Soviets Rehabilitate Slain Son of Trotsky

MOSCOW — Soviet revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky’s son, Sergei Sedov, who was shot to death in Moscow in 1937 after his father was alleged to have plotted to kill Josef Stalin, has been rehabilitated, the government newspaper Izvestia reported.

Izvestia said that a session of the Supreme Court considering thousands of appeals against death sentences passed down during Stalin’s purges has “lifted all charges” against Sedov, who stayed behind when Trotsky was exiled abroad in 1929.

The decision appeared to be the latest in a cautious movement toward partial rehabilitation of Trotsky himself, murdered in Mexico in 1940, apparently by Stalin agents.

Sergei Sedov--whose brother Lev went into exile with their father and died in mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1938--was an engineer who generally kept out of political activities.