Diary in Exile
Trotsky, Leon
The diary is not a literary form I am especially fond of; at the moment I would prefer the daily newspaper. But there is none available. ... Cut off from political action, I am obliged to...
...N. is fussing over the housework with a heavy weight in her heart...
...And yet this order has hopelessly undermined itself...
...But best of all is the papal blessing broadcast to Lourdes by radio...
...The Socialists and the Communists write articles against the twoyear term, and for the sake of greater impressiveness trot out their largest type...
...But it is not the world of the newspapermen as such that interests me, but the workings of the deeper social forces as they appear reflected in the crooked mirror of the press...
...Lenin was in a fine humor and looked well physically...
...At the same time he is clever enough to realize that even today I would not change places with him: hence the psychology of a man stung...
...Certain further concessions to the petty bourgeois tendencies of the peasant seem to be in preparation...
...The attacks of illness have become more frequent, the symptoms are more acute, my resistance is obviously getting weaker...
...Later, after being deported from France to Spain in 1916, I did so again...
...we should set up military-revolutionary tribunals and establish decorations for individual bravery in battle...
...I was petrified...
...Engels is undoubtedly one of the finest, best integrated and noblest personalities in the gallery of great men...
...For the very reason that it fell to my lot to take part in great events, my past now cuts me off from chances for action...
...little people are afraid of shop windows which are too resplendent...
...a daughter was driven to suicide...
...Stalin's narrow empiricism and utter lack of vision are nowhere more starkly revealed than in his commentaries on the subject of wholesale collectivization...
...they came here to make our acquintance...
...It's spring, the sun is hot, the violets have been in bloom for about ten days, the peasants are puttering around in the vineyards...
...He did have foresight...
...I am reading Edgar Allan Poe in the original, and am getting on, although not without difficulties...
...everything was covered with a white shroud...
...Shall we go together...
...achieved...
...Blows against my intimates in Russia cannot give him the necessary "satisfaction," and at the same time they cause serious political inconveniences...
...All the events and experiences of life are arranged along this inexorable arch between birth and the grave...
...Only as we were approaching Moscow—the hungry, dirty Moscow of the Fall months of 1918—did I feel acutely ill at ease...
...But the instances when Lenin and I understood each other at a glance were a hundred times more numerous, and our solidarity always guaranteed the passage of a question in the Politburo without disputes...
...Everything is in order...
...Right now we are listening to Rimsky-Korsakov...
...And she said this so simply, evenly and quietly, and at the same time from such a depth, that my whole soul was stirred...
...My philosophical interests have been growing during the last few years, but alas, my knowledge is too insufficient, and too little time remains for a big and serious work .. I must give N. her tea...
...Why then did you not hold your currency when it fell in England...
...We all stopped anxiously...
...In this manipulation of uncoordinated tempos the foundation is being laid for an inevitable crisis in the immediate future...
...You cannot live through it without falling into prostration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness...
...I doubt that I will be able to return to this subject again...
...At this stage it is hard to predict the point at which they will manage to hold the line against the present retreat...
...Christianity created the figure of Christ to humanize the elusive Lord of Hosts and bring him nearer to mortal men...
...In short, it is an instrument perfectly suited to a prison...
...I told him: "As the foundation for our military units we should use hard revolutionary nuclei, which will support iron discipline from within...
...I remember how we examined with some excitement a portrait of Engels as a young man, discovering in it the traits which became so prominent in his later life...
...N.,** as always, listens with absorption and concentration...
...I had paid no attention to the flowers and did not understand the reason for his concern...
...Military service extended to two years...
...The latter inquired about me, and learning that I was sick, exclaimed in genuine alarm: "This is extremely unpleasant, extremely unpleasant...
...That would approximately be the way I feel as I watch the criminal work of the "leaders" of the French proletariat...
...Sverdlov told me: "Ilyich would like you to visit him...
...Dagegen ist nun einmal kein Kraut gewachsen,"* Engels wrote about old age and death...
...N. sat down all of a sudden—she obviously just could not go any further—and smiled apologetically...
...I have read the biography of Eugene Debs...
...All the current "miseres" of our personal lives have receded into the background in the face of our anxiety for Seryozha, A. L., and the children.** I said to N. yesterday: "It seems now that our life before we got the last letter from Lyowa was almost beautiful and serene...
...Preparations for a new "final" war...
...Two small boys had climbed on to the pier over the parapet of the bridge and were looking down on the passers-by...
...At that moment one of his bodyguards brought out some flowers in pots and started putting them into the car...
...It was in 1903...
...It seemeu to me that he was looking at me with somehow different eyes...
...Lenin expressed his approval of this idea with alacrity, even with delight...
...She works too much— with passion, as in everything she undertakes, and today it showed during the steep ascent up the hill...
...Everyone has his worries...
...in the house it is chilly and damp...
...The war and the October Revolution, the upheavals of Fascism have passed them by without a trace For them, the future holds hot and cold showers...
...He loved Engels very deeply, and particularly for his wholeness of character and all-round humanity...
...Alongside the Olympian Marx, Engels is more "human," more approachable...
...Perhaps months...
...Le Temps had published a very sympathetic report from its Moscow correspondent about the new privileges granted to the kolkhozniks [collective farmers], especially in regard to their acquiring ownership of horses, cattle, and other livestock...
...Russians are too kind," "Russians are lazybones, softies," "It's a bowl of mush we have, not a dictatorship...
...The game is won," he said, changing suddenly to a firm and serious tone...
...Instead of regulating the collectivization according to the productive and technical resources of the country and instead of extending the radius of collectivization in breadth and depth according to the dictates of experience, the frightened bureaucrats began to drive the frightened muzhiks into the collective farms with the knout...
...At the beginning of the war, when I was confined in Switzerland, I kept a diary for a few weeks...
...But for the last few months her heart has been acting up now and then...
...Long waiting has blunted the anxiety of the first days...
...Today, during a walk in the hills with N.—it was almost a summer day—I was thinking over my conversation with Lenin about a trial for the Tsar...
...and in tragic hours I am always amazed at the reserves of her character...
...Here also everything is in order...
...It's too incongruous...
...Whether because our strength is declining, or for some other reason, but I should very much like to fix N.'s image on paper, at least partially...
...Rearmament of Germany...
...Last time, during a similar spell, H. M. was at the local Prefect's...
...Only later I understood that N. cannot "act a part" in any sphere...
...I didn't even grasp, in the excitement of our meeting, what sort of `discomfort' you had in mind...
...But there is none available...
...A curved line is drawn across these sentences.] It's been about two weeks since I've written much of anything: it's too difficult...
...if we act drastically (which is absolutely necessary) our own party will interfere: they will whine, set every telephone ringing, tug at our coat-tails—in short, interfere...
...See 4th Cover...
...What a pang of pity I felt for youth, her youth...
...This is the shortest and most certain road to destruction...
...worked on a book about Marx and Engels, but the preliminary ma• terials were burned in a fire...
...I read newspapers, French novels, Wittels' book about Freud (a bad book by an envious pupil), etc...
...Since the Fall of 1929 the Bulletin of the Russian Opposition* has been sounding the alarm against irresponsible methods of collectivization...
...In 1903 in Paris a performance of Gorky's The Lower Depths was organized, the proceeds from which were to benefit Iskra...
...Essentially, these people do not suspect that such men as Marx, Engels, and Lenin have lived in this world...
...Nathalia, Trotsky's wife.—ED...
...At the same time they are the most faithful and profitable customers...
...but in its way it reflects the lyrical and sentimental figure of Debs, remarkable of its kind, and in any case very attractive...
...What crudeness, insolence, nastiness...
...but it is altogether insufficient for a revolutionary rallying of the proletariat...
...When Sverdlov and I were getting into our automobile, Lenin and N. K. stood on the balcony directly above the entrance, and again I felt the same slightly bashful, all-enveloping glance of Ilyich...
...And if Fascism conquers in France...
...Fascism cannot happen in Norway...
...was it appropriate to ride about with flowers at such a time...
...We recaptured Kazan...
...This arch constitutes life itself...
...We shall hold out...
...You won't be uncomfortable...
...No, a deep and indestructible conviction...
...Although the gardens are in bloom, it has been snowing today since early morning...
...Will it be for long...
...This solidarity meant a great deal to Lenin...
...Again I caught that special friendly glance of his which seemed to reflect his pleasure that I had understood him...
...Every time N. is ill, I feel anew the place that she fills in my life...
...Konst...
...Conceit...
...During the daytime lately I have been lying in the open air, reading and dictating letters to Jan...
...from the mountains the fog is creeping down into the valley...
...In 1933, Trotsky moved to France where he stayed until 1935, going then to Norway as indicated in these excerpts from his diary which are published with the kind permission of Harvard University Press...
...True, within the last few months we have acquired a radio, but such things probably exist even in certain prisons, at least in America (not in France, of course) . We listen almost exclusively to concerts, which now occupy a rather prominent place in our daily routine...
...another son, a political co-worker of his father, died in suspicious circumstances in a Paris hospital.— En...
...It would be good to finish the book on Lenin so as to move on to more timely work, a book on capitalism in the stage of disintegration...
...The biography is bad, lyrically sentimental...
...Indeed, the thinking of mankind is bogged down in its own excrement...
...A few days ago our landlord had guests, also party editors...
...And the revolution—with order—will be unconquerable...
...But she kept walking up with her graceful stride, on high heels, smiling to the boys...
...A son, an engineer uninvolved in politics, disappeared in Russia...
...A steep cement pier sloped down from a great height...
...She always and under all conditions, all her life and in all possible surroundings— and we have changed quite a few of them—has remained true to herself, and has never allowed her surroundings to influence her inner life .. . Today on our walk we went up a hill...
...It is possible that besides the time factor (we would "not have time" to bring a big trial to its conclusion, since the decisive events on the front might intervene), Lenin had another consideration with regard to the Tsar's family...
...In recent years I have learned to dictate articles in French and German, to dictate to collaborators who are capable of correcting my syntactic errors on the spot...
...Naturally, Stalin would not hesitate a moment to organize an attempt on my life, but he is afraid of the political consequences: the accusation will undoubtedly fall on him...
...Russian periodical published for several years by Trotsky's followers in Europe.—ED...
...There was talk of giving a part to N., very likely on my initiative...
...Under judicial procedures, of course, execution of the family would have been impossible...
...I didn't think it was possible to climb up there...
...We have complete literacy...
...They were bound together by their campaign against me, which had recently been initiated...
...A shop for miracles, a business office for trafficking in Grace...
...I thought she would play her part well, "sincerely...
...But the retreat itself, brought on as it was by the extremely crude bureaucratic illusions of the preceding period, was not difficult to foresee...
...Now we are living openly and without guard...
...But this general law by no means justifies wholesale collectivization...
...On Prinkipo,* I " In Turkey, where Trotsky began his exile outside Russia in 1929 after two years in Alma Ata, Siberia...
...We are not cheerful these days...
...We chatted with them amiably and parted...
...Stalin, Hitler, or their French friend-enemies...
...Lenin was wounded by the Social Revolutionist Kaplan...
...Old age is "necessary" because it has experience and wisdom...
...To announce that Seryozha worked "under the direction of foreign intelligence service...
...The rest is well known: the slaughter of the cattle, the famine of 1933, the untold number of victims, and the series of political crises...
...Last year N. and I were in Lourdes...
...Suddenly N. started climbing toward them up the steep smooth slope of the pier...
...Today I wrote a little about the interrelationship between the physiological determinism of brain processes and the "autonomy" of thought, which is subject to the law of logic...
...The advantage of a diary—alas the only one—lies precisely in the fact that it leaves one free from any literary requirements or prescriptions...
...N. and I have been together for almost 33 years (a third of a century...
...But nothing came of it, and the part was given to someone else...
...Kazan fell...
...Events must come to a head in •one way or another and put an end to the diary—if it is not cut short even sooner by a surreptitious shot directed by an agent of...
...Any revolutionary would feel the same way...
...met me made me realize how impatiently and warmly they were expecting me...
...People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves...
...In their epigrammatic illusions and characterizations, sometimes paradoxical, but always well thought out and to the point, there is so much instruction, so much mental freshness and mountain air...
...But if revenge on a higher plane has not succeeded—and clearly it will not succeed—it is still possible to reward oneself with police blows against people close to me...
...At least this occupation is more satisfying than mere passive reading...
...The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves...
...There is no refusal to work, no "repentance," no isolation...
...Its absurdities were not the result of elemental pressure from the masses, but of bureaucratic bungling...
...At our next encounter I said to him: "The other day you asked about the flowers...
...then it melted...
...When Lenin became convinced by our talks that I believed in our success, he supported my trip wholeheartedly, helped with the arrangements, showed great concern, kept asking about ten times a day over the telephone how the preparations were going, whether we should not take an airplane along on the train, etc...
...Lassalle wrote once that he would gladly leave unwritten what he knew if only he could accomplish at least a part of what he felt able to do...
...Retreats are possible— when there is territory to retreat from...
...Of course, the curve may yet take a temporary turn upward...
...now it is snowing again but melting right away...
...The sky is gray...
...When you have had enough of the prose of the Blums, the Cachins and the Thorezes, when you have swallowed your fill of the microbes of pettiness and insolence, obsequiousness and ignorance, there is no better way of clearing your lungs than by reading the correspondence of Marx and Engels, both to each other and to other people...
...In Turkey we lived "openly" under the public eye, but actually under a considerable guard (three comrades and two policemen) . In France we lived incognito, first under a guard of our comrades (Barbizon) , later alone (Isere...
...Here my contacts with life are almost entirely limited to the newspapers and partly to letters...
...Now once again I have to resort to a political diary...
...Stalin said, "The greatest delight is to mark one's enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly, and then go to sleep...
...Such cases, naturally, were memorable for everyone, and later on much was said and written about them by the epigones...
...She rarely says such things...
...At the present time the retreat is proceeding at full speed...
...It is also a historical duty...
...Life is not an easy matter...
...Without this arch there would be not only no old age, but also no youth...
...in general I would say that it helps me to make first drafts of my ideas, but hinders me from working them up...
...Last night we listened to Die Walkure from Bordeaux until midnight...
...However, I naturally am not committing myself in advance to this form...
...That, of course, is a psychological calculation of the clerics: not to frighten the little people away by the grandeur of their commercial enterprise...
...The manner in which Marya ilyinishna and Nad...
...Yesterday another period of ill health began for me...
...0 It is hard right now to work on my book on Lenin...
...In England...
...The latter are not infrequent...
...When I was getting ready to go to the front for the first time, between the fall of Simbirsk and that of Kazan, Lenin was in a gloomy mood...
...If he dies here, why, we will not be able to bury him under his assumed name...
...If we have succeeded in establishing order in the army, it means we will establish it everywhere else...
...N. is unwell: temperature of 38° [C.]—apparently a cold, but there may also be malaria mixed in with it...
...Yesterday two drunken Norwegians dropped in to get acquainted...
...Weakness, slightly feverish condition, an extraordinary humming in my ears...
...The peasants peacefully prune their vines and fertilize the furrows between them...
...Sometimes music helps me to write, sometimes it hinders...
...we should guarantee competent leadership by putting a commissar with a revolver over every 'spets' [Tsarist officer serving as technical expert in the Red Army...
...One night we ran home from the Paris Opera to the rue Gassendi, 46, au pas gymnastique, holding hands...
...There was a touch of this being "in love" in his excited attention...
...To recreate his image would be a gratifying task...
...They provoke the class enemy as if on purpose and without giving anything to their own class...
...probably the more indefatigable one...
...all his life he uses himself up in this task...
...my thoughts simply don't want to concentrate on the year 18931 The weather has changed sharply in the last few days...
...create reliable security detachments which will act from outside in concert with the inner revolutionary nucleus of the detachment, and will not hesitate to shoot deserters...
...It made you look like a meshochnik [illegal trader...
...Our life here differs very little from imprisonment...
...When I made a quick visit to Moscow, Lenin was convalescing in Gorki...
...on the contrary, a new historical momentum has been acquired which is already impossible to halt...
...The Grotto itself makes a miserable impression...
...She bears all suffering, physical as well as moral, silently, quietly, inside herself...
...But one has to take the situation as it is...
...I remember that after reading the Marx-Engels correspondence on my military train, I spoke to Lenin of my admiration for the figure of Engels...
...The paltry miracles of the Gospels side by side with the radiotelephone...
...Ilyich asked quickly, and laughed gently...
...It will collapse with a stench...
...Deep in their hearts the "leaders" hope things will work out somehow...
...Lenin's face darkened with anxiety...
...It suddenly dawned on me only as we were entering the city...
...Of course, revolution hardens one, but there is too little time...
...Even the yard gate is wide open day and night...
...I am reduced to interpreting events and trying to foresee their future course...
...My condition is not encouraging...
...For this very reason Stalin is once again forced to cut down everyone and everything that stands to the left of him...
...Or rather, how consciously Engels endeavors to complement Marx...
...It was spring, and the sun was shining as brightly as it did today when N. suddenly sat down in the grass...
...They have learned nothing...
...No news about Seryozha, and perhaps there won't be any for long time...
...The Socialist and the Communist parties of France are continuing their fatal work: they carry their opposition to a point quite sufficient to embitter the bourgeoisie and to bring about a mobilization of forces of reaction and additional arming of Fascist detachments...
...Our combined age was 46 N. was...
...How well they complement one another...
...I imagine an old doctor, devoid of neither education nor experience, who day after day has to watch quacks and charlatans doctor to death a person dear to him, knowing that this person could be certainly cured if only the elementary rules of medicine were observed...
...But in general I have a feeling that liquidation is approaching...
...N. went all the way without looking at us, talked to the children, and came down the same way, without having made, as far as one could see, a single superfluous effort or taken a single uncertain step...
...And what could be more absurd and disgusting than the union of proud technology with the sorcery of the Roman chief druid...
...He regards it as his mission and finds in it his gratification...
...He had a way of falling in love with people when they showed hint a certain side of themselves...
...Simbirsk was retaken too...
...Lenin and I had several sharp clashes because, when I disagreed with him on serious questions, I always fought an all-out battle...
...It will not be surprising if my diary tends to take the form of a review of newspapers and periodicals...
...They always lived on the heights...
...After the wine, on the balcony, the talk touched upon a sentimental subject—personal tastes and predilections, something of that sort...
...And this without a shadow of self-sacrifice—always himself, always full of life, always superior to his environment and his age, with immense intellectual interests, with a true fire of genius always blazing in the forge of thought...
...Stalin persecuted Trotsky's children relentlessly...
...This is the source of gravest apprehensions for Stalin: that savage fears ideas, since he knows their explosive power and knows his own weakness in the face of them...
...Besides we have learned a lot: we have limited our capitalism...
...spent the day in a "heart-to-heart" conversation over wine...
...Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man...
...I was surprised and distressed...
...N. behaves with great fortitude, for my sake, but she feels all this immeasurably more deeply than I do...
...Kamenev told me how the three of them—Stalin, Kamenev, and Dzherzinsky—in Zubalovo, in the Summer of 1923 (or 1924...
...it would be too compromising for Stalin personally...
...The Tsar's family fell victim to that principle which constitutes the axis of monarchy: dynastic succession...
...the motive of personal revenge would be revealed too directly...
...He looked as if he wanted to say something more but could not find words...
...The radio reminds one how broad and varied life is and at the same time gives an extremely economical and compact expression to this variety...
...in any case not years...
...If only you would get well," she said to me today, lying in bed, "that's the only thing I want...
...And just then I understood Lenin's concern: he had anticipated my uneasiness...
...he asked...
...In English (which I know quite badly) I am making progress now with the help of intensive reading...
...They waited for her with interest...
...For the most part, I listen to music superficially, while working...
...The motive of personal revenge has always been a considerable factor in the repressive policies of Stalin...
...He listened eagerly to my stories about the front, and kept sighing with satisfaction, almost blissfully...
...My point was just this, that when viewed in his relationship with the titan Marx, faithful Fred gains—rather than diminishes—in stature...
...But now, the retreat is being carried out without commentaries...
...So we went...
...Youth, after all, is so beautiful exactly because there is old age and death...
...Revolution by its very nature is sometimes compelled to take in more territory than it is capable of holding...
...We are shut up in our house and yard and meet people no more often than we would at visiting hours in a prison...
...Newspapers and letters have begun arriving here directly and in ever-increasing numbers...
...We are an old democracy...
...Once, while a whole crowd of us were walking somewhere in the outskirts of Paris, we came to a bridge...
...N. got tired and unexpectedly sat down, all pale, on the dry leaves (the earth is still a bit damp) . Even now she still walks beautifully, without fatigue, and her gait is quite youthful, like her whole figure...
...Against the background of their everyday lives, Engels gains tremendously in stature by comparison with Marx—though of course Marx's stature is not in the least diminished by this...
...I think that is all...
...How deeply, how distinctly, and how indelibly all the details, large and small, of the Gorki visit are engraved on my memory...
...Cut off from political action, I am obliged to resort to such ersatz journalism as a private diary...
...His craving for revenge on me is completely unsatisfied: there have been, so to speak, physical blows, but morally nothing has been * "No herb has grown to remedy this"—nothing can be done about it.—En...
...It has not been given to me to master completely any foreign language...
...Right now she is more upset about my health than her own...
...Is it worth while to expend this energy not on knowledge, but on language, a tool of knowledge...
...Lenin answered something like this: "That is all true, absolutely true, but there is not enough time...
...Sometimes I catch myself wondering isn't it a bit too late...
Vol. 5 • September 1958 • No. 4
