Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

== Russian Revolution and aftermath ==
=== Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Brest-Litovsk (1917–1918) ===
[[File:Protección del Palacio Tauride durante el Segundo Congreso Regional de los Soviets.jpg|thumb|The [[Tauride Palace]] locked and guarded by Trotsky, [[Yakov Sverdlov|Sverdlov]], [[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]], and [[Mikhail Lashevich|Lashevich]] during the dissolution of the [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] on 19 January 1918 (N.S.).]]
After the Bolsheviks seized power, Trotsky became [[People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs]]. He published the [[secret treaties]] previously signed by the [[Triple Entente]], which detailed plans for post-war reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders, including the [[Sykes–Picot Agreement]]. This revelation on 23 November 1917 caused considerable embarrassment to Britain and France.

==== Brest-Litovsk ====
{{Main|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk}}
[[File:Leon Trotsky Lev Kamenev Brest-Litovsk negotiations.jpg|thumb|Trotsky and [[Lev Kamenev]] at the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|Brest-Litovsk negotiations]], c. 1917–1918]]
In preparation for peace talks with the Central Powers, Trotsky appointed his old friend Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks. When the Soviet delegation learned that Germany and Austria-Hungary planned to annex Polish territory, establish a rump Polish state, and turn the Baltic provinces into client states ruled by German princes, the talks were recessed for 12 days. The Soviets hoped that, given time, their allies would join the negotiations or that the Western European proletariat would revolt; thus, prolonging negotiations was their best strategy. As Trotsky wrote, "To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Trotsky|first1=Leon|title=My Life|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/1930-lif.pdf|website=Marxists|publisher=Charles Schribner's Sons|page=286|date=1930}}</ref> Consequently, Trotsky replaced Joffe as head of the Soviet delegation at [[Brest-Litovsk]] from 22 December 1917 to 10 February 1918.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/treaties-of-Brest-Litovsk|title=Treaties of Brest-Litovsk|website=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]|date=2 February 2024 }}</ref>

The Soviet government was divided. [[Left Communists (Soviet Russia)|Left Communists]], led by [[Nikolai Bukharin]], believed no peace was possible between a Soviet republic and a capitalist empire, advocating a revolutionary war for a pan-European Soviet republic.<ref name="Leon Trotsky">{{cite web|title=Leon Trotsky|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/leon-trotsky|website=Jewishvirtuallibrary.org|access-date=26 May 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Service |first=Robert |url=http://archive.org/details/historyofmodernr00robe |title=A history of modern Russia from Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin |year=2005 |location=Cambridge, MA|publisher=Harvard University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-674-01801-3 |pages=75–80}}</ref> They cited early Red Army successes against Polish forces, [[White movement|White]] forces, and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukrainian]] forces as proof of its capability, especially with propaganda and [[asymmetrical warfare]].<ref name="Leon Trotsky" /> They were willing to negotiate to expose German imperial ambitions but opposed signing any peace treaty, favouring a revolutionary war if faced with a German ultimatum. This view was shared by the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left Socialist Revolutionaries]], then junior partners in the coalition government.<ref name="lsrm">[https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-srs Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Left SRs)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716012705/https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-srs#left-srs |date=16 July 2018}}; Glossary of organizations on [[Marxists.org]]</ref>
[[File:Map Treaty of Brest-Litovsk-en.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Territory lost by Russia under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]

Lenin, initially hopeful for a swift European revolution, concluded that the German Imperial government remained strong and that, without a robust Russian military, armed conflict would lead to the Soviet government's collapse. He agreed a pan-European revolution was the ultimate solution but prioritized Bolshevik survival. From January 1918, he advocated signing a separate peace treaty if faced with a German ultimatum. Trotsky's position was between these factions. He acknowledged the old Russian army's inability to fight:<ref>The "Brest-Litovsk" chapter in Trotsky's 1925 book [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1925/lenin/04.htm ''Lenin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125145958/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1925/lenin/04.htm |date=25 November 2005}}, marxists.org; Retrieved 1 June 2018.</ref>
{{Blockquote|That we could no longer fight was perfectly clear to me and that the newly formed [[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guard]] and Red Army detachments were too small and poorly trained to resist the Germans.}}
However, he agreed with the Left Communists that a separate peace treaty would be a severe morale and material blow, negating recent successes, reviving suspicions of Bolshevik-German collusion, and fuelling internal resistance. He argued that a German ultimatum should be refused, which might trigger an uprising in Germany or inspire German soldiers to disobey orders if an offensive was a naked land grab. Trotsky wrote in 1925:<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1925/lenin/04.htm ''Lenin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125145958/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1925/lenin/04.htm |date=25 November 2005}}, marxists.org; Retrieved 31 January 2018.</ref>
{{Blockquote|We began peace negotiations in the hope of arousing the workmen's party of Germany and Austria-Hungary as well as of the Entente countries. For this reason we were obliged to delay the negotiations as long as possible to give the European workman time to understand the main fact of the Soviet revolution itself and particularly its peace policy. But there was the other question: Can the Germans still fight? Are they in a position to begin an attack on the revolution that will explain the cessation of the war? How can we find out the state of mind of the German soldiers, how to fathom it?}}
In a letter to Lenin before 18 January 1918, Trotsky outlined his "no war, no peace" policy: announce war termination and demobilization without signing a treaty, placing the fate of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland on the German working people. He believed Germany would find it difficult to attack due to internal conditions and opposition from various German political factions.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Letters From Trotzky and From Kerensky's War Minister |journal=[[Current History]] |date=1918 |volume=VIII |issue=Second part |page=113 |url=https://archive.org/details/currenthistoryfo08newyuoft/page/113/ |access-date=10 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Magnes |first1=Judah Leon |author1-link=Judah Leon Magnes |title=Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk: A Documentary History of the Peace Negotiations |date=1919 |publisher=[[Rand School of Social Science]] |pages=122–123 |edition=1st |url=https://archive.org/details/russiagermanyatb00magnrich/page/122/ |access-date=10 April 2023}}</ref><ref>The authenticity of this letter was confirmed by Trotsky to John Wheeler-Bennett in 1937. {{cite book |last1=Wheeler-Bennett |first1=John W. |author1-link=John Wheeler-Bennett |title=Brest-Litovsk: the Forgotten Peace, March 1918 |date=1938 |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan and Co., Limited]] |location=London |pages=185–186 |edition=1st |quote=The authenticity of this letter, which has been in doubt for twenty years, was personally confirmed to the writer by Leon Trotsky in conversation in Mexico City, in September 1937.}}; the letter was auctioned in 1990. {{cite news |last1=Pyle |first1=Richard |title=Revolutionary's Letter to Lenin Auctioned |url=https://apnews.com/article/346eacc1c0640c0659dc0d8edfb866e1 |access-date=10 April 2023 |work=[[Associated Press]] |date=23 March 1990}}</ref>
Lenin initially responded on 18 January: "Stalin has just arrived; we will look into the matter with him and let you have a joint answer right away," and "please adjourn proceedings and leave for Petrograd. Send a reply; I will wait. Lenin, Stalin."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Meijer |editor1-first=Jan M. |title=The Trotsky Papers, 1917–1922 |date=1964 |publisher=Mouton & Co. |location=The Hague|pages=6–7}}</ref> Trotsky, sensing disagreement, returned to Petrograd. During their debate, Lenin concluded: "In any case, I stand for the immediate signing of peace; it is safer."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotzky |first1=Leon |title=Lenin |date=1925 |publisher=Blue Ribbon Books Inc. |location=New York |page=107-110 |url=https://archive.org/details/lenin00trot/ |access-date=10 April 2023}}</ref>

On 10 February 1918, Trotsky and the Russian delegation withdrew from peace talks, declaring an end to the war on Russia's side without signing a peace treaty.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Trotsky |first1=L. |title=Statement By Trotsky At The Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference On Russia's Withdrawal From The War |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/foreign-relations/1917-1918/1918/February/10a.htm |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=10 April 2023}}</ref> Privately, Trotsky had expressed willingness to relent to peace terms if Germany resumed its offensive, albeit with moral dissent.{{sfn|Deutscher|2015a|pp=389}} Germany resumed [[Operation Faustschlag|military operations]] on 18 February. The Red Army detachments proved no match for the German army. On the evening of 18 February, Trotsky and his supporters abstained in a Central Committee vote, and Lenin's proposal to accept German terms was approved 7–4. The Soviet government sent a [[Radiogram (message)|radiogram]] accepting the final Brest-Litovsk terms.<ref name="Felshtinsky">{{cite book | first = Yuri | last = Felshtinsky | title = Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia 1917–1924 | publisher = Enigma Books | location = New York | isbn =978-1-929631-95-7 | date = 26 October 2010}}</ref>

Germany did not respond for three days, continuing its offensive. The response on 21 February contained such harsh terms that even Lenin briefly considered fighting. However, the Central Committee again voted 7–4 on 23 February to accept. The [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] was signed on 3 March and ratified on 15 March 1918. Closely associated with the previous "no war, no peace" policy, Trotsky resigned as Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

=== Head of the Red Army (spring 1918) ===
[[File:Leon Trotsky Armored Train 1920.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Trotsky speaks from [[Trotsky's train|his armoured train]] during the civil war in 1920]]
On 13 March 1918, Trotsky's resignation as Foreign Affairs Commissar was accepted. He was appointed People's Commissar of Army and Navy Affairs, replacing Podvoisky, and chairman of the Supreme Military Council. The post of commander-in-chief was abolished, giving Trotsky full control of the Red Army, responsible only to the Communist Party leadership, whose Left Socialist Revolutionary allies had left the government over the treaty.
The entire Bolshevik Red Army leadership, including former Defence Commissar [[Nikolai Podvoisky]] and commander-in-chief [[Nikolai Krylenko]], vigorously protested Trotsky's appointment and eventually resigned. They believed the Red Army should consist only of dedicated revolutionaries, rely on propaganda and force, and have elected officers. They viewed former imperial officers as potential traitors. Their views remained popular, and their supporters, including Podvoisky (who became one of Trotsky's deputies), were a constant source of opposition. Discontent with Trotsky's policies of strict discipline, [[conscription]], and reliance on supervised non-Communist military experts led to the [[Military Opposition]], active within the Party in late 1918–1919.<ref name="Life XXXVI">{{cite book|title=My Life|last=Trotsky|first=Leon|chapter=XXXVI|year=1930|chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch36.htm|title-link=My Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography)}}</ref>

=== Civil War (1918–1920) ===
{{Main|Russian Civil War}}

==== 1918 ====
[[File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg|thumb|upright|An [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hanebrink |first1=Paul |title=A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism |date=2018 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-04768-6 |page=43 }}</ref> 1919 [[White movement|White Army]] propaganda poster depicting Trotsky as a demonic figure with a [[pentagram]], alongside stereotyped [[Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War|Chinese Bolshevik supporters]] portrayed as executioners. The caption reads, "Peace and Liberty in [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Sovdepiya]]" (a derogatory term for Soviet Russia).]]
The military situation tested Trotsky's organizational skills. In May–June 1918, the [[Czechoslovak Legions]] revolted, leading to the loss of most of Russia's territory, increasingly organized resistance from anti-Communist forces (the [[White movement|White Army]]), and widespread defections by military experts Trotsky relied on.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bradley|first=J.F.L|date=1963|title=The Czechoslovak Revolt against the Bolsheviks|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/149174|journal=Soviet Studies|volume=15|issue=2|pages=124–151|doi=10.1080/09668136308410353|jstor=149174}}</ref>

Trotsky and the government responded with a full [[mobilization]], increasing the Red Army from under 300,000 in May 1918 to one million by October, and introducing [[political commissar]]s to ensure loyalty of military experts (mostly former Imperial officers) and co-sign their orders. Trotsky viewed the Red Army's organization as built on October Revolution ideals. He later wrote:<ref>Chapter XXXIV of [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch34.htm ''My Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212103/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch34.htm |date=20 April 2006}}, marxists.org; accessed 31 January 2018.</ref>
{{Blockquote|An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army command has the death-penalty in its arsenal. So long as those malicious tailless apes that are so proud of their technical achievements—the animals that we call men—will build armies and wage wars, the command will always be obliged to place the soldiers between the possible death in the front and the inevitable one in the rear. And yet armies are not built on fear. The Tsar's army fell to pieces not because of any lack of reprisals. In his attempt to save it by restoring the death-penalty, Kerensky only finished it. Upon the ashes of the great war, the Bolsheviks created a new army. These facts demand no explanation for any one who has even the slightest knowledge of the language of history. The strongest cement in the new army was the ideas of the October revolution, and [[Trotsky's train|the train]] supplied the front with this cement.}}
A controversial measure was hostage-taking of relatives of ex-Tsarist officials in the Red Army to prevent [[defection]] or betrayal.{{sfn|Kort|2015|p=130}} Service noted this practice was used by both Red and White armies.{{sfn|Service|2010|p=263}} Trotsky later defended this, arguing no families of betraying ex-officials were executed and that such draconian measures, if adopted earlier, would have reduced overall casualties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Stalin's Terror of 1937-1938: Political Genocide in the USSR |date=2009 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-04-4 |page=376 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dDiFNXLNPDEC&dq=trotsky+hostage+taking&pg=PA376 |language=en}}</ref> Deutscher highlights Trotsky's preference for exchanging hostages over execution, recounting General [[Pyotr Krasnov]]'s release on parole in 1918, only for Krasnov to take up arms again shortly thereafter.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=339–340 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref>

===== Red Terror =====
[[File:Russian civil war west.svg|thumb|European theatre of the Russian Civil War in 1918–1919]]
The [[Red Terror]] was enacted following [[assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts on Lenin]] and Trotsky, and the assassinations of Petrograd [[Cheka]] leader [[Moisei Uritsky]] and party editor [[V. Volodarsky]].<ref name="Leninism under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism under Lenin |date=1975 |location=London |publisher= J. Cape |isbn=978-0-224-01072-6 |pages=313–314 |url=https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6/page/313/mode/1up}}</ref> The French [[Reign of Terror]] is seen as an influence.<ref name=":1">Wilde, Robert. 2019 February 20. "[https://www.thoughtco.com/the-red-terror-1221808 The Red Terror]." ''ThoughtCo''. Retrieved 24 March 2021.</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Библиотека газеты "Революция". Клушин В.И. Малоизвестное о Троцком |url=http://www.revolucia.ru/otrozkom.htm |access-date=17 October 2022 |website=www.revolucia.ru}}</ref> The decision was also driven by early [[White Army]] massacres of "Red" prisoners in 1917, [[allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]], and massacres of Reds during the [[Finnish Civil War]] (10,000–20,000 workers killed by [[Finnish Whites]])."<ref name="Leninism under Lenin"/> In ''[[Terrorism and Communism]]'', Trotsky argued the terror in Russia began with the [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]] under White Guard forces, to which the Bolsheviks responded with the Red Terror.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kline |first1=George L |title=In Defence of Terrorism in The Trotsky reappraisal. Brotherstone, Terence; Dukes, Paul,(eds) |date=1992 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-0317-6 |page=158}}</ref>

[[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], director of the [[Cheka]] (predecessor to the KGB), was tasked with rooting out [[counter-revolutionary]] threats.<ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine|last=Bird|first=Danny|date=5 September 2018|title=How the 'Red Terror' Exposed the True Turmoil of Soviet Russia 100 Years Ago|url=https://time.com/5386789/red-terror-soviet-history/ |access-date=24 March 2021|magazine=Time}}</ref> From early 1918, Bolsheviks began eliminating opposition, including [[anarchist]]s.<ref name="Berkman">{{cite journal |last1=Berkman |first1=Alexander |author-link1=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |doi= |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> On 11 August 1918, Lenin [[Lenin's Hanging Order|telegraphed orders]] "to introduce mass terror" in [[Nizhny Novgorod]] and to "crush" landowners resisting grain requisitioning.<ref name="litvinalkbterror">{{ill|Alter Litvin|ru|Литвин, Алтер Львович}} «Красный и Белый террор в России в 1917—1922 годах» {{ISBN|5-87849-164-8}}.</ref>

On 30 August, [[Fanny Kaplan]], a [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]], unsuccessfully [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|attempted to assassinate Lenin]].<ref name=":1"/><ref name=":2" /> In September, Trotsky rushed from the eastern front to Moscow; Stalin remained in [[Tsaritsyn]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kotkin |first1=Stephen |title=Stalin, Vol. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 |date=23 October 2014 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-7181-9298-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFx7AwAAQBAJ&dq=rykov+lenin+funeral+italy&pg=PT402 |language=en}}</ref> Kaplan cited growing Bolshevik authoritarianism. These events persuaded the government to heed Dzerzhinsky's calls for greater terror. The Red Terror officially began thereafter, between 17 and 30 August 1918.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Trotsky wrote:
{{Blockquote|The bourgeoisie today is a falling class... We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.<ref>{{cite book|author=Leon Trotsky|title=Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky|year=1975|orig-year=1920|page=83}}</ref>}}

===== Desertions =====
Trotsky appealed politically to [[desertion|deserters]], arousing them with revolutionary ideas.
{{Blockquote|In...Kaluga, Voronezh, and Ryazan, tens of thousands of young peasants had failed to answer the first recruiting summons by the Soviets ... The war commissariat of Ryazan succeeded in gathering in some fifteen thousand of such deserters. While passing through Ryazan, I decided to take a look at them... The men were called out of their barracks. "Comrade-deserters—come to the meeting. Comrade Trotsky has come to speak to you." They ran out excited, boisterous, as curious as schoolboys... I spoke to them for about an hour and a half... I tried to raise them in their own eyes; concluding, I asked them to lift their hands in token of their loyalty to the revolution... They were genuinely enthusiastic... Later on, regiments of Ryazan "deserters" fought well at the fronts.}}

The Red Army first used punitive [[barrier troops]] in summer/autumn 1918 on the [[Eastern Front (RSFSR)|Eastern Front]]. Trotsky authorized [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], commander of the [[1st Army (RSFSR)|1st Army]], to station blocking detachments behind unreliable infantry regiments, with orders to shoot if front-line troops deserted or retreated without permission. These troops comprised personnel from [[Cheka]] punitive detachments or regular infantry regiments.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}} In December 1918, Trotsky ordered more barrier troops raised for each infantry formation.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}} Barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies, earning civilian hatred.<ref>Lih, Lars T., ''Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921'', University of California Press (1990), p. 131.</ref>
[[File:Demyan Bedny and Leon Trotsky.jpg|thumb|Trotsky with poet [[Demyan Bedny]] near Kazan, 1918]]

Given manpower shortages and 16 opposing foreign armies, Trotsky insisted on using former Tsarist officers as military specialists, combined with Bolshevik political commissars. Lenin commented:
{{Blockquote|When Comrade Trotsky informed me recently that the number of officers of the old army employed by our War Department runs into several tens of thousands, I perceived concretely where the secret of using our enemy lay, how to compel those who had opposed communism to build it, how to build communism with the bricks which the capitalists had chosen to hurl against us! We have no other bricks! And so, we must compel the bourgeois experts, under the leadership of the proletariat, to build up our edifice with these bricks. This is what is difficult; but this is the pledge of victory.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x01.htm |title=Achievements and Difficulties of the Soviet Government |last1=Lenin |first1=Vladimir Ilych |date=1919 |website=marxists.org |publisher=Progress Publishers |access-date=6 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090910/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x01.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref>}}
[[File:Trotsky, Lenin, Kamenev (1919).jpg|thumb|Trotsky (left), with [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] (centre) and [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] (right), in discussion during the Russian Civil War]]

In September 1918, facing military difficulties, the Bolshevik government declared martial law and reorganized the Red Army. The Supreme Military Council was abolished, and the position of commander-in-chief restored, filled by [[Jukums Vācietis]], commander of the [[Latvian Riflemen]]. Vācietis handled day-to-day operations. Trotsky became chairman of the new Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, retaining overall military control. Despite earlier clashes with Vācietis, Trotsky established a working relationship. This reorganization caused another conflict between Trotsky and Stalin in late September. Trotsky appointed former imperial general [[Pavel Sytin]] to command the Southern Front, but Stalin refused to accept him in early October, and Sytin was recalled. Lenin and [[Yakov Sverdlov]] tried to reconcile Trotsky and Stalin, but their meeting failed.

In 1919, 612 "hardcore" deserters out of 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed under Trotsky's draconian measures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reese |first1=Roger R. |title=Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9356-4 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWS2EAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+desertion+612&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref> According to [[Orlando Figes]], most "deserters...were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when reinforcements were desperate. Figes noted the Red Army instituted [[amnesty]] weeks, prohibiting punitive measures against desertion, which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000–132,000 deserters.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Figes |first1=Orlando |title=The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 |journal=Past & Present |date=1990 |issue=129 |pages=168–211 |doi=10.1093/past/129.1.168 |jstor=650938 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/650938 |issn=0031-2746}}</ref>

==== 1919 ====
[[File:Trotsky con la guardia roja.jpg|thumb|Trotsky addressing soldiers during the Polish–Soviet War]]
Throughout late 1918 and early 1919, Trotsky's leadership faced attacks, including veiled accusations in Stalin-inspired newspaper articles and a direct attack by the Military Opposition at the [[8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|VIIIth Party Congress]] in March 1919. He weathered them, being elected one of five full members of the first [[Politburo]] after the Congress. But he later wrote:<ref name="Life XXXVI" />
{{Blockquote|It is no wonder that my military work created so many enemies for me. I did not look to the side, I elbowed away those who interfered with military success, or in the haste of the work trod on the toes of the unheeding and was too busy even to apologize. Some people remember such things. The dissatisfied and those whose feelings had been hurt found their way to Stalin or Zinoviev, for these two also nourished hurts.}}
In mid-1919, the Red Army had grown from 800,000 to 3,000,000 and fought on sixteen fronts, providing an opportunity for challenges to Trotsky's leadership.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/trotsky-stalin-russian-lenin|title=Lost leaders: Leon Trotsky|work=The New Statesman|location=UK|access-date=22 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423073037/http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/trotsky-stalin-russian-lenin|archive-date=23 April 2010|url-status=live}}</ref> At the 3–4 July Central Committee meeting, after a heated exchange, the majority supported Kamenev and [[Ivar Smilga|Smilga]] against Vācietis and Trotsky. Trotsky's plan was rejected, and he was criticized for alleged leadership shortcomings, many personal. Stalin used this to pressure Lenin<ref name="My Life">Chapter XXXVII of [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch37.htm ''My Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212156/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch37.htm |date=20 April 2006}}</ref> to dismiss Trotsky.

Significant changes were made to Red Army leadership. Trotsky was temporarily sent to the Southern Front, while Smilga informally coordinated work in Moscow. Most non-day-to-day Revolutionary Military Council members were relieved of duties on 8 July, and new members, including Smilga, were added. The same day, Vācietis was arrested by the Cheka on suspicion of an anti-Soviet plot and replaced by [[Sergey Kamenev (commander)|Sergey Kamenev]]. After weeks in the south, Trotsky returned to Moscow and resumed control. A year later, Smilga and [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky|Tukhachevsky]] were defeated at the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]], but Trotsky's refusal to retaliate against Smilga earned his friendship and later support during 1920s intra-Party battles.<ref>Isai Abramovich's [http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/ABRAMOWICH/abramowich1.txt memoirs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060226084149/http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/ABRAMOWICH/abramowich1.txt |date=26 February 2006}} re: the Smilga episode. Abramovich (1900–1985), a friend of Smilga's, was one of the few Trotskyists who survived the Great Purges and returned from Stalin's camps in the late 1950s.</ref>

By October 1919, the government faced its worst crisis: Denikin's troops approached [[Tula, Russia|Tula]] and Moscow from the south, and General [[Nikolay Yudenich]]'s troops approached Petrograd from the west. Lenin decided Petrograd had to be abandoned to defend Moscow. Trotsky argued<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch35.htm ''My Life'' (Chapter XXXV)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212115/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch35.htm |date=20 April 2006}}, marxists.org; accessed 31 January 2018.</ref> Petrograd needed to be defended, partly to prevent [[Estonia]] and Finland from intervening. In a rare reversal, Trotsky, supported by Stalin and Zinoviev, prevailed against Lenin in the Central Committee.

==== 1920 ====
With Denikin and Yudenich defeated in late 1919, government emphasis shifted to the economy. Trotsky spent winter 1919–1920 in the Urals region restarting its economy. A false rumour of his assassination circulated internationally on New Year's Day 1920.<ref>{{cite news |title=Assassinate Trotzky, Report; Ex-Leader Of Russia Soviet Slayer's Victim, Berlin Officials Hear |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19200101.2.179&e=--2019---2019--en--20-LAH-1--txt-txIN-Assassinate+Trotzky-------1 |access-date=24 May 2020 |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Herald]] |date=1 January 1920 |page=1}}</ref> Based on his experiences, he proposed abandoning [[War Communism]] policies,<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch38.htm ''My Life'' (Chapter XXXVIII)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051210202136/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch38.htm |date=10 December 2005}}, marxists.org; accessed 31 January 2018.</ref> including grain confiscation, and partially restoring the grain market. Lenin, still committed to War Communism, rejected his proposal.
[[File:Trotsky on a Polish poster of 1920.jpg|thumb|Trotsky on an [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet]] Polish poster titled "Bolshevik freedom," depicting him atop a pile of skulls, holding a bloody knife, during the [[Polish–Soviet War]].]]

In early 1920, Soviet–Polish tensions led to the [[Polish–Soviet War]]. Trotsky argued<ref name="My Life" /> the Red Army was exhausted and the government should sign a peace treaty with Poland quickly, not believing the Red Army would find much support in Poland. Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders believed Red Army successes meant "The defensive period of the war with worldwide imperialism was over, and we could, and had the obligation to, exploit the military situation to launch an offensive war."{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Political Report of the Central Committee of the RKP(b) to the Ninth All-Russian Conference of the Communist Party delivered by Lenin on 20 September 1920, Document 59}} Poland defeated the Red Army, turning back the offensive at the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]] in August 1920. Back in Moscow, Trotsky again argued for peace, and this time prevailed.

=== Trade union debate (1920–1921) ===
{{main|Trade union debate}}
During the 1920–1921 trade union debate, Trotsky argued that trade unions should be integrated directly into the state apparatus, advocating for a "militarization of labour" to rebuild the Soviet economy. He believed that in a workers' state, the state should control unions, with workers treated as "soldiers of labour" under strict discipline.<ref>[[Tony Cliff]]; [https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1990/trotsky2/11-warcomm.html Trotsky: The Sword of the Revolution 1917–1923] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715195155/https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1990/trotsky2/11-warcomm.html |date=15 July 2018}}; Chapter 11: War Communism at an impasse; paragraph "The militarisation of all labour"; Bookmarks, London 1990.</ref>

This position was sharply criticized by [[Vladimir Lenin]], who argued unions should retain some independence and act as "schools of communism" rather than state instruments. Lenin's view prevailed at the [[10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|10th Congress]] in 1921. Several of Trotsky's supporters, including [[Nikolay Krestinsky]], lost leadership positions.

=== Kronstadt rebellion ===
{{main|Kronstadt rebellion}}
[[File:Kronstadt attack.JPG|thumb|[[Red Army]] troops attack [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt sailors]] in March 1921.]]
In March 1921, during the Kronstadt Rebellion, sailors and soldiers at the [[Kronstadt]] naval base revolted against the Bolshevik government, demanding greater freedom for workers and peasants, an end to one-party rule, and restoration of civil rights.<ref>Kronstadt Rebellion, Kronstädter Aufstand In: Dictionary of Marxism, http://www.inkrit.de/e_inkritpedia/e_maincode/doku.php?id=k:kronstaedter_aufstand</ref> The rebellion, occurring simultaneously with the 10th Party Congress, further destabilized the fragile political situation.

Trotsky, as Commissar of War, was instrumental in ordering the rebellion's suppression. On 18 March 1921, after failed negotiations, the [[Red Army]] stormed the island, resulting in thousands of Kronstadt sailors' deaths.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/07/kronstadt2.htm "More on the Suppression of Kronstadt"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121073115/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/07/kronstadt2.htm |date=21 November 2007}} by Leon Trotsky</ref> Trotsky justified the action by presenting evidence of foreign backing, a claim contested by several historians.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Trotsky_Protests_Too_Much|title=Trotsky Protests Too Much|first=Emma|last=Goldman|publisher=The Anarchist Communist Federation|year=1939}}</ref> His role has been criticized, with anarchists like [[Emma Goldman]] accusing him of betraying the revolution's democratic ideals.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/pdfs/PublishedEssaysandPamphlets_TROTSKYPROTESTSTOOMUCH.pdf|first=Emma|last=Goldman|title=Trotsky Protests too Much|date=1938|publisher=The Anarchist Communist Federation|location=Glasgow|access-date=14 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180118090914/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/pdfs/PublishedEssaysandPamphlets_TROTSKYPROTESTSTOOMUCH.pdf|archive-date=18 January 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Trotsky's contribution to the Russian Revolution ===
[[File:Leon Trotsky as the October Revolution Guard.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Trotsky, the [[People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs]], as the Guard of the [[October Revolution]], 14 May 1923]]
Historian Vladimir Cherniaev sums up Trotsky's main contributions:
{{Blockquote|Trotsky bears a great deal of responsibility both for the victory of the Red Army in the civil war, and for the establishment of a one-party authoritarian state with its apparatus for ruthlessly suppressing dissent... He was an ideologist and practitioner of the Red Terror. He despised "bourgeois democracy"; he believed that spinelessness and soft-heartedness would destroy the revolution, and that the suppression of the propertied classes and political opponents would clear the historical arena for socialism. He was the initiator of concentration camps, compulsory "labour camps", and the militarization of labour, and the state takeover of trade unions. Trotsky was implicated in many practices which would become standard in the Stalin era, including [[summary execution]]s.<ref name="auto2">V. I͡U. Cherni͡aev, "Trotsky" in {{cite book|editor1-first=Edward |editor1-last=Acton |editor2-first=Vladimir I͡u. |editor2-last=Cherni͡aev |editor3-first=William G. |editor3-last=Rosenberg|title=Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NAZm2EdxKqkC&pg=PA191|year=1997|publisher=Indiana University Press|page=191|isbn=978-0-253-33333-9}}</ref>}}
Historian Geoffrey Swain argues:
{{Blockquote|The Bolsheviks triumphed in the Civil War because of Trotsky's ability to work with military specialists, because of the style of work he introduced where widescale consultation was followed through by swift and determined action.{{sfn|Swain|2014a|p=210}}}}
Lenin said in 1921 that Trotsky was "in love with organisation," but in working politics, "he has not got a clue." Swain explains this by arguing Trotsky was not good at teamwork, being a loner who had mostly worked as a journalist, not a professional revolutionary like others.{{sfn|Swain|2014a|p=211}}

=== Lenin's illness (1922–1923) ===
[[File:TrotskiEnMoscúConTropas1922 (cropped).jpeg|thumb|left|upright=.8|Trotsky with Red Army soldiers in Moscow, 1922]]
In late 1921, Lenin's health deteriorated. He suffered three strokes between 25 May 1922 and 9 March 1923, causing paralysis, loss of speech, and eventual death on 21 January 1924. With Lenin increasingly sidelined, Stalin was elevated to the new position of Central Committee [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary]] in April 1922.{{efn|Yakov Sverdlov was the Central Committee's senior secretary for personnel affairs from 1917 until his death in March 1919. He was replaced by [[Elena Stasova]], then [[Nikolai Krestinsky]] in November 1919. After Krestinsky's ouster in March 1921, [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] became senior secretary but lacked Krestinsky's authority as he was not a full Politburo member. Stalin took over as senior secretary, formalized at the XIth Party Congress in April 1922, with Molotov as second secretary.}} Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev{{efn|It is unclear why Kamenev, a mild-mannered man with few leadership ambitions and Trotsky's brother-in-law, sided with Zinoviev and Stalin against Trotsky in 1922. Trotsky later speculated it might have been due to Kamenev's love of comfort, which Trotsky found "repelled me." He expressed [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/xx/kremlin.htm his feelings to Kamenev] in late 1920 or early 1921: "Our relations with Kamenev, which were very good in the first period after the insurrection, began to become more distant from that day."}} formed a [[triumvirate]] (''[[List of leaders of the Soviet Union#List of troikas|troika]]'') with Stalin to prevent Trotsky, publicly number two and Lenin's [[heir presumptive]], from succeeding Lenin.

The rest of the expanded Politburo (Rykov, [[Mikhail Tomsky]], Bukharin) initially remained uncommitted but eventually joined the ''troika''. Stalin's patronage power{{efn|The Central Committee's Secretariat became increasingly important during and after the Civil War, as the Party shifted from elected to appointed officials. This was driven by the need for rapid manpower allocation and the party's transformation from a small revolutionary group to the ruling party, with increased membership including career seekers and former members of banned socialist parties, viewed with apprehension by Old Bolsheviks. To prevent party degeneration, membership requirements for officials were instituted, and the Secretariat gained ultimate power over local appointments, concentrating enormous power in the General Secretary's hands.}} as General Secretary played a role, but Trotsky and his supporters later concluded a more fundamental reason was the slow bureaucratisation of the Soviet regime after the Civil War. Much of the Bolshevik elite desired 'normality,' while Trotsky personified a turbulent revolutionary period they wished to leave behind.

Evidence suggests the ''troika'' initially nominated Trotsky for minor government departments (e.g., Gokhran, the State Depository for Valuables).{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 103 (22 May 1922)}} In mid-July 1922, Kamenev wrote to the recovering Lenin that "(the Central Committee) is throwing or is ready to throw a good cannon overboard". Lenin, shocked, responded:{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 106}}
{{Blockquote|Throwing Trotsky overboard—surely you are hinting at that, it is impossible to interpret it otherwise—is the height of stupidity. If you do not consider me already hopelessly foolish, how can you think of that????}}
Until his final stroke, Lenin tried to prevent a split in the leadership, reflected in ''[[Lenin's Testament]].'' On 11 September 1922, Lenin proposed Trotsky become his deputy at the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom). The Politburo approved, but Trotsky "categorically refused". This proposal is interpreted by some scholars as Lenin designating Trotsky his successor as head of government.{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 109}}<ref name="Hitler and Stalin : parallel lives">{{cite book |last1=Bullock |first1=Alan |title=Hitler and Stalin: parallel lives |date=1991 |location=London |publisher= HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-00-215494-9 |page=163 |url=https://archive.org/details/hitlerstalinpara0000bull/page/132/mode/2up}}</ref>{{sfn|Mandel|1995|p=149}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ceplair |first1=Larry |title=Revolutionary Pairs: Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Gandhi and Nehru, Mao and Zhou, Castro and Guevara |date=21 July 2020 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-7945-2 |page=93 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pc3cDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Rubenstein|2011|p=127}}
[[File:Rakovsky and trotsky circa 1924 trimmed.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Trotsky with Christian Rakovsky, c. 1924]]

In late 1922, Trotsky allied with Lenin against Stalin and the emerging Soviet bureaucracy.<ref>Chapter XXXIX of [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch39.htm ''My Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212213/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch39.htm |date=20 April 2006}}, Marxist Internet Archive</ref> Stalin had recently engineered the creation of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] (USSR), further centralising state control. The alliance was effective on foreign trade{{efn|Lenin's [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15.htm letter] to Stalin, dictated on 15 December 1922: "I am sure Trotsky will uphold my views as well as I." Faced with united opposition from Lenin and Trotsky, the Central Committee reversed its previous decision and adopted the Lenin-Trotsky proposal.}} but was hindered by Lenin's progressing illness.

In January 1923, Lenin amended his Testament to suggest Stalin's removal as General Secretary, while also mildly criticising Trotsky and other Bolsheviks. The Stalin-Lenin relationship had completely broken down, demonstrated when Stalin crudely insulted Lenin's wife, [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]. In March 1923, days before his third stroke, Lenin asked Trotsky to denounce Stalin and his "Great-Russian nationalistic campaign" at the [[12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|XIIth Party Congress]].

At the XIIth Party Congress in April 1923, after Lenin's final stroke, Trotsky did not raise the issue.<ref>Chapter 11 of Trotsky's unfinished book, entitled [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/08/trotskys-stalin-chap-11-from-obscurity.html ''Stalin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070629051005/http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/08/trotskys-stalin-chap-11-from-obscurity.html |date=29 June 2007}}</ref> Instead, he spoke about intra-party democracy, avoiding direct confrontation with the ''troika.''{{efn|Trotsky explained in Chapter 12 of his unfinished book [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html ''Stalin''] that he refused to deliver the report because "it seemed to me equivalent to announcing my candidacy for the role of Lenin's successor at a time when Lenin was fighting a grave illness."}} Stalin had prepared by replacing many local delegates with his loyalists, mostly at the expense of Zinoviev and Kamenev's backers.<ref>Chapter 12 of Trotsky's unfinished book, entitled [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html ''Stalin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070712104730/http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html |date=12 July 2007}}</ref> Delegates, mostly unaware of Politburo divisions, gave Trotsky a [[standing ovation]]. This upset the ''troika'', already infuriated by [[Karl Radek]]'s article, "Leon Trotsky – Organiser of Victory,"{{efn|Radek wrote:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937/dewey/session13_c.htm|title=Archived copy|access-date=24 October 2005|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051122201847/http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937/dewey/session13_c.htm|archive-date=22 November 2005}}</ref>"The need of the hour was for a man who would incarnate the call to struggle, a man who, subordinating himself completely to the requirements of the struggle, would become the ringing summons to arms, the will which exacts from all unconditional submission to a great, sacrificial necessity. Only a man with Trotsky's capacity for work, only a man so unsparing of himself as Trotsky, only a man who knew how to speak to the soldiers as Trotsky did—only such a man could have become the standard bearer of the armed toilers. He was all things rolled into one."}} published in ''Pravda'' on 14 March 1923. Stalin delivered key reports on organisational structure and nationalities; Zinoviev delivered the Central Committee political report, traditionally Lenin's prerogative. Resolutions calling for greater party democracy were adopted but remained vague and unimplemented.

The [[Stalin's rise to power|power struggle]] also impacted prospects for world revolution. The German Communist Party leadership requested Trotsky be sent to Germany to direct the [[German October|1923 insurrection]]. The Politburo, controlled by Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, rejected this, sending a commission of lower-ranking Russian Communist party members instead.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |page=272 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Left Opposition (1923–1924) ===
{{Main|Left Opposition}}
[[File:Trotsky-Annenkov 1922 sketch.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|A 1922 [[Cubism|cubist]] portrait by [[Yury Annenkov]]. A version appeared on an early cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine.]]
From mid-1923, the Soviet economy faced significant difficulties, leading to widespread strikes. Two secret groups within the Communist Party, "[[Workers' Truth]]" and "[[Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party|Workers' Group]]", were suppressed by the secret police. On 8 October 1923, Trotsky wrote to the Central Committee and [[Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Control Commission]], attributing these problems to a lack of intra-Party democracy:
{{Blockquote|In the fiercest moment of War Communism, the system of appointment within the party did not have one tenth of the extent that it has now. Appointment of the secretaries of provincial committees is now the rule. That creates for the secretary a position essentially independent of the local organization. [...] The bureaucratization of the party apparatus has developed to unheard-of proportions by means of the method of secretarial selection. [...] There has been created a very broad stratum of party workers, entering into the apparatus of the government of the party, who completely renounce their own party opinion, at least the open expression of it, as though assuming that the secretarial hierarchy is the apparatus which creates party opinion and party decisions. Beneath this stratum, abstaining from their own opinions, there lies the broad mass of the party, before whom every decision stands in the form of a summons or a command.<ref>Leon Trotsky, "The First Letter to the Central Committee" contained in the ''Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'' (Pathfinder Press: New York, 1975) pp. 55–56.</ref>}}
Other senior communists with similar concerns sent ''[[The Declaration of 46]]'' to the Central Committee on 15 October, stating:
{{Blockquote|[...] we observe an ever progressing, barely disguised division of the party into a secretarial hierarchy and into "laymen", into professional party functionaries, chosen from above, and the other party masses, who take no part in social life. [...] free discussion within the party has virtually disappeared, party public opinion has been stifled. [...] it is the secretarial hierarchy, the party hierarchy which to an ever greater degree chooses the delegates to the conferences and congresses, which to an ever greater degree are becoming the executive conferences of this hierarchy.}}
Though secret at the time, these letters significantly impacted the Party leadership, prompting a partial retreat by the ''[[NKVD troika|troika]]'' and its supporters, notably in Zinoviev's ''Pravda'' article of 7 November. Throughout November, the ''troika'' sought a compromise to placate Trotsky and his supporters (made easier by Trotsky's illness in November–December). Trotsky rejected the first draft resolution, leading to a special group (Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev) to draft a mutually acceptable compromise. On 5 December, the Politburo and Central Control Commission unanimously adopted this final draft. On 8 December, Trotsky published an open letter expounding on the resolution's ideas. The ''troika'' used this letter to launch a campaign against Trotsky, accusing him of factionalism, setting "the youth against the fundamental generation of old revolutionary Bolsheviks,"<ref>Quoted in Max Shachtman. ''The Struggle for the New Course'', New York, New International Publishing Co., 1943. [http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1943/fnc/nc04.htm ''The Campaign Against "Trotskyism"''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209032511/http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1943/fnc/nc04.htm |date=9 February 2006}}</ref> and other "sins".

Trotsky defended his position in seven letters collected as ''The New Course'' in January 1924.<ref>Leon Trotsky, "The New Course" contained in ''The Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'', pp. 63–144.</ref> The illusion of a "monolithic Bolshevik leadership" shattered, and a lively intra-Party discussion ensued in local organizations and ''Pravda'' pages through December and January, until the XIIIth Party Conference (16–18 January 1924). Opponents of the Central Committee's position became known as the [[Left Opposition]].<ref name="lom">[https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-opposition Left Opposition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716012705/https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-opposition#left-opposition |date=16 July 2018}}; Glossary of organizations on [[Marxists.org]]</ref> In 1924, at Sverdlov University conferences, Stalin critically cited "the Permanentists" as Trotsky's followers of 'Permanent revolution'.
[[File:Soviet leaders write the letter of defiance to George Curzon.jpg|left|thumb|Leon Trotsky (centre, with pen) with Soviet leaders writing a letter of defiance to British [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]] [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon]] in 1923. Painting by an unknown artist, parodying [[Ilya Repin]]'s ''[[Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks]]''.]]

Since the ''troika'' controlled the Party apparatus via Stalin's Secretariat and ''Pravda'' via editor Bukharin, it directed the discussion and delegate selection. Though Trotsky's position prevailed within the Red Army, Moscow universities, and received about half the votes in the Moscow Party organization, it was defeated elsewhere. The Conference was packed with pro-''troika'' delegates. Only three delegates voted for Trotsky's position, and the Conference denounced "Trotskyism"{{efn|The term "Trotskyism" was first coined by Russian liberal politician [[Pavel Milyukov]], the first foreign minister in the Provisional Government, who in April 1917 demanded the British government release Trotsky.}} as a "petty bourgeois deviation".

Left Opposition members, representing many international elements, held high-ranking posts, with [[Christian Rakovsky]], [[Adolph Joffe]], and [[Nikolay Krestinsky]] serving as [[ambassador]]s in [[London]], [[Paris]], [[Tokyo]], and [[Berlin]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=735 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref> Internationally, Trotsky's opposition received support from several Central Committee members of foreign communist parties, including Rakovsky (Chairman of the [[Council of People's Commissars (Ukraine)|Ukrainian Sovnarkom]]), [[Boris Souvarine]] of the [[French Communist Party]], and the Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of Poland|Polish Communist Party]] (led by [[Maksymilian Horwitz]], [[Maria Koszutska]], and [[Adolf Warski]]).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |pages=139, 249, 268–269 |language=en}}</ref>

=== After Lenin's death (1924) ===
[[File:Trotsky Leon.jpg|thumb|Trotsky in his Moscow office, 1920s]]
Throughout most of 1924, there was little overt political disagreement within the Soviet leadership. Publicly, Trotsky remained a prominent Bolshevik leader, though his "mistakes" were often alluded to by ''troika'' partisans. Behind the scenes, he was cut off from decision-making. Politburo meetings were formalities; key decisions were made beforehand by the ''troika'' and its supporters. Trotsky's control over the military was undermined by reassigning his deputy, [[Ephraim Sklyansky]], and appointing [[Mikhail Frunze]], groomed to replace him.

At the [[13th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|XIIIth Party Congress]] in May, Trotsky delivered a conciliatory speech:<ref>Chapter VIII of Boris Souvarine's [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/souvar/works/stalin/ch08.htm ''Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060430065533/http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/souvar/works/stalin/ch08.htm |date=30 April 2006}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|None of us desires or is able to dispute the will of the Party. Clearly, the Party is always right... We can only be right with and by the Party, for history has provided no other way of being in the right. The English have a saying, "My country, right or wrong"... We have much better historical justification in saying whether it is right or wrong in certain individual concrete cases, it is my party... And if the Party adopts a decision which one or other of us thinks unjust, he will say, just or unjust, it is my party, and I shall support the consequences of the decision to the end.<ref>Leon Trotsky, "Speech to the Thirteenth Party Congress on May 26, 1924" contained in ''The Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'', pp. 161–62.</ref>}}
[[File:Leon Trotsky attends The October Revolution parade 1924.jpg|thumb|[[Andrei Bubnov]], [[Kliment Voroshilov]], Leon Trotsky, [[Mikhail Kalinin]], and [[Mikhail Frunze]] attend the [[October Revolution]] parade in [[Red Square]], 7 November 1924]]
Meanwhile, the Left Opposition, which had formed somewhat unexpectedly in late 1923 and lacked a definite platform beyond general dissatisfaction with the intra-Party "regime," began to crystallise. It lost some less dedicated members due to ''troika'' harassment but started formulating a program. Economically, the Left Opposition opposed capitalist elements in the Soviet economy and advocated accelerated industrialization through state-led policies,<ref>Preobrazhensky, Yevgeni. ''The New Economics''. Oxford University Press, 1965.</ref> putting them at odds with Bukharin and Rykov (the "Right" wing) who supported the ''troika''. On world revolution, Trotsky and Karl Radek saw stability in Europe, while Stalin and Zinoviev predicted an "acceleration" of revolution in Western Europe in 1924. Theoretically, Trotsky remained committed to the idea that the Soviet Union could not create a true socialist society without world revolution, while Stalin gradually developed the policy of "socialism in one country". These ideological divisions formed the basis of the political divide.

At the XIIIth Congress, Kamenev and Zinoviev helped Stalin defuse Lenin's Testament, which had belatedly surfaced. Shortly after, the ''troika'', an alliance of convenience, showed signs of weakness. Stalin began making veiled accusations against Zinoviev and Kamenev. In October 1924, Trotsky published ''[[Lessons of October]],''<ref>Leon Trotsky "Lessons of October" contained in ''Challenge of the Left Opposition: 1923–1925'', pp. 199–258.</ref> a summary of the 1917 revolution. He described Zinoviev and Kamenev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, something they preferred left unmentioned. This started a new intra-party struggle, the ''Literary Discussion'', with Zinoviev and Kamenev again allied with Stalin against Trotsky. Their criticism of Trotsky focused on:
* Trotsky's pre-1917 disagreements with Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
* Trotsky's alleged distortion of 1917 events to emphasize his role and diminish others'.
* Trotsky's harsh treatment of subordinates and other alleged Civil War mistakes.
Trotsky, ill again, was unable to respond while his opponents mobilized to denounce him. They damaged his military reputation enough to force his resignation as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council on 6 January 1925. Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Party, but Stalin, playing the moderate, refused. Trotsky kept his Politburo seat but was effectively on probation.

=== A year in the wilderness (1925) ===
[[File:Leon Trotsky and Leonid Serebryakov attend the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union May 1925.jpg|left|thumb|Leon Trotsky and [[Leonid Serebryakov]] attend the [[Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union]] in May 1925]]
1925 was a difficult year for Trotsky. After the ''Literary Discussion'' and losing his Red Army posts, he was effectively unemployed through winter and spring. In May 1925, he received three posts: chairman of the Concessions Committee, head of the electro-technical board, and chairman of the scientific-technical board of industry. Trotsky wrote in ''My Life''<ref name=":5">Chapter 22 of [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch42.htm ''My Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212234/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch42.htm |date=20 April 2006}}</ref> that he "was taking a rest from politics" and "naturally plunged into the new line of work up to my ears".<ref>Leon Trotsky, ''My Life'' (Pathfinder Press: New York, 1970) p. 520.</ref> He also delivered a tribute to Lenin in his 1925 short book, ''Lenin''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=Lenin (1925) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/lenin/index.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=Lenin |date=1959 |publisher=Garden City Books |page=215 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyAfAAAAMAAJ&q=Lenin+is+no+more%2C+but+Leninism+endures.+The+immortal+in+Lenin%2C+his+doctrine%2C+his+work%2C+his+method%2C+his+example%2C+lives+in+us%2C+lives+in+the+party+that+he+founded%2C+lives+in+the+first+workmen%E2%80%99s+State+whose+head+he+was+and+which+he+guided. |language=en}}</ref>

Some contemporary accounts depict a remote and distracted man.<ref>Nikolai Valentinov-Volsky's account of his work with Trotsky in 1925 in ''Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika i Krizis Partii Posle Smerti Lenina: Gody Raboty v VSNKh vo Vremia NEP'', Moscow, Sovremennik, 1991.</ref> Later in the year, Trotsky resigned his two technical positions, citing Stalin-instigated interference and sabotage, and concentrated on the Concessions Committee.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch42.htm|title=Leon Trotsky: My Life (42. The Last Period of Struggle Within the Party)|date=22 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181122231754/https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch42.htm|access-date=21 April 2020|archive-date=22 November 2018}}</ref>

One of the few political developments affecting Trotsky in 1925 was American Marxist [[Max Eastman]]'s book ''Since Lenin Died'' (1925), which described the controversy over Lenin's Testament. Trotsky publicly denied Eastman's statements in an article.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/07/lenin.htm|title=Leon Trotsky: Letter on Eastman's Book|date=22 November 2018|access-date=21 April 2020}}</ref>

Meanwhile, the ''troika'' finally broke up. Bukharin and Rykov sided with Stalin, while Krupskaya and Soviet Commissar of Finance [[Grigory Sokolnikov]] aligned with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The struggle became open at the September 1925 Central Committee meeting and peaked at the [[14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|XIVth Party Congress]] in December 1925. Zinoviev and Kamenev, dubbed ''The New Opposition'', with only the Leningrad Party organization behind them, were thoroughly defeated. Trotsky refused to get involved and did not speak at the Congress.
[[File:Leon Trotsky speaks on the fifth anniversary of Soviet Georgia.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Trotsky addresses a meeting in the [[House of the Unions]], Moscow, March 1926]]

=== United Opposition (1926–1927) ===
In early 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their "New Opposition" supporters gravitated towards Trotsky's supporters. The two groups soon formed an alliance, incorporating some smaller opposition groups, known as the [[United Opposition (Soviet Union)|United Opposition]].

The United Opposition faced repeated threats of sanctions from the Stalinist leadership. Trotsky had to agree to tactical retreats, mainly to preserve his alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The opposition remained united against [[Stalin]] throughout 1926 and 1927, especially regarding the [[Chinese Revolution of 1925–1927|Chinese Revolution]]. Stalinist methods against the Opposition became increasingly extreme. At the XVth Party Conference in October 1926, Trotsky could barely speak due to interruptions and catcalls; at its end, he lost his Politburo seat. In 1927, Stalin began using the [[Joint State Political Directorate|GPU]] (Soviet secret police) to infiltrate and discredit the opposition. Rank-and-file oppositionists were increasingly harassed, sometimes expelled from the Party, and even arrested.

Soviet policy toward the Chinese Revolution became the ideological demarcation line. The revolution began on 10 October 1911,<ref>Sterling Seagrave, ''Dragon Lady'' (Alfred A. Knopf Inc.: New York, 1992) p. 454.</ref> leading to Emperor [[Puyi]]'s abdication on 12 February 1912.<ref>Compilation Group for the "History of Modern China" Series, ''The Revolution of 1911'' (Foreign Languages Press: Peking, 1976) p. 153.</ref> [[Sun Yat-sen]] established the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]], but it controlled little of the country, much of which was divided among warlords. The Republican government formed the [[Kuomintang]] (KMT). In 1920, the KMT opened relations with Soviet Russia. With Soviet help, the KMT built up its army. The planned [[Northern Expedition]] to crush northern warlords became a point of contention. Stalin urged the small [[Communist Party of China|Chinese Communist Party]] to merge with the KMT for a bourgeois revolution before attempting a Soviet-style workers' revolution.<ref>Joseph Stalin, "The Prospects of Revolution in China" a speech to the Chinese Commission of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on 30 November 1926" contained in ''J. Stalin on Chinese Revolution'' (Suren Dutt Publishers: Calcutta, India, 1970), pp. 5–21.</ref>
[[File:Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky at Felix Dzerzhinsky funeral.jpg|thumb|[[Mikhail Kalinin|Kalinin]] and [[Stalin]] bearing [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]]'s coffin, 22 July 1926. Trotsky is visible over Kalinin's left shoulder.|alt=Mikhail Kalinin and Joseph Stalin carry a coffin. Leon Trotsky stands behind Kalinin.]]

Trotsky wanted the Communist Party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and maintain clear class independence from the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OCI3gnzsYc0C&q=trotsky+squeezed+lemon+chiang&pg=PA233|title=China in war and revolution, 1895–1949|author=Peter Gue Zarrow|year=2005|publisher=Psychology Press|edition=illustrated|volume=1 of Asia's transformations|isbn=978-0-415-36447-8|page=233|access-date=1 January 2011}}</ref> He countered Trotskyist criticism in a secret speech, saying [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s right-wing KMT were the only ones capable of defeating imperialists, that Chiang had funding from rich merchants, and his forces should be used until "squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded". However, Chiang reversed the tables in the [[Shanghai massacre]] of 12 April 1927, massacring the Communists in Shanghai midway through the Northern Expedition.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wjCsAAAAIAAJ&q=trotsky+squeezed+lemon+chiang&pg=PA96|title=Moscow and Chinese Communists|author=Robert Carver North|year=1963|publisher=Stanford University Press|edition=2|isbn=978-0-8047-0453-3|page=96|access-date=1 January 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yMwdWFtgV0QC&q=trotsky+squeezed+lemon+chiang&pg=PA282|title=A history of Russia: Since 1855|author=Walter Moss|year=2005|publisher=Anthem Press|edition=2, illustrated|volume=2 of A History of Russia|isbn=978-1-84331-034-1|page=282|access-date=1 January 2011}}</ref>

=== Defeat and exile (1927–1928) ===
[[File:Leon Trotsky 1928.jpg|thumb|left|Trotsky with his wife Natalia Sedova and son Lev Sedov in Alma Ata (now Almaty), 1928]]
On the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution in November 1927, the Opposition held a street demonstration in Moscow against Stalin's government. It was dispersed by Soviet authorities, and Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party shortly thereafter.<ref>J. Arch Getty, Oleg V. Naumov. Road to Terror. pp. 26-27</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://topos.memo.ru/en/node/135|title=Anti-Stalinist Demonstration on November 7, 1927|date=2 December 2015|website=Topography of Terror, Moscow|access-date=10 January 2024|archive-date=10 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240110131422/https://topos.memo.ru/en/node/135|url-status=dead}}</ref> Trotsky delivered the eulogy at his friend Adolph Joffe's funeral in November 1927; it was his last public speech in the Soviet Union. When the XVth Party Congress made United Opposition views incompatible with Communist Party membership, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their supporters capitulated and renounced their alliance with the Left Opposition. Trotsky and most of his followers refused to surrender. Trotsky was exiled to [[Almaty|Alma Ata]] (now Almaty), Kazakhstan, on 31 January 1928. He was expelled from the Soviet Union to Turkey in February 1929, accompanied by his wife Natalia Sedova and their eldest son, Lev.{{sfn|Rubenstein|2013|pp=155, 202}}

=== Fate of Left Oppositionists after Trotsky's exile (1929–1941) ===
[[File:Soviet reaction to Leon Trotsky publication.jpg|thumb|The publication of Trotsky's autobiography ''[[My Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography)|My Life]]'' as reported in the Soviet Union, August 1929. The editors of ''Projector'' magazine titled the item: "On the service of bourgeoisie."]]
After Trotsky's expulsion, Trotskyists within the Soviet Union began to waver. Between 1929 and 1932, most leading Left Opposition members surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes," and were reinstated in the Communist Party. An initial exception was [[Christian Rakovsky]], who inspired Trotsky from 1929 to 1934 with his refusal to capitulate as state suppression increased. In late 1932, Rakovsky failed to flee the Soviet Union and was exiled to [[Yakutia]] in March 1933. At Trotsky's request, French mathematician and Trotskyist [[Jean Van Heijenoort]], with [[Pierre Frank]], unsuccessfully appealed to influential Soviet author [[Maxim Gorky]] to intervene for Rakovsky, boarding Gorky's ship near Constantinople.<ref name="yedlin">Tova Yedlin, ''Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography'', Praeger/Greenwood, [[Westport, Connecticut|Westport]], 1992, pp. 201–02. {{ISBN|978-0275966058}}</ref> According to Heijenoort, they only met Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, who promised to pass on their request.<ref name="yedlin" /> Rakovsky was the last prominent Trotskyist to capitulate, in April 1934. His letter to ''Pravda'', titled ''There Should Be No Mercy'', depicted Trotsky and his supporters as "agents of the German [[Gestapo]]".{{sfn|Medvedev|1976|p=169}} Rakovsky was appointed to high office in the Commissariat for Health and allowed to return to Moscow, also serving as Soviet ambassador to Japan in 1935.{{sfn|Feofanov|Barry|1995|p=22}} However, he was implicated in allegations concerning [[Sergey Kirov]]'s murder and was arrested and imprisoned in late 1937 during the Great Purge.<ref name="faganoppexile">Fagan, Gus; Biographical Introduction to Christian Rakovsky; chapter ''[https://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/biog/biog5.htm Opposition and Exile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715212757/https://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/biog/biog5.htm |date=15 July 2018}}''</ref>

Almost all Trotskyists remaining in the Soviet Union were executed in the Great Purges of 1936–1938. Rakovsky survived until the [[Medvedev Forest massacre]] of September 1941, where he was shot with 156 other prisoners on Stalin's orders, less than three months into the [[Axis invasion of the Soviet Union]]. Trotsky's sister and Kamenev's first wife, [[Olga Kameneva]], was also among the Medvedev Forest victims.{{sfn|Parrish|1996|p=69}}