Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

They had arrived at the izba. Letting go of Trotsky’s arm, the Corporal stepped back in triumph. With a mocking bow he gestured towards the evil smelling izba, signalling them to enter.

“How big was the farm?” enquired Sverchkov, pointedly ignoring their escort.

Trotsky coolly looked the Corporal up and down.

“Oh, it was quite small,” he said nonchalantly. “Only about 650 acres. But it was home for my first nine years.”

Turning on his heel, he entered the izba. A rough flight of steps led to the upper storey which was bounded by a balustrade that allowed the inhabitants to oversee their herd below.

“It all sounds rather idyllic, unlike here,” Sverchkov said enviously, as he followed him up the steps.

“Happy childhoods are mostly based on myths propagated by tales of the privileged,” said Trotsky.

He walked over to the windows and, reaching up, opened their shutters.

“My childhood was not unpleasant,” he continued as he watched the corporal and the two guards return to the crowd around the sleighs, “but there were no luxuries that I can remember. Every copeck had to be watched. My father’s peasants used to lie face down in the dirt showing him their cracked bare feet in protest against the meagre wages he paid them. Although he was by no means a particularly cruel employer, I remember that.”

Sverchkov came to stand beside him at the open window, fanning his face with his hand in an attempt to dispel the strong smell of the pigs below.

“Things aren’t too bad, I suppose,” he said hopefully.

Below them one of the larger pigs shoved a smaller pig out of the way and began rooting in the corner of the sty.

“Did you see that one?” asked Sverchkov. “Pigs and men, eh? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. We should call that one ‘the Corporal’.”

“Ah well, we will just have to make the best of it,” advised Trotsky and then chuckled quietly.

“What’s so funny?” Sverchkov asked.

“I was just reminded of something Lenin said to me when we were in London,” he replied.

He had never become familiar with London and had disliked its rain, its squalor and the way the city sprawled in every direction. His personal lack of awareness of the relationship between different locations within the capital – what he had self-deprecatingly described to Jules and Vera as his “topographical cretinism” – had often caused him to become lost when he was out walking alone. Not that he was usually allowed to leave his lodgings unaccompanied; at least, not at the beginning. Then he had been grateful, and flattered, to have the illustrious company of Jules Martov, Vera Zasulich or Nicolai Lenin to show him the city. They had told him that it was to ensure that he didn’t get lost. Later they had admitted that they were worried in case he was picked up, or followed by one of the many Tsarist agents and their spies operating undercover in London. Later still he had realised that, equally suspicious of his own bona fide credentials, they were interested to see with whom he was making contact in the streets and pubs. After all, with a wife and two young daughters still under sentence of internal exile in Russia, this talented newcomer was vulnerable to pressure.

Nicolai had been particularly attentive, taking him for long walks through the administrative centre of the capital to show him the different seats of bourgeois power, all the while quizzing him on political theory.

“This is their Houses of Parliament,” Nicolai had scoffed as they stood together on the pavement outside the faux Gothic landmark. “They are very proud of this particular institution, and of their so-called democracy. Once every seven years the British male proletariat are allowed to decide which agents of the ruling class should be allowed to oppress them.”

“Can we Russians learn anything from this?” he had asked.

“Of course – yes!” Nicolai had insisted. “The bourgeoisie in Britain has mastered the art of hypocrisy and of fooling the people in a thousand ways, by passing off their hallowed parliamentarianism as ‘pure democracy’ and so on, while cunningly concealing the million threads which bind Parliament to the Stock Exchange, and to the capitalist class. What this teaches us is to reject completely the belief that a Parliament can ever act in the genuine interest of the working class. It has no useful role to play.”

“Not even as a stepping stone to establishing Socialism?”

“If you use parliamentary democracy as a stepping stone,” Nicolai had said firmly, “you will never, ever get to Socialism.”