TROTSKY’S “BUNK”

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1638, 7 May 1925, Page 8

TROTSKY’S “BUNK”

A remarkabfe personal impression of Trotsky, the fallen Bolshevik leader in Russia, is given by Mr W. Hullinger, in the “Fortnightly Review.’’ Mr Hullinger first saw Trotsky at> a meeting of the Moscow Soviet in the stately ballroom of the Noblemen’s Club, once the gathering place of Moscow’s elite. The speaker’s platform swarmed with people and chairs, only a small place being reserved in the centre. Into this clearing, says Mr Hullinger, suddenly walked a small, vigorous man, clad -in a dapper khaki uniform. My first impression was of the absolute immaculateness of his appearance from crown to toe. He seemed to have just come away from his valet’s hands. His cheeks had been shaved to the point of glistening. His moustache and goatee had been trimmed to a hair, and their blackness stood out with a jet briliance against the rosiness of his skin. His hair was black and perfectly trimmed. and his boots and leather leggings polished. His uniform fitted perfectly. His black eyes sparkled. His teeth flashed occasionally in a manner reminiscent of Roosevelt.

Soon every person in the room was cheering.

Trotsky was obviously pleased. He took it for what it was worth; he was not conceited. But he never had grown too blase to 'be glad of it. He took a few documents from his briefcase, and almost immediately began speaking in positive, rather high tones. It was not an altogether pleasing voice. But it had a penetrating Quality and a message of vigour and mastery that commanded the hearer. It was obvious from the first that here was a man of no small power. His magnetism was more physical than spiritual. He possessed that element of physical vigour that never fails to attract. Trotsky had the easy self-mastery of a conscious leader. He was the kind of man whom you would expect to take the initiative quickly, hit hard, and keep on hitting—a quality which is the prime essential for leadership in a primitive land. From an intellectual point of view the speech was a great disappointment. I have never heard a worse sample of intellectual cheapness and what in America goes under the name of “bunk.” It was a dazzling, sparkling skein, it is true, but a skein of most fragile flimsiness. It was a series of suspicions paraded es xacts. I do not recall a single proved fact in the speech. It was distressing that a man with such qualities of leadership could stoop to such mediocrity. It would have been inexcusable in a Hyde Park agitator.