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0:21

Good morning, my name is Carlos Alonso.
I am a guide at the Leon Trotsky Museum.
We are here at the house
where the famous revolutionary lived.
Leon Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union
after his expulsion by Stalin in 1929.
First he reached Turkey, later France,
then Norway, and eventually Mexico,
thanks to the support of Lazaro Cardenas,
who was President of Mexico at that time,
and under the auspices of Diego Rivera
and several Mexican intellectuals
such as Fabio Fernandez, a school teacher,
who also supported Trotsky´s exile in Mexico.
We are now at the bedroom of Trotsky's grandson,
who is 95 years old at the present time,
and who was injured in one foot
in the first attempt to kill Trotsky,
perpetrated by David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Fortunately, both Trotsky and his wife Natalia
were not injured in this attempt on his life.

1:24

We are here in Trotsky´s bedroom,
where we are able to observe the reinforcements
that were made after the first attack.
The doors were armored,
the windows were also armored,
we can observe the impact of the bullet,
the result of the first attempt.
In this wall, there are two more holes below,
but the larger bullet holes
--if we get a little closer on this side--
can be seen in this wall.
The holes have these large dimensions because
Siqueiros was using a Thompson submachine gun.
That is why the holes are large.
The windows were bullet-proofed,
and the doors were reinforced with metal.
These are the only areas with metal.
Let´s remember that the assassins arrived at 4 am,
when people are sleeping and their reaction times are slower.
The pictures seen on the table
show Trotsky´s family, from right to left,
his second wife Natalia,
with whom he arrives at this house.
In the middle is his younger son, Sergei,
and on the left, his older son, Lev,
both of whom, by 1938, had been assassinated
in Europe, by the Stalinist police.
The only survivors were Natalia
and Trotsky´s grandson.

2:37

This is the room of the revolutionary,
or better yet, his study.
This is where, unfortunately, he was fatally wounded.
Ramon Mercader was his assassin,
a Stalinist spy, who was trained for the mission.
Mercader befriended Trotsky´s secretary
from New York, Sylvia Ageloff.
That was the way that he could enter the house.
After gaining their confidence,
Mercader asked Trotsky
if he could correct a political note, at this desk.
He stood on Trotsky´s right side.
Trotsky, who was concentrating on reading the note,
turned to face Mercader,
who had a pick hidden under his coat
and violently struck Trotsky´s head with it.
Trotsky screamed very loudly,
and his security guards came in immediately
and beat Mercader into submission right there.
Later, Trotsky said that Mercader should not be killed
because he should be made to reveal who sent him.
Trotsky was sent to the hospital,
where he survived a first operation,
but, unfortunately, he died 24 hours later.
Ramon Mercader was sent to prison for only 20 years.
After getting out of prison, Mercader went to Prague,
then to the Soviet Union,
and later to Havana, Cuba, where he lived peacefully,
financed by what was left of Stalin´s Communist Party,
until his death in 1968 from stomach cancer.