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

'PERMANENT REVOLUTION'
No! Not the ability of the masses to kill others, but their great
readiness themselves to die, this secures in the last instance the
victory of the popular rising ... .' :For only when the masses
show readiness to die on the barricades can they win over the
army, on which the old regime rdies. The barricade docs not
play in revolution the part which the fortress plays in regular
warfare. It is mainly the physical and moral meeting-ground
between people and army. 'It serves the insurrection, because,
by hampering the movement of troops it brings these into close
contact with the people. Here on the barricade, for the first
time in his life, the soldier hears honest, courageous words, a
fraternal appeal, the voice of the people's conscience; and, as a
consequence of this contact between soldiers and citizens, in the
atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm, the bonds of the old
military discipline snap ... .'
Having thus defined the place of insurrection in the revolution,
he returned to the attack on the government. The rulers,
he said, were trying to prolong their domination by means of
assassination and pogroms; the hooligans of the Hlack Hundreds
had been taking their cue from the police and gendarmerie;
and the Tsar himself had been their protector.'
Trotsky quoted revelations made in the first Duma by the
Liberal Prince Urusov, who had related the following boast of
one of the leaders of the gendarmerie: 'W c can make a pogrom
whenever it suits us, a pogrom often people, if we wish, or of ten
thousand.'
The prosecution does not believe in all this. It cannot believe,
for otherwise it would have to turn the accusation against those
whom it now defends, and to acknowledge that the Russian citizen
who arms himself with a revolver against the police acts in self~
defence .... We had no doubt that behind the fac;ade of the Black
Hundreds was the powerful fist of the ruling clique. Gentlemen the
judges! this sinister fist we see even now in front of us!
The prosecution is asking you to recognize that the Soviet armed
the workers for the direct struggle against the existing 'form of
' The programme of thr Black I lundreds r ari:
'1. The guoJ ol the FatlH·rlan