Leon Trotsky — Part 1/5: ''The Russian Revolution''

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION After the events of Bloody Sunday (1905), Trotsky secretly returned to Russia in February 1905. At first he wrote leaflets for an underground printing press in Kiev, but soon moved to the capital, Saint Petersburg. There he worked with both Bolsheviks like Central Committee member Leonid Krasin as well as the local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, was betrayed by a secret police agent in May. Trotsky had to flee to rural Finland where he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution until October, when a nationwide strike made it possible for him to return to St. Petersburg. After returning to the capital, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper Russian Gazette and increased its circulation to 500,000. Trotsky also co-founded Nachalo ("The Beginning") with Parvus, which proved to be very successful. Trotsky and other Soviet leaders were put on trial in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion. At the trial, Trotsky delivered some of the best speeches of his life and solidified his reputation as an effective public speaker, which he confirmed in 1917-1920. He was convicted and sentenced to deportation. In August 7, 1917 (New Style) Trotsky was arrested again after an unsuccessful pro-Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd, but was released 40 days later in the aftermath of the failed counter-revolutionary uprising by Lavr Kornilov. After the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky was elected Chairman on October 8 (New Style). He sided with Lenin against Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Josef Stalin when the Bolshevik Central Committee discussed staging an armed uprising and he led the efforts to overthrow the Provisional Government headed by Aleksandr Kerensky. By the end of 1917, Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and published the secret treaties previously signed by the Triple Entente that detailed plans for post-war reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders. Trotsky was the head of the Soviet delegation during the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk between December 22, 1917 and February 10, 1918.