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Book Review of Life is With People : The Culture of the Shtetl

Life is With People : The Culture of the Shtetl
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Mark Zborowski was a Soviet NKVD agent in western Europe during the 1930's. He was assigned in particular to insinuate himself into the family of Leon Trotsky, Stalin's bete noire. Much of Trotsky's family remained in France after Trotsky finally moved to Mexico. (All such moves were for the purpose of evading Stalin's assassination squads always hot on Trotsky's trail.)

Zborowski got a job as secretary to Trotsky's son, Lev Sedov, and persuaded Sedov to enter a particular Parisian clinic when Sedov became ill. The medical staff of the clinic may have been under the influence of the NKVD and Sedov just happened to die there though most of his friends at the time thought he was recovering nicely. Zborowski thereafter emigrated to the United States, where he continued as a spy for the NKVD and pursued his academic career as an anthropologist. The Wikipedia article on Zborowski is quite detailed.