Best Leon Trotsky Home, Mexico
Digital Travel Pictures And Photos

George And Audrey DeLange

Finding the home of Leon Trotsky, the genious of the Russian Revolution and the organizer of the Soviet Union's Red Army in Mexico City and associated with events as far away as in Mexico seems suprising until you learn the history of how this could happen. First of all, Joseph Stalin was fearful that Trotsky could take over the power that Stalin had acquired in the Soviet Union so he wished to have Trotsky killed. This made it necessary for Trotsky to get as far away as he could from the Soviet Union. Mexico had finished her revolution and needed intellectuals to further Mexico's economy thus the political climate under president Lazaro Cardenas was such that Mexico became a haven for revolutionaries from all over the world. With all of the problems in Nazi Germany, and in Russia, refugies from all over Europe began to move to Mexico and to live in Mexico City. One of the first to enjoy the freedom to enter and live in Mexico was Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova. The Communist Party had a group of followers that lived in Mexico in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City and they had obtained a certain degree of influence in Mexico. To this day, the Coyoacan neighborhood has a different degree of intellectual flavor than the rest of Mexico. Some of these people who were to become friends of the Trotsky's were the painters, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. There were two major attempts to kill Trotsky while he was in Mexico. The first was led by the painter David Siqueiros who had been a commander in the Spainish Civil War, on May 24, 1940 at 4am. This group brought a machine gun to the compound of Trotsky and managed to put about 200 rounds into the doors and walls of the house. Trotsky survived by hiding under the beds. After this attack the house was even more heavly fortified and guarded. Doors will bricked in and made more narrow and additional gun ports and guards were added to the compound. The second attack was on August 20, 1940 by a KGB agent who had gained the trust of Trotsky by representing himself as a businessman, boyfriend of a trusted friend. This process of trust took a two year period of time. Finially, the alleged friend entered the home of Trotsky to show him an article that had been written. While in Trotsky's study he removed a concealed ice pick from his coat striking Trotsky in the head. Trotsky died about 24 hours later. The killer spent 20 years in prison and when released received The Order Of Lenin from the Soviet Union when he went back there to live. His name was Jaime Ramon Mercader del Rio. We learn later on after the fall of the Soviet Union that this agent was personally selected by the head of the KBG and that he had personally met with Joseph Stalin to receive his direction to kill Trosky.