Trotsky was one of the main architects of the October Revolution of 1917 which finished the Tsar .The Bolsheviks were opposed to the First World War which had cost many millions of Russian lives as well as millions of other nationalities.They simply stopped fighting the German army and ended the war in the east while spreading revolutionary propoganda among both German and Russian soldiers.
Trotsky also argued that unless the Revolution spread to Germany and other countries it would be overcome.
Trotsky was also the most prominent socialist opponent of Stalin and did his utmost to oppose his Russian chauvanism and increasingly oppressive rule ...and it was the Trotskyists inside Russia who were the first victims of the Stalinist Terror in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Over a dozen members of his family were murdered,executed ,imprisoned or made to disappear as Stalin wreaked his revenge on Trotsky for his opposition to Stalinism.
Trotsky was murdered in 1940 by Stalin's agents but Trotsky's belief in socialism from below and the need to form united fronts against fascism still have a great deal to teach us in our modern world.
albert