Seventy-five years ago, on August 20, 1940, Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of the Soviet secret police, the GPU, in Coyoacán, a suburb of Mexico City, where he was living in exile.

The assassination of Leon Trotsky ranks among the most politically consequential crimes of the twentieth century, with far-reaching implications for the international working class and the world socialist movement. And yet for decades the circumstances surrounding Trotsky’s assassination remained shrouded in secrecy. The massive scale of the Stalinist conspiracy against Trotsky was the subject of a carefully orchestrated cover-up.

In 1975, the International Committee of the Fourth International launched the first systematic investigation by the Trotskyist movement into the assassination. This investigation, known as Security and the Fourth International, led to the exposure of the network of GPU agents within the Fourth International that ensured the success of Stalin’s conspiracy against Trotsky’s life. The investigation was bitterly opposed by Pabloite and pseudo-left organizations, which denounced the exposure of spies placed inside the Trotskyist movement as “agent-baiting.” This has remained their position, despite the fact that state intelligence documents released following the dissolution of the Soviet Union confirmed the findings of the International Committee and vindicated Security and the Fourth International.

David North, International Editorial Board Chairman for the World Socialist Web Site, has been a major figure in the international Trotskyist movement for forty years and played a central role in the Security and the Fourth International investigation. In this lecture series, North will speak on the significance of Trotsky’s assassination, the origins and development of the International Committee’s investigation, and its key findings.

This event is being sponsored by the International Youth and Student for Social Equality at the University of Michigan.