Leon Trotsky
Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on November 7, 1879, in what is today known as Ukraine. He was the fifth child of a wealthy farmer, David Leontyevich Bronstein, and Anna Bronstein. The family was ethnically Jewish but not religious. At the age of nine, Trotsky was sent to Odessa to attend school, and as Deutscher points out in his biography, ‘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 was always ‘quick-tempered, arrogant and a stubborn believer in intellectual solutions.’
In 1896 Trotsky at the age of 17 moved to Nikolayev to continue studying. In his time there he attended a socialist discussion circle. As Trotsky’s father was a wealthy farmer, he argued that Narodnik peasant socialism was better than Marxist, proletariat socialism. Narodnik’s believed Russia could bypass western capitalism with a socialism based on peasant revolution. Trotsky held this view up until his first exile to Siberia when he developed his theory of permanent revolution. Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name 'Lvov' , he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets which encouraged socialist ideas among workers and students.
This revolutionary activity resulted in Trotsky’s arrest by tsarist police and placed in solitary confinement in 1898 for two years awaiting trial. While in jail, Trotsky married fellow Marxist Aleksandra Sokolovskaya. He also read the works of Kant, Voltaire and Darwin. Darwin’s writings confirmed Trotsky’s atheist views. After his two years in jail, Trotsky was exiled to Siberia for four years in 1900. He escaped Siberia in 1902 leaving Alexandra and his two daughters behind. This is when he changes his name from Lev to Leon Trotsky incase he’s caught and questioned. He goes to London to meet up with
In 1896 Trotsky at the age of 17 moved to Nikolayev to continue studying. In his time there he attended a socialist discussion circle. As Trotsky’s father was a wealthy farmer, he argued that Narodnik peasant socialism was better than Marxist, proletariat socialism. Narodnik’s believed Russia could bypass western capitalism with a socialism based on peasant revolution. Trotsky held this view up until his first exile to Siberia when he developed his theory of permanent revolution. Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name 'Lvov' , he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets which encouraged socialist ideas among workers and students.
This revolutionary activity resulted in Trotsky’s arrest by tsarist police and placed in solitary confinement in 1898 for two years awaiting trial. While in jail, Trotsky married fellow Marxist Aleksandra Sokolovskaya. He also read the works of Kant, Voltaire and Darwin. Darwin’s writings confirmed Trotsky’s atheist views. After his two years in jail, Trotsky was exiled to Siberia for four years in 1900. He escaped Siberia in 1902 leaving Alexandra and his two daughters behind. This is when he changes his name from Lev to Leon Trotsky incase he’s caught and questioned. He goes to London to meet up with