Josh Ireland

Trotsky and Stalin is, Trotsky is a really good analogue for how confident Stalin feels at any given moment.

So at the beginning, because Trotsky is the much more famous figure, the person whose photo is still, you know, in party offices in, you know, far, far, far, like near South Korea or, you know, that he can't, he can't move against him publicly.

He can start to chip away at his reputation, which he does relentlessly, you know, they start...

pumping out propaganda against him.

Pravda starts writing vicious editorials about him, but he can't actually move against him.

He can't do the thing that he will do to people later on without a second thought.

So he's very, very cautious about what he does.

But it culminates in 1928 when Trotsky is sent into internal exile in Kazakhstan.

And that's pretty decisive.

I think whether Trotsky understands it or not, there's no way back after that.

He has a small group of supporters, but most of them either very quickly understand

the drift of things.

There is absolutely no value in continuing to argue for Trotsky and to keep believing him.

And also, you get nothing back.

He never says thank you.

He never writes to you to say, well done.

If you're interested in joining the Politburo or rising up in the party, he's not your person.

Okay, so he's in Siberia.

He's in Kazakhstan.

For a year.