Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City, Mexico on this day in 1940. Trotsky was a Russian Marxist revolutionary, Soviet politician and founder and first leader of the Red Army. He was born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein in October of 1879.

His big mistake was opposing Josef Stalin. After leading an unsuccessful struggle against the rise of Stalin and his policies he was removed from power, expelled from the Communist Party, deported from the Soviet Union and finally assassinated on orders from Josef Stalin in Mexico. What surprises me is Trotsky lived in exile from 1929 until 1940. Stalin let him live that long?

Trotsky was attacked by undercover NKVD agent Ramon Mercader with an ice axe. The blow to Leon Trotsky’s head didn’t kill Trotsky instantly. He would die a day later in the hospital at the age of 60 of shock and blood loss.

George Orwell based two of the characters in his novels on Leon Trotsky, the character Snowball in “Animal Farm” and the character Emmanuel Goldstein in Nineteen Eighty-Four.