Left Opposition

The Left Opposition was a faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1923-1927, as a response to the strengthening of Stalinism, with Leon Trotsky being its de-facto leader. It was banned, and the members were expelled from the party.

In exile, Leon Trotsky founded the International Left Opposition in 1930. It was meant to be an opposition within the Comintern but members were immediately expelled as soon as they joined (or were suspected of joining) the ILO. In 1933 it was renamed the International Communist League (ICL), which was the base of the Fourth International, founded in Paris in 1938.

Nearly all members of the Left Opposition in the USSR were executed during the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge.

Leading members

• Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) (1879-1940), People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War during the Russian Civil War, and de-facto leader of the Left Opposition
• Karl Radek (1885-1939)
• Ivan Smilga (Ivan Timofyevich Smilga) (1892-?), chairman of the Regional Committee of the Soviets in Finland in 1917, chairman of Tsentrobalt, Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet, 1917-1918)
• Yevgeni Preobrazhensky (1886-1937), the economic theoretician of the Left Opposition, the author of the The New Economics book) *Ivan N. Smirnoy (1881-1936)
• Mikhail Boguslavsky (1886-1937)
• Sergei Mrachkovsky (1883-1936)
• Alexander Beloborodov (1891-1938)
• Christian Rakovsky (1873-1941)
• Lev Sosnovsky (Lev S. Sosnovsky) (1886-1937), a journalist
• Nikolai Muralov (Nikolai L. Muralov) (1877-1937), a hero of the Russian Civil War, once Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture

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