Trotsky The downfall of a revolutionary by Bertrand M Patenaude 2009 388pg? Till pg134 to be complete

Lev Davidovich Bronstein 1879 to 1940 Born in Yanovka, Kherson, Ukraine Aged 8 he was sent to Odessa  He was enrolled in a Lutheran German-language school 

Trotsky was appointed as the Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs

 superior to Stalin and Stalin knew it".

1940 Trotsky  aged 60 was in Coyocan (Place of the Coyotes) on the southern outskirts of Mexico City. The Blue house "Casa Azul" where Trotsky was living had been Frida Kohla childhood home, Diego bought it after they married.  After Frida's death in 1954 turned it into a Museum to commemorate her.

 Trotsky had been commissioned to write  biography of Stalin his archenemy, by an NY publisher only because he needed the  money. Even his wife Natalie objected to this as he should have written about Lenin instead.

After in Hitler /Stalin pact  Trotsky predicted that Hitler would turn on the Soviets.

Trotsky had an escape in Mexico when raiders tried to get into his house.

1930s he had published a history of the Russian Revolution.

1918 Trotsky was Lenin's most important ally,  the revolution came under threat and he created the Red Army and turned it into a disciplined fighting force. For 2 and a half years as war commissar he had lived moving in a railway carriage. Trotsky's whistle stop speeches were rousing that nothing could surpass. Lenin an Trotsky were synonymous with Russian Bolshevism. The October Revolution in 1917 withdrew Russia from the war and in March 1918 they signed the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk a separate peace with Germany.

1924 Lenin died and he was heir apparent, but he was outmaneuvered by Stalin who exiled him to Central Asia in 1927 and then out of the Soviet Union in 1928 and he settled in Turkey where he lived for 4 years and was rejected for a visa by many countries. He kept on writing all the time political pamphlets and books. It is possible that Lenin was poisoned at a time that Trotsky was away and it was manipulated that he would not be at the funeral so that Stalin could take control.

1936 He was living in Norway during the show trials. The Kremlin put pressure on Norway to expel him and he was offered asylum in Mexico, due to Diego Rivera direct appeal to President Lazaro Cardenas.

Trotsky was able to avoid the slaughter of the Bolshevik Old Guard in Stalin's great terror, even though he had ridiculed Stalin amongst the Communists.

The Soviets came to the aid of the Spanish Republic  against the Franco. There were many NKVD recruits amongst the International Brigade which Comintern had organized and they took refuge in Mexico. Not only Trotsky but his extensive files that he took out in 1929 had to be protected.

1915 "Joe Hill" a tribute to Swedish - American  song writer and labour activist executed by firing squad after a long controversial trial. At Utah State Prison, Salt Lake City.

President Cardenas had promised to make priority of agrarian reform and to eliminate the estates of the latifundios. To do this he needed the left to win labour support. Diego Riviera was Mexico most prominent artist and there were attempts on his life.

1879 Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein born a Jew resulted in the White Guard portraying fears of Jewish Bolshevism. He brought about conscription and filled the ranks of the Red Army with thousands of former Czarist military officials. His long absences from Moscow made it  easier for his political enemies to outmaneuver him. He had led the heroic defense of Petrograd which others wanted to abandon.  " Courage boys Comrade Trotsky is leading you. By 1920 with the Civil War won, the Red Army had 5 million men in uniform.

Under the Soviets there were hundred of industrial accidents and coal mine explosions as a results of the 5 year plans which had been set up at break neck speed. The regime accused the disaster on sabotage. The Show Trial confessions were s a result of prolonged mental torture, with family members held as hostages. Some confessions spared people the executioners bullet.

1941 Author Koestler's novel Darkness at Noon dramatized these trials.

In the USA there was an enquiry into Trotsky innocence under the chairmanship of John Dewey who had had a reputation as a supporter of the Soviets which he had visited in 1928.  John Dewey 1858-1952 was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.  To Dewey, Trotsky was a  prisoner of ideology. He was tragic to see a brilliant native intelligence locked up in absolutes.

Trotsky's two daughter from his first marriage were both dead, one from sickness the other suicide in Berlin after the soviets stripped her of the Soviet  citizenship. Their mother had disappeared into a Soviet Gulag.

1918 The Revolution had triumphed in Russia but had failed to spread. Now officially the Communist Party began to experiment with limited capitalism known as  NEP new economic policy. When Lenin died in 1924 he had declared at some later date the socialist offensive would be completed. After Trotsky was banished from the  USSR Stalin turned sharply left and peasant resisters were branded Kulaks and slaughtered by the millions. This created the man made famine in the Ukraine between 1932-1933 Also the purges eliminated Trotsky's comrades and loved ones and the men and women who had made the revolution. Trotsky however lacked the gift of personal friendship.

1934 Sergei Kirov murder was orchestrated by Stalin and he used it to start the Great Terror for the next several years.

1937 Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky(Red Napoleon) the outstanding civil war commander and 7 other top ranking officers were tried in secret and executed the following day. This was the start of a massive purge of the arm's officer corps. A country that uses all the methods of fascism can hardly be held up as a  democracy, and democracy could not survive if it was restricted to one political party.

Trotsky was attracted to Frida Kohla the daughter of a German - Jewish immigrant father and Mexican native mother, she was an exciting beauty despite being a polio cripple and suffering pain physically. Her signature dress was that of Tehuantepec of long dresses that hid her deformed right leg. There are numerous photos of Trotsky in the company of Frida inviting speculation.

Trotskys and Natalie's younger son Seryozh was deported to Krasnoyarsk in  Siberia, in 1937 he was executed.in a Soviet prison. When Trotsky met Natalie in Paris he was married to Alexandra but she was in distant Siberia with 2 small children.

1910 to 1920 Mexico was in the midst of a revolutionary decade against the dictator Porfirio Diaz, There was a civil was with revolutionaries like Emillano Zapata and Pancho Villa and this all left a million dead Mexicans. After this 1920-1924 President Obregon tried to create a renaissance of to unify the country and develop a Mexican cultural heritage. Diego Riviera returned from Paris to play a part in this as premium painters was given commissions to decorate public building s with Frescos. Jose Orozco as well as David Siqueiros  whose names also developed. Diego began to paint Frescos on the Ministry of Education building and became internationally renown, but not rich so he was able to earn a lot by selling his painting to Americans.

1927 Rivera made an extensive visit to Soviet Russia and attended the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Stalin sat down with Sergei Eisenstein and supervised the editing of the "October" movie  thus Lenin's role was reduced and Trotsky was cut out altogether.

Stalin sat for Diego whose portrait of him shows that the artist was not impressed by his subject.

1931 Trotsky's son Lyova had gone to Berlin where he ran the Bulletin of the Opposition and at the same time he tried to finish his engineering degree which was cut short when he left Moscow. Once the Nazi's came to power he and Jeanne barely managed to escape. However in 1938 was dead in a  private hospital in Paris a week after an emergency appendectomy. There were many Russian emigres in this hospital and Trotsky suspected he was murdered. Lyova was the son closest to Trotsky and in Turkey he had assisted his father in writing his autobiography and history of the Russian Revolution.

1926 Lenin's testament was published by the NY Times this had been suppressed in Russia when Lenin died in 1924. Lenin said that Stalin was a danger to the country and the party. The Central Committee voted to remove Trotsky from the party as he supported these sentiments.

1933 When Trotsky and Natalie were in Paris he worked closely with Lyova before he had to move to Norway and left Lyova in Paris. The Norwegian government was under pressure from Moscow to intern Trotsky and Natalie.

Mark Zborowski was recruited by the GPU when he was hard up for money and became friendly with Jeane and infiltrated Lyova. Trotsky's files in the Paris apartment were stolen by thieves and ended up in the Kremlin. After Lyovo died Mark took over his role in Paris

When Ignace Reiss defected he contacted Trotsky and informed him that Stalin intended eliminating anything of Trotskyism, and he should get Lyovo out of Paris 1939. Jeane now sent their son Seva to Mexico.

1932 The Soviet Government deprived Trotsky and his whole family abroad of their Soviet Citizenship. Anyone related to Trotsky including his sisters as well as his son in law and even the orphaned children  were all killed in the purges or disappeared.

With the Civil War on in Spain Mexico provided a haven for political refugees from the conflict. Alexander Orlov  was the top Soviet official in war torn Spain, he was the one who helped recruit Philby,Mc Clean and Burgess.

Gogol was the father of Russian Comedy and the forerunner of Gonclorov , Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. During the first decade of the Bolshevik rule  Trotsky had been the most influential literary critic. In 1923 Trotsky published his finest works Literature and Revolution.  Great art he declared was timeless and classless, and the domain of art is not one in which the party is called upon to command. However in 1932 The Union of Soviet Writer was brought under the party in the name of "socialist realism."

1925 Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad.

In the USA the communist party lined up behind FD Roosevelt in the New Deal. One could reject Soviet Communism without abandoning Marxist principles and Leninist ideals. The writer and critic Mary Mc Carthy was enlisted to the cause of Trotsky.

Max Eastman wrote that "Stalinism was not a perversion of Leninism but its logical outcome" .

André  Breton was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. He met Freud in Vienne in 1921. He also met Salvador Dali and arrived in Mexico and was bewitched by Frida Kohla "windows into the unconscious mind."

1938 Frida Kohla had one person exhibition at the Julian Levy Gallery NY.

The Juan Gorman Affair. Frescos of Diego's that inside the Terminal building portrayed Hitler and Mussolini and these images put the Mexican government into a political dilemma.

President Cardenas had nationalized the Mexican oil industry, this caused Britain to sever diplomatic ties with Mexico and Germany and Italy became the main oil purchases now. The government wanted these frescos destroyed and when Trosky never stood up to support Diego said "you consider your asylum rights too important". Later Diego made public his break with Trotsky.

Trotsky was assassinated in August 1940 in Mexico. (To be completed)

How the Scots invented the modern world by Author Herman 2001 429pg

  

This book points out that the English took a lot of credit that was due to many Scots. 

This was a time of lattatudinism in England - that saving soul was not the role of magistrates.  In Scotland witches were still being prosecuted as in Salem in 1692.  In 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was hanged for blaspheme a century after John Knox had brought Calvinism which had triumphed over Popery and corruptors.  This was a century of anarchy civil wars, religious persecution and repression and the  Scottish Church battled to establish the Presbyterian faith

1701 James Steward brought about Habeas Corpus at a time of rainy summers and failed crops. 1697 to 1703 was a period of famine.

The Scots argued the societies like individuals developed and improved over time. Adam Smith, David Hume, Henry Brogjham or Sir Walter Scott. It was the Churches legacy that laid the way to bring Scotland into the modern world.

!) 1559 John Knox  single handedly inspired the nobility to overthrow the Catholic Church and bring .the creed of John Calvin of Geneva. The church took over bringing Sunday observance laws and games were prohibited. In return the bible was opened for all to read mostly to the Lowlands. The congregation became the centre and they elected the elders or presbytery. So Scotland was a community united by its commitment to God by the time Knox died in 1572. 

The monarchy did not like Knox but needed him his spiritual authority to legitimize them. James VI was tutored by the humanist George Buchanan that power was invested in the people not the king or nobles or clergy.   1779 he publish the Law of Government among the Scots.

1603 James 1 became King of England.

When Charles 1 tried to impose the Royal Prayer book on Scotland the Bishop of Edinburgh was forced to flee and a National Covenant was signed in Scotland. This was followed by the Bishops war and it led to the Civil War and the execution of Charles 1 in 1649. At the Battle of Preston, Oliver Cromwell won the civil war and managed to unite England Scotland and Ireland where most monarchies failed.

1696 Scottish Parliament. The Act for setting schools. Every parish had to set up schools to teach children to read the bible, so schools were free. The result of this was that Scotland had higher literacy than any other country. David Hume and Adam Smith wrote for a genuine reading public and even rural areas had a reading population. Papermaking became a big industry, with ink, printing and bookselling. Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews offered university education cheaper than elsewhere and public auditing lectures became a big hobby and Scotland was ready for takeoff into the modern age. Only in 1880 did England catch up. By 1750 every big town had a lending library and not only on religious subjects.

Robert Burns was taught by his father to handle the plow but also made sure Robert studied Latin and French.

1667 to 1680 Scotland rules by Lord Lauderdale.

1688 William and Mary ruled Scotland  was given religious freedom.

England was expanding her Empire and selling manufactured goods for imported grain.

1696 Bank of Scotland established 

1660 Charles II restored.

The Darien Company was set up to create sea born Scottish trading but was a disaster and Scots investors lost a fortune. Scotland now understood that England would not allow them into the Atlantic  trade and compete. Under the 1704 Aliens Act Scots could not leave property to their children in England. So in 1709 with he Act of Union of Scotland gave up political autonomy for economic growth and this launched Scotland from a third world country to a modern society in one generation.  With law and order and laisses faire by 1725 Glasgow merchants in the Atlantic trade became big dealers in grain sugar and tobacco. Scotland's emergence came not from abroad but from its own institutions.

3  The Scottish Enlightenment is more important than the pre French Revolution writers. less glamorous but more important and it dealt with every academic discipline. It was lead by teachers and clergy. People like Hutchinson, Ferguson and Thomas Reed were both.

In 1610 James 1 put aside 6 counties of Ireland that became Protestant Ulster. English emigrant financed by London merchants set up a in what became Londonderry.  In Glasgow because of the merchants the university there was less under the control of the Kirk and young Scotsmen shied away from theology which was very controversial and moved to math's and civil law.

20 000 years ago the ice age carved out the Highlands and Scandinavia to the geographical shape. Scotland showed four stages of society development.  1The northern island lived on a hunter gatherer culture.  2.North of the firth of forth never developed survived on the thin layer of impoverished soil,  3 the rural and  4 urban Lowlands where Calvinism took on, 

For hundreds of years Gaelic had been the language of parliament, law government commerce and the kirk. Now the Scots became English speakers and cultural bearers, they never forgot their roots but acquired new ones. Hume and Robertson taught the English how to write philosophical history. Adam Smith the founding text of modern economics.

 1758 Horace Walpole said the Scotland is the most accomplished  nation in Europe.

1745 uprising could blot out all achieved. Bonny Prince Charley the clash between the tribal highland steeped in clan loyalty who represented the feudal not tribal past, bonds of landholding that kept clans together. 

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Conclusion

By the 20C the Scottish Enlightenment waned and they days of it being Europe's  innovator of ideas were over.  Glasgow was the industrial.  

One third of the nations total output in each industry. One fifth of the world shipping, Paisleys was the largest thread making company on earth.

Gladstone was part of the Scottish diaspora. The leading parliamentarians Lord Rosebery, Author Belfour, Campbell Bannerman. Asquith was married to a Scot and sat in a Scottish constituency. Ramsey Mc Donald was from the new Labour Party started by a Scot Keir Hurdie. The 5th Earl of Rosebury was educated in Eton and Oxford a married a Rothchild daughter. Balfour was a Cambridge Apostle member.

The disadvantage  of such a big industrial city was that it did not bring every reward promised and the lower wages in Glasgow was its attraction for industrialists. Many volunteers for the Boer War did not pass the health requirements and more than half of Scots emigrants headed for the US, 

Scotland had been the first fully literate nation. It produced writer like Walter Scott , Robert Louis Stevenson and Author Conan Doyle and James Barry. After 1823 onerous taxes were lifted and distilleries open and blended whiskey to the English taste.  But the Victorian era rested in conformity whos emphasis blocked innovation. Field Marshal Robertson, Ian Hamilton and Douglas Haig formed the backbone of the arm and one in 4 officers was Scots in WW1 they daredevil types that resulted in the disastrous campaigns.

In WW2 Scottish factories turned out Spitfires and RR Merlin plane engines that won the war. The average working mans wages in 1958 was almost 3 time what is was in 1938. But with the falling empire Scotland situation deteriorated.

Ian Fleming had a Scottish grandfather and James Bond was based on Fitzroy McClean.

After Harold  Macmillan's  speech "You have never had it so good" a few years later the Clyde side and blast furnaces, coal and  cotton mills decline's and between 1979 and 1983 Scotland lost 11% of her industrial output. Margaret Thatcher said there was "no alternative" but the nationalist called for devolution and independence.