The Death of Trotsky
Leon Trotsky, the victim of assassination at Mexico City last week, had lived an uneasy but never an inactive life since he fell out with Stalin and was finally expelled from Russia, In the early days of the Bolshevik revolution and the young Soviet Republic he was Lenin's right-hand man, the organiser of the Red Army, and amongst the Communist leaders the most consistently ruthless in the use of the system of domestic espionage and terror. At one time it appeared as if he were destined to be Lenin's successor, but Stalin had been the wire-puller of the Party machine, and step by step under- mined Trotsky's actual power if not his prestige, till his expulsion from Russia was effected in 1927. In exile Trotsky was able to represent himself as the true successor to Lenin in the championship of the pure Communist faith: every compromise which his successful rival adopted was stigmatised by him as weakness or betrayal. A talented writer. a relentless enemy, from one country after another he con- tinued his propaganda on behalf of the Fourth International. in constant danger of attack from Russian agents, one of whom has at last carried out his murderous purpose.
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