About this episode

The episode discusses the assassination of Leon Trotsky and its implications for modern political assassinations.

Ramón Mercader expected to easily kill Leon Trotsky, silently and instantly. He had rehearsed the blow for months, practiced the angle, tailored a pocket into his raincoat to conceal the shortened ice axe. On August 20, 1940, he stood behind Trotsky -- who was the principle leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russian but exiled by Stalin after losing a power struggle -- in the study of his fortified villa in Coyoacán, Mexico, raised the weapon, and shut his eyes as the blade fell. What followed was not silence but a scream so raw that it froze the room. Trotsky did not collapse. He rose from his chair, seized the assassin's wrist, bit down on his hand, and forced the weapon loose. Blood streaming down his face, he stumbled into the dining room and gave his final order: "He must not be killed. He must be made to talk." He died twenty-six hours later. Thirty years after that, on his own deathbed, Mercader told his wife: "Trotsky is waiting for me on the other side. And he is still screaming." Today's guests are H. Keith Melton and Nigel West, authors of The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century , the product of fifty…

People in this episode

Host: History Unplugged

Guests: H. Keith Melton, Nigel West

Topics covered

• political assassination
• Stalin
• Trotsky
• espionage
• historical investigation

Keywords

• Stalin
• Trotsky
• assassination
• Mercader
• espionage
• historical investigation
• Soviet intelligence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Soviet

Books & works: The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century

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