when was leon trotsky assassinated
In the late afternoon of August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was killed by the blow of a mountaineer s ice-climbing pick axe at his home in Coyoacan, Mexico, where he had been living in exile. The assassin, Ramon Mercader, was an agent of the Soviet secret police, then called the GPU and later known as the KGB.
In the early months of 1940, Leon Trotsky's health was failing and he knew he was a marked man. In February, he wrote a testament expressing his final thoughts for posterity and forcibly denied Stalin's accusations. On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was sitting at his desk in his study in Mexico City.