LEON TROTSKY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 162, 11 July 1934, Page 14

LEON TROTSKY.

LIFE IN "FORTRESS."

A FOURTH INTERNATIONAL TIRELESS ENERGY. (By SABA .MAYERS.) NEW YOKE, June 7. As the succession of French- Cabinets during the last several mouths swung the Government more and more lo the Right, Leon Trotsky realised his stay in France was drawing to a close. The exiled Russian revolutionist had received a visa from the somewhat Left Government of Premier Daladier, and when Daladier fell, .Trotsky said to me, jokingly but regretfully, "We must start oacking." 1 was his secretary at that time. When Trotsky's house at Barbizon, near Paris, was raided by the French police 1 was on my way home, but I know no one there was unprepared. In fact, the little company of friends was prepared for anything —even assassination. Trotsky and every member of his household, including his gentle, charming wife, always go arm_'d. Nolle of the women there has ever shot a gun. nor would, they know how to, bus WO were armed anyway. Under Trotsky's pillow at night is a revolver. When he works he carries a gun in his pocket and another on his desk within easr reach. A system of floodlights was rigged up at Barbizon so that a touch of a switch would light up every corner of the grounds and house. Switches had been placed, in every room and in all the halls, so > one would be instantly accessible when an alarm was given. Two ferocious police dogs, friendly only to Trotsky but tolerant of the rest of us, prowled the grounds at night, and a voluntary guard remained vigilant every hour of the day and night. This bristling array of defences was accepted by Trotsky at the insistence of his friends, but did not worry him or distract him from his work. In France Trotsky was engaged in directing the construction of a new world organisation, which he had begun at the age of 53, and at the same time was in the midst of what he feels will bo his major contribution to the world of thought, a biography of Lenin. The chief occupation of this dramatic and somewhat mysterious world figure in the Fourth International. The man who, before his exile, was second only to Lenin in command of Soviet Russia, has now definitely and finally abandoned all hope in its present leaders and has turned his prodigious energies and many talents against their policies. He believes the Third International, the organisation which Sov.ietised Russia, has failed, and he is now acting to unite the workers of the world in a new revolutionary organisation.

The final straw causing this break with Trotsky's own past was. the rise of Hitler to power. Trotsky had seen the Stalinites -fail to. achieve union among the copvmon of the capitalist system .; in the Germany- of 1933, where- obliteration was accepted supinely. He had seen the Third Intcrtional fail in the general strike of 1926 in England and fail gruesomely in 19271928 in China. Enrolling Revolutionaries. Until the last cruel act of the German tragedy was played Trotsky hoped to sway the Third International to his ideas. He realised then it could not be done, and he plunged immediately into the Fourth International. At the time I left France he already had enrolled 25,000 Communists in different countries to work for this organisation. In the United States he has 2000 members, and he has scored a signal success in Germany, where, with the first printed newspaper to achieve underground circulation in the Reich, he has raised his active membership from 200 to 3000, at a time when the Third International is finding its followers decreasing. Trotsky came to France from Prinkipo (an island near Istanbul, Turkey) in order to be nearer a world centre where he could get newspapers and books easily. In doing this he transferred himself voluntarily from comparative freedom to what amounted to a fortified prison. Working, as he does, with methodically furious energy during all his waking hours, periods of arduous manual labour were necessary to maintain his health. In Prinkipo he spent hours each week at deep sea fishing—not as a sport with rod and reel, but as a labour, with nets, hauling in great catches of. fish. ■In Barbizon his home was located in Fontainbleau Forest, where ambushes could not be guarded against off the grounds. Thus the only exercise he could take was pitifully inadequate for a man of his enormous vitality and energy. He would walk about the garden with his dogs, would feed and care for them, washing their bowls, preparing their food, and would make his own bed in the absence of his wife. He did this very neatly, tucking in the sheets in a manner'which would command the admiration of the most careful housewife. Unlike most European husbands. Trotsky would take every opportunity to help his wife in her household duties. He would clear his dishes from the table at meal times and scrape the crumbs from the cloth. Trotsky's working day begins at 7.30, when breakfast is over. From then until almost midnight ho works incessantly, with a half-hour off for lunch and another half-hour for dinner. After dinner ho has a "siesta hour." During his "siesta" he reads twenty or thirty newspapers from different countries. He works seven clays a week, allowing himself one day off a year, November 7, on which he celebrates the October Revolution in Russia. A Prodigious Memory. In addition to his major tasks, Trot- j sky carries on a vast flow of correspondenee with every quarter of the globe, and writes many articles and pamphlets. He works at one task until tired, and then, for recreation, takes on a new job. His memory -is prodigious and he can return to an article abandoned weeks before and immediately pick up the thread by reading over the last sentence he had dictated. When I left, he had four books in preparation at the same time, as well as innumerable pamphlets. Stenographers will appreciate what 11 mean when I say he dictates unhurriedly and unhesitatingly in a smooth, ' steady flow of words, without resort to notes or reference books. He never once asked me, "Where was I?" His data are completely assembled and on tap in his mind before he dictates a single word. And he can carry in his brain the material for all the books ho ifl j working on. * , J

When Trotsky travels lie uses his ■wife's name, Sedoff, and his staff takes I every precaution to guard him from his I numerous enemies of both the Eight I and Left. I When we sailed from Prinkipo to Marseilles, the boat was scheduled to leave at 7 p.m. Trotsky went on board early in the afternoon and retired immediately to his cabin, which he never left during the entire voyage except for a turn about the- deck late at night, when his fellow passengers were asleep. I I do not think anybody but his staff and the ship's officers knew he was aboard. Armed friends lounged inconspicuously in the vicinity of his cabin, day and night, and trailed him during his brief walks. The boat, the Bulgaria, was scheduled to dock at 10 a.m. Before dawn a launch appeared out of the sea, the Bulgaria was stopped and Trotsky disembarked alone. He was landed on a desolate coast, hustled into a waiting automobile and sped to Royan, where a house was ready for him. The rest of his stall' followed in the routine manner of travellers. Trotsky works at frantically high speed, but he is uniformly patient and gentle with even his humblest aides. The only vacations he has had since he began his career as a revolutionist, statesman, leader of armies, historian, orator and writer, are his one day off a year and those enforced periods of rest when lie has worked himself into a state of nervous exhaustion, accompanied by fever. Dining the 10 months 1 was a member of his staff, he had one such breakdown. He went off by himself and returned in a few days, fresh, spry and gay, his spirit untroubled. Dangerous Days Ahead. Until the time I left, Trotsky hod had no official communication with the French authorities. They had told him when ho applied for a visa that they woulcl not protect him, but that they would respect his incognito—a promise they violated. When he asked to be allowed to dwell nearer Paris' cultural facilities than Royan, permission was granted him to go to the province of Seine et Marne, where a friend's, house was thrown open to him in Barbizon. But as the swing to the Eight grew more and more pronounced, Trotsky realised his political work was becoming increasingly distasteful to the new authorities. After all, he was incessant", y urging the French workers of the Left and of the Centre to unite against the Fascist reaction and prepare for a struggle for power. He told me frequently he hoped to be abl6 to return to Prinkipo. But here he knew also that the growing friendship between Russia and' Turkey was making that prospect grow dim, and that before him loomed wearisome and dangerous days. Trotsky has refused absolutely to compromise with his revolutionary principles. He was one of the first to join Lenin in his break with the Second International after that organisation voted war credits. Now he has broken with the Third International because he believes it has betrayed the workers in the face of Fascism.—(N.A.N.A.)