Switzerland and undergo a cure at a special sanitarium. While in Western Europe, he made contact with George Plekhanov, the leader of the exiled Russian Marxists.
Lenin spent long hours with Plekhanov and felt highly flattered that the big man among the exiled Russian radicals would share with a newcomer his plans for a violent revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar. Plekhanov was equally impressed with Lenin. He felt the heat of Lenin’s glowing hatred for everything tainted by the Tsar’s regime, and therefore decided that Lenin should return to Russia, rally the Marxists, and organize a national Communist political party patterned after the highly successful Social Democrats in Germany. Lenin was also asked to begin publishing a revolutionary periodical.
This assignment was accepted by Lenin as a heroic mission for which fate had predestined him. Upon returning to Russia, he organized strikes, trained recruits, formulated political strategy and wrote inflammatory articles. But in the midst of this promising campaign, a police agent betrayed the group and Lenin found himself sentenced to exile in faraway Siberia. Lenin accepted this interruption of his revolutionary career with bitter resignation.
Soon after his arrival in Siberia Lenin was joined by a Marxist girl, whom he had met in 1894, named Nadezhda Krupskaya. She was allowed to come, at Lenin’s request, on condition that she and Lenin legalize their union with a marriage ceremony. This violated their Marxist principle of “abolition of the family,” but they consented in order to remain together. Lenin now had a companion as dedicated to the revolution as himself. They had no children, and close associates stated that they intentionally planned against children because they both felt their missions in life would not permit them to be thus encumbered.
Lenin spent his time in Siberia studying, writing reams of letters in secret ink, solidifying the program of the new Social-Democratic Party of Russia and completing his book called,
When he was released in 1900, Lenin had become a cautious, calculating, full-fledged, conspiratorial revolutionist. He immediately headed for Munich, Germany, where he started printing a paper called
Origin of the Bolsheviks
By 1903 Lenin and his wife had set up headquarters in London. They had the feeling they were carrying on where Marx had left off. Marx had been dead seventeen years and often they made pilgrimages to the cemetery where the grave of Marx is located.
In July of that year a Russian-Social-Democratic congress convened in London. Forty-three delegates came from Russia as well as from various groups of Russian exiles in Western Europe. As chairman of the congress, Lenin started off with a moderate and impartial attitude, but as the discussions continued he was horrified to discover that the congress was moving toward pacifistic socialism rather than militant revolution. Lenin immediately gathered his friends and followers around him. He split the congress wide open on the issue of whether party membership should be limited to hard-core revolutionists (as advocated by Lenin) or broadened to include anyone who felt sympathy for the movement.
In this dispute Lenin temporarily rallied around him a majority of the congress and thereafter used this as a basis for calling those who supported him “Bolsheviks” (which comes from a Russian word meaning “majority”), while those who opposed him were called “Mensheviks” (which is taken from the Russian word meaning “minority”). The propaganda value of a party title meaning “majority” will be quickly recognized. It was another illustration of Lenin’s absolute determination to exploit every situation so as to make it a tool to further his over-all political strategy.
At this particular congress, however, Lenin’s victory was short-lived. Several groups combined their strength against him and before long he found himself representing the minority view on most matters. Nevertheless, Lenin continued calling his followers “the Bolsheviks” and any who opposed him “the Mensheviks.”
Background of Leon Trotsky
One of those who now opposed Lenin was a young, twenty-three-year-old zealot named Leon Trotsky. At a future day Lenin and Trotsky would join forces, but at this congress of 1903 they stood in opposite camps. Let us pause in our narration to consider briefly the early life of Trotsky.
In many respects the background of Lenin and Trotsky was similar. Both had come from substantial families, both had been well-educated, both had become disillusioned and had engaged in revolutionary activity and both had served sentences in Siberia.
Leon Trotsky had been born to the name of Lev Bronstein. His father was a Kulak or rich peasant. Originally, Trotsky’s father had been a fugitive from the Tsar’s anti-Jewish campaign and had fled from city life to settle in a farming district near the Black Sea, where there was more religious tolerance. However, as the members of the family prospered, they gradually dropped the local synagogue as well as the observance of the Jewish Sabbath. Finally, the father came out openly in favor of atheism.
When Trotsky went away to school, he carried along with him these sympathies for materialism which he had gained from his father. These attitudes soon began to bear fruit. Toward the completion of his school, Trotsky was not only exhibiting the cynicism of a confirmed materialist, but he was also showing strong signs of becoming a political radical. Although this tendency was most displeasing to Trotsky’s father, nothing would dissuade him. Boisterous scenes erupted between the two whenever Trotsky went home for vacations and after a few years Trotsky was completely alienated from his family.
Under these circumstances it was not at all difficult for Trotsky to find a place in his mind for Marxism when it was finally presented to him. His conversion was further facilitated by the fact that he was taught Marxism by an attractive young woman six years his senior whom he later married. Her name was Alexandra Lvovna.
Trotsky was only nineteen when he and Alexandra decided to help organize the South Russian Workers’ Union. Among other things, Trotsky was assigned the task of printing an illegal paper. As might have been expected, this soon led to his arrest. Trotsky spent the next three months in solitary confinement and after a series of assignments to various prisons; he ended up in Siberia where he was joined eventually by Alexandra. They were both sentenced to serve four years in a cold, barren region where there were few settlements. Two children were born to them during this exile.
Trotsky escaped in 1902 by burying himself in a peasant’s load of hay. He reached the Siberian railroad and then used a fake identification paper to pass himself off as “Trotsky”—the name of his late jailer! He used this name from then on. With the help of several Marxist comrades, he made his way to London and arrived there in time to participate in the Social-Democratic Congress which we have already mentioned. Sometime later he was joined by his wife and children.
Upon their first meeting Lenin and Trotsky struck it off well. Lenin described Trotsky as a revolutionist of “rare abilities.” Trotsky reciprocated by suggesting that Lenin be made the chairman of the congress. During the congress, however, Trotsky saw enough of Lenin to make him apprehensive about the cold, blue-steel razor edge of Lenin’s mind. He was shocked by the reckless indifference Lenin exhibited as he lopped off some of the oldest and most respected members of the party when they opposed his views. (Trotsky’s gentle concern for the feelings of fellow comrades in 1903 stands in sharp contrast to his position in 1917-1922 when he personally supervised the ruthless liquidation of many hundreds of comrades whom he suspected of deviating from established party policy.)
As it turned out, Trotsky’s temporary opposition to Lenin in 1903 did not hurt his revolutionary career. In the years immediately following, Trotsky developed into a brilliant writer and public speaker and he became a well-
