Who Is Trotsky?

He is tall, strong, angular; his appearance as well as his speech give the impression of boldness and vigor. His voice is a high tenor ringing with mettle. And even in his quiet moments he resembles a compressed spring.

He is always on the aggressive. He is full of passion,—that white-heated, vibrating mental passion that characterizes the intellectual Jew. On the platform, as well as in private life, he bears an air of peculiar importance, an indefinable something that says very distinctly, “Here is a man who knows his value and feels himself chosen for superior aims.” Yet Léon Trotzky is not imposing. He is modest. He is detached. Back in the depths of his dark eyes there is a lingering sadness.

It was only natural that he, a gifted college youth with a strong avidity for theoretical thought, should have exchanged, twenty years ago, the sombre class-rooms of the university for the fresh breezes of revolutionary activity. That was the way of all gifted Russian youth. That was especially the way of educated young Jews whose people were being crushed under the steam-roller of the Russian bureaucracy. [ . . . ]

On the eve of the Revolution of 1905, Trotzky was already a revolutionary journalist of high repute. We admired the vigor of his style, the lucidity of his thought and the straightness of his expression. Articles bearing the pseudonym “N. Trotzky” were an intellectual treat, and invariably aroused heated discussions. It may not be out of place to say a few words about this pseudonym. Many an amazing comment has been made in the American press on the Jew Bronstein “camouflaging” under a Russian name, Trotzky. It seems to be little known in this country that to assume a pen-name is a practice widely followed in Russia, not only among revolutionary writers. Thus “Gorki” is a pseudonym; “Shchedrin” (Saltykov) is a pseudonym; “Fyodor Sologub” is a pseudonym. As to revolutionary writers, the very character of their work has compelled them to hide their names to escape the clutches of the secret police. Ulyanov, therefore, became “Lenin,” and Bronstein became “Trotzky.” As to his “camouflaging” as a Russian, this assertion is based on sheer ignorance. Trotzky is not a genuine Russian name—no more so than Ostrovski or Levin. True, there was a Russian playwright Ostrovski, and Tolstoi gave his main figure in Anna Karenina the name of Levin. Yet Ostrovski and Levin are well known in Russia as Jewish names, and so is Trotzky. I have never heard of a Gentile bearing the name Trotzky. The invidious attacks of American newspaper men miss their aim, as Trotzky has never concealed his Jewish nationality. He was too proud to dissimulate. Pride is, perhaps, one of the strongest features of his powerful personality.

Revolutionary Russia did not question the race or nationality of a writer or leader. We all admired Trotzky’s overwhelming power of emotion, the depth of his convictions, the vehemence of his attacks on the opponents of the revolution. As early as 1904 one line of his revolutionary conceptions became quite conspicuous: his opposition to the liberal movement in Russia. In a series of essays in the Social-Democratic Iskra, “Spark,” in a collection of his essays published in Geneva under the title Before January Ninth, he unremittingly branded the Liberals for lack of revolutionary spirit, for cowardice in face of a hateful autocracy, for failure to frame and to defend a thoroughly democratic programme, for readiness to compromise with the rulers on minor concessions and thus to betray the cause of the Revolution. There was nobody as eloquent, as incisive in pointing out the timidity and meekness of the Zemstvo opposition (Zemstvo being the local representative bodies for the care of local affairs, and the Liberal landowners constituting the leading party in those bodies) as the young revolutionary agitator, Trotzky. Trotzky’s fury against the wavering policy of the well-to-do Liberals was only a manifestation of another trait of, his character: his desire for clarity in political affairs. Trotzky could not conceive of half-way measures, of “diplomatic” silence over vital topics, of cunning moves and concealed designs in political struggles. The attitude of a [Pavel] Milukov, criticizing the government and yet willing to acquiesce in a monarchy of Prussian brand, criticizing the revolutionists and yet secretly pleased with the horror they inflicted upon Romanoff and his satellites, was simply incompatible with Trotzky’s very nature and aroused his impassioned contempt. To him, black was always black, and white was white, and political conceptions ought to be so clear as to find adequate expression in a few simple phrases.

Trotzky’s own political line was the Revolution—a violent uprising of the masses, headed by organized labor, forcibly to overthrow bureaucracy and establish democratic freedom. With what an outburst of blazing joy he greeted the upheaval of January 9, 1905—the first great mass-movement in Russia with clear political aims! “The Revolution has come!” he shouted in an ecstatic essay completed on January 20. “The Revolution has come, and one move of her magnificent body has lifted us over many scores of steps which in peaceful times we would have had to climb with difficulty and fatigue. The Revolution has come, and has completely destroyed the many schemes of cunning politicians who dared to make their calculations without the real ‘boss,’ the revolutionary people. The Revolution has come, and scores of prejudices have been broken down, and, strong and convincing, stands out the only real programme,—that which builds on the logic of a revolutionary development among the masses. . . . The Revolution has come, and the period of our political infancy has gone forever,”

The Revolution filled the entire year of 1905 with the battle cry of ever-increasing revolutionary masses. The political strike became a powerful weapon. The village revolts spread like wild fire. The government became frightened. It was under the sign of this great conflagration that Trotzky framed his theory of immediate transition from absolutism to a Socialist order. His line of argument was very simple. The working class, he wrote, was the only real revolutionary power. The bourgeoisie was weak and incapable of adroit resistance. The intellectual groups were of no account. The peasantry was politically primitive, yet it had an overwhelming desire for land. “Once the Revolution is victorious, political power necessarily passes into the hands of the class that has played a leading role in the struggle, and that is the working class.” To secure permanent power, the working class would have to win over the millions of peasants. This would be possible by declaring all the land the property of the people. “Once in power, the proletariat ought to appear before the peasantry as its real liberator.” On the other hand, having secured its class rule over Russia, why should the proletariat help to establish parliamentary rule, which is the rule of the bourgeois classes over the people? “To imagine that Social- Democracy participates in the Provisional Government, playing a leading role in the period of revolutionary democratic reconstruction, insisting on the Most radical reforms and all the time enjoying the aid and support of the organized proletariat,—only to step aside when the entire programme is put into operation, to leave the completed building at the disposal of the bourgeois parties and thus to open an era of parliamentary politics where Social-Democracy forms only a party of opposition,—to imagine this would mean to compromise the very idea of a revolutionary government.” Moreover, “Once the representatives of the proletariat enter the government, not as powerless hostages, but as a leading force, the divide between the minimum- programme and the maximum-programme automatically disappears: collectivism becomes the order of the day, since political supremacy of the proletariat is incompatible with its economic slavery.”¹ It was precisely the same programme which Trotzky is at present attempting to put into operation. It is this programme which has been his leading light for the last twelve years.