The Life and Death of Trotsky by Robert Payne

Author:Robert Payne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-05-27T21:00:00+00:00

15. The Long Death of Lenin

In character Lenin and Trotsky were poles apart. It could be seen in their appearance, their way of walking, their way of issuing commands and making speeches, in their handwriting and their way of asking questions. They were men who wanted to dominate and were absolutely ruthless in their pursuit of domination, without scruples, without remorse. At whatever cost in human life they worked to overthrow the existing social system, and they dreamed of world revolution with themselves as its chief artificers. They knew exactly what they wanted, and they had thought deeply and brilliantly on how to obtain it. On most essential matters they were in total agreement. Nevertheless, their characters were so different and they were so abrasive in different ways that it is something of a miracle that they were able to work in harmony for so long.

In appearance Lenin was short, stocky, compact. He had a remarkably fine head, powerful features, a look of considerable distinction. There exists a photograph taken of him when he was in hiding in 1917, wearing a wig and without his beard and mustache. It was a remarkably youthful face, handsome and compelling. He could be taken for a ship’s captain or a highly skilled mechanic, a man of great experience in the practical affairs of the world. With the beard he looked more the scholar, somewhat remote and impractical. He had a habit of cocking his head a little sideways when asking questions and this gave him an oddly sardonic appearance; in fact he cocked his head to one side because one eye had been damaged in a bicycling accident. He had great patience, asked short questions and listened intently to lengthy replies, hoping that somewhere in the reply there would be the answer to his question. Nearly always courteous, he could be witheringly brutal in summing up people’s characters; and he prided himself on his judgment of character, and was often wrong. His handwriting, always quick, nervous and fluid, seemed at odds with the hard outlines of his ideas.

Trotsky, on the other hand, was tall, supple, accommodating, possessing an almost feminine grace of manner. Unlike Lenin, who was intensely practical even when he was dealing with totally impractical ideas, Trotsky lived a highly charged imaginative life and was much more instinctive in his actions than Lenin. He had the type of mentality that permits the act to be followed by the thought. He acted, and found the explanations and justifications later. Throughout most of his life he was an actor playing a role, dramatizing himself both for the public and himself. He dressed well, took pains with his appearance, and acquired many of the techniques of the actor. In addition, he possessed a wonderfully resonant voice which ranged from melting sweetness to raucous screeching, and he was at all times fully in control of it. He cut his beard and mustache according to his roles: trimmed at Brest-Litovsk, heavy and ragged during the Civil War, trimmed most carefully when he was in exile.

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