Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) 1879 - 1940. Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism known as Trotskyism. Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party a few weeks before the October Revolution and became one of the leaders of the party. My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography (Russian: Моя Жизнь) is the name of the Russian revolutionary Communist leader Leon Trotsky's autobiography. The book was first published in 1930 and was written in the first year of Trotsky's exile in Turkey. It covers the time from his youth, through the Revolution of 1905, the Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War up to his struggle against Stalinism and eventual expulsion from the Communist Party.