Sergei Sedov

Sergei L. Sedov (1907/1908 – 1937) was a Soviet engineer and scientist killed in the Great Purge for being the son of Leon Trotsky.

Sergei L. Sedov
Sedov on the Kremlin grounds (21 Sep 1920)
Born1907/1908
Died1937 (1938)
Russia, Soviet Union
Cause of deathDisputed
Occupation
  • Engineer
  • scientist
Criminal penaltySentenced to forced labor
  in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia
Criminal statusRehabilitated (1988)
Family

Personal life

The son of Leon Trotsky by his second wife,[1] and younger brother of Lev Sedov,[2] Sergei L. Sedov was born in 1907 or 1908.[3] He was an apolitical engineer[4] and scientist[5] whose daughter, Yulia, was born three months after his 1935 exile.[6]

Arrest and death

Despite having taken his mother's surname to avoid political affiliation with his father, in 1935[6] Sedov "was arrested on trumped-up charges [and] refused to betray [Trotsky]".[5] That year, the Gulag banished Sedov from Moscow to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Sedov died in 1937, though accounts differ the specifics: some records claim he was killed in a prison uprising, others allege he was shot in Krasnoyarsk after being accused of a poisoning plot,[1] while The New York Times in 1988 asserted that he was returned to Moscow and shot for Trotsky's allegedly plotting to kill Joseph Stalin.[4]

After Sedov's daughter Yulia Akselrod petitioned Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Sedov was rehabilitated in late 1988 by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.[6]

References
  1. Bauer, Brad (2005). "The Gulag: Life Inside". Hoover Digest. No. 1. Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on 20 November 2005. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  2. Sewell, Rob (15 February 2008). "Leon Sedov – 70 years since his murder". Socialist Appeal. International Marxist Tendency. Archived from the original on 6 November 2017. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  3. Sheridan, Clare (1921). "The Kremlin, showing Entrance to the Kameneffs' Apartments". Russian Portraits. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 67–70.
  4. "Soviets Exonerate a Son of Trotsky". The New York Times. Moscow. Reuters. 23 November 1988. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Sergei L. Sedov, an Engineer, Was Shot in the 1930's During Stalin's Purges
  5. Sewell, Rob (21 August 2007). "Leon Trotsky - revolutionary martyr". Socialist Appeal. International Marxist Tendency. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  6. "Trotsky's Son Posthumously Rehabilitated". Moscow. Associated Press. 23 November 1988. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
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