History > History of Mexico > Trotsky
Leon Trotsky was the name assumed by Lev Davidovich Bronstein, the Russian politician of Jewish origin second only to Lenin as the outstanding architect of the Russian Revolution. He had early joined the Social Democrat Party, but despite some differences of opinion with Lenin joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, taking an active part in the Revolution and then as commissar for war directing the Red Army in the ensuing civil war.

After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky was defeated in the struggle for leadership by Stalin, dismissed from office in 1925, and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929, finally entering Mexico in 1937.

 

'... what's your names?'

'Trotsky,' gibed someone from the far end of the counter, and the Consul, beard-conscious, flushed. – UTV, 358.

Trotsky's short goatee beard made him instantly recognisable anywhere in Mexico.

Left: Trotsky in Mexico, 1940.

... for some time he had been carrying at the back of his mind the notion of making in France a modern film version of the Faustus story with some such character as Trotsky for its protagonist – UTV, 33.

Trotsky remained in Mexico until 20 August 1940, when he was assassinated with a pick-axe by a Stalinist agent, Ramón Mercader, whom he knew and trusted.

This murder, which Lowry would have been aware of when writing but which had not in 1939 yet come to pass, casts a shadow of tragic inevitability over the novel, particularly when the Consul is "identified" as Trotsky.

Left: Trotsky in Mexico, 1940.