It was known as “Operation Pato”: a whole strategy implemented by the secret services of the Soviet Union of José Stalin to get rid of one of its clearest enemies: León Trotsky, where the name of Ramón Mercader del Río appeared as the ace up his sleeve, if the first plan failed, headed by David Alfaro Siqueiros, as historian Olivia Gall recalls.
“The KGB archives have not been opened and it will be difficult for them to open them, of which we would surely have finer details of many things. But there is no room for interpretation: Mercader was one of the letters that the KGB had up its sleeve in case Siqueiros’s attempt on Trotsky’s life failed. That letter was the one that came into play, ”says the researcher, 80 years after the assassination of León Trotsky.
Although eight decades have passed, the figure of Trotsky still arouses multiple looks. In addition to being one of the two main leaders of the greatest socialist-type revolution of the 20th century, the October Revolution in Russia, for Olivia Gall he was quite an important intellectual, who wrote on very different topics, not always political matters, but also humanism, philosophy, art.
“He was a man of a very great culture, who read in several languages, even dictated in several languages. He was very rigorous in what he studied and how he later converted it into thought. A not only political figure, but also a cultural and intellectual figure quite well known in the 20th century. That, to a large extent, causes his figure to continue to be debated ”.
The doctor in political history recognized in an interview with M2 that a figure like Trotsky’s continues to be important not only because he was the main opponent of the Stalin regime, but because there are still those who wonder how to make the revolutions that want a world better “do not end in a disaster that goes in the opposite direction.”
“Many historians have written about Trotsky: some according to his figure, others against; some are very serious in their research and analysis, and others are so ideological that they just fail to be good historians. I think a lot has been written about him, I can’t say what is missing, but it is important to continue talking about the character and his position, because in many contexts he is not treated fairly; for example, in Russia today he has not been rehabilitated ”, according to Olivia Gall.
There are very strong controversies around the character, which are still valid in many ways and define him as one of the great figures of that strong historical moment. At present there are political currents that are absolutely contrary to Marxism and that are going to criticize it, generally, for its theoretical and political positions.
“There are also currents within Marxism that do not agree with the way in which Trotsky theorized or led his political current, such as traditional communist currents, which continue to support Stalin’s experiment in government, despite the repression,” he warns the author of the book Trotsky in Mexico: and political life in the Cárdenas period, 1937-1940.
Regarding the figure of Ramón Mercader del Río, the murderer of León Trotsky, Olivia Gall considers that there is already very little to find about him: although his identity was not known for 10 years, because he had several aliases, thanks to a work of The Mexican police, together with the European, could determine his name and that he was Catalan.
“He was an agent of the Soviet secret police services, there is no doubt about that. Leonardo Padura portrays the story of how he approached the Trotsky House very well in the novel The man who loved the dogs. There is also no doubt in the fact that she was in Mexican prisons for 20 years and then Cuba gave her refuge. It is something that has already been proven ”.
A DIFFERENT LOOK
On the other side is a look like that of Alberto Ruy Sánchez, who in the novel The serpent’s dreams he undertook the task of reconstructing a part of that history from the perspective of literature, without neglecting historical documents. The author is convinced that what happened with Trotsky is part of any scheme of authoritarian governments.
“A revolutionary group, which is totalitarian, always executes its comrades first: it classifies them as a disease, names them adversaries, persecutes them and kills them. That is a natural scheme of any authoritarian government. The issue continues to be important, because the same mechanism that led to Trotsky’s assassination occurs in all persecution of criticism, of members of a society who criticize totalitarian power. It is reviewed by Hanna Arendt in Origins of totalitarianism, a fundamental book to understand what the world is going through ”.
Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s proposal is to see the dark side of León Trotsky: it has been proven that he fought with the hegemony of the Russian revolution, but people who want to believe think that he was another Bolshevik, “another type of tyrant who did not reach the power, because they killed him, would have been a better tyrant than the other, but it is the illusion of voluntary servitude.
“Against all the rebellions called by the armies, Trotsky had a moment when in a week he killed 1,800 people and that is proven, but it is still a symptom of voluntary servitude, of processes that we still see today, from Trump to Bolsonaro ”.
Much has been written about the figure of Leon Trotsky, both in history books and in novels; there are even stories of his love affairs with Frida Kahlo, but he remains a figure for whom the nuances are not enough. There are very few grays, which is reflected eight decades after Ramón Mercader unloaded an ice ax at Trotsky’s head.
PLUS
NETFLIX SERIES, “A TRENDING VERSION”
The approaches to the life of the Russian revolutionary remain, especially the controversy regarding the look that is offered, as is the case of the series produced and broadcast by Netflix, “partly the responsibility of the Russian government”, according to Olivia Gall, who defines it as “a scandal, because it is tendentious, conspiratorial, absolutely disgusting.”
“Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done, in order to treat the character fairly: one can agree with him or not, question how current is what was proposed for today, but it is not worth deforming it and not treating it historically with the fairness that any person deserves, especially a figure with these dimensions ”, according to the researcher.
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