Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most controversial figures in the history of the 20th century. He was an ideologist of the revolution, created the Red Army and the Comintern, dreamed of a world revolution, but became a victim of his own ideas.

"Demon of the Revolution"

Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was key. One can even say that without his participation it would have failed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.

Trotsky's importance for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who in the future would become Trotsky’s main enemy, wrote in 1918: “All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct leadership of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky.” During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city.

Trotsky was called the “demon of the revolution,” but he was also one of its economists.

Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton, “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,” it is written about Trotsky that he was closely associated with Wall Street tycoons and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally gave Trotsky a passport and gave the “demon of the revolution” $10,000 (more than $200,000 in today’s money).

This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the newspaper: “ New life» rumors about dollars from bankers:

“Regarding the story of 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither is mine
the government and I knew nothing about it until information about it appeared
already here, in Russian circles and the Russian press.” Trotsky further wrote:

“Two days before I left New York for Europe, my German associates gave me a farewell meeting.” At this meeting, a gathering for the Russian revolution took place. The collection gave $310.”

However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.

Creation of the Red Army

Trotsky is also credited with creating the Red Army. He set a course for building an army on traditional principles: unity of command, restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on Khodynskoye Field.

An important step The creation of the Red Army was the fight against the “military anarchism” of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky reinstated executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the Red commanders how to restore discipline.

On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment fled without permission from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation (execution of every tenth by lot) against deserters.

On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. At the instigation of Trotsky, by decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service between the ages of 18 and 40 was registered, and military conscription was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, there were already about half a million people in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.

Barrier detachments

When it comes to barrage detachments, people usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back,” however, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent in the creation of barrage detachments. It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs “Around October,” he wrote that he himself substantiated to Lenin the need to create barrier detachments:

“To overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments of communists and militants in general. We must force him to fight. If you wait until the man loses his senses, it will probably be too late.”

Trotsky was generally distinguished by his harsh judgments: “As long as the evil tailless monkeys called people, proud of their technology, build armies and fight, the command will put soldiers between possible death in front and inevitable death behind.”

Over-industrialization

Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first path, which Nikolai Bukharin supported, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.

Trotsky insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted of growth with the help of internal resources, using means for the development of heavy industry Agriculture and light industry.

The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything was given from 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to “pay” the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the “Bukharin approach,” then by the beginning of 1928 Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to accelerated industrialization. To catch up the developed countries The West was required to “run a distance of 50–100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.

Red five-pointed star

Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential “art directors” of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR. When it was officially approved by the order of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs of the Republic Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name “Mars star with a plow and hammer.” The order also stated that this sign “is the property of persons serving in the Red Army.”

Seriously interested in esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.

The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become a symbol of Soviet Russia. She was depicted on “Kerenki”, swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna before the execution, but by Trotsky’s sole decision the Bolsheviks settled on five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century has shown that the “star” is stronger than the “swastika”. Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.

— In his memoirs, Leon Trotsky wrote: “If it had not been for me in St. Petersburg in 1917, the October Revolution would have occurred, provided Lenin had the presence and leadership. If there had been neither Lenin nor me in St. Petersburg, there would have been no October revolution… If Lenin had not been in St. Petersburg, I would hardly have been able to cope... the outcome of the revolution would have been a question mark.” So what is Trotsky's actual role in the October events?

— The main difficulty in our understanding of the events of October 1917 is that for several decades we were lied to about our history. They lied out of ignorance or intentionally, out of stupidity and underdevelopment. Bad historians and good ones lied, that is, those who, against the general nightmare background, were considered “decent people.” And over these decades, so many cultural layers of this lie have accumulated that it is very difficult to get rid of it.

The point is not at all whether Trotsky was good or bad, but that everything was not as Soviet historiography described.

"Everything was hanging by a thread"

The Petrograd October Revolution of 1917 was an operation amazing in its audacity. Everything was so hanging by a thread that we can say with confidence: only Lenin’s tactical agreement with Trotsky made possible the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd, which laid the foundation for the events that would later go down in history as the October Revolution.

By October 1917, Trotsky, who arrived in Petrograd, held the position of chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. In general, it was a rather toothless organization. Trotsky was elected chairman “out of old memory”: in the first Russian revolution, Lev Davidovich, together with Alexander Parvus, came up with this form of government and created the first council in Russia. In 1917, in order not to reinvent the wheel, Trotsky again stood at the head of the council.

The council had no power, and no one would have been interested in this organization and its leader (just as it was not of interest until Lenin’s time), if not for the idiotic decision of the Provisional Government to send the Petrograd garrison to the front. Of course, the government had serious reasons for this. People died at the fronts, and the Petrograd garrison fattened up in the capital and “decayed.”

The garrison, understandably, did not want to go to the front. And someone came up with a wise idea - to conclude an agreement with the Petrograd Soviet: the council (headed by Trotsky) would prohibit the Provisional Government from withdrawing the garrison from the capital, and the garrison would not be supported for this by the Provisional Government (why support it, since it wants to send this garrison to the front?), and the Petrograd Soviet. So it happened as in the anthem “Internationale” - “who was nothing will become everything.” At that moment, Trotsky’s Petrograd Soviet became “everything”—the only force in the city.

“Lenin was considered a burden”

At this time, Lenin was holed up in Finland, afraid to show his nose in Petrograd, since after an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in July 1917 and the publication in the press of information that Lenin was a German spy in Petrograd, only a cell could wait for him. But the moment came when Lenin, despite the risk of arrest, had to return to Petrograd.

Remember Ilyich’s famous phrase, replicated in literature and cinema: “Yesterday it was early, tomorrow it will be late”? The phrase absolutely adequately reflected the situation. Let's forget about the storming of the Winter Palace, which never happened as an assault, about the cadets and the women's battalion...

The point was not the Provisional Government, which existed, of course, but had no power without a garrison. The threat to Lenin came not from the government, but from the Congress of Soviets scheduled for November 8, according to the new style.

The agenda was already known: the congress was supposed to declare the Provisional Government overthrown and form a Homogeneous socialist government, including representatives of all socialist parties: “from the Socialist Socialists (Party of People’s Socialists - Gazeta.Ru) to the Bolsheviks.” That is why “tomorrow was too late.” The coup had to be done “today” - on the night of November 7-8. Otherwise, power would have left Lenin’s hands, most likely forever. But Lenin was only interested in power.

The Bolshevik elite was always burdened by Lenin. His “indisputable authority” is the second falsified page of Soviet history after Trotsky. Lenin was an unprincipled manipulator and authoritarian leader. He was not for a minute ready to submit to anyone's leadership. He split any revolutionary organization, for example the once united RSDLP, until he created a group of like-minded people who agreed to consider him their leader.

In the pre-October days, Lenin was considered more of a liability by the Bolshevik leadership. Lenin was not going to be included in the Homogeneous Socialist Government as an extremist. For the same reason, by the way, they were not going to include Trotsky there. And Lev Davidovich didn’t have a party.

Trotsky delicately writes that on the eve of the coup he concluded a bloc with Lenin. It seems to me that the block was concluded on November 7th. Lenin’s “yesterday was early” meant exactly this. “Yesterday”—November 6—there was no bloc with Trotsky, there was no support from the Petrograd Soviet, behind which stood the capital’s garrison. “Tomorrow will be too late” - tomorrow the Congress of Soviets will take away power. The revolution must be done “today”. And on the night of November 8, absolutely fantastic events took place: Lenin and Trotsky agreed, firstly, on Trotsky’s admission to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party; on the admission into the Bolshevik Party of all Trotsky’s supporters (the so-called “Mezhrayontsy” - those who stood “between” the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks); about the formation of a purely Bolshevik government exclusively from Lenin’s supporters called the “Council of People’s Commissars” and that in this government Lenin would take the post of chairman, and Trotsky would take the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Revolutionaries have never been nice and gentle people”

At the same time, soldiers of the Petrograd garrison seize the unarmed Winter Palace and declare the Provisional Government overthrown, several hours ahead of the Congress of Soviets. When the absolutely confused Congress of Soviets nevertheless gathers and helplessly grumbles about how this can be, after all, today the congress was supposed to declare the Provisional Government overthrown and form a Homogeneous Socialist Government, it turns out that the train of history has already left.

A government has been created, and it is headed by two extremists: Lenin and Trotsky.

So without Lenin and Trotsky there would not have been that October Revolution, which determined the life of the country for the next 75 years.

— In many ways, the fate of the revolution of 1917, and the fate of Trotsky, depended on the latter’s relationship with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. What kind of people were these? What were the relations between the two Social Democrats before 1917?

“Revolutionaries have never been nice and gentle people.”

Let me say that in general the revolutionaries were quarrelsome, vile, predatory, dishonest people...

There were definitely no romantic idealists among the Bolsheviks. Let us not repeat all the nasty things that Lenin wrote about Trotsky, and Trotsky about Lenin. Lenin fought for power and for leadership in the revolutionary community. He rightly saw Trotsky as a competitor. It is clear that he “watered” as best he could. Trotsky considered Lenin to be an unprincipled and dishonest person by revolutionary standards. Consider, for example, Lenin’s well-known trick when he began to publish a newspaper parallel to Trotsky under the same name as Trotsky’s newspaper - “Pravda”. How should Trotsky speak of Lenin after such treachery?

— What can you say about their relationship at the end of Lenin’s life? And what was the role of Joseph Stalin in them?

— Any political bloc exists only as long as it is beneficial to its participants. The political bloc of Lenin and Trotsky was, of course, beneficial to Trotsky: in the blink of an eye he became a member of the leadership of a serious party to which he had never had anything to do. But in October 1917, this bloc turned out to be vital for Lenin: only such a political combination provided him with not just participation in the government, but undisputed leadership. It was undeniable because the power and authority of the second man in the government - Trotsky - rested solely on the authority of Lenin within the Bolshevik Party.

In other words, if Lenin had died on November 9, Trotsky would have been left without power on the 10th. Therefore, Lenin knew that Trotsky was his constant and most devoted ally. And Trotsky knew that Lenin was his only ally in the party and government. So they lived and worked like Siamese twins.

If only competitors don't come

Particular attention should be paid to the history of the conflict during the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918. This is the third most falsified page of Soviet history. The majority of the party was for the revolutionary war, for the all-in game, all or nothing: world revolution or death. Since it was well known that the revolution in Russia could not be sustained, it had to begin (according to Karl Marx) in Germany. But Lenin understood: in the event of a global revolution, he personally would lose power - no one would be interested in the leader of backward Russia while there was a communist government led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany. Therefore, Lenin advocated signing peace with the Kaiser’s Germany. In other words, he deliberately intended to provide assistance to the German government, stabbing the communists in the back, so that a competitor, Liebknecht, would not gain power in Germany. This is how Lenin’s position was assessed by both the Bolsheviks in Russia and the communists in Germany.

To save Lenin, without whom, as we have already mentioned, Trotsky could not live in the Bolshevik Party, the quick-witted Trotsky came up with the cunning formula “neither peace, nor war.” Gradually, the majority of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, which was also afraid of being left without Lenin at a critical moment for the revolution, moved from supporting Bukharin’s point of view (“immediate revolutionary war”) to supporting Trotsky’s line (“no peace, no war”).

And when Lenin realized that the majority of the Central Committee was following Trotsky, he bluffed like a good poker player: he declared that if the Central Committee did not vote for his point of view, he would resign (this was all recorded in the minutes of the meetings of the Party Central Committee). The threat of resignation made no impression on the members of the Central Committee. On the contrary, everyone breathed a sigh of relief: the “old man” would no longer interfere with the cause of the world revolution. But the bluff of the brilliant manipulator Lenin was not directed at all at the members of the Central Committee, but exclusively at Trotsky. Trotsky understood: if Lenin really left, Trotsky himself would be expelled from the Central Committee the next day. And at the historic meeting of the Central Committee, which voted for the acceptance of German peace conditions, he declared: with the threat of Lenin’s resignation, he would not take upon himself the courage to vote against the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and abstained from voting (along with his supporters). Lenin won by one vote.

During negotiations with the Germans, Lenin betrayed Trotsky. They agreed that Trotsky would stall for as long as he could and then refuse to sign the “humiliating” document, running the risk of breaking with the Germans. This is exactly what Trotsky did. And Lenin accused Trotsky of sabotaging the peace agreement. This was absolute slander, proven by documents. But Lenin knew: Trotsky would never dare to openly criticize him, since he was Trotsky’s only ally and support in the Bolshevik Central Committee. And Trotsky remained cowardly silent...

“I considered everyone my opponents”

The last months of Lenin's life - 1922-1923 - are a most interesting and absolutely detective story, worthy of many monographs and novels. At the risk of repeating myself:

They were burdened by Lenin. He was disturbing everyone. He interfered with Yakov Sverdlov, interfered with Joseph Stalin, interfered with Felix Dzerzhinsky.

The revolutionaries were not soft, law-abiding, intelligent people. Many of them were murderers in the literal sense of the word. I am not saying this with condemnation at all: among the revolutionaries there were people who personally killed. It is clear that for ideological, and not criminal reasons (although it happened differently). In general, revolutionaries never had problems with killing the enemy. Who is considered an enemy is another question. Stalin took this concept to its logical conclusion and considered everyone as opponents - the whole world and each individual person. And this approach to enemies had its own clear logic.

When, towards the end of 1921, Lenin began to have health problems, the entire Bolshevik leadership took a turn to push the “beloved leader” to the grave. Except for Trotsky. Trotsky turns into the only desperate supporter and defender of Lenin. But by 1922, Stalin was so omnipotent in the party, and Dzerzhinsky in the special services, that Lenin could not win the battle against them, even with the support of Trotsky.

Lenin’s poisoning is “a statement of fact”

— You are suggesting that Lenin was poisoned. What is this hypothesis, what is it based on?
- Yes, in general, this is not an assumption. This is a statement of fact. Of course, one should not have expected that the topic of “Lenin’s poisoning” would receive the attention of Soviet historians. They told us and wrote nonsense about the last months and weeks of Lenin’s life. In 1999, I published the book “Leaders in Law,”

where it is described in detail how exactly Lenin was killed. By days, sometimes by hours and minutes. Only unlike many other historians who touched on this topic, I show that it was not a conspiracy of Stalin, but a conspiracy of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky.

Then the ease with which the conspirators managed to isolate Lenin becomes clear. The day when exactly this happened is known: March 5, 1923. I believe that on this day Lenin and Krupskaya were arrested. And then Lenin was slowly, sophisticatedly, sadistically killed, and on January 21, 1924, he was finally killed. And the sadist Stalin mocked Krupskaya for some time before poisoning her too: on her birthday he gave her her favorite cake. She ate a piece and died on her birthday.

"A world revolutionary is worse than a dictator"

— From the second person in the state, Trotsky turns into a political exile in 4 years. What is the reason for such a rapid fall of one of the leaders of October?

— The answer follows from what has already been said. Since Trotsky’s authority and position in the Bolshevik leadership rested only on a personal union with Lenin, Trotsky, after Lenin’s removal, could not help but lose power. There was also some criminality. Lev Davidovich hints that just before Lenin’s death an attempt was made to poison him too. Looks like it's true. So the reprisal against Trotsky began already in 1923, during the lifetime of Lenin, who was pushed out of power. Then they buried Lenin, they began to bury Trotsky. Just as not a single (I emphasize - not a single) voice was raised in the party leadership in defense of Lenin, except for Trotsky, so no voices were raised in defense of the arrogant outsider Trotsky. Krupskaya spoke out in his defense a couple of times, but no one heard her. First, Trotsky was demoted, then expelled from the Politburo and the Central Committee, then from the party. Then they exiled me. Then they sent me away. They killed all the children. Daughter Zina was driven to suicide, son Sergei was shot in the USSR, and son Leva was killed in Paris.

— Did Leon Trotsky offer an effective alternative to the development of the Soviet state after 1924?

- No, I didn’t offer it. Until 1939, he generally seemed to the entire world community to be a greater threat than Stalin, because Stalin, in contrast to Trotsky with his incomprehensible “permanent revolution,” began to preach the theory of “socialism in one country.” The civilized community rightly decided: the world revolutionary Trotsky is worse than the dictator who planned to carry out a socialist experiment within one, albeit large, country. There was no way to understand the ideological differences between Lev Davidovich and Joseph Vissarionovich.

Gradually, the “right” Stalin found himself to the left of Trotsky. Instead of industrialization, Stalin carried out super-industrialization. Instead of collectivization - complete collectivization. He introduced surplus appropriation in such a way that it killed millions of people (Trotsky’s war communism now seemed to be the height of liberalism); he built such concentration camps that prisoners could only dream of Trotsky’s labor armies.

— In a relatively short period after the expulsion of Leon Trotsky from Soviet Union in many countries of the world - from French Indochina to the USA - a Trotskyist movement, quite influential, if we take into account the lack of financial resources of the Comintern, has formed. What is the reason for its rapid growth and significant activity before the outbreak of World War II?

— The influence of Trotsky and his movement abroad after his expulsion from the USSR in January 1929 is a myth generated, on the one hand, by Stalin’s propaganda machine, which accused Trotsky of all mortal sins, seeing the machinations of “Trotskyists” everywhere and in everything; but on the other hand, by Trotsky himself, an enthusiastic optimist of the revolution.

Trotsky did not believe in power. Trotsky did not believe in the apparatus. That is why he was never able to understand what Stalin’s strength was and why this little bureaucrat from the revolution outplayed absolutely everyone.

There were only a few thousand active Trotskyists around the world. This, of course, is not enough. Trotsky remained a lone revolutionary even after his expulsion.

In Trotskyist periodicals he was the main and, in general, the only interesting author. He cannot be considered an ideological opponent of Stalin. Trotsky was against Stalin, but not against Stalinism in the broad sense of the word. Therefore, Trotsky’s position always looked contradictory and ambivalent. He opposed the creation of a second communist party in the USSR (as opposed to the Stalinist CPSU /b/). For a long time I did not dare to advocate the creation of the 4th International. He considered the Soviet Union a workers' socialist state, putting a formal dogmatic meaning into this definition. For his convenience, he came up with the theory that the bureaucracy had seized power in the USSR. So the attempts of Trotsky and the Trotskyists to form a mass revolutionary party make an overall pitiful impression.

“He didn’t care about his own son’s life.”

— Why were the operations of infiltrating agents of the Soviet secret services into the Trotskyist movement, and then eliminating first supporters, then Leon Trotsky himself, the leadership of the Soviet Union? great importance?

“Stalin was an exceptionally cruel man. It is well known that he either killed his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva himself or drove her to suicide. Stalin's son Yakov tried to commit suicide at one point. Did not work out. Stalin then teased Yakov: he couldn’t even commit suicide. Not every father would humiliate his son like that. If he didn’t care about the life of his own son, why be surprised at the cruelty towards the rest of humanity?..

It was very important for Stalin to take revenge on Trotsky. To take revenge in the Stalinist way: kill all his friends, associates, close and distant acquaintances, children, and only then, at the very end, himself. Eliminating Trotsky at some point became the priority task of the Soviet intelligence services, because Stalin liked to see everything through to the end.

I think that Stalin could not forgive Trotsky for two things: the support that he provided to Lenin, when it was clear to absolutely everyone in the party leadership that it was he, Stalin, who was trying to eliminate Lenin; and his own weakness - the weakness of Stalin, who, instead of killing Trotsky in the USSR, chickened out and released Trotsky abroad. And Stalin could never forgive Trotsky for this cowardice.

— You have been researching Trotsky’s works and studying his biography for a very long time. Is there anything that strikes and surprises you in Trotsky's biography?

— What strikes me most in Trotsky’s biography and in himself is his absolute inability to realize his own guilt and his responsibility for what happened in the Soviet Union. I am absolutely convinced that if he were asked to live his life again, he would find himself unable to change anything about it.

“Lenta.ru”: When the February Revolution began, Trotsky was in the USA. What did he do there and how much money did he live on?

Gusev: By the beginning of the First World War, Trotsky had already been living in exile for several years. He was forced to leave Vienna, after which he moved first to Switzerland and then to France. In 1916, dissatisfied with Trotsky's anti-war activities, the French authorities expelled him from the country to Spain, from where he was expelled again in December 1917 - this time to the United States. In New York, Trotsky continued to be involved in political activities, and made a living from journalism and public lectures on the Russian revolution and the international situation. The American historian Theodore Draper wrote that Trotsky was then greatly helped by the deputy editor-in-chief of the local left-wing German-language newspaper New-Yorker Volkszeitung, Ludwig Loore. There was a large German diaspora living in the United States, so the newspaper was influential and had a large circulation.

Could you live on this money in New York?

Trotsky was paid approximately $15 a month at the editorial office. For each lecture (also through the newspaper), Trotsky received $10; during his almost three months in the United States, according to Draper, he gave 35 such lectures. This income allowed him to make ends meet - his family rented for $18 a month small apartment in the Bronx, on the working-class outskirts of New York.

American historian Anthony Sutton, in his book “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,” claims that after the February Revolution, Trotsky was issued a passport to return to his homeland on the personal instructions of the US President.

Sutton is not a historian, he is an economist by training and the author of many eccentric conspiracy publications. Sutton does write that Trotsky was an agent of Wall Street bankers and the British government, but such claims cannot be taken seriously. For example, clean water It is a myth that Sutton claims that President Wilson gave Trotsky an American passport to enter Russia. In fact, Trotsky received Required documents at the Russian diplomatic mission. Other conspiracy theorists claim that Trotsky spied for the Germans, who allegedly gave him ten thousand dollars before he left the United States for Russia. But these are all artificial hypotheses, not supported by documentary evidence.

Why then in Canada, in Halifax, was Trotsky taken off the ship bound for Russia and sent to a concentration camp for German prisoners of war? Explaining this step, the British embassy in Petrograd directly declared Trotsky an agent of Germany.

From the point of view of the British authorities, Trotsky was a hostile and dangerous element. They feared that upon returning home he would begin to destabilize the situation in Russia and agitate for its withdrawal from the war. Trotsky spent about a month in the concentration camp until he was released at the request of the Provisional Government.

What do you think, if Miliukov (Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first composition of the Provisional Government - approx. "Tapes.ru") if he had not turned to the British with a request to release Trotsky, would he have remained in a Canadian concentration camp?

Miliukov did not like the prospect of Trotsky returning to Russia. At first he really demanded the release of Trotsky, but then changed his mind and asked the British to leave him in a concentration camp until better times, but under strong pressure from the Petrograd Soviet he again asked to release Trotsky. What would have happened if Trotsky had remained in Halifax? I think his fate would have been different, and he would hardly have played a key role in the subsequent events of 1917.

Towards Lenin

Why, after returning to Russia, did Trotsky join the Bolsheviks, and not the Mensheviks or Mezhrayontsy?

He just led the Mezhrayontsy group of Social Democrats who sought to overcome the split of the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Although, in their main positions, the Mezhrayontsy were closer to the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky himself contributed greatly to this rapprochement when he became familiar with Lenin’s “April Theses.”

But why didn’t he immediately come to Lenin?

As Trotsky himself explained, this is why he led the Mezhrayontsy in order to bring them to in full force to the Bolshevik party. Formally, this happened at the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) in July 1917, but in fact Trotsky sided with Lenin even earlier, immediately after arriving in Russia.

For what reason did Trotsky so clearly side with Lenin in 1917?

It was a counter movement. Initially, they had different views on the revolutionary process in Russia. After the split of the RSDLP in 1903, Trotsky first joined the Mensheviks, then moved away from them and took a non-factional position, and during the events of 1905-1907 he formulated his theory of permanent (continuous) revolution. He believed that the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia must inevitably develop into a socialist revolution with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then into a world one.

Lenin then sharply criticized Trotsky, accusing him of ultra-leftism and semi-anarchism. He believed that Russia, with its small working class and incomplete modernization, was not yet ready for socialism, and only the beginning of a socialist revolution in developed Western countries could open up a socialist perspective for Russia.

Lenin maintained this position until April 1917, when, to the amazement of many of his party comrades, he put forward radical ideas similar to those that Trotsky had advocated ten years earlier. But Trotsky, who had previously accused Lenin and his party of “sectarianism,” took his side. He no longer tried to reconcile the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and other left-wing socialists, but began to defend the course of seizing power exclusively by the forces of Lenin’s party. So in 1917, Trotsky and Lenin became the closest political allies.

Photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

But they had a long and difficult history of personal relationships...

This is true. While in exile, Lenin and Trotsky reviled each other with the last words. But in 1917 they were able to forget personal grievances and overcome previous conflicts for the sake of common political interest. Actually, this skill is the talent of real politicians.

Do you think there was any rivalry between them? Was the ambitious and ambitious Trotsky content with the role of second man in the party?

They had a certain division of roles in the revolutionary movement of 1917. Trotsky was a brilliant rally speaker who could speak in front of a huge mass of people for several hours at a time. He was an unsurpassed propagandist and agitator who could ignite and conquer any audience. As for Lenin, he was an outstanding strategist and party organizer. He united the party, developed a common political line and tactics for the struggle for power.

Of course, Trotsky was better known to the broad masses, and Lenin was the unquestioned authority in the party. But Trotsky did not claim supreme leadership of the Bolshevik Party in place of Lenin.

In 1914-1916 he lived in Paris, where he worked for the socialist newspaper “Our Word”, from which he ousted Martov. On September 14, 1916, the newspaper was banned and Trotsky was expelled from France for anti-war propaganda. After Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland refused to accept him, Trotsky headed to Spain.

In Halifax, however, he was interned by the British authorities - according to one version, the reason for his detention was the lack of Russian documents(according to Anthony Sutton, Trotsky possessed an American passport, issued personally by President Woodrow Wilson, with Russian and British transit visas attached). In addition, the authorities feared that Trotsky’s actions could undermine stability in Russia. Formally, the British acted on the basis of “black lists” of unreliable individuals compiled by the tsarist government. Trotsky stayed in a British concentration camp for internment of German merchant seamen (Amherst, Nova Scotia) for about a month. His wife, two sons and five other Russian socialists were interned with him, whose names were recorded as Nikita Mukhin, Leiba Fishelev, Konstantin Romanchenko, Grigory Chudnovsky and Gershon Melnichansky. According to some sources, Trotsky tried to conduct socialist agitation in a Canadian concentration camp, after which the interned German officers protested to the British authorities. According to the concentration camp commandant, “this man has incredible charisma. Just a few days later he became the most popular person in the camp" .

Trotsky refused to leave the ship voluntarily, so he had to be carried out by force, in his arms, and the head of the concentration camp, Colonel Morris, who fought in the Boer War, told him: “If only I had caught you on the South African coast...”. Trotsky himself describes his stay in the concentration camp as follows:

At the request of the Petrograd Council and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, Miliukov, the British authorities release Trotsky. On April 29, he leaves the concentration camp and travels to Russia on a Danish ship via Sweden.

Trotsky's route from New York to Petrograd through British territory gave rise to a conspiracy theory, according to which he was allegedly a British (or British-American) agent, and in Halifax he allegedly “received latest instructions" In July 1917, Trotsky had to face charges of allegedly receiving ten thousand dollars in New York from an unknown source, to which he ironically remarked that he had been “cheaply valued.” This theory was much less widespread than the theory of “Lenin’s German gold” due to its obvious meaninglessness - Britain was at war with Germany at that time and was not interested in Russia leaving the war. In addition, if Germany provided Lenin with the opportunity to transit to Russia through its territory, then Britain interned Trotsky. As for the United States, in 1917 they did not participate in the war at all and adhered to neutrality. There are also several contradictory conspiracy theories declaring all passengers on the Christianafjord to be socialist agitators, armed militants and wealthy financiers at the same time. In fact, the authorities interned only six people on the ship along with Trotsky, not counting his wife and children.

Arrival in Petrograd

Trotsky's oratorical abilities attracted Lenin's attention, and in July the Mezhrayontsy faction in its entirety joined the Bolsheviks; in the words of Lunacharsky (also a former “mezhrayontsev”), Trotsky came to Bolshevism “somewhat unexpectedly and immediately with brilliance.” Among other significant figures of Mezhrayonka, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, M. S. Uritsky, V. Volodarsky, A. A. Ioffe also join the Bolsheviks. The first meeting between Lenin and Trotsky, at which a possible merger was discussed, took place on May 10. Both sides come to the conclusion that their programs of action, in relation to the situation then existing in Russia, completely coincide. Already at this meeting, Lenin invited Trotsky to join the ranks of the Bolsheviks, but he postponed making a decision, awaiting the opinion of his comrades - the “Mezhrayontsy”. Lenin himself, commenting on these negotiations, notes that “ambition, ambition, ambition” prevents both of them from immediately uniting with Trotsky.

On May 16, 1917, the Kronstadt Council declared itself the only authority in the city, and demanded the recall of the Commissioner of the Provisional Government V.N. Pepelyaev. The current situation was considered by the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet on May 22. At the meeting, the representatives of the Kronstadt residents, Raskolnikov and Roshal, had to justify themselves to the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority of the Petrograd Soviet on charges of forming the “Kronstadt Republic,” which decided to “secede from Russia.” One of the few speakers of the Council who spoke on the side of the Kronstadtites was Trotsky, in the words of N. N. Sukhanov, who took “a very close part in Kronstadt affairs.”

Trotsky and Lunacharsky, as is known, were not at that time [May 1917] members of the Bolshevik Party. But these first-class speakers had already become the most popular agitators within two or three weeks. Their successes began, perhaps, in Kronstadt, where they toured very often. In Kronstadt, already in mid-May, Kerensky, who was preparing the offensive, appeared with the epithets: “socialist robber and bloodsucker.”

In June 1917, Trotsky calls the existing system of “dual power” “dual anarchy” and characterizes the “agreement” of the Menshevik-SR Soviets with the Provisional Government in the following way:

The petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, raised to a height unexpected for itself by the formation of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, was most afraid of responsibility, and therefore respectfully granted power to the capitalist-landlord government that emerged from the depths of the June Third Duma. The organic fear of the small man in the street before the sanctity of state power, which appeared very openly among the Narodniks, was covered up among the Menshevik-defencists with doctrinaire arguments about the inadmissibility of socialists taking on the burden of power in a bourgeois revolution.

Trotsky L. D. Dual anarchy.

On July 24, investigator Mr. Alexandrov brought me the same charges as Lenin, Zinoviev, Kollontai and others, i.e. the accusation that I entered into an agreement with agents of Germany and Austria with the aim of disorganizing the Russian army was received from the named states cash etc....g. Aleksandrov, considering it “proven” that Lenin is an agent of Germany, deduced my guilt from the fact that I 1) came with Lenin from Germany; 2) was a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee; 3) was one of the leaders of the military organization under the Central Committee... If the prosecutor and the investigator, before arresting me and interrogating me, had bothered to make the simplest inquiries, they could have found out that I arrived a month later than Lenin, - not through Germany, but from America through Scandinavia, and was never part of the Central Committee and had nothing to do with its military organization.

Trotsky described himself to an investigator of the Provisional Government as a person in a “non-confessional state”, “under the old regime” deprived of civil and military rights. Trotsky called journalistic activity his only source of livelihood. During his stay in prison, he wrote two works: “When will the damned massacre end?” and “What's next? (Results and Prospects)", in which he defended the need to both end the First World War and overthrow the Provisional Government.

Trotsky's activities during the "July days" led to the final merger with. - D. faction of “Mezhrayontsev” with the Bolsheviks. At the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b), Trotsky was accepted in absentia (at that time in “Kresty”) into the Bolshevik party, and was immediately elected a member of the Central Committee and honorary chairman of the congress, along with Lenin, Kamenev, Kollontai and Lunacharsky.

After the failure of Kornilov’s speech, Trotsky was released from “Kresty” on September 2 on bail of 3 thousand rubles, contributed by his sister, O. D. Kameneva (wife of L. B. Kamenev)

Trotsky’s expression “the beauty and pride of the revolution,” which he said to the Kronstadt sailors, became popular. It was repeatedly used, in a mocking manner, by opponents of Bolshevism. In 1918, the artist Simakov published so-called “revolutionary cartoons” in the Blue Journal publication, in which Trotsky was described as follows:

There is a large mane of hair on his head, which makes him appear taller than he is in the pulpit. Mobile face, quick eyes; the lips pushed forward make the face somehow flattened, and the small beard and mustache further emphasize the predatory isolation. Tenor, as if steel, sometimes loud, voice. A manner of speaking briefly, mincing words and clearly cutting off the ends of phrases.

There are two words to describe him: demagogue and adventurer, but only of a high, international brand. Although he has a last name, which is spelled Bronstein, he is a man without a homeland, without a father, without God. His success is equal to his immense arrogance, and the crowd, hungry for “bread and circuses,” will always understand him and will applaud him until he loses consciousness.

- The beauty and pride of the revolution! - he will throw it to her when necessary, and she will laugh with delight.

And in his speeches there are only two motives; spiteful and flattering. And he does not smash, but stings and sarcastic.

Possessing by nature this amazing gift of evil tongue, Trotsky developed it to perfection through exercises. Like an experienced fencer with a sharp sword, he smashes the enemy’s blows, showering him with attacks, merciless and dishonorable. And in a fight, he will never miss an opportunity to knock his opponent down, stab him in the back from around the corner, slip him a revolver from which all the cartridges have been previously taken, in a word, like the worst of women acts.

And with whomever it is necessary, he is flattering and flirtatious to the point of impudence.

“Our Moscow comrade and friend Bukharin,” he attests to his own, so formidable and harsh towards strangers.

This is a pathetic parody of Robespierre, a bloody clown, some capricious woman who wants to “play a role” at all costs.

July-September 1917

We went to Smolny. I saw Trotsky, who could barely stand on his feet from fatigue. I remember how my father, smiling, told him: “Congratulations to you. Lev Davydovich.” And he, thinking obviously that his father was referring to recent events, replied: “You too.” The father, still smiling, said: “No, I personally congratulate you, Lev Davydovich, happy birthday.” He looked at him in surprise, then slapped his forehead with his palm, laughed and said: “I completely forgot! But, by the way, I celebrated my birthday very well.”

The true role of Trotsky in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution is still debatable. According to Richard Pipes, Trotsky, in the absence of Lenin, who fled to Finland in July 1917, led the Bolsheviks until his return. Curzio Malaparte, in his 1931 work “Technique of a Coup d'Etat,” calls Lenin the main strategist of the “proletarian revolution”, and Trotsky the main tactician of the October Uprising. According to Lenin, “After the St. Petersburg Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky was elected its chairman, in whose capacity he organized and led the uprising of October 25.” Trotsky himself in 1935 assessed his role in the October events as follows:

Stalin, in issue of the newspaper Pravda No. 241 dated November 6, 1918, wrote that “All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct leadership of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade. Trotsky. It is safe to say that the party owes the rapid transition of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the skillful organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, first of all and mainly, to Comrade. Trotsky. Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky were Trotsky’s main assistants.”

Analyzing all these and other similar statements, historians Yu. G. Felshtinsky and G. I. Chernyavsky write that “The Military Revolutionary Committee (voenrevkom) of the Petrograd Soviet was created on October 12 (25), 1917 formally to organize the defense of the city in in the event of the approach of German troops, in fact, to carry out Bolshevik coup. The Military Revolutionary Committee was directly led by the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet L. D. Trotsky.”

At the same time, Trotsky’s direct role in the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee, as the main organ of the uprising, still needs research. Until the beginning of the October Revolution, the leaders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and Trotsky himself personally in their public speeches, refuted the allegations that they were preparing an uprising, and the first chairman of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee was the left Socialist Revolutionary Lazimir P. E., appointed, according to Trotsky’s own memoirs, as a diversion. In addition, Trotsky in October 1917 remained chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and in this capacity had many responsibilities that to some extent distracted him from leading the revolution.

According to researcher Sergei Shramko, the immediate plan for the uprising was developed under the leadership of Lenin Podvoisky N.I., and approved by the Military Revolutionary Committee, which entrusted its execution to Podvoisky N.I., Antonov-Ovseenko V.A. and Chudnovsky G.I. All three accepted Participating in the storming of the Winter Palace, Antonov-Ovseenko signed an ultimatum to the Provisional Government and arrested its ministers. According to the plan of the uprising, it was also assumed that the revolutionary sailors of Helsingfors and Kronstadt would provide assistance to the rebels. The corresponding telegram to Gelsingforgs was sent to Smilga I.T. from Sverdlov Ya.M., also a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

The first chairman of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee, the left Socialist-Revolutionary Lazimir, resigned on October 22; at the beginning of the October Revolution, another person was already the chairman of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee. There are conflicting data about who exactly was the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee at the start of the uprising and immediately after it. According to Soviet historiography, he was Podvoisky. According to other sources, one of Trotsky’s closest supporters, Ioffe A. A. Researcher Alexander Rabinovich believes that during the period October 21-25, 1917, the duties of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee were performed equally by Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Trotsky and Lazimir.

At the same time, there is a document dated October 30, 1917, in which Lenin signed himself as “Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee.” There are also documents dated November 1917, signed by Trotsky also as “chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee”. Already in March 1918, Trotsky signed an appeal to the population to move the capital to Moscow, also on behalf of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, although in fact the Military Revolutionary Committee dissolved itself in December 1917.

Lenin appears in Smolny, which became the seat of the Military Revolutionary Committee, only on the eve of the uprising, on October 24, when preparations were already in full swing. Lenin began to directly lead military operations only with the beginning of the Kerensky-Krasnov speech.

Summarizing all the available evidence, researcher Sergei Shramko notes:

...who really led the uprising, if all the headquarters, party centers, troikas, bureaus were not involved in this? Standing, shifting, in the ranks of candidates for the role of chairman of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Podvoisky, Uritsky, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin and Antonov-Ovseenko. Sitting on a stump to one side - cross-legged - was Lazimir, who had renounced the chairmanship by writing the Regulations on the Military Revolutionary Committee... Well, why not allow that October had collective leadership and all listed persons equally commanded a hundred thousand army of the revolution?

At the same time, the role of a number of Bolshevik rally speakers: Trotsky, Volodarsky, Lashevich, Kollontai, Raskolnikov and Krylenko, in “agitating” the wavering parts of the Petrograd garrison in the period October 21-25, is undoubted. On October 23, Trotsky personally “agitated” the last wavering part - the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The historian of the revolution N. N. Sukhanov also left a vivid recording of Trotsky’s speech at the People’s House on October 22:

There was a mood around me close to ecstasy, it seemed that the crowd would now sing some kind of religious hymn without any collusion or instructions... Trotsky was formulating some kind of general short resolution... Who is in favor? A crowd of thousands raised their hands as one person... Trotsky continued to speak. The countless crowd continued to hold hands. Trotsky minted the words: “Let this vote of yours be your oath with all your might, by any means, to support the Council, which has taken upon itself the great burden of completing the victory of the revolution and giving land, bread and peace!

The countless crowd held hands. She is agree. She swears.

With the beginning of a fierce struggle for power in the CPSU(b), Trotsky, starting at least with the “literary discussion” in the fall of 1924, began to widely appeal to his “merits to the party.” As a counterbalance, Stalin put forward the theory that the governing body of the October Revolution was supposedly the “Military Revolutionary Center” (“Party Center”), appointed to strengthen the Military Revolutionary Committee as its “leading core”, and which, according to Stalin’s historiography, became a “combat headquarters of the October armed uprising." Stalin was part of the “military-revolutionary center”, while Trotsky was not part of this body.

Such an organization of the leading bodies of the uprising was considered obvious already in the 1920s - 1930s, under conditions of one-party rule, which was increasingly centralized in the hands of one leader. However, in reality, in 1917, the Military Revolutionary Committee was not a body of the RSDLP (b), but a non-party body of the Petrograd Soviet, which also included the Left Socialist Revolutionaries on equal terms with the Bolsheviks. Apparently, the party “Military Revolutionary Center” never even met during the October Revolution.

With the beginning of de-Stalinization after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the role of the “party center” in the revolution was again reduced to zero, and the leadership of this body was no longer attributed to Stalin. According to the TSB, the composition of the Military Revolutionary Center began to look like this: A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Y. M. Sverdlov, I. V. Stalin, M. S. Uritsky.

Right during the uprising, the historic Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in Petrograd. Most of the seats on it were occupied by the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. However, they had to face fierce obstruction from moderate socialists, who accused them of organizing a “military conspiracy.” As a sign of protest, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks left the Congress, refusing to take part in the work of the new government.

During the meeting at the Congress, a representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the First Congress of Peasant Soviets appears and calls on those gathered to leave the meeting in order to “die under the ruins of the Winter Palace.” After this, the sailor from the Aurora notices that there are no ruins, as they fired blanks.

Trotsky represented the Bolshevik side at the Congress as the most capable speaker. He rejected all accusations of organizing a “conspiracy”, responded to protests about the arrest of the socialist ministers of the Provisional Government, and in response he himself stated that from now on the place of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks is only in the dustbin of history:

The uprising of the popular masses does not need justification. What happened was a rebellion, not a conspiracy. We tempered the revolutionary energy of St. Petersburg workers and soldiers. We openly forged the will of the masses for an uprising, and not for a conspiracy... The masses marched under our banner, and our uprising was victorious. And now they offer us: give up your victory, make concessions, conclude an agreement. With whom? I ask who should we enter into an agreement with? With those miserable bunch who left here or who are making this offer? But we saw them in their entirety. There is no one else behind them in Russia. An agreement must be concluded with them, as equal parties, by the millions of workers and peasants represented at this Congress, whom they are not the first and not the last time ready to exchange for the mercy of the bourgeoisie. No, the agreement is not suitable here. To those who have left here and who are making proposals, we must say: you are pathetic units, you are bankrupt, your role has been played and go to where you should be from now on: into the trash can of history.

At a meeting on October 26, the Congress, chaired by L. B. Kamenev, announced a resolution on the formation of the first post-October government, which, in connection with the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik boycott, included only the Bolsheviks:

...The Congress...decided: To form to govern the country, pending the convening of the Constituent Assembly, a temporary workers' and peasants' government, which will be called the Council of People's Commissars. The management of individual branches of state life is entrusted to commissions, the composition of which must ensure the implementation of the program proclaimed by the Congress, in close unity with the mass organizations of workers, workers, sailors, soldiers, peasants and office workers. Government power belongs to the board of chairmen of these commissions, i.e. Council of People's Commissars. Control over the activities of the People's Commissars and the right to remove them belongs to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies and its Central Executive Committee.

At the moment, the Council of People's Commissars is composed of the following persons: ... [People's Commissar] For Foreign Affairs - L. D. Bronstein (Trotsky).

Campaign of Kerensky-Krasnov

During the uprising in Petrograd, the overthrown minister-chairman of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, fled to the front, from where he hoped to move units loyal to himself to the capital. Already during the Second Congress of Soviets, the scooter units expelled by Kerensky went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, and it also became known about the reluctance of the Northern Front to participate in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising.

The only military force that for some time expressed support for Kerensky was the III Cossack Corps of General Krasnov, which occupied Gatchina on October 27. The Bolsheviks soon launched vigorous activities to combat these forces.

On October 29, Lenin and Trotsky personally arrived at the Putilov plant to inspect the preparation of artillery pieces and an armored train. On the same day, Trotsky personally went directly from the meeting of the Petrosovet to the Pulkovo Heights, and P.E. Dybenko also arrived there.

During the decisive clash with the Cossacks of General Krasnov, Trotsky was in the thick of things. On October 31 at 2:10, Trotsky, on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars, sent a telegram from Pulkovo to Petrograd, in which he reported the final defeat of Kerensky.

The crisis around Vikzhel. Homogeneous socialist government

Immediately after the October Uprising in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks had to face the most fierce resistance. Almost immediately after the events in Petrograd, an uprising began in Moscow, and on October 29, a cadet uprising took place in Petrograd under the auspices of the Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution.

Another serious threat to the new government was the Menshevik-SR executive committee of the Vikzhel railway trade union, which threatened the Bolsheviks with a complete stop of all transportation. Vikzhel refused to recognize the Council of People's Commissars, stating that after the Second Congress of Soviets was abandoned by the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, it lost its quorum. For their part, the railway workers demanded the formation of a “homogeneous socialist government” from representatives of all socialist parties.

The Vikzhel's demarche was perceived by the Bolsheviks as an extremely serious threat. The threat was all the more real, since the revolutionary railway workers played a significant role during the Kornilov uprising, blocking, in accordance with the instructions of the Minister of Transport A.V. Liverovsky, the railway track along the route of the Kornilov troops. Railway workers also played a significant role in the events of the February Revolution, blocking the failed “punitive expedition” of General Ivanov N.I. ( see Abdication of Nicholas II).

On October 29, negotiations between the Bolsheviks and moderate socialists began, at which the Mensheviks and Right Socialist Revolutionaries, in particular, demanded that Lenin and Trotsky be excluded from the government being discussed, “as the personal culprits of the October Revolution.” At that time, the outcome of the fight against General Krasnov’s corps was not yet clear.

The position of Lenin and Trotsky themselves became all the more difficult because they themselves were unable to participate in the negotiations, since they were extremely busy fighting the forces of Kerensky-Krasnov. In their absence, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), under the influence of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Nogin, passed a resolution to satisfy the demands of the Vikzhel.

At the same time, Lenin personally supported Trotsky’s candidacy, although he also joined the Bolsheviks only shortly before:

...no one would challenge such a candidate as Trotsky, for example, because, firstly, Trotsky immediately upon his arrival [to Russia from emigration] took the position of an internationalist [opponent of war]; secondly, he fought among the Mezhrayontsy for a merger [with the Bolsheviks]; thirdly, in severe July days proved to be up to the task and a devoted supporter of the party of the revolutionary proletariat [Bolshevik party].

see also

Literature

• Alexander Rabinovich. Unrest in the garrison and the Military Revolutionary Committee
• Sukhanov N. N. Notes on the Revolution

Links

1. Project “Memories of the Gulag and their authors” Trotsky Lev Davydovich (Bronstein Leiba Davidovich). Chronology. (inaccessible link - story) Retrieved January 22, 2011.

Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was key. One can even say that without his participation it would have failed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.

Trotsky's importance for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who in the future would become Trotsky’s main enemy, wrote in 1918: “All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct leadership of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky.” During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city.

Trotsky was called the “demon of the revolution,” but he was also one of its economists.

Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton, “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,” it is written about Trotsky that he was closely associated with Wall Street tycoons and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally gave Trotsky a passport and gave the “demon of the revolution” $10,000 (more than $200,000 in today’s money).

This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the Novaya Zhizn newspaper on rumors about dollars from bankers:

“Regarding the story of 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither is mine
the government and I knew nothing about it until information about it appeared
already here, in Russian circles and the Russian press.” Trotsky further wrote:

“Two days before I left New York for Europe, my German associates gave me a farewell meeting.” At this meeting, a gathering for the Russian revolution took place. The collection gave $310.”

However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.

Creation of the Red Army

Trotsky is also credited with creating the Red Army. He set a course for building an army on traditional principles: unity of command, restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on Khodynskoye Field.

An important step in the creation of the Red Army was the fight against the “military anarchism” of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky reinstated executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the Red commanders how to restore discipline.

On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment fled without permission from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation (execution of every tenth by lot) against deserters.

On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. At the instigation of Trotsky, by decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service between the ages of 18 and 40 was registered, and military conscription was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, there were already about half a million people in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.

Barrier detachments

When it comes to barrage detachments, people usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back,” however, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent in the creation of barrage detachments. It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs “Around October,” he wrote that he himself substantiated to Lenin the need to create barrier detachments:

“To overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments of communists and militants in general. We must force him to fight. If you wait until the man loses his senses, it will probably be too late.”

Trotsky was generally distinguished by his harsh judgments: “As long as the evil tailless monkeys called people, proud of their technology, build armies and fight, the command will put soldiers between possible death in front and inevitable death behind.”

Over-industrialization

Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first path, which Nikolai Bukharin supported, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.

Trotsky insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted of growth with the help of internal resources, using the means of agriculture and light industry to develop heavy industry.

The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything was given from 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to “pay” the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the “Bukharin approach,” then by the beginning of 1928 Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to accelerated industrialization. To catch up with the developed countries of the West, it was necessary to “run a distance of 50 - 100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.

Red five-pointed star

Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential “art directors” of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR. When it was officially approved by the order of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs of the Republic Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name “Mars star with a plow and hammer.” The order also stated that this sign “is the property of persons serving in the Red Army.”

Seriously interested in esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.

The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become part of secular Russia. She was depicted on the “Kerenki”, swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna before the execution, but by Trotsky’s sole decision the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century has shown that the “star” is stronger than the “swastika”. Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.