L. Trotsky. Autograph postcard signed, ("L.B."), to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (in French), 1939

TROTSKY, LEON

Autograph postcard signed with his initials ("L D"), to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, in French, [Mexico City 1939]

written immediately on his arrival with his wife Natalya at the house in Avenue Viena in Mexico City, expressing how touched he was to find some medicine there, noting that no one was informed beforehand [of their arrival], promising to provide a more detailed account the following day, since at the moment he is a little tired ("...Ici personne n'est prévenue mais j'espère que tout s'arrange...peu à peu. Demain je vous donnerai un conte rendu plus detaillé, pour l'instant je suis un peu fatigué...")

1 page, oblong 8vo (8.5 x 14cm), autograph address, no place or date [Avenue Viena, Mexico City, 1939], a few small water stains, affecting text, light creasing

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917, who was granted asylum in Mexico after breaking with Joseph Stalin in the 1920s. This letter is addressed by Trotsky to two other figures that are also of great cultural and historical importance, the artists Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, and signs this letter "L.B.".

That this letter was written in Mexico is a result of Trotsky's dramatic break with Stalin and Stalinism. He had developed "Trotskyism" as a political theory that rejected Stalin's policy of "Socialism in One Country". Instead, Trotsky invented the principle of international "Permanent Revolution", calling for the establishment of a workers' state and the dismantling of capitalist property. He was increasingly opposed to Stalinism, especially after Stalin's assumption of complete power in 1927, and was forced to live in exile. 

Having been formally condemned to death in Moscow, Trotsky was offered asylum by the Mexican government in December 1936. After his arrival in Mexico in January 1937, Trotsky took up residence in the Coyoacán district of Mexico City as guests of Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo. He had a brief but passionate affair with Kahlo, lasting till about July 1937 and, by May 1939, he had also fallen out with Rivera over politics. So Trotsky and his wife Natalya moved to a nearby house on Avenida Viena, where, the following year in August 1940, he was murdered by a Soviet secret agent on Stalin’s orders.

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