THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1924. TROTZKY IN EXILE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18890, 12 December 1924, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1924. TROTZKY IN EXILE.

For the good of his health, Trotzky has been ordered to the Caucasus. A week ago, for the good of Russia's health, he wan forced to withdraw from his post as Commissar for War. His ill health, although suffered for a month past —indeed, it is a recurrence of a malady affecting him last year —has not been cited as a reason for that compulsory withdrawal. Apparently, that was thrust upon him without regard to anything else, and makes it likely that his banishment to a distant health resort is a convenient ringing down of the curtain upon his political career. Last year, although similarly ill, he retained office and stayed at hand. Lenin, although terribly stricken in health and even reported dead, was long kept in his official position. The inference is inevitable. Trotzky is not wanted in Russia. "Whatever the state of his health, he goes to political exile. When Russians are in the mood, they can unmake men with a rapidity that, leaves other peoples aghast. Even the greatest is in peril of sudden overthrow. After the last of the Tsars, ruthlessly torn from his throne and brutally murdered, went Kerensky, hounded from ofine by ungrateful and unscrupulous rivals. Had Lenin lived—so some (f his quondam associates say—he would have been dispensed with as a hindrance to the Bolshevik programme. When death saved him from that dishonour, and onlookers thought to see Trotzky succeed to supremacy, he was set down amid the rank-and-file of the Soviet councillors, and Bykoff, a mediccre Finnish pieasant without remarkable gifts, reigned in I Lenin's stead over the Federal As-

sembly of Soviets. That was- a calculated slight. For a while Trotzky has borne it as inevitable,; but worse has followed. His loss of the presidency of the Army and Navy Conference, and of his post at the War Office has been associated with scandal. Radek, head of Soviet propaganda, has denounced him, using ugly words about his being in the pay of foreigners. Although born in Little Russia, Trotzky has shewn such meagre patriotism that the wage of office, rather than . its work, may very well have dominated his political purposes. The world knows him as Lev Davidovitch Trotzky and Leon Trotzky, but the nameß are

assumed. He is Leiba Bronstein. A certain Trotzky, whom he resembled somewhat in build and feature, was his first gaoler—his clever escape was assisted by his use of the gaoler's passport, which the fugitive stole—and that official's name was henceforth adopted as a useful disguise in journalism and politics, for both of which Bronstein had a tolerable gift. This jugglery with names is revealing. An alii.s is a convenient insulation, enabling its user to avoid inherited social responsibilities, and to play n lone hand against the world. That is Trotzky. He has eared little tor country.

Becoming in early years an ardent Marxian Socialist, he forsook the university studies mapped out for him and plunged headlong into revolutionary propaganda. He has plotted against Governments irrespective of the country he happened to visit. In six capitals of Europe he has made a name for himself by

intrigues as a sanguinary revolutionist —Petrograd, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and London. In New York, which he left suddenly to return to Ruesia on the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks, he was not widely known: he was in secret touch, however, with the Russians there and with the Socialists of other nationality, and exerted himself in writing and in addressing these associates with a view to inflaming them to social mutiny. He has put ou record his varied experiences since, in the unsuccessful Russian revolution of 1905, he was president of the first SoMiers' and Working Men's Council in Petrograd. Exiled to Siberia, escaping to found a Socialist newspaper in Switzerland, going thence to Berlin, where his revolutionary propaganda attracted the severe attention of the authorities, escaping again from imprisonment to AustriaHungary, to Serbia, to France, to Spain, and then marked for deportation to Cuba—his career has been one long intrigue. At length, with practically every country in Europe closed to him, he returned to New York at the end of 1916, until the new regime in Russia induced him to go thither again. At onee, by what has been aptly called a "five-minutes' make," he was given responsibility e,b Lenin's lieutenant. But he often proved too militant and impetuous even for Lenin. SbMong art there was a need, in the eyes of revolutionary leaders, for Trotzky's inpetuous radicalism and inflammatory propaganda, they

found use for him. But the Bolshevik regime has passed the stage when it can rale by sheer terror. It must turn to more suave and subtle means. Events in Britain and elsewhere have proved recently that the world will not be bludgeoned into acceptance of proletarian mastery. Besides, Russia is getting rapidly more mendicant. She must have trade, and trade cannot be got without credit, and her Btock in international regard is well-nigh worthless. To ' have a fire-eating Commissar of "War at this stage is worse than useless. It is unsafe. Trotzky's idea of the Socialist objective is not renounced, nor is his view that there is no limit save the sky to the revolution he would achieve; but the time is not nearly so ripe for that achievement as the Soviet leaders once dreamed. They must sacrifice Trotzky, therefore, lest the smooth things they would say to the world should be interrupted by his breathing out threatening and slaughter. He owed his prominence to the needs of the civil w£.r; but just as surely must he sir k in estimation and be denied a pl.a;e in the inner, ruling group of Russia's leaders, now that a differ; ent situation has arisen. So far as the outside world is concerned, it matters little that a change in Russia's War Office should put a comparative nonentity in Trotzky's -place; but as a matter of diplomacy from she Soviet point of view, it is important. Whether it will be any real aid in disarming foreign suspicions of Russia is quite another question. __^_

THE RAILWAYS BUSINESS. ♦ — Two surprising points mark tho November returns of the Railway Department: the net return from the North Island system is substantially lower, and that from the South Island railways notably higher than last year. The retrogression in the North Island seems to be due to some, departure from the normal regularity of expenditure, for while the previous return showed an increase in expenditure of only £925, the latest reveals an increase of £20,115. The latter amount is, however, so large that even when the accounts for the last two periods are taken together there is a decline in net earnings of £10,000. It would be uncharitable to probe too deeply for explanation of the sudden improvement in the results from tho South Island- The contrast between a loss on working of £1800 and a profit "of £17,874 is so welcome that it may be accepted as a pleasant achievement with tho hope that it may Jbe auspicious of that system's financial recovery. It has heavy arrears to overtake before it becomes independent of subsidies. The accounts for the 32 weeks of the financial year show that its gross earnings have increased by £5500, but working costs have advanced £7700, so that, its net result is lower by , £2200. On the other hand, the North Island has gained £58,000 more revenue at an additional cost of £47,000, adding £11.000 to its surplus. With the most profitable period of the year still to come, the North Island has earned 67 per cent. of. its share of the interest charges for the full year; the South Island, even with the exceptional result for the last month, has earned only 11 per cent, of its interest liability. In these circumstances, the expectation that the South Island railways will some day pay their way is not likely to be realised this year.