TROTSKY’S AIDE TELLS OF LIFE IN THE “FORTRESS.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20340, 25 June 1934, Page 6

TROTSKY’S AIDE TELLS OF LIFE IN THE “FORTRESS.”

How the Revolutionist is Guarded: Works at Frantically High Speed.

By

Sara Mayers.

NEW YORK, May 6. As the succession of French Cabinets during the last several months swung the Government more and more to the Right, Leon T rotsky 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 packing.’’ I was his secretary at that time. When Trotsky's house at Barbizon, near Paris, was raided by the French police, I 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.

'J’ ROTSKY and every member of his household, including his gentle, charming wife, always go armed. None of the women there has ever shot a gun, nor would they know how to. but we 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 easy 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 w'ould be instantly accessible when an alarm was given. Two ferocious police dogs, friendly only to Trotsky but tolerant of the rest of us, prowded 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 net 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 fifty-three, and at the same time- was in the midst of what he feels will be his major contribution to the w'Orld of thought, a biography of Lenin. The Fourth International. The chief occupation of this dramatic and somewhat mysterious world figure is The Fourth International. The man who, before his exile, was second only to Lenin in command pf Soviet Russia, has now definitely 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 Sovietised 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 common enemies of the capitalist system in the Germany of 1933, where obliteration was accepted supinely. He had seen The Third International fail in the general strike of 1926 in England and fail gruesomely in 1927-1928 in China. Until the last cruel act of the German tragedy was played, Trotsky hoped to sway The Third International to his ideas. lie 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. Helps His Wife in House. 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 Barbizon his home was located in Fontainebleau Forest, where ambushes could not be guarded aginst 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 he w'orks incessantly, with a half-hour off for lunch and another halfhour for dinner. After dinner he has a “ siesta hour.” During his ” siesta ” he reads twenty or thirty newsppers from different countries. He works seven days a week, allowing himself one day off a year, November 7. on which he celebrates the October revolution in Russia. Four Books at Once. In addition to his major tasks, Trotsky carries on a vast flow of correspondence 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. When Trotsky travels, he uses his wife’s name, Sedoff, and his staff takes every precaution to guard him from .his numerous enemies of both the Right and Left. 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-pas-sengers were asleep. I don’t 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 am. Before dawn a launch appeared out of the sea. the Bulgaria was stopped and Trotsky disembarked alone. He w-as landed on a desolate coast, hustled into a waiting au-tomobile and sped to Royan, where a house was ready for him. The rest of his staff followed in the routine manner of travellers. A Promise Violated. 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 he has worked himself into a state of nervous exhaustion, accompanied by fever. During the ten months I 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. Until the time I left, Trotsky had had no official communication with the French authorities. The}’ had told him when he applied for a visa that they would not protect him, but that they w’ould respect iiis incognito—a promise they violated. But as the swung of the Right grew mote and more pronounced, Trotsky realised his political work was becoming increasingly distasteful to the new 7 authorities. After all, he was incessantly urging the French workers of the Left and of the centre to unite against the Fascist reaction and prepare for a struggle for power. (N.A.N.A. Copyright.)