isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

CHAPTER V
Trotsky in 1905
IN February Trotsky arrived in Kiev, and there, having assumed
the identity of a retired ensign, Arbuzov, he hid for several
weeks. Kiev was then the hub of the clandestine organization;
but the police were less alert there than in Petersburg and ~foscow.
There Trotsky met Leonid Krasin, with whom he was to
be closely associated for the rest of the year. An eminent technician
and prosperous industrial manager, Krasin was also a
member of the Central Committee second only to Lenin in the
Bolshevik hierarchy, and the actual manager on the spot of
the clandestine organization. He was, however, a 'conciliator',
anxious to overcome the breach in the party and therefore at
loggerheads with Lenin. This made it easier for Trotsky to cooperate
with him. And to Krasin, Trotsky, the only prominent
Socialist policy-maker and writer then in Russia, soon became
indispensable. In the spring, Krasin took him to Petersburg.
The other Socialist leaders stayed in western Europe until
late in the year. In normal times, when events moved slowly,
the clandc;;tinc organization could well afford to consult the
emigres and to wait for their instructions. But now the range
of its activities was expanding feverishly; more and more often
the party had to act under the compulsion of events and on the
spur of the moment; consequently, routine contacts with the
cmigrcs became too cumbersome and slow.
Having returned to Russia so early, Trotsky found himself
at once at the very centre of clandestine affairs. This was to
make him loom much larger in the revolution of 1905 than did
any of the older leaders. But he was to loom larger for yet
another, more fundamental, reason: The two trends in the
party had not yet crystallized sufficiently to become two separate
and hostile forces. Yet the controversy had advanced enough to
absorb the minds and energies of the leaders. The turmoil in
Russia came too late for the party to be able to act with the
immediate initiative and massive vigour of a single body. But
it also came too early-before the two parties, Bolshevik and
Menshevik, had disengaged from each other and gained a new