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Section III (Personalities): Leon Trotsky, Revolutionary and Theorist of Permanent Revolution
Quick questions on Trotsky's assassination, August 1940: HSC Modern History Personality
7short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the Coyoacan household?Show answer
In April 1939 Trotsky moved from the Blue House (Casa Azul) of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to a separate fortified residence on Avenida Viena, Coyoacan, Mexico City. The move followed a political break with Rivera (over Rivera's 1938 support for the Andre Breton-Trotsky surrealist manifesto in Mexican Trotskyist politics). The Avenida Viena house was protected by watch towers, a 4-metre wall, a steel front door, internal locked doors, and a personal guard of American Trotskyists (Joe Hansen, Charles Cornell, Harold Robins) and Mexican police.
What is the Siqueiros raid (24 May 1940)?Show answer
David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist and Spanish Civil War veteran, led a group of some 20 men (mostly Mexican Communists and Spanish Civil War veterans) in a direct assault on the Avenida Viena house in the early hours of 24 May 1940. The group forced the gate (with police uniforms and false identification of a Mexican Communist Party Pacheco), entered the courtyard, and fired some 200 rounds into Trotsky's bedroom. Trotsky and Natalia Sedova survived by rolling under the bed.
What is mercader recruitment?Show answer
Ramon Mercader del Rio (1913-1978) was a Spanish Communist whose mother Caridad Mercader was an NKVD agent. He fought in the Spanish Civil War as a Republican officer; the NKVD recruited him through Caridad in Paris in 1937. Mercader was trained for the Trotsky operation from 1938.
What is the ice axe attack (20 August 1940)?Show answer
On the afternoon of 20 August 1940 Mercader visited the Coyoacan house carrying a typed draft article. He had concealed under his raincoat a shortened ice axe (in Russian: ledorub; in English the literature varies between "ice axe" and "ice pick"), a 12-inch dagger, and a Star pistol. He went into Trotsky's study with the article. Trotsky sat at his desk and began to read.
What is q1?Show answer
Source A is an extract from Sudoplatov's Special Tasks (1994) on Operation Utka. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the NKVD operation against Trotsky. [5 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Evaluate the extent to which Trotsky's assassination in 1940 was a personal Stalin vendetta rather than a strategic act. [25 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Compare the views of Bertrand Patenaude and Pavel Sudoplatov on the assassination operation. [10 marks]
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