About
Lev Davidovich Bronstein (7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Soviet politician, revolutionary, and political theorist. He was a central figure in the 1905 Revolution, October Revolution of 1917, Russian Civil War, and establishment of the Soviet Union. In the early years of the Soviet government, Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered its two most prominent figures, and Trotsky was Lenin's de facto second-in-command from 1917 to 1923. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Trotsky's ideas inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism.