Ancient to Recent

The first attempt has failed.

Trotsky has survived the machine-gun assault on his home. But Stalin's campaign to destroy his old rival is entering its final stage.

In this final episode, we follow Ramón Mercader as he moves deeper into Trotsky's inner circle, slowly gaining the trust of those closest to him.

As Trotsky's world contracts behind fortified walls, he begins to reflect on the revolution he helped create, and the extraordinary path that brought him to Mexico.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, a new plan is taking shape.

This time, there will be no army.

No machine guns.

No dramatic assault.

Just one man, one carefully constructed identity, and one final opportunity to silence the last prophet.

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The assassin is already in position.

As Leon Trotsky settles into his fortified compound in Mexico, Stalin's campaign to destroy him enters its final and most dangerous phase.

In this fifth episode, we follow the NKVD's hunt for Trotsky and the extraordinary operation designed to penetrate his inner circle.

We meet Ramón Mercader, the young Spanish communist who would eventually become one of the most notorious assassins of the twentieth century.

Under the identity of "Jack Mornard", Mercader begins a carefully constructed romance with Silvia Ageloff, a Trotskyist who unknowingly becomes the key to his access to Trotsky.

As Mercader slowly works his way towards Mexico, the NKVD prepares multiple teams and infiltrates Trotsky's organisation from within.

But while Stalin's agents close in, Trotsky himself begins to confront a more personal enemy: doubt.

The revolutionary who once believed Marxism was an inevitable scientific truth now looks around the world and sees capitalism surviving, fascism advancing and the Soviet Union transformed into the Stalinist dictatorship he had spent years fighting.

For the first time, Trotsky is forced to ask whether the revolution, and perhaps his entire life's work, had been a mistake.
Yet his faith survives.

As Trotsky writes his final testament and reflects on his life, the NKVD prepares to strike.

In May 1940, an armed force led by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros launches a daring assault on Trotsky's compound.

Machine guns tear through the house.

The guards are overwhelmed.

Trotsky and Natalia hide beneath the hail of bullets.

And yet, somehow, Trotsky survives.

The first attempt has failed.

But Stalin is not going to give up.

The next assassin will not come with twenty men and machine guns.

He will come alone.

He will come as a friend.

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#Trotsky #RussianRevolution #HistoryPodcast #SovietHistory #Stalin #Mexico #NKVD #RamonMercader #Trotskyism #SpanishCivilWar #Siqueiros #GreatTerror #HistoryDocumentary

Trotsky has finally found refuge.
After eight years of exile, the former leader of the Red Army arrives in Mexico, welcomed by President Lázaro Cárdenas and embraced by a circle of artists, intellectuals and revolutionaries.
But safety is not the same as peace.
In this fourth episode, we follow Trotsky from his arrival in Mexico in 1937 as he attempts to build a new life far from Stalin and the Soviet Union. 
We explore Mexico’s own revolutionary history, why Cárdenas was willing to grant asylum to Stalin’s most famous enemy, and Trotsky’s extraordinary relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
As Trotsky begins writing, lecturing and rebuilding the international Left Opposition, the NKVD is already closing in.
We follow the infiltration of Trotsky’s organisation by Soviet agents, including Mark Zborowski, who gains the trust of Trotsky’s son Lev Sedov and provides Moscow with vital information about the movement.
Then comes tragedy.
Lev Sedov dies suddenly in Paris, in circumstances Trotsky immediately suspects are suspicious. 
As Stalin’s campaign reaches deeper into Trotsky’s family and supporters, the former revolutionary begins to realise that nowhere is truly safe.
Finally, Trotsky leaves the Casa Azul and moves into a fortified compound in Coyoacán.
The walls are strengthened.
The windows are bricked up.
Guards are posted.
Weapons are stockpiled.
But the greatest danger may already be inside.
As Trotsky grows older and increasingly isolated, Stalin has not forgotten him.
The order has been given.
Now the hunt for Leon Trotsky enters its final chapter.

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#Trotsky #RussianRevolution #HistoryPodcast #SovietHistory #Stalin #Mexico #MexicanRevolution #FridaKahlo #DiegoRivera #NKVD #Trotskyism #HistoryDocumentary

Trotsky has lost his struggle with Stalin for leadership of the Soviet Union

But his revolutionary fire still burns bright.

The man who helped seize power and build the Red Army is now a political exile, hunted by the regime he helped create.

In this third episode, we follow Trotsky from exile in Kazakhstan to Turkey, France and Norway as Stalin's campaign against his former rival intensifies.

We explore Trotsky's bitter confrontation with the liberal democracies that refused him entry, the contradiction between his demands for political freedom and his own defence of revolutionary dictatorship, and his growing isolation from the Communist movement.

But Stalin's vengeance reaches far beyond Trotsky himself.

As the Moscow Trials and Great Terror begin, Trotsky watches helplessly as his supporters, friends and family are arrested, imprisoned and executed. His name becomes the centrepiece of Stalin's vast conspiracy theory.

Finally, Norway withdraws its protection and Trotsky is forced to leave Europe.

Across the Atlantic, an unlikely refuge awaits.

Mexico.

But as Trotsky sails towards his new home, Stalin's most dangerous enemy is about to enter the final and most terrifying chapter of his life.

Can Trotsky survive when the full power of the Soviet state is determined to destroy him?

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#Trotsky #RussianRevolution #HistoryPodcast #SovietHistory #Stalin #GreatTerror #MoscowTrials #Trotskyism #RussianHistory #HistoryDocumentary

Leon Trotsky has helped seize power, built the Red Army, and defeated the enemies of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Now he is about to lose everything.

By 1927, the man who had once stood beside Lenin at the centre of the Russian Revolution has been transformed from revolutionary hero into Stalin's most dangerous political rival.

In this second episode of our series, we follow Trotsky through the Russian Civil War and the violent birth of the Soviet state, as he attempts to save the revolution he helped create.

We explore the Bolshevik seizure of power, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the creation of the Cheka, and the brutal campaign of terror unleashed against the revolution's enemies.

We examine the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, where Trotsky's vision of worldwide revolution collided with Lenin's determination to preserve the fragile Soviet state.

As Russia descends into civil war, Trotsky transforms himself from revolutionary intellectual into military commander. 

Travelling across the country aboard his famous armoured train, he builds the Red Army, recruits former Tsarist officers, imposes ruthless discipline, and helps turn the tide against the White armies.

But victory comes at an enormous cost.

The episode also examines the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921, when sailors who had once been celebrated as heroes of the Revolution rose against Bolshevik rule. Trotsky and Lenin responded with force, crushing the uprising and revealing just how far the revolution had travelled from the ideals of 1917.

Then, with the Civil War over and Lenin dying, a new struggle begins.

Joseph Stalin is quietly building a network of loyal supporters throughout the Communist Party, while Trotsky assumes that his revolutionary reputation and intellectual brilliance will make him Lenin's natural successor.

It is a fatal mistake.

As Lenin's death approaches, Stalin steadily isolates his rival. Trotsky loses influence, his supporters are removed, and his role in the Revolution and Civil War is increasingly rewritten.

By the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927, the outcome is no longer in doubt.

Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party, arrested by the Soviet secret police, and sent into exile in Kazakhstan.

How did the revolutionary who helped create the Soviet state become its most famous exile?

Why did Trotsky underestimate Stalin so catastrophically?

And how did the man who helped build the Red Army become the greatest political enemy of the man who would eventually rule the Soviet Union?

Join Joseph Parkinson as Ancient to Recent continues the extraordinary story of Leon Trotsky,  the revolutionary who helped make the Soviet Union, only to find himself hunted by the regime he had helped create.

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#Trotsky #RussianRevolution #HistoryPodcast #SovietHistory #RussianHistory #Stalin #Lenin