Previously unpublished:
This article appears to have been written by Dunayevskaya after her return from working with Trotsky as his Russian language secretary in Coyoacan, Mexico. After Trotsky's assassination she offered it to Max Shachtman for publication. But Shachtman declined, see the letter of correspondence in the Appendix below.
Transcribed and edited by Chris Gilligan, for the Marxists’ Internet Archive (December 2025).
Raya Dunayevskaya, 1938
I
Rounding out his second year on the North American continent, Leon Trotsky, at 59, is as optimistic and energetic as in 1902, when, as a 22 year old revolutionary, he made his first audacious escape from Siberia.
Work on two major biographies - one of Lenin and one of Stalin - dictation at the rate of 1,000 words per day, careful perusal of the world press, and checking and rechecking translations of his own works in five languages constitute only part of the daily routine of the ex-Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
Entrenched in the Blue House, which the Rivera’s have furnished for him in Coyoacan, Russia's former Commissar of War is more heavily guarded now than in the days of his power.
The elaborate flood lights lend the residence the appearance of a Hollywood movie theatre during a world premiere. But the sentry box on the roof, the high walls, the barred windows and doors, and the intricate alarm system sharply alter that impression.
The structure now bears a resemblance to a well-nigh impregnable fortress. A sentry booth on either side of the alcazar houses police armed with bayoneted rifles, automatics, and shrill whistles. This is Mexico's contribution to the protection of the noted exile.
A second line of defense is provided by inside guards composed of Trotsky's devoted and unflinching revolutionary followers who patrol the grounds within. The well-armed secretariat staff helps the inside guards.
The muzzle of an automatic staring at us through a slight crack in the door was the response to our ringing. Apparently satisfied at the sight of Diego Rivera (who had driven me up from his home in San Angel), the inside guard quickly opened the door and as quickly shut it.
I was introduced to Joe Hansen - a man of literary talent who had come from the Far West to serve as Trotsky's English secretary. He in turn introduced me to Trotsky's tall, reddish-blond French secretary, Jean van Heijenoort, who led me into Trotsky's study.
The spectacle of a household of armed men was not calculated to soothe the nerves of an American girl, and my uneasiness was heightened by the thought of the ordeal I would soon have to face. I, with little more than a year's study of Russian, dared to present myself for the post of private secretary to an acknowledged master of the language. I was nervous: would my Russian stand up?
I half regretted that I had become so bored with my job in the States that I had left it for adventure in Mexico. Through my mind flashed descriptions of Trotsky as 'dictatorial and exacting', 'a genius but a great egotist', 'arrogant'. I realized that I was actually afraid to meet the 'Man of October' - so called because the day of his birth, October 25, (modern calendar, November 7) coincided with the date of the successful Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
With military stride Trotsky advanced toward me. He shook my hand firmly. I was instantly struck by his tremendous head, the like of which I had never before seen, the high forehead, the lion-like skull crowned with silver-gray hair flowing back as though just touched by a breeze, the set jaw and chin upon which the grey moustache and goatee bristle. All of this was firmly set on enormous, sturdy shoulders.
A titan towered above me and I felt the force of a great intellect. 'Formidable', I whispered in French to van Heijenoort.
To Trotsky I spoke in Russian. He smiled - the ingenuous smile of a pleased child - and said that my Russian had a perfect 'Manhattan accent'. 'But', he began in English, 'you will do'. Then he added that perhaps I wished to 'try him out', he was referring to his newly acquired English.
Trotsky left the room for a moment and returned with a jacket for me. Mexican evenings are cool, but I was ebullient at meeting the famous exile and was not conscious of being chilly. How had he noticed it? There was an unexpected simplicity about Russia's former War Commissar that put me at ease, and I began to anticipate with pleasure the prospect of becoming his secretary.
But at dinner that evening my social poise suffered considerably when my mouth first came into contact with chile poblano. Even now I am not sure whether I swallowed the 'flame projector', as I later named the dish. Trotsky remarked that this was an international household and, glancing at my plate, added, that no 'national prejudices' were tolerated. The laughter at the table did not lighten my task for my tongue was literally burning when I had finished the chile poblano.
Despite the spirit of gaiety at the table, I still felt somewhat uncomfortable because as a new member of the 'family' I was under the surveillance of Trotsky's keen eyes. Before we had finished dinner, I again felt his eyes measuring me; this time he disapproved of my extreme slenderness.
Solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eye, he summed up the situation: 'Rae Spiegel - she does not exist. She is just a mathematical abstraction'.
Golden-haired Natalia Ivanovna (the wife of Leon Trotsky) took the remark so seriously that I was given a double portion of chile poblano. Double portions had their effect, and when I left this genial family I was 15 pounds the weightier...
II
The following day I was initiated into the daily routine. L.D. - as I soon learned to refer to Leon Davidovich Trotsky - is up at 7:30. He waters the garden and takes a long walk in the patio. He is not to be disturbed, for it is then that he plans the day's dictation, which begins at 9. Important articles and, of course, his major literary works are written in Russian. Letters are dictated in whatever language the addressees speak: Russian, German, French, English, Spanish.
Because Trotsky has written so voluminously, I had the impression that he composed rapidly. However, he not only dictates slowly but works over the typed copy many times. After the transcript is handed to him for correction, he introduces so many changes that it is often hard to recognize the original. What was originally a page and what he returns to the secretary for retyping is not what she gave him, but something four times as long.
While the 'collaborator' - so he calls his secretary - is making neat copies and dividing the 'page' into four numbered ones, Trotsky strides in and out of the room and again adds and subtracts. The greater length of the final copy as compared with the original is not so much a results of polishing as it is of expansion of content.
Trotsky does not work from a written outline. What he dictates is the first 'draft' of his thoughts. I found that the first dictation is often more flourishing than the final text in which he mercilessly cuts out all adjectives that are not absolutely essential. It is precision of expression that he strives for and the final text most tersely expresses his thoughts.
In measured steps L.D. paces up and down the study while he dictates, weighing each word as he pronounces it. But there is nothing phlegmatic in this slow dictation. His low, calm tone serves to emphasizes the limitations that conditions of exile impose upon a man of such dynamic energy. The beauty of the Russian language is enhanced by the eloquence of a master orator. There is no vanquishing the verve and sweep in his compositions which expound the cause of the world revolution.
During dictation Trotsky sometimes stops to examine his library - long, plain shelves against the walls lined with the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin; his own works, and reports of the congresses of the Communist International; other shelves are filled with works on economics, science, philosophy, psychoanalysis; and below these are books of fiction, mostly in French.
Trotsky is not only familiar with the contents of each book but the exact place it occupies on the shelves. He is quick to note any change in arrangement, any new bindings, or - calamity! - a book missing.
At other times his eyes gaze into the patio, where strange primitive stone idols stand, grimly oblivious to the pungency of the jasmine, the roses and the oranges; on the high walls over which cluster bougainvillea; upon the horizon, beyond the horizon.
My first experience with the press began with the close of my first day's work. An interviewer had been granted a correspondent for a New York leading daily.
As a rule, journalists were granted the courtesy of interviewing Trotsky in his study. But that night Diego and Frida (Rivera) were spending the evening with L.D. and Natalia Ivanovna, and hence Trotsky merely saw the reporter in my workroom.
When the reporter came, I gave him Trotsky's written answers to his written questions. He read them in my presence and signed a statement to the effect that these answers would be published in full and exactly as written. Trotsky camee in and I introduced the two to each other.
I found the interview most interesting to watch and now, in light of subsequent events, I cannot help but smile at the memory of it. Both in appearance and manner the correspondent was a little man. He seemed to have 'melted' out of sight the moment the former War Commissar entered the room.
The reporter was so overwhelmed by the presence of Leon Trotsky he dared no more than ask approbation for his 'behavior': Did Mr. Trotsky like his questions?
The ex-Commissar of Foreign Affairs smiled: 'I answered them to the best of my ability'.
The gentleman of the press looked foolish. At the conclusion of their ten-minute conversation, he praised the 'brilliant clarity' of Trotsky's answers. He begged forgiveness for being sentimental: 'But it would mean a lot to me if I could have Mr. Trotsky's autograph'.
Trotsky appended his signature to the statement and returned to the Riveras in the study. The reporter was escorted through the other side of the patio. He was later to present this (not in the New York daily for which the interview was requested, but in a lurid Chicago monthly) as proof of the fact that Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera were not on speaking terms!
That same correspondent did not stop with this figment of the imagination but so quoted statements of Trotsky as to give them a peculiar unreal twist. This fact was achieved by breaking up the quotations with the interpolations of the correspondent's own independent - save the mark! - remarks. This also created the impression that the answers were given orally, and that the author of the article had had a lengthy session with Trotsky, instead of a mere ten minutes.
There is no way to judge whether the actions of the New York (Chicago?) reporter were hypocritical while he talked with Trotsky, or whether he chose to forget what had occurred when it came to marketing his literary wares. Perhaps I have tarried too long with the puny, but this kind of reporting is typical of how interviews with Leon Trotsky were actually enacted and how they are prepared for public consumption by the reading public. The knowledge of this revealed and flung to the winds the flimsy fabric of the descriptions of Trotsky I had read.
III
In December of last year the press reported that Trotsky and his staff were 'vacationing'. While we were driving out to the country, Trotsky asked: could I take dictation in the forest, that is, on my lap. I was about to answer in the affirmative when a gentle kick from Natalia reminded me that we were, after all, on vacation, and that the proper answer should be 'No'.
Even this negative answer, which L.D. accepted, did not keep him from writing part of each day. When our two weeks' vacation came to an end, Trotsky had dictated three articles, some of twenty pages each, on widely different topics: Spain - The Last Warning; Behind the Ramparts of the Kremlin; and an introduction to Harold R. Isaacs's book, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution.1
Not having brought all our office supplies to the country, we had no sponge, and hence one morning I was licking the flap of an envelope prior to sealing it. At that moment L.D. came into the room, looked in astonishment at the contortions of my tongue, and exclaimed: 'What savagery!'
I watched his now familiar vigorous stride as he walked out of the room. According to his high hygienic standards, licking an envelope was nothing less than barbaric. But he thought that he had been too brusque. When Trotsky has had occasion to be harsh with any of us, he is immediately contrite and seeks a basis for 'rapprochement'.
In less than fifteen minutes he was back in my room with a big bouquet of flowers that he himself had picked. I like the beautiful bouquet and was very eager to conclude a 'rapprochement'.
The Riveras arrived in the country and joined us in a hike through the woods. L.D., however, was skeptical about Diego remaining with us throughout the morning. Diego protested: he did wish to hike and did not want to paint. L.D. said, 'Yes, yes, I know, Diego. You will be with us - provided you do not meet a tree'.
Diego Rivera did 'meet a tree', and he and his easels sat down. We did not see either of them until twilight.
We were constrained to return to Coyoacan somewhat earlier than we had anticipated as we had received information that an attempt was being prepared on Trotsky's life. (Walter Krivitsky, who had refused to return to Russia during the wholesale recall of the diplomatic staff so informed Trotsky's son in Paris, Leon Sedov).
The GPU had increased its activity in Mexico by importing two professional cut-throats: a French agent who had been responsible for the murder in Lausanne of Ignace Reiss (important GPU agent who had broken with Moscow and joined the Trotskyist Fourth International) and a petty thug from Philadelphia who, while in charge of the GPU in Spain, had been instrumental in causing the 'disappearance' of Trotsky's Czecho-Slovakian secretary, Irwin Wolf.
The murderous hand of the Stalinist GPU then extended to France where it perpetrated the gruesome murder - a body found headless and legless in the Seine - upon another of Trotsky's former secretaries, the young, talented German refugee, Rudolf Klement.
We had been sent a picture of these two members of the dark international Mafia. One of the guards suggested we use it in our target practice.
Not only could there be no laxity in our vigilance, but extra precautions had to be introduced. I understood now the necessity of the heavy guarding and no longer felt ill at ease in our fortress.
The vacation over, the working day was normalized. During the day we had a rest period of an hour. L.D. spends his rest period reading newspapers, foreign - Le Temps, The New York Times, Pravda, The Manchester Guardian - as well as local.
Trotsky has an elaborate system of underscoring articles he deems important: neat lead-pencil marks, blue and red lines, and once in a while a remark, usually written in Russian, at the side of a paragraph. When we file the papers - which require a whole room - we carefully examine the underlined articles for, in addition to geographical and chronological files, we maintain a special file, according to subject matter, of important articles.
When at the conclusion of the siesta work is resumed, it continues till 7 p.m. at which time we dine. After dinner Trotsky again reads - magazines and books this time - and most of us follow suit in our individual rooms.
I became absorbed in reading some of Trotsky's Russian works that had never been translated into English. The particular volume, Science and Revolution, that held my attention contained a speech delivered to a chemical society entitled Mendeleyev and Marxism. I decided to translate the lecture because it showed a side of Trotsky not generally known to the public who consider him a 'politician'.
The circumstances under which the speech was given reveal the man Trotsky. In 1925 when the Stalinist bureaucracy had already loosed the fight against Trotsky, the latter resigned as People's Commissar of War. In order to embarrass him the bureaucracy gave him posts not related to each other and wholly unfamiliar to him: chairmanship of the technico-scientific board of industry. He thus found himself in charge of the scientific institutions.
In that capacity he addressed the Mendeleyev Congress on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences. Though he considered himself an amateur in this field, the lecture he gave is remarkable for its profound evaluation of the relationship of science and historical trends.
It is interspersed with characteristic flashes of humour: 'Chemistry is a school for revolutionary thought not because of the existence of a chemistry of explosives - explosives are far from always being revolutionary - but because chemistry is, first of all, a science of the conversion of elements, and is thus dangerous to every kind of absolute or conservative thinking, cast in immobile categories'. Referring to Darwin's naive attempts to transfer the conclusions of biology into society, Trotsky said: 'To interpret competition as a "variety" of the biological struggle for existence is the same as to see only mechanics in the physiology of mating'.
Having translated the speech on my own initiative, I was especially anxious to make a good impression and carefully compared the English with the Russian text. I then asked Trotsky's opinion of the translation without showing him the original.
When he returned the manuscript to me, he indicated one place and said that there a sentence had been left out. I was astounded: was it possible that he so well recalled a speech made thirteen years back and upon a subject in which he was an 'amateur', that he remembered a sentence which I had left out in translation? I had heard of Trotsky's phenomenal memory but I was clearly sceptical of the manner in which this was being proven to me.
In defense of himself, he stated: 'I do not remember exactly the statement but I think this is it...' He dictated the sentence. Upon rechecking, I found it to be exactly as in the original!
IV
The whole life of this affable, hard-working family was suddenly changed. From Paris came the news of the untimely death, under mysterious circumstances, of the eldest son of Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova. Leon Sedov had been their only child who had hitherto escaped the clutches of the GPU.
When they were exiled in 1927, Sergei, their younger son, a brilliant engineer, had remained in Russia. He thought that his non-interest in politics would guarantee his serving the Soviet Union without being persecuted. But he has since been arrested and has now 'disappeared'.
Zina, Trotsky's eldest daughter by his first wife, Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya (who is an exile in Siberia because of 'Trotskyism'), committed suicide when Stalin, after granting her permission to leave the country for medical treatment in Berlin, vengefully refused her a visa to return to her home, husband, and children.
Yagoda, Yezhov's predecessor as head of the GPU, had driven Trotsky's younger daughter Nina to a premature death.
The death now of Leon Sedov inflicted the deepest wound and in the most vulnerable spot. It came like a predetermined, insidiously planned feat of a master intriguer. Leon Davidovich and Natalia Ivanovna locked themselves into their room and would see no one.
For a whole week they did not come out of their room and only one person was admitted in - the maid, who brought them the mail, and food, of which they partook little.
Those were dismal days for the whole household. We did not see either L.D. or Natalia. We did not know how they fared and feared the consequences of the tragedy upon them.
We moved typewriters, the telephone, even door bells to the guardhouse, out of sound of their room. Their part of the house became deathly quiet. There was an oppressive air, as if the whole mountain chain of Mexico were pressing down upon this house.
The blow was harder not only because Leon Sedov had been their only living child, but also because he had been Trotsky's closest literary and political collaborator. When Trotsky was interned in Norway, gagged, unable to answer the monstrous charges levelled against him in the first (August 1936) Moscow Trials, Sedov had penned Le Livre Rouge, which, by brilliantly exposing the Moscow falsifiers, dealt an irreparable blow to the prestige of the GPU.2
In the dark days after the tragic news reached us, when L.D. and Natalia Ivanovna were closeted in their room, Trotsky wrote the story of their son's brief life. It was the first time since pre-revolutionary days that Trotsky had written by hand.
On the eighth day Trotsky emerged from his room. I was petrified at the sight of him. The neat, meticulous Leon Trotsky had not shaved for a whole week. His face was deeply lined. His eyes were swollen from too much crying.
Without uttering a word, he handed me the handwritten manuscript, Leon Sedov: Son, Friend, Fighter, which contained some of Trotsky's most poignant writing.
Having learned to know Trotsky as well as I did, I knew that every word, every comma had a meaning and that each word that was finally chosen was the most meagre he could find to express the profoundest sorrow.
'Together with our boy has died everything that still remained young within us'.
But even this great grief did not dim Trotsky's ardor for the revolutionary cause. The pamphlet was dedicated 'to the proletarian youth'.
It ended with the following appeal: 'Revolutionary youth of all countries! Accept from us the memory of Leon, adopt him as your son - he is worthy of it - and let him henceforth participate invisibly in your battles, since destiny has denied him the happiness of participating in your final victory'.
Though Trotsky has a strong physique, he suffers from a peculiar ailment that saps much of his energy and often keeps him confined to bed. The new sorrow resulted in a recurrence of his illness. A complete rest was prescribed by the doctor.
The following morning the papers carried the announcement of the Third (March 1938) Moscow Trials, scheduled to open within two short weeks of the death of Leon Sedoff. Was this merely a coincidence? We who knew that the GPU dogged Sedoff's steps for years were firmly convinced otherwise.
Hadn't the memory - and circulation - of Le Livre Rouge so stung the GPU that they wished to rid themselves of this valiant fighter before the new 'Trials' were staged? Hadn't they hoped that the tragedy would stun Trotsky, would render him incapable of answering the present accusations?3
If the GPU counted on that result, they underestimated their opponent. No personal tragedy could daunt Trotsky when the important task of exposing the greatest frame-up in history cried for accomplishment.
It was a joy to have Trotsky working with us again and to note the speed, accuracy, perseverance, and unflagging energy of this modern Prometheus.
Trotsky laboured late into the night. One day he was up at 7 a.m. and wrote until midnight. The next he arose at 8 a.m. and worked straight through to 3 a.m. the following morning. The last day of that week he did not go to sleep until five in the morning. He drove himself harder than any of his staff.
Trotsky wrote an average of 2,000 words a day. He gave statements to NANA, the UP, the AP, Havas Agency, the London Daily Express, and to the Mexican newspapers. His declarations were also issued in the Russian and German languages.
The material was dictated in Russian. While I transcribed the dictation, the other secretaries checked every date, name and place mentioned at the trials.
Trotsky demanded meticulous, objective research work. The accusers had to be turned into the accused.
Leon Trotsky at no time allowed the subjective factor enter into his analysis of the 'confessions'. He was deeply incensed when the papers printed 'rumours' that Stalin had at no time been a revolutionist but had always been an agent of the Tsar and was now merely wreaking vengeance.
When I brought L.D. the newspapers that carried this explanation of the bloody purge, he exclaimed: 'But Stalin was a revolutionist'.
'Wait a moment', he called to me as I left the room, 'we'll add a postscript to today's article'.
He dictated: 'The news has been widely spread through the press to the effect that Stalin supposedly was an agent-provocateur during Tsarist days, and that he is now avenging himself upon his old enemies. I place no trust whatsoever in this gossip. From his youth Stalin was a revolutionist. All the facts about his life bear witness to this. To reconstruct his biography ex post facto means to ape the present Stalin, who from a revolutionist became the leader of the reactionary bureaucracy'.
To us the 'trials' did not lack a humorous angle. The chimerical accusation that Trotsky earned a million dollars as an 'agent of Hitler' seemed like a monstrous joke at the expense of this household that is perennially 'broke'. Trotsky's literary earnings, and they are by no means fabulous, support us all.
L.D. himself is completely unaware of his material surroundings. I believe comforts would distract him.
Once he overheard Natalia and me discussing the possible purchase of a soft chair for him. (The chairs in his study are all of plain wood). He was shocked at our contemplating the purchase of such a 'luxury'. What is more, he added, he did not like soft chairs; those he had were best for working.
It isn't only that the furnishings are very unpretentious but that often we do not have enough money for the simplest necessities for the table. At the time of the trials we were forced to cut eggs and butter from our breakfast menu and meat from our dinner.
This 'million' was mythical enough to us.
Imitating Trotsky's military stride, I burst into the kitchen. There stood diminutive, charming Natalia Ivanovna. In her quiet, efficient way of doing her work - whether it was writing his diary, (for his autobiography Trotsky had liberally drawn from it), helping us in our research work, controlling the purse strings, or managing the kitchen that makes her indispensable, though inconspicuous.
With a most seriousness mien, I demanded two eggs and buttered toast for breakfast. Natalia Ivanovna was perplexed. She thought that I should get such a morning meal instead of merely cereal (mush we called it), roll, and coffee. But - until money arrived for yesterday's article, she could not promise me that I would get it. She assured me that the London paper had promised to cable the money that very day.
'But', I insisted, 'why wait for that money when Trotsky has "earned a million"?'
'Oh', she said, much relieved, 'those negodyai'.4
After all the strictly political articles I had been typing, it was a delight to hear this simple an expression about the well-fed Thermidorians entrenched in the Kremlin.
Trotsky's phenomenal memory was of great assistance, not only in his extraordinary political perspicacity, but also to his secretarial staff who searched for old documents, as some of the ludicrous charges about Trotsky's attempt to 'assassinate' Stalin date back to 1919 when Trotsky was in power and Stalin a nonentity.
Credit should, of course, be likewise accorded to the Kremlin slanderers who assisted us greatly by repeating dates and places already refuted in the first two trials (August 1936 and January 1937).
It took Moscow over a year to complete the new frame-up and inquisitorially extract the new 'confessions' but Trotsky had to demolish the calumny as fast as he read the press account of each court session!
Even during this trying week Trotsky's infectious optimism was ever present and inspired us all. He was asked whether 'Pessimistic conclusions in regard to socialism do not flow from the Moscow trials and from the verdict of the Commission?'5
Trotsky replied: 'No. I do not see any basis for pessimism. It is necessary to take history as it is. Humanity moves forward as did some pilgrims: two steps ahead, one step back. During the time of the backward movement, all seems lost to skeptics and pessimists. But this is an error of historical vision. Nothing is lost. Humanity has developed from the ape to the Comintern. It will advance from the Comintern to actual socialism. The judgment of the Commission demonstrates once more that the correct idea is stronger than the most powerful police force. In this conviction lies the unshakable basis of revolutionary optimism'.
V
The week of the 'trials' was over. The secretarial staff was ready to slide back and do nothing.
But L.D. announced that he would now resume work on the life of Lenin, which he had been constrained to abandon since his internment in Norway. Simultaneously he would write a biography of Stalin, a sociological and psychological study of the man who 'from a revolutionary became the leader of a reactionary bureaucracy'.
L.D. emphasized how glad he was that no more of his time need be spent exposing frame-ups. Now he could devote himself to 'real work'. We marvelled at the energy of Trotsky. He is 59, an exile, and has just suffered the death of his son.
'I told Natalia of the death of our son - in the same month of February in which 32 years ago she brought to me in jail the news of his birth. Thus ended for us the day of February 16, the blackest day of our personal lives'.
We of the younger generation were fagged out by the week's speed and strain and thought we deserved laurels for our accomplishments. But to the indefatigable Trotsky it was just something that took precious time from his major literary works!
When Trotsky was asked whether he didn't think his personal fate pathetic, he firmly replied in the negative. No, he said, he did not view the world from a personal viewpoint; it was the tide of history and we had to know how to swim against the current as well as with it.
We knew, of course, that his whole life dramatically illustrates that Trotsky can swim against the stream. We recapitulated the main events of his life from the time he first entered the revolutionary movement. He was eighteen then, and for participating in a strike, was arrested and exiled. But Lev Davidovich Bronstein assumed the name of his jail guard, Trotsky, and made an audacious escape from Siberia.
When he was 26, in 1905, he tore up the Manifesto of the Tsar, and became president of the first Petersburg Soviet of Workers and Peasants Deputies. The period of reaction that followed the failure of that revolution demoralized many an old revolutionist. But to the young Trotsky imprisonment and exile were periods of 'leisure' in which to hammer out a theory (the theory of the 'permanent revolution') which would assure success to the next revolution.
1905 was merely a 'dress rehearsal' for the 1917 Revolution which, with Lenin, he led successfully.
When the failure of the revolution in other countries made fertile soil for bureaucratization to flourish in Russia, Trotsky continued his Spartan way of living, and fought the bureaucracy. When Stalin (whom Trotsky has called the 'organizer of defeats') rode into power on a wave of defeats, and Trotsky found himself an exile for the third time in his life - the Tsar had exiled him twice - he turned to his one remaining weapon, the pen. Yes, Trotsky can swim against the current.
We knew these events of Trotsky's life and a recapitulation of them helped us understand the Trotsky of today. Still we wondered, didn't he miss his life in power?
But Trotsky draws no line of demarcation between his life in exile and his life in power. It was theory, he maintains, which answered the desires of the masses for freedom, which inspired them with the will to power, and with the will to power came the weapons for it. And it is the word of class truth which will again turn the tide.
I could not participate in the meticulous research work on the life of Stalin which was put on the order of the day because word had reached me of the death of my father. I decided to return to the States.
When I arrived in New York, I heard that another tragedy had occurred in my family: my brother met death in an auto accident. I immediately left for Chicago, where my mother was at the time. There a letter from Trotsky was waiting for me.
'Dear Rae', the handwritten Russian note said, 'Natalia and I were shaken by the news of the death of your brother. What can one say?... Two blows fall upon your family in so short a time. Your mother is especially to be pitied; for her it is hardest of all.
Dear Rae, we wish you strength and courage in face of it all. Natalia and I express our warmest, our most sincere sympathy to all members of your family and, you, dear Rae, we firmly embrace.
Yours, L.D.'
Even my mother who is a religious woman to whom Trotsky is merely an 'infidel', could not but be moved by the warm note. 'How', she asked, 'can a great man like that be so simple?'
'It is his simplicity which makes him great', I answered. And yet it is a trait the world has overlooked in Trotsky. I, too, had been wary of his 'egotism', his 'coldness'. Though his greatness had inspired me with a desire to work for him, I feared his 'dictatorial' methods. But his simplicity quickly dissipated that wrong impression.
We - his secretariat - felt uncomfortable when he referred to us as his 'collaborators'. We appreciated his magnanimity but naturally considered the appellation fantastically exaggerated. But he meant it genuinely enough. He never regarded us as people who worked 'for' him. He considered us members of his family who assisted him in his literary creations.
I know the simple, personal traits in Trotsky. They do not detract from his greatness but make him, oh, so human.
It is his simplicity, the devotion to one cause throughout his life, his fervent belief that the revolution which began in Russia is but a link in the 'permanent revolution', the world socialist revolution, that makes of him now a lone exile but a power.
1 Secker & Warburg, London. [Harold R. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, Haymarket Books, 2010. The editor has not been able to identify an article titled 'Behind the Ramparts of the Kremlin, it is possibly a reference to the article 'Behind the Kremlim Walls', which was published in the March 1939 issue of the New International].
2 First appeared in Russian as special issue of the Opposition Bulletin (organ of the Russian Bolshevik-Leninists), edited by Sedoff in Paris.
3 Before he was murdered, Ignace Reiss told us that in the GPU circles Leon Sedoff was referred to as 'Synok' (little son), and elaborated upon thus: '"Synok" is a good worker; it would be difficult for the "Old Man" (meaning Trotsky) without him'.
4 Scoundrels.
5 The verdict of 'Not Guilty' handed down by the International Commission of Inquiry headed by Dr. Dewey.
After Trotsky's assassination in August 1940, Raya Dunayevskaya offered her, previously unpublished, article The Man Trotsky for publication by the Workers' Party (which had recently, April 1940, split from the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) over the issue of support for the Soviet Union in the Second World War). The letter, below, from Max Shachtman, the leader of the 'minority faction' that split from the SWP acknowledged the merits of the article, but did not offer to publish it. In the letter Shachtman refers to 'the factional fight' between Trotsky and the 'minority faction'. A selection of Trotsky's writings on this dispute can be found in his In Defense of Marxism. Some of Shachtman's contributions include 'On the Russian Question' and 'The Crisis in the American Party'.
Dear Freddie
This time I have an absolutely flawless explanation for my delay. I assure you, it was not because of lack of interest in the article, but for the last ten days I have been engaged in very little else but moving, which as you know, with my library, is more than a little headache. I had no access to your article during that period because it was packed away in a carton. It is only in the last couple of days that I have been able to read it. I return it to you with regrets - regrets that I cannot keep it. With all the antagonisms, even bitterness that was engendered between us and the Old Man during the factional fight, the real Trotsky, the heroic Trotsky, remained unaffected by it, at least in our eyes. Indeed our esteem for the Old Man must have been very great to be unaffected by those things he said and did which were injurious to him, to us, and to the movement as a whole. Your article revived in me so many warm memories of him. It reminded me that in addition to being the figure that he is and always will be in our eyes, he was also a living human being.
I say that I am returning the article with regrets because the first chance I get, I am going to write a little booklet on the Old Man as a thinker, a fighter, and a man. I would like to have a copy of your article at hand when I start my work on the booklet. If it shapes up the way I think it should, I should like to incorporate one or two passages from it. Would it therefore be possible for you, in a spare hour or two, to type out a single-spaced copy of your article and send it to me? I would very much appreciate it.
With warmest regards, I am,
Sincerely,
Max Sh
Last updated on 8 January 2026