Bullet holes still pockmark the walls of the house in Mexico where Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was brutally murdered 80 years ago, a reminder of an earlier failed assassination attempt.
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"I'm already familiar" with death, Trotsky said after he survived that attack in his home in a suburb of Mexico City where he spent his last years in exile. "I've been followed by the black hatred of Stalin across half the world," he told a Mexican newspaper.
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Months later, on August 20, 1940, that trail of persecution finally caught up with him when he was killed with an ice axe by an assassin acting on Joseph Stalin's orders. | The ice axe that was used to kill Leon Trotsky is seen displayed at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC.
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The watchtowers, high walls and bullet holes left by Stalin's hit squad offer an insight into how the key figure in the Bolshevik revolution spent his final days.
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Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, Trotsky was the founder of the Red Army and, along with Vladimir Lenin, one of the prime movers in the Bolshevik revolt that overthrew Tsar Nicholas II.
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After falling out with Stalin in the 1920s, Trotsky was forced into exile. The Marxist revolutionary drifted from Turkey to Norway to France before finally landing in Mexico in 1937, where the muralist Diego Rivera helped to persuade General Lazaro Cardenas's government to grant him asylum.
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But even on another continent the revolutionary was not safe from Stalin's regime. Trotsky and his wife survived the first attack on May 24, 1940 by throwing themselves under their bed.
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The incident led Trotsky to increase security at the compound, but it was not enough to stop his assassin, Ramon Mercader. Armed with a backup pistol and knife under his coat, he entered the compound and plunged the axe into Trotsky's skull.
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Trotsky's house in the leafy neighborhood of Coyoacan has been preserved as a museum, where his grave is marked by a tombstone engraved with a hammer and sickle in the compound.
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Portraits of the sons and wife of Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician Leon Trotsky at his House Museum in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City.
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A view of documents at the House Museum of Leon Trotsky.
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The studio of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky at his House Museum in Mexico City.
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The bathroom if Leon Trotsky in Mexico City.
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A 30-30 carbine used by the personal guards of Leon Trotsky.
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Inside the House Museum of Leon Trotsky in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City.
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A view of pictures and a bust at the House Museum of Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution.
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The kitchen of Leon Trotsky at his House Museum in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City.
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A view of the desk of Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician Leon Trotsky at his House Museum in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City.
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A worker fixes a piece of furniture which belonged to Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky at his House Museum in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City.
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Gabriela Perez Noriega, the legal and executive director of the House Museum of Leon Trotsky.
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