The Stranglers once famously sang “Whatever Happened to Leon Trotsky?” We all know the answer - he was attacked and killed by one of Stalin’s henchman with an ice pick. Leonardo Padura, one of Cuba’s greatest living writers, has written an incredible book that tells the story of Trotsky’s assassination. He approaches the subject matter with skill and the ability to give these historical personages a human side.
Leon Padura was awarded Cuba’s National Literature Prize in 2012. He is better known for his detective works, and the creation of the detective Mario Conde. However, in this book we already know the identity of the criminal and the crime committed at the outset.
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The story is divided into three story-lines. The first is the writer Ivan who has lived and suffered under the Cuban regime. In many ways he is the central character, the narrator/writer who feels compelled to write this account of Trotsky’s assassination. Through Ivan we see Cuba and the Cold War in all its reality. The stark poverty, the crushing of socialist ideals under the weight of Stalinism.
The second story line follows Trotsky and his family as they move in exile from unwilling country to unwilling country. We see a man who is fearful for his family as he is chased by the shadow of Stalin. In the end very few members of Trotsky’s family escaped the wrath of Stalin.
The third story is the most intriguing. It follows the life of Ramon Mercader, the culprit. The Raskolnikov of the novel. He meets Ivan on a deserted beach where he takes his Russian Borzois for walks. They bond over their love of dogs (hence the title). Slowly over their meetings the so-called Jamie Lopez reveals the story of Ramon Mercader and how he became Trotsky’s assassin.
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In a way all of the men involved in this story love dogs – so ‘The Man’ of the title is not clearly anyone of them, but is all of them. That each man’s story and fate are inextricably connected.
In its scope the book covers enormous events of the twentieth century. Starting with the Spanish Revolution and Civil War, the Russian Revolution and the development of Stalinism, the Stalinist Show Trials and aftermath of Stalin’s fall, and finally the Cold War and especially Cuban society.
The book exposes the inhumane tools of the Stalinist secret police the GPU. We see how they ruthlessly turn Mecarder into a murderer. During the Show Trials GPU torture is used to extract what to us are obviously fake confessions. In his novel Padura deals with the fact that most Russian people bought the ideology Stalin was selling. Of course there was a huge element of fear involved too.
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The books real strength lies in how these three stories are treated with the complexity they deserve. Ivan the writer, is the personification of wasted youth of a whole generation who gave up everything for a socialist reality that didn’t meet expectations. Ivan is censored and nearly doesn’t write the book that has basically landed in his lap.
Trotsky is represented as a real person with real conflicts. He reflects upon decisions he made, such as the put down of the Kronstadt mutiny. Decisions that were made whilst Russia was being invaded by the ‘Whites’ and the 21 countries that participated. Reflections upon his handling of Stalin, and his deep desire to finish his book about Stalin whilst many communists where doing intellectual cartwheels to keep up with the Comintern’s twists. As Trotsky himself liked to quote, “Neither weep nor laugh but understand”.
Lev Davodivich was a man with his soul divided in anguish. Someday he told himself they would recognise that it was the mistakes of revolutionaries. More than the pressures of imperialism, that had delayed the great changes of human society...It shamed him...that after invading Poland, Stalin was imposing the Soviet order there with the same fury with which Hitler exported fascist ideology...It anguished him not to be able to discern whether all that bureaucracy was already a new class…
The triumph of this book is Padura’s creation of real characters with real motives. Padura’s history in detective novels must have helped him develop a picture of the murderer Mercader and his motives. It shows how a bossy, domineering mother pushed both her children into proud fighters for Republican Spain. However, it is through her that Mercader is selected for this most important of roles – the assassination of Stalin’s arch nemesis Leon Trotsky.
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Photos of Mecarder arrested after killing Leon Trotsky
For Mercader to become the assassin he must swallow all doubt – both self and about the cause. He must ignore the evidence in front of him – the sabotaging of the Spanish Revolution. The persecution of the anarchists and the POUM (Trotskyists) by the GPU (Stalinist secret police), including the murder of Andres Nin and others. He has to be trained to become a new person, with a new identity, and to seduce an American Trotskyist (Sylvia Ageloff) in order to eventually get into the Mexican compound. The methods used by the GPU to turn Mercader into a cold blooded killer are merciless.
The heart of the book is of course the assassination. At first when Trotsky and his family move to Mexico they are welcomed by the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The book does go into Leon and Frida’s affair and Leon contemplating the hurt he is causing his wife. He’s not presented as some saint. Still it feels like a real stab in the back when Rivera is supposedly involved in a gun shoot out at the compound. Reading the account of the assassination gets you thinking why does Lev Davodivich trust this man (Mercader or Jacson as he was pretending to be), why doesn’t he listen to his gut feelings? When it comes to the attack, even though we know it’s coming, both Mercader and the reader are shocked and taken back by Trotsky's howl of pain and the very natural act of biting the hand that attacks you.
Many decades later Mercader has been released from his Mexican prison and returned to the Soviet Union a hero. However, this Soviet Union is desperately distancing itself from Stalin’s crimes. Even Mercader’s GPU handler was sent to a camp. Now they sit and drink vodka with their bitter memories.
Stalin perverted everything and forced people to fight for him, his needs, his hate, his megalomania.
Trotsky was Stalin’s number one enemy and this book shows the lengths he went to destroy him. Stalin’s rage extended to his entire family. Only his grandson survived. We know about him from the Strangler’s song – No More Heroes. However, his history has been hidden. Hidden from the people of Cuba – hidden from the people of the United States. This book helps to readdress that.
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