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80-410: The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Historical Historical According to Russian communist Leon Trotsky , the roots of the united front go back to the practice of

160-524: A narodnik (revolutionary agrarian socialist populist ), he initially opposed Marxism but was won over by his future first wife, Aleksandra Sokolovskaya . That same year, he graduated from his high school with a first class honours. According to his relative, Valery Bronstein, his father had intended for Trotsky to become a mechanical engineer after leaving modern school. Trotsky briefly attended Odessa University studying engineering and mathematics . He dropped out in early 1897 to help organize

240-723: A Marxist and Leninist , his thought and writings inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism . Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire , Trotsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898. He was arrested for revolutionary activities and exiled to Siberia , but in 1902 escaped to London, where he met Lenin and wrote for the party's newspaper Iskra . Trotsky sided with Julius Martov 's Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks after

320-657: A "unification" conference of social democratic factions in Vienna in August 1912 (a.k.a. "The August Bloc") and tried to re-unite the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks into one party. The attempt was generally unsuccessful. In Vienna, Trotsky continuously published articles in radical Russian and Ukrainian newspapers, such as Kievskaya Mysl, under a variety of pseudonyms, often using "Antid Oto", a name chosen at random from an Italian dictionary, with Trotsky joking that "wanted to inject

400-527: A close working relationship with Alexander Parvus in 1904–07. During their split, Lenin referred to Trotsky as "Little Judas" ( Iudushka , based on the character from Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin 's novel The Golovlyov Family ), a "scoundrel" and a "swine". The unrest and agitation against the Russian government came to a head in Saint Petersburg on 3 January 1905 ( Julian Calendar ), when

480-562: A compromise figure when elected as the head of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was a lawyer that stood above the political factions contained in the Soviet. However, since his election, he proved to be very popular with the workers in spite of the Bolsheviks' original opposition to him. Khrustalev-Nosar became famous in his position as spokesman for the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Indeed, to the outside world, Khrustalev-Nosar

560-568: A conspiracy. This was later confirmed by Russian police records listing the number of known militant radicals found among the dead. Following the events of Bloody Sunday, Trotsky secretly returned to Russia in February 1905, by way of Kiev . At first he wrote leaflets for an underground printing press in Kiev, but soon moved to the capital, Saint Petersburg. There he worked with both Bolsheviks, such as Central Committee member Leonid Krasin , and

640-526: A daughter in Russia. Suffering also from tuberculosis and depression , Zinaida committed suicide in 1933. Aleksandra disappeared in 1935 during the Great Purges under Stalin and was murdered by Soviet forces three years later. Until this point, Trotsky had used his birth name: Lev (Leon) Bronstein. He changed his surname to "Trotsky", the name he would use for the rest of his life. It is said he adopted

720-488: A minority in the working class, and the united front offered a method of working with large numbers of non-revolutionary workers and simultaneously winning them to revolutionary politics. The strategy was used by leaders after the initial revolutionary tide since 1917 began to ebb. According to the leaders of the Communist International, the shift from offensive to defensive struggles by workers strengthened

800-631: A petition against Morris' order. Back in Russia, after initial hesitation and facing pressure from the workers' and peasants' Soviets, the Russian foreign minister Pavel Milyukov was compelled to demand the release of Trotsky as a Russian citizen, and the British government freed him on 29 April 1917. He reached Russia on 17 May 1917. After his return, Trotsky substantially agreed with the Bolshevik position, but did not join them right away. Russian social democrats were split into at least six groups, and

880-439: A reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. From 1904 until 1917, Trotsky described himself as a "non-factional social democrat". He tried to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members. Trotsky later maintained that he had been wrong in opposing Lenin on the issue of the party. Trotsky began developing his theory of permanent revolution and developed

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960-661: A strike broke out at the Putilov Works in the city. This single strike grew into a general strike, and by 7 January 1905, there were 140,000 strikers in Saint Petersburg. On Sunday, 9 January 1905, Father Georgi Gapon knowingly led a procession of radicals mixed within larger groups of ordinary working citizens through the streets to the Winter Palace to supposedly beseech the Tsar for food and relief from

1040-459: A time, was effective in winning workers to revolutionary socialism. As Stalinism came to dominate the Communist International, the strategy was dropped. In the Communist International's Third Period from 1928, the period preceding Adolf Hitler 's victories in German elections, the Communist International argued that the social democrats were " social fascists " and represented an equal danger to

1120-518: A usurpation of his newspaper's name that in April 1913, he wrote a letter to Nikolay Chkheidze , a Menshevik leader, bitterly denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Though he quickly got over the disagreement, the message was intercepted by the Russian secret police , and a copy was put into their archives. Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky's opponents within

1200-647: A very successful newspaper in the revolutionary atmosphere of Saint Petersburg in 1905. Just before Trotsky's return, the Mensheviks had independently come up with the same idea that Trotsky had: an elected non-party revolutionary organization representing the capital's workers, the first Soviet ("Council") of Workers. By the time of Trotsky's arrival, the Saint Petersburg Soviet was already functioning, headed by Khrustalyev-Nosar (Georgy Nosar, alias Pyotr Khrustalyov). Khrustalyev-Nosar had been

1280-555: Is a Marxist theorist and economist. He was born in South Africa in 1937, but had to leave to avoid arrest for political activism. He then lived and studied in the Soviet Union , where his PhD thesis, which was critical of official Communist Parties, was rejected. In 1965 he began teaching at Glasgow University , which in 2000 appointed him professor of Marxist studies. He retired in 2002. In 1973, he co-founded Critique,

1360-409: Is simply an initiative whereby the communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. However, revolutionaries could not simply go over the heads of the leaders of reformist organizations. They should approach those leaders demanding unity on

1440-712: The German Communist Party and Social-Democratic party during the interwar period would very likely have prevented Adolf Hitler from ascending to political power . In Chinese history , during the First United Front (1924–1927), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) worked closely with the nationalist Kuomintang . The Chinese organized a Second United Front (1937–1943) to fight the Japanese during World War II . Currently,

1520-484: The Bolshevik Party during the 1917 Russian Revolution . The Communist International generalized that experience among the fledgling communist parties that were established or grew significantly during the years after 1917. The theory of the united front was elaborated at the 3rd and the 4th Congresses of the Communist International, held from November 5 to December 5, 1922. Revolutionary socialists represented

1600-975: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) , the Samyukta Socialist Party , the Socialist Unity Centre of India , the Marxist Forward Bloc , the Revolutionary Communist Party of India , the Workers Party of India , Revolutionary Socialist Party , Communist Party of India , the Bangla Congress , the All India Forward Bloc and the Bolshevik Party of India . Soon after its formation, a massive rally

1680-697: The Mensheviks , argued for a bigger and less disciplined party where people who assisted would also be seen as members. In a surprise development, Trotsky and most of the Iskra editors supported Martov and the Mensheviks, while Plekhanov supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks . During 1903 and 1904, many members changed sides in the factions. Trotsky left the Mensheviks in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to

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1760-540: The Nazis . After Hitler's 1933 victory, the Communist International argued for popular fronts drawing in forces far beyond the working-class movement. Trotsky, now exiled from the Soviet Union, argued that the first conclusion was disastrous because it prevented unity against the far right, and that the second was disastrous because the terms of the struggle would be dictated by mainstream liberal parties. He feared that

1840-672: The People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (Defence Minister); he founded the Red Army and led it to victory in the Russian Civil War. He was an honorary president of the Third International . In 1922, Trotsky and Lenin formed an alliance against the growing Soviet bureaucracy ; Lenin proposed that Trotsky become his Deputy Chairman and preside over economic management , but he declined. Trotsky led

1920-619: The Red Terror and suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion , scholarship ranks Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army highly among historical figures, and he is credited for his major involvement with the military , economic , cultural and political development of the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to David Leontyevich Bronstein (1847–1922) and Anna Lvovna (née Zhivotovskaya, 1850–1910) on 7 November 1879,

2000-707: The United Front Work Department gathers intelligence on, manages relations with, and attempts to gain influence over elite individuals and organizations inside and outside mainland China , including in Hong Kong , Taiwan , and in other countries. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong organized the National Liberation Front (1960–1977) to gather widespread support for the independence struggle, first against France and then against

2080-562: The "old guard" led by Plekhanov and the "new guard" led by Lenin and Martov. Plekhanov's supporters were older, and had spent the previous 20 years together in exile in Europe. Members of the new guard were in their early 30s and only recently emigrated from Russia. Lenin, who was trying to establish a permanent majority against Plekhanov within Iskra, expected Trotsky, then 23, to side with the new guard. In March 1903 Lenin wrote: I suggest to all

2160-786: The Bolsheviks were waiting for the next party Congress to determine which factions to merge with. Trotsky temporarily joined the Mezhraiontsy , a regional social democratic organization in Petrograd , and became one of its leaders. At the First Congress of Soviets in June, he was elected a member of the first All-Russian Central Executive Committee ("VTsIK") from the Mezhraiontsy faction. Hillel Ticktin Hillel H. Ticktin

2240-669: The Bolsheviks. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet , he played an important role in the October Revolution that overthrew the Provisional Government . In Lenin's first government , Trotsky was appointed as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) and led negotiations for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , by which Russia withdrew from World War I . From 1918 to 1925, he served as

2320-538: The Communist Party to portray him as Lenin's enemy. The 1910s were a period of heightened tension within the RSDLP, leading to numerous frictions between Trotsky, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The most serious disagreement that Trotsky and the Mensheviks had with Lenin at the time was over the issue of "expropriations", i.e., armed robbery of banks and other companies by Bolshevik groups to procure money for

2400-539: The Communists propose is completely indispensable for the struggle against fascism. On this basis we must pull the Social Democratic workers along with us by our example, and criticize their leaders who will inevitably serve as a check and a brake. Marxist theorist and economist Hillel Ticktin argued that his political strategy and approach to fascism such as the emphasis on an organisational bloc between

2480-664: The European social democratic parties, primarily the German party. As a war correspondent for the Kievskaya Mysl , Trotsky moved to France on 19 November 1914. In January 1915 in Paris, he began editing (at first with Martov, who soon resigned as the paper moved to the left) Nashe Slovo ("Our Word"), an internationalist socialist newspaper. He adopted the slogan of "peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered." Lenin advocated Russia's defeat in

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2560-654: The Marxist antidote into the legitimate newspapers". In September 1912, Kievskaya Mysl sent him to the Balkans as its war correspondent, where he covered the two Balkan Wars for the next year. While there, Trotsky chronicled the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian army against the Albanian civilian population. He became a close friend of Christian Rakovsky , later a leading Soviet politician and Trotsky's ally in

2640-535: The Party. These actions had been banned by the 5th Congress, but were continued by the Bolsheviks. In January 1912, the majority of the Bolshevik faction, led by Lenin, as well as a few defecting Mensheviks, held a conference in Prague and decided to break away from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , and formed a new party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) . In response, Trotsky organized

2720-561: The Russian government to some extent and wanted them to win the war, while Trotsky's ex-colleague Parvus, now a defencist, sided against Russia so strongly that he wanted Germany to win the war. In Switzerland, Trotsky briefly worked within the Swiss Socialist Party , prompting it to adopt an internationalist resolution. He wrote a book opposing the war, The War and the International, and the pro-war position taken by

2800-668: The Saint Petersburg Soviet Council of Workers Deputies, which was meeting at the Technological Institute in the city. Also attending were some 200,000 people crowded outside to hear the speeches—about half of all workers in Saint Petersburg. After his return, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper Russian Gazette, increasing its circulation to 500,000. Trotsky also co-founded, together with Parvus and Julius Martov and other Mensheviks, "Nachalo" ("The Beginning"), which also proved to be

2880-734: The South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev. Trotsky's university colleague and a prominent engineer who served as the Technical Director of the Baltic Shipyard had noted that he displayed an exceptional gift for mathematics. Using the name "Lvov", he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students. In January 1898, more than 200 members of

2960-574: The Soviet Communist Party. On 3 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, in which Austria-Hungary fought against the Russian Empire, Trotsky was forced to flee Vienna for neutral Switzerland to avoid arrest as a Russian émigré . The outbreak of World War I caused a sudden realignment within the RSDLP and other European social democratic parties over the issues of war, revolution, pacifism and internationalism, redividing

3040-463: The Tsarist government and its foreign debts: The autocracy never enjoyed the confidence of the people and was never granted any authority by the people. We have therefore decided not to allow the repayment of such loans as have been made by the Tsarist government when openly engaged in a war with the entire people. The following day, on 3 December 1905, the Soviet was surrounded by troops loyal to

3120-815: The United States during the Vietnam War . Trotsky and Trotskyists, such as Harold Isaacs in his The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution , would argue that they were popular fronts, not united fronts, that were based upon the model used by the Bolsheviks in 1917 and later. In 1954, the United Front was a coalition of Awami League, Ganatantri Dal, Krishak Sramik Party, and the Nizam-e-Islam Party in East Pakistan. It won

3200-426: The basis of a united front. That would pose a dilemma for the reformist leaders: to refuse the invitation and be seen by their followers as an obstacle to unity or to accept the invitation and be required to operate on the terrain of mass struggle (strikes, protests etc.) on which the revolutionaries would be proved to have superior ideas and methods. The tactic was put into practice in Germany in 1922 and 1923 and, for

3280-489: The communists would have to subordinate their politics within the alliance. Trotsky continued to argue for a workers' united front against fascism. Trotsky argued that the united front strategy would have great appeal to workers who wished to fight fascism: The programme of action must be strictly practical, strictly objective, to the point, without any of those artificial 'claims', without any reservations, so that every average Social Democratic worker can say to himself: what

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3360-502: The congress discussed the position of the Jewish Bund , which had co-founded the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898 but wanted to remain autonomous within the party. Shortly afterwards, the pro-Iskra delegates unexpectedly split into two factions. The split was initially over an organisational issue. Lenin and his supporters, the Bolsheviks, argued for a smaller but highly organized party where only party members would be seen as members, while Martov and his supporters,

3440-455: The desire for united action within the working class. The leaders hoped that the united front would allow the revolutionaries to win a majority inside the class: The task of the Communist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution. In order to summon the proletariat for the direct conquest of power and to achieve it the Communist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority of the working class.... So long as it does not hold this majority,

3520-448: The evening of 24 September, the workers at 50 other printing shops in Moscow were also on strike. On 2 October 1905, the typesetters in printing shops in Saint Petersburg decided to strike in support of the Moscow strikers. On 7 October 1905, the railway workers of the Moscow–Kazan Railway went out on strike. Amid the resulting confusion, Trotsky returned from Finland to Saint Petersburg on 15 October 1905. On that day, Trotsky spoke before

3600-482: The fifth child of a wealthy Jewish family in Yanovka, Kherson governorate , Russian Empire (now Bereslavka , Ukraine). His father, David Leontyevich, had lived in Poltava and later moved to Bereslavka, as it had a large Jewish community. Trotsky's younger sister, Olga , who also grew up to be a Bolshevik and a Soviet politician, married the prominent Bolshevik Lev Kamenev . Some authors, notably Robert Service , have claimed that Trotsky's childhood first name

3680-621: The first of the Moscow show trials , and in 1940, was assassinated at his home in Mexico City by Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader . Written out of Soviet history under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few of Stalin's rivals who was never politically rehabilitated by later leaders. In the West, Trotsky emerged as a hero of the anti-Stalinist left for his defense of a more democratic , internationalist form of socialism against Stalinist totalitarianism , and for his intellectual contributions to Marxism. While some of his wartime actions have proved controversial, such as his ideological defence of

3760-458: The government and the deputies were arrested. Trotsky and other Soviet leaders were tried in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion. On 4 October 1906 he was convicted and sentenced to internal exile to Siberia. While en route to exile in Obdorsk , Siberia, in January 1907, Trotsky escaped at Berezov and once again made his way to London. He attended the 5th Congress of the RSDLP . In October, he moved to Vienna , Austria-Hungary. For

3840-425: The government. According to Gapon himself, he led the people into a Palace Guard already on the defensive due to the crowd instigating violence against them. They eventually fired on the demonstration, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of violent radicals, peaceful demonstrators and police caught within the melee. Although Sunday, 9 January 1905, became known as Bloody Sunday , Gapon's own biography points to

3920-468: The local Russian language socialist newspaper, Novy Mir , and the Yiddish-language daily, Der Forverts ("Forward"), in translation. He also made speeches to Russian émigrés. Trotsky was living in New York City when the February Revolution of 1917 led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . He left New York on 27 March 1917, but his ship, the SS Kristianiafjord , was intercepted by British naval officials in Canada at Halifax, Nova Scotia . He

4000-399: The local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, were betrayed by a secret police agent in May, and Trotsky had to flee to rural Finland . There he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution. On 19 September 1905, the typesetters at the Ivan Sytin 's printing house in Moscow went out on strike for shorter hours and higher pay. By

4080-428: The majority of the seats in the 1954 provincial elections and formed a short lived provincial government. In West Bengal , India, a United Front ( Bengali : যুক্তফ্রণ্ট) was formed shortly after the 1967 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. It was conceived on 25 February 1967, through the joining together of the United Left Front and the People's United Left Front , along with other parties. The front comprised

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4160-414: The meantime, after a period of secret police repression and internal confusion that followed the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, Iskra succeeded in convening the party's Second Congress in London in August 1903. Trotsky and other Iskra editors attended. The first congress went as planned, with Iskra supporters handily defeating the few "economist" delegates. Then

4240-439: The members of the editorial board that they co-opt 'Pero' as a member of the board on the same basis as other members. [...] We very much need a seventh member, both as a convenience in voting (six being an even number) and as an addition to our forces. 'Pero' has been contributing to every issue for several months now; he works, in general, most energetically for the Iskra; he gives lectures (in which he has been very successful). In

4320-484: The middle line proposed by Trotsky. At first opposed, in the end Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. In September 1916, Trotsky was deported from France to Spain for his anti-war activities. Spanish authorities did not want him and deported him to the United States on 25 December 1916. He arrived in New York City on 13 January 1917. He stayed for over two months at 1522 Vyse Avenue in The Bronx . In New York he wrote articles for

4400-489: The name Lev . North has compared the speculation on Trotsky's given name to the undue emphasis given to his having a Jewish surname. The language spoken at home was not Yiddish but a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian , known as Surzhyk . Although Trotsky spoke French, English, and German to a good standard, he said in his autobiography My Life that he was never fluent in any language but Russian. Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke French fluently. When Trotsky

4480-447: The name of a jailer of the Odessa prison in which he had earlier been held. This became his primary revolutionary pseudonym. After escape from Siberia, Trotsky moved to London, joining Georgi Plekhanov , Vladimir Lenin, Julius Martov , and other editors of Iskra . Under the pen name Pero ("quill" or "pen"), Trotsky soon became one of the paper's leading writers. Unknown to Trotsky, the six editors of Iskra were evenly split between

4560-446: The newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was held. From then on Trotsky identified as a member of the party. While imprisoned in Moscow, in the summer of 1899, Trotsky married Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (1872–1938), a fellow Marxist. The ceremony was performed by a Jewish chaplain. In 1900, he was sentenced to four years exile in Siberia . Because of their marriage, Trotsky and his wife were allowed to be exiled to

4640-464: The newspaper throughout 1909. A majority of Bolsheviks controlled the Central Committee in 1910. Lenin agreed to the financing of "Pravda", but required a Bolshevik to be appointed as co-editor of the paper. When various Bolshevik and Menshevik factions tried to re-unite at the January 1910 RSDLP Central Committee meeting in Paris over Lenin's objections, Trotsky's Pravda was made a party-financed 'central organ'. Lev Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law,

4720-511: The next seven years, he often took part in the activities of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and, occasionally, of the German Social Democratic Party . In Vienna, Trotsky became close to Adolph Joffe , his friend for the next 20 years, who introduced him to psychoanalysis . In October 1908 he was asked to join the editorial staff of Pravda ("Truth"), a bi-weekly, Russian-language social democratic paper for Russian workers, which he co-edited with Adolph Joffe and Matvey Skobelev . It

4800-528: The party into defeatists and defencists. Within the RSDLP, Lenin, Trotsky and Martov advocated various internationalist anti-war positions that saw defeat for your own country's ruling class imperialists as the "lesser evil" in the war, while they opposed all imperialists in the imperialist war. These anti-war believers were known as "defeatists". Those who supported one side over the other in the war were known as "defencists". Plekhanov and many other defencist social democrats (both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) supported

4880-438: The party must fight to win it. The revolutionaries were told to maintain independence: The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy.... In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called 'electoral combinations' of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim. The united front tactic

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4960-408: The party should focus on helping industrial workers improve their lot and were less concerned with changing the government. They believed that societal reforms would grow out of the worker's struggle for higher pay and better working conditions. Others argued that overthrowing the monarchy was more important and that a well-organized and disciplined revolutionary party was essential. The latter position

5040-653: The party's Left Opposition , which opposed the concessions of the New Economic Policy . After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky was the most prominent critic of Joseph Stalin , but was outmaneuvered by him and lost his positions: he was expelled from the Politburo in 1926 and the party in 1927, internally exiled to Alma Ata in 1928, and deported in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France, and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In exile, Trotsky wrote polemically against Stalinism , supporting proletarian internationalism against Stalin's theory of " socialism in one country ". Trotsky's theory of " permanent revolution " posited that

5120-409: The party's 1903 schism, but declared himself non-factional in 1904. During the failed 1905 Revolution, Trotsky returned to Russia and was elected chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet . He was again exiled to Siberia, but escaped in 1907 and spent time in London, Vienna, Switzerland, Paris, and New York. After the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the tsar , Trotsky returned to Russia and joined

5200-402: The same location in Siberia: Ust-Kut and the Verkholensk in the Baikal Lake region. They had two daughters, Zinaida (1901–1933) and Nina (1902–1928), born in Siberia. In Siberia, Trotsky studied philosophy. He became aware of the differences within the party, which had been decimated by arrests in 1898 and 1899. Some social democrats known in Leninist phraseology as " economists " argued

5280-520: The section of articles and notes on the events of the day, he will not only be very useful, but absolutely necessary. Unquestionably a man of rare abilities, he has conviction and energy, and he will go much farther. Because of Plekhanov's opposition, Trotsky did not become a full member of the board. But participated in its meetings in an advisory capacity, which earned him Plekhanov's enmity. In late 1902, Trotsky met Natalia Sedova (1882–1962), who soon became his companion. They married in 1903, and she

5360-420: The socialist revolution could only survive if spread to advanced capitalist countries. In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Trotsky argued that the Soviet Union had become a " degenerated workers' state " due to its isolation, and called for an end to Stalin's dictatorship. He founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an alternative to the Comintern . In 1936, Trotsky was sentenced to death in absentia at

5440-423: The time required children to be given religious education "in the faith of their parents". Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook. Trotsky became involved in revolutionary activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev on the Black Sea . At first

5520-411: The union, including Trotsky, were arrested. He was held for the next two years in prison awaiting trial, first in Nikolayev, then Kherson , then Odessa, and finally in Moscow. In the Moscow prison, he came into contact with other revolutionaries, heard about Lenin and read Lenin's book, The Development of Capitalism in Russia . Two months into his imprisonment, on 1–3 March 1898, the first Congress of

5600-402: The war and demanded a complete break with the Second International . Trotsky attended the Zimmerwald Conference of anti-war socialists in September 1915 and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a Third International . The conference adopted

5680-420: Was Yiddish Leiba . The American Trotskyist David North said that this was an assumption based on Trotsky's Jewish birth, but, contrary to Service's claims, there is no documentary evidence to support his using a Yiddish name, when that language was not spoken by his family. Both North and political historian Walter Laqueur wrote that Trotsky's childhood name was Lyova , a standard Russian diminutive of

5760-490: Was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He was a central figure in the 1905 Revolution , October Revolution , Russian Civil War , and establishment of the Soviet Union . Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered the two most prominent Soviet figures, and Trotsky was " de facto " second-in-command during the early years of the Russian Soviet Republic . Ideologically

5840-428: Was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910. Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. Trotsky continued publishing Pravda for another two years until it finally folded in April 1912. The Bolsheviks started a new workers-oriented newspaper in Saint Petersburg on 22 April 1912 and also called it Pravda . Trotsky was so upset by what he saw as

5920-625: Was detained for a month at Amherst Internment Camp in Nova Scotia . While imprisoned in the camp, Trotsky established an increasing friendship with the workers and sailors amongst his fellow inmates, describing his month at the camp as "one continual mass meeting". Trotsky's speeches and agitation incurred the wrath of German officer inmates who complained to the British camp commander, Colonel Morris, about Trotsky's "anti-patriotic" attitude. Morris then forbade Trotsky to make any more public speeches, leading to 530 prisoners protesting and signing

6000-624: Was eight, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated. He was enrolled in a Lutheran German-language school (School of the Lutheran St. Pauls Cathedral, of Black Sea Germans , which admitted students of other faiths and backgrounds, ) which became Russified during his years in Odessa as a result of the Imperial government's policy of Russification . Trotsky and his wife Natalia later registered their children as Lutheran, since Austrian law at

6080-747: Was expressed by the London-based newspaper Iskra ( The Spark ), founded in 1900. Trotsky quickly sided with the Iskra position and began writing for the paper. In the summer of 1902, at the urging of his wife, Aleksandra, Trotsky escaped from Siberia hidden in hay. Aleksandra later escaped with their daughters. Both daughters married, and Zinaida had children, but the daughters died before their parents. Nina Nevelson died from tuberculosis in 1928, cared for in her last months by her older sister. Zinaida Volkova followed her father into exile in Berlin , taking her son by her second marriage but leaving behind

6160-669: Was held in Calcutta , at which an 18-point programme of the Front was presented. Ajoy Mukherjee , leader of the Bangla Congress, was the head of the United Front . It dislodged the Indian National Congress in the state of West Bengal for the first time. Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein (7 November [ O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky ,

6240-525: Was smuggled into Russia. The paper appeared very irregularly; only five issues were published in its first year. Avoiding factional politics, the paper proved popular with Russian industrial workers. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks split multiple times after the failure of the 1905–1907 revolution. Money was very scarce for the publication of Pravda . Trotsky approached the Russian Central Committee to seek financial backing for

6320-400: Was the embodiment of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Trotsky joined the Soviet under the name "Yanovsky" (after the village he was born in, Yanovka) and was elected vice-chairman. He did much of the actual work at the Soviet and, after Khrustalev-Nosar's arrest on 26 November 1905, was elected its chairman. On 2 December, the Soviet issued a proclamation which included the following statement about

6400-501: Was with him until his death. They had two children together, Lev Sedov (1906–1938) and Sergei Sedov (1908–1937), both of whom would predecease their parents. Regarding his sons' surnames, Trotsky later explained that after the 1917 revolution: In order not to oblige my sons to change their name, I, for "citizenship" requirements, took on the name of my wife. Trotsky never used the name "Sedov" either privately or publicly. Natalia Sedova sometimes signed her name "Sedova-Trotskaya". In

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