Intelligence Squared

On August 20, 1940, in a quiet study in Mexico, one of the 20th century’s most consequential political exiles was assassinated with an ice pick. The killing of Leon Trotsky marked the culmination of a relentless campaign orchestrated by Joseph Stalin, stretching across continents and years of pursuit. But how did the plot unfold — and who was the man who carried it out? In this episode, historian and author Tim Bouverie speaks with writer Josh Ireland about his new book The Death of Trotsky. Drawing on archival research and narrative history, Ireland reconstructs the parallel lives of Trotsky, Stalin and Ramón Mercader, the Soviet agent who infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle under a false identity. The conversation explores the machinery of Stalinist power, the psychological and political forces that drove the pursuit of Trotsky into exile, and of how political violence at the highest levels of power continues to echo today, from targeted killings in Putin’s Russia to attempted assassinations in Western de