43. The Exile¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 43: The Exile
On 16 January 1928, the Trotsky family was prepared for deportation to Central Asia. A false start, postponed to avoid a demonstration at the station, was followed the next day by arrest by GPU agents for immediate conveyance to Alma-Ata. Trotsky refused to leave voluntarily, forcing the GPU to break down a locked door and carry him out bodily, exposing the Stalinist fiction that the exile was voluntary. His sons alerted neighbours. At the Yaroslavl station, a scuffle broke out with agents. The family was taken by a single carriage via a circuitous route, without luggage, books, or writing materials for nine days. The escort became more considerate as they left Moscow. At Arys, two assistants, Syermuks and Poznansky, were discovered waiting; Trotsky instructed them to proceed separately. After ten days, baggage arrived. They completed the journey by auto-bus across the Kurday mountain range in bitter cold, arriving at the Hotel Dzhetysa in Alma-Ata. Two cases of books and writing materials were lost en route.
In Alma-Ata, Trotsky’s secretariat was destroyed: Syermuks was arrested and exiled, Poznansky arrested in Tashkent, Butov driven to a hunger strike and death, and Glazman driven to suicide in 1924. Trotsky was not disarmed. He, his wife, and son Lyova formed a cooperative. Lyova handled all correspondence, acted as bodyguard, secured materials for Trotsky’s literary work, and studied economic geography and languages. A girl typist was found, but the GPU compelled her to report everything she typed. Trotsky’s scientific and political work resumed fully within weeks. The family spent a year in Alma-Ata, outwardly isolated but with secret friends. They rented a peasant house in an apple orchard. Trotsky dictated a criticism of the Communist International programme. Correspondence grew to ten to fifteen letters daily. Trotsky studied Asia’s geography, economics, and history. He wrote about the Anglo-American antagonism, the role of the communist party of India, and the Stalinist slanders. He described a hunting trip to the river Ili. Rakovsky was preparing a work on Saint Simonism and his memoirs. Trotsky wrote to Preobrazhensky, Okudzhava, and Rakovsky about the political situation, the overture to future class battles, and the need to avoid personal irritation. His daughter Nina died of consumption in Moscow; her letter took seventy-three days to reach him.
Stalin’s bloc with Bukharin and Rykov was expected to maintain a façade of unity at the upcoming congress to finally crush the opposition, but this effort would likely accelerate splits within the bloc. After the missed revolutionary opportunity in Germany in 1923, the ultra-Left zigzag of 1924–5 emerged from the same Right yeast as Zinoviev’s policy. A similar pattern could repeat, but economic forces might break an ultra-Left phase and push policy decisively to the Right. Trotsky cited evidence from The Nation (1 February 1928) showing that international reactionary press and statesmen—including the New York Times and Sir Austen Chamberlain—regarded Trotsky, not Stalin, as their chief Communist enemy. Between April and October 1928, Trotsky’s exile in Alma-Ata sent about 800 political letters and 550 telegrams, receiving roughly 1,000 letters and 700 telegrams, plus eight or nine secret mails from Moscow. Trotsky’s health deteriorated. His wife, Sedova-Trotskaya, sent a telegram to Uglanov refuting official claims that his illness was fictitious. She detailed diagnoses of colitis and gout, an unsuccessful 1926 Berlin operation, and new malaria, arguing that proper treatment was unavailable in Alma-Ata. She accused the leadership of denying his illness to avoid admitting they were condemning him to sickness.