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Sergei Lvovich Sedov (Russian: Сергей Львович Седов; 21 March 1908 – 29 October 1937) was a Soviet engineer and scientist. The son of Leon Trotsky, he was killed in the Great Purge.

Personal life

The son of Leon Trotsky by his second wife, and younger brother of Lev Sedov, Sergei Lvovich Sedov (Russian: Сергей Львович Седов) was born on 21 March 1908 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. A graduate of the Moscow Mechanical Institute, and working at the Moscow Aviation Institute, he was an apolitical engineer and scientist. His daughter, Yulia, was born around October 1935.

Arrest and death

Despite having taken his mother's surname to avoid political affiliation with his father, Sedov was arrested on 3 March 1935 "on trumped-up charges refused to betray ". On 14 July 1935, he was sentenced by the NKVD to five years in a labor camp; six days later, the sentence was amended to five years of exile in Krasnoyarsk, working at Krasmash. A 26 May 1936 resentencing sent Sedov to Ukhtpechlag on 3 July, followed by a transfer back to Krasnoyarsk on 23 February 1937 for reinvestigation.

Sedov died in 1937, though accounts differ on the specifics. Hoover Digest reported that some records show he was killed in a prison uprising, while others allege he was shot in Krasnoyarsk after being accused of a poisoning plot. In 1988, The New York Times asserted that Sedov was returned to Moscow and shot for Trotsky allegedly plotting to kill Joseph Stalin. Memorial's database of victims of political terror in the USSR (Russian: Жертвы политического террора в СССР) shows that he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on 29 October 1937, executed the same day, and buried in Krasnoyarsk.

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.

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. ^ Седов С. [Sedov S.]. Жертвы политического террора в СССР (in Russian). Memorial. Archived from the original on 19 August 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
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.

Further reading

• Sheridan, Clare (1921). "The Kremlin, showing Entrance to the Kameneffs' Apartments". Russian Portraits. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 67–70.

• 1908 births
• 1937 deaths
• Great Purge victims from Russia
• Leon Trotsky
• Soviet rehabilitations