In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

Trotsky led the Soviet delegation during the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from 22 December 1917 to 10 February 1918. This conception was first developed by Trotsky in collaboration with Alexander Parvus in late 1904–1905. Trotsky argued that Petrograd needed to be defended at least in part to prevent Estonia and Finland from intervening.

Trotsky was initially a supporter of the MenLeon Trotskyvik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. (Most of his family members were also killed in separate attacks.