Trotsky

In one of life's better ironies, the ice axe used to murder Leon Trotsky might be for sale:

But tests that could prove the weapon's authenticity have been delayed by a dispute between the ice pick's owner, who is shopping it around, and Trotsky's descendants, who want it donated to a revolutionary museum -- proving that the struggle between socialist ideals and capitalism is continuing.

The ice pick is in the possession of Ana Alicia Salas, whose father apparently removed it from an evidence room while serving as a secret police commander in the 1940s.

She is toying with the idea of selling the foot-long, sawed-off ice ax, though she says she hasn't decided how much it's worth.

Just a few blocks away, Trotsky's grandson, who keeps the revolutionary flame alive by maintaining Trotsky's home as a museum, says he wants the pick.

Trotsky helped lead the 1917 Russian revolution, but split with dictator Josef Stalin and fled to Mexico in 1937, accusing Stalin of having betrayed the revolution.

Stalin is widely believed to have arranged Trotsky's murder, in which a young man posing as a sympathizer sneaked up behind Trotsky and sank the ice pick into his skull. Trotsky died the next day.

In this story you have state murder, theft, corruption, and media pretension all in one story, which is a very fitting coda for the Soviet experiment.

What gets me is the insinuation "Stalin is widely believed to have arranged Trotsky's murder" when it is established fact that he ordered it. Oh well.

And get your "Axe Me About Communism" shirt here.