Stalin vs Trotsky: The Assassination That Changed History, with Josh Ireland

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. On August 20, 1940, in a quiet study in Mexico, one of the 20th century's most consequential political exiles was assassinated with an ice pick. The killing of Leon Trotsky marked the culmination of a relentless campaign orchestrated by Joseph Stalin, stretching across continents and years of pursuit.

But how did the plot unfold, and who was the man who carried it out? On today's episode, Josh Ireland, historian and author, joins fellow historian and author Tim Bouvery to discuss Ireland's new book, The Death of Trotsky. and the extraordinary story behind one of the most consequential assassinations in modern history. Let's join our host, Tim Bouvery, now with more. Well, Josh, it's great to speak to you because I've hugely enjoyed this book that you've written and is now available, The Death of Trotsky, the true story of the plot to kill Stalin's greatest enemy.

It's It's an incredible read about one of the most famous assassinations in history. And before we get into the detail about the plot itself and Trotsky's rift with Stalin that led to it, I wanted to ask a bit about the process because this is a very complex story. largely based on the number of characters and the number of aliases they had, and it's intimately connected with possibly the most complex, secretive and in in many ways distorting organization that the world has ever known, the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. How do you go about

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