The Lubitz TrotskyanaNet – Leon Trotsky – Trotsky Museum

Trotsky Museum: past and present ^*

Contents

• Trotsky in Mexico
• 19 Avenida Viena
• A day in the Trotsky’s life
• Shots in the darkness
• The final assault
• The house in Coyoacan after Trotsky’s death
• The Leon Trotsky Museum
• Lack of resources
• Leon Trotsky Museum at present
• Final thoughts
• Bibliography
• Notes

“We had rented a large ramshackle residence in Coyoacán, which we succinctly rebuild; it was surrounded by a quite spacious yard whose old trees, during the morning, were filled with birds singing […] We build a wall that surrounded the property. The visitor enters through a solid iron door […] One enters going through a garden full of powerful cactus and agaves, dominated high above by fronds […]”



Natalia Sedova, in Victor Serge: The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky, 1951.

Trotsky in Mexico

The warm and bright morning of January 9, 1937 an oil tanker called Ruth, coming from Norway, anchored in the Mexican port of Tampico, in the Atlantic coast. Among the few crew members that the tanker transported was an illustrious and controversial passenger: the revolutionary leader and Marxist ideologist born in Ukraine in 1879, Leon Davidovich Trotsky. Twenty years before, his propaganda and political leader activities had decisively contributed to the victory of an event that shook the world: the October Revolution.

Banned from the Soviet Union by Stalin’s bureaucracy in February 1929, Trotsky, along with his wife, Natalia Sedova, lived until December 1936 in three different countries: Turkey, France and Norway. During his exile, the revolutionary stood up for the Bolshevik principles and fought ideologically and politically against Stalinism. Besides, he dedicated himself to organize his Russian and foreign followers to support an International Opposition. 

Certain that the Comintern and Communist Party of the Soviet Union wouldn’t go back to the proletarian internationalism path and the workers democracy, Trotsky – since 1933 – suggested the need of founding a new International. He, as well, stated that only the development of a new worker-oriented political revolution could revert the process of bureaucratic degeneration and hinder the re-establishment of capitalism in the USSR. These ideas were presented along with a handful of important theoretical works and political documents elaborated in the Thirties.

Around those days, in the Soviet Union, Stalin intended to eliminate every vestige of inside opposition to his regime and annihilate the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. Looking forward to accomplish his purposes, in August 1936, he ordered the opening of the Moscow Trials, a legal farce that sent the most distinguished personalities among the old leaders of the Bolshevik Party to court. They were syndicated of serving foreign powers and conspiring against the USSR. The name Trotsky was constantly mentioned in all the confessions of the accused people, presenting him as the organizer of the terrorist conspiracy, and allied of the German secret police and the Japanese empire. Additionally, Trotsky’s son, Leon Sedov was presented as his main collaborator.

Just informed of the execution of the first trial, Trotsky wrote from Norway, the country where he had lived as a political refugee since June 1935, a statement in which he qualified the accusations as "one of the greatest frauds in political history." [1]

In an attempt in trying Trotsky not to prove false the accusations from Moscow, the Norwegian socialist government, yielding to economic pressure from the Soviet Union – who had threatened to boycott Norwegian trade – ordered his domiciliary arrest. It also denied him the right to write articles about current political issues, and even to be interviewed by the press. During three months Trotsky was isolated and his correspondence was subject to censorship control. When Norwegian authorities were starting to evaluate the possibility of expulsion, no other government had offered him asylum. 

Hence, by the end of 1936, the world for Trotsky had become “the planet without a visa” (expression that the revolutionary record in the final pages of his autobiography, written in 1929) [2]. Under this pressing and totally unresting situation, Mexicans grouped in the International Communist League who identified themselves with his ideas, were informed that Trotsky’s life was in danger, so they agreed to look for a refuge for the revolutionary leader in Mexican land. In November 1936, the artist Diego Rivera and professor Octavio Fernandez personally interceded before the Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas to grant him political asylum. Soon after, in early December, General Cárdenas ordered that the Russian leader be allowed to come to Mexico as a political refugee.

That morning in the port of Tampico, Trotsky and his wife Natalia were received by a small retinue of friends and government officials. How big a surprise for the incomers when they learned that General Cárdenas had sent them the Presidential train to take them to Mexico City!

Soon after setting foot on Aztec soil, Trotsky wrote on his diary.

“The contrast between northern Norway and tropical Mexico could not only be felt in the weather. Freed from an arbitrary and nauseous atmosphere of mortal uncertainty, we are surrounded by care and hospitality.” [3]

In their new country of residence, Trotsky and Natalia had to install themselves in a spacious and colourful house, property of the father of the young painter Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera’s wife. The residence was located in 127 Avenida Londres, in Coyoacán – a suburb in Mexico City – and was known as the Blue House (currently the Frida Kahlo’s Museum) because of the colour with which the façade was pained. Trotsky and his wife lived in the Blue House most of their stay in Mexico, from January 11, 1937 to May 5, 1939 [4]. Upon the arrival of the Russian couple, and because of security measures, windows neighbouring the street were walled in with adobe bricks and a garrison of policemen was assigned as custodians to the house’s door entrance. Besides, during the night a reduced group of Mexican Trotskyists was in charge of guarding the house.

One of Trotsky’s first activities in the Latin American country was to organize his defence against all the accusations coming from Moscow. It was on April 1937 when Trotsky exercised his own defence before the Preliminary Commission of Inquiry, chaired by the American philosopher and university professor John Dewey, which was held in the main hall at Frida Kahlo’s house. Through a group of official documents and from his own testimony, Trotsky demonstrated the falseness of all the charges that had been pronounced against him. On December 1937, the Dewey Commission published its verdict, concluding that the trials in Moscow were “judicial frauds” and declaring Trotsky and Leon Sedov “not guilty”.

After concluding his self-defence, Trotsky continued analyzing the world’s political situation and displayed energy in building a new International based on the Leninist strategic and tactic principles. Since then, he committed to that mission, which he considered as the most important and transcendental in his life as a revolutionary. The small founding conference of the Fourth International was held at Périgny, France, on September 3, 1938. In this conference, a document written by Trotsky called The Transitional Programme was approved.

Besides his specific political work, Trotsky continued with his theoretical and literary activities. During his stay in Mexico, he wrote the following books: Stalin’s  Crimes (1937), meant to unmask the first two Moscow Trials; Their Morals and Ours (1938), writing that talks about the communist moral opposing the bourgeois concept of moral; In Defense of Marxism (1940) that shows the polemic with American Trotskyists Max Shachtman and James Burnham about the class nature of the Soviet State; Stalin´s Gangsters (1940), book based on writings in which Trotsky reported a conspiracy by the GPU (Soviet political police) along with Mexican Stalinist spokesmen against his life (this volume was published in Mexico on September 1940, a month after Trotsky’s assassination); and Stalin (1941) biography of the Soviet autocrat, unfinished writing of posthumous publication.     

During his three-year seven-months stay in Mexico, Trotsky had to confront permanent scathing attacks and infamies from the Mexican Communist Party and Confederation of Workers of Mexico organizations controlled by Stalinism – and of their publications, El Popular, Futuro and La Voz de México. They used all these mechanisms to accuse Trotsky of being a fascist agent, to prepare a general strike and even of organizing a foreign counterrevolutionary intervention in Mexico. Trotsky defended himself from his enemies before public opinion. 

We must not forget, that during his stay in Mexico Trotsky received two notices that caused him and his wife a profound suffering: the death of his son and main collaborator, Leon Sedov, at a hospital in Paris on February 1938 (he was poisoned by Stalin’s police agents, while recovering from an appendix surgery), and the arrest in the USSR of his youngest son, the apolitical Sergei Sedov who would be executed in 1937.

André Breton’s trip with his companion Jacqueline Lamba to Mexico in 1938 allowed the poet and the revolutionary to meet. As a result of the conversations that Trotsky, Breton and Rivera had, the manifesto For an independent Revolutionary Art was drafted. This document promoted the creation of an international organization of artists, the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art.

In the beginning of 1939, and because of political differences, Trotsky and Rivera ended their relationship. Consequently, Trotsky decided he should no longer stay at the Blue House. Thus in March, Jean van Heijenoort, Trotsky’s secretary, translator and bodyguard found in Coyoacán, near to where they had been living, an unoccupied house that was being rented and met all the requirements Trotsky and his companions were looking for: various rooms, a large garden and enclosed by a wall. In early May 1939, and after being remodeled and made habitable, the house located in Avenida Viena sheltered the new householders.

Avenida Viena 19

Located south of the Mexican capital, Coyoacán was, at the end of the Thirties, a residential area with rustic scenery. Turned into a Delegation of the Federal District in 1929, the ancient village was going through an urban transformation, counting at the time with a population estimated in 30,000 inhabitants.

In the old properties of the hacienda El Carmen, north of Coyoacán, street names were adopted from European cities and heroes from the Mexican independence. At the end of Avenida Viena, at number 19, corner with Morelos, on the Churubusco’s riverbanks, the property of the Turati’s, a merchant family, was located. Built in 1903, the mansion was by itself a recreational villa. It was solid and spacious, and a garden wall surrounded it. It had a yard inside, and two buildings formed it. To the north there was a watchtower, capped by an eagle made of metal, symbol of the Mexican coat of arms, from where one could observe the riverbank scenery; and to the south there was a one floor house in T form that had a porch and was divided into many rooms. A balustrade topped this space with huge flowers made of marble paste.

During some time, before Trotsky’s arrival, the house was used as the Instituto Óptico Científico (as shown in one of the photographs the Leon Trotsky Museum currently exhibits). It seems that around 1935, the house was unoccupied and unkempt.

In March 1939, Van Heijenoort found the house and – as he narrates – its owners were renting it at a very convenient price, but it was ruined, it even had some fallen floors. So to make it habitable and safe, besides the furniture, a series of reparations and fortifications had to be done, and it also had to be painted. A young Trotskyist worker named Melquíades Benitez, along with others, were in charge the works be carried out. 

Fortification works implied: the closure of the main access and the balcony on Avenida Viena, the upraising of the wall, and setting a new entrance door that offered more security. Along with that, a two-floor building was built next to the wall that limited the property with the Churubusco river. It was made of bricks, so that it could be as a home to the guards. Later on, a very effective alarm system and an electric device to open the door were installed. [5]

Around those days, Avenida Viena, was not paved and there were hardly any buildings, instead there were modest adobe houses at both sides. In the surroundings there were corn farms, and in the neighbouring properties near the river there were leafy eucalyptus.

On May 5, 1939, Trotsky and Natalia moved to their new home. In this place the last sixteen months of Trotsky’s life went by.

Van Heijenoort recalls:

“Trotsky felt well in his new home. Once remodeled, it didn’t lose its attractiveness. There was space. Room distribution was such that the part of the house in which Trotsky and Natalia lived was far apart and could have intimacy. Trotsky started to plant cactus, rabbit hatches were installed and it was him who took care of the rabbits every afternoon.” [6]

In the main building one could find Trotsky’s study, their bedroom and the room used as bedroom by their grandson, Seva Volkov. In the following area next to the two rooms, a bathroom and the family dressing room were built. Other areas were the kitchen, the dining room and the office destined to secretaries and guards. All these areas were soberly furnished (furniture was rustic). Trotsky’s study and the secretaries' office were soon seen full of books, and magazine collections, newspapers and mail.   

Since the construction of the building, the garden was the space around which the house developed. With Trotsky’s arrival, this was the best-cared area. The garden, planted with tall and leafy trees, was formed by large areas of grass surrounded by flowering huts. Among the species that one could find were: daisies, lilies, plantains, climbing roses and a variety of cactus that Trotsky loved to pick in his travels to Mexico. 

In the north wing were located the house of the guards, the storage room, the henhouse and the rabbit hatches.

As a safety measure, an escort of five policemen lead by sub-officer Jesús Rodríguez Casas, Chief of the Guard Service assigned to Trotsky’s house, guarded the outdoors of the house. For that purpose, at the end of the street across the building, a booth was installed for the policemen. Inside the house, among eight or ten Trotskyists kept guard, too.

In the last months of 1939, a rumour had it that Stalinist organizations in Mexico intended to buy this house in order to difficult Trotsky’s stay in the country. Thanks to the funds provided by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, Trotsky bought the property. The house and two automobiles (a Ford and a Dodge) became his only properties. 

Trotsky had scarcely any financial resources. His only incomes came from copyrights, as for his books and as for the political articles published in international press media. Besides, that allowed him to support his family, and pay up the service of secretaries, guards and house personnel. On the other hand, Trotsky contributed to provide food for all who lived there by upbringing poultry.

In 1939 and 1940, they lived in the house on Avenida Viena, and at different times, the following collaborators did also: the French Jean van Heijenoort, the German Otto Schüssler, the Americans Harold Robbins, Charles Cornell, Alex Buchman, Christy Moustakis, Walter Ketley, Robert Sheldon Harte, Jake Cooper, Joseph Hansen, and the Czech Jan Bazan. Fanny Yanovich the Russian typist who during three or four hours daily had to transcribe in a typing machine the cylinders of the dictaphone, attended the house. After the first murder attempt against Trotsky’s life in May 1940, the Fernández family (Leobardo and his sons Octavio and Carlos) went at night to reinforce the guard. Domestic service was in charge of the cook Carmen Palma and the maid Belén Estrada. Melquíades Benítez also participated in the house tasks.

On August 8, 1939, Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer, old friends of Trotsky, arrived to Coyoacán. They brought Vsevolod Seva Volkov, son of Zinaida Bronsteina – eldest daughter of Trotsky – and Platon Volkov. Seva was thirteen years old, and an orphan (his mother had committed suicide in Berlin in 1933; and his father, who was a Trotskyist, was executed in a prison camp in Siberia). Trotsky was given custody of the youth. [7] Seva installed himself in a room next to that of his grandparents, and the Rosmer couple were accommodated in a room at the watchtower.

Having passed sixty-seven years since his arrival to Coyoacán, Esteban Volkov remembers his new home this way:

“The house at 19 Vienna in Coyoacán enclosed a small community, a trench for political fight, a front line to socialism. Around my grandfather there was an atmosphere of solidarity, partnership and enthusiasm for work, as in the amount of tasks as in the house chores. There were no privileges nor distinctions. My grandfather irradiated great dynamism and a firm faith on socialist future in humanity.” [8]

A day in Trotsky’s life

Trotsky’s days in the house at Avenida Viena started very early, around six in the morning. His first activity consisted in feeding the rabbits and chicken, task that constituted one of his main daily distractions and which he performed very carefully.

In this respect, his secretary, professor Charles Cornell testifies:

“The chore of caring for them, he performed too, with methodology and precision. The animal feed was prepared according to the most scientific formula he could come up with. The amount of food was carefully measured. He inspected the animals regularly for any signs of sickness or parasites. The chicken yards and pens were kept scrupulously clean. It was obvious that he enjoyed this diversion from his sedentary tasks.” [9]

After this, Trotsky would go to his study until breakfast time. Finished this, he would go back to his study where he spent most of the day. There he would read his correspondence, the newspapers; he would dictate letters and would draft writings. In general, he would dictate to his Russian secretary or he would use the dictaphone to record his texts in wax cylinders.

Trotsky received his visitors at the study. There was, however, a security rule by which when he received a visitor, there would always have to be present either a secretary or a guard. In general, he was visited by Trotskyists coming from the United States, although these were sporadic visits. Besides he dedicated part of his activities to political discussion and theoretical formation of the youngest Trotskyists. His comrades affectionately referred to him as the Old Man.

Trotsky had an amazing work capacity. His intense and tireless work could be prolonged until nine or nine-thirty at night, and it was only interrupted at meals and at sunset, when he fed the animals of his small farm. After lunch, if there were no other urgent task or work to do he would rest during an hour, as recommended by the doctor. During meals, Trotsky would converse and joke with the house members. Late at night and after dinner, he would get together with his collaborators to review the daily happenings. Charles Cornell indicates that Trotsky did not waste a single minute of his time [10]. And Van Heijenoort writes, in his testimony, that Trotsky worked no less than twelve hours daily, “sometimes even more, when necessary.” [11]

Occasionally, and along with Natalia, his secretaries, guards and friends, Trotsky would participate on fieldtrips to the countryside and picnics on Sundays. They would travel on three automobiles for a one or two hour trip away from the city. In the third car went the American visitors or fellow Mexicans. These outings were a means of distraction and entertainment for Trotsky and his occupied and tight daily schedule, to which Trotsky devoted himself with the same energy, vitality and enthusiasm. It is good to recall that these fieldtrips were suspended after the first murder attempt against his life in May 1940 [12].

Trotsky felt very attracted to the Mexican mountainous scenery. When traveling to the provinces he was passionate about collecting cactus. He himself would unearth them with a spade and a hoe to plant them later in his house yard. Cactus was collected from different places, mainly from El Pedregal and the sierra of the State of Hidalgo. They would collect specimens weighing fifty or even 80 kilos. This vegetable species interested Trotsky because of its endurance and for being exotic. He was particularly interested in a well-known variety referred to as “los Viejitos” that were elongated cactus covered by white threads.

In another trip of his, he participated in a fishing excursion under the sun and the intense light of the Gulf of Mexico, at Veracruz.

Esteban Volkov, who met again with his grandfather in Coyoacán, in August 1939, evokes this event the following way:

“Leon Davidovich was a lively and vital patriarch. He was affectionate to all his comrades and had a great sense of humor […] Trotsky was very affable and affectionate, but very strict in discipline and work matters. I remember him vigorously scolding me when I distracted one of the companions being on guard.” [13]

On the other hand, Volkov recalls that inhabitants’ life in Avenida Viena went by within many activities, and that Trotsky himself participated in these tasks. Thus, certain day a clogged water pipe of the septic tank appeared, and Trotsky “was the first one to take a pick and start picking the pipe, origin of the problem.” [14]

Jake Cooper, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, who had been a member of the guards in Coyoacán, says in his reminiscence about Trotsky:

“He was a tremendously hard worker. I used to enjoy listening to him dictate to the Dictaphone. He spoke into it as though he was speaking to an audience, and he really was. Although he would dictate in Russian, he had such a splendid speaking voice, it was so clear, with such quality and feeling that almost every word he said in Russian seemed understandable to me, although I did not know the language.” [15]

And adds:

“[…] the Old Man was a pure, modest and simple revolutionary genius. You could talk to him on any subject, from your girl friend to Joe Louis as a prizefighter. After the Louis-Goday boxing match, he came outside and asked me if I had heard the results of the fight, then he said, ‘Jake, Louis knocked out Goday in six rounds. I guess it won’t be long before Roosevelt takes Louis into his cabinet.’” [16]

Trotsky's daily life in Mexico was recorded by Alex Buchman in photographs and filming material, which is historically invaluable. Buchman, an aeronautical engineer and an amateur photographer, arrived in Mexico after having lived in China, where he actively participated in the Trotskyist movement. At the house of Coyoacán, he served as guard and was in charge of improving the security system. He stayed during five months, between 1939 and 1940, capturing with the lenses of his camera hundreds of images of Trotsky and his companions. Likewise, he filmed many scenes of Trotsky's life at home and on the excursions he did [17].

As of the revolutionary leader’s lifestyle, it must be emphasized that he was marked by simplicity and austerity. Besides, he neither smoked nor drank alcoholic beverages, and he disliked it when someone smoked in his presence.

In relation to Trotsky’s health, one must indicate that in his last years he suffered from artery hypertension, provoking him intense headaches that would force him to cease working. To counteract the pain, Trotsky would drink Potassium chloride [18]. In these conditions, he had at his disposal a bed in his study where he could rest.

Natalia Sedova has said that in Mexico, Trotsky was affected by insomnia and that this led him to take sleeping pills.

Natalia has also referred to the sorrow that invaded Trotsky at certain moments:

“Sometimes we would hear Leon Davidovich, alone in his study, sighing deeply and speaking in loud voice: ‘How exhausted, how exhausted!’ then whispered, ‘I can’t keep on …”. He would not have told anyone. Senseless humiliation, moral breakdown of the old revolutionaries whom he loved so much, and that had died filled – and filling him – with infamies, drowned him in an everlasting sorrow.” [19]

It must be emphasized, on the other hand, that since the Russian revolutionary arrived in Mexico, his life developed in between severe controls and security measures. These were reinforced before the increasing threats from Mexican Stalinists.

Shots in the darkness

In 1940, the Mexican Communist Party and the Confederation of Workers of Mexico intensified their attacks and affronts against Trotsky in press articles and political meetings.

Commenting this systematic slanderous campaign against him, Trotsky wrote on August 17, 1940:

“This is how people write when ready to change the feather for the machine gun.” [20]

The plan against Trotsky was expressed in a demonstration carried out by the Confederation of Workers of Mexico and held on May 1^st 1940 in Mexico City,. These events constituted the moral preparation of his assassination ordered by Stalin since many years ago.

Everyone was profoundly asleep in Trotsky’s house around four in the morning on May 24 1940, when a group formed by twenty men, armed with portable machine guns reduced the police corps on duty outside Trotsky’s house, cut the telephone cables and managed to enter the patio. Their entrance was facilitated by Robert Sheldon Harte, the guard on duty that night, who opened the gate. The objective of the assault was to assassinate Trotsky and burn the house. The terrorist operation was led by the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, member of the Mexican Communist Party, and a combatant of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. The assailants, situated in different angles in the garden, opened fire first against the guard’s house and then, against Trotsky’s and his grandson's bedrooms. The intense fire held back the guards from coming out of their quarters and fight back the aggression. Once it started, Natalia’s first reaction was to push Trotsky to the floor and protect him with her body. Located behind the bed in a corner of the room, they were out of the range of the gunshots. Still on the floor they saw how the bullets made holes on the walls, while a penetrating gunpowder odour spread round the room. Discharges would come through the window and doors, resulting in a crossed-fire. There were around two hundred shots of which one hundred hit near the place the couple were laying. The room was peppered. The shooting lasted almost five minutes. In the room next-door, aware of the shoot-out, little Seva moved the cot away from the wall; he lay down on the floor, and stayed hidden in a corner of the room. The assailant that had got into the bedroom, besides shooting-out his grandfather’s bedroom also shot his room. As a result, Trotsky’s grandson was slightly wounded in the right toe because of a bullet graze. Another assailant came in the room; Seva heard him say: “Here are the bombs” thinking immediately that they were going to blow up the house. Panic-stricken, the youth rushed out of his hideout and when running towards the patio, almost tripping on the pathway with one of the assailant that was escaping. Once in the patio he anxiously started to shout at his grandfather to alert him from the explosion (later, in Trotsky’s narration of the events, he would evoke the child’s voice, sounding in the darkness as “the most tragic memory of that night.” In that moment Trotsky thought his grandson had been kidnapped.) After that, Seva ran to the office, passed the dining room and went down the terrace until he reached the first room of the guards, which was Harold Robbins' room; there he was kept safe. [21] The bombs that the assailants referred to were not explosives, but incendiary and were used to destroy Trotsky’s archives. Two of these were thrown at the house starting fire in Seva’s room, which Natalia quickly managed to extinguish using rugs and blankets. The delinquents, thinking they had killed Trotsky, escaped taking with them the two automobiles from the house. Soon after, secretaries and guards ran towards Trotsky’s bedroom just to confirm that the couple had miraculously survived. Then, all the inhabitants got together to find out if there were any losses. The only absent was Sheldon Harte, who had gone away with the assailants. Esteban Volkov recalls from this moment “the great euphoria and joy of the grandfather from having survived from this murder attempt.” [22]

Trotsky’s rejoicing attitude is confirmed by Octavio Fernández, Mexican Trotskyist and collaborator, who visited Coyoacán after the assault:

“Trotsky wasn’t even scared, one could even say that he was happy. He was not afraid . . . He seemed like a kid when showing us how the bullets had flung, how the cross-fire had been, etcetera, and how he was still here alive and the assailants had failed.” [23]

In truth, Trotsky exuded happiness and pleasantness by the failing of a criminal plan so scrupulously prepared and executed.

Soon after the assault, police arrived at the crime scene. The officer in charge of the investigation, Colonel Leandro Sánchez Salazar, chief of the Mexican Secret Service described later Trotsky’s serenity and calmness at narrating the events. The chief felt that Trotsky’s attitude was somewhat suspicious; that and the way the attack had been carried out, without any victims made him think it had been a self-assault. This was the initial hypothesis of the investigation that encouraged by the Stalinist press accused Trotsky of having organized this event.

Having passed some days, the police found new clues after capturing some individuals implicated in the assault, who were active members of the Mexican Communist Party, but what amazingly changed the direction of the case was the discovery of the corpse of Sheldon Harte in the outer limits of the city. For Sánchez Salazar there was no doubt that Sheldon was an agent of the GPU and that he had been eliminated by this group so he would not declare to the Mexican police. However, Trotsky was convinced that the young guard was innocent, so he ordered be hung a commemorative plate on a wall in front of the yard house with the following inscription: “IN MEMORY OF ROBERT SHELDON HARTE 1915-1940 MURDERED BY STALIN.”

After the murder attempt, the house became a fortress. Reinforcement works were carried out thanks to the economical contribution of the Socialist Workers Party, that provided 6,000 dollars. [24] Besides uprising the surrounding wall, surveillance towers were built, windows placed on Morelos street were partially blocked off up to a safe size. Large windows and doors that communicated both rooms were replaced by narrow armored doors, locked with heavy metal locks. Only the study and the office kept an open door to the yard. The alarm system was perfected. Trotsky had written that his house had become a “medieval prison.” Although living in external safety condition, Trotsky never lost his habitual and characteristic sense of humor. Things that way, when he woke up at the light of day, he used to tell his wife: “Darn it, we have survived a whole night without being murdered … And you are not happy about it!” [25]

Trotsky knew that the end of his days were near. He used to tell Natalia they had been granted an extension. Likewise, Colonel Sánchez Salazar manifested shortly after the murder attempt: “Luck has granted me an extension. It will be a short one.” [26]

The final assault

To achieve its criminal purpose, the NKVD (the Soviet government’s department in charge of State security) used another method. The executing branch of Trotsky’s murder would be the Catalan Ramón Mercader, along with his mother, the communist Caridad Del Río, who Stalin’s police had recruited in Spain during the Civil War. He was assigned the task of participating in the international fight against Trotskyism. Identified as Jacques Mornard  - a Belgien who afterwards used a fake passport registered under the name of the Canadian Frank Jacson - Mercader skillfully committed himself to the mission he was entrusted.

In Summer 1938 in Paris, Ramón Mercader met Sylvia Ageloff, young Trotskyist from New York, who performed the role of “courier” for the Fourth International, the days before to the inaugural conference for this organization. Mercader said he was a journalist and that his activity was referred to commerce. Soon after, he managed to seduce Sylvia. Through this sentimental liaison Mercader would be able to penetrate Trotsky’s circle two years later.

The couple lived in Paris during some weeks. After Sylvia’s return to the United States, Ramón traveled to New York in September 1939. In this city he announced her fiancé that because of work matters he would be transferred to Mexico. In January 1940, they would get together at the Mexican capital. In this country the youngster had to renew her friendly relationship with Trotsky and Natalia; her sister Ruth had assisted Trotsky while the Dewey Commission. Sylvia occasionally visited them, and when this happened, Mercader would pick her up in his Buick sedan. He tried not to get near the house and never demonstrated any interest in meeting Trotsky. In the following weeks, Sylvia’s fiancé became more familiar to the guards, he would show himself affable and helpful to them; he even offered himself to take the Rosmer couple in his automobile to Veracruz, so that they could embark to return to France. That way the alleged Jacques Mornard started gaining the trust of the people closest to the revolutionary.  

Until then Mercader’s task had consisted in observing the disposition of the house. After the failed assault led by Siqueiros, Mercader was assigned the mission of murdering Trotsky. The command came from the head of NKVD and his mother’s lover, Leonid Eitingon.

That way, since late July 1940 he started to go more frequently to the Avenida Viena house. Suddenly, Mercader, who had never shown interest in politics, started to show sympathy for Trotskyism. On August 7, 1940 Mercader visited Trotsky to show him a first draft of an article about the polemics among the comrades from the Socialist Workers Party. Trotsky read the text and made some observations to make it better. That time, Trotsky was surprised by the impolite behaviour of his visitor. While revising the document at the study, his guest stayed seated on the corner of the desk all the time, without even taking off his hat or coat, and keeping himself above Trotsky’s level. It was after this episode that Trotsky trusted Natalia his doubts about this character. Such situation allowed Mercader to know the future crime scene. 

Three days after, on August 20^th, passed five in the afternoon, Mercader showed up at Coyoacán to give Trotsky the revised article. He always entered the patio when Trotsky was feeding his rabbits, activity that was interrupted to attend Sylvia’s fiancé. For the second time, Trotsky made him come into the study, he became seated and started to read the typed sheets. Mercader, located behind Trotsky, took out from his raincoat an ice axe with a shortened handle and attacked him from the back discharging the weapon over his head. Trotsky uttered a deep and horrifying scream, he raised and confronted his killer not allowing him to hit him again. Trotsky’s shout alarmed the guards and Natalia who rushed into the study. Trotsky, with the face covered by blood was taken care of in the dining table by Natalia who put some ice on his head. Meanwhile, the guards jumped over Mercader hitting him violently. When Trotsky heard him wailing he asked them not to kill him but to force him to confess (Mercader was sent to prison for twenty years in Mexico. During that time, he neither revealed his true identity nor his connection to NKVD). 

Minutes later, Trotsky was transferred to the Puesto Central de Socorros de la Cruz Verde. Before having a brain surgery, he told his secretary Joseph Hansen what would be his lasts words. In these, Trotsky manifested his certainty about the victory of the Fourth International.

The murderer’s weapon had penetrated the skull seven centimeters in the right parietal side, and had wounded abundant brain tissue. Trotsky resisted the surgery with great strength. After fighting against death during more than 24 hours, Trotsky’s life faded away on August 21st, 1940 at 7.25 p.m.

His funeral gathered thousands of people. It is estimated that some 300,000 walked in front of the coffin, waked at Funeraria Alcázar. On August 27, his corpse was incinerated. Trotsky’s ashes were given to Natalia, who decided to keep them in her house. To lodge them, a solemn funeral monument was built in the yard. The Mexican painter and architect Juan O’Gorman designed the monument, a large rectangular trail made of concrete, with the name of the revolutionary written in metal letters, and a carved sickle and hammer. In the rear part a concrete box guarded the metallic urn that contained Trotsky’s ashes, and from an iron flagpole waved a red flag. [27]

The house in Coyoacán after Trotsky’s death

After Trotsky’s murder, the secretaries and guards went back to the United States. Who continued living in the house during a certain time was Walter Ketley. [28]

Esteban Volkov recalls the atmosphere that prevailed in the house in those times:

“[...] in 19 Vienna the spring of life that predominated had extinguished. An atmosphere of solitude and sadness invaded the place. [...] One could hardly imagine someone in more pain and suffering than Natalia, considering she had lost his partner and her most beloved being. The poor grandmother would staggeringly walk in the garden, without knowing where to go, and with a lost look.” [29]

On November 22, 1940, during the last years of Lázaro Cárdenas regime and in virtue of a presidential agreement, the Departamento del Distrito Federal bought the house at Coyoacán from Trotsky’s widow at 20,000 pesos. That allowed Natalia to have at her disposal enough economic resources to support herself. On the other hand, the acquisition of the property was meant to be a part of a project to turn it into a museum. Trotsky's relatives kept the house on custody. [30]

According to Esteban Volkov’s testimony, in the early Forties, undercover Stalinists in government facilities tried to evict them, arguing that the property would be demolished and replaced by a kindergarten. The objective was “to erase the crime scene and prevent, at any price, the creation of the Leon Trotsky Museum.” [31] The opportune intervention of General Cárdenas prevented from executing this measure, being successful in influencing the different levels of Manuel Avila Camacho’s government. Finally, they attained the property be donated to Trotsky’s widow. The ex-president gave instructions to then Chief of Departamento del Distrito Federal, lawyer Javier Rojo Gómez, so that the deed be registered to the name of Natalia Sedova. But such disposition was never formally carried out because the file suspiciously disappeared. [32]

Those were years of much solitude for Natalia. She would receive visits of some friends from Mexico, and rarely, from European or American friends. After Trotsky’s death, she decided to leave the house unchanged as her partner had left it; she would deny the possibility of returning the house to its original state. So the study remained as in Trotsky's workdays. On the other hand, Natalia’s love for plants made her, covered with a silk veil and a straw hat, dedicate long hours in taking care of the garden. [33]

French historian Marguerite Bonnet wrote about her friend Natalia:

“Every year since the crime, she would prefer to stay at home on August 20, waiting for messages, tidying up the tomb with new flowers, planting some roses, cheered by the memories and loyalty to the mission of preserving Trotsky’s memory alive. The will to continue this was so intense that she did not allow any changes in the house. She imposed herself such an uncomfortable existence, so as to make her friends and visitors, in the present and in the future, only by observing the decoration of Trotsky's last days relive the great tragedy and maybe even feel the lesson of his exceptional destiny … “ [34]

On his side, Esteban Volkov, after concluding his school years, studied Chemical Engineering in the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Químicas of the Universidad Autónoma de México. On December 1953, he married to Patricia Fernández, Spanish refugee and fashion designer. From this union four daughters were born in the Fifties: Verónica, Nora, Patricia, and Natalia. The Volkov family occupied the building that served as a home to Trotsky’s secretaries and guards, to which some remodeling was made.

During those years, Natalia made several trips to France, and in some of them she remained there for a long period of time. The purpose of those trips was to reunite with friends for whom she kept very warm feelings, especially with Jeanne Martin des Pallières, her son Lev’s [35] widow, to whom she felt very close. In Spring 1957, she got an entrance visa to the United States, and visited New York, the city where she had lived with her husband and sons in Winter 1917. On December 1960, she returned to Paris. By then her health was ostensibly deteriorated. While being cared of by doctor Raphaël Zakine and her family, Natalia died in Corbeil on January 23, 1962. As her last will, she asked her remains were incinerated and her ashes returned to Mexico to be placed next to Trotsky's.

While the Volkov family lived in the large house in Coyoacán, Esteban and his daughters would receive the people interested in visiting the place were Trotsky had lived. Current director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the United States, Nora Volkov lived there during her childhood and adolescence. Nora and her three sisters alternate weekends to show the house. From this experience she recalls:

“As little girls, whenever somebody rang the bell and asked us to guide them through the house, we did so, and that was a privilege. We usually took a long time talking to them - listening to them.” [36]

Nora Volkov narrates that once she worked as a guide to visitors coming from South America, and that she had had a long conversation with one of them. The main topic of conversation was One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel she was reading at the time. She learned later on that the person she had had a conversation with that afternoon, was the author himself: Gabriel García Márquez. [37]

Up to 1972, the Volkov family had lived in that house, which in 1975, they turned into a museum. Since then, volunteers have lived there as personnel in charge of showing it to the people. The most common visitors were Europeans and Americans. Surprisingly, since the late Eighties, Soviet citizens started to visit the museum. Thus, in 1990, the Soviet community in Mexico, authorized by the Soviet embassy, organized the first official visit of Soviets to the museum since its creation. [38]

Because of the low national budget assigned to preserve the museum, Esteban Volkov continued to economically contribute to its support, additional to the volunteer donations provided by visitors and Trotskyist organizations. Occasionally, the museum received the support of the Delegación Coyoacán for its maintenance, like in 1984, year in which some repairs were done and the house repainted. However, the absence of professionally outlined maintenance was the main cause of the gradual deterioration of the house. The garden was equally left aside. Carelessness was, in time, what made that space be altered in appearance and from its original purpose.

The Leon Trotsky Museum

Leon Trotsky’s house officially became a public museum in August 1990. The Departamento del Distrito Federal, institution in charge of the government of the Mexican capital during the administration of economist Manuel Camacho Solís, agreed to create the Leon Trotsky Museum. For that purpose, the Departamento de Desarrollo Social del Distrito Federal ordered the large house be remodeled and that an unused adjacent property – an old squash club – be annexed. This building was adapted to become the headquarters of the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo y las Libertades Públicas, located in Avenida Río Churubusco 410, colonia Del Carmen, Coyoacán.

The institute was initially meant to study the institution of the right of refuge in Mexico and in the world, to perform academic activities or cultural events related to the right of refuge and civil liberties, to encourage the presentation of studies over this matter and to promote the donation of documentary, bibliographic and graphic material to broaden the initial treasures of the institute. Its library was originally built along with the Fondo Rafael Galván, specialized in social matters; and donations from the 1939 Spanish exile and from the 1973 Chilean exile.

The Institute’s management is done through a bank trust, which provides economic funds to assure the adequate performance of the institute as well as the preservation of the Leon Trotsky Museum. [39]

The large space that the institute counts with holds a library, a hall for temporary exhibitions, and a conference room for eighty people. On the second floor, there is a small cafeteria, cubicles for researchers and an office. In one of the rooms and the auditorium two very large paintings were exhibited; they were Vlady’s works of art, whose motifs were Trotsky’s assassination.

The metal main gate that accessed the museum, located on Calle Viena 45 was closed. Since 1990, the entrance to Trotsky’s house had been through a new building. Under the staircase of the conference room, one could find an entrance hallway to the Museum that would lead to the area in which the henhouse was located, in the back of the garden.

The spatial and functional integration of the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo y las Libertades Públicas to the Leon Trotsky Museum was an accurate decision and full of historical significance because Trotsky was a paradigm for those politically persecuted and one of the most important refugees in Mexican history.

Almost half a century after the tragedy in Coyoacán occurred, the last residence of the revolutionary that had maintenance and deterioration problems was restored. After some time, it received its first museographic treatment. The house’s restoration main purpose was to show the daily life of its inhabitants. The main criterion was to graphically recreate, in the museum, the historical time period between May 24 and August 20, 1940. To do that, a thorough documental and iconographic research work was done, based on photographs and memoirs. The general coordinator of the restoration project was the architect Antonio Latapí Boysselle.

In reference to the house’s chromatic paint, samples were taken to identify the colours used in times when Trotsky lived there. Paint layers from after 1940 were eliminated, and according to the chosen colour of the period colours were combined to reproduce the original one (each room had a different one).

As for the furniture, the first task was to recover the objects that had been stored or forgotten in order to reincorporate them to the room they had belonged to. There were objects that only required preservation and others that had to be restored. According to the information given by the archaeologist Ricardo Bueno Cano, member of the restoration team, the most difficult part of carrying out those tasks was the fragile state in which these objects were found. Because of humidity and moth eating of the wood, the deteriorated fragments of doors and windows were replaced by carpenters. On the other hand, some objects such as a refrigerator, a radio and a telephone corresponding to the epoch were bought to furnish a proper ambiance to the place. [40]

The garden had changed its original aspect throughout the fifty years gone by new species, as buds, palms and bougainvilleas, had appeared, and besides, the lack of care made it look untidy. Thanks, as always, to pictures and remembrances, the garden could be reconverted to its original state introducing species such as daisies, climbing rose and cactuses. Besides, the trees were slightly cut. [41]

On the first floor of the guards house a photographic exhibition and documents about Trotsky's biography were displayed. In this same room an oil painting that represents the revolutionary was hung as well, a piece of art painted by E. Andreas dated 1940. This portrait was found abandoned in one of the rooms. The painting was in poor conditions, so it was restored for the exhibition.

To guarantee security and tour control, a platform with a glass handrail was installed on the wooden floor in every room of the house; this, in order to guide visitors properly. Also, a small-dimensioned museum illumination system was installed in each room.

In 1990 the Museum’s Counseling Board was constituted. [42]

On August 20, 1990, date of the fiftieth anniversary of Trotsky's assassination, the government of Mexico City scheduled the opening act of the Instituto del Derecho del Asilo y las Libertades Públicas and the reopening of the Leon Trotsky Museum. This ceremony was held next to the Russian refugee’s old house, on the corner of Viena and Morelos street. That day, at the institute’s auditorium, the international historical colloquium titled “Trotsky – Cincuentenario de su muerte 1940-1990” gathered Mexican specialists, foreigners and celebrities that collaborated with and knew Trotsky. [43] This academic activity, developed between August 20 and August 24 1990, was one of the five colloquia related to Trotsky that were performed worldwide that year, when in the Soviet Union the historical rehabilitation and the publishing of the works of the Marxist thinker and revolutionary were taking place.

Lack of resources

In the Nineties, the museum went through difficult times. The main problem was the lack of economic resources. The Departamento del Distrito Federal did not officially assign a budget that could allow its functioning. No need to say that the museum’s expenses were high because of the need for permanent personnel and for being open to the public. Subsidy was not enough, [44] so all this made the Museum’s condition decay, museologically as well as in its preservation. Besides, because of the lack of necessary funds the library had to close.

On November 15, 1996 the institution was registered as the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo Museo Casa de León Trotsky, A.C. [Asociación Civil]. That same year, the Directors Council was formed and chaired by diplomat Javier Wimer. [45]

On January 1998, the director of the museum, Jorge Max Rojas, declared to a local newspaper that the house where Trotsky lived had practically been abandoned by the authorities from the capital, and that it was surviving provided by the scarce incomes from selling tickets (40,000 to 50,000 Mexican pesos were monthly needed to keep the museum under “decent” conditions). He also informed that the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo had not been operating as such due to lack of sponsorship. In spite the poor conditions through which the Leon Trotsky Museum was going through, emphasized Rojas, they had performed a variety of cultural activities since late 1995 until 1997. He also said that 28,000 people visited the museum in 1996, and that in 1997 35,000 did as well. [46]

In 1997, this sad situation led the museum to ask the civil society for an economic contribution to keep the institution working. On the other hand, this rescue campaign included a series of activities to raise funds. It was at the end of that year when a Mexican civil association approved funding the research project titled “Mexico, land of refugees and migration 1783-2000”, which assigned a monthly amount of 6,500 pesos per year to the museum. Such contribution allowed the museum to continue working. [47]

In the year 2000, the museum received 40,000 pesos as an annual contribution that added to the ticket office incomes did not represent budget enough to have permanent personnel.

A year later, in July 2001, Javier Wimer, president of the Consejo Directivo del Instituto de Derecho de Asilo Museo Casa de León Trotsky, referring to the financial situation of this association, commented in a press interview. “This is a museum that barely survives, it has very little subsidy.” [48]

Leon Trotsky Museum at present

In 2001, because of initial conversations carried out by professor José Antonio Gonzáles de León, director of the museum, and concluded by sociologist Carlos Ramírez Sandoval, his successor, the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo Museo Casa de León Trotsky A.C. was assigned 100,000 pesos annual budget by the Instituto de Cultura del Gobierno de Distrito Federal. In late 2002, the aforesaid institution increased the subsidy to 800,000 pesos annually, amount that allowed overcoming the budgetary crisis it had been immerse in for several years. Thus, the remodeling of the museum had to be done. A substantial museological improvement was accomplished. Through a number of photographs and documents being exhibited, the Museum currently provides information concerning Leon Trotsky's life and works, and of his stay in Mexico.

Besides, in the exhibition hall, two showcases were displayed exhibiting several objects such as the first volume of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Vladimir Russian Language (it shows the fire marks that Trotsky’s house had suffered in Prinkipo in 1931), two pairs of glasses, a carbine used by the guards, a 1924 Russian-French dictionary, the 1937 calendar-agenda used by Trotsky during the stay in Mexico of the Dewey Commission, the telephone book used by the Russian refugees, wax cylinders for the dictaphone and documents belonging to Natalia Sedova.

Additionally, the museum offers information about the Russian revolutionary’s political life through documentary movies about his life in a specially conditioned room in front of the garden.

The institute’s library could reinitiate its activities (it has almost 7,500 books). Renowned Mexican plastic artists and some foreigner’s works have been exhibited in the Sala de Exposiciones Temporales.

On the other hand, among the preservation works of Trotsky's library (that counts with around 2,200 volumes) books were cleaned and bound those that were in bad conditions.

A corridor was added in the garden, so as to let visitors get near the funeral monument, on which a commemorative plate has been placed with the names of Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova, additionally to the date of birth and death of each one.

In the area used as storage room, restrooms were installed, and in the area were Trotsky raised his rabbits and chicken a cafeteria currently stands.

On the other hand, in the month of August, near a new anniversary of Trotsky's death, the museum organizes conferences about the revolutionary’s works. These are held at the institute’s auditorium.

Besides, some Trotsky books, postcards and T-shirts are sold at the museum.

Along with TV UNAM, the Casa Museo de León Trotsky has co-produced the documentary film Trotsky y México: dos revoluciones del siglo XX (Mexico 2005), directed by Argentinean-Mexican filmmaker Adolfo Garcia Videla. [49]

Dr. Carlos Ramírez Sandoval, director of the museum since January 2001, informed us that currently the subsidy the institution annually receives is 800,000 pesos. Nonetheless, such budget does not cover all the expenses that its maintenance requires being that it represents 38% of the total budget. The house where Trotsky lived is an old building with humidity problems, circumstance that annually requires be waterproof. Another problem is the intense traffic in Avenida Río Churubusco that makes the building vibrate. The budget’s deficit has been covered with the raise in tickets price. In that sense, a guided visit programme has been elaborated and oriented mainly to students. [50] 

As Ramírez Sandoval told us, currently, the museum has an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 monthly visitors, receiving over 100,000 visitors per year. Among those who visit the place are people primarily coming from Europe, especially from Spain and France, the United States, and from South America, mainly from Argentina. [51]

The director emphasizes that in the last years the public perception of the museum has changed. In the recent past there had been attacks against the building from whom, because of ignorance, thought it was a communist indoctrination center. Nevertheless, the current management according to given information, is interested in spreading the cultural purpose of the museum, whose purpose is to grant access to people to learn about the history of one of the most paradigmatic political figures of the 20th century. “This museum is dedicated to the memory of a great man. We have not become an ideological space, but the history surrounding the revolutionary man,” emphasizes Ramírez Sandoval. [52]

Among the museum’s main features are the distribution of interior spaces, the rustic furniture and the garden, which as a whole provides an accurate expression of ideas and of Leon Trotsky’s simple domestic life.

The building in which the socialist intellectual lived, counts with the following areas:

• The office – Large room where Trotsky's secretaries worked. In that time desks were covered by newspapers and magazines. Later, Natalia Sedova used it as a library. On the desks and shelves one can still see many of the objects, bought after 1940, which belonged to Natalia Sedova. The patrimony preserved up-to-date is formed by more than 1,500 volumes displayed at the site. Also displayed is the Webster Chicago recorder, and the Underwood typewriter. The only pieces from after 1940 are Natalia’s curtain desk, a discrete painting painted by the Russian artist Vlady Kibalchich.

• The dining room – Trotsky, Natalia, their grandson, and the rest of personnel that assisted them; including guards, secretaries and friends always ate together seated at the table. The furniture keeps their original shine and color and is displayed as then. On the cupboard, brilliant colored pieces of Mexican craftsmanship is still preserved; most of them made in Michoacán.

• The kitchen – This area presents rustic furniture, as the rest of the house and it is decorated with Mexican clay dishes. Natalia Sedova was who ran the kitchen.

• The study - Trotsky’s daily place of work, was also setting of his last fight: that which he fought against his aggressor. Light comes in from the garden through the balcony with a stained glass window. The bright wooden desk was covered with books and pamphlets. On the desk one can find some typed sheets of paper, cylinders of wax for the dictaphone, a pencil case, two inkwells, a desk dry pad, scissors, a small briefcase and the glasses used by Trotsky, which frame was broken. A calendar shows the date of the crime. At this working desk Trotsky wrote during his last months of life the biography of Stalin, a story that he could not finish. Next to the desk one can see the dictaphone Edison Dictating Machine. On the left side of the desk, is the shelf containing dictionaries and reference books. Above these Trotsky’s marble bust is exhibited, copy of the original one made by the British sculptor Claire Sheridan in 1920. Two big bookshelves keep the most important asset of the library, Trotsky’s complete works (published in Moscow between 1924 and 1927), the complete works of Lenin written by Marx and Engels in Russian, and eighty-six volumes of the Russian encyclopedia Brockhaus and Efron among many other volumes published in different languages. [53] In the corner is the bed Trotsky used to rest in.

• Trotsky’s bedroom – The bed currently exhibited replaces two beds that were originally placed there, and that were shot during the first murder attempt against Trotsky’s life (the marks of the shots can still be seen in the north wall of the room and in the beds headboard). Over the bed there is a straw hat used by Natalia Sedova. In the room’s table, on the right side, there are some pictures of Trotsky and Natalia’s sons: Leon and Sergei Sedov, in the middle a picture of Natalia Sedova. On that same table, but on the left side, a picture of Seva Volkov with her sister Alexandra Moglina, and a portrait of Trotsky’s first wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, is shown. Other furniture of the room is the nightstand, the armchair, the chair and the drawer.

• The grandson’s bedroom – When Seva Volkov arrived in Coyoacán in 1939, he used the bedroom next to that of his grandparents. There, while sleeping, the first murder attempt against Trotsky was held. Currently, the bed that is shown is not the original one that consisted in a metal cot.

• The bathroom – Beside the corridor that communicates Trotsky’s bedroom with Seva’s is the bathroom. It’s a large and narrow space in which a clothier with some preserved wardrobe belonging to Trotsky and Natalia is located in the middle. The bathroom counts with a sink, a bathtub, a water heater and a closet; on the extreme left side, one can see the shower installation and the toilet. It presents a small octagonal mirror, under which on a glass shelf one can see Trotsky’s brush and shaving machine and a Colgate feet powder container.

• The guards house – On the northeast wing of the house is the building that served as home to the personnel and that later inhabited Esteban Volkov and his family. On the first level, a hall has been conditioned where Trotsky’s life before coming to Mexico is exhibited in pictures and documents. His family tree is also displayed here.

The Leon Trotsky Museum opens its doors from Tuesday to Sunday between 10 and 17 hours. The general entrance ticket for visitors is 30 pesos.

Final thoughts

On the course of an itinerant life, Leon Trotsky lived along with his family in many houses, either in Russia, or in a foreign country. From all those, the house at Coyoacán, scenery of the last of his days, has constituted in the only in-memoriam museum. The will to preserve this historical patrimony to remember the meaning of life and the legacy of one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century is due, primarily, to his widow, Natalia Sedova and Trotsky’s grandson, engineer Esteban Volkov.

Because it’s a state property, preservation and maintenance of the Leon Trotsky Museum was left subject to political changes in the Mexican public administration. After recovering in 1990, when it was restored, the museum could barely survive with meager incomes. At present, its financial situation has considerably improved allowing it to continue with this activity in honorable conditions and provide an adequate service to who visit it.

It is worth recalling that in 1990 the renewal and museographic, updating was carried-out based on the principle of preserving the whole aspect of the house. It is necessary that such criteria be kept forever. Any museographic intervention that must be done must be respectful of the aspect that the house had in 1940.

Where does the value and the significance of this site reside in? Behind its walls the final chapter of the biography of one of the most eminent celebrities of contemporary world history was written. It symbolizes the feature hour in Mexican history – to the saying of Manuel Aguilar Mora – “one unexpectedly faces the biography of one of the most outstanding minds and revolutionary wills of the 20th century” [54], it reflects the historical moments of the former battle that Trotsky fought against the usurper regime of the Soviet Union, it shows the scenery of harassment and Stalinist criminal attempts against its main critic and accuser; and represents the final bunker of a singular destiny that was guided by an unharmed faith and hope in the freedom and socialist future of humanity.

I had a memorable experience when visiting Trotsky’s house in two different times. I visited it for the first time on August 15, 1990 accompanied by Esteban Volkov during the last restoration stage. Some days later, on August 20, I witnessed the constitution of the site as a public museum and the opening of the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo y las Libertades Públicas. On that opportunity, I walked around every single area in various occasions; I started to gather information about its history and build a complete photographic record of the Museum. Sixteen years later, on August 8, 2006 I returned to Coyoacán in which streets the past lives in harmony with the present. 

In the old house of Vienna street (today’s address, number 33), the great climbing plant has grown so much that it covers almost the entire wall up to the street. In its interior, tall trees surround with their shadow a great area of the garden. I heard the birds sing and observed two squirrels climb a tree. The atmosphere is calm and gentle. I approached the rabbit’s hatch and remembered the pictures and films where Trotsky, dressed with a blue jacket, was surprised feeding his beloved animals. I had to imagine him walking in the patio, with his fast pace, cheerful and with lively gestures. I thought in the great family that was formed in that place while Trotsky lived. I also reflected over the joyful times, fright and pain for those who went through all this. The frustrated murder attempt and the fatal day ...

The time I spent there coincided with the visit of numerous people, mainly foreigners, who walked the entire museum’s areas observing with much attention the pictures and objects that are exhibited there.

Monday August 21st, 2006, sixty-six years have passed since Trotsky’s death. The museum’s directors organized a tribute next to the revolutionary’s last resting place. The museum’s personnel and the Delegación Coyoacán attended the ceremony. At the base of the funeral monument and as every year, small flower displays could be seen. Near noon, and along with Esteban Volkov, the museum director, Carlos Ramírez Sandoval, and the chief of the Delegación Coyoacán, Miguel Bortolini, we gathered around the funeral monument and in a spontaneous speech the social fighter and the significance of his role were evoked. After that, we had a minute of silence in memoriam of Trotsky. 

Finished the ceremony, we were leaving the place when my eyes turned over to the garden’s trail that in that instant, the sun was making shine.

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MONTERO, Hugo, “El abuelo irradiaba una fe inamovible en el futuro socialista de la humanidad”. Entrevista con Esteban Volkov, en Sudestada. Cultura, Arte y Actualidad, Lomas de Zamora, año 6, nº 52, septiembre 2006, pp. 12-15.

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TROTSKY, León, “La Comintern y la GPU. El intento de asesinato del 24 de mayo y el Partido Comunista”, en León Trotsky, Escritos Tomo XI (1939-40), Volumen 2, Bogotá, Editorial Pluma, 1979, pp. 472-527.  

TROTSKY, León, Los crímenes de Stalin, Santiago de Chile, Empresa Editorial Zig-Zag, 1962.

TROTSKY, León, “Queremos conocer los hechos”, en León Trotsky, Escritos Tomo VII (1935-36), Volumen 3, Bogotá, Editorial Pluma, 1979, pp. 558-560.    

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Notes

*) I express my profound a special gratitude to Esteban Volkov for his invaluable and broad testimony provided in Mexico in August 2006, which has been fundamental for this essay, and also to the honour of having him as a friend for seventeen years. A special thanks to Dr. Carlos Ramirez Sandoval, director of the Instituto del Derecho de Asilo Museo Casa de León Trotsky, for the interview, the provided information and for facilitating me a space to work at the Museum. Likewise, I thank the institution’s personnel for their service and kindness. The information registered in the museum’s rooms descriptions was of much help when describing the different rooms at Trotsky’s house, it was very useful.

**) Gabriel García Higueras (Lima, 1966). Peruvian historian. Studied History at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima). He also studied a doctorate in Latin-American History at the Universidad de Huelva (Spain). Currently, he is a professor of Contemporary World History at the Universidad de Lima. He has researched the works of Peruvian historians of the twentieth century.
As a Trotskyologist his contributions have been published in academic journals as Cahiers Léon Trotsky (Grenoble), Investigaciones Sociales (Lima), and in the cultural magazine Sudestada (Buenos Aires). Besides, he is the author of Trotsky en el espejo de la Historia (Ensayos),  (Lima, Tarea Gráfica Educativa, 2005). He has also participated in international conferences "Trotsky – Cincuentenario de su muerte 1940 – 1990" (México, D.F., August 1990), and “Trotsky como alternativa” (Buenos Aires, November 2002). In August 2006, he was named by the Consejo Directivo del Museo Casa de León Trotsky (México, D.F.), correspondent of this institution in Lima. 

[1] León Trotsky: “Queremos conocer los hechos”, en L. Trotsky, Escritos Tomo VII (1935-36), Vol. 3, p. 558.

[2] This formula is usually attributed to André Breton, very often failing to recognize that it was Trotsky who first coined it.

[3] León Trotsky, Los crímenes de Stalin, Santiago de Chile, Empresa Editorial Zig-Zag, 1962, p. 97.

[4] Despite having lived in that house for more than two years, there is no reference to this in Frida Kahlo’s Museum, Trotsky’s residence, as Trotsky’s secretary, Jean van Heijenoort, noted in his memoirs. This is an unprecedented omission.

[5] In Murder in Mexico, General Sánchez Salazar presents a description of Trotsky’s house in May 1940, which corresponds to a future period.