362
IRVING HOWE
Trotsky stood public trial, at the climax of which-for now he stood
firm in the sense of his powers, secure in the knowledge that he had
established himself in the line of the great European rebels, con–
vinced that he had found the key to history-he made a brilliant,
openly defiant speech:
A rising of the masses is not made, gentlemen the judges. It
makes itself of its own accord. It is the result of social rela–
tions and conditions and not of a scheme drawn up on paper.
A popular insurrection cannot be staged. It can only be fore–
seen. For reasons that were as little dependent on us as on
Czardom, an open conflict has become inevitable....
. . . no matter how important weapons may be, it is not in
them, gentlemen the judges, that great power resides. No!
Not the ability of the masses to kill others, but their great
readiness themselves to die, this secures in the last instance the
victory of the popular uprising. . . .
Again Siberia: this time deportation "for life." But it was a
saving feature of pre-totalitarian despotisms that they were often
inefficient, so that even before reaching his Arctic destination Trotsky
could make a superbly bold escape, being driven by a vodka-besotted
peasant for a whole week across the frozen tundra and through
ferocious blizzards.
For the young Marxist who only a few months earlier had been
sentenced to Siberia "for life," the escape was a personal triumph:
in retrospect one might say, a personal triumph with historic portents.
But now that he was safe again in Europe Trotsky turned back to
his pen, composing his first major work,
1905,
an historical study
that in scope and vigor anticipates the
History of the Russian
Revolution.
These were hard times for the Russian revolutionists. The Czar
took a merciless revenge as he cut away almost every vestige of
popular rights. In Russia the socialist movements came close to col–
lapse from police harassment and inner demoralization, while in
exile they kept fragmenting into embittered factions. Trotsky con–
tinued vainly to urge that the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks reunite:
perhaps he did not fully grasp the extent of their disagreements,
perhaps he feared what the consequence of grasping it might be.
