Trotsky’s Interdistrict Organization joins the Bolsheviks

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...

Aboard a ship from New York, Trotsky was removed by British authorities and held in a Canadian internment camp with German prisoners. Russian émigrés protested, and the Russian Provisional...

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...

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...

As Bolshevik influence grew among workers and the garrison, the Soviet elected Trotsky chairman. The institution’s strength reflected delegates’ response to demands for peace, land, and bread, not...

The committee organized the defense of the Soviet and coordinated garrison units. Trotsky helped lead it as the Bolsheviks contested the Provisional Government; the MRC became the operational center...

The Military Revolutionary Committee occupied key points and overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd. Trotsky was central to the operation, while the transfer of power was contested across...