I'm John Batcher. Josh Arlens here. His new book is The Death of Trotsky,

the true story of the plot to kill

Stalin's greatest enemy. Trotsky, real name Bronstein, and Stalin, real name, Zhukashvili,

are now the two most prominent names to the world of the revolution. Stalin moving into the

Politburo and sizing up everybody as a courtier, pleases the gentry

until the gentry realizes the courtier is now the king. Trotsky, who does not recognize

that Stalin is moving to take over Lenin's chair, treats Stalin as an inferior. And at one point, with Stalin and Trotsky in the same room,

I believe this is 1927, Josh will correct me if I have the wrong day, Trotsky explodes and accuses

Stalin of being the grave digger of the revolution,

and Stalin is stung by this.

At that moment, Josh, their rivalry is well known to the rest of the Politburo,

or was this a surprise to the revolutionaries?

I mean, I think their rival had been an open secret for a decade by that point,

you know, that even during the Civil War, where, you know, in theory, all of the Bolsheviks should have been

supporting each other. They've been constantly looking to undermine each other's commands.

They've been sniping about each other, behind each other's backs, complaining. They're kind of

like two kids trying to sort of complaining to their own mother.

You know, I think Lenin was constantly having to try to mediate between the two of them.

And in the decade that follows, you know, Stalin is very explicitly maneuvering against Trotsky.

He knows how frightened a lot of the other members of the Politburo, like Kamenev and Zinoviyev are of Trotsky.

So he unites with them to marginalise Trotsky. He begins to remove, he uses this vast apparatus that he commands to start removing any potential supporters of Trotsky from significant positions within, you know, within the Kremlin, within, you know, he removes them from editorial boards of Pravda.

He begins to suppress Trotsky's speeches.

...