Question 1

True or false: Leon Trotsky died of natural causes in his sleep in Mexico.

Accepted Answer

False. Trotsky was assassinated in 1940 by a Soviet agent, Ramón Mercader, who struck him with an ice axe.

Question 2

True or false: Leon Trotsky founded the Red Army in 1918.

Accepted Answer

True. Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar of War and built the Red Army from scratch, leading it to victory in the Russian Civil War.

Question 3

True or false: Leon Trotsky served as the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia.

Accepted Answer

True. After the October Revolution in 1917, Trotsky became the first Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Soviet Republic, negotiating the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.

Question 4

True or false: Leon Trotsky succeeded Vladimir Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

Accepted Answer

False. After Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin defeated Trotsky in the power struggle and became the Soviet leader. Trotsky was exiled.

Question 5

True or false: Leon Trotsky was a lifelong close friend of Joseph Stalin.

Accepted Answer

False. Trotsky and Stalin were political rivals. Trotsky opposed Stalin's policies and was eventually exiled and killed on Stalin's orders.

Question 6

True or false: Leon Trotsky wrote the famous novel 'The Gulag Archipelago'.

Accepted Answer

False. That book was written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Trotsky was a political theorist, not a novelist of that type.

Question 7

True or false: Leon Trotsky was a Menshevik before joining the Bolshevik Party.

Accepted Answer

True. Trotsky initially aligned with the Menshevik faction and only formally joined the Bolsheviks shortly before the October Revolution in 1917.

Question 8

True or false: Leon Trotsky lived in New York City in early 1917.

Accepted Answer

True. Trotsky resided in the Bronx and worked as a journalist for a Russian-language newspaper before returning to Russia after the February Revolution.

Leon Trotsky Trivia Questions