Ramón Mercader Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (born 7 February 1913[1] – 18 October 1978),[2] more commonly known as Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and NKVD agent[3] who assassinated Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940 with an ice axe. He served 20 years in a Mexican prison for the murder. Joseph Stalin presented him with an Order of Lenin in absenti..