Trotsky's younger sister, Olga, who also grew up to be a Bolshevik and a Soviet politician, married the prominent Bolshevik Lev Kamenev. ... Although Trotsky spoke French, English, and German to a good standard, he said in his autobiography My Life that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian.

What did Lenin think of Trotsky?

In a document dictated before his death in 1924, while describing Trotsky as "distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities—personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the present Central Committee" and also maintaining that "his non-Bolshevik past should not be held against him", Lenin criticized him for ...

Who was Stalin's right hand man?

Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II.