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

THE PROPHET ARMED
for a parliament in the form of the Democratic Conference and
the so-called pre-Parliament which issued from it.
The Conference offered a spectacle of disarray in the ruling
groups. The moderate Socialists came forward with bitter
recriminations against the Cadets. Kerensky's own supporters
openly aired their distrust of him, saying that his role in the
Kornilov affair had been ambiguous and that he had tried
to place himself above the parties that had sent him to the
government and to establish his personal rule. Kerensky
attempted to refute the charges and to persuade the conference
of the need to revive the governmental coalition. But his performance
was so grotesquely melodramatic that he filled his
friends with despair and achieved none of his objectives. It was
on this occasion that Trotsky for the first time appeared as the
chief Bolshevik spokesman. The impression of his speech is thus
described by the Menshcvik chronicler of the revolution : 1
This was undoubtedly one of this amazing orator's most brilliant
speeches, and I cannot suppress the desire to adorn the pages of my
book with an almost full reproduction of this magnificent oration.
If in the future my book finds a reader as Lamartine's not very
imaginative book still finds readers today, let that reader judge from
this page the oratorical art and the political thought of our days.
He will draw the conclusion that mankind has not lived in vain this
last century and a half, and that the heroes of our revolution relegate
far to the background the famous leaders of 1 789.
The audience at the Alexandrinsky theatre was electrified at the
very sound of Trotsky's name .... Trotsky had prepared himself
well. Standing on the stage a few steps behind him, I saw on the
pulpit in front of him a closely written sheet, with underlined phrases,
footnotes, and arrows drawn with a blue pencil. ... He spoke quite
plainly, without any rhetorical art (though he can rise to its heights
whenever he needs to), without the slightest posturing or trickery.
This time he talked with the audience, sometimes advancing towards
it a step or two and then leaning his elbow on the pulpit. The
metallic clarity of speech and the polish of the phrase, which are so
characteristic of Trotsky, were not there in this performance.
We need not summarize this speech, which reproduced the
main lines of Bolshevik policy; only a few points illustrating
his polemical manner will suffice. 'Comrades and Citizens,' he
began very quietly, 'the socialist ministers have just spoken to
1
Sukhanov, op. cit., vol. v, pp. 125---0. See also Chernov, op. cit., pp. 3o6-7.