"You lie like Trotsky" - the meaning and origin of the expression

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

"You lie like Trotsky!" - You must have heard this phrase? Often we hear this about a person who talks a lot and at length, and can also easily lie without blinking an eye. The phrase "you lie like Trotsky" absolutely does not paint a person and has a negative connotation.

As many people know, Leon Trotsky was once a popular revolutionary and political figure. Why is his name still commemorated in the unflattering expression "you're lying like Trotsky"? His activity, like any historical character, deserves careful study, especially since after so many years, this can be done partly objectively. Studying his biography will bring us closer to the solution. Where did the expression "you lie like Trotsky" come from?

Two names

Leo Trotsky - an acquired name, a pseudonym, perhaps adopted by him in the fashion of the then revolutionary times. His real name is Leib Davidovich Bronstein. As you can see, Lev Davidovich changed it to a more harmonious one, leaving only the patronymic unchanged. In essence, manyTrotsky's life episodes are completely false and full of deceit, that's why they say: "You lie like Trotsky." Thanks to adventurism and a great gift of persuasion, Trotsky got out of difficult situations with the least losses for himself.

Leiba Bronstein was born on October 26 (November 7, modern style), 1879, exactly 38 years before the October Revolution, near the village of Yanovka, Kherson province (Ukraine), in a we althy family engaged in leasing their own plots of land to peasants.

From childhood, Leiba tried to speak Russian and Ukrainian, although in his native places it was customary to speak Yiddish. The sense of his own superiority was formed in the future revolutionary thanks to the environment of the children of farm laborers, with whom he behaved arrogantly and did not communicate.

Study. Youth

In 1889, Leo entered the Odessa School of St. Paul, where he soon became the best student, but showed more interest in creative subjects - literature, poetry and drawing.

At the age of 17, he actively participates in a revolutionary circle and conducts propaganda. A year later, Lev Bronstein becomes one of the organizers of the South Russian Workers' Union, after which his first arrest will follow. After spending two years in an Odessa prison, Leo goes over to the side of Marxist ideals. In prison, Lev Bronstein marries the head of the union, Alexandra Sokolovskaya.

In 1900, a young Marxist was exiled to the Irkutsk province, where he establishes contact with the editorial agents of the Iskra newspaper. Subsequently, being the author of this newspaper, Lev Bronstein received the nickname Feather, thanks to his journalistic gift.

Emigration and the first revolution

From exile, Trotsky manages to safely escape to the city of Samara. In this escape, his famous surname is born: it was borrowed from the senior guard of the Odessa prison and entered into fake documents.

Then Trotsky emigrates to London, communicates with the Social Democrats, collaborates with Lenin there and works in the editorial office of the Iskra newspaper, and also often makes speeches to Russian emigrants. The talent of the young orator does not go unnoticed: Trotsky wins the respect of both the Bolsheviks in general and Lenin in particular, receives another nickname - Lenin's Baton.

But then Trotsky's love for the leader of the world proletariat fades away, he goes over to the side of the Mensheviks. The relationship between Trotsky and Lenin cannot be called unambiguous. They quarrel, then reconcile. Lenin calls him a "Jew", it is likely that the expression "you lie like Trotsky" has its roots in these conflicts. Accusing Lenin of dictatorship, Trotsky tried to reconcile the two camps of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, but this finally divorced him from the Mensheviks too.

Returning to Russia in 1905 with his new and last wife, Natalya Sedova, Trotsky finds himself in the thick of the revolutionary events in St. Petersburg. He creates the Petersburg Soviet of Workers and speaks eloquently and convincingly before the huge masses of discontented workers. How honest were these speeches, could it be saidthen "you're lying like Trotsky!" - no longer known.

In 1906, Trotsky was re-arrested for calling for a revolution. And in 1907, he was deprived of all civil rights, sent to eternal exile in Siberia, on the way to which Trotsky managed to escape again.

Two revolutions

From 1908 to 1916 Trotsky is engaged in revolutionary publicistic activity, lives in many cities of Europe. During the First World War, Trotsky also wrote war reports for the newspaper Kyiv Mysl. He was subjected to another exile from France in 1916, many European countries refuse to accept him. At the beginning of 1917, Trotsky, having been expelled from Spain, arrives in the USA.

The second Russian revolution in February 1917, Trotsky enthusiastically welcomed, and in May of the same year he comes to Russia. Speaking at numerous meetings of soldiers, sailors and workers, Trotsky, thanks to his extraordinary oratory, again wins the recognition of the masses and becomes chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

The Military Revolutionary Committee, created in October 1917 by Trotsky, helps the Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional Government in the October Revolution with the help of an armed rebellion.

New time

In the new government, Trotsky receives the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. However, after six months, he becomes the people's commissar of the military forces and begins the formation of the Red Army by rather cruel methods. Discipline or desertion was followed by immediatearrest or even execution. This period went down in history as the "Red Terror".

At the end of 1920, Lenin appointed Lev Davidovich People's Commissar of Railways, where Trotsky again uses paramilitary methods of government. Speaking to railway workers, he often does not keep his promises, which may be why the common people create the saying “you lie like Trotsky.”

Trotsky becomes the country's second leader after Lenin, thanks to his persuasive performances during the Civil War and harsh methods of government. However, Lenin's death did not allow him to fully bring his plans to life. At the head of the country stands Joseph Stalin, who considered Trotsky his competitor.

After Lenin

Stalin is considered a possible progenitor of the saying "you lie like Trotsky." Having taken the first post of the country, Stalin immediately disgraces Trotsky, as a result of which he loses the post of military people's commissar and membership in the Central Committee of the Politburo.

Trotsky makes an attempt to restore his positions and holds an anti-government demonstration, after which he was deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled to Alma-Ata, and then completely outside the USSR.

In exile, Trotsky begins to write books, conduct opposition work, publishes the Bulletin of the Opposition. In his autobiographical writings, he tries to answer Soviet anti-Trotskyism and justify his life in general. Leon Trotsky writes negatively about the leaders of the USSR, strongly criticizes industrialization and collectivization, and also does notbelieves Soviet statistics.

Recent years

In 1936, Trotsky leaves Europe and settles in Mexico in a gated estate near Mexico City. But this does not stop the Soviet special agents, who are monitoring Trotsky almost around the clock.

In Paris in 1938, his eldest son and chief associate dies under strange circumstances. Then the Stalinist hand cracks down on the first wife and youngest son.

Later it comes to Trotsky himself - Stalin orders him removed, and after the first failed assassination attempt, Leon Trotsky dies at the hands of the Spanish NKVD agent Mercader. After his death, Trotsky was cremated and buried within the Mexican estate, where his museum is located to this day.

Why do they say "you lie like Trotsky"?

Undoubtedly, Trotsky is an extraordinary historical figure who possessed an extraordinary talent for eloquence and persuasion. It is said that even as a child, little Leo always kept a book on oratory on his study table. His style of oratory was specific: he immediately took his opponent into circulation, not letting him come to his senses.

“You lie like Trotsky” had the right to say both the people, more than once deceived by the Soviet government, and Lenin, who clashed with Trotsky. Perhaps, after Stalin recognized Trotsky as an "enemy of the people", they began to say so in party circles. Or the well-aimed phrase “you’re lying like Trotsky” was the first to use Joseph Vissarionovich himself, not trusting not only Trotsky, but also many other people.

Was Trotsky's talents a weapon in the capable hands of Lenin? Perhaps Lev Davydovich and Vladimir Ilyich were close comrades-in-arms, had the same right to bear the title of "leader of the revolution"? Was Stalin's cruel revenge deserved or not? History cannot provide an answer by providing only bare facts.

We will probably never really know where the expression "you lie like Trotsky" came from.