Leon Trotsky in a Mexican prison for the murder. Stalin presented Mercader with an Order of Lenin in absentia. Trotsky's ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that opposes the theories of Stalinism. He was written out of the history books under Stalin, and was one of the few Soviet political figures who was not rehabilitated by the government under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s. Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on 7 November 1879, the fifth child of a Ukrainian-Jewish family of wealthy farmers in Yanovka or Yanivka, in the Kherson governorate of the Russian
Lev Shestov extreme human behavior probably coloured Bataille's own thoughts. These are Shestov's most important works, in their English translations, and with their date of "writing": Lev Shestov Lev Isaakovich Shestov (, 1866 – 1938), born Yeguda Leib Shvartsman (), was a Russian existentialist philosopher, known for his "philosophy of despair". Born in Kyiv (Russian Empire) on , he emigrated to France in 1921, fleeing from the aftermath of the October Revolution. He lived in Paris until his death on November 19, 1938. Shestov was born Lev Isaakovich Schwarzmann in Kiev into a Jewish family. He obtained an education at various places,