Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with RetroPod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

This is the axe, and if you'll notice very carefully, you can see the remnants of the blood rust.

That's H. Keith Melton, an intelligence historian and one of the world's biggest collectors of spy

paraphernalia. We were walking around the newly expanded spy museum in Washington, D.C.,

which has on display hundreds of pieces from his collection. Like this ice axe we're looking

at, with its long, sharp pick.

What was it like when you first held the axe in your hands?

When I first saw it, they wouldn't let me hold it.

It was in a box. Could look at it.

Could look at it.

Could photograph it, couldn't hold it.

But when you did get it into your hands, what did it feel like?

On one hand, I was very, very thrilled.

It was the end of a 40-year search.

But he had misgivings, too.

The blood on that axe belonged to Leon Trotsky,

the Russian revolutionary and communist theorist.

And I never want to minimize that this was a brutal murder of one of the brilliant minds of the century.

Following Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky emerged as his potential successor.

But he was outmaneuvered by Joseph Stalin,

who would go on to become one of history's most brutal dictators.

Trotsky was banned from the Soviet Union in 1927.

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