she had no idea what she was up to no idea he belonged to the nkvd. he maneuvered sylvia down to mexico city and used her to incinerate himself into trotsky's household. he claimed to be a heavy financial supporter of the french trotskyist in paris. of course by the summer of 1940 there is no way to verify this, there's no way to contact the french trotskyist because they are on the run from the invading germans. the outbreak of the world war which really starts, it was made possible by the nazis soviet pact of august, 1939 struck a big blow against trotsky and his followers in new york city. new york city being at this time the center of the international trotsky movement. certainly wasn't to paris at this point. although i see the center of the movement and this is something else quite shocking the total number of trotsky's in the u.s. is probably never more than 2,000. they paid their members. when the war broke out trotsky insisted his followers to support the soviet union despite the fact that the stalin regime wiped out his family and comrades a