Leon Trotsky (real surname: Bronstein) was born into a family of a well-to-do colonist. He graduated from a Realschule in Nikolaev (1896), entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Novorossiysk University (did not graduate). Since the 1890s, he participated in the social democratic movement. He was a founder of the South Russian Workers’ Union. He was arrested several times, and exiled to Siberia. He fled to London, where he met the leaders of the Russian Social Democracy, including Vladimir Lenin. He participated in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) (1903), joined the Mensheviks, but soon broke up with them, trying to take an intermediate position. One of the leading authors of the Iskra [Spark] newspaper. In 1905, he returned illegally to Russia. At the end of 1905, he became a leader of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. In December, Trotsky was arrested and sentenced to life in Siberia with the deprivation of all rights. On the way to exile, he escaped. In 1906–1917, in exile, he was engaged in journalistic work and party activity. In 1912, he was one of the founders of the August bloc, which tried to unite the conflicting factions of the RSDLP. During World War I, he advocated internationalist positions.

After the February Revolution of 1917 Trotsky returned to Russia and arrived in Petrograd in May 1917. He opposed the Provisional Government. After the July political crisis he was arrested. At the 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b) (July to August 1917), together with Mezhraiontsy [an independent group of Social Democrats], he was admitted to the Bolshevik Party, and elected to its Central Committee. He was dismissed in September and elected Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Trotsky was one of the main organizers of the October coup of 1917. He supervised the defense of Petrograd against the troops of Aleksander Kerensky and Pyotr Krasnov.

From November 1917 to March 1918, he held the post of People’s Commissar (narkom) for Foreign Affairs. Trotsky headed the Soviet delegation in negotiations with Germany and Austria-Hungary in Brest-Litovsk. In March 1918, he was appointed People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the Russian SFSR (until November 1923). Since September 1918, Trotsky was Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (since 1923, USSR). He played a key role in the organization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. He participated in the development and implementation of operations of the Civil War, personally traveled to the fronts in a special “train of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council”. In November 1919, he organized the defense of Petrograd against the troops of Nikolay Yudenich, which earned him the Order of the Red Banner.

Trotsky was a founder of the Communist International (1919), the author of its Manifesto. In March–December 1920, he held the post of the People’s Commissar of Railways. Since November 1923, he was People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, he was one of the main contenders for power in the party and state. When he lost in the internal party struggle to Joseph Stalin, he was removed from the posts of Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR (January 1925). In 1926, he was dismissed from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks – RCP(b). 1927 saw him expelled from the party, and in 1928 he was exiled to Alma-Ata (currently Almaty). In 1929, he was exiled to Turkey. In 1932, he was stripped of Soviet citizenship. In 1940 he was killed in Coyoacan (Mexico) by an NKVD agent.