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

'PERMANENT REVOLUTION' 169
even for a moment-they were invariably stolen. Then, on
13 October, something like a bombshell exploded in the courtroom.
One of the defence counsel received a letter from Lopukhin,
a recently dismissed director of the police department,
who asked to be called as witness. A semi-Liberal official,
Lopukhin had conducted a special inquiry into the obscure
activi tics of his own department; and he forwarded to the court
a copy of the report he had submitted to Stolypin, the new
Minister of the Interior. He wished to testify that the year before
Petersburg had escaped a bloody pogrom only thanks to
measures taken by the Soviet. He wished to bear witness that
the leaflets inciting to the pogrom had been printed at the
headquarters of the political police, in the offices of one of its
chiefs who had just testified before the court that he had never
seen them. He further revealed that the political police itself
had organized the gangs of the Black Hundreds, that General
Trepov was actually in command of those gangs; and that the
commandant of the Imperial Court personally submitted to the
Tsar regular reports on these activities. The defence asked that
\Vitte, the former Prime Minister, Durnovo, the former Minister
of the Interior as well as Lopukhin be summoned to the witnessstand.
The request was refused on the pretext that the crossexamination
had been concluded. To allow the erstwhile chief
of the police department to give evidence for the defendants and
to implicate the Imperial Court would have brought the Tsar's
wrath upon the magistrates. But their refusal to call the witnesses
cffrctively exposed the political character of the trial and
much beside. The defendants and attorneys decided to boycott
further proceedings.
On 2 November the verdict was delivered before an empty
court-room. The members of the Soviet were declared not guilty
on the chief count, that of insurrection. But Trot~ky and fourteen
others were sentenced to deportation to Siberia for life and
loss of all civil rights.
The conYicts, dressed in grey pri>on clothes, started on their
journey at dawn on 5 January 1907. They had been kept in
the dark about the date of their departure and about their
destination; and they were awakened for the journey just after
they had gone to sleep, having spent most of the night at a