February 7, 1913 - Ramón Mercader
Mercader's place in history rests on a single act of calculated violence carried out after years of patient infiltration — the culmination of a Soviet operation to eliminate one of Stalin's most prominent exiled opponents. What distinguishes him from other instruments of state assassination is the elaborate deception required: he cultivated proximity to Trotsky's inner circle over months before striking. The Soviet government's decision to honor him with its highest distinction upon his release makes clear that the killing was understood not as an act of individual fanaticism but as a sanctioned mission successfully completed.
From Wikipedia
Jaume Ramón Mercader del Río (Catalan pronunciation: [rəˈmom məɾkəˈðe]; 7 February 1913 – 18 October 1978) was a Spanish communist and NKVD secret agent who assassinated the revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940 with an ice axe, for which Mercader was imprisoned for 19 years and 8 months.
In 1960, after release from Mexican imprisonment, Mercader was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and the Order of Lenin medal, and lived at different times in Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia.
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