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pointing to management, rather than ownership, as the key factor in
the control of an economic system. Unlike Dunayevskaya, Schacht–
man and his faction lent Moscow "critical support" during the war,
opposing American participation in what seemed to them not a war
to destroy Nazism but to save the British Empire, until the Wehr-
macht, violating Molotov-Ribbentrop, crossed over into the work-
\
ers' homeland.
All together a depressing, fragmented picture. Perhaps it
would have been better if Trotsky's secretary had not found the gun
that night, if he ... dangerous thoughts, weak thoughts. But the or–
thodox do not understand the gravity of the doctrinal crisis, a church
faced with a second coming, Satan, he means Stalin, disguised as the
Messiah.
One morning, after Gomez has been round to call again-a
gentle hint - a letter arrives that surprises him.
It
is not in response
to any of his. It is from a close friend of Bebe Idelson, a leader of the
Jewish labor movement in Palestine with whom he met in 1937. He
recalls his feelings, mixed, ambivalent, after the three-hour talk with
her. The "social democrat only" and man of the world was drawn,
against his own nature, to the Jewish woman from Palestine. They
met at Diego Rivera's house, at a press meeting, and returned to his
study. His wife joined them. He asked about everything: culture,
youth, politics, especially politics, kibbutzim, the unions. "Speak a
little Hebrew," he requested. He felt no hostility, even a hint of ad–
miration.
If
they remained in error, it was error transformed into
necessity by the darkness of fascism and the failure of socialism.
If
"the question of [his] Jewish origin had acquired importance only
after [he] became a symbol for political baiting, [derived] from the
petit bourgeois reaction to October," the Nazis had given it new im–
portance and new meaning. The Jews, millions of them, lay on the
principal invasion route, should (and wouldn't they?) the Nazis go
for Moscow. There would be mass killing. He has come to see
darkness in the heart and is glad to find light, scattered and local–
ized.
Now, years later, a bloodbath like no other, Idelson is still a
power in the movement. Having read of his situation in a letter from
a cousin in New York, she has gone to Ben-Gurion to speak of it.
She hopes Trotsky will forgive her for breaking her oath of silence,
for he had asked her not to speak of their meeting. The "Old
Man" - Trotsky has to read the sentence over a few times before he
realizes she is referring to Ben-Gurion - is of the opinion that Trot-
