Ramon Mercader

Case information

Ramon Mercader was a Spanish Communist who later worked as a Soviet agent. He murdered Leon Trotsky.

Timeline

• 7 February 1914 — Ramon Mercader was born to Eustacia Maria Caridad del Rio Hernandez and Don Pablo Mercader Marina, Barcelona, Spain.
• 12 June 1935 — He was arrested as a member of an underground Communist group he founded, the Cervantes Artistic Recreational Circle.
• 1937 — He travelled to Moscow for assassination training.
• 1938 — The dismembered body of Rudolf Klement, Trotsky’s former secretary, was found floating in the Seine, Paris.
• 1938 — Leon Trotsky’s son, Lev Sedov, was murdered.
• September 1939 — He arrived in New York City under a false Canadian passport of “Frank Jacson” (sic.).
• October 1939 — He arrived in Mexico City, again as “Frank Jacson.”
• 24 May 1940 — An attempt was made to assassinate Leon Trotsky; over 300 rounds were fired at Trotsky’s residence, though the target and his wife survived unscathed.
• 28 May 1940 — Leon Trotsky introduced himself to Ramon Mercader.
• 12 June 1940 — Mercader lent Trotsky his Buick, while the former travelled to New York City.
• 10 August 1940 — Mercader and associate Ageloff had tea with Trotsky.
• August 1940 — Mercader met privately with Trotsky to show him a magazine article he was writing.
• 20 August 1940 — At 5:20 pm, Mercader attempted to assassinate Leon Trotsky with an ice pick to the back of the head.
• 21 August 1940 — Leon Trotsky died from his injuries.
• September 1950 — Fingerprint evidence conclusively proved the assassin’s true identity.
• August 1953 — His identity was revealed by Barcelona authorities as Jaime Ramon Mercader del Rio Hernandez, after a fingerprint comparison.
• 6 May 1960 — He was freed from Lecumberri Prison.
• 1978 — He died in Cuba.
• 18 October 1978 — He died in Havana, Cuba.

Background

Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández (February 7, 1914 – October 18, 1978) was a Spanish Communist who became famous as the murderer of Leon Trotsky. Although declassified archives were said to have shown that he was a Soviet agent, supporters of Stalin continued to argue that he was simply a disgruntled former follower of Trotsky.

Mercader was described as having been born in 1913 in Barcelona, but growing up in France with his mother, Eustaquia María Caridad del Río Hernández, after she separated from his father, Pau Mercader Marina. Caridad was described as a Cuban-born ardent Communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War and served the Soviet international underground.

Mercader embraced Communism and worked for leftist organizations in Spain during the mid-1930s. He was briefly imprisoned for his activities but was released in 1936 when the left-wing coalition Popular Front won in the elections of that year.

During the civil war in Spain, Mercader was recruited by NKVD officer Nahum Eitingon and trained in Moscow as a Soviet agent. His contacts with and befriending of Trotskyists began during the Spanish Civil War.

It was described that English communist David Crook, an ostensible volunteer for the Republican side, was sent to Albacete where he was taught Spanish and given a crash course in surveillance techniques by Ramon Mercader. Crook then, on orders from the NKVD, used his job as war reporter for the News Chronicle to spy on Orwell and his Independent Labour Party comrades in the POUM Trotskyist militia.

The offence

In 1938, while he was a student at the Sorbonne in France, Mercader befriended Sylvia Ageloff, a confidant of Trotsky in Paris, assuming the identity Jacques Mornard, supposedly the son of a Belgian diplomat.

A year later, he was contacted by a representative of the “Bureau of the Fourth International.” Ageloff returned to her native Brooklyn, in New York, in September that same year, and Mercader joined her, assuming the identity of Canadian Frank Jacson. He was given a passport which had originally belonged to a Canadian citizen named Tony Babich, a member of the Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. Babich’s photograph was removed and Mercader’s was inserted in its place. Mercader explained to Ageloff that he purchased forged documents to avoid military service.

In October, Mercader moved to Mexico City, where Trotsky lived with his family, and persuaded Ageloff to join him. It was described that this move was ostensibly to tend to business affairs, a cover provided by Eitingon. Through Ageloff, Mercader began to meet with Trotsky personally, posing as a supporter of Trotsky’s ideas.

The main American Trotskyist party leader Joseph Hansen was later accused by Trotsky’s followers as being “a double agent of the FBI and the GPU” and of having assisted Mercader to penetrate Trotsky’s inner circle of friends and acquaintances. That accusation was denied by Hansen.

On 20 August 1940, Mercader attacked and fatally wounded Trotsky with an ice axe while Trotsky was in the study at his home in Coyoacán. The blow failed to kill Trotsky instantly. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky’s guards burst in and nearly killed Mercader. Trotsky, heavily wounded but still conscious, ordered them to spare his attacker’s life, shouting “Do not kill him! This man has a story to tell.”

Caridad and Eitingon, having arrived in Mexico City shortly after Mercader, were waiting outside the compound in separate cars to provide a getaway; when Mercader did not return, they left and fled the country.

Trotsky was taken to a hospital in the city and operated on but died the next day as a result of “severe brain damages.”

Mercader was turned over by Trotsky’s guards to the Mexican authorities, to whom he refused to give his real identity, identifying himself only as “Jacques Mornard”.

Mercader claimed to the police he had wanted to marry Ageloff, but Trotsky had forbidden the marriage. Mercader alleged that a violent quarrel with Trotsky had led to him wanting to murder Trotsky. He stated:

"... instead of finding myself face to face with a political chief who was directing the struggle for the liberation of the working class, I found myself before a man who desired nothing more than to satisfy his needs and desires of vengeance and of hate and who did not utilize the workers' struggle for anything more than a means of hiding his own paltriness and despicable calculations.... It was Trotsky who destroyed my nature, my future and all my affections. He converted me into a man without a name, without country, into an instrument of Trotsky. I was in a blind alley.... Trotsky crushed me in his hands as if I had been paper."

It was described that on 20 August 1940 at 5:20 pm, Mercader attempted to assassinate Leon Trotsky with an ice pick to the back of the head, and that Trotsky survived long enough to tell his guards as they began to beat the would-be assassin, “Do not kill him. This man has a story to tell.”

Investigation and arrests

Mercader was arrested as “Jacques Mornard”, a Belgian “diplomat.” He refused to give his real identity to Mexican authorities.

Ageloff was initially arrested by the Mexican police as an accomplice, as she had lived together with Mercader on and off for about two years up to the time of the assassination, but charges were quickly dropped.

It was described that fingerprint evidence conclusively proved the assassin’s true identity in September 1950.

It was also described that Barcelona authorities revealed his identity in August 1953 as Jaime Ramon Mercader del Rio Hernandez after a fingerprint comparison.

Trial and sentencing

It was described that Mercader, in 1940, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Appeals

No appeal information was provided.

Outcome

Mercader was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1940. He was released on May 6, 1960.

After his release, he moved to Havana, where Fidel Castro’s new revolutionary government welcomed him. In 1961, he moved to the USSR and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, described as the country’s highest decoration, one of only twenty-one non-Soviet citizens to receive the award.

He split his time between Cuba and the USSR for the rest of his life and died in Havana in 1978.

It was described that he was buried under the name of Ramon Ivanovich Lopez in Moscow’s Kuntsevo Cemetery and had a place of honor in the KGB museum in the Russian capital.

Other details

After the assassination, Joseph Stalin presented Ramón’s mother Caridad with the Order of Lenin for her part in the operation.

After the first few years in prison, Mercader requested release on parole; the request was denied by Dr. Jesús Siordia and criminologist Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón.

It was described that he requested release on parole after the first few years in prison and was eventually released from Mexico City’s Palacio de Lecumberri prison on May 6, 1960.

It was described that Czech diplomats gave him a diplomatic passport under the name Jacques Vendendreschd; Vendendreschd then travelled to Havana, Cuba, and from there, Eastern Europe.

In popular culture, it was described that a 1967 West German television presentation titled L. D. Trotzki – Tod im Exil (“L. D. Trotsky - Death in exile”), a film released in 1972 titled The Assassination of Trotsky, David Ives’ play Variations on the Death of Trotsky, a Spanish documentary called Asaltar los cielos (“Storm the skies”), a Spanish-language documentary El Asesinato de Trotsky co-produced in 2006 by The History Channel and Anima Films and directed by Matías Gueilburt, a depiction in the film Frida (2002), and novels including The Lacuna and El hombre que amaba a los perros all included portrayals or accounts related to the assassination of Trotsky.

It was described that Mercader is also the name of an infamous World of Warcraft player with a youtube account with over 30k subscribers, and that the player named himself (and his youtube channel, MercaderGaming) after the assassin.