Do you know about Trotsky?

Trotsky is one of the top leaders in the Russian Revolution. 10. 26, 1987 ~ 8. 21, 1940.

He created and organized the Red Army.  The Russian Revolution, the October Revolution in 1917, were led by Trotsky and Lenin.  After Lenin died, Stalin gained power and competed with Trotsky.  Lenin, more political, won while Trotsky fled to Mexico and was assassinated there.  His house is preserved as a museum in the suburbs of Mexico City according to the travel guidebook.  I visited there and had a valuable time with an unexpectedly extreme impact.

Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky

We, my wife and I, rode metro from the Centro of Mexico City, changed the line at Hidalgo and rode another for 20 minutes to get off at Coyoacan.  We walked along a nice residential area to the Museo Frida Kahlo.  This used to be the private house of Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera.  They are both known as the most famous painters in Mexico.  There are only a few paintings there but this seems to be the place most Frida fans, like my wife, must visit.

From this museum, we walked for ten minutes and arrived at Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky.  The left picture was the musium taken from the street: the south window was closed with a wall like a fort.

Entering into the museum,  I was surprised at a lot of visitors there including high school students noting with intensity.  Before visiting there, I thought Trotsky was the person most people had forgotten in the faded history..... but this must be not true.

Trotsky in Mexico

It was in 1936 that Trotsky came to Mexico.  In the beginning he lived at the Rivera and Frida's house, stated above, by their favor.  The picture shown below was taken in 1936.   From the left, Rivera, Frida, Natalia ( Mrs. Trotsky), Reba Hansen, Andre Breton, Trotsky, Merquides Benitez, Jesus Casus (Chief police), Sixto (Rivera's chauffeur) and Jean Van Heijenoort.

Trotsky's house

The Trotsky's house, preserved as he lived, is located at the right side of the tomb.  The left picture was taken from the garden.  We entered into the living room, as seen at the back of the garden.  There are south and east windows in the living room, where the former is blocked completely with a wall while the lower part of the latter blocked.  There is a kitchen at the north of the living room.  Between the living room and the kitchen there is a hallway connected to his study room, bedroom and his grandchild's room. 

The first assassination case

In Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky's bedroom, the awful case occurred.  Early in the morning of May 24, 1940, approximately 20 people, led by Muralist David Alfaro Siquerios, attacked this house, ordered by Stalin.  It was the head secretary of Trotsky, Robert Sheldon Harte, who introduced the attackers into the house.  The window shown in the left picture used to be a door facing to the garden at that time.  The gang leader, Siquerios,  shot hundreds bullets with a strong gun.  We can see a lot of bullet marks on the walls.  Other attackers also shot: Antonio Pujoro, a Spanish painter, from the door connecting to the study room while Luis Arenal, a Mexican painter, from the other side of door.  (Why two “painters”?...) The attackers also thew fireballs into the room: they aimed at burning the documents Trotsky was writing as well as at killing him. 

In spite of this awful attack, Trotsky and Natalia successfully stayed away in the blind corner from the attackers and save their lives fortunately.

The newspaper reporting the case.  The pictured of left and lower side is Robert Sheldon Harte, the person who betrayed Trotsky and introduced the attackers into the house.

Just after this case, the Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas ordered to fortify this house and to install an alarm system all over the house: the windows were completely or partly covered by walls and the doors were replaced with thicker and stronger ones.

Around 1940, Stalin was liquidating his rivals one after another in the Great Purge.  The greatest heros of the revolution such as Nikolai Bukhalin, Grigory Zinoviev, Karl Radek and Georgy Pyatakov had already been killed.  The remaining great target was Trotsky.  Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov, had also been kidnapped and assassinated.

The assassination at the study room

Trotsky’s study room is located between the living room and the bedroom.  Trotsky worked there at least ten hours a day.  This became the fatal place for the assassination.

On August 20, 1940, Ramon Mercader del Rio, who had pretended for months to be a lover of a Trotsky's secretary, entered here, attacked Trotsky and hit his back of head with an ice ax that had been hidden inside his coat.  This was a fatal attack and Trotsky died at a hospital the next day. He was 60 years old.

At the assassination, his table was covered by a lot of books.  Trotsky was writing about Stalin to disclose his unknown parts.  On his desk there is a Edison Recording Machine for recording his work.  In the left small bookshelf, there are dictionaries and year books. I found there "the Japan Year Book 1931", surprisingly, as shown in the left picture!  In the large bookshelf located on the north wall, I saw the books of Lenin, Marx & Engels Series and 86 volumes of Efon Russian Encyclopedia.

In this museum, the tragedies of Trotsky's family were also shown together with pictures.  The following is the summary:

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Trotsky's first wife, Sokolovskaya, continued the indomitable revolutionary activities and was exile to Siberia in 1935. Died after 2 or 3 years.

Sokolovskaya's son, Platon  Volakov, was arrested in 1920s and shot.

Sokolovskaya's son, Man Nevislon, was arrested in 1920s and shot.

Trotsky's elder daughter, Zinaida, had a serious sickness after her husband's arrest and death by a shot.  After her nationality was deprived, she lost her mental balance and killed herself in Berlin on January 5, 1933.

Zinaida's sister, Alexandra Moglina, left in USSR and was exiled to Siberia after grown-up, She lived until 1989 miraculously.

Zinaida's son, Sieva Volkov, is now living in Mexico.

Trotsky's younger daughter, Nina, suffered form tuberculosis and died in 1928 when she was 26 years old.  Her husband, Man Nevilson, was shot.

Nina's daughter was taken care of by her grandmother, Sokolovskaya, but lost after her arrest.

Trotsky's elder son, Leon Sedov, was an activist of the International.  He was assassinated by a Stalinist in Paris in 1937.

Trotsky's younger son, Serguei, was not a political person but arrested and killed because he refused to blame his father.

Only Sieva Volkov is saving his life as a descendent of Trotsky.

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Epilogue

The construction of communism or socialism nations was one of the biggest historical events in the 20th century together with the two World Wars.  It was also the extraordinary experiment for human beings.  Trotsky led such historical revolution and, even after his downfall, tried to create a new communism movement against capitalism and Stalinism.  In this visit to this museum I felt familiar with Trotsky for the first time.  I was reminded the people who had been blamed as "Trotskist' in 1960s and 1970s because they were against Japanese Communist Party.  I knew some college mates sympathizing with the groups blaming "Trotskists" and also others sympathizing with the groups that were blamed as "Trotskists".  Now I clearly remember all of them.  I was moved by such past memories although I have had no chance to know Trotsky's thought. 

What  ideal was Trotsky pursuing?  I like to read his work some day in the future.

In Mexico, I unexpectedly had a chance to see this historical person. This shock introduced me to a valuable time to think about various social events happened during the upheavals in my youth and also about the history of the 20th century.

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