Appendix: Leon Trotsky by Andre Malraux

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The motor stopped, and the muffled throbbing of the sea, close by, gave body to the night Slowly advancing on the path outlined by our lights, preceded by a discreet young comrade carrying an electric lantern, appeared a pair of white shoes, white trousers — a pajama suit reaching to the neck. The head remained hidden by the darkness. I have seen faces that express exceptional lives, almost all are distant countenances; I waited with greater curiosity to look upon this face marked by one of the world's greatest destinies.

From the moment that this phantom in eyeglasses stopped, I noticed that all the force of his features was in his mouth — smooth, tense lips, extremely determined — the lips of an Asiatic statue. He laughed until the strangeness wore off, with a dry laugh that seemed to bear no relation to his speaking voice (a laugh disclosing small teeth far apart, extraordinarily young teeth, in the fine face embellished by white hair). His voice, obliging and imperious at the same time, seemed to say: "Let us finish quickly with these cordial greetings and pass on to more serious things."

Serious things meant, in this period when direct action was forbidden as a condition of his remaining in France, his thoughts. At the great writing desk on which a revolver served as paper weight, the presence of Trotsky brought to mind one of the most significant of all problems: the relation between character and destiny.

We attribute to the blind a rigorous certainty of judgment I think that is because the blind judge a man only by his voice. Actually, nothing, neither the face, nor the smile, nor the gestures, express man, for the simple reason that man is inexpressible. But of all these tiny open doors of the personality, it is certainly the tone of the voice that reveals most of the quality of the individual. Trotsky did not speak his own language; but even in French, the personal quality of his voice dominates completely what he says. I felt the absence of that insistence through which so many betray that their great zeal in convincing others is only a desire to convince themselves, the absence of the will to seduce. Most great men have in common this heaviness of expression, this confusion, this mysterious center of the spirit that appears to spring from doctrine but that surpasses it in every sense and produces the habit of considering thought as something that must be conquered, and not as something that repeats itself. In the domain of the spirit, this man had forged his own world, and in it he lived. I remember how he spoke to me of Pasternak.

"Russian youth admires him, but to me he makes little appeal I do not care for the art of technicians, which is an art for specialists."

"For me," I answered, "art is, above all, the highest or the most intense expression of a legitimate human experience"

"I think that tills art will be reborn in all Europe In Russia, revolutionary literature has not yet produced any great work."

"The true expression of revolutionary art is not found in literature, but in the cinema, don't you agree?"

"Lenin thought that communism would find artistic expression in the cinema. Regarding Potemkin and Mother, many have spoken to me as you do. But I will tell you something: I have never seen those films. When they were first shown, I was at the front Later, others were shown, and when the earlier ones were revived, I was already in exile"

This art, the first fruit of the revolutionary cinema, this art that in so many ways corresponds to his life and forms a part of his legend Trotsky has never seen.

"Why," I asked, "will literature not disappear, making room for another art form, just as the dance of primitive tribes has been replaced by the arts of our own epoch? We separate the cinema from painting, but I think that is of little significance. Writing has killed the dance; in the cinema there is a form of writing, not created with words, which could very easily kill writing itself — the word killing the dance, the image killing the word."

Trotsky smiled.

"It is difficult for me to discuss the effects of literature on the dance. Remember that technically, I know very little about this thing. But it seems to me that the dance has been preserved; it has evolved. I think it could even be reborn with all that it possessed in other epochs, but further enriched. Humanity never abandons what it has once conquered.”

"Nevertheless, it has abandoned at least eight hundred years of ancient values. I believe that it would have been impossible for a man of the year 700 to understand Pericles, just as it would have been impossible for Pericles to understand a man of the year 700. Nor was the spiritual life of ancient Egypt accessible to Pericles."

"Egypt — "

Trotsky shoved it aside. It was evident that he knew little of Egypt

"But regarding Christianity," continued Trotsky, "I am suspicious. I think we have too much idealized the early years of Christianity. I do not doubt that in addition to mystics who were ascetics and agile mercenary people, there existed an immense majority in the church who understood little of anything."

Was it possible that Trotsky saw primitive Christianity through the eyes of the Russia of his youth? He continued:

"You know that when the Pope fell ill he went to the physicians and not to those who prayed. Yes, the ancient values disappeared; but they have returned."

"You tell me that humanity does not abandon what it once has conquered. Then would it not be possible to admit the persistence of individualism in communism — a communist individualism as distinct, for example, from bourgeois individualism, as the latter is from the individualism of Christianity?"

"Let us see — here, as in everything, we must start with the economic basis.

"The Christians lived in terms of eternity and conceded little importance to individualism because they were poor. The Communists of the five-year plan are, in a way, in the same situation — for different reasons. The periods of plans in Russia are necessarily unfavorable to any individualism, even communist

"The periods of war are likewise unfavorable to bourgeois individualism.

"But beyond the plans, or between the plans, communism will apply to itself the energy that today it applies to construction. I believe that the spirit of primitive Christianity is inseparable from extreme poverty."

Trotsky was tired. His French became more rapid and less pure. He used unexpected words more frequently, giving them a singular inflection.

"A purely collective ideology, an exclusively collective ideology, which communism and file modern world will necessitate in a very short time, is irreconcilable with the slightest material liberty."

Accompanied by his son, I abandoned the lonely villa and returned to the city.

The next day we spoke of the campaign in Poland.

"Some specialists in France say that Tukhachevsky was defeated because Weygand changed the axis of the action in die middle of die combat, a tactic that the Russian general did not understand. I always distrust specialists in such matters.”

”Tukhachevsky knew very well that it is permissible to change die axis of die battle. That was not the question. There were two causes for the defeat — in the first place, the arrival of the French."

"This was said in France, but not believed, for no detailed information was given.”

"It is true. The French staff arrived in all this disorder — disorder is putting it mildly. They were not in their own country; they hadn't suffered one crushing defeat since the beginning of the campaign. They were serene. They were able to examine everything with coolness. In the second place, the army of Lemberg did not throw itself upon Warsaw, which is what it should have done. That was essential."

I knew that Stalin had figured in the army of Lemberg.

"But the whole thing was an adventure I was decidedly opposed. We finally went through with it because Lenin insisted. At that time, the situation and disposition of the Polish proletariat were difficult to grasp. Add to that the fact that a revolutionary army is always exceedingly nervous: when it finds itself separated from its base of supplies it can become demoralized by the slightest defeat, especially after a series of victories."

"Is it to this that you attribute the defeat of the Red Army, after its successes in the war of occupation?"

"Yes. In the war of occupation we were stronger because our forces radiated from the center — Moscow."

"Could the Red Army now maintain itself industrially and chemically against a European or Japanese army?"

"It could quickly place itself on the level of any of them. But the Japanese army is not by a long shot what Europe thinks it is. No doubt you believe that it is analogous to the German army of 1913; but the Japanese army is actually the army of a secondary European nation. It is an army that has not yet been tested, an army that has never fought against a real occidental army."

"I understand quite well that for Russia the Russo-Japanese war was a colonial war, while for Japan it was a national war. But the Trans-Siberian is nothing but a one-track railway even today. No doubt Russia will not fight in Manchuria, but will try to place Japan in a situation similar to her own."

"I think we shall fight in Baikal."

For the first time he said "We." His glance became more intense, as if his attention had suddenly concentrated.

He had just eliminated that minimum of distraction that is part of even the most attentive conversation. I did not altogether trust this Kremlin, the Red Army that burst into the open room, over the shadowy pines and burning trees, pushed forward only by that powerful influence that a historic life can exercise, even when it is inactive. I thought of Dupleixdying in his tiny alcove, ruined and humiliated, reduced to beggary, but dying on the pillows stuffed with his letters of the Indies.

"With a government as authoritarian as the Russian," he continued, "it would be dangerous for an army to withdraw so far."

"Bessedovsky, in his memoirs, which obviously inspire me with only a relative confidence, asserts that Stalin would draw back as far as Irkutsk only to have a free hand in the Chinese revolution."

"I do not believe that. Questioned by a man like Bessedovsky, Stalin exasperated, may have made this answer, but it's just talk. But Japan will not only fight the Red Army in Siberia. Her principal enemy is not the USSR. Whether Roosevelt succeeds or fails, the United States will have to find new markets.

"The United States already has Latin America. That's done, and it is not sufficient Each day, they oppose the open door in China more energetically. They will find themselves obliged to take China. They will say, 'All the other nations have colonies, the greatest economic nation of the world must have them too.' Who will stop them? Europe will be too busy. Once China is an American colony, war with Japan is inevitable."

While others lingered over the table after eating, we went out into the garden. The sun was setting — a sun as beautiful as file lingering day. The white houses scattered over the fields or among the fringes of the now darkening forest appeared bluish, with a vague aspect of dull phosphorescence Our conversation grew less intense, less rigorous. He spoke of Lenin, about whose work he is now writing, a book as important as My Life (which Trotsky does not like), in which he will treat all the themes of philosophy and tactics that he has not yet explained. A cat rushed past — one of Trotsky's large wolfhounds was accompanying us.

"Is it true that Lenin was very fond of kittens? You know that Richelieu always had a basket full of kittens on his table."

"Not only cats; Lenin loved all small things — especially children. Perhaps because he had no children. He simply adored them. In art, his taste was for the past But he often said of artists, ’One must let them work."'

"Did he expect a new human type to develop under communism, or did he foresee a certain continuity in this domain?"

Trotsky thought for a while. We were walking at the edge of the sea; it caressed the rocks gently. There was absolute calm.

"A new man," he replied, "for him the perspectives of communism were infinite."

He grew pensive again. I thought of all he had said to me that morning; perhaps he thought of it too.

"But," I said, "it seems to me that for you …"

"No, at heart, I think as he did."

It was not his orthodoxy that made him say this. I felt that in spite of the preparation of the revolution, civil war and the taking of power, he had never confronted this problem as he did now. No doubt he wished to say that he foresaw first a continuity among human types, later, an ever more profound separation. And I felt through him that Lenin, faced with a world in which Marxism lacked proven data, wished to experiment In a word, the desire for knowledge led him immediately to action. Here, more than in our political conversation, I felt most keenly the man of action.

The night advanced; again I listened as the sea caressed the rocks.

"The important thing," he said, "is to see clearly. One can say of communism, above all, that it gives more clarity. We must liberate man from all that prevents his seeing. We must liberate him from those economic facts that impede his thinking and from those sexual matters that prevent his thinking. Here, I think, the doctrine of Freud can be very useful.

"I see in Freud a genial detective, a man who has opened one of the greatest domains in psychology. At the same time, he is a disastrous philosopher."

"But do you think that man, once liberated from religious, national or social mobilization, will accept facts instead of faith? Will not death encounter resistance?"

"I think that death is, above all, a product of use. On the one hand, use of the body; on the other, use of the spirit If this using of body and spirit could be carried on harmoniously, death would be a very simple phenomenon. Death would meet with no resistance."

He was sixty years old and gravely ill. — "Death would meet with no resistance."

I am writing this on my return from a popular gathering at which we saw a film of the latest celebrations in Moscow. On the wide expanse of the Red Square, with arms-brandishing cars, virile young women passed before the tribune from which all the leaders of the USSR watched the procession, dwarfed by two gigantic portraits of Lenin and Stalin. The multitude applauded as multitudes always do, less a sign of enthusiasm than of approbation. How many among them thought of Trotsky? Many, certainly. Before the showing of the film, speeches had been made, for Thälmann in particular. The man who dared to speak of Trotsky would, after the first moment of uneasiness, have been quickly attacked, by bourgeois hostility and by orthodox prudence at the same time. This multitude, silent about Trotsky, is troubled by him as by a bad conscience. I know the multitude I have seen it at all the meetings. I still hear its muted Internationale, ascending as a ground tone from the vast hall of Lune Park. I still see the hoofs of the horses, approaching as I leave; the breast, the hostile head of the constabulary, almost lost in the night, the parallel reflection of the electric lights over the helmets. They are the same who come tirelessly to listen to speakers who talk in the name of Sacco and Vanzetti, of Torgler or Thälmann; the same who hide their generosity as if they were ashamed of it, as if generosity were incompatible with intelligence; the same who in numbers of three hundred listen to explanations of Marx, and who swell to thirty thousand when they take their homage to Dimitrov — the only homage they possess — the sacrifice of one evening at the cinema. Against the government that exiles you, Trotsky, all are with you. You belong to those proscribed persons of whom they cannot make an emigre. In spite of all that is said, printed, shouted, the Russian Revolution is for them a bloc, and all the heroism that shook the Winter Palace now feels itself humiliated by your solitude.

Once again destiny clutches you between its bloody fingers. A few days after the hopeless attack of the Austrian workers, one French government withdraws the hospitality that another French government had extended to you. You do not mean enough to them to make them remember their obligations. You are still worth enough to extract such obligations. But they could have expelled you without resorting to morality or virtue. It is you who have not lived up to your obligations. You have formed the Fourth International. Today, throughout the world you can count members by the hundreds. It is an International far more dangerous than the Third, which has two million members, or than the Second. (Though the French bourgeoisie would do well at this moment to forget the Internationals and build against the Nationalisms.) You write in La Vérité of your unceasing efforts. You have betrayed France, to whom you are under no obligation — which, of course, is not the case of the Grand Duke on the Riviera. And you have been discovered (as if your house were not always watched by the police) thanks to the surprising "nose" of a police reader of "Simenon." They could have spared themselves this grotesque abuse — to free the hostages there is no need to spit into their faces, even though it may be the custom. An "anonymous" note in Le Matin explains in clear language, although with that special sordidness characteristic of the military tone: "We have had Trotsky." Since what they wanted “to have? in you was the Russian revolutionist, let us remind them that there are still 160 million to be "had.“ But we must say to these 160 million that whatever doctrinal differences may exist between the government of the Soviet Union and you, we must recognize every revolutionist in danger as one of ours, that what they are attempting to trample in you, in the name of nationalism, is die revolution. But there is in the bastions and in the miserable huts plenty of material with which to build an army of revolutionists. I know, Trotsky, that your thought awaits its own triumph from implacable destiny. Can your clandestine shadow, which for ten year has marched in exile, make the French worker understand that to unite in a concentration camp is to unite a little too late? There are many communist circles in which to be suspected of sympathy for you is as serious as being suspected of sympathy for fascism. But your departure, the insults of the press, show with sufficient clarity that the revolution is one.