Stratego with Trotsky Jewish Lives Unessay Contest 2021 By Joseph S. Savenor Known for his strategic mind, Leon Trotsky (formally Lev Bronstein) was one of the early leaders of the Soviet Union. If given the chance to spend a day with Trotsky, I would invite him to play my favorite game, Stratego. While similar to chess, this game focuses on beating your opponent with incomplete information, bluffing, and patience. Trotsky played a major role in the Russian Social Democratic Party and Russian Social Revolutionary Party. As the Soviet Union took shape, Trotsky believed that socialism provides the best chance for Jews to be equal members of society. When the Bolsheviks took over Russia in 1917, Trotsky had his first role in the government as Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, whose primary goal was to take Russia out of World War One. After Vladimir Lenin negotiated a peace treaty with Germany, the Bolsheviks fought a civil war. Lenin appointed Trotsky to head the Red Army. Due to Trotsky’s incredible success in the Russian Civil War, he was elected a member of the Communist Party and was positioned to become Lenin’s second in command. One of the keys to success in Stratego is protecting your assets and minimizing vulnerabilities. During my game with Trotsky, I would ask about one of his supposed weaknesses, namely his Jewish identity. Trotsky himself did not identify as a Jew, but his background gave Communism’s enemies an easy target. Due to Trotsky’s high-profile position in the civil war, many anticommunists associated communism with the Jews. In the Ukraine where anti-communist troops were constantly reminded that the leader of the Bolshevik army was “the Jew Trotsky,” they murdered 50,000 Jews. Moscow’s chief rabbi Mazveh responded to this tragedy by saying: “The Trotskys make the revolution and the Bronsteins pay the price.” After the Soviet’s victory in the Civil War, Trotsky and the Soviet government worked to dismantle religion in their society. Regarding Judaism, many synagogues were shut down, the study of the Hebrew language was banned, and the Russian Zionist movement, which had 300,000 members, was dismantled. Most of the leadership of the Russian Zionist movement died in prison camps, which essentially destroyed Zionism for at least a generation. Trotsky’s role and action not only makes the Jews in his country less secure, but also diminishes their desire and opportunity to leave. When Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, Trotsky’s rival, outflanked him, took over as leader, and forced Trotsky into exile. Stalin would become the most feared man in Russia and his spies reached not just throughout Russia, but around the world. In 1940, one of these spies murdered Trotsky.
It is my hope that while Trotsky tells me about his motivations and miscalculations that he will not notice me moving my pieces towards victory. I am confident about my chances because Trotsky may have been a brilliant strategist, but he had blind spots that cost him and the Jews of his time in a profound and mortal way.