Original subtitles

August the 20th, 1940.

Coyoacan, Mexico City.

Two men enter this house.

The older sits down at this desk to read.

Suddenly his trusted companion pulls out a vicious -looking ice pick and buries

it in his skull.

For more than ten years, one of the world's most notorious revolutionaries

been on the run.

Now an assassin has caught up with him.

October 1920, Moscow.

Leon Trotsky's finest hour, driving his men on to defeat the enemies who had

seemed about to crush the infant Soviet regime.

The second most powerful man in the new Soviet Union, he is the obvious

successor to an exhausted Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

But even now he is a marked man.

The colleague who will one day hound him to death is already planning his first

move.

Leon Trotsky is born in 1889 as Lev Davidovich Bronstein, son of a wealthy

Jewish farmer in the Ukraine.

While at high school in Nikolaev, he gets involved in revolutionary anti

-Tsarist activities and becomes a Marxist.

In January 1898, the 19 -year -old Bronstein is arrested and spends two

in the St. Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, awaiting trial.

While in prison, he marries Alexandra Sololowska, a fellow Marxist. And in

both are exiled to Siberia.

There, Bronstein is impressed by articles by an exiled Marxist, Vladimir

in the London -based Marxist newspaper, Iskra.

And when in 1902 he escapes using a false passport under the name of Leon

Trotsky, He heads for the British capital.

Once there, he joins other Marxist exiles.

Initially, Trotsky, as he now calls himself, supports the Menshevik faction,

want a broad -based socialist revolution against the minority Bolsheviks, led by

Vladimir Lenin, who want an elite group to lead a working -class revolution.

In 1905, Russia plunges into turmoil after a disastrous defeat in a war

Japan.

January the 22nd, 1905.

On Bloody Sunday, Tsarist troops massacre several hundred peaceful

they march on the Winter Palace.

Believing that revolution is near, Trotsky returns secretly to his

By December, he has been arrested again.

but again escapes in January 1907 while on the way back to Siberia.

This time he settles in Vienna and finds a newspaper, Pravda, or Truth.

When World War I breaks out, Trotsky flees from Vienna to France.

Deported to Spain in 1916 for anti -war activities, he is then moved on again to

the United States.

As the war which will make Trotsky a world -famous figure breaks out, the man

who will one day be the instrument of his death is born in Barcelona.

He is the son of a wealthy father, but a mother who is an ardent communist.

They soon part, and Ramon Mercado is brought up by her in France.

In February 1917, military disaster and economic collapse... lead to the

overthrow of the Tsarist regime and the establishment of a provisional social

democratic government led by Alexander Kerensky.

Again convinced that the hour of revolution has come, Trotsky returns to

as quickly as possible.

Among the other Marxists who also return are Lenin, who has been living in

neutral Switzerland, and the man who is to be Trotsky's nemesis, the Georgian

Josef Stalin.

who has been in internal exile in Siberia.

By October, Trotsky has been elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of

and joins Lenin in planning a coup to overthrow the provisional government.

November 7, 1917.

Petrograd, Russia.

The storming of the Winter Palace marks the beginning of Soviet rule.

Trotsky then becomes the effective number two to Lenin as the Bolsheviks

their grip on government.

Joseph Stalin plays a much smaller part in the seizure of power. At this stage,

he's seen as a hard worker, but not a future leader.

In December, Felix Dzerzhinsky founds the Cheka secret police.

Trotsky becomes People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and leads the Soviet

during peace negotiations with the Germans at Brest -Litovsk.

When these break down, the Germans renew their offensive and then impose a

punitive treaty which removes the whole of the Ukraine from Soviet control.

Trotsky resigns as Commissar for Foreign Affairs but takes control of the armed

forces.

On August 30, 1918, Lenin is shot and seriously wounded by Fanny Kaplan.

At the suggestion of Josef Stalin, the Cheka begins a red terror to root out

opposition.

The following year, the Communist International, or Comintern, is formed

promote the spread of communism around the world.

By now, forces loyal to the former Tsar have begun to take control of large

parts of Russia, backed by its former allies, Britain, France, and the United

States.

For the next two years, civil war rages.

Trotsky takes the lead in organizing a Red Army and defeating the pro -Tsarist

White Army.

Allied with Dzerzhinsky, he uses increasingly savage measures to save the

Bolshevik regime, and begins a feud with Yossi Stalin, who has become the

leading commissar in southern Russia.

With the defeat of the last white Russian forces in late 1920, Trotsky is

charge of rebuilding the Soviet transportation system.

He disagrees with Lenin over the need to build socialism in one country, before

trying to ferment communist revolutions in other countries.

Stalin uses this opportunity to undermine Trotsky's position as Lenin's

successor.

In March 1921, Trotsky supervises the suppression of a mutiny at the naval

at Kronstadt.

It is the last major rising against the Bolshevik government.

But the devastation caused by the civil war means that the Soviet Union is now

facing widespread famine.

In desperation, Lenin introduces a new economic policy allowing limited private

ownership in an attempt to rally the peasants and landowners and increase

production.

Trotsky is frequently away from Moscow, supervising the vital rebuilding of the

railway system.

He fails to appreciate the steady rise of his arch -enemy Stalin.

who, in April 1922, becomes General Secretary of the Central Committee of

Communist Party, the spider at the centre of the web of Soviet state

Thus, when on May 26, 1922, Lenin suffers the first of a series of strokes

leave him increasingly sidelined, Stalin is in prime position to start edging

Trotsky out.

He forms an alliance with Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev, and when, on

10th, 1923, Lenin's third stroke effectively removes him from power, this

effectively controls the government and party apparatus.

Trotsky, however, is still in control of the armed forces, so the situation is

evenly balanced.

January 21st, 1924.

Moscow.

When Lenin dies, Trotsky is far away in the Caucasus.

He misses the funeral because Stalin tells him an incorrect date.

For the rest of the year, Trotsky remains the most prominent and popular

Bolshevik leader, but he is becoming increasingly isolated.

Stalin has adopted Lenin's belief that the regime must concentrate on building

socialism in one country, and this gives him an ideological base from which to

attack. Trotsky's desire for permanent revolution internationally.

By January 1925, Trotsky has been forced to resign as Commissar for War.

He has given a series of ever more unimportant jobs and is increasingly

the leader of opposition to Stalin.

Then, in October 1926, Trotsky loses his seat on the Politburo, the core of the

Soviet government.

Stalin starts using the secret police, now called the NKVD, against his

opponents, but still does not dare strike directly at Trotsky.

A year later, Stalin makes his move.

Trotsky and Zinoviev are expelled from the Central Committee, and then on

November 12, 1927, from the Communist Party altogether.

Barely three months later, in January 1928, Trotsky is exiled to Alma -Ata in

Kazakhstan with his wife Natalia Sedova and son Leon Sedov.

Stalin now adopts much more extreme policies.

The first five -year plan for rapid industrialization, the compulsory

collectivization of agriculture, and forcible dispossession of major

the kulaks.

By February 1929, He's feeling secure enough to have Trotsky deported from the

Soviet Union to Turkey.

He settles near Istanbul and begins to write and speak out against Stalin,

helped by Natalia and Leon Sedov.

Soon Stalin realizes that letting his greatest critic go abroad and become a

focus for communists opposed to his rules has been a mistake.

He begins trying to infiltrate Trotsky's immediate entourage.

In 1933, Trotsky is offered asylum in France by the socialist government of

Edouard Deladier.

In that same year, the pressure on Stalin's regime increases when the

anti -Bolshevik Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.

He makes no secret of his determination to rebuild the military power of

Russia's former enemy.

During 1935, a change of government in France obliges Trotsky to move to

In the same year, Ramón Mercado emerges from obscurity when he is arrested in

Barcelona and accused of setting up a communist cell.

He is released in 1936 when the Popular Front wins a democratic election.

Meanwhile, the threat of Trotsky's life is becoming more direct.

In Moscow, Stalin begins mass purges and show trials of his most prominent

enemies.

Trotsky is tried in absentia as a traitor alongside Kamenev and Zinoviev

condemned to death.

They are both executed and a price put on Trotsky's head.

While Stalin's great terror is convulsing Moscow, civil war begins in

General Francisco Franco begins a revolt against the democratically elected

government.

The civil war intensifies as Hitler and Mussolini send weapons and troops to

help Franco.

In response, the Republican government appeals first to France and Britain, and

after they reject it, to the Soviet Union.

Weapons and advisers are sent by Stalin.

Mercada is among the thousands who flock to support the Republican cause.

And through his communist connections, he is soon involved with the Soviet

advisers.

In 1937, under pressure from the Soviet government, Norwegian Foreign Minister

Trygve Lie has Trotsky put under house arrest and then deported to Mexico.

He is warmly welcomed by Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas and stays at

with the left -wing painter Diego Rivera.

Shortly after his arrival in Mexico, Trotsky founds the Fourth International

a revolutionary and internationalist alternative to the Stalinist Comintern.

This act is seen by Stalin as a direct attack and is probably the moment when

decides that Trotsky must be assassinated.

In the NKVD headquarters of the Lubyanka in Moscow, planning begins.

During 1937, while Trotsky is stepping up his criticism of Stalin, Mercado is

wounded during fighting near Madrid.

When he recovers, he's sent in December to Moscow for training as an NKVD

hitman. He is given the codename Gnome.

To carry out the death sentence passed on Trotsky, Mercado, with his fluent

Spanish and French, is selected by the NKVD to infiltrate Trotsky's entourage

a possible assassin.

Sylvia Agaloff, a 28 -year -old New York Trotskyist who has undertaken courier

work for Trotsky, is identified as the way he will get close to his target.

In July 1938, Agaloff visits Paris for the formal setting up of the Fourth

International.

There she is picked up by Mercado.

posing as a wealthy young Belgian playboy and journalist, and begins an

with him.

By the end of 1938, the purges halt.

Nikolai Yezhov is replaced as head of the NKVD by Lavrentiy Beria, and then

liquidated.

But the hunt for Trotsky goes on, and Beria proves an implacable enemy.

The net begins to close when Trotsky's son Leon Fedor dies mysteriously in

after a routine operation for appendicitis.

In 1939, Trotsky quarrels with Rivera and moves into his own house in the

City suburb of Coyoacan.

It is guarded by the Mexican police and by supporters, particularly young

communist sympathizers from the U .S.

In February 1939, Sylvia Agalof returns to New York.

Roman Mercado follows her just after World War II breaks out.

He is using a false Canadian passport in the name of Frank Jackson.

Meanwhile, Trotsky signs a contract with a New York publisher to write a

biography of Stalin.

In this, he will literally reveal where all the bodies are buried.

The plot to assassinate him moves into a higher gear.

October 6, 1939.

Mercado leaves New York and enters Mexico overland at the Laredo border

six days later.

He links up with David Alfaro Figueros, an arch -Stalinist Mexican painter who

is already working with NKVD agents on a plan to kill Trotsky.

In January 1940, Sylvia Agalof joins Mercado in Mexico City.

Through her, he begins to visit Trotsky's house frequently.

becoming friendly with the guard.

While Mercader is infiltrating Trotsky's fortress as Robert Jackson, the NKVD

agents decide to try a more direct approach, the assault they have been

with David Sigieros.

On the night of May 24, 1940, they approach the house disguised as police

army and overcome the police guard outside.

The door is opened by Robert Sheldon Hart, a young American acting as one of

Trotsky's secretaries, possibly deliberately, possibly because he was

the uniforms.

The assailants riddle Trotsky's bedroom with gunfire, but he and Natalia escape

by hiding under their bed.

Only his grandson, Esteban, who is sleeping nearby, is grazed on the leg by

bullet.

The gunmen escape by stealing two cars.

Sheldon Hart goes with them, apparently willingly.

The Mexican police, led by the head of the Secret Service, General Sanchez

Salazar, at first think that the attack was faked by Trotsky, but they soon

realize that it was organized by the NKVD.

During the investigation, Salazar raids a deserted farmhouse in the Desert of

the Lions, about 12 miles from Mexico City.

The body of Sheldon Hart, shot through the head, is found buried.

After this, the wall is heightened and watchtowers built around Trotsky's home.

Now Mercado, alias Jackson, is told that he is the man who will get through

Trotsky's defenses and kill him.

June the 12th, New York.

Mercado visits the city to be briefed on the assassination.

While there, he sees Sylvia Agalof, but leaves on July 1st, saying that he is

going straight back to Mexico City.

Mysteriously, he does not contact Sylvia again until the end of July, saying

that he had been ill in Puebla, a town about 50 miles south of Mexico City.

At the beginning of August, Sylvia rejoins him in Mexico.

They stay at the Hotel Monejo on the Paseo.

During the next three weeks, Mercado visits Trotsky's house five times.

And on August the 8th, he and Sylvia have tea with Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky.

August the 17th, 1940, Coyoacan.

Mercado sees Trotsky to show him an article he has written.

They agree to meet again three days later to discuss it.

The trap is now set.

August 20th, 1940.

Coyoacan.

Trotsky spends most of the day writing in his study.

In the afternoon, after tea, he goes out to feed the hens and rabbits he keeps

as pets.

At about five o 'clock, Mercado arrives by car and is let in by the guards.

He goes to greet Trotsky.

They go into the study so that Trotsky can read the article.

As Trotsky sits at this desk with his back to his companion, Mercada pulls out

an ice pick and strikes him on the head with it.

Although severely wounded, Trotsky screams and leaps to his feet to grapple

Mercada.

Mrs. Trotsky and the guards race in.

Bleeding severely, Trotsky cries out, Don't kill him. Make him talk.

The guards beat Mercada to his knees with their pistol butts and hold him

the police arrive, as well as the ice pick, Mercado is found to have an

automatic pistol and a dagger with a 12 -inch blade.

Meanwhile, Trotsky collapses and is rushed to hospital, bleeding heavily but

still breathing.

Mercado is also taken to the same hospital and then on to prison.

All he says is, they've got something on me. They're keeping my mother as a

prisoner.

In the ambulance, he produces an already typed confession.

In this, Jackson, as the police are calling him, claims to be Jacques

Belgian born in Tehran in 1904, the son of a diplomat.

At first an enthusiastic Trotskyist, he claims he is so disillusioned by

Trotsky's close links with Americans that he decides to kill him.

General Salazar soon disproves all this.

There is no record of a Jacques Monarch.

When Sophie Agaloff confronts Mercado, alias Jackson, she denounces him as a

Soviet agent.

His fake passport is identified as coming from a Canadian who had died

on the Republican side in Spain.

The curious spelling of his alias, Jackson, without a K, is due to the

carelessness of the NKVD forger who doctored it.

Trotsky is operated on immediately and seems to be responding well.

but the next evening he relapses into unconsciousness and dies suddenly.

His body lies in state for five days, during which over a quarter of a million

people file past to pay their respects.

Then he is cremated and his ashes interred under this simple memorial in

garden of his home in Coyoacan.

After lengthy psychological tests and questioning, Jackson is put on trial.

and sentenced to 20 years in 1943.

He continues to refuse to talk and cannot be broken.

But then, in 1950, the mystery begins to unravel.

In Madrid, Jackson's fingerprints are matched with those of Ramón Mercada, who

had disappeared at the end of the Spanish Civil War.

Mercada spends 20 years in prison.

Stalin secretly awards him the Order of Lenin.

May 6, 1960.

He is released from prison and goes first to Fidel Castro's Cuba and then on

Czechoslovakia.

In 1961, Mercado goes to Moscow. He is declared a hero of the Soviet Union, one

of only 21 non -Soviet citizens ever to receive this honor.

Mercado dies in Cuba in 1978.

To the end, he remains loyal to Stalin, the master for whom he carried out a

ruthless crime.

Stalin is remembered today as one of the worst mass murderers in history, a

monster for whom Trotsky was only one of millions he had slaughtered.

But Stalin was right to be frightened of his great opponent.

Today, he is reviled. But Trotsky... is still revered by many as the man who

might have led the Soviet Union into a less dreadful future.