Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

==== 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.