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to greet the prisoners' train, and even the soldiers showed extraordinary respect for the imprisoned "workingmen's deputies" as they called them. "We are surrounded by friends on every side," Trotzky wrote in his note book.

      In Tiumen the prisoners had to leave the railway train for sleighs drawn by horses. The journey became very tedious and slow. The monotony was broken only by little villages, where revolutionary exiles were detained. Here and there the exiles would gather to welcome the leaders of the revolution. Red flags gave touches of color to the blinding white of the Siberian snow. "Long live the Revolution!" was printed with huge letters on the surface of the northern snow, along the road. This was beautiful, but it gave little consolation. The country became ever more desolate. "Every day we move down one step into the kingdom of cold and wilderness," Trotzky remarked in his notes.

      It was a gloomy prospect, to spend years and years in this God forsaken country. Trotzky was not the man to submit. In defiance of difficulties, he managed to escape before he reached the town of his destination. As there was only one road along which travelers could move, and as there was danger that authorities, notified by wire of his escape, could stop him at any moment, he left the road and on a sleigh drawn by reindeer he crossed an unbroken wilderness of 800 versts, over 500 miles. This required great courage and physical endurance. The picturesque journey is described by Trotzky in a beautiful little book, My Round Trip.

      It was in this Ostiak sleigh, in the midst of a bleak desert, that he celebrated the 20th of February, the day of the opening of the Second Duma. It was a mockery at Russia: here, the representatives of the people, assembled in the quasi-Parliament of Russia; there, a representative of the Revolution that created the Duma, hiding like a criminal in a bleak wilderness. Did he dream in those long hours of his journey, that some day the wave of the Revolution would bring him to the very top?

      Early in spring he arrived abroad. He established his home in Vienna where he lived till the outbreak of the great war. His time and energy were devoted to the internal affairs of the Social-Democratic Party and to editing a popular revolutionary magazine which was being smuggled into Russia. He earned a meager living by contributing to Russian "legal" magazines and dailies.

      I met him first in 1907, in Stuttgart. He seemed to be deeply steeped in the revolutionary factional squabbles. Again I met him in Copenhagen in 1910. He was the target of bitter criticism for his press-comment on one of the Social-Democratic factions. He seemed to be dead to anything but the problem of reconciling the Bolsheviki with the Mensheviki and the other minor divisions. Yet that air of importance which distinguished him even from the famous old leaders had, in 1910, become more apparent. By this time he was already a well-known and respected figure in the ranks of International Socialism.

      In the fall of 1912 he went into the Balkans as a war correspondent. There he learned to know the Balkan situation from authentic sources. His revelations of the atrocities committed on both sides attracted wide attention. When he came back to Vienna in 1913 he was a stronger internationalist and a stronger anti-militarist than ever.

      His house in Vienna was a poor man's house, poorer than that of an ordinary American workingman earning eighteen dollars a week. Trotzky has been poor all his life. His three rooms in a Vienna working-class suburb contained less furniture than was necessary for comfort. His clothes were too cheap to make him appear "decent" in the eyes of a middle-class Viennese. When I visited his house I found Mrs. Trotzky engaged in housework, while the two light-haired lovely boys were lending not inconsiderable assistance. The only thing that cheered the house were loads of books in every corner, and, perhaps, great though hidden hopes.

      On August 3, 1914, the Trotzkys, as enemy aliens, had to leave Vienna for Zurich, Switzerland. Trotzky's attitude towards the war was a very definite one from the very beginning. He accused German Social-Democracy for having voted the war credits and thus endorsed the war. He accused the Socialist parties of all the belligerent countries for having concluded a truce with their governments which in his opinion was equivalent to supporting militarism. He bitterly deplored the collapse of Internationalism as a great calamity for the emancipation of the world. Yet, even in those times of distress, he did not remain inactive. He wrote a pamphlet to the German workingmen entitled The War and Internationalism (recently translated into English and published in this country under the title The Bolsheviki and World Peace) which was illegally transported into Germany and Austria by aid of Swiss Socialists. For this attempt to enlighten the workingmen, one of the German courts tried him in a state of contumacy and sentenced him to imprisonment. He also contributed to a Russian Socialist daily of Internationalist aspirations which was being published by Russian exiles in Paris. Later he moved to Paris to be in closer contact with that paper. Due to his radical views on the war, however, he was compelled to leave France. He went to Spain, but the Spanish government, though not at war, did not allow him to stay in that country. He was himself convinced that the hand of the Russian Foreign Ministry was in all his hardships.

      So it happened that in the winter 1916-1917, he came to the United States. When I met him here, he looked haggard; he had grown older, and there was fatigue in his expression. His conversation hinged around the collapse of International Socialism. He thought it shameful and humiliating that the Socialist majorities of the belligerent countries had turned "Social-Patriots." "If not for the minorities of the Socialist parties, the true Socialists, it would not be worth while living," he said once with deep sadness. Still, he strongly believed in the internationalizing spirit of the war itself, and expected humanity to become more democratic and more sound after cessation of hostilities. His belief in an impending Russian Revolution was unshaken. Similarly unshaken was his mistrust of the Russian non-Socialist parties. On January 20, 1917, less than two months before the overthrow of the Romanoffs, he wrote in a local Russian paper: "Whoever thinks critically over the experience of 1905, whoever draws a line from that year to the present day, must conceive how utterly lifeless and ridiculous are the hopes of our Social-Patriots for a revolutionary coöperation between the proletariat and the Liberal bourgeoisie in Russia."

      His demand for clarity in political affairs had become more pronounced during the war and through the distressing experiences of the war. "There are times," he wrote on February 7, 1917, "when diplomatic evasiveness, casting glances with one eye to the right, with the other to the left, is considered wisdom. Such times are now vanishing before our eyes, and their heroes are losing credit. War, as revolution, puts problems in their clearest form. For war or against war? For national defense or for revolutionary struggle? The fierce times we are living now demand in equal measure both fearlessness of thought and bravery of character."

      When the Russian Revolution broke out, it was no surprise for Trotzky. He had anticipated it. He had scented it over the thousands of miles that separated him from his country. He did not allow his joy to overmaster him. The March revolution in his opinion was only a beginning. It was only an introduction to a long drawn fight which would end in the establishment of Socialism.

      History seemed to him to have fulfilled what he had predicted in 1905 and 1906. The working class was the leading power in the Revolution. The Soviets became even more powerful than the Provisional Government. Trotzky preached that it was the task of the Soviets to become the government of Russia. It was his task to go to Russia and fight for a labor government, for Internationalism, for world peace, for a world revolution. "If the first Russian revolution of 1905," he wrote on March 20th, "brought about revolutions in Asia, – in Persia, Turkey, China, – the second Russian revolution will be the beginning of a momentous Social-revolutionary struggle in Europe. Only this struggle will bring real peace to the blood-drenched world."

      With these hopes he went to Russia, – to forge a Socialist Russia in the fire of the Revolution.

      Whatever may be our opinion of the merits of his policies, the man has remained true to himself. His line has been straight.

      THE PROLETARIAT AND THE REVOLUTION

      The essay The Proletariat and the Revolution was published at the close of 1904, nearly one year after the beginning of the war with Japan. This was a crucial year for the autocratic rulers of Russia. It started with patriotic demonstrations, it ended with a series of humiliating defeats on the battlefields and with an unprecedented revival of political activities on the part of the well-to-do classes. The Zemstvos (local elective

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