POLITICS AS MURDER Chapter Two

 

I can sum up Joseph Stalin in a single sentence: he rose to leadership in the International Communist Party as a bank robber, financing Lenin's political activities. His intended Pièce de résistance sent twenty bomb throwing Communists into a crowded Yerevan Square (above) in the center of the Georgian capital of Tilfis, in broad daylight, to hijack a cash shipment. 

The resulting carnage killed forty people and wounded another fifty. The condemnation over the blood bath was unanimous, even from within the communist ranks. Worse, it netted 340,000 rubles, but most of those were brand new 500 ruble notes, which could not be spent.  

An embarrassed Vladmir Lenin (above, born Vladmir Ulyanov), leader of the bolshevik wing of the Communist Party,  had to distance himself from the bloody operation.

Lenin even had to disguise himself (above) and flee from Russia, escaping first to Finland and finally to Switzerland. 

The mastermind of the disaster, Stalin, also escaped to Finland, but was later arrested by the Czar's secret police, tried for subversion and banished to Siberia. There he was cut off from advancement in Communist Party politics.  If they had only executed the man, tens of millions of people might have been saved.

The young Stalin (above) had been born in Georgian, and spoke Russian with an accent, marking him as a “country bumpkin” to the party intellectuals, like Trotsky and Lenin.  He had two webbed toes on his left foot, a sign of fetal alcohol syndrome.  He was raised by an alcoholic father who regularly beat his mother. At seven he caught smallpox, which left his face scared.  Shortly thereafter, he was struck by a carriage which broke his left arm.  It was set badly, and healed permanently shorter than the right. Everything set him off as an outsider. 

 He fell in with street gangs, until his desperate mother secured him a scholarship to a Georgian Orthodox seminary.  But his father refused to pay a tuition hike, and abandoned his wife and son. 

 But Stalin persevered, switched his religion to revolutionary politics and rose to replace Lenin himself in the later 1920's. But he never forgot how Trotsky had belittled him. 

In contrast, Jewish Leon Trotsky (Above, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein) was born into wealth. He spoke fluent French, English and German.  His writing for and editing of revolutionary newspapers, like kept him close to Lenin. However it also led to repeated arrests by the Czarist secret police. 

Twice he was sentenced to Siberia, and twice he escaped to rejoin with Lenin.  Come the 1917 revolution, Trotsky was the number two man in the Communist party. When Lenin needed to end the war with German and the Austria-Hungarian empire, Trotsky negotiated the treaty. And post revolution, when civil war broke out, Trotsky became head of the Red Army.    

All of Trotsky's power flowed from Lenin (above, center), but beginning in 1920 the communist leader suffered a series of strokes. And increasingly Stalin inserted himself into the leadership, slowly pushing Trotsky (above, right center) aside. By the time Lenin died in 1924, Stalin had isolated Trotsky. Stalin had him expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929. His supporters within Russia were eliminated during the purges of 1934 to 1938.

Hounded by Soviet agents from Turkey to France, to Norway and at last,  in 1937, to Mexico, Trotsky continued to write articles denouncing Stalin's version of communism, 

Best estimates are that during the 1930's Stalin ordered the murder or imprisonment in Siberian “Gulags” of over 2 million Russians, and starved to death another 4 million through his inept collective farm programs. By the time the 57 year old Trotsky arrived in Mexico his was the only Communist voice still critical of the paranoid 5 foot, five inch tall Stalin.  But in their article noting his arrival, Time Magazine wrote, “Today Trotsky is in Mexico — the ideal country for an assassination”.

In the winter of 1938, Stalin personally ordered that Trotsky “...should be eliminated within a year.” The assignment, given the code name “Pato”, or, in English, “Duck”,  eventually fell to NKVD agent Leonid Eitingon's (above),  budget for the murder of this one man was $300,000.  First, Leonid needed a trusted agent in Mexico, where Trotsky now lived.  He recruited a Mexican veteran of the Spanish Civil War, painter David Alfaro Siqueiros.  Leonid then moved to New York City with his Cuban mistress, Caridad Mercader, They were followed soon afterward by her adult son Ramon. 

Ramnon Mercader (above) had also fought in Spain on the Republican side,  trained as a spy in Russia and already had two NKVD developed identities.  One was a stolen Canadian passport in the name of American Frank Jackson, who had died in Spain.  

This easily pierced identity was used to make the Ramon/Jackson identity more believable when he claimed to actually be Jacques Mornard (above),  the Communist son of a Belgium diplomat.  Ramon had used both identities before, in Paris,  to seduce Slyvia Ageloff, a young American communist , whose sister, Ruth,  was a typist for Trotsky.  The seduction had led nowhere operationally,  but illustrated Stalin's determination to infiltrate Trotsky's inner circle via as many paths as possible. 

Once in America, Leonid  set up "Amtorg Corporation",  a Brooklyn based import-export business, which allowed him to transfer funds to Mexico City for Trotksy's assassination. Shortly after he arrived, Ramon (above)  re- reignited his affair with the young American typist.  It was a short interlude. 

Three months later, in September of 1939,  Leonid traveled to Mexico City,  to check on Siqueiros' preparations for the assassination.  He was followed a month later by Ramon (above), using his old Frank/Jacques covers.

Siqueiros reported that he already had an agent inside Trotsky's villa (above) -  the cook Carman Palma. She  had supplied detailed floor plans, daily schedules and personal habits of the residents – “The Old Man”, his wife Natalia,  grandson Seva, and a servant girl, 

There was also Trotsky's three male assistants and his two American bodyguards, as well as the newest bodyguard, American Robert Harte - who was in fact an NKVD operative, code named “Amur”.   Leonid was impressed, but did not share with Siqueiros any information about Ramon, nor that the operation was receiving  funds and technical support from Adolf Hitler's anticommunist Nazi Germany.

In Mexico Leonid Etington avoided all contact with the Russian embassy. All his communications with Moscow were made through Nazi German diplomatic channels. Nazi agents kept watch on Trotsky's movements outside the villa.

Meanwhile two attractive female communist agents, Julia Barrados and Anita Lopez,  took an apartment three blocks from 19 Avenida Viena (above, side and back), and befriended the police officers guarding the place, often hosting parties for them. 

On Thursday afternoon, 23 May, 1940, a few hours before the actual assault, they even stopped by to confirm everything was as usual and no alarm had been given inside the villa.

Once in Mexico, Trotsky had begun writing what was to be his ultimate anti-Stalinist work, a biography of the Georgian murderer.  Prophetically, Trotsky observed “Stalin...seeks to strike not at the ideas of the opponent, but at his skull.”  And in detailing Stalin's command of the Tilfis massacre, Trotsky wrote that “Others did the fighting; Stalin supervised them from afar”.  It was this intended biography that finally convinced Stalin to murder Trotsky as soon as possible.

At four the next morning, 24 May, Sequeiros (above), code named “Horse”, and dressed in an over sized coat, and a over sized fake mustache, got the drop on the two police guards. He led the first team into the foray to capture the three sleeping guards, gaged and tied up all five of them. The second team, lead by Russian, Iosif Grubgykevich, code named “Felipe”, knocked on the inner door. Hart opened the door because he recognized “Felipe's” voice.  Hart had been compromised.

Once the guards in the guest house had been pinned down, the operation turned artistic. 

It was Spanish painter Antonio Pujol (above) who burst into the study, and fired into Trotsky's bedroom from the left side.

And Mexican painter Luis Arenal who burst into Seva's room and fired into Trotsky's bedroom from the right.

But it was David Alfaro Siqueiros (above), the most famous painter and biggest ego of the trio, who at the end burst through the French doors and emptied his pistol directly into Trotsky's bed. Then Pujol set off a grenade in the study, intended to destroy Trotsky's biography of Stalin. But it was Arenal who drew the only actual blood, a ricochet from the bedroom wall, which struck 14 year old Seva in the toe.

And then there was the problem of Robert Harte. It appears that he, like many of those who helped the conspirators, had been told the object was only to destroy Trotsky's work, not the man himself.  During the escape Harte became “agitated and upset” with his handler “Felipe” because of the murder attempt.

Iosif Grubgykevich, the Soviet agent, realized they could no longer trust Harte, and after they arrived at the farm rented by Siqueiros' sister, Grubgykevich shot the American once at the base of the skull and once into the temple, the standard NKVD execution method.  The next night his body was dumped into a grave dug along the main road.  It seems certain it was the Mexican communists did the heavy work, because Harte was covered in quick lime (above), under the mistaken belief it would hasten the decay. In fact quick lime preserves flesh. Any trained NKVD agent would know that. Stalin certainly did.  In any case the attempted murder had been a bust. There was going to have to be another attempt. 

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POLITICS AS MURDER Chapter One

 

I am certain Robert Harte died knowing he had made the wrong choice Of course, by then it was far too late.  He should have acted before the man came around the corner from Morelos Street, and approached the two Police officers guarding the front door of the single story hacienda at 19 Avenida Viena (above). It was just after four on Friday morning, 24 May, 1940, in the quiet farming 

Mexico City suburb of Carranza.  

The man raised an arm in greeting. The officers were deceived for a moment by his large military looking overcoat.  And then, as he came closer, they saw his comical false mustache.  But before they could say anything, the man suddenly shouted “Viva Almazan!”, and pulled his pistol.  

The right wing revolutionary Juan Almazan (above) was one of the richest and most famous men in Mexico, and currently a very unpopular candidate for the Presidency.  The use of his name, the comical makeup and the military overcoat kept the two officers bewildered just long enough to be disarmed.

A half dozen men appeared out of the darkness and shoved the officers through the front door of the villa.  In the reception hall were three more police officers, sleeping.  At the same time the telephone lines into the villa were cut. All five prisoners were quickly gagged and tied up, and left on the floor, under guard, while yet another score of armed men filed silently into the dimly lit foray. The mustached man knocked heavily on the left hand inside door.  After a moment, a voice was heard from inside the villa, asking “Qué es ?” The mustached man demanded, “Abra la puerta! La policía de la ciudad de México.” There was a hesitation, and then the voice said, “Un momento”, followed by the sound of a bolt being lifted, and a lock being turned.

The second it began to move the door was violently shoved fully open, bowling over young Robert Harte, who had just opened the inside door. Instantly, eager hands lifted him up and spun him around. Without pause he was hustled across the Villa's 100 yard long garden (above) 

There was a seven foot wall to the left (above, right), topped by barbed wire, and a series of doors to the villa's separate rooms to the right (above, left).  At the end of the garden stood a small, two story red brick guest house, painted white (below). 

With military precision the men divided. Several spread out in front of the guest house (above), while others filtered through the gate beyond, which opened on Churubusco street. Still  more men ran through the back gate to a Ford pickup and a Dodge passenger car, parked there.  At that moment, the electrical power to the villa was cut off.  

At the same time  a third, smaller group of armed men men raced through the front door, turned left in the hall and out into the garden, where they split up, one man stopping in front of each of the villa's doors.  

Just as they did so, a voice called out from the guest house, “Es que usted , Roberto?. Lo que está mal?” A loud blasts of automatic gunfire ripped the suburban night apart.  Over the next two minutes, the only exit from the guest house was blocked by a continuous hail of lead.

As soon as they heard the gunfire, the figure outside the farthest entrance,  bent down and crashed through the five foot high door and into the study beyond (above). As he did so the man in front of the middle room, stood and pulled the bolt of his MP 35 German made machine gun, and the third man bent over and crashed through the remaining door into a bedroom. (below) 

 Immediately all three men opened fire, blasting the adobe and plaster walls separating the rooms, filling the bedroom sandwiched between with 200 deadly 9mm lead missiles. 

The firing went on for less than fifteen seconds, while over 70 bullets thudding into the wall and the bed's headboard. Then the middle gunman dropped his weapon, pulled a pistol and burst through the French doors, emptying a clip directly into the lumps on the bed (below).

As he did so the men in the foray silently filtered toward the back gate, followed in their turn by the kill squad, who dropped incendiary grenades behind them, and then the squad assigned to suppress the guards in the guest house. 

The raiding party then piled into the two stolen vehicles and disappeared into the night. Within five minutes of the two police officers being surprised at the front door, the raid was over.  It would be some hours before the raiders realized they had failed.

The target had survived. His wife Natalia had been awakened by the crash of the inner door. She shook her husband and then pulled him onto the floor beside her. The hail of bullets, when it came, passed over their heads, and the pistol fire punctured the mattress they had been sleeping on, but the two elderly intended victims were safe, unseen, on the floor of their dark bedroom.

As soon as he was certain the raiders had left, the intended target, "the old man man" (above, right), as everyone called him, asked Natalia (above left) to check on their 14 year old grandson Seva (above, center), who was sleeping in the bedroom next to theirs. Even after pushing aside a burning chest of drawers, Natalia could not find her grandson. Her first panicked thought was that he had been kidnapped. 

But then she heard his voice from the library at the front end of the house, calling out in Russian, “Ded?” - grandfather? She found Seva clutching his bleeding foot. He had been awakened when the gunfire at the guest house erupted, and had hidden under his bed.  A ricochet had clipped his toe. And that was the only blood spilled that night at 19 Avenida Viena.

Meanwhile, the bearded old man retrieved his wire rimmed glasses, and then ran into his study, next to the bedroom. Inside he found two small fires, which he quickly extinguished. That saved the secondary target of the would-be assassins – the biography  of his rival which the old man was writing .  Then he joined his wife and grandson in the library. He warmly hugged them both, and told his wife, “Natalia, they have given us one more day of life.” 

It was a favorite phrase the old man, Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, would repeat every morning for the rest of his life. He had been known for 20 years now as Leon Trotsky, and as such was reviled, feared and despised by most of the world. Trotsky was the one of those who had engineered the October Communist revolution in Russia for Lenin, who had ordered the massacre of the Russian Tasar Nicolas Romanoff, his wife and six children, who had murdered thousands of his own countrymen,, and was now in exile, hiding from  the revenge of his old partner in terror, Joseph Stalin.   

There was one resident of the villa missing after the raid,  25 year old New Yorker, Robert Harte (above).  But had he left with his fellow conspirators,  or was he the victim of a kidnapping?  

The day after the raid the Communist newspaper in Mexico City spread the lie that the shooting had been staged to garner public sympathy for Trotsky.  The next day the police brought in   “The Old Man's” bodyguards for two grueling days of questioning.  

But at the same time they began taking a hard look at the communist members of the International Brigade,  veterans of the Spanish Civil War, just ended.  First step in this line was to interview the chauffeurs for the Mexican Communist Party. And the name that kept popping was their old commander and the famous Mexican mural painter, David Alfaro Siqueiros (above). 

Siqueiros had recently been paying visits to an isolated farm a few miles south of Carranza, rented by Siqueiros' sister. And the morning after the attack, not far from the farm, the stolen pickup truck had been found abandoned and burned. A week after the assault, the farm house and property were searched by the Mexican government.

On the property, beside the road from Carranza, recently disturbed earth was spotted. A month after the attack, in a shallow grave, the police found the disfigured corpse of Robert Harte (above).  He had been shot twice, and then quick lime had been poured over the body.  It burned some his features, but it also preserved most of the flesh and bones.

A warrant for Siqueiros' arrest was issued. But rather than surrender, Siqueiros (above) fled the country and began issuing written statements to the communist newspaper, at first protesting his innocence, and condemning police incompetence. But as 27 members of the International Brigade were arrested, and their confessions and connections to Siqueiros appeared in the general press,  

Siqueiros' statements to the Communist press began to shift to defiant and arrogant,  justifying the attempted murder of Leon Trotsky. And then, finally, Siqueiros turned himself in.  He was immediately released without bail. And then promptly fled the country and disappeared.

Trotsky was not surprised by the ease with which his attempted assassin escaped justice. Nor was he in any doubt that Siqueiros was the actor but not the author of the murderous attack on his home and family. 

As “Bugs” Moran had insisted after the Chicago St. Valentines Day Massacre that “Only Al Capone kills like that”,  four years before the May 1940 attack on his own life,  Leon Trotsky had prophetically written, "(Joseph) Stalin...seeks to strike not at the ideas of the opponent,  but at his skull.”

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