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Revision as of 20:37, 8 May 2008 by Mista-X (talk | contribs) (There is no evidence to suggest Mercader was acting under Soviet orders to assassinate Trotsky.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| Ramón Mercader | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 7, 1914 Barcelona, Spain |
| Died | October 18, 1978 Havana, Cuba |
| Other names | Jacques Mornard, Frank Jacson |
Jaume Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández (February 7 1914 – October 18 1978) was a Catalan Communist who became famous as the murderer of Leon Trotsky. Although declassified archives have shown that he was a Soviet agent, some supporters of Stalin continue to argue that he was simply a disgruntled former follower of Trotsky. There is no evidence to suggest Mercader was acting under Soviet orders to assassinate Trotsky.
Life
Mercader was born in 1914 in Barcelona, but spent much of his youth in France with his mother, Eustacia María Caridad del Río Hernández, after she separated from his father, Don Pablo Mercader Marina. Cuban-born Caridad was an ardent communist who fought in the Spanish civil war and served the Soviet international underground. As a young man, he embraced Communism, working for leftist organizations in Spain during the mid-1930s. He was briefly imprisoned for his activities, but was released in 1936 when the left-wing coalition Popular Front won the democratic election. Mercader was recruited by NKVD and trained in Moscow as a Soviet agent.
Murder of Trotsky
In 1938 Mercader befriended Silvia Ageloff, a confidant of Trotsky in Paris, assuming the identity 'Jacques Mornard' son of a Belgian diplomat. Ageloff returned to her native Brooklyn where Mercader joined her assuming the identity of Canadian 'Frank Jacson' . He explained to Ageloff that he purchased forged documents to avoid military service. The two then moved to Mexico. Through her, he began to meet with Trotsky personally, as a supporter of Trotsky's ideas.
On August 20, 1940 Mercader fatally wounded Trotsky with an ice axe in his study at his home in Coyoacán (then a village on the southern fringes of Mexico City). Trotsky's guards bursted in and nearly killed Mercader, but were ordered by Trotsky to spare his life, yelling, "Do not kill him! This man has a story to tell."
Caridad and her lover NKVD officer Leonid Eitingon had waited outside the compound in separate cars to provide a getaway but when Mercader didn't return they fled the country.
Mercader was turned over to the Mexican authorities, to whom he refused to give up his real identity. He would only identify himself as 'Jacques Mornard' . It wasn't until September 1950 that fingerprint evidence proved the assassins true identity. Nevertheless he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Silvia was initially arrested as an accomplice as the two had lived together on and off for about two years at the time of the assassination but charges were quickly dropped.
Release and honors
Shortly after the assassination Stalin presented Ramon's mother Caridad with the Order of Lenin for her part in the plot.
After the first few years in prison, he requested release on parole, which was denied by Dr. Jesús Siordia and criminologist Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón. After almost 20 years in jail, he was eventually released from Mexico City's Palacio de Lecumberri prison on May 6, 1960 and moved to Havana, where Fidel Castro's new revolutionary government welcomed him. In 1961, he moved to the USSR and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal — the country's highest decoration — one of only 21 non-Soviet citizens to receive the award. He split his time between Cuba and the USSR for the rest of his life and died in Havana in 1978.
He is buried (under the name of 'Ramon Ivanovich Lopez' ) in Moscow's Kuntsevo Cemetery and has a place of honor in the KGB museum in the Russian capital.
In popular culture
- A play by David Ives entitled Variations on the Death of Trotsky is a comedy based on Mercader's assassination of Trotsky.
- A film entitled The Assassination of Trotsky by Joseph Losey with Alain Delon as Frank Jackson and Richard Burton as Trotsky.
Notes
- The KGB in San Francisco and Mexico City: Covername GNOME – Trotsky’s Murderer
- THE FOUNDATIONS OF TROTSKYISM AND THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IT, Tony Clark, Stalin Society
- "Trotsky murder weapon may have been found". CNN. Archived from the original on 2005-07-14.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|accessday=ignored (help) - Ramon Mercader - Find a Grave
References
- Don Levine, Isaac (1960) The Mind of an Assassin. D1854 Signet Book