I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Josh Ireland, the author of the new book, The Death of Trotsky, the true story of the plot to kill Stalin's greatest enemy.

We begin, however, in horror, the horror of the Russian Revolution of the 20th century.

The date is August 25, 1936, the basement of the Ljubljanka prison.

Lubeanka was once an insurance company in Tsarist, Russia.

It is now the headquarters of the NKVD, which in the 20th century becomes the KGB.

However, two men are walking to their deaths.

One is named Zinoffiev, the other is named Kamenev.

They are original revolutionaries.

They're part of Lenin's Politburo, and yet they are to die this day, accused of Trotskyanism.

Who is Trotsky, and why are the original, the fathers, the founders of the revolution

dying in a violent and horrible way? I welcome Josh Ireland to explain to us why Trotsky is the

explanation for why they die. Josh, congratulations. Who is Trotsky to them? What is the

revolution that wants to kill the founders? Good evening. Good evening and thank you very much

for having me on your show. So I think you've summed up quite a lot of what and how these men got to where they were.

But to kind of go back in time, they were Bolsheviks,

which is the tiny sect of revolutionaries who in 1917 seized control of the Russian Empire.

You know, it's an almost unimaginable event that this sort of handful of fanatics

should see, should suddenly find themselves in control of a country of millions and

millions of souls.

And the only way that they could impose their will on this vast nation of peasants who had no interest

or no idea of the gospel that they wanted to spread were through violence. So on the one,

the one hand, the Russian Revolution, as performed by the Bolsheviks, is one of the sort of great

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