Trotsky Expelled: Stalin Secures Total Soviet Control
The Soviet Communist Party expelled Leon Trotsky on November 12, 1927, completing Joseph Stalin's consolidation of absolute power. Trotsky and Stalin had been rivals since Lenin's death in 1924. Trotsky advocated permanent world revolution; Stalin championed 'socialism in one country.' Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky through bureaucratic alliances, gradually stripping him of his positions. After expulsion, Trotsky was exiled to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan, then deported to Turkey in 1929. He spent 11 years in exile, writing and organizing an opposition movement from France, Norway, and finally Mexico. Stalin sent an assassin, Ramon Mercader, who drove an ice axe into Trotsky's skull in his study in Coyoacan on August 20, 1940. Trotsky died the next day. Mercader served 20 years in a Mexican prison and received a Hero of the Soviet Union medal upon release.
November 12, 1927
99 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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