From José Miguel Gándara C. La Marx España

"When I saw Jackson-Mercader he was in a very bad state, screaming and screaming.

screaming hysterically. It made a pitiful impression, more like

a human rag than a man. When I think about the coward

The conduct of these great Stalinist "heroes," I always compare

mentally his behavior with that of the Trotskyists in the camps of

Stalin, who fought and died under the bullets of the GPU shouting "Long live

Lenin and Trotsky!" and singing the Internationale. This is the difference between the

conscious proletarian revolutionaries and gangsters hired by the

Stalinist counterrevolution."

Esteva Volkov. From the Preface to the History of My Life by Leon Trotsky

++Who was Leon Trotsky? ++

Leon Trotsky is, together with Lenin, the architect and leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917 that was able to create the first workers' state, the Soviet Union, an event that forever changed the course of the history of all humanity, since it led to the emancipation of millions of workers and peasants in a backward capitalist country. Precisely, the very fact of being a backward capitalist country despite its semi-feudal characteristics and tsarism, is explained by Trotsky in his theories on historical and economic development, specifically when he speaks of the "Law of Uneven and Combined Development". He is also the author of an extensive written work, although if we had to highlight one in particular, it would be the monumental "History of the Russian Revolution", noteworthy because it is, most probably, the best history of the Soviet revolution that took place in Russia.

It is important to draw attention to the very prominent role played by Trotsky during the civil war that broke out in Russia once the revolution had triumphed. In total, twenty-five foreign imperialist powers attacked the still incipient Bolshevik army and of which Trotsky would take charge as Commissar of War. The Russian Civil War was finally won, Kornilov's White army decimated and put to flight, as well as the different armies that supported the restitution of the tsarist regime, thanks to their political and military vision, their ability to make the appropriate decisions at each moment of the war itinerary.

We also want to emphasize the political background of the assassination of Trotsky at the hands of a Stalinist agent in August 1940. It is crucial to understand that Comrade Leon Trotsky was Stalin's only political adversary, the only one capable of defeating him and the living figure of international Marxism, since he had opposed from the beginning the treacherous theory of socialism in one country, the one postulated by the Stalinists. In order to impose his political criteria, Stalin had only one possibility, to assassinate all the Bolshevik leaders and Trotsky among them. To this end, the so-called Moscow Trials were plotted, first, and later, Operation Utka, which we will talk about later.

The assassination of Troski at the hands of a Stalinist agent is one of the keys to the history of the working class and a determining event in the course of contemporary history to this day.

In March 1939, the director of the Special Operations Department, Pavel Sudoplatov, received directly from Stalin the order to end Trotsky's life. It was then that preparations began to design "Operation Utka or duck".

After the years of the great Stalinist terror, in which a large part of the historical cadres of the Bolshevik Party were liquidated, the only enemy of Stalin's plans to betray socialism and the people, and who was still alive, although in his exile in Coyohacán, was Comrade Leon Trotsky, who, on the other hand, He thought that no one would be able to risk his life to try to assassinate him, but he was wrong.

In his Mexican exile, Trotsky lived in a house located on Avenida Viena in Coyohacán, which in the face of a possible attack had become a real fortress, with a watchtower and special rooms for the guards.

In this context of tension and in anticipation of possible Stalinist infiltrators in the house, both Trotsky and his family remained under surveillance by the Mexican police and under the monitoring of diplomatic members of the United States, no one trusted anyone and the atmosphere was one of real paranoia. Trotsky himself began to feel a certain dejection at the more than possible proximity of agents and members of the NKVD in constant conspiracy against his life.

On February 27, 1940, he wrote his political testament by hand.

"I will die as a proletarian revolutionary, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and consequently as a convinced atheist."

Robert Sheldon Harte came to the house offering his services as a guardian, along with him was hired Sylvia Ageloff, who had American nationality and who began to perform administrative work as Trotsky's secretary. On the other hand, Harte was not at all who he appeared to be, in fact he was a Soviet agent who was a member of the Communist Party of the United States. By infiltrating Trotsky's house, Harte had the mission of liaising with a Mexican group led by the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, a supporter of the Komitern and, therefore, of Stalinism in Mexico.

They planned the attack for months, until on May 24, 1940, Siqueiros and about twenty armed men entered through the outer entrance of Avenida Viena, this would not have been possible if Harte, who was on guard duty at the time, I wouldn't have allowed them to pass. They were equipped with military uniforms and for several minutes they fired non-stop at the place where Trotsky and his wife Natalia lived, who were miraculously unharmed.

"Deportation from the Soviet Union24

February 25, 1929

To recapitulate: to the demand that all my

political activity, I replied by declaring that only bureau-

corrupt crats could formulate such demands.

and only the renegades could accept it. It is difficult for

The Stalinists themselves would expect a different response.

tea. After that, a month passed without news.

Our links with the outside world are

Broken Links, including Organized Illegal Links

by young coreligionists who, overcoming enormous

difficulties until the end of 1928 I was sent to Alma-

From Moscow and other centers, reports abound in the

and precise. In January of this year we only received the

Moscow newspapers. The more they talked about the struggle

against the right,25 the more certain we felt that

a blow against the left would come. Such is the method

Stalin's politician

Leon Trotsky. Posted. Volume I. 1929-1930

August 20, 1940

On arriving at the villa, he was allowed to enter, since in theory he was a trusted comrade, answered to the name of Jackson and was the boyfriend of Trotsky's secretary, Sylvia Ageloff.

Despite wearing a trench coat in the middle of August, he did not arouse suspicion except in Natalia, Trotsky's wife, who asked him the cause of his clothing, Jackson replied that some afternoon showers were expected. No one searched him, no one knew, therefore, that under his trench coat he carried an ice axe and a long dagger, his main objective was to assassinate Trotsky in his office, in the greatest of silences, and to flee quickly without anyone noticing.

Jackson was one of his code names, his real name, Ramón Mercader, hid a more than sinister identity, a man committed to Komitern and Stalinism, very well trained by Stalin's secret police.

Once in Trotsky's office, he plunged the ice axe he was carrying into the top of his skull, the blow was not definitive, but it did cause serious injuries to Comrade Trotsky, the ice axe had penetrated almost eight centimeters, causing a great hemorrhage and a perceptible loss of brain mass. The right parietal bone was broken.

. The next day, Wednesday, August 21, 1940, the New York Times published it on its front page:

"Trotsky wounded by a friend in his house. His condition is very serious."

That same afternoon he expired, but with him, at least momentarily, a large part of the hopes of the working class and the disinherited of the world expired.

To conclude, it should be noted that despite the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the revolution of the oppressed classes has not died, it is still in force and more alive than ever, capitalism has entered its phase of decadence, its crises are recurrent and increasingly serious, the migratory crisis, the inflationary crisis, the social, labor and economic crisis, the environmental crisis, all of them are a very clear exponent of the decadence and degradation of the capitalist system. On the other hand, the bourgeois governments and the treacherous lefts of our countries are completely incapable of responding to these growing problems, to the immense and increasingly evident contradictions of capitalism. For this reason, from La Marx España we encourage all the comrades of the world to rearm politically, not to give up, we offer you our organization for any doubt, possible militancy, debate, dialectic and political commitment that you want or need to carry out.