My Life by Leon Trotsky

Author:Leon Trotsky [Trotsky, Leon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: non.fiction
ISBN: 9780873481441
Publisher: Pathfinder Press (NY)
Published: 1970-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Notes

1. The Socialist-Revolutionist Party represented the left wing of the Populist movement. It differed from the Social-Democrats and the Marxists in general in its insistence on the identity of the interests of the proletariat and the peasantry, and in its use of terrorist methods against the Czarist government. – Trans.

CHAPTER XXV

CONCERNING SLANDERERS

When I arrived in Petrograd in the early part of May, 1917, the campaign about the “sealed car” in which Lenin had made his way through Germany was in full blast. The new Socialist ministers were in alliance with Lloyd George, who had refused to let Lenin pass into Russia. And the same gentlemen were hounding Lenin for passing through Germany. My own experience on the return journey supplemented Lenin’s experience with a proof from the contrary. But that didn’t save me from being made the butt of the same slander. Buchanan was the first to set the ball rolling. In an open letter to the minister of foreign affairs (in May, it was no longer Miliukoff, but Teryeschenko) I described my Atlantic Odyssey. My argument culminated in this question: “Do you, Mr. Minister, consider it in order that England should be represented by a man who has disgraced himself by such shameless calumny and who has not moved a finger to rehabilitate himself?”

There was no answer, nor did I expect one. But Miliukoff’s paper stepped in to defend the ambassador of an ally, and repeated the charge on its own behalf. I decided to brand the calumniators as solemnly as I could. The first all-Russian congress of Soviets was then in session. On June 5, the hall was full to the brim. At the dose of the meeting I rose to make a personal statement. Gorky’s paper, which was hostile to the Bolsheviks, next day reported my concluding words and the scene as a whole as follows:

“‘Miliukoff charges us with being hired agents of the German government. From this tribunal of the revolutionary democracy, I ask the honest Russian press [Trotsky here turns to the press table] to reproduce my exact words: Until Miliukoff with draws his accusation, the brand of a dishonorable slanderer will remain on his forehead.’”

“Trotsky’s statement,” the report continues, “uttered with force and dignity, was received with a unanimous ovation from the entire gathering. The whole congress, without distinction of faction, applauded stormily for several minutes.”

And nine-tenths of the congress were our opponents. But this success, as subsequent events proved, was fleeting. It was one of the paradoxes peculiar to parliamentarism. Next day the Rech (The Speech) tried to pick up the glove by publishing the statement that the German patriotic Verein in New York had given me $10,000 to overthrow the Provisional government. This at least was plain speaking. I must explain that two days before I left for Europe, the German workers in New York, to whom I had lectured many times, together with my American, Russian, Lettish, Jewish, Lithuanian, and Finnish friends and followers, had given me a farewell meeting at which a collection was taken up for the Russian revolution.

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