Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein), part founder of the Soviet state, was born in the Ukraine in 1879 and died in exile from Soviet Communism in Mexico City in 1940, by lurid ordered by Stalin. You can visit the compound that he lived in between April 1939 and August 1940, which offers an insight into how a well-known revolutionary who is being chased by Soviet intelligence spends his days. His house is inside a high-walled compound which included guard accommodation and multiple bunkers that not only saw over the wall but provided an overview of the entire compound area. In theory, it was quite defendable from a significant attack, and the bunkers were built in response to an unsuccessful attack by 20 gunmen in May 1940, led by a Soviet agent and David Siqueiros, a Mexican Stalinist and Spanish Civil War veteran, who in finest Mexican tradition was also a notable muralist whose works can be seen throughout the country. More about other muralists later.

Bunker and Guard Accommodation

The house itself, in darker yellow, accommodated Trotsky’s wife and one of his grandsons, and his offices.

For context, anyone who has seen a photo or video of Trotsky might imagine him as an intellectual with his head in the clouds, bewailing the direction that Communism took since the 1920s, after Stalin took control and exiled him to Almaty in 1928. He was a killer and ruthless organizer, key to the success of the new Communist state, who created the Red Army from scratch and enforced the 1917 revolution, defeating the Tsarist forces and establishing single-party dictatorship. In Mexico, he continued to foment alternatives to Stalinism, as well as being a sought-after author and commentator, and worked on a biography of his nemesis, Stalin.

The other office held his assistants and secretaries, who also documented his dictation using a Dictaphone machine and cylinders, which are still there.

Trotsky’s desk is arranged as it was on his last day of work. He was attacked with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader, a Spanish Soviet agent, and died in hospital the following day. Despite a head injury, Trotsky still managed to fight Mercader off until his guards arrived to detain him. Mercader was jailed by the Mexican authorities for 20 years and then moved to the Soviet Union. The grey-green book in the rack at front center is entitled “Finance Accounts of the United Kingdom.”

Trotsky was deported from Soviet Kazakhstan in 1929 and subsequently lived in Turkey, France and Norway before arriving in Veracruz, Mexico in early 1937. He lived for over a two years with the muralist, Diego Rivera (who had sponsored his visa) and the painter Frida Kahlo, who both lived nearby at the Blue House (now the Museo Frida Kahlo), which is a more popular attraction for which you should get tickets in advance. Trotsky’s house is fairly basic but typical of the houses of the time, although he enjoyed the large garden area and kept chickens and rabbits.

Trotsky was buried in the compound in 1940 and was later joined by his wife, Natalia Sedova, who died in Paris in 1962. She continued to support his views and oppose what she called a “Stalinist bureaucracy” that “led to the worsening of the economic, political and social positions of the working class, and the triumph of a tyrannical and privileged aristocracy”.

Location: Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky, Rio Churubusco 410, Mexico City. http://www.museotrotsky.com