Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

=== 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]]