British authorities detain Trotsky in Halifax on his return to Russia

Written at the outbreak of world war, the pamphlet argued that the conflict arose from imperialist rivalry and rejected national defense as a justification for socialist support of belligerent states....

The article argued that peace required independent working-class action rather than diplomatic bargains among imperial powers. Wartime censorship and exile shaped its circulation. Month-level date...

In polemics during the war, Trotsky opposed treating Russia or the Allied states as progressive defenders of smaller nations. He linked the European front to imperial competition, though colonized...

Trotsky joined socialists from across Europe who opposed the war and issued an internationalist manifesto. The gathering was small compared with mass antiwar movements, but it helped preserve links...

French police expelled Trotsky for his antiwar activity. Spanish authorities then moved him onward; the episode shows how wartime states policed transnational radicals even when they were foreign...

Trotsky returned to a city shaped by workers’, soldiers’, and sailors’ soviets and a Provisional Government that continued the war. He entered a political field transformed by mass action and the...

After armed demonstrations by workers and soldiers, the Provisional Government arrested Trotsky and other Bolsheviks. He defended the demonstrators against charges of German conspiracy, while...

The Interdistrict (Mezhraiontsy) group, with Trotsky among its leading members, joined the Bolshevik Party at its Sixth Congress. The convergence brought together activists who had previously differed...

While jailed, Trotsky urged joint defense against General Kornilov’s attempted counterrevolution. The episode showed temporary cooperation between political forces otherwise divided, and the central...

The Provisional Government released Trotsky and other imprisoned Bolsheviks after the failed Kornilov coup. His renewed political activity came amid growing Soviet support for peace and transfer of...