By then an orphan, he was staying with his Uncle Lyova, Trotsky's son, and his partner. Wasn't fear a permanent factor during his early life? 'The time I remember really feeling afraid was in Paris,' he says. Volkov believes the consequent torment she felt was one of several such factors that pushed her to suicide two years later, in 1933. His mother, Zinaida, left the Soviet Union with Volkov when he was five: he did not know until much later, in 1988, that his half-sister who they had left behind had survived - his mother had only been allowed to take one child with her. His father, Platon Volkov, an oppositionist, had been deported to the gulag, and shot at some unknown date in the 30s. Others disappeared without trace.Īmong the deaths were Volkov's parents. His two daughters were harried to their deaths. We total up the closest relatives - Trotsky's first wife, his sister, his brother, one son, two son-in-laws and three nephews were all arrested and later shot another son was assassinated. Stalin was responsible for the death of practically all of Trotsky's family, whatever their political stance. 'I am the only person in my family to reach my age,' he says, with a grim smile.

He is at first reserved, and speaks his Mexican Spanish with a slight accent which hints at a family history out of the ordinary. A retired chemist, he is widowed, with four daughters and five grandchildren. Volkov is now in his mid-70s, slim and very fit looking.

Art and revolution trotsky