Leon Trotsky was born 100 years ago. Along with Lenin he became a hero of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the creator of the Red Army. Deported by Stalin in 1928, he was finally murdered with an ice-pick by a hired assassin in Mexico. Nicknamed 'The Pen' for his brilliant writings, Trotsky was also a forceful orator, a talented historian and a literary critic. But how effective was he as a politician? Why was he so easily outmanoeuvred by Stalin?
Professor Alee Nove makes his own assessment of the man who was once described as 'a son of a bitch, but the greatest Jew since Jesus Christ' - with contributions from E.H. Carr, Trotsky's grandson, and some of the secretaries and bodyguards who shared his last unhappy years in exile.