good family. And she had married into this terrible group of
people.

And she was like, she was great fun, Stalin liked her. She was flirtatious with Stalin. But she was
distantly related to Trotsky, fatal, fatal thing to be. Very distantly, something like her sister`s husband was -
- his sister was married to the son of Trotsky -- Trotksy`s son. So it was very diffuse.

LAMB: Why is that bad?

MONTEFIORE: Stalin was obsessed with Trotsky. Trotsky was his great villain, the great enemy.
And Stalin had made his career by basically destroying Trotsky.

LAMB: Who killed Trotsky?

MONTEFIORE: Stalin ordered it. He tried to kill him umpteen times, and finally called in Beria
and Sudoplatov, who was this sort of master of special tasks in the secret police. And he said, just destroy
him, I wanthim done. Executed in 1940. They found him, they knew where he was, of course, and they
infiltrated someone into his circle, and then they killed him with an ice axe.

Stalin was thrilled with that. He gave medals to all the people involved.

LAMB: In Mexico?

MONTEFIORE: In Mexico City, yes.

LAMB: I really can`t pronounce that name. It`s?

MONTEFIORE: Poskrebyshev.

LAMB: Poskrebyshev.

MONTEFIORE: Yeah.

LAMB: What happened to his wife?

MONTEFIORE: Well, she made a -- her brother was also arrested. And he was a Kremlin doctor.
A top Kremlin doctor. And so she went to Stalin, to ask for -- for his release. And some people say that
they had an affair, which I think is very unlikely probably. But she then went to Beria to ask for the release,
and Beria arrested her. And of course her