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

THE PROPHET ARMED
Odessa to study mathematics, it seemed that things might yet
be patched up: even pure mathematics was in his father's eyes
preferable to playing in obscure company at the overthrow of the
Tsar. At the university Lyova began to show an exceptional
gift for his subject. 1 But the university could not compete in
attraction with Shvigovsky's orchard; nor could calculus get
the better of revolution. His stay in Odessa was brief, but long
enough for him to make contact with revolutionaries there and
to get from them clandestine papers and pamphlets, with which
he returned in triumph to Nikolayev.
Then came the turbulent spring of 1897. In March a studentgirl
imprisoned for her political convictions in the Peter-Paul
fortress in St. Petersburg committed suicide by burning herself
in her cell. The event provoked a storm of protests and
demonstrations in the universities. In reprisal the authorities
deported large numbers of undergraduates. New protests and
demonstrations followed. Even 'police-ridden' Odessa was astir.
Students coming from Kiev brought fresh excitement and indignation
to Shvigovsky's orchard. This, Bronstein and his
friends felt, was the time to pass from words to deeds.
'Bronstein ... suddenly called me aside and proposed in
great secrecy that I join a working-men's association, organized
by himself', writes Ziv, then a student of medicine just
arrived from Kiev. 'The Narodnik idea, Bronstein said, had been
discarded; the organization was planned to be social democratic,
although Bronstein avoided using this term ... and proposed
to call it the Southern Russian Workers' Union.' 'When I
joined the organization', Ziv goes on, 'everything had already
been arranged. Bronstein had already established his contacts
with the workers and also with revolutionary circles in Odessa,
Ekaterinoslav, and other towns ... .' 2
About 10,000 workers were employed in the docks and factories
ofNikolaycv, mostly skilled and well-paid craftsmen with
enough leisure to read books and newspapers. So far, however,
they had had no organization, not even a trade union. The
1
Eastman quotes a prmninent Russian technician, one of Trotsky's university
colleagues, who, even after the revolution, regretted the loss to science of so exceptionally
gifted a mathematician. Ibid., p. 59.
2
A.G. Ziv, op. cit., p. 18. About this timcsocial democratic groups were reviving
or being formed in most towns in the south. See M. N. Lyadov, Kak Nachynala Sk/a·
dyvatsia R.K.P. (lstorya Ross. Sots.-Dem. Rab. Partii), pp. 310 ff.