Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was a Marxist revolutionary, a leading organiser of the 1917 Russian Revolution and founder of the Red Army. He played a central role in the Bolshevik victory during the Russian Civil War.

After losing the struggle for power to Joseph Stalin, Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union and became an international critic of Stalinism. He was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940 by Ramón Mercader, an agent acting for the Soviet security apparatus.

Hourly History’s Russian Civil War places Leon Trotsky at the centre of the Bolsheviks’ military response after the 1917 revolution. As organiser and political leader of the Red Army, his role helps explain how the Bolsheviks converted control of the central regions, railways and party apparatus into victory over divided White armies and other opponents, while the conflict’s coercive methods hardened the institutions of the new Soviet state.