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

THE PROPHET ARMED
to his own voice as to that of a stranger, trying to keep pace with
the tumultuous rush of his own ideas and phrases and afraid lest
like a sleepwalker he might suddenly wake and break down.
Here his politics ceased to be the distillation of individual
reflection or of debates in small circles of professional politicians.
He merged emotionally with the warm dark human mass in
front of him, and became its medium. He became so identified
with the Cirque Moderne that when he went back to the Tauride
Palace or the Smolny Institute, where the Soviet sat, and assailed
his opponents or argued with them, they shouted at him: 'This
is not your Cirque Moderne', or 'At the Cirque Moderne you
speak differently.''
At the beginning of June the first All-Russian Congress of the
Soviets assembled in Petrograd; and it was in session for three
weeks. For the first time the parties and their leaders confronted
one another in a national forum, the only national elected body
then existing in Russia. The moderate Socialists commanded
about five-sixths of the votes. They were led by civilian intellectuals,
but in their ranks military uniforms and peasant
rubakhas were most conspicuous. On the extreme left, among the
120 members of the opposition, workers from the great industrial
centres were predominant. The Congress reflected a
division between the military and rural clements of the provinces
and the proletarian elements of the cities. A few days
before, a municipal election in Petrograd had revealed a significant
shift. The Cadets, dominant in the government, had
suffered a crushing defeat in their 'safest' boroughs. The Mensheviks
had polled half the votes. The working-class suburbs
had solidly voted for the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks came to
the Congress as the hopeful victors of the day. The Bolsheviks
brought with them a new confidence in their future victory. 2
The spokesmen of the Left opposition used against the
m;~ority the latter's own success. Prince Lvov and the Cadets,
they said, had a negligible following. The moderate Socialists
represented the nation's overwhelming majority. Why then did
they content themselves with the roles of ministerial hewers
of wood and drawers of water for the Cadets? Why did they
1
Trotsky, Moya .