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Leon Trotsky

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:4,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Leon Trotsky

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Auction Date:2015 May 13 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS in French, signed “L. Trotsky,” one page, 6.75 x 8.75, September 28, 1936. Letter to a friend penned while living in exile in Norway, in part (translated): "I hope…that all the necessary pressure will be made to bring a decision immediately. I propose—as an example—sending a lawyer here to discuss with him the matter.” In fine condition, with central vertical and horizontal folds.

Seven years after his expulsion from the Soviet Union, Trotsky finally received permission to enter Norway, where he lived comfortably as a guest of painter and politician Konrad Knudsen from June 1935 to September 1936. Though he avoided becoming involved in Norwegian politics, his presence in the country caused outrage in light of an upcoming election, putting him again in a precarious situation. Around the same time, Trotsky was famously accused of conspiring to assassinate Stalin and confronted with terrorism charges in the USSR and tried in absentia in August 1936, with the first Moscow show trial of the so-called 'Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center.' In light of these pressures both domestically and abroad, he was placed under restrictive house arrest and forced out of Knudsen's home. During this period visitors were strictly forbidden with the exception of his Norwegian lawyer—even his French lawyer was not admitted—and all of his correspondence was subject to censorship and frequently confiscated. Handwritten letters from Trotsky are in general quite scarce and given that this letter—presumably referring to a consultation with his lawyer either about his Norwegian arrest or perilous terrorism charges in Moscow—was sent while under extreme isolation and uncertain circumstances, it is an especially rare piece of great importance to this period of his life.