Why was trotsky murdered with an ice axe?

Question

Was this supposed to be symbollic or something? Why not a gun or poison? It seems strange to me that one would bring an ice axe to mexico, but I'm asking as I assume there is more to the story than I know.

Answer 1

It was an Ice axe indeed. The reason is simple. The house that Leon Trotsky bought near Mexico City, in the town of Coyoacan (nowadays it is part of Mexico City) was turn into a fortress.

it is quite easy to read that Stalin had one of his ghouls kill Trotsky, but it was not that simple. Trotsky had strong ties to the Mexican Government, specially to the presindent in office, Lazaro Cardenas. He visited mexico as a representativo of Lenin in the mid-twenties, and as a result when Stalin chased him out of europe, his natural choice was Mexico.

He bought a house, which is still standing on a square piece of land. One of the sides faced a river, Rio Churubusco, the other three faced two streets and an ochard in a very secluded part of a beautiful little town. Many foreigners, and many rich mexicans lived in this area at the time, It was more of a weekend spot, so they kew every person that might be around.

The house was already surrounded by a big wall, being this the custom in mexico for upscale homes, and he transformed it into a fortress. Vigilance towers were built on each corner, four snipers on each one at every time, on 12 hour shifts. the house's walls, built of volcanic stone, were covered with steel plates and then again with brick and mortar, becoming almost 6 feet wide at some points. Four more snipers were perched on the roof at all times, and the garden was attended by two gardeners and 2 assistants, which were in fact bodyguards.

The doors vere bank vault type, made from thick steel plates, and Trotsky's room does not have a window, and the two doors that can open into it, can be shut from the inside with six steel deadbolts each.

Asides from Trotsky's Russian security personnel, Mexican Army's troops patroled arond the block, al day long, non-stop. and the Mexican secret police had the house under surveillance at all times.

Mercader posed as a journalist, he had to gain Trotsky's trust, and he was frisked everytime that he went into the house. At first, the meetings were with Trotsky speaking through a small orifice on his bedroom door, and a bodyguard standing by Mercader on the other side; after several months, and with the intervention of the Mexican Comunist Party, Trotski started to trust in Mercader, and eventually they met for coffee on Trotski's garden every afternoon.

One day Trotsky wanted Mercader to see something he was writing, and invited Mercader to join him in his room, where his working space was set. As Mercader had been frisked and removed of most of his belongings as he came into the house, he looked for a weapon in Trotsky's room, he saw the ice axe, took it from a bookcase, and struck Trotsky's head with it, at least 5 times in the back of the skull.

He tried to flee the scene, only to be shot to death by one of the bodyguards. Leon Trotsky was prompted to a hospital and died almost a week later.

Answer 2

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RE:
Why was trotsky murdered with an ice axe?
Was this supposed to be symbollic or something? Why not a gun or poison? It seems strange to me that one would bring an ice axe to mexico, but I'm asking as I assume there is more to the story than I know.

Answer 3

Trotsky Icepick

Answer 4

From a 1980 article by Lynn Walsh. The entire article can be found at the source link:

Personally, I believe that he was the best of the bunch.

On 20 August, 1940, Trotsky was struck a fatal blow with an ice-pick by Ramon Mercader, an agent sent to Mexico by Stalin's secret police (the GPU) to murder the exiled revolutionary—alongside Lenin, the leader of the October revolution, the founder and leader of the Red Army, and the co-founder of the Third, Communist International.
Trotsky's assassination was not just a malicious after-thought on the part of Stalin.
It was the culmination of a systematic and bloody terror directed against a whole generation of Bolshevik leaders, and against the young revolutionaries of a second generation prepared to defend the genuine ideas of Marxism against the bureaucratic, repressive regime developing under Stalin.
By the time the GPU reached Trotsky in 1940, they had already murdered— or driven to suicide—many members of Trotsky's family, scores of his closest friends and collaborators, and countless numbers of the leaders and supporters of the International Left Opposition.
Despite the murder of a whole generation of Bolshevik-Leninists, however, and the bureaucracy's Herculean efforts to bury the ideas and historical personality of Trotsky under a mountain of distort ions, lies, slanders, and grotesque historical fabrication, Trotsky's ideas have never had more relevance or more appeal to working-class activists than they have today, at the beginning of the 1980s, when there is unmistakably a perspective of new revolutionary developments in the advanced capitalist countries, the underdeveloped lands of the ex-colonial world, and the deformed workers' states of Russia and Eastern Europe.

Answer 5

I don't know but he was bumped off because Stalin feared that he would rise to power above him so Trotsky was murdered "mafia style." Lenin's last note mentions that Stalin shouldn't have too much power because of his personality (he suggested that Trotsky should be in power instead).

Stalin was paranoid and had his closest advisors killed to make sure they weren't too powerful. This is ironic, considering that in his earlier years, Stalin hated priviledge and several years later, he instilled a blood purge of his government advisors to make sure that he was top dog of Soviet Russia.

Answer 6

Leon Trotsky Assassination

Answer 7

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The weapon was recovered from the scene. it was an Ice Pick - fairly small - used to break down the large blocks of ice. Then and there there were very few domestic freezers so people who wanted ice in their drinks (or wanted to make ice cream) bought large blocks of ice made in the city and sold round the streets. Any middle class household (and oh boy was Leon a wannabe mittel class lad) had an ice pick.

Answer 8

I just want to comment to the 1st answer: "He tried to flee the scene, only to be shot to death by one of the bodyguards"- excuse me, but Ramon Mercader was NOT shot dead by anybody. He peacefully died in 1978 in Havana and is buried in Moscow. In 1961 he was released from prison and awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader
Also, Trotsky didn't spend the whole week in a hospital after the attack, but died the next day. So, I wonder how much of the other information you have provided is actually accurate and how much is just your own fantasy.

Answer 9

It seems odd to me.

Why not a real axe?

I'm sure it was a symbolic murder/assassination

Hoever, I feel that becuase several attempts were botched, something more direct to ensure Leon's demise was suggested.

Answer 10

alas, poor leonid (leon), i knew him well---"one of the boys", if you catch my drift, and a scorpio, to boot. certainly not a dull fellow. showed no interest in nascar, at all, or fundamentalist religion. as i recall, one of stalin's henchperson's killed him. i am not aware of any sybolism, but it was an unusual choice. stalin, a true psychopath, who makes karl rove look like mother teresa, may have given instructions to make the event as unpleasant as possible--he had a very sadistic streak, afterall.