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

TROTSKY JN THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION 261
urged the sailors to keep their tempers and to refrain from
vengeance; but he also did his best to kindle their revolutionary
ardour.
Towards the end of May the Socialist ministers indicted the
sailors before the Soviet, and Trotsky came out to defend them.
He did not condone their excesses, but he pleaded that these
could have been avoided if the government had not appointed
as commissars discredited and hated men. 'Our socialist
ministers', he exclaimed, 'refuse to fight against the danger of the
Black Hundreds. Instead, they declare war on the sailors and
soldiers of Kronstadt. Yet should re:iction rise and should a
counter-revolutionary general try to throw a noose around the
neck of the revolution, your Black Hundred commissars will
soap the rope for all of us, while the Kronstadt sailors will come
and fight and die with us.' 1 This phrase was much quoted later
when the sailors of Kronstadt actually defended Kerensky's
government against General Kornilov's mutiny. Trotsky also
wrote for the sailors the fiery manifesto in which they appealed
against the Ministry of War to the country-this was Kerensky's
first setback since he had become Minister of War. Henceforward
the sailors faithfully followed Trotsky, guarded him,
almost idolized him, and obeyed him whether he called them
to action or exhorted them to curb their tempers. 2
In these days, too, he established his platform in the Cirque
Moderne, where almost every night he addressed enormous
crowds. The amphitheatre was so densely packed that Trotsky
was usually shuffled towards the platform over the heads of the
audience, and from his elevation he would catch the excited
eyes of the daughters of his first marriage, who attended the
meetings. He spoke on the topics of the day and the aims of the
revolution with his usual piercing logic; but he also absorbed
the spirit of the crowd, its harsh sense of justice, its desire to see
things in sharp and clear outline, its suspense, and its great
expectations. Later he recollected how at the mere sight of the
multitude words and arguments he had prepared well in advance
receded and dispersed in hi$ mind and other words and
arguments, unexpected by himself but meeting a need in his
listeners, rushed up as if from his subconscious. He then listened
1 Trotsky, Sochinmya, vol. iii, book 1, pp. 52 ff.
• F. F. Raskolnikov, Kronstadt i Piler v 1917 godu, p. 77.