On May 6, 1960, a middle-aged man walked briskly out of a prison outside Mexico. The next day, the world reported the man's early release. So who is this middle-aged man? Why is there so much attention paid to him?
The middle-aged man, who identified himself as Jacques Monal, was Trotsky's murderer years ago. Speaking of this man one has to understand his motives for killing Trotsky. It is well known that since Trotsky's expulsion and exile by Stalin in 1928, his conflict with Stalin has intensified. Stalin actually regretted Trotsky's expulsion, believing that it would be easier to deal with if Trotsky had remained at home.
But what made Stalin uneasy was that after Trotsky's expulsion, he confronted him abroad, which made Stalin lose face. Not only that, but Trotsky joined forces with so-called progressive groups in an attempt to overthrow Stalin's rule, and even openly supported the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, which made Stalin even more hostile to Trotsky. In order to permanently solve Trotsky's dangers, Stalin successively sent a large number of agents to assassinate him.
In 1937, the Supreme Court of the USSR tried Trotsky and his children in the absence of the parties, believing that they intended to subvert the Soviet government, and sentenced Trotsky and others to death. But Trotsky did not succumb to his ideal of forming the Fourth International, and Stalin's assassination plan was intensified. Soon, bad news came. Trotsky's eldest son, Lev Sedov, was assassinated in a French hospital, while his daughter Zina committed suicide in Berlin. Not only that, but Trotsky's son Sergei, who remained at home, was also imprisoned in concentration camps.
This situation worried and grieved Trotsky, and he himself was assassinated several times. However, since the Trotskyites had long been engaged in military activities, the assassination did not cause them great harm. After several unsuccessful assassinations, Stalin sent people to contact foreign forces to assassinate Trotsky. Hence the assassination of Jacques Monal.
According to sources, the middle-aged man's original name was Ramon Mercad, and his mother was the famous Caridad Melcat. Because of her mother's great merits for the KGB elements in the Spanish Civil War, she was highly valued by the Soviet authorities. After the KGB's repeated failed attempts to assassinate him, the idea of the overseas agent was put in the position. We do not know the promises of the KGBs at that time, but we can see from the rewards in Moscow the extent of the rewards. After Ramon's successful assassination, Ramon's mother was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin.
So how did this middle-aged man get into the well-guarded home of Trotsky? It turned out that Ramon knew that Sylvia, a follower of Trotsky, could enter and leave Trotsky's home at will, so he used his handsome appearance to make Sylvia his lover, and sure enough, Sylvia was hooked.
After gaining Sylvia's trust, the man was taken into Trotsky's home, and the assassination began. "I instantly grabbed the ice axe, closed my eyes, and slammed it into his head with all my strength," ramon described in his confession. When Sylvia learned the details of the matter, she was in excruciating pain. She roared madly, "Find him, kill that man!" Never underestimate a woman's sense of revenge.
Although the KGB elements promised Ramon to protect him, in fact his plan fell through. Searched by Trotsky's followers, Ramon's hiding place was found and he was sent to prison. When the Soviet authorities learned of Ramon's imprisonment, they gave Ramon's mother a generous reward on the one hand, but on the other hand they remained silent.
Ramon's mother, who loved her son, repeatedly asked the Soviet authorities to negotiate with Mexico, but the Soviet government refused her request. Rather than rely on herself, Ramon's mother personally led a rescue team into Mexico in an attempt to rescue her imprisoned son. But the KGB would not allow this smear campaign against the Soviet Union at all, and they wanted Ramon to act as a scapegoat in peace. So Ramon's mother was nearly killed by a car on the street, and she knew that this was a warning, so she gave up the rescue plan and went to France to take refuge.
It is unimaginable to behave in this way today, and no one would believe that a revolutionary father would die under an ice axe, but that's how it happened. Stalin's killer personally ended Trotsky's eleven-year exile. Perhaps Trotsky also had some sense of relief, after all, such a day is too difficult!