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Leon Trotsky
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Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (he assumed the name Leon Trotsky in 1902) was born in Yanovka, Russia, on 7th November, 1879. His parents were Jewish and owned a farm in the Ukraine. When Trotsky was eight years old his father sent him to Odessa to be educated. Six years later he was transferred to Nikolayev where he was first introduced to the ideas of Karl Marx.In 1897 he became involved in organizing the underground South Russian Workers' Union. He was sent to Siberia after being arrested for revolutionary activity. After four years in captivity, he escaped and eventually made his way to London. Trotsky joined the Social Democratic Party and while in England he met and worked with a group of Marxists producing the journal Iskra. This included GeorgePlekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov.
At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Party held in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large partyof activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
A large number of the Social Democratic Party joined the Bolsheviks. This included Gregory Zinoviev, Joseph Stalin, Anatoli Lunacharsky, Mikhail Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Alexei Rykov, YakovSverdlov, Mikhail Frunze, Maxim Litvinov, Vladimir Antonov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Gregory Ordzhonikidze, and Alexander Bogdanov.
Trotsky supported Julius Martov. So also did George Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Lev Deich, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei Uritsky, Vera Zasulich, Noi Zhordania and Fedor Dan. Trotsky returned to Russia during the 1905 Revolution. Trotsky became heavilyinvolved in the creation of the St. Petersburg Soviet and was eventually elected chairman. Over the next few weeks over 50 of these soviets were formed all over Russia.
Anatoli Lunacharsky recorded: "Trotsky's popularity among the St. Petersburg proletariat was very great by the time of his arrest, and this was increased still further by his strikingly effective and heroic behaviour at the trial. I mustsay that Trotsky, of all the Social Democratic leaders of 1905-06, undoubtedly showed himself, in spite of his youth, the best prepared; and he was the least stamped by the narrow emigre outlook which handicapped even Lenin. He realized better than the others what a state struggle is. He came out of the revolution, too, with the greatest gains in popularity; neither Lenin nor Martov gained much.Plekhanov lost a great deal because of the semi-liberal tendencies which he revealed. But from then on Trotsky was in the front rank."
With the failings of the Duma, the Soviets were seen as the legitimate workers' government. Trotsky and the Soviets challenged the power of Nicholas II and attempted to enforce promises made in the October Manifesto such as the freedom of the press, assembly andassociation. In December, 1905, the St. Petersburg Soviet was crushed and Trotsky was arrested and imprisoned.
In October, 1906 Trotsky was sentenced to internal exile and deprived of all civil rights. While in prison Trotsky developed the theory of permanent revolution. After two years in Siberia Trotsky managed to escape and eventually reached Vienna where he joined forces with Adolf Joffe topublish the journal, Pravda. Trotsky was now seen as one of the most important figures in the Russian revolutionary movement and Vladimir Lenin asked Lev Kamenev to try and persuade him to join the Bolsheviks.
On the outbreak of the First World War Trotsky was forced to leave Vienna. He went to Zurich where he published a pamphlet attacking German socialists for supported the war. In November,...