Tag: leon trotsky

LGM Film Club, Part 48: Trotsky

By Erik Loomis

In General

On August 5, 2020

I’m just about to finish Edmund Wilson’s To the Finland Station, which is such a magnificent book about the rise of revolutionary ideology, culminating in the Bolshevik Revolution. It’s so hard to make this stuff readable and yet Wilson turns it into a page turner. Even at 80 years old, it holds up incredibly well, […]

General

Erik Visits an (Non) American Grave, Part 516

By Erik Loomis

On July 29, 2019

This is the grave of Leon Trotsky. Lev Bronstein was born in 1879 in modern Ukraine. His family was made up of wealthy Jewish farmers. At the age of 8, he was sent to Odessa to be educated in a German

General

Trotsky’s Toilet

By Erik Loomis

On March 3, 2018

I visited the Leon Trotsky home in Mexico City today, where he was assassinated in 1940. Here is his toilet.

The Ice Pick

By Erik Loomis

In General

On September 14, 2017

Ooooooohhhhh A few minutes later, the tip of the axe was buried more than two inches into Trotsky’s skull, becoming arguably the world’s most infamous murder weapon. The axe was fleetingly displayed at a police press conference, but then disappeared for more than six decades. Next year, however, the bloodstained relic will go on public […]

General

The Magnificent Actor

By Erik Loomis

On August 22, 2013

Yesterday was Trotsky Icepick Day and to commemorate it, The New Republic reprinted Edmund Wilson’s 1933 article on him. Good stuff. It also helped me understand why Trotsky would agree to testi

General

When Leon Trotsky Agreed to Testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee

By Erik Loomis

On July 8, 2013

In 1939, the reprehensible Martin Dies, chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee, invited one Leon Trotsky to testify before his committee on the evils of Joseph Stalin (PDF in link). Trots