How Trotsky Built The Red Army

By Leo Gura - May 21, 2026

Watch this to appreciate the brutality it takes to win a revolution.

This is why soft, intellectual leftists and good people cannot win revolutions. A revolution is such a precarious survival pressure-cooker that it only succeeds by the skin of its teeth, only by any means necessary. This means all notions of goodness, fairness, democracy, equality, intellectual purity, or integrity fly out the window. The only reason Lenin’s revolution worked is because Lenin and Trotsky were willing to do anything, no matter how heinous, to win. Lenin would have shot his own mother if it helped communism win. But that’s exactly not the kind of person who will give you the equality and freedom you are revolting for.

The reality of politics is that you need to be a murderer to win, because if you aren’t, a murder will murder you and crown himself king. People don’t obey willingly. People don’t do what needs to be done willingly. They do it when you put a gun to their head. In order to win and to rule effectively you need to be comfortable with putting guns to people’s heads. But once you are comfortable with that, democracy, equality, and fairness are dead.

Politics is a contest of the most selfish for the top spot. Any soft or selfless candidates get slaughtered. This is why politics is so disgusting. Truly the filthiest of human enterprises. Politics is pure, hyper-concentrated, tripled-distilled survival. If survival does not disgust you yet, please, study more politics.

It will. It will.

– – – – – – – –

By the way, what happened to Trotsky in the end?

He got an ice pick in his skull. Courtesy of Uncle Stalin.

You reap what you sow.

Click Here to see ALL of Leo's juicy insights.