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

THE PROPHET ARMED
For a time Bronstein proudly described himself as a Benthamist
and had no inkling how ill his infatuation fitted any revolutionary,
whether Narodnik or Marxist. Of Marx himself and of the
lesser lights of the Marxist school he had not even a smattering
of knowledge. A more cautious or reflective young man would
have sat back, listened to the arguments, perhaps gone to the
sources and weighed the pros and cons before he committed
himself. (It was in this manner that Lenin first approached the
teachings of Marx.) But Bronstein was precocious and had a
volatile and absorptive mind. He had, 'like richly intellectual
people who can think rapidly, a wonderful gift of bluff. He
could catch so quickly the drift of an opponent's thought, with
all its ... implications, that it was very difficult to overwhelm
him with mere knowledge.'' From school he had brought the
self-confidence of the brilliant pupil and the habit ofoutshining
his fellows. The last thing he would do when buttonholed by his
new associates and urged to take sides was to plead ignorance.
He did take sides; and, incapable of lukewarm reserve, he
dashed headlong into the fray.
He made his choice instinctively. The Narodnik outlook appealed
to him precisely through that which distinguished it from
the Marxist. The Marxists insisted that all social phenomena
are directly or indirectly determined by society's economic
condition. The Narodniks did not altogether reject this viewthey
had twenty years earlier been the pioneers of historical
materialism in Russia. But they did not dwell on it with the
same implacable emphasis; and many of them accepted the socalled
subjectivist philosophy, which stressed the supremacy of
the 'critical mind' and of the will of the individual. This philosophy
accorded well with the traditions and the legends of a
party which had refused to defer its assault on Tsardom until
the economic conditions had 'ripened' or until the mass of the
people had been aroused, and which had sent out its lonely
fighters and martyrs, its strong-minded and strong-willed conspirators,
to hunt down, bomb in hand, the Tsar, his ministers,
and his governors. To the young Bronstein Marxism seemed
narrow and dry as dust-an offence to the dignity of man, whom
it portrayed as the prisoner of economic and social circumstances,
1
Max Eastman, Leon Trotsky, The Portrait of a fouJh, p. 68; A. G. Ziv, op. cit.,
pp. 9-12; L. Trotsky, op. cit., vol. i, chapters vi-vii.