2-7. Trotsky and the Left Opposition, formed in 1923 to politically combat the Stalinist bureaucracy, subjected Stalin’s policies to a withering critique and in doing so enriched the Theory of ...

But neither Dzerzhinsky nor Bukharin remotely approached the stature of Trotsky as revolutionary leaders. As for Krestinsky, a future member of the Left Opposition (and victim of Stalin’s purges ...

A brilliant orator and military strategist, as well as an outstanding literary critic, Trotsky was out-foxed and out-maneuvered by Joseph Stalin in the leadership struggle which followed Lenin's ...

However, after Lenin’s death, he was politically outmaneuvered by Joseph Stalin and expelled from the USSR. In exile, Trotsky continued his fierce criticism of Stalinism and advocated for ...

Witty. Thoughtful. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter. Trotsky’s vision for art and culture was more liberal than Stalin’s: He believed good art was inherently revolutionary and should ...

After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin begins ruthlessly promoting himself as his political heir. Many in the party expect Red Army leader Leon Trotsky to be Lenin’s natural successor, but his ...

Another Red record was added last week to the 117 executions and 97 other sentences meted out by Soviet star-chamber courts after the assassination of Dictator Joseph Stalin’s “Dear Friend ...

This was the beginning of the Red Army. Its founder was Leon Trotsky, with the title People's Commissar, which he lost in the power struggle against Stalin in 1924. Red Army soldiers man the ...