Trotsky’s grandson Esteban (Seva) Volkov

Seva with Trotsky and Natalia Sedova in Coyoacán. [Photo: Museo Casa de León Trotsky]

Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban (Seva) Volkov, died on June 16, 2023 at the age of 97.  I am deeply saddened by the death of Esteban.  He was a remarkable person who maintained the legacy of his grandfather his entire life while also creating a successful career in a new country with a new language and raising a family.  His greatest accomplishment was the establishment of the Trotsky Museum in Coyoacán Mexico and its survival in the teeth of opposition by the local Stalinists and government bureaucrats.

It is difficult to imagine the horrors that the young Seva experienced.  He was barely 14 years old when his grandfather was assassinated. By that time, he had lived through the arrest and subsequent murder at the hands of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union, of his father Platon Volkov, a leading member of the Left Opposition.  His mother, Trotsky’s daughter from his first marriage, Zinaida, committed suicide while trying to get medical attention for her depression and tuberculosis in Germany.   Seva was taken in by his uncle, Trotsky’s older son, Leon Sedov.  Sedov was essentially Trotsky’s ambassador to the supporters of the Left Opposition in Europe and was the linchpin for the creation of the Fourth International. Sedov was himself assassinated by Stalinist agents in France in 1938. Seva was reunited with his grandparents in Mexico only after a bitter custody dispute following the assassination of his uncle. For a young child these series of shocks could be nothing less than a holocaust on an individual scale.  It is therefore all the more remarkable that Seva did not grow up to be a bitter and depressed individual whose spirit was broken. Instead, Seva was imbued with the same optimism about the future of humanity that characterized his grandfather.

I was present at a number of conferences in the U.S. where Esteban spoke but I only had one brief personal exchange with him.  That was at a conference on The Legacy of Leon Trotsky and U.S. Trotskyism held at Fordham University in New York in July of 2008. I spoke to him at the very end of that conference and only had time to express my appreciation of the work he had done in keeping the flame of his grandfather’s legacy alive. Even then, at the advanced age of 82, Esteban had the demeanor of a tall and handsome man whose eyes expressed both his resolve and his generosity. He looked far younger than his years. On that occasion my then soon to be partner, Nina, gave Esteban a flower and he graciously kissed her, in the manner of old-world etiquette.

I made trips to Coyoacán on three different occasions.  On one of those trips with my colleague Frank Brenner, we had the good fortune to be escorted by a guide who had extensive knowledge of the background behind the struggle to maintain the museum against continuous attempts by the Stalinists in Mexico to shut it down. 

The last time I saw Esteban was virtually, through a remote video conference at the First International Conference on Trotsky held in Havana, Cuba in May of 2019.  He was interviewed from the Trotsky Museum by Alan Woods, a long-time scholar of Trotskyism, a leader of International Marxist Tendency and one of driving forces behind the new edition of Trotsky’s biography of Stalin.  (See our article on announcement of the publication of the book on Stalin, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2016/08/76th-anniversary-of-trotskys.html and our summary of the last day of the Conference on Trotsky in Havana, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2019/06/first-international-academic-meeting-on.html ).  In addition to the interview with Esteban, the Trotsky Museum was one of key backers of the conference in Havana.

 

An obituary and two interviews conducted by Alan Benjamin with Esteban Volkov on the subject of Trotsky’s assassination can be found by following this link : https://socialistorganizer.org/2023/06/17/esteban-seva-volkov-trotskys-grandson-1926-2023/

Esteban Volkov was the last living witness to Trotsky’s assassination. His presence will be missed.

Alex Steiner, June 18, 2023

Esteban (Seva) Volkov in 2012

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Trotsky and the Cuban Political Crisis

Note: We are reprinting an English translation of an article penned by Frank García Hernández in the Cuban online publication, Communistas. The original article is here: https://www.comunistascuba.org/2021/11/trotski-y-la-crisis-politica-cubana.html

We wish to thank Robert Montgomery for providing this English translation.

While we may not agree with everything presented in this analysis, it is on the whole a sign of the increasing political maturity of the Marxist left opposition in Cuba, acknowledging the important contribution of Trotsky’s analysis of Stalinism.  It is written by a courageous leader of that movement Frank García Hernández, who organized the first International Conference on Trotsky in Havana, Cuba in May of 2019. See our coverage of the conference:

http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2019/05/first-international-academic-meeting-on.html

http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2019/06/first-international-academic-meeting-on.html

by Frank García Hernández

In addition to the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution, the birthday of Leon Trotsky was commemorated on November 7. His analysis on the degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy is an essential instrument to understand the political crisis that Cuba is going through. Similar to the Soviet bureaucracy, the Cuban government has been moving away from the reality experienced by the working class. The most resounding example of this is the very fact that the July 11 protests took place. [1] Added to this, as another sign of disconnection, is the way in which the official discourse has handled the protests, criminalizing them and reducing them to supposedly having been functional to the counterrevolution.

After the July 11 demonstrations, the Cuban government did not realize the urgent need to create new mechanisms for citizen participation. The way the government understood how to approach the working class was not by stimulating socialist democracy but by making visits to the popular neighborhoods. In general, these visits, planned vertically from above and announced in advance, end up putting on makeup over the area where the high official will pass, and later everything remains the same.

 

In a recent interview to a foreign media, a high Cuban leader declared that in Cuba there was neither hunger, nor unemployment, nor poverty. This serious case of a break with reality can only have two motives. Either, the most dangerous one: the bureaucracy is unaware of the reality of the country; or, it knows about it but transmits a triumphalist discourse which causes discontent among broad sectors of the Cuban working class. In December 2020, the Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil informed that in 2021 the Gross Domestic Product would grow by 6%. Contrary to this, in the past sessions of parliament, Gil announced that the GDP had fallen by -13%. The same official announced in May 2021 that this year Cuba would receive at least 2 million tourists. According to Cuba's National Statistics and Information Office, as of September the country had not exceeded 190 thousand tourists and health restrictions for foreign visitors will only be lifted on November 15. In three months, of which only 45 days will be without restrictions for international travelers, Cuba will not be able to receive the 1 million 810 thousand tourists it needs to meet the figure announced in May by the Minister of Economy; even if Gil knew that up to that month only 120 thousand tourists had entered Cuba.

 

To this worrisome scenario, it should be added that an important sector of the Cuban youth is becoming increasingly depoliticized, identifying socialism with the stagnant official discourse. Young people contrast the triumphalism of the Communist Party with an increasingly critical daily reality, marked by a deep shortage, long lines to buy basic foodstuffs and an important concentration of basic necessities offered in stores where one can only pay with cards backed by foreign currency. In this way, an important sector of the Cuban youth ends up repelling Marxist ideas, falling into political apathy, and in the worst cases, turning to the right.

 

At the same time, this deep economic and political crisis has produced the emergence of new and young figures in the Cuban critical left. Most of them share a common denominator: they find Trotsky's book, The Revolution Betrayed, a useful analysis to understand the Cuban crisis. Except for the Stalinist purges, the complexities involved in a multi-ethnic state, and the distance in time, those young people who publicly position themselves to the left of the Communist Party, discover how in the Cuban bureaucracy dangerous features of the Soviet bureaucracy are reproduced.

 

That young socialist left sees that Cuba is increasingly marked by the separation of the Cuban bureaucracy from the reality of the majorities, the stagnant and empty ideological discourse, the rise of young opportunists to public office, the unequal standards of living between the bourgeois leaders and the working majorities, as well as the political double standards, among other factors typical of a socialist project that has degenerated politically. The new Cuban Marxist left finds, therefore, a scenario very similar to the one described by Trotsky in The Revolution Betrayed.

 

This November 9 marks another anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that preluded the disappearance of the so-called Eastern European Socialist Camp and the final disintegration of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. Thirty years ago the Soviet working class did not know how to defend its rights, to lead the fall of the bureaucracy towards a new revolutionary process and to carry forward the construction of a truly socialist system. The hundreds of young people who crossed the Berlin Wall that November 9, 1989 did not do so to carry the red flag of revolution and overthrow capitalism to their fellow Germans in the West. They did so in pursuit of a bourgeois society where they were promised high levels of consumption. At the cost of predatory financial policies -where Greece appears as the most critical case-, Germany is one of the main economic powers of the world; but if the Cuban government falls, Cuba will fall towards an underdeveloped capitalist system corresponding to the most serious economies of the third world. The supposed fall of the Cuban government will only produce the enthronement of an anti-communist regime, with neo-liberal economic policies and bent to the political interests of the United States. The neoliberal economic project of the Council for Democratic Transition presented for a future socialist Cuba, only shows what would be the fate of the Caribbean nation under a capitalist regime.

 

In the midst of an ever worsening political crisis, it is an urgent duty of the Cuban critical left to act, or at least to raise awareness. Every young socialist must expand their ideas in their range of action. To demonstrate to their fellow students and workmates that the errors committed by the Cuban government are not intrinsic to the socialist project, that another socialism is possible, thus stopping the expansion of political apathy, which is functional to the counterrevolution.

 

Trotsky is not Marx's prophet. To see him as such is to destroy him. Trotsky is a defining Marxist tool to understand and apply to the current Cuban political crisis. The difference in lucidity between the young Cubans who have incorporated him and those who either represent the bureaucracy or proclaim a class conciliatory socialism is quite perceptible. The political lucidity of the new Cuban Marxist left is expressed in that they assume socialism as an emancipatory project only viable if it is built in freedom; but freedom and democracy built and led by the working class. The naivety that economic and political power can be shared equally between the bourgeoisie and the working class is something that, by the fact of being Marxist, the young Cuban socialist left has rejected.

 

This explains the position of the new Cuban Marxist left regarding the November 15 demonstration: it defends the right to demonstrate for those who decide to march on that day, but at the same time refuses to march on November 15, since it understands that it is a serious political error to share space with representatives of neo-liberal organizations such as the Council for Democratic Transition. This is the great difference between Trotsky's united front and Stalin's popular fronts. The former grouped the revolutionary forces, while in the latter the communists could even ally themselves with characters such as General Fulgencio Batista. [2]

 

The Cuban government has declared the November 15 demonstration illegal. It warned from official media that those who participate in the demonstration will be punished by law, however sometimes some legal decisions do not bring with them the necessary political legitimacy. Although the November 15 demonstrations have almost no popular support, they do have an important political weight. To repress them would therefore be a serious political mistake and a violation of the right to peaceful protest. It is true that the Marxist critical left should not participate in the November 15 demonstration, but if it positions itself in favor of repression it will be making the same mistake of marching with the Council for Democratic Transition. This is another of the great differences between Stalin's project and Trotsky's political proposal. The former has repression as the central axis of his political program. Trotsky's socialism is grounded in freedom.

 

In this hour of definitions that Cuba is living, let us have the political lucidity and militancy to be and do two, three, many Trotsky.

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[1] See the previous statement on the events of July 11 from the Communistas blog: http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2021/08/concerning-july-11-protests-in-cuba.html

[2] The reference, well-known to students of Cuban history, is to the support offered to the dictator Fulgencio Batista by the Cuban Communist Party.  Support for Batista was sanctioned by the Stalinist controlled Communist International in 1934 basing itself on the new policy of a “Popular Front” between the “progressive” elements of the  bourgeoisie – represented in this case by Batista - and the working class. The Cuban Communist Party’s support for Batista continued, more or less uninterrupted, for over 20 years.

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76th Anniversary of Trotsky's Assassination: Launch of restored biography of Stalin

 

A new edition of the Trotsky’s last work, his unfinished biography of Stalin, is being introduced today at the Trotsky Museum in Coyoacan, Mexico.  Although we have political differences with the editor of this new edition, Alan Woods, we recognize that his work over a number of years in bringing this edition of the Stalin biography to publication represents an important contribution to Trotsky’s legacy.   We are reprinting below the announcement of the book launching. It is indeed fitting that the 76th anniversary of Trotsky's assassination sees the completion of the book he was working on at the time of his death.

Habent sua fata libelli - “Books have their own fate”, a Roman author once wrote. And of no book in history is this more the case than Trotsky’s biography of Joseph Stalin, the newly completed edition of which will be launched next Saturday, 20 August, at the Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky, Mexico City.

This new version of Stalin, which was left unfinished at the time of the author’s death at the hands of a Stalinist agent, includes extensive unpublished material from the Harvard archives. The result is as close as possible to Trotsky’s original intentions for the work, providing a unique perspective on the Russian Revolution, its subsequent isolation and the rise of a bureaucracy expressed in the person of Stalin.

This book will contain 100,000 words of original, never-before-published material by Trotsky – a 30% increase on the 1946 edition. What is more, the previous editor Charles Malamuth’s own additions to Trotsky’s notes have been removed.

This highly anticipated publication will be introduced by its editor Alan Woods, the world-renowned Marxist and Russian linguist. His efforts in producing this version included translating some of Trotsky’s writing from Russian into English for the first time. After almost three years of constant, painstaking work alongside a raft of assistants, he is able to present the book in its final form.

“The new edition of Stalin has added to and enriched the vast arsenal of Marxist theory left behind by Leon Trotsky,” explains Esteban Volkov, Trotsky’s grandson and Director of the Trotsky House Museum. Volkov has spent most of his life fighting for this work to be restored, against the publication of previous editions, which omitted a considerable amount of Trotsky’s writing contained within this new version.

The venue chosen for this launch event reflects the significance of the work it celebrates. This biography of Stalin will be returning to the place where its author worked on it in the final years of his life. In fact, in the study where his brilliant mind was smashed with an ice pick, Trotsky had left the galley proofs of Stalin on his desk.

Tracing Stalin’s progression from obscurity in rural Georgia to the leading bodies of the Bolshevik Party, and then to the head of a monstrous regime, Trotsky explores the interplay between great historical events and the individuals they shape to a degree rarely found in Marxist literature.

“In making available for the first time the writing that was arbitrarily excluded from Stalin and hidden in dusty boxes for three quarters of a century,” as Woods remarks in his editor’s note, “we are providing a wealth of valuable material to the new generation that is striving to find the ideas to change the world.”

La Jornada reports

The publication of this book has aroused considerable interest in circles far beyond those of revolutionary militants. In its issue of Monday 8th August La Jornada, the most important Mexican daily paper wrote a lengthy article on this meeting. In it we read the following:

“On the 76th anniversary of his murder, a biography of Joseph Stalin written by Trotsky will be presented as part of the activities to commemorate the controversial Russian revolutionary who lived out his last years in exile in Mexico, announced his grandson Esteban Volkov, director of the house museum dedicated to the communist leader.

Esteban Volkov

'The book of a thousand pages, which is for now only available in English, is the work of British Marxist historian Alan Woods”, he said. 'Woods, an expert on the ideas of Trotsky, was able to create a genuine version of the last book that Trotsky wrote - the biography of Stalin,' Volkov explained.

“This book has a lot of history. Contrary to what many think, Trotsky did not write it in order to express his fury and resentment against Stalin, nothing could be further from the truth. He had no interest in writing this biography. His most passionate desire was to finish the second part of a book on the life of Lenin that he had already started.

“But he was obliged to change his plan for economic reasons. Volkov points out that we 'lived in conditions of extreme hardship, so when an American publisher came up with a pretty attractive offer to commission a biography of Stalin, he threw himself into this work, gathering a lot of material, reports and data.'

“'He began a serious and detailed work, but unfortunately was murdered before he could finish it. Being more moved by commercial interests than ideological considerations, the American publishers handed the task of publication of the book to the translator Professor Charles Malamuth the translator. He practically destroyed the work, filling it with annotations of his own invention, while leaving out 30 or 40 percent of very interesting material written by Trotsky.'

“Volkov explained how a group of followers of Leon Trotsky and the historian Alan Woods took on the task of complementing the work. The first thing they did was to get rid of Malamuth’s annotations. Then, Woods ordered and classified the book in a logical and ideological sense, in accordance with the ideas of Trotsky, including all those documents and manuscripts that had not been published.

“Thus you arrive to this corrected and enlarged edition, containing 40 percent more of the text of Stalin, which will be presented by Woods himself on August 20 at 7 p.m in the house-museum named after the Communist leader .

“In Woods’ opinion, Volkov said, this work may be considered as one of the most important that Trotsky wrote. And in a way it hastened his assassination, because Stalin was determined to stop it being published.”

In these words there is no hint of exaggeration. It is known that Stalin had on his desk every morning the latest writings of Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition. He was informed of the fact that his enemy was writing a biography that would contain a great deal of compromising information about the life and role of the dictator in the Kremlin. Like every criminal, Stalin was determined to eliminate all the witnesses to his crimes – especially the most important one in faraway Coyoacan.

Planet without a Visa

Expelled from the USSR by Stalin, for the man who created the Red Army and whose role in the victory of the October Revolution was second only to that of Lenin there was no refuge and no safe resting place on earth. One after another the door was slammed firmly shut. Those states that called themselves democracies and liked to compare themselves favourably with the Bolshevik “dictators” showed no more tolerance than all the others.

Britain, which had earlier given refuge to Marx, Lenin and Trotsky himself, now under a Labour government, refused him entry. France and Norway behaved, in essence, no differently, placing such restrictions on Trotsky’s movements and activities that “sanctuary” became indistinguishable from imprisonment. Finally, Trotsky and his faithful companion Natalia Sedova found refuge in Mexico under the government of the progressive bourgeois Lazar Cardenas.

Even in Mexico, Trotsky was not safe. The arm of the GPU was long. By raising his voice against the Kremlin clique, Trotsky remained a mortal danger to Stalin, who, it has now been demonstrated, ordered all Trotsky’s writings to be placed on his desk each morning. He extracted a terrible revenge on his opponent. As long ago as the 1920s, Zinoviev and Kamenev had warned Trotsky: “You think Stalin will answer your ideas. But Stalin will strike at your head!”

In the years prior to his assassination, Trotsky had witnessed the assassination of one of his sons and the disappearance of the other; the suicide of his daughter, the massacre of his friends and collaborators inside and outside the USSR, and the destruction of the political gains of the October revolution. Trotsky’s daughter Zinaida committed suicide as a result of Stalin’s persecution.

After the suicide of his daughter, his first wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, an extraordinary woman who perished in Stalin’s camps, wrote a despairing letter to Trotsky: “Our children were doomed. I do not believe in life any more. I do not believe that they will grow up. All the time I am expecting some new disaster.’ And she concludes: “It has been difficult for me to write and mail this letter. Excuse my cruelty towards you, but you should know everything about our kith and kin.” (Quoted by Deutscher, op. cit. p. 198.)

Leon Sedov, Trotsky’s eldest son, who played a key role in the International Left Opposition, was murdered while recovering from an operation in a Paris clinic in February 1938. Two of his European secretaries, Rudolf Klement and Erwin Wolff, were also killed. Ignace Reiss, an officer of the GPU who publicly broke with Stalin and declared in favour of Trotsky, was yet another victim of Stalin’s murder machine, gunned down by a GPU agent in Switzerland.

The most painful blow came with the arrest of Trotsky’s younger son Sergei, who had stayed behind in Russia, believing that, as he was not politically active, he would be safe. Vain hope! Unable to take his revenge on the father, Stalin resorted to that most refined torture—applying pressure on parents through their children. No-one can imagine what torments were suffered at this time by Trotsky and Nataliya Sedova. Only in recent years did it emerge that Trotsky even contemplated suicide, as a possible way of saving his son. But he realised that such an act would not save Sergei and would give Stalin just what he wanted. Trotsky was not wrong. Sergei was already dead, shot it seems in secret in 1938, having steadfastly refused to denounce his father.

One by one, Trotsky’s old collaborators had fallen victim to Stalin’s Terror. Those who refused to recant were physically liquidated. But even capitulation did not save the lives of those who surrendered. They were executed anyway. The last of the leading figures of the Opposition inside the USSR who had held out was the great Balkan Marxist and veteran revolutionary Christian Rakovsky. When Trotsky heard of Rakovsky’s capitulations he wrote the following passage in his diary:

“Rakovsky was virtually my last contact with the old revolutionary generation. After his capitulation there is nobody left. Even though my correspondence with Rakovsky stopped, for reasons of censorship, at the time of my deportation, nevertheless the image of Rakovsky has remained a symbolic link with my old comrades-in-arms. Now nobody remains. For a long time now I have not been able to satisfy my need to exchange ideas and discuss problems with someone else. I am reduced to carrying on a dialogue with the newspapers, or rather through the newspapers with facts and opinions.

“And still I think that the work in which I am engaged now, despite its extremely insufficient and fragmentary nature, is the most important work of my life—more important than 1917, more important than the period of the Civil War or any other.

“For the sake of clarity I would put it this way. Had I not been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the October Revolution would still have taken place—on the condition that Lenin was present and in command. If neither Lenin nor I had been present in Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution: the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would have prevented it from occurring—of this I have not the slightest doubt! If Lenin had not been in Petersburg, I doubt whether I could have managed to conquer the resistance of the Bolshevik leaders. The struggle with ‘Trotskyism’ (i.e., with the proletarian revolution) would have commenced in May, 1917, and the outcome of the revolution would have been in question. But I repeat, granted the presence of Lenin the October Revolution would have been victorious anyway. The same could by and large be said of the Civil War, although in its first period, especially at the time of the fall of Simbirsk and Kazan, Lenin wavered and was beset by doubts. But this was undoubtedly a passing mood which he probably never even admitted to anyone but me.

“Thus I cannot speak of the ‘indispensability’ of my work, even about the period from 1917 to 1921. But now my work is ‘indispensable’ in the full sense of the word. There is no arrogance in this claim at all. The collapse of the two Internationals has posed a problem which none of the leaders of these Internationals is at all equipped to solve. The vicissitudes of my personal fate have confronted me with this problem and armed me with important experience in dealing with it. There is now no one except me to carry out the mission of arming a new generation with the revolutionary method over the heads of the leaders of the Second and Third International. And I am in a complete agreement with Lenin (or rather Turgenev) that the worst vice is to be more than 55 years old! I need at least about five more years of uninterrupted work to ensure the succession.” (Trotsky, Diary In Exile, pp. 53-4.)

But Trotsky was not to be granted his wish. After various attempts, the GPU finally managed to put an end to Trotsky’s life on 20th August 1940.

The revenge of history

When the Stalinist agent Ramon Mercader brought his pickaxe crashing down on the skull of his defenseless victim, Stalin’s wish appeared to have been granted. It is in fact a very easy thing to terminate the life of an individual. The human animal is a frail and fragile thing. It can be easily killed by a knife, a bullet or an ice pick. But it is not possible to murder an idea whose time has come.

The fight for the ideas of Leon Trotsky – the ideas of Leninism, of Bolshevism and of the October Revolution – did not end on 20 August 1940. On the contrary, that struggle continues unabated to the present day. The memory of Leon Trotsky continues to be celebrated by class conscious workers and revolutionary youth all over the world. That of Stalin, the gravedigger of the October Revolution, is reviled as that of Cain who murdered his brother in order to usurp his inheritance.

In spite of everything, right up to the end, Trotsky remained absolutely firm in his revolutionary ideas. His testament reveals enormous optimism in the socialist future of humanity. But his real testament is to be found in his books and other writings, which continue to be a treasure-house of Marxist ideas for the new generation of revolutionaries. The fact that nowadays, the spectre of “Trotskyism” continues to haunt the bourgeois, reformist and Stalinist leaders is sufficient proof of the resilience of the ideas of Bolshevism-Leninism. For that, essentially, is what “Trotskyism” signifies.

After the delay of almost eight decades, Trotsky’s biography of Stalin has been reborn. In its pages the revolutionary workers and youth of today will find a treasure trove of Marxist theory and ideas, a mine of information about the history of Bolshevism and the Russian revolution and an answer to the question of how the greatest revolution in history degenerated into a monstrous totalitarian and bureaucratic regime.

The very fact that the launching of the book, which at the moment is only available in English (a Spanish translation is in preparation) is taking place in Mexico, in the house where Trotsky lived, worked and died the death of a revolutionary martyr, is a fitting monument to that great revolutionary internationalist. It is the final revenge of history against Stalin and Stalinism and a living confirmation of the vitality of the ideas of Marxism.

 

 

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Natalia Sedova Trotsky - How it Happened

On this day, the 74th anniversary of Trotsky's assassination, we are republishing an article by Trotsky's partner Natalia Sedova recounting the events of Trotsky's last day.  Credit is due to the Marxist Internet Archives for transcribing the article.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1940/08/20.htm

Natalia Sedova Trotsky

Natalia Sedova Trotsky

How it Happened

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Written:1940
First Published:1941 (English translation)
Source: Fourth International
Online Version: Natalia Sedova Internet Archive, December 2001
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Mike Bessler (original markup by ETOL)

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(Tuesday, August 20, 1940; 7 o'clock in the morning)

"You know, I feel fine today, at all events, this morning; it's a long time since I felt so well... Last night I took a double dose of the sleeping drug. I noticed that it does me good."

"Yes. I recall that we observed this in Norway when you used to feel run-down much more often... But it isn't the drug itself that does you good, it's sound sleep, complete rest."

"Why yes, of course."

As he opened in the morning or closed at night the massive steel shutters built in our bedroom by our friends after the attack of May 24 on our home, L. D. would occasionally remark: "Well, now no Siqueiros can get at us." And upon awakening he would greet me and himself by saying, "You see, they didn't kill us last night after all, and yet you are still dissatisfied." I defended myself as best I could... Once, after such a "greeting," he added pensively: "Yes, Natasha, we received a reprieve."

As far back as 1928, when we were being exiled to Alma-Ata, where the unknown awaited us, we had a talk one night in the compartment of the train which was taking us into exile... We could not sleep, after the tumult of the last weeks, and especially the last days, in Moscow. In spite of our extreme fatigue, the nervous excitement persisted. I recall that Lev Davidovich said to me then: "it's better this way (exile). I am not in favor of dying in a bed in the Kremlin."

But this morning he was far from all such thoughts. Physical well-being made him look forward eagerly to a "really good" day's work. Vigorously he walked out into the patio to feed his rabbits, after performing swiftly his morning toilet and dressing just as quickly. When his health was poor, the feeding of the rabbits was a strain on him; but he couldn't give it up, as he pitied the little animals. It was difficult to do it as he wanted to, as was his custom--thoroughly. Besides, he had to be on guard; his strength had to be conserved for another, different kind of work--work at his desk. Taking care of the animals, cleaning their cages, etc., provided him, on the one band, with relaxation and a distraction, but, on the other hand, it fatigued him physically; and this, in turn, reflected on his general ability to work. He became completely absorbed in everything he did, regardless of the task.

I recall that in 1933 we departed from Prinkipo for France, where we lived in a lonely villa not far from Royan, by the shores of the Atlantic. Our son together with our friends had arranged for this villa which was called "Sea-Spray." The waves of the turbulent ocean came into our garden, and salt spray would fly in through the open windows. Surrounded by our friends, we lived under semi-legal conditions. We would have on occasion as many as twenty people. Eight or nine lived on the premises. In view of our position, it was out of the question to call in a housekeeper or someone to help in the kitchen. The whole burden fell on Jeanne, my son's wife, and on Vera Molinier, and I also helped. The young comrades washed the dishes. Lev Davidovich, too, wanted to help with the housework and began washing dishes. But our friends protested: "He should rest after dinner. We can manage ourselves." Besides, my son Leva told me: "Papa insists on using a scientific method of dish-washing, and this eats up too much of our time." In the end, L. D. had to retire from this occupation.

The middle way, the lackadaisical attitude, the semi-indifferent manner, these he knew not. That is why nothing tired him so much as casual or semi-indifferent conversations. But with what enthusiasm did he go to pick cacti with a view to transplanting them in our garden. He was in a frenzy, being the first on the job and the last to leave. Not one of the young people surrounding him on our walks into the country and working with him outdoors could keep pace with him; they tired more quickly, and fell behind one after the other. But he was indefatigable. Looking at him, I often marveled. Whence did he draw his energy, his physical endurance? Neither the unbearably hot sun, the mountains nor descents with cacti heavy as iron bothered him. He was hypnotized by the consummation of the task at hand. He found relaxation in changing his tasks. This also provided him with a respite from the blows which mercilessly fell upon him. The more crushing the blow the more ardently he forgot himself in work.

Our walks, which were really war-expeditions for cacti, became more and more rare because of "circumstances beyond our control." However, every now and then, having had his fill of the monotony of his daily routine, Lev Davidovich would say to me: "This week we ought to take a whole day off for a walk, don't you think so?"

"You mean a day for penal labor?" I would twit him.

"All right, let's go, to be sure."

"It would be best to get an early start. Shouldn't we leave around six in the morning?"

"Six is all right with me, but won't you get too tired?"

"No, it will only refresh me, and I promise not to overdo it."

Usually Lev Davidovich fed his fondly-watched rabbits and chickens, from a quarter past seven (sometimes 7:20) till nine o'clock in the morning. Sometimes he would interrupt this work to dictate into the dictaphone some order or some idea which occurred to him. That day he worked in the patio without interruption. After breakfast he assured me that he felt fine and spoke of his desire to begin dictating an article on conscription in the United States. And he actually did start to dictate.

At one o'clock Rigault, our attorney in the case of the May 24th attack, came to see us. After his departure, Lev Davidovich looked into my room to tell me, not without regret, that he would have to postpone work on the article and to resume preparing the material for the trial in connection with the attack upon us. He and his attorney had decided that it was necessary to answer El Popular in view of the fact that L. D. had been accused of defamation at a banquet given by that publication.

"And I will take the offensive and will charge them with brazen slander." he said defiantly.

"Too bad, you won't be able to write about conscription."

"Yes, it can't be helped. I have to postpone it for two or three days. I have already asked for all the available materials to be placed on my desk. After dinner, I shall start going over them. I feel fine," he once again assured me.

After a brief siesta, I saw him sitting at his desk, which was already covered with items relating to the El Popular case. He continued to be in good spirits. And it made me feel more cheerful. Lev Davidovich had of late been complaining of enervation to which he succumbed occasionally. He knew that it was a passing condition, but lately he seemed to be in greater doubt about it than ever before; today seemed to us to mark the beginning of improvement in his physical condition. He looked well too. Every now and then I opened the door to his room just a trifle, so as not to disturb him, and saw him in his usual position, bent over his desk, pen in hand. I recalled the line, "One more and final story and my scroll is at an end." Thus speaks the ancient monk-scribe Pimen in Pushkin's drama "Boris Godounov," as he recorded the evil deeds of Czar Boris.

Lev Davidovich led a life close in semblance to that of a prisoner or a hermit, with this difference that in his solitude he not only kept a chronological record of events but waged an indomitably passionate struggle against his ideological enemies.

Brief as that day was, Lev Davidovich had until five in the afternoon dictated into the dictaphone several fragments of his contemplated article on conscription in the United States and about fifty short pages of his exposure of El Popular, i.e. of Stalin's machinations. It was a day of physical and spiritual equanimity for him.

Jacson Appears

At five, the two of us had tea, as usual. At twenty minutes past five, perhaps at half past, I stepped out on the balcony and saw L. D. in the patio near an open rabbit hutch. He was feeding the animals. Beside him was an unfamiliar figure. Only when he removed his hat and started to approach the balcony did I recognize him. It was "Jacson."

"He's here again," it flashed through my mind. "Why has he begun to come so often?" I asked myself.

"I'm frightfully thirsty, may I have a glass of water?" he asked, upon greeting me.

"Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?"

"No no. I dined too late and feel that the food is up here," he answered, pointing at his throat. "it's choking me." The color of his face was gray-green. His general appearance was that of a very nervous man.

"Why are you wearing your hat and topcoat?" (His topcoat was hanging over his left arm, pressed against his body.) "It's so sunny today."

"Yes, but you know it won't last long, it might rain." I wanted to argue that "today it won't rain" and of his always boasting that he never wore a hat or coat, even in the wont weather, but somehow I became depressed and let the subject drop. Instead I asked:

"And how is Sylvia feeling?"

He did not appear to understand me. I had upset him by my previous question about his topcoat and hat. And he was completely lost in his own thoughts, and very nervous. Finally, as if rousing himself from a deep sleep, he answered me: "Sylvia?... Sylvia?..." And catching himself, he added casually: "She's always well."

He began to retrace his steps towards Lev Davidovich and the rabbit hutches. I asked him as he walked away: "Is your article ready?"

"Yes, it's ready."

"Is it typed?"

With an awkward movement of his hand, while he continued to press against his body his topcoat in the lining of which were sewn in, as it was later revealed, a pickaxe and a dagger, he produced several typewritten pages to show me.

"It's good that your manuscript is not written by hand. Lev Davidovich dislikes illegible manuscripts."

Two days earlier he had called on us, also wearing a topcoat and a hat. I did not see him then as, unfortunately, I was not at home. But Lev Davidovich told me that "Jacson" had called and had somewhat surprised him by his conduct Lev Davidovich mentioned it in a way which indicated that he had no desire to elaborate upon the matter, but at the same time he felt that he had to mention it to me, sensing some new feature about the man.

"He brought an outline of his article, in reality a few phrases--muddled stuff. I made some suggestions to him. We shall see." And Lev Davidovich added, "Yesterday he did not resemble a Frenchman at all. Suddenly he sat down on my desk and kept his hat on all the while."

"Yes, it's strange" I said in wonderment. "He never wears a hat."

"This time he wore a hat," answered Lev Davidovich and pursued this subject no further. He spoke casually. But I was taken aback: it seemed to me that on this occasion he had perceived something new about "Jacson" but had not yet reached, or rather was in no hurry to draw conclusions. This brief conversation of ours occurred on the eve of the crime.

Wearing a hat.. topcoat on his arm... sat himself down on the table--wasn't this a rehearsal on his part? This was done so that he would be more certain and precise in his movements on the morrow.

Who could have suspected it then? It stirred us to embarrassment, nothing more. Who could have foretold that the day of August 20, so ordinary, would be so fateful? Nothing bespoke its ominousness. From dawn the sun was shining, as always here, the whole day brightly. Flowers were blooming, and grass seemed polished with lacquer... We went about our tasks each in his own way, all of us trying in whatever we did to facilitate Lev Davidovich's work. How many times in the course of that day did he mount the little steps of this same balcony, and walk into this, his room, and sit down on this very same chair beside the desk... All this used to seem ordinary and is now by its very ordinariness so terrible and tragic. No one, none among us, not he himself was able to sense the impending disaster. And in this inability a kind of abyss yawns. On the contrary, the whole day was one of the most tranquil. When L. D. stepped out at noon into the patio and I perceived him standing there bareheaded beneath the scorching sun, I hastened to bring him his white cap to protect his head against the merciless hot rays. To protect from the sun... but even at that very moment he was already threatened with a terrible death. At that hour we did not sense his doom, an outburst of despair did not convulse our hearts.

I recall that when the alarm system in the house, the garden and the patio was being installed by our friends and guard posts were being assigned, I drew L. D.'s attention to the fact that a guard should also be posted at his window. This seemed to me at the time so palpably indispensable. But L. D. objected that to do so it would be necessary to expand the guard, increase it to ten which was beyond our resources both in point of money and of available people at the disposal of our organization. A guard outside the window could not have saved him in this particular instance. But the absence of one worried me. L. D. was likewise very touched by a present given him by our American friends after the attack of May 24. It was a bullet proof vest, something like an ancient shirt of mail. As I examined it one day, I happened to remark that it would be good to get something for the head. L. D. insisted that the comrade assigned to the most responsible post wear the vest each time. After the failure suffered by our enemies in the May 24 attack, we were absolutely certain that Stalin would not halt, and we were making preparations. We also knew that a different form of attack would be used by the G.P.U. Nor did we exclude a blow on the part of a "solitary individual" sent secretly and paid by the G.P.U. But neither the bullet-proof vest nor a helmet could have served as safeguards. To apply these methods of defense from day to day was impossible. It was impossible to convert one's life solely into self-defense--for in that case life loses all its value.

The Assassination

As "Jacson" and I approached Lev Davidovich the latter addressed me in Russian, "You know, he is expecting Sylvia to call on us. They are leaving tomorrow." It was a suggestion on his part that I should invite them to tea, if not supper.

"I didn't know that you intend leaving tomorrow and are expecting Sylvia here."

"Yes...yes... I forgot to mention it to you."

"It's too bad that I didn't know, I might have sent a few things to New York."

"I could call tomorrow at one."

"No, no, thank you. It would inconvenience both of us."

And turning to Lev Davidovich, I explained in Russian that I had already asked "Jacson" to tea but that he refused, complaining about not feeling well, being terribly thirsty and asked me only for a glass of water. Lev Davidovich glanced at him attentively, and said in a tone of light reproach, "Your health is poor again, you look ill... That's not good."

There was a pause. Lev Davidovich was loath to tear himself away from the rabbits and in no mood to listen to an article. However, he controlled himself and said, "Well, what do you say, shall we go over your article?"

He fastened the hutches methodically, and removed his working gloves. He took good care of his hands, or rather his fingers inasmuch as the slightest scratch irritated him, interfered with his writing. He always kept his pen like his fingers in order. He brushed off his blue blouse and slowly, silently started walking towards the house accompanied by "Jacson" and myself. I came with them to the door of Lev Davidovich's study; the door closed, and I walked into the adjoining room....

Not more than three or four minutes had elapsed when I heard a terrible, soul-shaking cry and without so much as realizing who it was that uttered this cry, I rushed in the direction from which it came. Between the dining room and the balcony, on the threshold, beside the door post and leaning against it stood... Lev Davidovich. His face was covered with blood, his eyes, without glasses, were sharp blue, his hands were hanging.

"What happened? What happened?"

I flung my arms about him, but he did not immediately answer. It flashed through my mind. Perhaps something had fallen from the ceiling--some repair work was being done there--but why was he here?

And he said to me calmly, without any indignation, bitterness or irritation, "Jacson." L.D. said it as if he wished to say, "It has happened." We took a few steps and Lev Davidovich, with my help, slumped to the floor on the little carpet there.

"Natasha, I love you.'" He said this so unexpectedly, so gravely, almost severely that, weak from inner shock, I swayed toward him.

"0...0... no one, no one must be allowed to see you without being searched."

Carefully placing a pillow under his broken head, I held a piece of ice to his wound and wiped the blood from his face with cotton...

"Seva must be taken away from all this..."

He spoke with difficulty, unclearly, but was--so it seemed to me--unaware of it.

"You know, in there--" his eyes moved towards the door of his room--"I sensed... understood what he wanted to do.... He wanted to strike me... once more... but I didn't let him," he spoke calmly, quietly, his voice breaking.

"But I didn't let him." There was a note of satisfaction in these words. At the same time Lev Davidovich turned to Joe, and spoke to him in English. Joe was kneeling on the floor as I was, on the other side, just opposite me. I strained to catch the words, but couldn't make them out. At that moment I saw Charlie, his face chalk-white, revolver in hand, rush into Lev Davidovich's room.

"What about that one" I asked Lev Davidovich. "They will kill him."

"No... impermissible to kill, he must be forced to talk," Lev Davidovich replied, still uttering the words with difficulty, slowly.

A kind of pathetic whining suddenly broke upon our ears. I glanced in a quandary at Lev Davidovich. With a barely noticeable movement of his eyes, he indicated the door of his room and said condescendingly, "It's he"... "Has the doctor arrived yet?"

"He'll be here any minute now... Charlie has gone in a car to fetch him."

The doctor arrived, examined the wound and agitatedly stated that it was "not dangerous." Lev Davidovich accepted this calmly, almost indifferently as though one could not expect any other pronouncement from a physician in such a situation. But, turning to Joe and indicating his heart, he said in English, "I feel it here... This time they have succeeded." He was sparing me.

The Last Hours

Through the roaring city, through its vain tumult and human din, through its garish evening lights, the emergency ambulance sped, weaving through traffic, passing cars, with the siren incessantly wailing, with the cordon of police motorcycles shrilly whistling. We were bearing the wounded man unbearable anguish in our hearts, and with an alarm that increased with every passing minute. He was conscious. One hand remained quietly extended along the body. It was paralyzed.

Dr. Dutren told me this after the examination at home, in the dining room, on the floor. For the other hand, the right, he couldn't find a place, describing circles with it all the time, touching me, as if seeking a comfortable place for it. He found it more and more difficult to talk. Bending very low I asked him how he felt.

"Better now," answered Lev Davidovich.

"Better now." This quickened the heart with keen hopes. The ear-splitting tumult, the whistles and the siren continued to wail but the heart pulsed with hope. "Better now."

The ambulance pulled up at the hospital. It stopped. A crowd milled around us. "There may be enemies," it flashed through my mind, as was always the case in similar situations. "Where are our friends? They must surround the stretcher..."

Now he was lying on the cot. Silently the doctors examined the wound. On their instructions, a "sister" began shaving his hair. I stood at the head of the cot. Smiling imperceptibly, Lev Davidovich said to me, "See, we found a barber too..."

He was still sparing me. That day we had talked about the necessity of calling a barber to give him a hair-cut, but did not get around to it. He was now reminding me of it. Lev Davidovich called Joe, who was standing right there, a few feet away from me and asked him, as I learned later, to jot down his farewell to life. When I inquired what Lev Davidovich had said to him, Joe replied, "He wanted me to make a note about French statistics." I was greatly surprised that it was something related to French statistics at such a time. It seemed strange. Unless perhaps his condition was beginning to improve...

I remained standing at the head of the cot, holding a piece of ice to the wound and listening attentively. They began to undress him. So as not to disturb him, his working blouse was cut with scissors; the doctor politely exchanged glances with the "sister" as if to encourage her; next came the knitted vest, then the shirt. The watch was unstrapped from his wrist. They then began to remove the remaining garments without cutting them, and he said to me then, "I don't want them to undress me... I want you to do it." He said this quite distinctly, only very sadly and gravely.

These were the last words he spoke to me. When I finished I bent over him and touched his lips with mine. He answered me. Again... And again he answered. And once again. It was our final farewell. But we were not aware of it.

The patient fell into a state of coma. The operation did not bring him out of this condition. Without removing my eyes, I watched over him all that night, waiting for the "awakening." The eyes were closed, but the breathing, now heavy, now even and calm, inspired hope. The following day passed the same way. By noon, according to the judgment of the doctors, there was an improvement. But toward the end of the day, a sharp change in the sick man's breathing suddenly took place. It became rapid, more and more rapid, instilling mortal fear. The physicians, the hospital staff surrounded the cot of the sick man. They were obviously agitated. Losing my self-control, I asked what this meant, but only one among them, a more cautious man answered. "it would pass," he said. The others remained silent. I understood how false was all consolation and how hopeless everything really was.

They lifted him up. His head slumped on one shoulder. The hands dangled like those in Titian's crucifixion: "The Removal from the Cross." Instead of a crown of thorns, the dying man wore a bandage. The features of his countenance retained their purity and pride. It seemed as if at any moment now he would straighten up and take charge himself. But the wound had penetrated the brain too deeply. The awakening so passionately awaited never came. His voice was also stilled. Everything was ended. He is no longer among the living.

Retribution will come to the vile murderers. Throughout his entire heroic and beautiful life, Lev Davidovich believed in the emancipated mankind of the future. During the last years of his life his faith did not falter, but on the contrary became only more mature, more firm than ever.

Future mankind, emancipated from all oppression will triumph over coercion of all sorts. He taught me to believe in this too.

November, 1940
Coyoacan, Mexico

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