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It was, said Breton, like having "an entire section of the revolution"
materialize before him.
The first meeting, which lasted several hours, touched mainly on in–
formational topics. In fluent if accented French, Trotsky inquired about
reactions in Paris to the Moscow Trials, and about the activities of Mal–
raux and Gide, whom Trotsky had vainly tried to entice to Mexico sev–
eral months earlier. Heijenoort and several others sat in on the conversa–
tion, and one of Trotsky's American aides took photographs: "On some
of them," said Jacqueline, "one can see Andre's face in a state of tension,
emotion, and wondrous, almost painful surprise." Later, Natalia Trotsky
served tea. Breton, who despised the beverage, nonetheless deemed that
"under these conditions, it was drinkable."
Nearly fifteen years later, Breton still marveled at Trotsky's
"prodigious mental organization which allowed him for example to dic–
tate three texts simultaneously," as well as his ability "to relate every
small observation to a larger fact, to bend it - without this ever seeming
forced or artificial - toward the hope of redefining world values." In
this, there might have been some share of exaggeration: Heijenoort, for
example, has said that the "diligent and concentrated" Trotsky hated
doing more than one thing at a time. But more than objective fact,
Breton's recollection expresses the veneration that he would carry with
him for the rest of his life. Trotsky, meanwhile, was sufficiently impressed
to tell
Partisan Review,
the leftist New York quarterly, that Breton was
"artistically and politically not only independent from the Stalinists but
absolutely hostile to them."
Still, and despite the mutual admiration, it was inevitable that the
vast formative and cultural differences between the two men should lead
to occasional disputes. "No matter how great our deference," Breton
later remarked of himself and Rivera, "and despite the care we took to
contradict [Trotsky] as little as possible, we couldn't entirely avoid
banding together out of an 'artistic' temperament that was fundamen–
tally alien to him."
Some of these differences surfaced during a second meeting, on May
20, when Trotsky broached the issue of literature. Unlike Breton, Trot–
sky had never devoted much thought to the subject; his one work on it,
Literature and Revolution,
now seemed to him to belong "to an almost
prehistoric time." Moreover, his literary tastes did not extend past the
nineteenth century, and particularly the novels of the great realists.
"When I read Emile Zola," he said to Breton's dismay, "I enter into a
broader reality." Breton stiffened in his chair, finally admitting in a
