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PARTISAN REVIEW
catch of a fleet of foreign fishing vessels in order to expedite Trotsky's
exit from Finland, continues to weave a tangled web.
The Nazis are swept into the dustbin of history, increasingly
crowded with discarded theories and collapsed empires . Trotsky,
who had railed at Nazi "barbarism" is, in the event, shocked at its ut–
ter and depraved savagery. It was beyond "degenerated capitalism,"
just as some of his American friends were (mistakenly) maintaining
that Stalin's country had gone beyond a "degenerated worker's
state ." Of the idea of a socialist state, it was hard to let go, even now.
It is 1947. Trotsky receives Mexican General Gomez, in charge
of national security. Gomez is bespectacled , of medium height, and
appears well read . He admires the cracked leather bindings on the
many books which line the walls . The library is Trotsky's semipor–
table homeland .
The general looks for a book he has read or heard of so that he
can strike up a conversation with his host. Trotsky sees the general's
discomfort and, as he asks his secretary (an American) for coffee (tea
for himself), he invites the general to explicate some point of little
concern in the Mexican political situation. They speak about this for
a few minutes, and Gomez is surprised by the depth of Trotsky's
grasp of local affairs. They speak of France, a country Gomez has
visited and, of course, of Spain. Gomez doesn't support Franco–
who does? - but what's done is done, after all, the war is over.
Against all of his instincts, roughly hewn by years of security
work, and despite the fact that it makes his job that much more dif–
ficult, Gomez discovers that he likes the man .
Finally Trotsky, trained by instinct and experience to suspect
the worst, as good as asks him why he has come.
Gomez carefully puts his coffee cup down . It is the Russians .
They are very powerful since the war, oh, not all-powerful , but
still .. .. There is trouble in some factories and in some remote
provinces-unions and Indians. The government faces a complex
series of challenges and cannot, that is, does not seek to invite the
additional stress of a major conflict with domestic Soviet surrogates.
Trotsky, reduced, he muses, to planning the counter-revo–
lution against the workers and the peasants, understands that his
decade-old stay in Mexico is over. Trying to conceal his surprise,
anger, fear, he asks, "How long do I have?" Gomez is visibly relieved
that they have come to the point.
"It
is not Gomez's fault," Trotsky
reminds himself, "I have no right to be surprised ."
"It
is not my
fault," Gomez reminds himself.
