned the edges of the wound. Their efforts, however, were in vain. At this stage, the swelling of the brain was so great that the organ slid out of the opening. Doctors estimated his 9-10 chance that he would die.
Death to the enemies of the working class
The next day, at noon, a huge hematoma appeared on Trotsky's head. His fate was already sealed then. The doctors noted in the disease card:“Critical condition. Temperature 38 degrees V. Pulse 140 / min. Respiratory rate 41 / min. Blood pressure on the right hand 78/68 ”. There was no doubt that the patient was dying.
"Don't kill him! Let him say who sent it " - he had to call just before his death, although medical records show that he did not wake up after the surgery.
Trotsky's tomb in Coyoacán, Mexico
He died in the evening of August 21, 1940. According to Philippe Charlier, it did not have to be - if surgeons opted for a more invasive trepanation (for example, a craniotomy to remove half of the head bone, which would reduce pressure and possibly avoid subdural hematoma), Trotsky might survive. On the other hand, it is difficult to say what life would be like after such an extensive brain trauma ...
And what happened to the killer of the father of the USSR? Mecader was immediately arrested. A letter was found with him to justify his act, in case he himself died during his mission. It contained just one sentence:
"I am convinced that in time not only the party but also history will confirm the rightness of the decision I made in killing the bitter enemy of the working class."
And in fact - at least the party agreed with him, awarding him with the order and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union ...