The Romantic Life of Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky’s love life was tumultuous and full of change. He married twice and fathered four children. Trotsky outlived both of his wives and all four of his children.

The first Marriage: Aleksandra Sokolovskaya
In 1898, at the age of 22, Trotsky was traveling from his hometown of Yanovka to the town Nikolayev. Trotsky stopped for the night at the estate of a wealthy landowner. On his person, Trotsky carried a briefcase full of illegal manuscripts which identified him as a member of the communist party, which was illegal at the time. After a night at the estate, the police came and arrested Trotsky as well as around 200 of his colleagues. Among those colleagues was Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, a fellow Russian Marxist revolutionary. Sokolovskaya was spirited and once wrote and sang a song about Karl Marx with one of her colleagues. Marx mentioned it in his autobiography, “My Life.”  Trotsky claimed that it was their passion for their work, his admiration for her limitless commitment, and his unwillingness to separate with such a vital partner that bound him and Sokolovskaya in marriage. Trotsky admired her moral compass. In exile in Siberia, they parented to daughters, Zinaida and Nina. When Nina was merely four months old, Vladimir Lenin’s “What is to be Done?” had been published and Trotsky’s former writings were obsolete and the revolution was moving in a direction that Trotsky couldn’t support. He needed to escape and divert what he thought was systematic political misinformation. Sokolovskaya, according to Trotsky, was the wise voice that silenced all his doubts and inhibitions regarding escape. As a matter of fact, Trotsky recalls her as being the one to suggest that he escape in the first place. “Life separated us, but nothing could destroy our friendship and our intellectual kinship.”

After Trotsky’s escape, Sokolovskaya continued to live in exile until she was given freedom. Their daughters were raised by their paternal grandparents and Sokolovskaya was last seen in a labor camp, where she probably died.

Trotsky’s two daughters died in their twenties, Nina of Tuberculosis and Zinadia of suicide. Both were married, and Zinaida had one daughter.

The Second Marriage: Natalia Ivana Sedova
After his exile, Trotsky married once more. He met his second wife, Natalia Ivanoa Sedova, in Paris in 1902. Sedova was a participant in the so-called ‘Iskra group.’  Iskra, meaning ‘spark’ in Rusian, was the name of a revolutionary newspaper to which Trotsky and his colleagues contributed. Trotsky rented a room from Sedova for 12 Francs a month. She commented about his frequent whistling and cheerful spirit. The two worked together and their marriage lasted his whole life. Sedova and Trotsky had two sons together named Lev and Sergei. Together, Trotsky and Sedova faced arrests and exiles. She followed him to Russia, to Constantinople, to Geneva, and finally to Mexico where they sought political asylum from his rival Josef Stalin’s regime.

Trotsky and Sedova’s son Lev followed in their footsteps and became active in the Bolshevik-Leninist movement. Sergei was not politically active, but was almost certainly murdered at Stalin’s orders.

The Affair with Frida Kahlo


Diego Rivera persuaded the Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas to grant Trotsky asylum in Mexico because Trotsky and Sedova were unable to find asylum elsewhere. In January of 1937, the two moved to Mexico and were greeted by Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo. She gave them the use of their Blue House in Coyoacan, where they lived for the next two years. During that time, the two couples spent a lot of time together and developed very close relationships. Around the early summer of 1937 Frida and Leon began a secret and passionate love affair. The affair ended after about two years. At the end of their relationship, Frida painted a self-portrait and gave it to Trotsky. He hung it on the wall in his study in the Blue house. However, in 1939, when he and Sedova moved out into a house of their own, Trotsky left the painting behind.

Trotsky’s political ambitions directed his romantic life, but they didn’t suppress it. To this day he is known as a revolutionary thinker, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, and an underdog in Russian political history. He was fatally attracted to women with strong presences, but also committed to his cause.