One of Helen’s oldest and closest comrades paid tribute to her unflagging attention to the education and training of the party membership, particularly the youth.
Since her association with Leon Trotsky’s assassin, Ramón Mercader, Sylvia Ageloff has been demonised and vilified, pushed to the margins of history or simply ignored. What has been all too frequently lacking is any sense of respect, sympathy or understanding of her as a human being, a political activist and someone thrust into a situation not of her making. This short essay attempts to set the record straight.
Since her association with Leon Trotsky’s assassin, Ramón Mercader, Sylvia Ageloff has been demonised and vilified, pushed to the margins of history or simply ignored. What has been all too frequently lacking is any sense of respect, sympathy or understanding of her as a human being, a political activist and someone thrust into a situation not of her making. This short essay attempts to set the record straight.
Trotsky’s assassination was the most consequential political assassination of the 20th century. It was the culmination of the Stalinist Great Terror and the product of one of world history’s bleakest and bloodiest conspiracies.