4. Books and Early Conflicts¶
Core Argument¶
In his youth, Trotsky was more absorbed by books and ideas than by nature or people. His reading began in 1887, initially a struggle with unfamiliar words and concepts, likened to a confusing night drive. In Odessa, guided by the Schpentzers, he read voraciously, often begging to stay up late, while evenings were spent listening to Moissey Filippovich read Pushkin or Nekrasov. A visiting relative, Sophia, collaborated with him on a satirical poem, and the journalist Sychevsky set him a daunting essay comparing Pushkin and Nekrasov; Trotsky’s effort earned praise, and the words stuck with him. Moissey Filippovich told him the story of Faust, hesitating at Gretchen’s pregnancy. Reading Oliver Twist, Trotsky was perplexed by the missing wedding ring, linking it to Gretchen. He secretly read Tolstoy’s banned Power of Darkness, but found it less shocking than expected, and discovered a disturbing court report on a sexual crime. His first theatre visit was overwhelming; he acted in Pushkin’s The Niggardly Knight with a sickly schoolmate, Kruglyakov, who later died, and fell in love with the opera singer Giuseppina Uget. In second grade, he started a magazine, The Drop, but the teacher Krizhanovsky, after praising his poem, advised against it. Trotsky was later expelled from the St. Paul realschule, describing many childhood conflicts arising from a struggle against injustice. A major one was a ‘concert’ (howling) against the French teacher Burnande, who persecuted German pupils.
After the whistling incident, Burnande, Schwannebach, and the class monitor Mayer interrogated the boys. Mayer selected ten to fifteen for detention without dinner; the narrator was allowed to go home. The next morning, a punished boy warned him that Danilov had accused him of being the ringleader. The head master summoned him; Burnande called him a "moral outcast." A cross-examination of the entire class took place, with ten to twelve informers emerging. Vakker claimed the narrator suggested writing a letter to the inspector general to have Burnande dismissed; Danilov corroborated this. The narrator was told to bring his guardians, who attempted to intercede. The teachers' council voted for the most lenient form of expulsion: without the right of re-entering the St. Paul realschule. The narrator spent a restless summer. He was admitted to the third grade. In the fourth grade, chronic catarrh of the digestive tract forced him to be sent to the country with a tutor, with whom he had a violent quarrel. In the fifth grade, the narrator and another boy, Yablonovsky, protested against teacher Gamov's failure to return their marked papers. Gamov ordered Yablonovsky out; the narrator declared, "Yablonovsky is right and we all support him." Kaminsky punished the narrator with twenty-four hours in solitary confinement. Gamov never returned the papers.
The death of the Tsar prompted no genuine grief among the pupils, only a confused, causeless panic and secret pleasure at the cancellation of classes. A requiem was staged, with the priest likening the Tsar to a father, but the ceremony was dull and the students unmoved. In the fifth grade, boys discussed university entrance, fearing the competitive St. Petersburg examinations and the specialists who coached repeat candidates. The sixth grade passed uneventfully. Matriculation exams were staged with pomp; the headmaster solemnly opened the package from the inspector general, provoking a collective sigh of fear, though fears proved exaggerated. Teachers tacitly helped students cheat within the allotted two hours. The seventh grade was supplementary, requiring transfer to another school. Upon receiving diplomas, the group celebrated in the Summer Garden, forbidden to schoolboys, wearing civilian clothes, smoking, and drinking beer. When the monitor Wilhelm appeared, they instinctively rose, but he merely shook hands; one boy overreached by inviting him for a beer. The author concludes that the seven years were marked by a regime of soulless, official formalism, with no teacher remembered with affection. The school imparted elementary knowledge, methodical work habits, and outward discipline, but also sowed enmity toward the existing order