Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

No, he corrected himself, not wasted. He had found time to read and had even written his first articles for the Eastern Review in Irkutsk. At the time how proud he had been of them! Now they seemed as amateur as the purple inked broadsheets he and Alexandra had produced for circulation amongst the bemused workers of Nikolayev and Odessa. As early as his days in Odessa at the St Paul Realschule, he had yearned to write. Even though old Krizhnovsky had marked him out from the first as an outstanding pupil in Russian, nobody had encouraged his gift for words. Pointing to his gift for mathematics, they had been assured that his future was secure. But what could he have become? An accountant? A professor? No – rather a thousand Obdorskoyes than that! He had taken the alternative. Rather than acceptable exile by his own academic talent to some dreary provincial academy, he had followed his heart and had become Pero – ‘The Pen’ – using every nib now as a scalpel and now as a dagger to lay bare and skewer the rotten society in which he lived. Instead of a provincial accountant he had become internationally known as a revolutionary writer; for so the historical record would regard him.

Staring into the lamp, he thought of Alexandra, Grigory, Illya and Ziv. Sitting in this freezing and ill-smelling room he found himself a long way from that sunny nursery garden where the five of them used to meet to discuss politics and to plan subversion. Frowning he tried to recall the name of the old peasant who had let them use his hut as their ‘hideout’. What was he called? Shipansky? Shibilsky?

He had seen Ziv only eight or nine months previously, quite by chance in the House of Preliminary Detention. For half an hour they had shared the same exercise yard. Ziv, at least, had not changed: he was just as shy as ever. Whether it was because of that, or the different paths they had taken, Trotsky was not sure, but they had exchanged no more than a few minutes’ conversation. Yes, Ziv had seen Trotsky’s wife, Alexandra: she was looking old and worn out. Both of his daughters, Zina and Nina, were well. There was no news of their uncle Grigory. Illya was rumoured to be dead. That was all.

Shvigorsky, that was it. The gardener’s name had been Shvigorsky.

Trotsky removed the pince-nez from the bridge of his nose and, leaning back in his chair, rubbed his tired eyes. Remembering Ziv’s news brought back the memory of the last time he had seen Alexandra at the exile settlement at Verkholensk.

Escaping from Verkholensk had been easy.

No, he corrected himself. She had made it easy for him.

It had been autumn and security had been minimal. He had heard later that it had taken the local police two weeks to discover the dummy he had left in his bed. And he hadn’t been a Somebody then; just L.D. Bronstein, another snot-nosed student on the run. Even now he could remember the terrible excitement he had felt lying quaking beneath the bundles of hay in the peasant cart as it rolled slowly past the western gate of the settlement, expecting at any moment to hear the guards’ shouted order to halt. Discovery would have meant an extra three and a half years’ penal servitude. As it was, it had been a miracle that one of the cart’s wheels had not been smashed on the long road to Irkutsk.

At Irkutsk he had received more assistance, this time from sympathisers of the Social Revolutionaries. How the world had changed, he reflected. The Essers wouldn’t lift a finger to help him now. After Irkutsk, the three-day railway journey to Samara. From Samara the Party’s underground had moved him through the territory of one empire to another: from Vienna to Zurich, from Zurich to Paris, from Paris to London. What a journey it had seemed!

In Vienna he had had to knock up Victor Adler himself, in the middle of the night, to beg for a loan to continue his escape. Old Adler had been none too pleased at first, but in the end even he had agreed to help.

“Young man, if ever you bring news of a revolution in Russia you may ring my bell, even at night!”

He had remembered that…

But Obdorskoye was not Verkholensk; and now wasn’t autumn, it was winter. The forces of time, space and nature, the eternal allies of Father Tsar and Mother Russia, were combined against him. Obdorskoye was in the Arctic Circle and over fifteen hundred versts from the nearest railhead. In Obdorskoye, a single night would last six months. And he was no longer unknown. When he escaped his description would be permanently posted in every uchastok from Petersburg to Vladivostok. Above all, he had no friends left.

Perhaps Deutsch was right after all, he thought glumly. Maybe we should have broken out of prison while we could.