Stalin - Trotsky: A Battle to Death (2015) - full transcript
For 20 years, theirs was an ideological duel between two .
(ominous music)
Mexico, 20th of August, 1940.
Trotsky was murdered,
an ice pick to the head.
With his death came the end of a duel
at the very heart of
the communist movement.
Stalin, at the head of the Kremlin
had finally eliminated
his long-standing rival.
Stalin,
Trotsky.
They were worlds apart.
One was the son of a Georgian cobbler,
the other a Jewish intellectual.
One a methodical, calculating man,
the other a brilliant, enthusiastic mind.
One a cynic, the other an idealist.
It was the end of a duel
that had lasted 20 years.
A political duel, a power duel.
A duel between two men who
were radically different.
But above all, a duel to the death.
But there is one question that lingers.
Why did Joseph Stalin want
to have Leon Trotsky executed
when he had already removed him from power
and exiled him far away?
(bold Russian music)
(crowd screaming)
(tense music)
Petrograd, February 1917.
Czar Nicholas II abdicated
under pressure from the people.
But for Lenin, the revolutionary,
getting rid of the czar wasn't enough.
He needed to establish
a new order, communism.
He methodically orchestrated
his take over in October, 1917,
and this would ensure the
success of his revolution.
He had two lieutenants by his side.
They had been there for 30 years,
and were both promising characters,
but were diametrically opposed.
Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky.
But the duel between Stalin and Trotsky
had begun a good decade earlier.
London, 1907,
the congress of the Russian
Social Democratic Labor Party.
Trotsky and Stalin met for the first time.
Trotsky was on the stage,
Stalin in the audience.
Trotsky's brio both
fascinated and exasperated
his frustrated comrade Stalin.
A slow poison began to seep
into their relationship.
(speaking foreign language)
It was Stalin's first time
out of the Caucuses.
It was his first time in London,
the metropolis of the west,
and he couldn't believe his eyes.
He was a party delegate at a congress
of the Social Democratic Party
that brought together all the stars
he had heard talk of in the papers,
and he was going to be
able to speak to them.
And it was clear that Stalin
was in awe of Trotsky,
something he'd struggled
to hide all his life.
He was in awe of the man.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had obviously noticed Trotsky.
Trotsky was everything he despised,
an orator, an extrovert,
and a brilliant mind.
He wasn't brilliant.
Stalin was a very poor orator.
When you listen to recording
of him speaking it's amazing.
When he became the leader of the USSR
he'd say a phrase, pause,
and everyone would applaud.
(audience applauding)
(speaking foreign language)
He'd drink some water,
he says a second sentence,
he stops, and everyone applauds.
It's absolutely extraordinary.
He's like some kind of machine.
(speaking foreign language)
Physically Stalin had a great handicap.
He was pockmarked, and he was small.
And Trotsky was, of course,
physically, very imposing.
The two revolutionaries
fought the czarist regime under pseudonyms.
Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
called himself Stalin,
the man of steel.
He had it all figured out.
And Lev Davidovich Bronshtein
hid under the name of Leon Trotsky.
They each dreamed of changing the world,
but socially, they couldn't
have been more different.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky had a supposedly happy childhood
in a family that loved
him, that cared for him,
that supported him through his studies,
and which envisaged a great future for him.
Whereas Stalin was pretty
much born in the gutter,
and he was exposed to a great deal
of violence in his own home.
His father was a drunk
who would beat him badly.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin is very interesting in terms
of the Russian Social Democrats,
which became the Bolshevik party,
because he's about the only Bolshevik,
and the only Social Democrat,
who was working class.
All the other came from the families
of intellectuals, civil servants.
Stalin would never be quite like them.
They would always feel that he hadn't had
the same education, that
he wasn't one of their own.
Stalin and Trotsky each grew up
in a Russia ruled over by the czar.
For centuries, this autocratic regime
had fostered inequality.
The huge majority of the population
was made up of peasants,
and they lived in very poor
social and economic conditions.
The country dreamed of a different society.
Stalin was 20 years old when he embarked
upon his revolutionary career,
Trotsky was 17.
But their struggles took on
radically different forms.
Through his culture and training
Trotsky had a more intellectual
vision of revolution.
He loved to debate.
He developed theories
on ways to take power.
His analysis was influenced by
the great European socialist
and Marxist thinkers
with whom he was in regular contact.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was in exile,
and in exile he lived
in a socialist society,
a high society.
He traveled around the whole of Europe,
and he rubbed shoulders with
all the great revolutionaries,
all the great European socialists.
He lived a life that was, one might say,
in high socialist society.
It was during his exile in London
that Trotsky met Lenin and
became one of his collaborators.
His travels and his lengthy discussions
with foreign intellectuals drove Trotsky
to think of revolution on a global scale.
For him, taking power would not be
limited to just one country.
(upbeat Russian music)
On the other hand, Stalin, the Georgian,
was a provincial man.
A willing man who was scorned
by the socialist intelligentsia.
His only priority was revolution in Russia.
For Lenin, Comrade Stalin was the man
to carry out the dirty work.
His delinquent past was
skillfully exploited
to fill the party coffers.
Stalin blanched at nothing.
Extortion, sabotage,
and robbery posed no problems.
(speaking foreign language)
He was the revolutionary
king of the Caucuses.
He played cat and mouse with the police
and he pulled off masterstrokes, holdups,
ran revolutionary rackets,
and murdered people.
And he played a very important role,
because it was through these heists
and this revolutionary racketeering
that he raised the funds
to ensure the survival
of the Bolshevik faction in exile.
Because when you're in exile
and you have no income,
what else do you do?
That's why Lenin referred to him as
the wonderful Georgian,
the wonderful Georgian
who brought him the cash.
It was great.
(ominous music)
In 1913, Stalin and Trotsky met again,
this time in Vienna.
And this encounter confirmed
Stalin's first impressions.
He felt snubbed.
Stalin had a complex,
something gnawing at him
that he never got over,
his desire to eliminate Trotsky.
(speaking foreign language)
The hour of revolution was approaching.
Although Stalin and Trotsky
were now both working for Lenin,
it was already clear that
beyond the ideals they shared
they were totally opposed to one another.
(booming explosions)
1917 was a pivotal year in the history
of the First World War.
Russia was fighting alongside France,
and the British had been
weakened by a conflict
that had already been
going on for three years.
(solemn music)
The soldiers were revolting.
1917 was a year of mutiny in the trenches
and the start of the Russian Revolution.
In February there were increasing numbers
of strikes and protests in Petrograd.
The czar was forced to abdicate.
A provisional government was established
but the Bolsheviks overthrew
it a few months later.
In October, Lenin took his place
at the head of the first
communist regime in history.
He appointed brilliant
revolutionaries to support him.
Trotsky, of course,
along with Lev Kamenev,
Grigory Zinoviev,
and Nikolai Bukharin.
Stalin, the man of the people,
stood out among these intellectuals.
In the face of this new regime,
the czar's partisans dreamed
of their return to power.
They ended up fighting the Bolsheviks
in a civil war that lasted five years.
During this struggle, Lenin realized
that he needed Trotsky's
eloquence and charisma.
Stalin was relegated to the background.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky had some eminent qualities.
He was a great orator,
a great revolutionary,
and a great leader of men.
Physically he was scared of nothing.
He moved around in his armored train
to the front during the civil war.
That wasn't a problem for him.
As for Stalin, he was
developing his own method.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky would turn up
at Bolshevik or Soviet Party congresses
and would stir up the crowd
with his brilliant oratory.
People would applaud, and
he'd already have left.
Stalin would go around shaking hands,
paying attention to the lowly militants,
being interested in what
was happening to them,
knowing their names even.
All kinds of things that were
totally foreign to Trotsky,
so Stalin gained a
reputation as a good guy.
(speaking foreign language)
You have to remember
that as soon as the Bolsheviks
moved from Saint Petersberg to Moscow
in the spring of 1918, and
moved into the Kremlin,
Stalin had his own
apartments in the Kremlin
and worked out of the
office next to Lenin's.
It was really no coincidence that Lenin
appointed him Secretary General.
He was the party man,
close by Lenin's side.
(speaking foreign language)
And Stalin, in that role,
gradually started weaving
his network of contacts
that would give him free reign
over the party officials
and their appointment.
(ominous music)
Stalin understood
what he could get out of the party.
But for the time being,
Trotsky was the hero of the
Revolution and the Civil War.
He traveled thousands of
miles to rally the troops
that would make up the Red Army.
On his armored train Trotsky traveled
back and forth across the country
using the weapon he understood best, words.
He gave hope to the Reds
while demoralizing the
counterrevolutionary Whites.
For Trotsky, the train was
as much a weapon of war
as it was a weapon of propaganda.
Each day he wrote a journal
that he had printed on board
and he distributed it as he went.
Like a real war chief,
he shared stories of the
soldier's daily lives,
encouraging them and rewarding them.
But Trotsky also used force and repression
to make men sign up for the Red Army,
which went from one
million soldiers in 1918,
to five million two years later.
He had no hesitations about
having anyone who opposed him shot.
Empowered by his success in Russia,
Trotsky hoped to spread
revolution across Europe.
In 1920, he launched an offensive
on the Polish army in Warsaw,
which was allied to the
White counterrevolutionaries.
But just when victory was within his grasp,
Stalin thwarted his plans.
(speaking foreign language)
As head of the Red Army,
Trotsky ordered the troops to attack.
Tukhachevsky, who was
the commander in chief,
was attacking from east to
west directly on Warsaw.
To the south, there was a
column under Stalin's command
that was supposed to come up from the south
directly to Warsaw.
But Stalin never listened
to anyone else, as usual,
and instead of heading for Warsaw
to take the Poles in a pincer movement,
he stopped in front of a
different city and besieged it.
He just didn't show up.
Rather than obeying orders,
Stalin wanted a personal victory
by taking the Polish city of Lvov.
His stubbornness led to a Soviet defeat.
They were subsequently obliged to make
important territorial
concessions to Poland.
Between Stalin and Trotsky,
this episode felt like
a declaration of war.
(speaking foreign language)
And there were some fierce
disputes after that,
which explained what happened next.
Because obviously, Lenin demanded
reports of what had happened,
and Trotsky presented a report
that was highly critical of Stalin.
Tukhachevsky also presented a report
that was highly critical of Stalin,
and it goes without
saying that Comrade Stalin
would settle his scores 15 years later.
(ominous music)
Stalin pondered his revenge,
but for the moment he just
had to grin and bear it.
Trotsky ensured the Bolsheviks
were able to seize power
across the country.
The Red Army final defeated
the partisan soldiers
of the former czarist regime, the Whites.
But this also reduced Russia
to a devastated battleground.
In 1921, after a terrible drought,
famine ravished the country,
and 1.5 million people starved to death.
However, within the party,
Trotsky was at the peak of his popularity.
He emerged as the natural heir to Lenin,
who was seriously ill,
and who would soon need to be replaced.
In his post as secretary general,
Stalin knew that he wasn't
a favorite for the job,
but he had already planned
how he was going to get back in the race.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin, who was less brilliant
than the others, was nonetheless
a remarkable strategist.
Not just a remarkable pragmatist,
but also a remarkable strategist.
He had a veritable strategy
for the creation of the Lenin myth,
in which he made sure he had his place.
(somber music)
Creating the Lenin myth
was the Machiavellian idea
hatched by Stalin to deflect any criticism,
and win the battle against Trotsky.
His plan had two phases.
The first took place on
the day of Lenin's funeral.
Lenin had been incapacitated
by a series of three strokes
that had left him weakened,
and the founder of Soviet
Russia eventually died
on the 21st of January, 1924.
He was 53.
A huge crowed gathered
in Gorki, near Moscow,
to pay homage to the revolutionary.
His faithful companions
were also in attendance,
Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin.
They carried the coffin, along with Stalin.
These three Bolsheviks,
old friends of Lenin's,
may also have been thinking
about succeeding him,
but what they didn't know was that
Stalin was counting on using them
to take power for himself,
and that he had already
sealed their own deadly fates.
Only one top party figure
was missing, Trotsky.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was fairly
seriously ill at the time,
and was being treated in a
seaside resort in the Caucasus.
We now know, and they knew at the time,
that Stalin had lied to him,
telling him not to come back,
that there was no point,
as Lenin would be buried immediately.
However, the decision
had already been taken
to construct a mausoleum.
So Trotsky did was Stalin said,
thinking he wouldn't get back in time,
as it would have taken
several days by train.
He took a decision not to return
which had lasting consequences.
(somber music)
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had organized
an absolutely extraordinary funeral.
This was a new kind of event.
They were no longer in an imperial system,
now they were in a revolutionary system.
Embalming Lenin,
so he could be on display
forever to the bedazzled public
was an aberrant idea,
and it came from Stalin.
Lenin's widow tried to stop the embalming,
and the funeral arrangements.
She was against it all.
And that was when Stalin said,
"Be careful.
"I can find another widow
for Lenin immediately."
That was a threat, and not an implicit one.
That was what he actually said.
(solemn music)
Krupskaya, Lenin's widow,
had to bow to all of Stalin's wishes.
The second phase of his plan to seize power
involved Lenin's testament.
On the 23rd of May, 1924,
four months after the funeral,
the 13th Communist Party Congress was held
and Stalin read out the document.
A few months before he died,
aware that he didn't have much time left,
the father of the revolution dictated
a few words to his secretary.
Without specifically naming his successor,
Lenin gave his opinion on
the qualities and flaws
of those Bolsheviks that might succeed him.
(speaking foreign language)
This is what he said,
"Comrade Stalin, having
become Secretary General,"
and remember, it was Lenin who appointed
Stalin Secretary General in early 1922,
a few months earlier.
"Comrade Stalin, having
become Secretary General,
"has unlimited authority
concentrated in his hands."
That is a strong statement.
He continues, "And I am not sure
"whether he will be capable
of using that authority
"with sufficient caution."
And what happened afterwards
proves he was right.
(speaking foreign language)
The paradox is that in his testament
Lenin flagged up the dangerous
character that Stalin was.
But at the time, Stalin was a lesser player
in the minds of the three
other Bolshevik leaders.
Initially, the fight for succession
wasn't between Stalin and Trotsky,
it was between Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Kamenev, and Bukharin,
and at that time, Stalin
was still in the background.
(speaking foreign language)
So that was
between the 23rd and 31st of December.
And on the 4th of January, a week later,
Lenin was feeling better,
and said the last thing he
would say about this matter.
It's pretty amazing what he said.
"Stalin is too rude."
About time too, that somebody noticed,
in the middle of all these
extremely rude Bolsheviks,
"Stalin is too rude, and this defect,
"although quite tolerable in our midst,
"and in dealings among us communists,
"becomes intolerable
in a secretary general.
"That is why I suggest that the comrades
think about a way of removing
Stalin from that post."
In this testament,
Lenin is much more lenient with Trotsky.
Granted, he reproaches
his excessive confidence,
but he also commends his
intellectual qualities.
He presents him as the most capable
man in the central committee.
However, Trotsky would never profit
from Lenin's appreciation.
Against all expectations, it was Stalin
who pushed his advantage.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin was
very cunning.
He staged the revelation
of Lenin's will and said,
"Comrades, the last words of
Comrade Lenin," et cetera.
"Comrade Lenin said I should
be removed from my post,
"so therefore I propose
to resign from my post."
And of course, because it was
he who organized the congress,
all the congress cried out,
"Comrade Stalin, no, stay with us."
It was a nice little show.
And so faced with that
situation, Trotsky was stuck,
and this is what he said,
and what finished him off for good.
"We can only be right
with, and by the party."
Clearly, the party is always right.
Of course, if the party is run by Stalin,
then it's Stalin who will always be right.
(ominous music)
(speaking foreign language)
From the point on,
he created a kind of legacy for Lenin.
He created Leninist thinking.
That was what they called it.
Like the thinking of Marx, Engels, Lenin,
and then Stalin too.
(triumphant music)
(crowd cheering)
So, while Lenin himself
was recommending the utmost caution
with regard to Stalin,
Stalin pulled off the amazing feat
of emerging as his heir.
Trotsky realized that he
had underestimated Stalin,
and there were more
surprises in store for him.
(solemn music)
In 1926, Stalin and Trotsky met up
at the burial of a former
Bolshevik, Gorczynski,
someone to whom they'd been close.
Stalin was walking up ahead,
Trotsky, farther behind.
The man who had led the
revolution a decade previously
no doubt knew that his
days high up in the party
were now numbered.
This was the last time
that Stalin and Trotsky
would appear together in public.
Now that the Civil War
had left millions dead,
Stalin, like the majority of the Bolsheviks
had abandoned the idea
of a global revolution.
However, this was still
an obsession for Trotsky.
He wanted to take up arms again.
Stalin had understood that in the country,
as within the Communist Party,
it was not the right time
to export the revolution.
(speaking foreign language)
Because the people in the system
wanted a quiet life.
They wanted to benefit from the advantages
that Stalin, as Secretary
of the Central Committee, had granted.
These were material advantages,
advantages in a country that was hungry.
Remember, the USSR had
always known shortages.
So having a job where you
have material advantages,
a food parcel every month,
or a salary that is doubled, then tripled,
then quadrupled, et
cetera, was very important.
And what's Trotsky going
to say to those people,
that they have to help
the revolution in Germany,
in China, in Britain?
No, leave us in peace.
It's the same for any political machinery.
They want to be left in peace.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had a very good understanding
of the triggers of human psychology,
and I think that with a
certain number of people
who were of a similar character to him
he knew how to manipulate
the triggers of ambition,
the triggers of jealousy, envy,
the triggers for violence.
He knew how to bring out
the psychological traits in these people
that would drive them to action.
To action for Stalin's own benefit.
(ominous music)
To reach the very top of the party
Stalin had to use the
members of the politburo
and play them off against each other.
First he managed to convince
Zinoviev and Kamenev
to team up with him to sideline Trotsky.
Then his manipulation continued.
He got Bukharin on side against Trotsky,
Zinoviev, and Kamenev.
He was a brilliant dissembler,
and slowly but surely
managed to rid himself
of all the old Bolshevik
revolutionaries in his way.
At the same time, he used his
position as Secretary General
to appoint people he could manipulate.
He even went as far as to organize
an intake dedicated to Lenin
of low-ranking soldiers into the party,
which, until then, had been
the reserve of the elite of 1917.
(speaking foreign language)
It was in fact
a key position because it allowed Stalin,
through a succession of
brilliantly managed appointments,
to gradually replace those
who had led the Revolution,
and the Civil War especially,
by a certain number of accomplices
who owed their careers to him.
They owed their careers,
not to their revolutionary achievements,
but to the prince of
Moscow, Stalin himself.
Stalin created a court of the faithful.
However much Trotsky denounced
the bureaucratization of the party,
however much he criticized Stalin
for being a man of the
system, it was too late.
The czar's trap had remorselessly
closed around the prophet.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was his own worst enemy,
a victim of his remarkable intelligence,
of his brilliant mind, that
had indisputably led him,
like others, to underestimate Stalin.
"He is mediocrity," Trotsky said.
That's how he described Stalin.
Never in history have we seen such a host
of brilliant, cultivated,
and extraordinary minds
that shared the same aim,
to destroy the old order,
and establish a new one.
And among them, there was mediocrity,
and it was the mediocrity that won the day.
(ominous music)
In 1927, Stalin settled
his score with Trotsky.
He expelled him from the party.
Trotsky was then sent by force
to Alma-Ata in deepest Kazakhstan.
Stalin wanted to rid himself of his rival,
but he couldn't kill him, not yet.
Barley 10 years after
the Russian Revolution
nobody in the party
understood such a decision.
Then Stalin exiled Trotsky,
chasing him out of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky didn't know then that he'd
never return to his country again.
Although it seemed that
Stalin had won over the party,
the confrontation between the two men
was far from finished.
The duel would continue long distance.
In February, 1929,
Trotsky arrived in Turkey
on the island of Buyukada,
off the coast of Istanbul.
His wife, Natalia, was with him,
as well as his son Leon Sedov.
Trotsky thought that Stalin
had exiled him to Turkey
to isolate him even more,
and to render him powerless.
He knew nobody in the country
and didn't speak the language.
But Trotsky wasn't too downhearted.
By July 1929, he had created
the Bulletin of the Opposition
in which he denounced Stalin's
behavior and policies.
(speaking foreign language)
The paradox is
that theyexiled Trotsky, or
politically eliminated him,
or so they believed.
But from that point onwards,
and through the 1930s,
Trotsky would continue his activities
and would be a reference point.
The only one to oppose Stalin
and the power of the
Russian state in such a way.
He was exiled, not just
because he was an irritation,
but also because he refused
political compromises,
or to be silenced.
(somber music)
Trotsky tried to form an opposition,
but from outside the USSR he had
much less chance of being
heard than from within.
Stalin, the little
hoodlum from the Caucuses,
to whom nobody paid any attention,
became the uncontested
master of the Soviet Union.
He was given the nickname "The
Little Father of the People,"
an expression that hitherto had
been reserved for the czars.
(triumphant music)
He gradually established his strategy,
his networks, and his men
to hold the USSR in an iron grip.
Stalin had rid himself of any opposition,
and from then on his aim was
to industrialize the country
as quickly as possible so
that it could defend itself
if there were another war.
In a few years, Stalin would completely
change the face of the Soviet Union.
He built the Moscow Underground,
constructed new towns,
dug canals, and erected dams.
It was all part of the
edification of socialism.
The aura he constructed
around the Soviet Union
was greeted enthusiastically by most
communist parties in Western Europe,
in particular in Italy and France.
(speaking French)
(triumphant music)
(speaking foreign language)
No secretary
of a communist party at that
time, from the early 1930s,
could be appointed without
Moscow's agreement.
So it was either Stalin
who personally oversaw it,
or a secretary,
and they usually chose these
secretaries very carefully.
Someone about whom they had some
compromising information
they could use again them.
(triumphant music)
Stalin became a hero
for communists the world over.
Moscow was a synonym for the promised land.
Empowered by his strength and his success,
Stalin had joined the big league,
and his portrait now hung besides those
of Lenin, Marx, and Engels.
(speaking foreign language)
But in order to have absolute power,
he had to get rid of anyone
who in any way would
cast a shadow over him.
(ominous music)
Once again, Comrade Stalin pulled off
a Machiavellian coup.
He took advantage of the
assassination of Kirov,
a key member of the politburo
who was executed in shady circumstances,
to launch the systematic
elimination of every enemy,
and to set in motion a reign of terror.
(speaking foreign language)
As soon as he had the information
he immediately understood
the political advantages
he would be able to gain
from this assassination.
He headed off in his special
train to Saint Petersberg,
or Leningrad as it was called at the time.
He tidied things up,
got rid of the witnesses who might have
contradicted his version,
and said that Kirov was assassinated
by traitors of the party, and
that Zinoviev was responsible,
and so was Kamenev, and
above them it was Trotsky.
That allowed him to order the assassination
of party members, which until that point
had been virtually unthinkable.
And from then on, obviously,
it took on huge proportions.
(ominous music)
As with Lenin's succession,
Stalin proceeded in a
very methodical manner.
His strategy began with a
huge propaganda campaign
that went far beyond the
borders of the Soviet Union.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.
For communists around the world,
the Fuhrer became the number one enemy.
Stalin didn't hesitate to draw comparisons
between Trotsky and the
Chancellor of the Third Reich.
(speaking foreign language)
The anti-Trotsky propaganda
was extremely violent.
For example, the French Communist Party
published a brochure,
an anti-Dorio brochure,
with Dorio behind a Trotsky mask,
or a Hitler mask, et cetera.
You can imagine during the
height of the popular front,
if you associated Hitler with Trotskyites
and said they were Hitler's allies,
the people were petrified.
You couldn't support Trotsky,
that would be unthinkable.
So Stalin set an extraordinary
propaganda steamroller in motion.
In Vietnam as well, and China, everywhere.
During the years 1933 to 1936,
if a communist came across a Trotskyite,
they would attack them, and liquidate them,
if necessary, physically.
(ominous music)
Stalin gradually managed
to discredit the men who
embodied the party's old guard,
or who showed any kind
of loyalty to Trotsky.
The second phase of their elimination
was carried out through three trials
held in Moscow between
August 1936, and March 1938.
Stalin had constructed the cases
against the defendants in minute detail.
He ordered the agents of the NKVD,
his political law enforcement agency,
to extract confessions
from the old Bolsheviks.
During their public examinations,
Zinoviev, Kamanev, and
Bukharin, among others,
had to endure the haranguing and insults
of prosecutor Vyshinsky,
a close ally of Stalin's.
(speaking foreign language)
(audience applauds)
(speaking foreign language)
We now know
that these trials were totally rigged.
Totally rigged.
They were complete fiction.
The accused learned their parts,
the prosecutor learned his,
and they gave a performance.
It was very well done, because,
as you know, when you're
dealing with terror,
you can get people to do
exactly what you want.
(speaking French)
There are awful
stories of them saying to the accused,
"Did you place nails in
the butter of the people?"
And these intelligent men,
these great intellectuals,
would reply, "Yes, we placed nails
"in the butter of the people."
And did you put nails in
the eggs of the people?
And these brilliant men would reply,
"Uh, no we couldn't
because they had shells."
The foreign press corps was at the trials
and thought it was completely normal.
(speaking foreign language)
(tense music)
(gunshots cracking)
Trotsky was also condemned to death
in absentia, and he knew
that Stalin had no intention
of leaving the punishment undelivered.
These trials developed, not from communism,
not from socialism, but from Stalinism,
that is from the irresponsible despotism
of the bureaucracy over the people.
What is now my principal task?
To reveal the truth,
to show and to demonstrate
that the true criminals
hide under the cloak of the accusers.
(solemn music)
But Trotsky's protests
counted for little in the
face of the Stalinist machine
crushing everything in its path.
All Trotsky's books, all the works in which
Trotsky appeared as a
hero of the revolution
were removed from libraries,
until the image of the
founder of the Red Army
had been completely erased.
(speaking foreign language)
And there is
that famous photo that has been retouched
of one of Lenin's speeches
on an open-air stage.
And there's a little
staircase up to the stage,
and Trotsky is on the staircase.
Then one day, he disappears.
There's nobody on the staircase,
and everything was like that.
That was typical of Stalin's methods,
the retouching of photographs.
(ominous music)
(speaking foreign language)
Those photos
weren't intended to
trick the old Bolsheviks,
to trick the heads of the party.
They were there to send a message,
and the message was
don't talk about these people any more.
Now, talking about so-and-so,
and talking about Trotsky in particular
is not only punishable, but
can be dangerous for you.
(solemn music)
After Turkey,
Trotsky was given asylum in
France, and then in Norway.
But gradually, he became
undesirable right across Europe.
No leader wanted to risk offending Stalin
by welcoming Trotsky to their country.
Only Mexico agreed to take him in.
Trotsky arrived in Mexico
City in January, 1937.
He and his wife Natalia were put up
by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
These two Mexican painters
and militant communists
agreed to welcome them.
Trotsky still hoped to unify
the partisans behind him.
He created a new organization,
the Fourth International.
He also set up a commission to pull apart
the accusations of the Moscow trials.
But even thousands of miles
away from the Soviet Union,
Trotsky could feel the noose
tightening around his neck.
In 1938, he learned of the
death of his son, Leon Sedov.
He had undergone surgery in Paris
for a simple case of appendicitis,
but Sedov died on the operating table.
For Trotsky, how he died
left no room for doubt.
Stalin had assassinated his son,
and now he was next on the list.
(speaking foreign language)
He retreated into his bedroom
for several days with Natalia.
He took a little tea,
and then afterwards he emerged.
He had aged a great deal
during those days of mourning.
Often, when the secretaries,
the comrades and the guards talked to me,
he would tell them, "Don't talk
politics with my grandson."
He wanted to keep me away from all that.
His whole family had succumbed,
perished as part of that struggle,
so with me, he wanted
his grandson to survive.
And he succeeded.
Nobody else in my family
lived to be 88, as I am now.
(tense music)
But Trotsky could still
be a threat to Stalin.
At least that's what the
head of the Kremlin feared.
In 1939, Stalin, who just
a few years previously
had denounced the Hitler Trotskyites,
signed a non-aggression
pact with Hitler's Germany
to general amazement.
He wanted to give himself
time to fight the Nazis,
but he knew his strategy
hadn't been understood
by a good number of militant
communists around the world.
(speaking foreign language)
Hostility towards
the German-Soviet pact ran deep.
Everyone toed the line to a certain extent,
but if they could get out of this
unlikely alliance with Hitler,
they would all have been in agreement.
Trotsky was a known quantity,
he was credible, he had
the revolutionary prestige.
He'd never negotiated with
Stalin since he'd been exiled.
And just imagine if he'd clearly
and determinedly taken up a position
calling on all militant communists
to bury their differences
and reject the German-Soviet pact.
(solemn music)
Despite being politically defeated
and condemned to exile,
Trotsky was still a danger to Stalin.
By 1939, his physical elimination
had become a priority.
On the 24th of May, 1940,
around 20 men dressed as Mexican police
entered Leon Trotsky's house.
Armed with machine guns,
they fired into the bedroom where he was
sleeping with his wife Natalia.
Esteban, Trotsky's grandson,
woke with a start in the neighboring room.
(speaking foreign language)
My grandfather
was half-asleep because he
used to take sleeping pills.
Natalia quickly dragged him out of bed
and pushed him into a corner,
the southern, south-eastern
corner of the bedroom
under the table, and
that's what saved his life.
(solemn music)
Miraculously,
Leon Trotsky and Natalia were spared.
The investigation showed that Siqueiros,
a member of the Mexican Communist Party
and a fervent partisan of
Stalin, had led the attack.
He and his accomplices were arrested,
but quickly released due
to a lack of evidence.
In the days following the attack
security at the house was improved.
Bulletproof doors were installed,
along with an electric
fence, and an alarm system.
But Trotsky knew that the attack
of the 24th of May was
just a dress rehearsal.
The next time it would succeed.
That's when Ramon Mercader
entered the scene.
This young Spanish communist,
an agent of the Soviet Secret Services
who went by the names Jacques
Mornard and Frank Jackson,
had been plotting to
assassinate Trotsky for months.
First, he seduced a young militant
by the name of Sylvia Ageloff.
She introduced him into
Trotsky's household.
Ramon Mercader gradually
became a familiar figure.
(speaking foreign language)
Sometimes he'd take us out for a drive
through the Mexican countryside.
Yes, he'd give us gifts too.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was so isolated
in his locked down Mexican house.
He saw this young guy turn up,
he seemed to be Belgian, or maybe Canadian.
Nobody really knows anymore,
and it doesn't really matter,
but he was a great admirer of Leon Trotsky.
I don't really know much about politics,
but I'd love to learn,
and I'd really like to
try writing an article in support of you.
And there you have it.
(ominous music)
On the 20th of August, 1940,
Ramon Mercader said he
wanted to show Trotsky
an article he had written.
Trotsky was sitting at his desk.
When he leant over to read it,
Mercader grabbed the ice pick
he'd been hiding in his raincoat,
and plunged it deep into Trotsky's skull.
Then, Esteban, Trotsky's grandson,
who was 13 at the time, was
coming home from school.
(speaking foreign language)
Immediately I felt this anguish
that something terrible had happened.
So I hurried home, I went into the garden,
and immediately bumped
into one of the guards,
and through the half-open door
I could see my grandfather,
lying there on the wooden
floor, covered in blood
with Natalia and the guards.
And when Grandfather heard me coming,
he said to the guards, "Get
Esteban away from here.
"My grandson mustn't see this."
And at the same time he said to the guards
when he heard the moans of his killer,
"Don't kill him, he has to speak."
(solemn music)
Trotsky was immediately taken to hospital.
He died from his wounds the following day.
300,000 people attended
his funeral in Mexico.
Before he died, he spoke
the following words,
"Tell our friends I'm
certain of the victory
"of the Fourth International."
Ramon Mercader was sentenced
20 years in prison.
When he returned to Moscow in the 1960s
he was greeted as a hero
of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky went down in history
as the thwarted heir,
the man of a different communism.
But his death also bears
testimony to the power of Stalin,
capable of murdering an enemy
thousands of miles away from Moscow.
Killing him politically wasn't enough.
The czar had to slay the prophet.
After Hitler broke the
German-Soviet pact in 1941
Stalin fought an epic
fight against Nazi Germany
to stake his place as one of
the great post-war victors,
right up there with Churchill,
and Roosevelt.
Stalin had not only vanquished Trotsky,
but he had carved out a definitive
place for himself in history.
(stately music)
Mexico, 20th of August, 1940.
Trotsky was murdered,
an ice pick to the head.
With his death came the end of a duel
at the very heart of
the communist movement.
Stalin, at the head of the Kremlin
had finally eliminated
his long-standing rival.
Stalin,
Trotsky.
They were worlds apart.
One was the son of a Georgian cobbler,
the other a Jewish intellectual.
One a methodical, calculating man,
the other a brilliant, enthusiastic mind.
One a cynic, the other an idealist.
It was the end of a duel
that had lasted 20 years.
A political duel, a power duel.
A duel between two men who
were radically different.
But above all, a duel to the death.
But there is one question that lingers.
Why did Joseph Stalin want
to have Leon Trotsky executed
when he had already removed him from power
and exiled him far away?
(bold Russian music)
(crowd screaming)
(tense music)
Petrograd, February 1917.
Czar Nicholas II abdicated
under pressure from the people.
But for Lenin, the revolutionary,
getting rid of the czar wasn't enough.
He needed to establish
a new order, communism.
He methodically orchestrated
his take over in October, 1917,
and this would ensure the
success of his revolution.
He had two lieutenants by his side.
They had been there for 30 years,
and were both promising characters,
but were diametrically opposed.
Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky.
But the duel between Stalin and Trotsky
had begun a good decade earlier.
London, 1907,
the congress of the Russian
Social Democratic Labor Party.
Trotsky and Stalin met for the first time.
Trotsky was on the stage,
Stalin in the audience.
Trotsky's brio both
fascinated and exasperated
his frustrated comrade Stalin.
A slow poison began to seep
into their relationship.
(speaking foreign language)
It was Stalin's first time
out of the Caucuses.
It was his first time in London,
the metropolis of the west,
and he couldn't believe his eyes.
He was a party delegate at a congress
of the Social Democratic Party
that brought together all the stars
he had heard talk of in the papers,
and he was going to be
able to speak to them.
And it was clear that Stalin
was in awe of Trotsky,
something he'd struggled
to hide all his life.
He was in awe of the man.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had obviously noticed Trotsky.
Trotsky was everything he despised,
an orator, an extrovert,
and a brilliant mind.
He wasn't brilliant.
Stalin was a very poor orator.
When you listen to recording
of him speaking it's amazing.
When he became the leader of the USSR
he'd say a phrase, pause,
and everyone would applaud.
(audience applauding)
(speaking foreign language)
He'd drink some water,
he says a second sentence,
he stops, and everyone applauds.
It's absolutely extraordinary.
He's like some kind of machine.
(speaking foreign language)
Physically Stalin had a great handicap.
He was pockmarked, and he was small.
And Trotsky was, of course,
physically, very imposing.
The two revolutionaries
fought the czarist regime under pseudonyms.
Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
called himself Stalin,
the man of steel.
He had it all figured out.
And Lev Davidovich Bronshtein
hid under the name of Leon Trotsky.
They each dreamed of changing the world,
but socially, they couldn't
have been more different.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky had a supposedly happy childhood
in a family that loved
him, that cared for him,
that supported him through his studies,
and which envisaged a great future for him.
Whereas Stalin was pretty
much born in the gutter,
and he was exposed to a great deal
of violence in his own home.
His father was a drunk
who would beat him badly.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin is very interesting in terms
of the Russian Social Democrats,
which became the Bolshevik party,
because he's about the only Bolshevik,
and the only Social Democrat,
who was working class.
All the other came from the families
of intellectuals, civil servants.
Stalin would never be quite like them.
They would always feel that he hadn't had
the same education, that
he wasn't one of their own.
Stalin and Trotsky each grew up
in a Russia ruled over by the czar.
For centuries, this autocratic regime
had fostered inequality.
The huge majority of the population
was made up of peasants,
and they lived in very poor
social and economic conditions.
The country dreamed of a different society.
Stalin was 20 years old when he embarked
upon his revolutionary career,
Trotsky was 17.
But their struggles took on
radically different forms.
Through his culture and training
Trotsky had a more intellectual
vision of revolution.
He loved to debate.
He developed theories
on ways to take power.
His analysis was influenced by
the great European socialist
and Marxist thinkers
with whom he was in regular contact.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was in exile,
and in exile he lived
in a socialist society,
a high society.
He traveled around the whole of Europe,
and he rubbed shoulders with
all the great revolutionaries,
all the great European socialists.
He lived a life that was, one might say,
in high socialist society.
It was during his exile in London
that Trotsky met Lenin and
became one of his collaborators.
His travels and his lengthy discussions
with foreign intellectuals drove Trotsky
to think of revolution on a global scale.
For him, taking power would not be
limited to just one country.
(upbeat Russian music)
On the other hand, Stalin, the Georgian,
was a provincial man.
A willing man who was scorned
by the socialist intelligentsia.
His only priority was revolution in Russia.
For Lenin, Comrade Stalin was the man
to carry out the dirty work.
His delinquent past was
skillfully exploited
to fill the party coffers.
Stalin blanched at nothing.
Extortion, sabotage,
and robbery posed no problems.
(speaking foreign language)
He was the revolutionary
king of the Caucuses.
He played cat and mouse with the police
and he pulled off masterstrokes, holdups,
ran revolutionary rackets,
and murdered people.
And he played a very important role,
because it was through these heists
and this revolutionary racketeering
that he raised the funds
to ensure the survival
of the Bolshevik faction in exile.
Because when you're in exile
and you have no income,
what else do you do?
That's why Lenin referred to him as
the wonderful Georgian,
the wonderful Georgian
who brought him the cash.
It was great.
(ominous music)
In 1913, Stalin and Trotsky met again,
this time in Vienna.
And this encounter confirmed
Stalin's first impressions.
He felt snubbed.
Stalin had a complex,
something gnawing at him
that he never got over,
his desire to eliminate Trotsky.
(speaking foreign language)
The hour of revolution was approaching.
Although Stalin and Trotsky
were now both working for Lenin,
it was already clear that
beyond the ideals they shared
they were totally opposed to one another.
(booming explosions)
1917 was a pivotal year in the history
of the First World War.
Russia was fighting alongside France,
and the British had been
weakened by a conflict
that had already been
going on for three years.
(solemn music)
The soldiers were revolting.
1917 was a year of mutiny in the trenches
and the start of the Russian Revolution.
In February there were increasing numbers
of strikes and protests in Petrograd.
The czar was forced to abdicate.
A provisional government was established
but the Bolsheviks overthrew
it a few months later.
In October, Lenin took his place
at the head of the first
communist regime in history.
He appointed brilliant
revolutionaries to support him.
Trotsky, of course,
along with Lev Kamenev,
Grigory Zinoviev,
and Nikolai Bukharin.
Stalin, the man of the people,
stood out among these intellectuals.
In the face of this new regime,
the czar's partisans dreamed
of their return to power.
They ended up fighting the Bolsheviks
in a civil war that lasted five years.
During this struggle, Lenin realized
that he needed Trotsky's
eloquence and charisma.
Stalin was relegated to the background.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky had some eminent qualities.
He was a great orator,
a great revolutionary,
and a great leader of men.
Physically he was scared of nothing.
He moved around in his armored train
to the front during the civil war.
That wasn't a problem for him.
As for Stalin, he was
developing his own method.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky would turn up
at Bolshevik or Soviet Party congresses
and would stir up the crowd
with his brilliant oratory.
People would applaud, and
he'd already have left.
Stalin would go around shaking hands,
paying attention to the lowly militants,
being interested in what
was happening to them,
knowing their names even.
All kinds of things that were
totally foreign to Trotsky,
so Stalin gained a
reputation as a good guy.
(speaking foreign language)
You have to remember
that as soon as the Bolsheviks
moved from Saint Petersberg to Moscow
in the spring of 1918, and
moved into the Kremlin,
Stalin had his own
apartments in the Kremlin
and worked out of the
office next to Lenin's.
It was really no coincidence that Lenin
appointed him Secretary General.
He was the party man,
close by Lenin's side.
(speaking foreign language)
And Stalin, in that role,
gradually started weaving
his network of contacts
that would give him free reign
over the party officials
and their appointment.
(ominous music)
Stalin understood
what he could get out of the party.
But for the time being,
Trotsky was the hero of the
Revolution and the Civil War.
He traveled thousands of
miles to rally the troops
that would make up the Red Army.
On his armored train Trotsky traveled
back and forth across the country
using the weapon he understood best, words.
He gave hope to the Reds
while demoralizing the
counterrevolutionary Whites.
For Trotsky, the train was
as much a weapon of war
as it was a weapon of propaganda.
Each day he wrote a journal
that he had printed on board
and he distributed it as he went.
Like a real war chief,
he shared stories of the
soldier's daily lives,
encouraging them and rewarding them.
But Trotsky also used force and repression
to make men sign up for the Red Army,
which went from one
million soldiers in 1918,
to five million two years later.
He had no hesitations about
having anyone who opposed him shot.
Empowered by his success in Russia,
Trotsky hoped to spread
revolution across Europe.
In 1920, he launched an offensive
on the Polish army in Warsaw,
which was allied to the
White counterrevolutionaries.
But just when victory was within his grasp,
Stalin thwarted his plans.
(speaking foreign language)
As head of the Red Army,
Trotsky ordered the troops to attack.
Tukhachevsky, who was
the commander in chief,
was attacking from east to
west directly on Warsaw.
To the south, there was a
column under Stalin's command
that was supposed to come up from the south
directly to Warsaw.
But Stalin never listened
to anyone else, as usual,
and instead of heading for Warsaw
to take the Poles in a pincer movement,
he stopped in front of a
different city and besieged it.
He just didn't show up.
Rather than obeying orders,
Stalin wanted a personal victory
by taking the Polish city of Lvov.
His stubbornness led to a Soviet defeat.
They were subsequently obliged to make
important territorial
concessions to Poland.
Between Stalin and Trotsky,
this episode felt like
a declaration of war.
(speaking foreign language)
And there were some fierce
disputes after that,
which explained what happened next.
Because obviously, Lenin demanded
reports of what had happened,
and Trotsky presented a report
that was highly critical of Stalin.
Tukhachevsky also presented a report
that was highly critical of Stalin,
and it goes without
saying that Comrade Stalin
would settle his scores 15 years later.
(ominous music)
Stalin pondered his revenge,
but for the moment he just
had to grin and bear it.
Trotsky ensured the Bolsheviks
were able to seize power
across the country.
The Red Army final defeated
the partisan soldiers
of the former czarist regime, the Whites.
But this also reduced Russia
to a devastated battleground.
In 1921, after a terrible drought,
famine ravished the country,
and 1.5 million people starved to death.
However, within the party,
Trotsky was at the peak of his popularity.
He emerged as the natural heir to Lenin,
who was seriously ill,
and who would soon need to be replaced.
In his post as secretary general,
Stalin knew that he wasn't
a favorite for the job,
but he had already planned
how he was going to get back in the race.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin, who was less brilliant
than the others, was nonetheless
a remarkable strategist.
Not just a remarkable pragmatist,
but also a remarkable strategist.
He had a veritable strategy
for the creation of the Lenin myth,
in which he made sure he had his place.
(somber music)
Creating the Lenin myth
was the Machiavellian idea
hatched by Stalin to deflect any criticism,
and win the battle against Trotsky.
His plan had two phases.
The first took place on
the day of Lenin's funeral.
Lenin had been incapacitated
by a series of three strokes
that had left him weakened,
and the founder of Soviet
Russia eventually died
on the 21st of January, 1924.
He was 53.
A huge crowed gathered
in Gorki, near Moscow,
to pay homage to the revolutionary.
His faithful companions
were also in attendance,
Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin.
They carried the coffin, along with Stalin.
These three Bolsheviks,
old friends of Lenin's,
may also have been thinking
about succeeding him,
but what they didn't know was that
Stalin was counting on using them
to take power for himself,
and that he had already
sealed their own deadly fates.
Only one top party figure
was missing, Trotsky.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was fairly
seriously ill at the time,
and was being treated in a
seaside resort in the Caucasus.
We now know, and they knew at the time,
that Stalin had lied to him,
telling him not to come back,
that there was no point,
as Lenin would be buried immediately.
However, the decision
had already been taken
to construct a mausoleum.
So Trotsky did was Stalin said,
thinking he wouldn't get back in time,
as it would have taken
several days by train.
He took a decision not to return
which had lasting consequences.
(somber music)
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had organized
an absolutely extraordinary funeral.
This was a new kind of event.
They were no longer in an imperial system,
now they were in a revolutionary system.
Embalming Lenin,
so he could be on display
forever to the bedazzled public
was an aberrant idea,
and it came from Stalin.
Lenin's widow tried to stop the embalming,
and the funeral arrangements.
She was against it all.
And that was when Stalin said,
"Be careful.
"I can find another widow
for Lenin immediately."
That was a threat, and not an implicit one.
That was what he actually said.
(solemn music)
Krupskaya, Lenin's widow,
had to bow to all of Stalin's wishes.
The second phase of his plan to seize power
involved Lenin's testament.
On the 23rd of May, 1924,
four months after the funeral,
the 13th Communist Party Congress was held
and Stalin read out the document.
A few months before he died,
aware that he didn't have much time left,
the father of the revolution dictated
a few words to his secretary.
Without specifically naming his successor,
Lenin gave his opinion on
the qualities and flaws
of those Bolsheviks that might succeed him.
(speaking foreign language)
This is what he said,
"Comrade Stalin, having
become Secretary General,"
and remember, it was Lenin who appointed
Stalin Secretary General in early 1922,
a few months earlier.
"Comrade Stalin, having
become Secretary General,
"has unlimited authority
concentrated in his hands."
That is a strong statement.
He continues, "And I am not sure
"whether he will be capable
of using that authority
"with sufficient caution."
And what happened afterwards
proves he was right.
(speaking foreign language)
The paradox is that in his testament
Lenin flagged up the dangerous
character that Stalin was.
But at the time, Stalin was a lesser player
in the minds of the three
other Bolshevik leaders.
Initially, the fight for succession
wasn't between Stalin and Trotsky,
it was between Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Kamenev, and Bukharin,
and at that time, Stalin
was still in the background.
(speaking foreign language)
So that was
between the 23rd and 31st of December.
And on the 4th of January, a week later,
Lenin was feeling better,
and said the last thing he
would say about this matter.
It's pretty amazing what he said.
"Stalin is too rude."
About time too, that somebody noticed,
in the middle of all these
extremely rude Bolsheviks,
"Stalin is too rude, and this defect,
"although quite tolerable in our midst,
"and in dealings among us communists,
"becomes intolerable
in a secretary general.
"That is why I suggest that the comrades
think about a way of removing
Stalin from that post."
In this testament,
Lenin is much more lenient with Trotsky.
Granted, he reproaches
his excessive confidence,
but he also commends his
intellectual qualities.
He presents him as the most capable
man in the central committee.
However, Trotsky would never profit
from Lenin's appreciation.
Against all expectations, it was Stalin
who pushed his advantage.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin was
very cunning.
He staged the revelation
of Lenin's will and said,
"Comrades, the last words of
Comrade Lenin," et cetera.
"Comrade Lenin said I should
be removed from my post,
"so therefore I propose
to resign from my post."
And of course, because it was
he who organized the congress,
all the congress cried out,
"Comrade Stalin, no, stay with us."
It was a nice little show.
And so faced with that
situation, Trotsky was stuck,
and this is what he said,
and what finished him off for good.
"We can only be right
with, and by the party."
Clearly, the party is always right.
Of course, if the party is run by Stalin,
then it's Stalin who will always be right.
(ominous music)
(speaking foreign language)
From the point on,
he created a kind of legacy for Lenin.
He created Leninist thinking.
That was what they called it.
Like the thinking of Marx, Engels, Lenin,
and then Stalin too.
(triumphant music)
(crowd cheering)
So, while Lenin himself
was recommending the utmost caution
with regard to Stalin,
Stalin pulled off the amazing feat
of emerging as his heir.
Trotsky realized that he
had underestimated Stalin,
and there were more
surprises in store for him.
(solemn music)
In 1926, Stalin and Trotsky met up
at the burial of a former
Bolshevik, Gorczynski,
someone to whom they'd been close.
Stalin was walking up ahead,
Trotsky, farther behind.
The man who had led the
revolution a decade previously
no doubt knew that his
days high up in the party
were now numbered.
This was the last time
that Stalin and Trotsky
would appear together in public.
Now that the Civil War
had left millions dead,
Stalin, like the majority of the Bolsheviks
had abandoned the idea
of a global revolution.
However, this was still
an obsession for Trotsky.
He wanted to take up arms again.
Stalin had understood that in the country,
as within the Communist Party,
it was not the right time
to export the revolution.
(speaking foreign language)
Because the people in the system
wanted a quiet life.
They wanted to benefit from the advantages
that Stalin, as Secretary
of the Central Committee, had granted.
These were material advantages,
advantages in a country that was hungry.
Remember, the USSR had
always known shortages.
So having a job where you
have material advantages,
a food parcel every month,
or a salary that is doubled, then tripled,
then quadrupled, et
cetera, was very important.
And what's Trotsky going
to say to those people,
that they have to help
the revolution in Germany,
in China, in Britain?
No, leave us in peace.
It's the same for any political machinery.
They want to be left in peace.
(speaking foreign language)
Stalin had a very good understanding
of the triggers of human psychology,
and I think that with a
certain number of people
who were of a similar character to him
he knew how to manipulate
the triggers of ambition,
the triggers of jealousy, envy,
the triggers for violence.
He knew how to bring out
the psychological traits in these people
that would drive them to action.
To action for Stalin's own benefit.
(ominous music)
To reach the very top of the party
Stalin had to use the
members of the politburo
and play them off against each other.
First he managed to convince
Zinoviev and Kamenev
to team up with him to sideline Trotsky.
Then his manipulation continued.
He got Bukharin on side against Trotsky,
Zinoviev, and Kamenev.
He was a brilliant dissembler,
and slowly but surely
managed to rid himself
of all the old Bolshevik
revolutionaries in his way.
At the same time, he used his
position as Secretary General
to appoint people he could manipulate.
He even went as far as to organize
an intake dedicated to Lenin
of low-ranking soldiers into the party,
which, until then, had been
the reserve of the elite of 1917.
(speaking foreign language)
It was in fact
a key position because it allowed Stalin,
through a succession of
brilliantly managed appointments,
to gradually replace those
who had led the Revolution,
and the Civil War especially,
by a certain number of accomplices
who owed their careers to him.
They owed their careers,
not to their revolutionary achievements,
but to the prince of
Moscow, Stalin himself.
Stalin created a court of the faithful.
However much Trotsky denounced
the bureaucratization of the party,
however much he criticized Stalin
for being a man of the
system, it was too late.
The czar's trap had remorselessly
closed around the prophet.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was his own worst enemy,
a victim of his remarkable intelligence,
of his brilliant mind, that
had indisputably led him,
like others, to underestimate Stalin.
"He is mediocrity," Trotsky said.
That's how he described Stalin.
Never in history have we seen such a host
of brilliant, cultivated,
and extraordinary minds
that shared the same aim,
to destroy the old order,
and establish a new one.
And among them, there was mediocrity,
and it was the mediocrity that won the day.
(ominous music)
In 1927, Stalin settled
his score with Trotsky.
He expelled him from the party.
Trotsky was then sent by force
to Alma-Ata in deepest Kazakhstan.
Stalin wanted to rid himself of his rival,
but he couldn't kill him, not yet.
Barley 10 years after
the Russian Revolution
nobody in the party
understood such a decision.
Then Stalin exiled Trotsky,
chasing him out of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky didn't know then that he'd
never return to his country again.
Although it seemed that
Stalin had won over the party,
the confrontation between the two men
was far from finished.
The duel would continue long distance.
In February, 1929,
Trotsky arrived in Turkey
on the island of Buyukada,
off the coast of Istanbul.
His wife, Natalia, was with him,
as well as his son Leon Sedov.
Trotsky thought that Stalin
had exiled him to Turkey
to isolate him even more,
and to render him powerless.
He knew nobody in the country
and didn't speak the language.
But Trotsky wasn't too downhearted.
By July 1929, he had created
the Bulletin of the Opposition
in which he denounced Stalin's
behavior and policies.
(speaking foreign language)
The paradox is
that theyexiled Trotsky, or
politically eliminated him,
or so they believed.
But from that point onwards,
and through the 1930s,
Trotsky would continue his activities
and would be a reference point.
The only one to oppose Stalin
and the power of the
Russian state in such a way.
He was exiled, not just
because he was an irritation,
but also because he refused
political compromises,
or to be silenced.
(somber music)
Trotsky tried to form an opposition,
but from outside the USSR he had
much less chance of being
heard than from within.
Stalin, the little
hoodlum from the Caucuses,
to whom nobody paid any attention,
became the uncontested
master of the Soviet Union.
He was given the nickname "The
Little Father of the People,"
an expression that hitherto had
been reserved for the czars.
(triumphant music)
He gradually established his strategy,
his networks, and his men
to hold the USSR in an iron grip.
Stalin had rid himself of any opposition,
and from then on his aim was
to industrialize the country
as quickly as possible so
that it could defend itself
if there were another war.
In a few years, Stalin would completely
change the face of the Soviet Union.
He built the Moscow Underground,
constructed new towns,
dug canals, and erected dams.
It was all part of the
edification of socialism.
The aura he constructed
around the Soviet Union
was greeted enthusiastically by most
communist parties in Western Europe,
in particular in Italy and France.
(speaking French)
(triumphant music)
(speaking foreign language)
No secretary
of a communist party at that
time, from the early 1930s,
could be appointed without
Moscow's agreement.
So it was either Stalin
who personally oversaw it,
or a secretary,
and they usually chose these
secretaries very carefully.
Someone about whom they had some
compromising information
they could use again them.
(triumphant music)
Stalin became a hero
for communists the world over.
Moscow was a synonym for the promised land.
Empowered by his strength and his success,
Stalin had joined the big league,
and his portrait now hung besides those
of Lenin, Marx, and Engels.
(speaking foreign language)
But in order to have absolute power,
he had to get rid of anyone
who in any way would
cast a shadow over him.
(ominous music)
Once again, Comrade Stalin pulled off
a Machiavellian coup.
He took advantage of the
assassination of Kirov,
a key member of the politburo
who was executed in shady circumstances,
to launch the systematic
elimination of every enemy,
and to set in motion a reign of terror.
(speaking foreign language)
As soon as he had the information
he immediately understood
the political advantages
he would be able to gain
from this assassination.
He headed off in his special
train to Saint Petersberg,
or Leningrad as it was called at the time.
He tidied things up,
got rid of the witnesses who might have
contradicted his version,
and said that Kirov was assassinated
by traitors of the party, and
that Zinoviev was responsible,
and so was Kamenev, and
above them it was Trotsky.
That allowed him to order the assassination
of party members, which until that point
had been virtually unthinkable.
And from then on, obviously,
it took on huge proportions.
(ominous music)
As with Lenin's succession,
Stalin proceeded in a
very methodical manner.
His strategy began with a
huge propaganda campaign
that went far beyond the
borders of the Soviet Union.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.
For communists around the world,
the Fuhrer became the number one enemy.
Stalin didn't hesitate to draw comparisons
between Trotsky and the
Chancellor of the Third Reich.
(speaking foreign language)
The anti-Trotsky propaganda
was extremely violent.
For example, the French Communist Party
published a brochure,
an anti-Dorio brochure,
with Dorio behind a Trotsky mask,
or a Hitler mask, et cetera.
You can imagine during the
height of the popular front,
if you associated Hitler with Trotskyites
and said they were Hitler's allies,
the people were petrified.
You couldn't support Trotsky,
that would be unthinkable.
So Stalin set an extraordinary
propaganda steamroller in motion.
In Vietnam as well, and China, everywhere.
During the years 1933 to 1936,
if a communist came across a Trotskyite,
they would attack them, and liquidate them,
if necessary, physically.
(ominous music)
Stalin gradually managed
to discredit the men who
embodied the party's old guard,
or who showed any kind
of loyalty to Trotsky.
The second phase of their elimination
was carried out through three trials
held in Moscow between
August 1936, and March 1938.
Stalin had constructed the cases
against the defendants in minute detail.
He ordered the agents of the NKVD,
his political law enforcement agency,
to extract confessions
from the old Bolsheviks.
During their public examinations,
Zinoviev, Kamanev, and
Bukharin, among others,
had to endure the haranguing and insults
of prosecutor Vyshinsky,
a close ally of Stalin's.
(speaking foreign language)
(audience applauds)
(speaking foreign language)
We now know
that these trials were totally rigged.
Totally rigged.
They were complete fiction.
The accused learned their parts,
the prosecutor learned his,
and they gave a performance.
It was very well done, because,
as you know, when you're
dealing with terror,
you can get people to do
exactly what you want.
(speaking French)
There are awful
stories of them saying to the accused,
"Did you place nails in
the butter of the people?"
And these intelligent men,
these great intellectuals,
would reply, "Yes, we placed nails
"in the butter of the people."
And did you put nails in
the eggs of the people?
And these brilliant men would reply,
"Uh, no we couldn't
because they had shells."
The foreign press corps was at the trials
and thought it was completely normal.
(speaking foreign language)
(tense music)
(gunshots cracking)
Trotsky was also condemned to death
in absentia, and he knew
that Stalin had no intention
of leaving the punishment undelivered.
These trials developed, not from communism,
not from socialism, but from Stalinism,
that is from the irresponsible despotism
of the bureaucracy over the people.
What is now my principal task?
To reveal the truth,
to show and to demonstrate
that the true criminals
hide under the cloak of the accusers.
(solemn music)
But Trotsky's protests
counted for little in the
face of the Stalinist machine
crushing everything in its path.
All Trotsky's books, all the works in which
Trotsky appeared as a
hero of the revolution
were removed from libraries,
until the image of the
founder of the Red Army
had been completely erased.
(speaking foreign language)
And there is
that famous photo that has been retouched
of one of Lenin's speeches
on an open-air stage.
And there's a little
staircase up to the stage,
and Trotsky is on the staircase.
Then one day, he disappears.
There's nobody on the staircase,
and everything was like that.
That was typical of Stalin's methods,
the retouching of photographs.
(ominous music)
(speaking foreign language)
Those photos
weren't intended to
trick the old Bolsheviks,
to trick the heads of the party.
They were there to send a message,
and the message was
don't talk about these people any more.
Now, talking about so-and-so,
and talking about Trotsky in particular
is not only punishable, but
can be dangerous for you.
(solemn music)
After Turkey,
Trotsky was given asylum in
France, and then in Norway.
But gradually, he became
undesirable right across Europe.
No leader wanted to risk offending Stalin
by welcoming Trotsky to their country.
Only Mexico agreed to take him in.
Trotsky arrived in Mexico
City in January, 1937.
He and his wife Natalia were put up
by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
These two Mexican painters
and militant communists
agreed to welcome them.
Trotsky still hoped to unify
the partisans behind him.
He created a new organization,
the Fourth International.
He also set up a commission to pull apart
the accusations of the Moscow trials.
But even thousands of miles
away from the Soviet Union,
Trotsky could feel the noose
tightening around his neck.
In 1938, he learned of the
death of his son, Leon Sedov.
He had undergone surgery in Paris
for a simple case of appendicitis,
but Sedov died on the operating table.
For Trotsky, how he died
left no room for doubt.
Stalin had assassinated his son,
and now he was next on the list.
(speaking foreign language)
He retreated into his bedroom
for several days with Natalia.
He took a little tea,
and then afterwards he emerged.
He had aged a great deal
during those days of mourning.
Often, when the secretaries,
the comrades and the guards talked to me,
he would tell them, "Don't talk
politics with my grandson."
He wanted to keep me away from all that.
His whole family had succumbed,
perished as part of that struggle,
so with me, he wanted
his grandson to survive.
And he succeeded.
Nobody else in my family
lived to be 88, as I am now.
(tense music)
But Trotsky could still
be a threat to Stalin.
At least that's what the
head of the Kremlin feared.
In 1939, Stalin, who just
a few years previously
had denounced the Hitler Trotskyites,
signed a non-aggression
pact with Hitler's Germany
to general amazement.
He wanted to give himself
time to fight the Nazis,
but he knew his strategy
hadn't been understood
by a good number of militant
communists around the world.
(speaking foreign language)
Hostility towards
the German-Soviet pact ran deep.
Everyone toed the line to a certain extent,
but if they could get out of this
unlikely alliance with Hitler,
they would all have been in agreement.
Trotsky was a known quantity,
he was credible, he had
the revolutionary prestige.
He'd never negotiated with
Stalin since he'd been exiled.
And just imagine if he'd clearly
and determinedly taken up a position
calling on all militant communists
to bury their differences
and reject the German-Soviet pact.
(solemn music)
Despite being politically defeated
and condemned to exile,
Trotsky was still a danger to Stalin.
By 1939, his physical elimination
had become a priority.
On the 24th of May, 1940,
around 20 men dressed as Mexican police
entered Leon Trotsky's house.
Armed with machine guns,
they fired into the bedroom where he was
sleeping with his wife Natalia.
Esteban, Trotsky's grandson,
woke with a start in the neighboring room.
(speaking foreign language)
My grandfather
was half-asleep because he
used to take sleeping pills.
Natalia quickly dragged him out of bed
and pushed him into a corner,
the southern, south-eastern
corner of the bedroom
under the table, and
that's what saved his life.
(solemn music)
Miraculously,
Leon Trotsky and Natalia were spared.
The investigation showed that Siqueiros,
a member of the Mexican Communist Party
and a fervent partisan of
Stalin, had led the attack.
He and his accomplices were arrested,
but quickly released due
to a lack of evidence.
In the days following the attack
security at the house was improved.
Bulletproof doors were installed,
along with an electric
fence, and an alarm system.
But Trotsky knew that the attack
of the 24th of May was
just a dress rehearsal.
The next time it would succeed.
That's when Ramon Mercader
entered the scene.
This young Spanish communist,
an agent of the Soviet Secret Services
who went by the names Jacques
Mornard and Frank Jackson,
had been plotting to
assassinate Trotsky for months.
First, he seduced a young militant
by the name of Sylvia Ageloff.
She introduced him into
Trotsky's household.
Ramon Mercader gradually
became a familiar figure.
(speaking foreign language)
Sometimes he'd take us out for a drive
through the Mexican countryside.
Yes, he'd give us gifts too.
(speaking foreign language)
Trotsky was so isolated
in his locked down Mexican house.
He saw this young guy turn up,
he seemed to be Belgian, or maybe Canadian.
Nobody really knows anymore,
and it doesn't really matter,
but he was a great admirer of Leon Trotsky.
I don't really know much about politics,
but I'd love to learn,
and I'd really like to
try writing an article in support of you.
And there you have it.
(ominous music)
On the 20th of August, 1940,
Ramon Mercader said he
wanted to show Trotsky
an article he had written.
Trotsky was sitting at his desk.
When he leant over to read it,
Mercader grabbed the ice pick
he'd been hiding in his raincoat,
and plunged it deep into Trotsky's skull.
Then, Esteban, Trotsky's grandson,
who was 13 at the time, was
coming home from school.
(speaking foreign language)
Immediately I felt this anguish
that something terrible had happened.
So I hurried home, I went into the garden,
and immediately bumped
into one of the guards,
and through the half-open door
I could see my grandfather,
lying there on the wooden
floor, covered in blood
with Natalia and the guards.
And when Grandfather heard me coming,
he said to the guards, "Get
Esteban away from here.
"My grandson mustn't see this."
And at the same time he said to the guards
when he heard the moans of his killer,
"Don't kill him, he has to speak."
(solemn music)
Trotsky was immediately taken to hospital.
He died from his wounds the following day.
300,000 people attended
his funeral in Mexico.
Before he died, he spoke
the following words,
"Tell our friends I'm
certain of the victory
"of the Fourth International."
Ramon Mercader was sentenced
20 years in prison.
When he returned to Moscow in the 1960s
he was greeted as a hero
of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky went down in history
as the thwarted heir,
the man of a different communism.
But his death also bears
testimony to the power of Stalin,
capable of murdering an enemy
thousands of miles away from Moscow.
Killing him politically wasn't enough.
The czar had to slay the prophet.
After Hitler broke the
German-Soviet pact in 1941
Stalin fought an epic
fight against Nazi Germany
to stake his place as one of
the great post-war victors,
right up there with Churchill,
and Roosevelt.
Stalin had not only vanquished Trotsky,
but he had carved out a definitive
place for himself in history.
(stately music)