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

'PERMANENT REVOLUTION'
After more than three weeks, the convicts reached Tobolsk,
where they were put up for a few days in the local prison. Here
they were told _that the goal of their journey was the penal
colony at Obdorsk, lying in the mountains over the estuary of
the river Ob, just on the Polar Circle, nearly 1,000 miles from
any railway and 500 from a telegraph station. The route from
Tobolsk to Obdorsk led northwards, along the river Ob,
through Samarovo and Berezov, across barren, empty, snowand
ice-bound tundra and taiga, where for hundreds of miles there
was no human settlement, except a few scattered Ostyak huts
or tents. Horses could still be used on part of the road, but
farther on the horse was replaced by the reindeer. Here the
finality of his severance from civilization came upon the deportee
with a shock. From the Tobolsk prison, on 29 January,
Trotsky wrote to his wife about the sudden and sharp longing
that had overcome him 'for the light of an electric street lamp,
for the clangour of a tramway' and-characteristically-'for the
loveliest thing the world can offer, the smell of the printing ink
of a fresh newspaper'.
So far he had not yet thought of trying to escape, even though
before departing from Petersburg he had prudently concealed a
false passport and money in the sole of his boot. For one thing,
political convicts now refrained from escaping en route so as not
to get the escort into trouble. For another, he reflected whether,
having been so much in the public eye, it was not too risky
for him to make the attempt: the escaping deportee, if caught,
was automatically punished with three years' hard labour.
Enough that when he was writing to Sedova about the place
of his deportation, he still expected her to join him there with
their baby son, born while he was in prison awaiting trial. He
attempted to cheer up Sedova and wrote that Obdorsk had a
healthy climate, was inhabited by a thousand people, and that
he would have chances of earning a living there. He also urged
her to bring or send to Obdorsk books and papers, no end of
books and paprrs. In this mood, bracing himself for a long wait
bryond tlw Polar Circle, not without melancholy, he started
out from Tobolsk towards Samarovo and Berezov, the next
halting-places.
Galloping at full speed, the convoy traversed a vast area,
where typhus was raging and Ostyaks in their huts were dying