Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Pushing thoughts of Natalya and his baby son to the back of his mind, he bowed his head as he thought of the task before him. The Party was trapped between Nicolai’s ruthlessness and Julie Martov’s squeamishness. Of the three of them, only he had had the breadth of vision and the animus to nearly topple the throne. But, as Nicolai was so fond of saying, ‘nearly’ didn’t count. And with what could they have replaced the autocracy? The first order of business of a bourgeois reformist provisional government would be to find common cause with the military general staff and smash the Soviet that had brought it to power. The priority now was to acquire fresh data. He needed data even more than he needed money. It was essential that he should secure a constant flow of information from the outside world.

He began to write furiously.

Obdorsk. A minuscule point on the globe… perhaps we shall have to adapt our lives for years to Obdorsk conditions. Even my fatalistic mood does not guarantee complete peace of mind. I clench my teeth and yearn for electric street lamps, the noise of trams and the best thing in the world – the smell of fresh newsprint!

He signed the letter and carefully blotted the wet ink with his handkerchief. Folding the sheet of paper, he slid it carefully into the torn lining of his overcoat. At least Nicolai still allowed the Deputies to use the Iskra couriers for their personal correspondence; that was something to be grateful for.

As quietly as he could, Trotsky rose from the chair and stood for a moment massaging away the stiffness in his legs. Then, steadying himself against the edge of the table, he wearily slipped off first one boot and then the other. All around him rose the heavy sounds of sleep. Turning, he extinguished the lamp. Darkness enveloped him as, clutching his boots in one hand, he began to step carefully over the huddled bodies of his comrades and made his way towards his allotted portion of the floor.

Chapter Three

Tuesday 30th January 1907

Berezovo, Northern Siberia

By the flickering light of the four candle stumps that sat like squat toads on the wooden ledge above his washbasin, Colonel Konstantin Illyich Izorov, Chief of Police of the town of Berezovo, peered at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

He saw the head and shoulders of a middle aged man stripped to his underclothes, the lower half of his face masked beneath a thick lather of soap. Above the mask a pair of grey eyes betrayed the anxiety of the last thirty-six hours. Dipping the blade of his razor into the basin, he shook off a few drops of water and raised it to his throat. He had worked at his office in the uchastok, compiling list after list of the arrangements that had to be made. It was now someone else’s turn to have sleepless nights. There would be no shortage of those before this business was through.

He began to shave with slow, deft strokes. Through the floorboards he could hear his wife entering the breakfast room beneath and begin cursing their sullen maid. The sound cheered him and he pulled a grotesque face at his reflection. Other than his wife’s pride, there was no reason why they should have a maidservant at all. Their only child, a son, had long since left them to serve in the force at Perm. Neither of them were particularly untidy nor irregular in their habits. His wife could cope perfectly well without a servant.

The blade flashed down into the basin again and swirled around in the soapy water as he washed away the tiny lengths of shorn hair. Smiling, he drew the blade carefully upwards across his jawline as he half listened to the morning ritual downstairs. As usual, nothing the girl did was satisfactory. Whether it was chopping the wood, laying the fire or carrying the dishes to the table, Madame Izorova found grounds for criticism. It would end as it always ended, with the girl sent back to the kitchen in tears and his wife laying the table and lighting the samovar herself. And for this privilege he paid almost one rouble a week!

Laying the razor on the ledge beside the candles, he stooped over the basin and began rinsing the remains of the soap from his face. He never felt washed in the morning unless he had shaved, although he himself had once had a fine beard when he had been on the beat in Tobolsk. He could not remember feeling dirty then. Almost certainly, when one was young and in the company of other men, such things did not matter so much. There had often been no hot water in the barracks so, he believed, he had probably been no cleaner or dirtier than the next man.