August 20 1940 – 16 Av 5700
Exiled Soviet leader Leon Trotsky was murdered at his home in Mexico City. Trotsky, the son of rich Jewish farmers from Ukraine, whose original name was Leib Bronstein, was a leading figure in the socialist revolutionary turmoil spreading through the Russian empire at the turn of the twentieth century. He played an active role in the Bolshevik revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and in 1918 was appointed commissar of military affairs, effectively chief of staff of the Red Army. This made him directly responsible for the deaths of millions, both those killed by his troops, and many more who died of hunger as a result of food confiscations. After Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin made sure that his rival Trotsky was removed from his post and exiled from the Soviet Republic, turning him into the ultimate traitor in the narrative of the Revolution. On August 20 1940, a Spanish citizen named Ramon Mercader came to visit Trotsky, introducing himself as an admirer and supporter. In fact he was a KGB agent of the Russian secret police. Asking to show Trotsky an article he’d written, Mercader had himself shown into Trotsky’s private study, then attacked the exile’s head with an ice pick as soon as they were alone together.
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