LEON TROTSKY
389
tical materialism at
tim~s
when neither its defense nor its rejection in–
volved questions of power. His policies were based on his ideas. His
decisions were in harmony with his premises and his principles. It is
noteworthy that anecdotes about Trotsky, reminiscences of personal dis–
cussions, and his letters do not contain a single cynical statement about
the
methods necessary to attain power which one inevitably finds in the
records of genuine Machiavellians like Napoleon. He had supreme con–
fidence in the validity of his ideas. To hold to the conception of Trotsky
u a
Machiavellian, one must argue that almost his entire life, his volu–
minous books and his numberless letters were all a false front to mask a
aecret motive which he hid from his closest friends and collaborators.
For Trotsky, all intellectual questions were practical and concrete.
His
test for the validity of ideas was how they worked out in practice, in
the actual framework of history. In this respect, he was close to the prag–
matists. While Trotsky upheld some dogmas and was sometimes even
echematic in his thinking, he was a relativist in his handling of ideas. He
bad
an
acute sense of the involvement of events in each other, of their
inter-relationships. I recall how, during the course of a disagreement
with
him, he emphasized the necessity of conceiving a fact not merely as
IODlething which exists but also as something which is in process of
becoming. This sense of becoming in events, of the relational character of
events to each other was one of his most remarkable intellectual traits.
He never isolated political events; he saw them consistently in their inter–
national setting. He was no crude empiricist, nor did he indulge in easy
psychological interpretations as a substitute for objective analysis. Some
of us thought that our general theories were at times more sound than
Trotsky's. We even took delight in proofs that his philosophical formula–
tions were not modern and could easily
be
refuted through logical analysis.
Yet
Trotsky was more creative with his bad epistemology than we were
with
our good epistemology.
Trotsky was a harsh opponent, never hesitating to break with friend
after friend on issues of principle and policy. In this regard he did not
differ from most men of strong convictions. In his thinking he was more
inclined to draw sharp distinctions than to conciliate differences. These
temperamental traits were, in
a
sense, psychological adaptations to his
chosen way of life. Moreover, a man less intransigent than he could not
have endured the blows he received in his days of exile. In public, Trotsky
was
often sharp, alert, metallic. Under questioning he was guarded and
auspicious, inclined to break out in sharp
invect~ve
or ironic statements.
But his adamant side did not exhaust his personality. Many of his friends
and disciples knew him as a warm and generous man. I think he wanted
friends and tended to be excessively trusting with them, so much so that
be often regarded people whom he had met only a few times as friends. In
nis
personal relations he was simple and charming-a man of singular
grace.
