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

68 THE PROPHET ARMED
lending support to the Tsar's 'civilizing mission' in Turkey,
why 'do not they call for a crusade against the barbarians ... of
Tsardom ?' The semi-liberal opposition, 'that lawful opposition
to a lawless government' was already, and would remain for
many years, the favourite butt of his irony.' In the Zemstvos,
whose function it should be to judge the actions of the administration,
the 'defendant in fact as1mmes the role of the presiding
judge and arrogates the right to adjourn the court at any
moment'. Tsardom was offering the Zemstvos 'the krwut wrapped
in the parchment of Magna Charta', and the Zemstvos were
contented. What do they understand by freedom-'freedom
from political freedom?' 'One may confidently say that if
Russian freedom were to be born from the Zemstvos, it would
never come to life. Fortunately Russian freedom has more
reliable parents: the revolutionary proletariat and the inner,
self-destructive logic of Russian absolutism.' 'Many political
trends will succeed one another, many "parties" will emerge and
fade, each pretending to improve upon the Social Democratic
programme and tactics, but the future historian will say: these
trends and these parties were only insignificant, secondary
incidents in the great struggle of the awakened working class
•.. already advancing with c.lumsy but faithful steps on the
road of political and social emancipation.' 2
In a similar vein he wrote about the Tsar's attempts to force
the Russian language on the Finns and to destroy their autonomy;
the expulsion of Maxim Gorky from the Imperial
Academy; the futility of the newly formed Social Revolutionary
party, reverting to Narodnik terrorism; or the attempt by the
police to set up puppet clandestine organizations to compete
with the real underground. His attacks on the terrorism of the
Social Revolutionaries, especially one made after the execution
of a young student Balmashev, who had killed Sypiagin, the
Minister of the Interior, provoked indignant protests from
Liberals and Socialists. The Liberal intelligentsia had much
more sympathy with the terrorists than had the Marxists. But
1
Iskra, no. 28, 15 November and no. 29, r December 1902. It is noteworthy that
as early as March 1901 Trotsky wrote in the Eastern Review; 'Pure liberalism with
all its Manchester symbols of faith has faded in our country before it has blossomed:
it did not find any social ground for itself. It was possible to import Manchester
ideas ... but it was impossible to import the social environment which produced
those ideas.' Sochinenya, vol. xx, pp. 85-86.
2
Iskra, no. 29, 1 December 1902.