Russian revolutionary, Red Army organizer, and theorist of permanent revolution who lost the post-Lenin succession struggle and was assassinated in Mexico in 1940.
Closely associated with
Vladimir Lenin (revolutionary partner and 1917 ally).
For an intellectual contrast, see
Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (1924-1953) — Stalin exiled Trotsky in 1929, expunged him from Soviet history, and ordered his Mexico City ice-pick assassination in 1940. Their Permanent Revolution vs Socialism in One Country debate decided the Soviet 1920s succession — and Stalinist orthodoxy was defined by the loser's elimination.