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The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy
A LitHub and Parade Most Anticipated Book of the Year
For fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson, the gripping story of the assassination of Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky and the deadly game of cat and mouse that preceded it
On August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky invited a man he knew only as Jacques Mornard into his study. Mornard waited for Trotsky to sit, then smashed an ice pick he had hidden in his raincoat into Trotsky’s skull.
For over a decade, Trotsky’s greatest enemy, Joseph Stalin, had been trying to arrange his murder. Stalin’s agents had hunted him across Europe and into a lonely, bitter exile in Mexico. He had liquidated Trotsky’s family and friends, and yet Trotsky had always escaped his clutches. The man who changed this all was Ramón Mercader, a minor Spanish aristocrat and Soviet agent who had posed as Mornard, a dissolute Belgian playboy, and infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle.
In The Death of Trotsky, Josh Ireland traces the separate paths walked by each of these protagonists as they steadily draw closer and closer to that fateful encounter on August 20. Blending intimate historical detail and thrilling historical narrative, swinging from Moscow to Paris to Mexico, and taking in a cast of morally conflicted Russian spies, fanatical Mexican painters, and innocent American idealists, The Death of Trotsky delves into the lives of two fascinating, complex men locked in a life-or-death struggle that would bend the course of history.
For fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson, the gripping story of the assassination of Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky and the deadly game of cat and mouse that preceded it
On August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky invited a man he knew only as Jacques Mornard into his study. Mornard waited for Trotsky to sit, then smashed an ice pick he had hidden in his raincoat into Trotsky’s skull.
For over a decade, Trotsky’s greatest enemy, Joseph Stalin, had been trying to arrange his murder. Stalin’s agents had hunted him across Europe and into a lonely, bitter exile in Mexico. He had liquidated Trotsky’s family and friends, and yet Trotsky had always escaped his clutches. The man who changed this all was Ramón Mercader, a minor Spanish aristocrat and Soviet agent who had posed as Mornard, a dissolute Belgian playboy, and infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle.
In The Death of Trotsky, Josh Ireland traces the separate paths walked by each of these protagonists as they steadily draw closer and closer to that fateful encounter on August 20. Blending intimate historical detail and thrilling historical narrative, swinging from Moscow to Paris to Mexico, and taking in a cast of morally conflicted Russian spies, fanatical Mexican painters, and innocent American idealists, The Death of Trotsky delves into the lives of two fascinating, complex men locked in a life-or-death struggle that would bend the course of history.
380 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 24, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
April 6, 2026
The Death of Trotsky is an in-depth overview of the murder of Leon Trotsky, an influential revolutionary whom Stalin pushed out and vilified as part of his quest to seize power (Lenin never named a successor).
Trotsky was granted asylum in Mexico until an NKVD agent got close enough to execute a plan to eliminate him.
There's a heck of a lot of story leading up to this assassination that the author had to contend with and, only being able to cover so much, I thought he gave enough information for the story to make sense, but not so much that an unfamiliar reader would become overwhelmed. Of course, knowing quite a bit about Soviet history, I found myself thinking, "there was A LOT more to that" on occasion, but that's to be expected.
If you're interested in this story, but don't know much about Soviet history, you can absolutely start here and expand outward. I think keyhole histories are a great place to start, actually. And if you liked this one and want more, consider The Last Days of Stalin.
Trotsky was granted asylum in Mexico until an NKVD agent got close enough to execute a plan to eliminate him.
There's a heck of a lot of story leading up to this assassination that the author had to contend with and, only being able to cover so much, I thought he gave enough information for the story to make sense, but not so much that an unfamiliar reader would become overwhelmed. Of course, knowing quite a bit about Soviet history, I found myself thinking, "there was A LOT more to that" on occasion, but that's to be expected.
If you're interested in this story, but don't know much about Soviet history, you can absolutely start here and expand outward. I think keyhole histories are a great place to start, actually. And if you liked this one and want more, consider The Last Days of Stalin.
February 24, 2026
The way that Ireland paints this whole "plot to rid the world of Trotsky" was so well done. I really appreciated the quotes, sources, and backstories on these lesser known characters of history. We might all know about Trotsky- but who were in his circle? What was his life living in exhile? What were the lives of his children? His spouse? Who was it that killed him? How did they close?
I overall loved how human this book made all involved parties- all except well... Stalin haha. Ireland did a great job at making Stalin feel as distant but ever watching from the Kremlin.
I learned so much and really enjoyed this!
Thanks to NetGalley and to Dutton for my ARC!
Publishes 2.24.2026!
I overall loved how human this book made all involved parties- all except well... Stalin haha. Ireland did a great job at making Stalin feel as distant but ever watching from the Kremlin.
I learned so much and really enjoyed this!
Thanks to NetGalley and to Dutton for my ARC!
Publishes 2.24.2026!
April 5, 2026
a bit tedious in the middle, and occasionally veered towards the fictional (entire perfectly recalled monologues, for instance) but a reasonably interesting read overall. oh and i found ireland's shockedness when reporting on the bolsheviks' espousing violence pretty amusing. fork found in kitchen etc.
February 20, 2026
I spotted this title on Netgalley shortly after completing Victor Sebestyen's Lenin biography, and it immediately attracted me as a fitting sequel. Josh Ireland takes what to most of us is a one-line story (Trotsky is assassinated at close quarters in Mexico City with an ice ax, as part of an operation ordered by Stalin) and brings it vividly to life. He takes his time setting up the story with the assassination plot not really starting until the second half of the book. All of it is fascinating, and we get a real sense of what the NKVD (forerunner to the KGB) and the Stalinist terror were like. Oh yeah, Trotsky wasn't exactly a saint either, so if you are one of those readers who needs someone to root for this isn't for you. I did, however, feel considerable sympathy for the young American woman who was seduced by the assassin in order to get access to Trotsky.
This is for lovers of history and spy-thrillers alike. It manages to convey plenty of historical detail while remaining a page-turner throughout. Thanks to Netgalley and Dutton for providing me with a pre-release egalley.
This is for lovers of history and spy-thrillers alike. It manages to convey plenty of historical detail while remaining a page-turner throughout. Thanks to Netgalley and Dutton for providing me with a pre-release egalley.
March 30, 2026
Josh Ireland's The Death of Trotsky is a good, readable if not especially innovative recapitulation of Joseph Stalin's murder of his arch nemesis in 1940 Mexico. Ireland's narrative provides a thumbnail sketch of Trotksy's rivalry with Stalin, downfall and "wandering exile" through Europe and Mexico, fleeing Stalin's NKVD while trying to build up his rival "Fourth International" to rescue communism from his nemesis. The narrative is more focused, and interesting discussing the NKVD's assassination squads, which roamed Europe and the Americans hunting down tsarist emigres, dissidents and anyone associated with Trotsky, killing them through a variety of means. Eventually, the narrative centers on Trotsky's assassin, Ramon Mercader, a Spanish communist who (with his mother) followed Trotsky to Mexico City and infiltrated his inner circle before plunging an ice ax into the Old Bolshevik's skull. Unlike some depictions of Mercader as tormented by his mission, Ireland convincingly shows him as a remorseless fanatic, albeit one who seems under qualified for such a dangerous mission, constantly bumbling his plans until fate intervened. Trotsky's death, the author argues, occurred because of his incredible disregard for personal security. Despite having a coterie of armed guards, police protection and a swirl of loyal associates, losing several family members to Stalin's agents and surviving a previous attempt, Trotsky still regularly left his compound or, worse, allowed strangers like Mercader into his inner circle without vetting them. How else could a killer smuggle in a climbing implement under a trenchcoat in the middle of summer? Ireland's account lacks the rich, probing portraiture of earlier accounts like Isaac Deutscher and Bernard Patenaude, but succeeds as a fast-paced narrative of this most dramatic, and improbable political murder.
November 8, 2026
This is a non-fiction book about the assassination of Trotsky. However, it actually depicts a broader obsession of Stalin, who was behind the killing, with Trotsky. I read it together with The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination at Non Fiction Book Club group in October 2026 as a buddy read, to see the contrasts and similarities between the two murders.
The book starts from a rather remote point: the 1937 murder of NKVD defector Ignace Reiss near Lausanne, a man who had only just declared for Trotsky and the Fourth International and was killed before he could even meet the Trotskyists. This way the killing of Trotsky is presented as the end point of a huge machine that kills thousands of people on the way to its main target. The opening also shows that the author likes to add minute details to liven up the story, and it is often hard to tell whether they are invented or based on sources. I don’t like such an approach in historical non-fiction.
The author then turns to Trotsky’s biography to show that his rivalry with Stalin was not a fight of black and white. Trotsky ordered the slaughter of the Kronstadt sailors, approved burning rebel villages and shooting every fifth or tenth man, and helped build the Cheka. He was fine with killing thousands for a better tomorrow. However, Stalin fought him not over his attitude toward the sanctity of human life, but because Trotsky was close to Lenin, and as in Highlander, “there can be only one” heir to the leader of the October Revolution. Where Trotsky’s main strength was his fiery oratory, Stalin worked more systematically. For example, Trotsky’s daughter from his first marriage died of TB because no doctor in the USSR dared to treat her. His son Lev died in Paris from complications after a rather ordinary operation, in a clinic (as it turned out much later) owned by a former NKVD man, with a Soviet mole at his bedside.
The story follows three main threads that meet in August 1940. The first is Trotsky and his wife Natalia in exile. The second is Stalin and the NKVD, from the show trials and Yezhov’s purge of his own service to Sudoplatov and Eitingon planning “Operation Duck.” The third is Ramón Mercader, the eventual killer, and his mother Caridad, shaped by the Spanish Civil War into the kind of believers who call their own sister “petty bourgeois.”
The book is best at psychological portraits. Trotsky is brilliant and vain, careless with his children, and fatally unwilling to admit he had misjudged people. Ramón is almost the perfect agent: handsome, charming, multilingual, with a photographic memory and a watchmaker’s hands. Above all, he is a gifted actor who seems to enjoy deceit. Stalin is shown not as a cartoon villain but as a nocturnal bureaucrat who almost never leaves his office. He tours his empire by pacing in front of huge maps, never forgets a slight, wears built-up heels, and cannot take a joke. Once someone crosses him, the past simply ceases to exist for him.
This is a well-built account of a murder that took three years to arrange, and it’s honest about everyone involved, the victim included. It’s a good first book on the subject, even if, to make it more readable, the author sometimes presents minor hypotheses as facts. These are not directly related to the assassination but concern the participants, like “nausea clambered up Krivitsky’s throat,” or the flat statement that Soviet agents shot Petliura, which the sources often can neither confirm nor deny.
The book starts from a rather remote point: the 1937 murder of NKVD defector Ignace Reiss near Lausanne, a man who had only just declared for Trotsky and the Fourth International and was killed before he could even meet the Trotskyists. This way the killing of Trotsky is presented as the end point of a huge machine that kills thousands of people on the way to its main target. The opening also shows that the author likes to add minute details to liven up the story, and it is often hard to tell whether they are invented or based on sources. I don’t like such an approach in historical non-fiction.
The author then turns to Trotsky’s biography to show that his rivalry with Stalin was not a fight of black and white. Trotsky ordered the slaughter of the Kronstadt sailors, approved burning rebel villages and shooting every fifth or tenth man, and helped build the Cheka. He was fine with killing thousands for a better tomorrow. However, Stalin fought him not over his attitude toward the sanctity of human life, but because Trotsky was close to Lenin, and as in Highlander, “there can be only one” heir to the leader of the October Revolution. Where Trotsky’s main strength was his fiery oratory, Stalin worked more systematically. For example, Trotsky’s daughter from his first marriage died of TB because no doctor in the USSR dared to treat her. His son Lev died in Paris from complications after a rather ordinary operation, in a clinic (as it turned out much later) owned by a former NKVD man, with a Soviet mole at his bedside.
The story follows three main threads that meet in August 1940. The first is Trotsky and his wife Natalia in exile. The second is Stalin and the NKVD, from the show trials and Yezhov’s purge of his own service to Sudoplatov and Eitingon planning “Operation Duck.” The third is Ramón Mercader, the eventual killer, and his mother Caridad, shaped by the Spanish Civil War into the kind of believers who call their own sister “petty bourgeois.”
The book is best at psychological portraits. Trotsky is brilliant and vain, careless with his children, and fatally unwilling to admit he had misjudged people. Ramón is almost the perfect agent: handsome, charming, multilingual, with a photographic memory and a watchmaker’s hands. Above all, he is a gifted actor who seems to enjoy deceit. Stalin is shown not as a cartoon villain but as a nocturnal bureaucrat who almost never leaves his office. He tours his empire by pacing in front of huge maps, never forgets a slight, wears built-up heels, and cannot take a joke. Once someone crosses him, the past simply ceases to exist for him.
This is a well-built account of a murder that took three years to arrange, and it’s honest about everyone involved, the victim included. It’s a good first book on the subject, even if, to make it more readable, the author sometimes presents minor hypotheses as facts. These are not directly related to the assassination but concern the participants, like “nausea clambered up Krivitsky’s throat,” or the flat statement that Soviet agents shot Petliura, which the sources often can neither confirm nor deny.
April 20, 2026
A frustrating book. Stalin's decades long obsession with Trotsky is one of the 20th century's more interesting tales but this book makes a mess of it. Way too many biographical details about obscure Soviet and Trotskyite functionaries who ultimately have nothing to do with Trotsky's murder. Then page after page of minutiae such as "he entered for half an hour, from 3:42pm to 4:12pm" or "he set off.. with three bags weighing 57 lbs". It reads like a boring surveillance report.
The author takes many liberties by surmising what people spoke of in supposedly secret meetings, what they were thinking and what their various motivations were. Often reads more like historical fiction.
The only real value to the book are the descriptions of the people involved, who all appear to have been suffering from various forms of mental illness. This includes Stalin, Trotsky, most of their close associates, their family members and the assassin's family. They're all either neurotic or psychotic, or both.
Bottom line: Trotsky surrounded himself with neurotic, incompetents while Stalin's psychotic thugs were just a little less incompetent. Advantage Stalin.
The author takes many liberties by surmising what people spoke of in supposedly secret meetings, what they were thinking and what their various motivations were. Often reads more like historical fiction.
The only real value to the book are the descriptions of the people involved, who all appear to have been suffering from various forms of mental illness. This includes Stalin, Trotsky, most of their close associates, their family members and the assassin's family. They're all either neurotic or psychotic, or both.
Bottom line: Trotsky surrounded himself with neurotic, incompetents while Stalin's psychotic thugs were just a little less incompetent. Advantage Stalin.
November 4, 2026
I thought of this mostly as a narrative, aimed more at telling a compelling story than at providing a comprehensive historical account. In that way, it mostly succeeded. Granted, I myself don’t actually know many of the details, or I didn’t before I began this book. So I did learn quite a bit from it.
Ireland devotes a lot of time and attention developing the characters. Trotsky himself is fully fleshed out, and certainly isn’t mythologized. He’s directly opposed to Stalin, of course, which makes anyone look good. But he also doesn’t seem like someone I’d want to spend any time around. The assassin, Ramón Mercader, is even more interesting—both because we spend more time with him, and because his own personality is less rigid. He’s a bit harder to pin down; you find yourself wondering to what extent he committed this act out of devotion to his mother, for example, which isn’t typically something you’d wonder about a hired gun. His mother is one of several peripheral characters that Ireland spends time with, enough to really get a picture of the interwoven relationships at play as the assassination plot unfolded.
And in spite of obviously knowing the ending, Ireland managed to draw some suspense from the details of the operation and the behavior of those within Trotsky’s circle. The machinations of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, the extended preparations, the tenuous personal alliances, the previous failed attempts—all of it makes for an absorbing story. As I say, I knew very little, so even when the ice axe made its appearance, it was the writing that gave it narrative heft.
I can’t speak to the book’s accuracy, or say whether it’s really a good introduction to this bit of history. But it didn’t seem to contradict what I do know of Russian history, and it’s a significant story, told in an effective way.
Ireland devotes a lot of time and attention developing the characters. Trotsky himself is fully fleshed out, and certainly isn’t mythologized. He’s directly opposed to Stalin, of course, which makes anyone look good. But he also doesn’t seem like someone I’d want to spend any time around. The assassin, Ramón Mercader, is even more interesting—both because we spend more time with him, and because his own personality is less rigid. He’s a bit harder to pin down; you find yourself wondering to what extent he committed this act out of devotion to his mother, for example, which isn’t typically something you’d wonder about a hired gun. His mother is one of several peripheral characters that Ireland spends time with, enough to really get a picture of the interwoven relationships at play as the assassination plot unfolded.
And in spite of obviously knowing the ending, Ireland managed to draw some suspense from the details of the operation and the behavior of those within Trotsky’s circle. The machinations of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, the extended preparations, the tenuous personal alliances, the previous failed attempts—all of it makes for an absorbing story. As I say, I knew very little, so even when the ice axe made its appearance, it was the writing that gave it narrative heft.
I can’t speak to the book’s accuracy, or say whether it’s really a good introduction to this bit of history. But it didn’t seem to contradict what I do know of Russian history, and it’s a significant story, told in an effective way.
March 13, 2026
Just finished The Death of Trotsky. I’d been meaning to read about Trotsky for a long time but never found a book that really grabbed me. Not until i saw this one. As soon as it was released i had to buy it.
It reads almost like a spy thriller. It's very fast-paced and just so entertaining. Of course I knew how the story would end, but I didn’t know much about everything leading up to it.
Highly recommended
It reads almost like a spy thriller. It's very fast-paced and just so entertaining. Of course I knew how the story would end, but I didn’t know much about everything leading up to it.
Highly recommended
June 24, 2026
Propulsive nonfiction book that read like a spy thriller. While all the details of Trotsky’s assassination are known, the details behind it may not be as it was the culmination of a major intelligence operation that took years of planning and spanned the globe to complete.
I listened to this fascinating and well narrated book. It’s not an exploration of motivation - no analysis of Stalin’s craziness - or examination of the power struggle after Lenin’s death. It’s not about Trotsky’s worldview on communism either. Younger flavors of these rather it’s straightforward look into what it took to kill Trotsky and about those who killed him. Most of the background preceding Trotsky’s expulsion from the party and his trial as an enemy of the state details the instant visceral dislike the two men had upon meeting in 1907 in London, Stalin’s eradication of the Trotsky family and others who opposed him - if you think Hitler was bad, think again. Stalin was psycho. At one point in the book, the author notes that Russian NJVD agents knew they would be killed by Stalin but felt there was little they could do to it.
The main part of the story is the ten year period from 1929 when Trotsky left Russia through the years Stalin’s men searched for him and ultimately found him in Mexico City and then to the men and women who played a part in planning and executing the murder in 1940. Ramón Mercader, the assassin, gets heavy focus in explaining his character and motivation in the book. Mercader spent years infiltrating Trotsky’s world. The book painstakingly documents this and other players in Trotsky’s world - pro and cons.
The book is well researched and provides glimpses into Trotsky’s life in exile. For instance it also details Trotsky’s friendship with Freda Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The friendship turned into a revenge love affair. For Trotsky is was an escape from the tension and isolation of his exile. Trotsky cared for rabbits and he was a stickler for rules. Vain and selfish, he was also beloved by many of his followers.
I gave this book five stars for providing a well researched exploration of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, for telling the story of this assassination through the eyes of the people involved, and for being a finely paced read that held my attention throughout .
I listened to this fascinating and well narrated book. It’s not an exploration of motivation - no analysis of Stalin’s craziness - or examination of the power struggle after Lenin’s death. It’s not about Trotsky’s worldview on communism either. Younger flavors of these rather it’s straightforward look into what it took to kill Trotsky and about those who killed him. Most of the background preceding Trotsky’s expulsion from the party and his trial as an enemy of the state details the instant visceral dislike the two men had upon meeting in 1907 in London, Stalin’s eradication of the Trotsky family and others who opposed him - if you think Hitler was bad, think again. Stalin was psycho. At one point in the book, the author notes that Russian NJVD agents knew they would be killed by Stalin but felt there was little they could do to it.
The main part of the story is the ten year period from 1929 when Trotsky left Russia through the years Stalin’s men searched for him and ultimately found him in Mexico City and then to the men and women who played a part in planning and executing the murder in 1940. Ramón Mercader, the assassin, gets heavy focus in explaining his character and motivation in the book. Mercader spent years infiltrating Trotsky’s world. The book painstakingly documents this and other players in Trotsky’s world - pro and cons.
The book is well researched and provides glimpses into Trotsky’s life in exile. For instance it also details Trotsky’s friendship with Freda Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The friendship turned into a revenge love affair. For Trotsky is was an escape from the tension and isolation of his exile. Trotsky cared for rabbits and he was a stickler for rules. Vain and selfish, he was also beloved by many of his followers.
I gave this book five stars for providing a well researched exploration of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, for telling the story of this assassination through the eyes of the people involved, and for being a finely paced read that held my attention throughout .
July 29, 2026
Josh Ireland's The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy is one of those rare works of history that reads with the relentless tension of a political thriller while never sacrificing the human tragedy at its heart. I found this book utterly compelling from beginning to end. Although the title promises the story of Leon Trotsky's assassination, Ireland delivers something far richer: a portrait of a revolutionary whose ideals, family, and identity were slowly dismantled by Stalin's obsessive pursuit of revenge. The assassination itself becomes the inevitable conclusion to years of exile, fear, and unimaginable personal loss.
Most people know the broad outline of Trotsky's story. Once one of the principal architects of the Russian Revolution and commander of the Red Army, he fell spectacularly from power after Lenin's death as Joseph Stalin consolidated control over the Soviet Union. Expelled from the Communist Party, banished from the USSR, and eventually forced into a life of wandering exile, Trotsky became Stalin's greatest ideological rival. Ireland traces this journey across Turkey, France, Norway, and finally Mexico, where Trotsky believed he had finally found a place of relative safety. Yet Stalin's reach extended across continents, and the Soviet secret police patiently orchestrated an elaborate campaign to silence him forever.
What surprised me most was that this is not simply a history of espionage or political intrigue. It is equally a story about family. Ireland devotes considerable attention to the devastating fate of Trotsky's children, and these sections were among the most heartbreaking in the book. One by one, his family became casualties of Stalin's campaign against him. Some died under suspicious circumstances, others were imprisoned or executed during the Great Purge, and none escaped the shadow cast by their father's name. The systematic destruction of Trotsky's family demonstrates that Stalin was never satisfied with defeating an opponent politically—he sought to erase every trace of him, extending punishment to wives, children, and anyone unfortunate enough to be connected to him.
These chapters transform Trotsky from a historical figure into a father enduring unimaginable grief. Despite his fierce political convictions and relentless writing in exile, he was also a man forced to watch news of another child's death arrive from thousands of miles away, powerless to intervene. Ireland balances Trotsky's revolutionary legacy with these intensely personal losses, making the emotional weight of the narrative all the more profound.
The book also excels at portraying life inside Trotsky's heavily fortified Mexican home. By the time he settled there with his wife Natalia Sedova, every day was shaped by the expectation of violence. Guards surrounded the compound, assassination attempts became increasingly sophisticated, and visitors were carefully scrutinized. Yet despite this atmosphere of constant danger, Ireland includes wonderfully human details that keep the narrative grounded.
One moment that has lingered with me is Trotsky's final interaction with his beloved rabbits shortly before his assassination. It is such a small, almost insignificant detail in the grand sweep of history, yet it becomes deeply moving precisely because of its ordinariness. Here was a man whose life had been consumed by revolution, ideology, exile, and political conflict, quietly tending to his rabbits only moments before history caught up with him. Ireland understands that these intimate moments often reveal more about a person than speeches or manifestos ever could. Knowing what comes next, the scene becomes almost unbearably poignant.
The account of the assassination itself is masterfully constructed. Ireland carefully introduces Ramón Mercader, the NKVD agent painstakingly groomed over years to infiltrate Trotsky's inner circle. Rather than presenting Mercader as a simple villain, the author explores the layers of manipulation and ideological indoctrination that shaped him into Stalin's perfect assassin. The deception required to gain Trotsky's trust is astonishing, making the eventual attack feel both shocking and tragically inevitable.
Even the famous image of Trotsky being struck with an ice axe is given greater historical nuance here. Ireland explains what actually happened during those final moments, emphasizing Trotsky's extraordinary reaction after the blow. Rather than dying instantly, he fought back, shouted for help, and insisted that his attacker be kept alive so he could be questioned. Those final hours reveal remarkable resilience and presence of mind, even in the face of certain death.
Ireland's writing is engaging without becoming sensationalized. He has an excellent sense of pacing, weaving political history together with biography, espionage, and emotional storytelling. The broader context of Stalin's terror is never neglected, but neither does it overwhelm the individuals whose lives were consumed by it. Every chapter builds naturally toward the assassination while reminding the reader that Trotsky's death was only the final act in a campaign that had already claimed countless other victims.
If I have any criticism, it is only that the sheer number of political figures, aliases, and intelligence operatives occasionally becomes difficult to keep straight. This is perhaps unavoidable given the complexity of Soviet espionage, and Ireland generally does an admirable job of guiding the reader through the maze.
Ultimately, The Death of Trotsky is much more than the story of one famous murder. It is a meditation on power, obsession, exile, and the devastating cost of political vengeance. What stayed with me most was not simply the assassination itself, but the quiet accumulation of losses that preceded it: the destruction of Trotsky's family, the loneliness of exile, and the haunting image of him tending his rabbits in one final moment of peace before violence shattered everything. I found this to be an utterly compelling read, balancing meticulous historical research with genuine emotional depth. It is history written not only to inform, but to remind us that behind every political legend is a profoundly human story.
Most people know the broad outline of Trotsky's story. Once one of the principal architects of the Russian Revolution and commander of the Red Army, he fell spectacularly from power after Lenin's death as Joseph Stalin consolidated control over the Soviet Union. Expelled from the Communist Party, banished from the USSR, and eventually forced into a life of wandering exile, Trotsky became Stalin's greatest ideological rival. Ireland traces this journey across Turkey, France, Norway, and finally Mexico, where Trotsky believed he had finally found a place of relative safety. Yet Stalin's reach extended across continents, and the Soviet secret police patiently orchestrated an elaborate campaign to silence him forever.
What surprised me most was that this is not simply a history of espionage or political intrigue. It is equally a story about family. Ireland devotes considerable attention to the devastating fate of Trotsky's children, and these sections were among the most heartbreaking in the book. One by one, his family became casualties of Stalin's campaign against him. Some died under suspicious circumstances, others were imprisoned or executed during the Great Purge, and none escaped the shadow cast by their father's name. The systematic destruction of Trotsky's family demonstrates that Stalin was never satisfied with defeating an opponent politically—he sought to erase every trace of him, extending punishment to wives, children, and anyone unfortunate enough to be connected to him.
These chapters transform Trotsky from a historical figure into a father enduring unimaginable grief. Despite his fierce political convictions and relentless writing in exile, he was also a man forced to watch news of another child's death arrive from thousands of miles away, powerless to intervene. Ireland balances Trotsky's revolutionary legacy with these intensely personal losses, making the emotional weight of the narrative all the more profound.
The book also excels at portraying life inside Trotsky's heavily fortified Mexican home. By the time he settled there with his wife Natalia Sedova, every day was shaped by the expectation of violence. Guards surrounded the compound, assassination attempts became increasingly sophisticated, and visitors were carefully scrutinized. Yet despite this atmosphere of constant danger, Ireland includes wonderfully human details that keep the narrative grounded.
One moment that has lingered with me is Trotsky's final interaction with his beloved rabbits shortly before his assassination. It is such a small, almost insignificant detail in the grand sweep of history, yet it becomes deeply moving precisely because of its ordinariness. Here was a man whose life had been consumed by revolution, ideology, exile, and political conflict, quietly tending to his rabbits only moments before history caught up with him. Ireland understands that these intimate moments often reveal more about a person than speeches or manifestos ever could. Knowing what comes next, the scene becomes almost unbearably poignant.
The account of the assassination itself is masterfully constructed. Ireland carefully introduces Ramón Mercader, the NKVD agent painstakingly groomed over years to infiltrate Trotsky's inner circle. Rather than presenting Mercader as a simple villain, the author explores the layers of manipulation and ideological indoctrination that shaped him into Stalin's perfect assassin. The deception required to gain Trotsky's trust is astonishing, making the eventual attack feel both shocking and tragically inevitable.
Even the famous image of Trotsky being struck with an ice axe is given greater historical nuance here. Ireland explains what actually happened during those final moments, emphasizing Trotsky's extraordinary reaction after the blow. Rather than dying instantly, he fought back, shouted for help, and insisted that his attacker be kept alive so he could be questioned. Those final hours reveal remarkable resilience and presence of mind, even in the face of certain death.
Ireland's writing is engaging without becoming sensationalized. He has an excellent sense of pacing, weaving political history together with biography, espionage, and emotional storytelling. The broader context of Stalin's terror is never neglected, but neither does it overwhelm the individuals whose lives were consumed by it. Every chapter builds naturally toward the assassination while reminding the reader that Trotsky's death was only the final act in a campaign that had already claimed countless other victims.
If I have any criticism, it is only that the sheer number of political figures, aliases, and intelligence operatives occasionally becomes difficult to keep straight. This is perhaps unavoidable given the complexity of Soviet espionage, and Ireland generally does an admirable job of guiding the reader through the maze.
Ultimately, The Death of Trotsky is much more than the story of one famous murder. It is a meditation on power, obsession, exile, and the devastating cost of political vengeance. What stayed with me most was not simply the assassination itself, but the quiet accumulation of losses that preceded it: the destruction of Trotsky's family, the loneliness of exile, and the haunting image of him tending his rabbits in one final moment of peace before violence shattered everything. I found this to be an utterly compelling read, balancing meticulous historical research with genuine emotional depth. It is history written not only to inform, but to remind us that behind every political legend is a profoundly human story.
January 14, 2026
Forgive the comparison but this struck me like a Keystone Cops series or a long game of Spy vs Spy. Everyone trying to kill someone or avoid being killed by someone but hey, hey, that’s the Russian way of politics.
Can you try to govern without poisoning or defenestrating someone that doesn’t fall in with Putin & his oligarchs? Nobody is falling for your assassination games, guys. 😏
Can you try to govern without poisoning or defenestrating someone that doesn’t fall in with Putin & his oligarchs? Nobody is falling for your assassination games, guys. 😏
October 3, 2025
Reviewed for Library Journal. My Goodreads rating isn't related to my professional review.
March 21, 2026
brilliant book! a story well told!
This book is telling a spell binding story backed by astonishing research! How brilliantly original people can be blinded by a fanatical obsession which mold and eventually destroy their life. This destructive obsession destroyed equally the life of Trotsky , Ramon, and Caridad Mercader. The strange USSR leadership habit to persecute and at time reward its most devoted servant was accessory discovery when reading this book!
This book is telling a spell binding story backed by astonishing research! How brilliantly original people can be blinded by a fanatical obsession which mold and eventually destroy their life. This destructive obsession destroyed equally the life of Trotsky , Ramon, and Caridad Mercader. The strange USSR leadership habit to persecute and at time reward its most devoted servant was accessory discovery when reading this book!
August 8, 2026
The first time I visited the Trotsky Museum in Coyoacan, Mexico, I was the only tourist there. I was able to wander slowly through the house, all by myself. and could feel that Trotsky and his wife and grandson had just stepped out. The museum is excellent because of all that has been kept as it was…toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, the bed covers. I found this book excellent and the only criticism I have is that it didn’t allow me to know Trotsky as well as I wanted to. I think the author did an excellent job describing Natalia! If you are ever in Mexico City, this is a museum you should see.
July 11, 2026
Although I still don’t understand the dispute between Stalin and Trotsky, I picked up this book because I had visited Trotsky’s house in Mexico City. The book is peopled with so many actors, nefarious and naive, that I wish the author had thought to include a “cast of characters” in the beginning.
August 20, 2026
This book is dripping with tragedy. There's the personal tragedy of Trotsky himself and his assassination. There's the multiple tragedies of people caught up in that event. There is a great deal about the world-historical tragedy of Stalin and his murderous rule. And there is the other world historical tragedy of what was lost when Trotsky was marginalized out of the Soviet leadership in the first place. I'm no Trotskyist, but it's not hard to imagine that Trotsky would have had far more to contribute as an active leader rather than an embittered loser of the Bolshevik power struggle.
September 5, 2026
I thought I was into Russian/Soviet history but maybe I’m not cut out for it. This felt like a laundry list of names I did not recognise (maybe my fault) with stories attached that I was supposed to have committed to memory (a lot of “wait who is that again and why are they important?”), but ultimately I was not capable of weaving these into my admittedly high school understanding of Trotsky and Stalinist history. There’s a story here that’s magnetic and fundamental and reflective but I couldn’t access it. A shame.
March 19, 2026
Read the last 100 pages. Very readable story.
May 31, 2026
Fascinating.
May 1, 2026
Good story of something I knew only a little about. But not as good as I'd hoped.
April 14, 2026
Excellent research into the inner workings and key personalities that made up Stalin's paranoid death cult, the NKVD. If you were working for this outfit, no matter how loyal, it was a matter of time before you were liquidated. Liquidation often included torture. To avoid the gruesome treatment in the Lubyanka building, operatives regularly committed suicide even at the hint they would be arrested. And think, it was your comrades conducting the forced confessions. The friend you'd worked with for 10 years since the revolution, you now had to torture and kill. A dark organization, that Soviet revolution.
"We wandered about in our little tropical garden in Coyoacán, surrounded by distant ghosts, each with a hole in his forehead." Nataliya Trotsky
As Leonid Eitingen said, "There is one small guaranteed way not to end up in jail under our system: don't be a Jew, or a general, in the state security service." Unfortunately for Eitingen, like many others, he was both.
Trotsky and Frida Kahlo in a saucy extramarital affair was a bright blot upon this gloomy scene. So was everything Diego Rivera.
But after that interlude, back to the steady plod towards death...
Astounding that Trotsky, his wife Nataliya, his guards, his closest friends, were unable to finger Trotsky's assassin. There were red flags, but no answers about the odd guest visiting Coyoacan were ever pursued.
Soon before his death, Trotsky even said, "I don't like him," to his wife. Through a combination of naivete, luck, absentmindness, Ramon or "Jack" continued as a visitor.
Trotsky was a cold blooded killer himself. Had he risen to power rather than Stalin, things may have been as bloody and awful. During the revolution Trotsky executed his chauffeur himself, point blank with a pistol, as punishment for his chauffeur's persistent tardiness. Trotsky was not a good man. And he couldn't have cared less for the people in his life. He was a mechanist for the cause, the system, the machine of historical evolution that he believed worked without respect or need for love. Love was superfluous. A bourgeois aesthetic. A hindrance to truth and progress. Despite all this, you feel sad as his assassination approaches. You want someone to stop it, for someone to discover the killer, for Trotsky to make it away, and continue to plague the hours of Russia's bureaucratic imp, Joseph Satan Stalin.
But no. Trotsky's impudence and faith in the laws of his invincible powers prove his downfall. He continually ignores concerns about this dude Etienne, his entire movement is warning, hey, this guy is a NKVD agent who's infiltrated the Paris 4th International, and Trotsky won't hear of it.
Trotsky's son Lev was a fool as well, poor guy, ended up dead (every one of Nataliya and Leon Trotsky's kids preceded them in death). Lev was warned repeatedly by the hardcore 4th International members about the newcomer Etienne, yet Lev waved away their concerns and continued to feature Etienne as his right hand man for the Paris organization.
Hats off to the NKVD planting this Catalan psychopath Ramon, Trotsky's eventual assassin, into Sylvia's life. What a stroke of spy mastery! The cutout, Sylvia's family "friend," who creates the happenstance introduction at a hotel bar in Paris...the way Ramon from there plays the role of the aloof, dashing, apolitical playboy to become her lover "husband," eventually using this connection to gain regular access to Trotsky's Coyoacan compound...incredible!! And spooky.
And poor Sylvia...you could pull anything over on her. She's either an agent herself, or blind in love, but definitely a fool. She goes to the Paris office where her lover Ramon works, finds the address doesn't exist, and...nothing. When she suspects he's not who he says he is, she "believed it was a personal matter, not something to bring up with Trotsky."
Sylvia later tells Trotsky she's concerned about her boyfriend's fake passport, and Leon himself says, 'you only need to be worried about the Federales, and the police, who take down everyone's ID that enters the home'...he's unwittingly covering for his own assassin.
It's incredible!! This all as everyone linked to the 4th International anywhere, including Trotsky's own son, is being liquidated by the NKVD. This all as Trotsky's security detail is doubling down on security systems, alarms, barricades, to defend against an attack. This aloofness continues even after a gang of marauders invade the Coyoacan compound and open fire into the bedrooms with automatic machine guns but fail to even wound anyone...
Ramon travels to NYC "on business" but visits no SWP party members while there. This is strange behavior for a 4th International enthusiast. It raises suspicion amongst everyone, but Trotsky poo poos it. Eh, he's lukewarm, he says, he needs to be recruited further to the ideals, he is what he is...
When Sylvia raises concern to Trotsky's close friend Cosmere about Ramon's mysterious employment, Cosmere says, maybe the reason Ramon is so shady about his job is because he's ashamed of it, maybe he's a guilt ridden war profiteer who doesn't want to fall in your esteem...
Everyone had suspicions about Ramon, but let him stay.
The essence of dialectical materialism is the bureaucratic hypocrisy, small minded paranoia, and bloodletting feuds for personal power that was the Soviet. Stalin and Trotsky were Marxist theory applied in real time.
Stalin was a recluse psychopath bureaucrat. Trotsky some cross between Nietzsche and one of the Beatles. The Russian revolution was a terrifying disaster on par with what Hitler and his buddies did on the other side of the Urals. Poor Eurasia!
"We wandered about in our little tropical garden in Coyoacán, surrounded by distant ghosts, each with a hole in his forehead." Nataliya Trotsky
As Leonid Eitingen said, "There is one small guaranteed way not to end up in jail under our system: don't be a Jew, or a general, in the state security service." Unfortunately for Eitingen, like many others, he was both.
Trotsky and Frida Kahlo in a saucy extramarital affair was a bright blot upon this gloomy scene. So was everything Diego Rivera.
But after that interlude, back to the steady plod towards death...
Astounding that Trotsky, his wife Nataliya, his guards, his closest friends, were unable to finger Trotsky's assassin. There were red flags, but no answers about the odd guest visiting Coyoacan were ever pursued.
Soon before his death, Trotsky even said, "I don't like him," to his wife. Through a combination of naivete, luck, absentmindness, Ramon or "Jack" continued as a visitor.
Trotsky was a cold blooded killer himself. Had he risen to power rather than Stalin, things may have been as bloody and awful. During the revolution Trotsky executed his chauffeur himself, point blank with a pistol, as punishment for his chauffeur's persistent tardiness. Trotsky was not a good man. And he couldn't have cared less for the people in his life. He was a mechanist for the cause, the system, the machine of historical evolution that he believed worked without respect or need for love. Love was superfluous. A bourgeois aesthetic. A hindrance to truth and progress. Despite all this, you feel sad as his assassination approaches. You want someone to stop it, for someone to discover the killer, for Trotsky to make it away, and continue to plague the hours of Russia's bureaucratic imp, Joseph Satan Stalin.
But no. Trotsky's impudence and faith in the laws of his invincible powers prove his downfall. He continually ignores concerns about this dude Etienne, his entire movement is warning, hey, this guy is a NKVD agent who's infiltrated the Paris 4th International, and Trotsky won't hear of it.
Trotsky's son Lev was a fool as well, poor guy, ended up dead (every one of Nataliya and Leon Trotsky's kids preceded them in death). Lev was warned repeatedly by the hardcore 4th International members about the newcomer Etienne, yet Lev waved away their concerns and continued to feature Etienne as his right hand man for the Paris organization.
Hats off to the NKVD planting this Catalan psychopath Ramon, Trotsky's eventual assassin, into Sylvia's life. What a stroke of spy mastery! The cutout, Sylvia's family "friend," who creates the happenstance introduction at a hotel bar in Paris...the way Ramon from there plays the role of the aloof, dashing, apolitical playboy to become her lover "husband," eventually using this connection to gain regular access to Trotsky's Coyoacan compound...incredible!! And spooky.
And poor Sylvia...you could pull anything over on her. She's either an agent herself, or blind in love, but definitely a fool. She goes to the Paris office where her lover Ramon works, finds the address doesn't exist, and...nothing. When she suspects he's not who he says he is, she "believed it was a personal matter, not something to bring up with Trotsky."
Sylvia later tells Trotsky she's concerned about her boyfriend's fake passport, and Leon himself says, 'you only need to be worried about the Federales, and the police, who take down everyone's ID that enters the home'...he's unwittingly covering for his own assassin.
It's incredible!! This all as everyone linked to the 4th International anywhere, including Trotsky's own son, is being liquidated by the NKVD. This all as Trotsky's security detail is doubling down on security systems, alarms, barricades, to defend against an attack. This aloofness continues even after a gang of marauders invade the Coyoacan compound and open fire into the bedrooms with automatic machine guns but fail to even wound anyone...
Ramon travels to NYC "on business" but visits no SWP party members while there. This is strange behavior for a 4th International enthusiast. It raises suspicion amongst everyone, but Trotsky poo poos it. Eh, he's lukewarm, he says, he needs to be recruited further to the ideals, he is what he is...
When Sylvia raises concern to Trotsky's close friend Cosmere about Ramon's mysterious employment, Cosmere says, maybe the reason Ramon is so shady about his job is because he's ashamed of it, maybe he's a guilt ridden war profiteer who doesn't want to fall in your esteem...
Everyone had suspicions about Ramon, but let him stay.
The essence of dialectical materialism is the bureaucratic hypocrisy, small minded paranoia, and bloodletting feuds for personal power that was the Soviet. Stalin and Trotsky were Marxist theory applied in real time.
Stalin was a recluse psychopath bureaucrat. Trotsky some cross between Nietzsche and one of the Beatles. The Russian revolution was a terrifying disaster on par with what Hitler and his buddies did on the other side of the Urals. Poor Eurasia!
March 7, 2026
Not only does a fight exist in our world between good and evil; a fight also exists between evil men and men who are even more evil. This book is the story of one such conflict. In The Death of Trotsky, author Josh Ireland showcases one of the most consequential fights in recent history. Each side claimed that progress was on its side; each side claimed to fight for the working man, for the proletariat, for the oppressed; and each claimed that the other was an enemy of progress, an enemy of the proletariat and of society itself.
In an exhilarating ride, Ireland lives up to the description of his book. It does, indeed, rival the works of Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre. Starting with the critical months following the death of the brutal Vladimir Lenin, Ireland narrates the struggle for control of the Soviet legislature and for control of the communist movement as a whole. Two men, both of whom had fought side by side during the bloody months of 1917, both of whom were fundamental pieces of the first successful Marxist revolution in world history, and both of whom claimed themselves, and not the other, to be the logical and only safe choice to succeed the deified Lenin.
Ultimately, the brutal Joseph Stalin would emerge the victor, leading to the exile and eventual assassination of his equally brutal opponent, Leon Trotsky. Ireland excels in telling the stories not only of these two men, but also of the others who were both the victors and the victims of the revolution that these two men had brought into being. The book follows the story of the Spaniard Ramon Mercader and his mother, who had fought alongside Soviet sympathizers in the Spanish Civil War and were then recruited by the NKVD to take part in the hunt for and death of the greatest foe to Stalin’s consolidation of power. It is a tale full of deceit, of double lives, of tragic ends; a tale of darkness and the worst kind of evil that can fill the human heart.
The book also follows the story of Marc “Etienne” Zborowski, who quickly rose through the ranks of Trotskyists in Paris, becoming the heir apparent following the death of Trotsky’s only surviving son, Lev (under suspicious circumstances), though he was on Stalin’s payroll. Finally, it follows the story of Leon Trotsky himself: exiled, knowing that Stalin’s agents would eventually catch up to him, yet unrepentant, perpetually convinced that he was the true force of revolution, the true arm of progress.
The book deals with some heavy topics. It is a book without hope, without redemption, without a theme other than despair, but it is a vital read to understand the heart of darkness, as Conrad termed it. Ireland does not conceal the evil behind either Stalin and his NKVD agents or the perversion of Trotsky and his Mexican allies Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The book spends considerable time discussing the critical years of Stalin’s purge, when everyone who had even been remotely connected to Trotsky was disposed of, and all those who had too clean a record—as in, they had no known connections to Trotsky—also faced the pistol for “security concerns.”
From Moscow to Paris, from Norway to the outskirts of Mexico City, Leon Trotsky was a hunted man, and he knew it. Yet on that warm day in 1940, it would be the choices of one man, and one man alone, that would determine the destiny of this communist leader. This is the story of choices, both good and bad. It is the story of ideas, bad and worse. It is the story of a murder: the murderer and the murdered.
Though the outcome of the story was certain from the beginning—the title is, of course, an obvious spoiler—this book was nonetheless spellbinding. The narrative was easy to follow, though, at times, the names were not; it was hard to keep track of all the communists and Trotskyists in the who’s who of double agents. It was easy to sympathize with the exiled Trotsky. It was also hard to determine the author’s personal political agenda; his sympathy for Trotsky does not altogether convince me that he is a Trotskyist, though he certainly does not spare additional verbiage regarding Stalin.
The ideological framework and differences of the two men are also hard to determine. At root, however, I think this is not as much the fault of the author as it is the fact that the two revolutionaries were extraordinarily close to each other in purpose and in outlook: an atheistic Marxist belief in Hegelian progress. This leads me to the conclusion that neither Stalin nor Trotsky was a friend of the common man; both were, ultimately, concerned only with their will to power, as Hitler in Germany, Tito in Yugoslavia, Mussolini in Italy, and Mao in China all were.
And it was this will for power that would lead to the demise of Leon Trotsky, abandoned by nearly all; killed in the most merciless way imaginable, alone, defenseless, long since exiled from his native land, in a Mexico City house, betrayed by one of his few remaining allies.
In an exhilarating ride, Ireland lives up to the description of his book. It does, indeed, rival the works of Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre. Starting with the critical months following the death of the brutal Vladimir Lenin, Ireland narrates the struggle for control of the Soviet legislature and for control of the communist movement as a whole. Two men, both of whom had fought side by side during the bloody months of 1917, both of whom were fundamental pieces of the first successful Marxist revolution in world history, and both of whom claimed themselves, and not the other, to be the logical and only safe choice to succeed the deified Lenin.
Ultimately, the brutal Joseph Stalin would emerge the victor, leading to the exile and eventual assassination of his equally brutal opponent, Leon Trotsky. Ireland excels in telling the stories not only of these two men, but also of the others who were both the victors and the victims of the revolution that these two men had brought into being. The book follows the story of the Spaniard Ramon Mercader and his mother, who had fought alongside Soviet sympathizers in the Spanish Civil War and were then recruited by the NKVD to take part in the hunt for and death of the greatest foe to Stalin’s consolidation of power. It is a tale full of deceit, of double lives, of tragic ends; a tale of darkness and the worst kind of evil that can fill the human heart.
The book also follows the story of Marc “Etienne” Zborowski, who quickly rose through the ranks of Trotskyists in Paris, becoming the heir apparent following the death of Trotsky’s only surviving son, Lev (under suspicious circumstances), though he was on Stalin’s payroll. Finally, it follows the story of Leon Trotsky himself: exiled, knowing that Stalin’s agents would eventually catch up to him, yet unrepentant, perpetually convinced that he was the true force of revolution, the true arm of progress.
The book deals with some heavy topics. It is a book without hope, without redemption, without a theme other than despair, but it is a vital read to understand the heart of darkness, as Conrad termed it. Ireland does not conceal the evil behind either Stalin and his NKVD agents or the perversion of Trotsky and his Mexican allies Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The book spends considerable time discussing the critical years of Stalin’s purge, when everyone who had even been remotely connected to Trotsky was disposed of, and all those who had too clean a record—as in, they had no known connections to Trotsky—also faced the pistol for “security concerns.”
From Moscow to Paris, from Norway to the outskirts of Mexico City, Leon Trotsky was a hunted man, and he knew it. Yet on that warm day in 1940, it would be the choices of one man, and one man alone, that would determine the destiny of this communist leader. This is the story of choices, both good and bad. It is the story of ideas, bad and worse. It is the story of a murder: the murderer and the murdered.
Though the outcome of the story was certain from the beginning—the title is, of course, an obvious spoiler—this book was nonetheless spellbinding. The narrative was easy to follow, though, at times, the names were not; it was hard to keep track of all the communists and Trotskyists in the who’s who of double agents. It was easy to sympathize with the exiled Trotsky. It was also hard to determine the author’s personal political agenda; his sympathy for Trotsky does not altogether convince me that he is a Trotskyist, though he certainly does not spare additional verbiage regarding Stalin.
The ideological framework and differences of the two men are also hard to determine. At root, however, I think this is not as much the fault of the author as it is the fact that the two revolutionaries were extraordinarily close to each other in purpose and in outlook: an atheistic Marxist belief in Hegelian progress. This leads me to the conclusion that neither Stalin nor Trotsky was a friend of the common man; both were, ultimately, concerned only with their will to power, as Hitler in Germany, Tito in Yugoslavia, Mussolini in Italy, and Mao in China all were.
And it was this will for power that would lead to the demise of Leon Trotsky, abandoned by nearly all; killed in the most merciless way imaginable, alone, defenseless, long since exiled from his native land, in a Mexico City house, betrayed by one of his few remaining allies.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advance copy of this book of history that details the efforts of one of the last centuries worst leaders to eliminate a man he considered his most mortal of enemies.
I remember the first time I came across the name Leon Trotsky, a moment that has stayed with me over the years. I was reading Richard Hoyt's Trotsky's Run, a book that I think was a comic thriller, like most of Hoyt's books. I was in high school, maybe, middle school, so this was a long time ago. The opening of the book dealt with the death of Trotsky, no real need for spoiler warnings, as this is known history, by an ice ax. I have no idea why this stayed with me, as the book I read it from has not. Yet it has. Something about a political assassination, something that was real and documented, but sounding like it was from a James Bond knock-off. I have read a few books about Trotsky since, both fictional and nonfictional. This book I think will also stay with me, for not only does the author cover the assassination, but the many other lives that were lost, based on the paranoia and hatred of one of the darker figures of 20th century history. The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy by Josh Ireland is a true crime story, a story of war in the shadows, of revolution, revolutionaries, and of course the murderous instincts of those in power.
The death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 opened both a power vacuum and a powder keg in Russia, as different sides vied to lead the burgeoning USSR. Leon Trotsky, was smart, witty, gifted with an ability to speak, and to inspire. Joseph Stalin, was short, walked with a limp, ugly, mean, bitter, and yet had the gift of finding the secrets of those around him, secrets that let him control others. Added to this was a terrible paranoia, and a hatred of Leon Trotsky, who did his best to embarrass Stalin on numerous occasions. Trotsky lacked support and the ability to wine and dine others, which gave Stalin a chance to seize power. Soon Trotsky was losing respect, and losing friends, either through arrests, murders, or people ignoring him. Soon Trotsky was exiled, sent first to Europe then to Mexico, where he began to work on a biography of Stalin. Stalin set about plans to assassinate Trotsky, while also eliminating those close to Trotsky, including his family. And soon not even the far shores of Mexico were safe.
The book is both a biography of an assassination, and an examination of Communist politics in the twenties up to the forties. There were plots, plans, assassination attempts, and a lot of successful acts. Ireland does a very good job of telling the story, with its many diverse characters and locations, and never losing the reader. The research is quite good, with lots of details, all footnoted, with some new information. Ireland does a good job dispelling a lot of rumors, and getting right to the heart of the story, one that really does read like a thriller in many ways. Even if it sounds much to fictional. Ireland also does a good job of describing what like was like for the paranoid Stalin, seeing enemies and threats everywhere, and Trotsky, who knew that he was on Stalin's kill list, yet never took his security that seriously.
A very well written account that never lags, or gets bogged down. Ireland has written a very taut history, a bit of LeCarré amid the history. A very riveting accout, and one that will stay with me. I look forward to reading more by Josh Ireland.
I remember the first time I came across the name Leon Trotsky, a moment that has stayed with me over the years. I was reading Richard Hoyt's Trotsky's Run, a book that I think was a comic thriller, like most of Hoyt's books. I was in high school, maybe, middle school, so this was a long time ago. The opening of the book dealt with the death of Trotsky, no real need for spoiler warnings, as this is known history, by an ice ax. I have no idea why this stayed with me, as the book I read it from has not. Yet it has. Something about a political assassination, something that was real and documented, but sounding like it was from a James Bond knock-off. I have read a few books about Trotsky since, both fictional and nonfictional. This book I think will also stay with me, for not only does the author cover the assassination, but the many other lives that were lost, based on the paranoia and hatred of one of the darker figures of 20th century history. The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy by Josh Ireland is a true crime story, a story of war in the shadows, of revolution, revolutionaries, and of course the murderous instincts of those in power.
The death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 opened both a power vacuum and a powder keg in Russia, as different sides vied to lead the burgeoning USSR. Leon Trotsky, was smart, witty, gifted with an ability to speak, and to inspire. Joseph Stalin, was short, walked with a limp, ugly, mean, bitter, and yet had the gift of finding the secrets of those around him, secrets that let him control others. Added to this was a terrible paranoia, and a hatred of Leon Trotsky, who did his best to embarrass Stalin on numerous occasions. Trotsky lacked support and the ability to wine and dine others, which gave Stalin a chance to seize power. Soon Trotsky was losing respect, and losing friends, either through arrests, murders, or people ignoring him. Soon Trotsky was exiled, sent first to Europe then to Mexico, where he began to work on a biography of Stalin. Stalin set about plans to assassinate Trotsky, while also eliminating those close to Trotsky, including his family. And soon not even the far shores of Mexico were safe.
The book is both a biography of an assassination, and an examination of Communist politics in the twenties up to the forties. There were plots, plans, assassination attempts, and a lot of successful acts. Ireland does a very good job of telling the story, with its many diverse characters and locations, and never losing the reader. The research is quite good, with lots of details, all footnoted, with some new information. Ireland does a good job dispelling a lot of rumors, and getting right to the heart of the story, one that really does read like a thriller in many ways. Even if it sounds much to fictional. Ireland also does a good job of describing what like was like for the paranoid Stalin, seeing enemies and threats everywhere, and Trotsky, who knew that he was on Stalin's kill list, yet never took his security that seriously.
A very well written account that never lags, or gets bogged down. Ireland has written a very taut history, a bit of LeCarré amid the history. A very riveting accout, and one that will stay with me. I look forward to reading more by Josh Ireland.
May 15, 2026
This book would be 4-star for storytelling and narrative, especially were it historic fiction or even more, an outright novel. But, it’s 2-star for actual history, and especially since it’s not 5-star for storytelling, that knocks the review down to 2 overall.
It reads like a whodunit, but, within in that, Ireland taking the “omniscient narrator” role at times conflicts with history.
Beyond the omniscient narrator stance, Ireland also doesn’t footnote many items.
Page 278, who said Ramon’s skin turned noticeably darker in the last weeks before the assassination? Page 280, who said his hands were looking green?
There’s more serious issues, too. We’re told nothing about the split in the Socialist Workers Party in the US. In reality, it was a serious split that included whether or not to offer blank support to the USSR. (Remember, this was during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.)
That’s the intro to the really serious issue.
Ireland appears to have deliberately whitewashed one important angle, and all the possible dot-connecting with it.
Above all, Ireland doesn’t investigate the possibility that Sylvia Ageloff was willing participant, not innocent dupe. Today’s US Trots house organ, the World Socialist Web Site, has a long piece on that, with not one, not two, not three, but four parts. (They total 15,000 words or so, so be prepared to read.
Per part 4 of that, she was originally charged with murder, and when released to the US, she lied when she got back. It also notes the prosecutor was later murdered, allegedly by the GPU.
Ireland tells you exactly NONE of that. WSWS cites both primary sources, and, as secondary sources, many of the same books that Ireland has in his bibliography. Hence, my use of the word “deliberate.”
But wait, that’s not all. I decided to look at Ireland’s index vs WSWS’s narrative as well.
Ireland omits the name of Maria Craipeau's husband Yvan. (He’s important enough to have a decent-sized Wiki.) He omits Manuel Garrett, the "Manni" Mercader referenced at his trial. Omits Nathan Gould. Omits Volkogonov noting Sylvia had connections to "Etienne," Mark Zborowski, as did Mercader. Omits Zborowski admitting that in US Senate testimony in 1956.
Ireland doesn't discuss too much that, if he WAS "green," it was because he had an idea Caridad and/or his siblings might be killed if he failed.
Did Sylvia rush back to Mexico City on a recently created non-stop flight that would have cost almost $5000 today to beat the GPU there? Ireland doesn’t mention how pricey her flight was or speculate on why the hurry.
WSWS notes that Ageloff arguing the "Shachtmanite" position against Mercader in front of Trotsky would let him pretend to be an Orthodox Trot.
Ageloff's hysteria feigned? Hope that Mercader be killed to snuff out his trail?
How much did the FBI already infiltrate Trots in the US? Also not discussed, even speculatively, in this book.
In short, don’t read this book, AND, even acknowledging their own biases, don’t read ANY book on Trotsky’s assassination without clicking the links above. I almost 1-starred it, in part because it has no 1-star reviews, just ratings.
It reads like a whodunit, but, within in that, Ireland taking the “omniscient narrator” role at times conflicts with history.
Beyond the omniscient narrator stance, Ireland also doesn’t footnote many items.
Page 278, who said Ramon’s skin turned noticeably darker in the last weeks before the assassination? Page 280, who said his hands were looking green?
There’s more serious issues, too. We’re told nothing about the split in the Socialist Workers Party in the US. In reality, it was a serious split that included whether or not to offer blank support to the USSR. (Remember, this was during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.)
That’s the intro to the really serious issue.
Ireland appears to have deliberately whitewashed one important angle, and all the possible dot-connecting with it.
Above all, Ireland doesn’t investigate the possibility that Sylvia Ageloff was willing participant, not innocent dupe. Today’s US Trots house organ, the World Socialist Web Site, has a long piece on that, with not one, not two, not three, but four parts. (They total 15,000 words or so, so be prepared to read.
Per part 4 of that, she was originally charged with murder, and when released to the US, she lied when she got back. It also notes the prosecutor was later murdered, allegedly by the GPU.
Ireland tells you exactly NONE of that. WSWS cites both primary sources, and, as secondary sources, many of the same books that Ireland has in his bibliography. Hence, my use of the word “deliberate.”
But wait, that’s not all. I decided to look at Ireland’s index vs WSWS’s narrative as well.
Ireland omits the name of Maria Craipeau's husband Yvan. (He’s important enough to have a decent-sized Wiki.) He omits Manuel Garrett, the "Manni" Mercader referenced at his trial. Omits Nathan Gould. Omits Volkogonov noting Sylvia had connections to "Etienne," Mark Zborowski, as did Mercader. Omits Zborowski admitting that in US Senate testimony in 1956.
Ireland doesn't discuss too much that, if he WAS "green," it was because he had an idea Caridad and/or his siblings might be killed if he failed.
Did Sylvia rush back to Mexico City on a recently created non-stop flight that would have cost almost $5000 today to beat the GPU there? Ireland doesn’t mention how pricey her flight was or speculate on why the hurry.
WSWS notes that Ageloff arguing the "Shachtmanite" position against Mercader in front of Trotsky would let him pretend to be an Orthodox Trot.
Ageloff's hysteria feigned? Hope that Mercader be killed to snuff out his trail?
How much did the FBI already infiltrate Trots in the US? Also not discussed, even speculatively, in this book.
In short, don’t read this book, AND, even acknowledging their own biases, don’t read ANY book on Trotsky’s assassination without clicking the links above. I almost 1-starred it, in part because it has no 1-star reviews, just ratings.
June 11, 2025
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called it "The Big Solitaire," the idea being that all of the comrades who survived the October Revolution and who were not fully aligned with Stalin were, one by one, having their cards flipped over, slowly and remorselssly. And the single biggest card to be flipped was that of Leon Trotsky.
It is, I think, reasonably common knowledge where, when, and how Trotsky was assassinated (Mexico City, 1940, ice axe to the brain). Other than that, I don't think that I have given Trotsky much of a thought since I finished college, must less about his sad end. (I narrowly escaped having a degree in Soviet Studies in 1990, just as the Soviet Union was undergoing its death throes.) So I fell upon Josh Ireland's book with enthusiasm. THE DEATH OF TROTSKY is almost comparable to CASE CLOSED, one of my favorite books of all time, Gerald Posner's masterly dissection of the Kennedy assassination. The main point of differentiation is that there isn't much in the way of mystery related to Trotsky's death. (I almost said "conspiracy," but while there is no evidence pointing to Oswald conspiring with anyone, there is plenty of evidence, which Ireland elucidates, about Trotsky's assassin conspiring with Soviet intelligence.)
The other obvious point of comparison here is to THE DEATH OF STALIN, which of course was a broad comic farce. There are multiple comic moments in THE DEATH OF TROTSKY, but none of them are farcical--they result due to Ireland's bone-dry wit. At one point, a seemingly guileless young Polish student wanders into the orbit of Trotsky's son, who in turn comes to trust him implicitly. "He could not have been more wrong," Ireland observes, before turning to an analysis of just how badly this one agent had penetrated the European efforts of the Trotskyites.
Ireland specializes in just these sort of chewy historical nuggets. Why was Trotsky in Mexico in the first place? I had never given this a second's worth of thought, but Ireland has the answer: because Diego Rivera invited him, because of course he did. Did this result in Trotsky trying to shag Frida Kahlo? It did indeed, and Trotsky was successful.
The only drawback, I think, is that there is a comic-opera brilliance to THE DEATH OF TROTSKY that somehow manages to elide the fact that Trotsky was one of history's great monsters, eclipsed in his generation only by Stalin, and that if fate had decreed that Trotsky and not Stalin was running the show in the Thirties the world might look very different but still have been incredibly bloody. But Ireland has a fascinating story to tell, two heavyweight-class antagonists at the center, and a whole gaggle of Soviet functionaries and starry-eyed idealists, and one mysterious Spaniard at the center of it all who managed to fool everyone. Highly recommended.
It is, I think, reasonably common knowledge where, when, and how Trotsky was assassinated (Mexico City, 1940, ice axe to the brain). Other than that, I don't think that I have given Trotsky much of a thought since I finished college, must less about his sad end. (I narrowly escaped having a degree in Soviet Studies in 1990, just as the Soviet Union was undergoing its death throes.) So I fell upon Josh Ireland's book with enthusiasm. THE DEATH OF TROTSKY is almost comparable to CASE CLOSED, one of my favorite books of all time, Gerald Posner's masterly dissection of the Kennedy assassination. The main point of differentiation is that there isn't much in the way of mystery related to Trotsky's death. (I almost said "conspiracy," but while there is no evidence pointing to Oswald conspiring with anyone, there is plenty of evidence, which Ireland elucidates, about Trotsky's assassin conspiring with Soviet intelligence.)
The other obvious point of comparison here is to THE DEATH OF STALIN, which of course was a broad comic farce. There are multiple comic moments in THE DEATH OF TROTSKY, but none of them are farcical--they result due to Ireland's bone-dry wit. At one point, a seemingly guileless young Polish student wanders into the orbit of Trotsky's son, who in turn comes to trust him implicitly. "He could not have been more wrong," Ireland observes, before turning to an analysis of just how badly this one agent had penetrated the European efforts of the Trotskyites.
Ireland specializes in just these sort of chewy historical nuggets. Why was Trotsky in Mexico in the first place? I had never given this a second's worth of thought, but Ireland has the answer: because Diego Rivera invited him, because of course he did. Did this result in Trotsky trying to shag Frida Kahlo? It did indeed, and Trotsky was successful.
The only drawback, I think, is that there is a comic-opera brilliance to THE DEATH OF TROTSKY that somehow manages to elide the fact that Trotsky was one of history's great monsters, eclipsed in his generation only by Stalin, and that if fate had decreed that Trotsky and not Stalin was running the show in the Thirties the world might look very different but still have been incredibly bloody. But Ireland has a fascinating story to tell, two heavyweight-class antagonists at the center, and a whole gaggle of Soviet functionaries and starry-eyed idealists, and one mysterious Spaniard at the center of it all who managed to fool everyone. Highly recommended.
February 24, 2026
“The Death of Trotsky” is a very detailed and comprehensive examination of the 1940 assassination of Ivan Trotsky in Mexico City, ordered by Joseph Stalin. Author Josh Ireland researched extensively and employs clear, straightforward prose to impart to readers the who, what, where, when, and why of that murder.
When I began this history, my knowledge of the Russian Revolution, the birth of the Soviet Union, and the men who led it was not extensive. I came away from the work feeling that I’d learned a fair amount about:
1. The roles of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin in creating the USSR;
2. Upon Lenin’s death, Stalin’s rise to power and his hatred of Trotsky, whose views on and vision for communism and how the USSR should be governed differed greatly from his;
3. The participation of various individuals in the Spanish Revolution;
4. Trotsky’s and his family’s exile in Europe and then Mexico where they stayed for a time with the artist Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo;
5. "The Terror” inflicted by Stalin on millions of Soviet citizens during the 1930s;
6. The role of the NKVD (forerunner to the KGB) in both “The Terror” and the plot to assassinate Trotsky;
7. The characters of Stalin and Trotsky;
8. The characters of various individuals charged with killing Trotsky;
9. A failed attempt to kill Trotsky involving a full-fledged assault on his Mexico City compound; and
10. A detailed description of how Soviet agent Ramón Mercader over a period of months ingratiated himself with Trotsky and his family and then killed Trotsky with an ice axe as they met in Trotsky’s home office.
For me, the book’s greatest strength—it’s attention to detail—is also, at times, a weakness. In some instances—such as the attempts on Trotsky’s life and Stalin’s interactions with various henchmen—it makes for riveting reading. But often, the book seemed to go down diffuse pathways filled with minutia, as well as many-too-many names, leaving me confused and wondering: why am I reading this? Ink devoted to some of that material might have been better spent more thoroughly describing Trotsky’s and Stalin’s conflicting views on communism, Soviet governance, and the USSR’s role in world affairs. In other words, I wanted to know more about why Stalin hated Trotsky so much that he ordered his assassination.
Otherwise, I thought this was a well-researched, well-written history highly suitable for the libraries of those interested in Soviet history, the history of communism, or Ivan Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and the conflict between them.
My thanks to NetGalley, author Josh Ireland, and publisher PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for providing me with a complimentary ARC. All of the foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.
When I began this history, my knowledge of the Russian Revolution, the birth of the Soviet Union, and the men who led it was not extensive. I came away from the work feeling that I’d learned a fair amount about:
1. The roles of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin in creating the USSR;
2. Upon Lenin’s death, Stalin’s rise to power and his hatred of Trotsky, whose views on and vision for communism and how the USSR should be governed differed greatly from his;
3. The participation of various individuals in the Spanish Revolution;
4. Trotsky’s and his family’s exile in Europe and then Mexico where they stayed for a time with the artist Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo;
5. "The Terror” inflicted by Stalin on millions of Soviet citizens during the 1930s;
6. The role of the NKVD (forerunner to the KGB) in both “The Terror” and the plot to assassinate Trotsky;
7. The characters of Stalin and Trotsky;
8. The characters of various individuals charged with killing Trotsky;
9. A failed attempt to kill Trotsky involving a full-fledged assault on his Mexico City compound; and
10. A detailed description of how Soviet agent Ramón Mercader over a period of months ingratiated himself with Trotsky and his family and then killed Trotsky with an ice axe as they met in Trotsky’s home office.
For me, the book’s greatest strength—it’s attention to detail—is also, at times, a weakness. In some instances—such as the attempts on Trotsky’s life and Stalin’s interactions with various henchmen—it makes for riveting reading. But often, the book seemed to go down diffuse pathways filled with minutia, as well as many-too-many names, leaving me confused and wondering: why am I reading this? Ink devoted to some of that material might have been better spent more thoroughly describing Trotsky’s and Stalin’s conflicting views on communism, Soviet governance, and the USSR’s role in world affairs. In other words, I wanted to know more about why Stalin hated Trotsky so much that he ordered his assassination.
Otherwise, I thought this was a well-researched, well-written history highly suitable for the libraries of those interested in Soviet history, the history of communism, or Ivan Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and the conflict between them.
My thanks to NetGalley, author Josh Ireland, and publisher PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for providing me with a complimentary ARC. All of the foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.
September 2, 2025
The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland offers a detailed look at the history of the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin as well the lengths to which Stalin went to exact revenge on anyone he felt even remotely wasn't loyal to him personally.
The parts that are primarily laying out the facts read very well, making connections and showing what was or might have been causal for various acts. I think where this book excels is in the parts where we get recreations of what happened (based on research and contemporary accounts). These offer the best of both nonfiction writing and thriller/suspense fiction writing. History is a narrative, or narratives, so being able to tell a good story is as vital as simply writing out the facts and assumptions.
Some who are heavily influenced by the West's Cold War rhetoric about socialism in general will mistakenly make it sound like there would have been little difference between the bloodshed Stalin caused and the bloodshed that would have occurred had Trotsky been the leader. Ignore that extreme just as quickly as you ignore the one that claims everything would have been rosy under Trotsky. The big difference is that Stalin didn't simply consider himself superior to those around him (in the way any insecure person feels such superiority, like Trump for instance) but he didn't care about human beings or human life, by his own words. Trotsky wouldn't have shied away from violence while the revolution was in progress (plenty of evidence of that) but there isn't a significant reason to believe that once in power he would have taken every comment and every disagreement as a crime punishable by death. So there is more than just a minor difference in how the rest of the 20th century would have played out had Trotsky taken over from Lenin.
One thing we can certainly take away from this is what happens when a weak-minded but strong-willed person gains power. They use it for their own ends, will unhesitatingly trample those who dare to question or oppose him, and will do things like use the military to fight their battles and eliminate, throw whatever means they can, everyone different from what they want. There are leaders today who fit this mold, both in small countries and in major powers. They must be stopped before there are more reigns of terror.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
The parts that are primarily laying out the facts read very well, making connections and showing what was or might have been causal for various acts. I think where this book excels is in the parts where we get recreations of what happened (based on research and contemporary accounts). These offer the best of both nonfiction writing and thriller/suspense fiction writing. History is a narrative, or narratives, so being able to tell a good story is as vital as simply writing out the facts and assumptions.
Some who are heavily influenced by the West's Cold War rhetoric about socialism in general will mistakenly make it sound like there would have been little difference between the bloodshed Stalin caused and the bloodshed that would have occurred had Trotsky been the leader. Ignore that extreme just as quickly as you ignore the one that claims everything would have been rosy under Trotsky. The big difference is that Stalin didn't simply consider himself superior to those around him (in the way any insecure person feels such superiority, like Trump for instance) but he didn't care about human beings or human life, by his own words. Trotsky wouldn't have shied away from violence while the revolution was in progress (plenty of evidence of that) but there isn't a significant reason to believe that once in power he would have taken every comment and every disagreement as a crime punishable by death. So there is more than just a minor difference in how the rest of the 20th century would have played out had Trotsky taken over from Lenin.
One thing we can certainly take away from this is what happens when a weak-minded but strong-willed person gains power. They use it for their own ends, will unhesitatingly trample those who dare to question or oppose him, and will do things like use the military to fight their battles and eliminate, throw whatever means they can, everyone different from what they want. There are leaders today who fit this mold, both in small countries and in major powers. They must be stopped before there are more reigns of terror.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
April 13, 2026
I initially picked up “The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy” because it covered a historical event I knew nothing about: Leon Trotsky getting his ass smoked in Mexico.
Upon reading it, though, I was pleased that not only was it a good telling of the titular incident, it also contained something deeper: an indictment of the biggest infatuation with communism history has ever seen.
Whether intentionally or un-, Josh Ireland’s TDoT captures a time when otherwise intelligent people were swept up in a craze that promised nothing short of a new reality. People the world over embraced the movement’s promises so much they eagerly gave up their freedoms, their families, and, in some cases, their lives.
But, we know how it ends (they should’ve too, IMO): regret… Consider these examples from the book:
A) An aged Trotsky, exiled half a world away from his beloved homeland, bemoaning the Soviet Union had become little more than a violent, “privileged bureaucracy.”
B) His assassin, many years later, reluctantly admitting he and his brethren were “deceived.”
C) And perhaps most striking, the assassin’s mother: a woman that passionately gave her life and family to the cause, only to wind up an embittered wench who—upon actually living in the U.S.S.R.—ranted that the “paradise” they were promised was really a hell-on-earth.
So again, not only is “The Death of Trotsky” an entertaining 20th-Century history, but its take on the dark side of idealism puts it alongside such acidic works as “The White Pill” (2022) and “The Way Back” (film, 2010).
Yes, the true-believers thought the movement would rebirth humanity itself. It only took their lifetimes to realize they were had.
P.S.
After reading “The Death of Trotsky” I watched the 1972 film “The Assassination of Trotsky,” in which Richard Burton portrays him. Despite that novelty, TAoT is acknowledged as one of the worst movies ever made. Having seen it, I don’t disagree.
Upon reading it, though, I was pleased that not only was it a good telling of the titular incident, it also contained something deeper: an indictment of the biggest infatuation with communism history has ever seen.
Whether intentionally or un-, Josh Ireland’s TDoT captures a time when otherwise intelligent people were swept up in a craze that promised nothing short of a new reality. People the world over embraced the movement’s promises so much they eagerly gave up their freedoms, their families, and, in some cases, their lives.
But, we know how it ends (they should’ve too, IMO): regret… Consider these examples from the book:
A) An aged Trotsky, exiled half a world away from his beloved homeland, bemoaning the Soviet Union had become little more than a violent, “privileged bureaucracy.”
B) His assassin, many years later, reluctantly admitting he and his brethren were “deceived.”
C) And perhaps most striking, the assassin’s mother: a woman that passionately gave her life and family to the cause, only to wind up an embittered wench who—upon actually living in the U.S.S.R.—ranted that the “paradise” they were promised was really a hell-on-earth.
So again, not only is “The Death of Trotsky” an entertaining 20th-Century history, but its take on the dark side of idealism puts it alongside such acidic works as “The White Pill” (2022) and “The Way Back” (film, 2010).
Yes, the true-believers thought the movement would rebirth humanity itself. It only took their lifetimes to realize they were had.
P.S.
After reading “The Death of Trotsky” I watched the 1972 film “The Assassination of Trotsky,” in which Richard Burton portrays him. Despite that novelty, TAoT is acknowledged as one of the worst movies ever made. Having seen it, I don’t disagree.
October 7, 2026
: Two big books about the assassination of Trotsky have been published this year — the most heinous political assassination of the 20th century continues to fascinate people. I have obviously read more than a little about the plot, but nothing quite as detailed as this book. Josh Ireland relies almost entirely on published sources, with only a sprinkling of new archival material about Ramón Mercader's time in a Mexican prison.
I was most interested in the duo that carried out the plan: Caridad Mercader and her son Ramón, two eccentric, declassed bourgeois who became enamored with Stalinism without any connection to the working class. When she later settled in the Soviet Union, Caridad hated life there and threatened to kill herself until she was allowed to leave.
Ramón said in interrogations that he had to kill Trotsky because he otherwise would have been won over. Trotsky does seem to have been slightly naive about his personal security — his guards had strongly advised him never to be alone in his room with a stranger — but he had enormous faith in his ideas and their power to convince people. As his grandson Esteban Volkov pointed out, Stalin would always have found another way to kill his nemesis.
The NKVD officer in charge of the plot, Naum Eitingon, was later purged by Stalin as a supposed Zionist agent. If today's Stalinists believe Stalin's accusations, that means they think Trotsky was murdered… by Zionism? Shouldn't they then defend Trotsky? Then again, this was at a time when Stalin was supporting Zionism, so it's all terribly confusing.
Ireland portrays Trotsky as an isolated, crotchety old man, meaning that Stalin's obsession with killing him and everyone even remotely connected to him was irrational. Yet Trotsky was one of the last representatives of the generation that led the October Revolution, and as a potential symbol of proletarian discontent with the Soviet bureaucracy, he was indeed a threat to Stalin's rule.
I was most interested in the duo that carried out the plan: Caridad Mercader and her son Ramón, two eccentric, declassed bourgeois who became enamored with Stalinism without any connection to the working class. When she later settled in the Soviet Union, Caridad hated life there and threatened to kill herself until she was allowed to leave.
Ramón said in interrogations that he had to kill Trotsky because he otherwise would have been won over. Trotsky does seem to have been slightly naive about his personal security — his guards had strongly advised him never to be alone in his room with a stranger — but he had enormous faith in his ideas and their power to convince people. As his grandson Esteban Volkov pointed out, Stalin would always have found another way to kill his nemesis.
The NKVD officer in charge of the plot, Naum Eitingon, was later purged by Stalin as a supposed Zionist agent. If today's Stalinists believe Stalin's accusations, that means they think Trotsky was murdered… by Zionism? Shouldn't they then defend Trotsky? Then again, this was at a time when Stalin was supporting Zionism, so it's all terribly confusing.
Ireland portrays Trotsky as an isolated, crotchety old man, meaning that Stalin's obsession with killing him and everyone even remotely connected to him was irrational. Yet Trotsky was one of the last representatives of the generation that led the October Revolution, and as a potential symbol of proletarian discontent with the Soviet bureaucracy, he was indeed a threat to Stalin's rule.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews