Leon Trotsky - Exile (1929–1940)

Exile (1929–1940)

Trotsky was deported from the Soviet Union in February 1929. His first station in exile was at Büyükada off the coast of Istanbul, Turkey, where he stayed for the next four years. He was at risk from the many former White Army officers in the city, who had opposed the Bolshevik Revolution, but Trotsky's European supporters volunteered to serve as bodyguards and assured his safety.

In 1933 Trotsky was offered asylum in France by Prime Minister Édouard Daladier. He stayed first at Royan, then at Barbizon. He was not allowed in Paris, though he did visit the city in secret during December 1933, to meet with various political allies. The philosopher and activist Simone Weil arranged for Trotsky and his bodyguards to stay for a few days at her parents house. In 1935 he was told he was no longer welcome in France. After weighing alternatives, he moved to Norway. Having obtained permission from then Justice Minister Trygve Lie to enter the country, Trotsky became a guest of Konrad Knudsen near Oslo. After two years he was put under house arrest, allegedly because of Soviet influence on the government. His transfer to Mexico by freighter was arranged after consultations with Norwegian officials. The Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas welcomed Trotsky and arranged for a special train to bring him to Mexico City from the port of Tampico.

Trotsky lived in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City at the home (The Blue House) of the painter Diego Rivera and Rivera's wife and fellow painter, Frida Kahlo, with whom Trotsky had an affair. His final move was a few blocks away to a residence on Avenida Viena in May 1939, following a break with Rivera.

He wrote prolifically in exile, penning several key works, including his History of the Russian Revolution (1930) and The Revolution Betrayed (1936), a critique of the Soviet Union under Stalinism. Trotsky argued that the Soviet state had become a “degenerated workers' state” controlled by an undemocratic bureaucracy, which would eventually either be overthrown via a political revolution establishing a workers' democracy, or degenerate into a capitalist class.

While in Mexico, Trotsky also worked closely with James P. Cannon, Joseph Hansen, and Farrell Dobbs of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, and other supporters.

Cannon, a long-time leading member of the American communist movement, had supported Trotsky in the struggle against Stalinism since he first read Trotsky's criticisms of the Soviet Union in 1928. Trotsky's critique of the Stalinist regime, though banned, was distributed to leaders of the Comintern. Among his other supporters was Chen Duxiu, founder of the Chinese Communist Party.