With Trotsky in Exile: From Prinkipo to Coyoacan

179 Pages·1978·5.977 MB·English

by  Jean van Heijenoort

With Trotsky in Exile
From Prinkipo to Coyoacan
Jean van Heijenoort
With Trotsky in Exile
FROM PRINKIPO TO COYOACAN
JEAN VAN HEIJENOORT
In 1932 a young Frenchman, an active Jean van Heijenoort, well known in the
member of the small Trotskyite group in fields of mathematical logic and founda
Paris, was invited to join the exiled tions of mathematics, is Professor of
Trotsky to serve as his secretary, transla Philosophy, Emeritus, Brandeis Univer
tor, and bodyguard. He was twenty years sity.
old when he arrived at the Turkish is
land of Prinkipo, where Trotsky and his
wife had been living since their expul
sion from Russia in 1929. He stayed with
them for seven years, at Prinkipo, in
France, briefly in Norway, and finally,
fromJanuary 1937 to November 1939-
nine months prior to Trotsky's assassina
tion-in the Mexican town of Coyoacan.
In this small book Mr. van Heijenoort
gives his recollections of those years,
based on memory, on notes he kept at
the time, and on documents in the
Trotsky archives at Harvard. He does
not attempt a full-length portrait of
Trotsky or an analysis of his character or
his ideas; his purpose is to set down, for
the record, incidents and details that are
known to himself alone, and also to cor
rect factual errors that have appeared in
published works. As a primary docu
ISBN 0 674 80255 1
ment, his narrative will be of great value
to students and biographers of Leon Harvard University Press
Trotsky. Cambridge, Massachusetts
and London, England
(Continued on backflap) Jacket design by Marianne Perlak
With Trotsky in Exile
With Trotsky
FROM PRINKIPO
Jean van Heijenoort
HARV ARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England · 1978
in Exile
/
TOCOYOACAN
Copyright © I 978 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publi'cation Data
Van Heijenoort,Jean, I9I2-
With Trotsky in exile.
Includes index.
l. Trotskil, Lev, I879-l940. 2. Revolutionists
Russia - Biography. 3. Statesmen-Russia - Biography.
4. Van Heijenoort, Jean 1912- 5. Secretaries-
Biography. I. Title.
DK254.T6V36 947.084'092'4 [BJ 78-935
ISBN 0-674-80255-I
FOREWORD
I lived for seven years with Leon Trotsky, from October 1932 to Novem
ber 1939, with only a few interruptions. Having been a member of his
political organization, I became his secretary, translator, and body
guard. This little book is not a political history of that period. Nor is it a
full-length portrait of the man. Rather, it is a book of recollections,
which attempts to recreate the atmosphere in which Trotsky lived and
worked during his years of exile.
I have tried not to rehearse what is already known, making an excep
tion only when necessary in order to explain the narrative. I therefore
ask of readers a certain knowledge of the events of those years. And I ask
them to keep a sense of proportion, for the narrative often includes
minor details known only to me which I do not want to be lost, but
which should not be allowed to obscure the larger context. Knowing the
past as I do, as well as the archives, it is my hope that these bits of infor
mation may some day allow a scholar to uncover a fact or identify a
document.
What has been written on Leon Trotsky since his death, even by per
sons of good will, contains a fair amount of material error. In the Ap
pendix I have tried to correct some of these errors. But often the text it
self is written as a corrective to published items that I consider errone
ous. I have dwelt most on the least-known episodes or on incidents that
have been seriously distorted, trying in those cases to give all the details I
can remember. The errors that have become so frequent are often noth
ing but careless, sometimes silly, mistakes. In other cases the Stalinist
calumnies against Trotsky, which were both plentiful and persistent,
have left their traces. But Trotsky as a personage also seems destined to
give rise to mythogenic activities. Against all of these circumstances I
thought it best to react by making my narrative as precise and concrete
as possible.
I know the pitfalls of memory only too well and do not imagine that
there are no mistakes in my narrative. But I kept some notes during my
VI FOREWORD
time with Trotsky, and later had at my disposal the archives, which I
myself put in order. I have checked and rechecked many things. I did
not think it advisable to combine these recollections with a critical ex
amination of the personality of Leon Trotsky, of his ideas or his char
acter. That would be another task.
The archives contain, for the period 1929 to 1940 alone, some twenty
two thousand documents, and other documents will surely turn up.
Among the documents, there are some four thousand letters written by
Trotsky, who was a great correspondent in quantity as well as style. All
these remain to be exploited.
Until today, the writings of Trotsky have, almost without exception,
been the subject of either complete anathematization or devout venera
tion. What these texts need is critical study-study of the ideas and their
connections, of the arguments used, of the tacit assumptions, of the per
spectives and their changes. They also require literary criticism, with an
eye to style and metaphor, which could lead to insights into the person
ality of the author. These too are jobs that remain to be done.
Too often in the past I have described some episode from my life with
Trotsky, only to find my interlocutor drawing conclusions quite differ
ent from those I intended. The power of words has its limits. I have tried
to pick mine here with care, but I have no illusions. There will undoubt
edly be misunderstandings, for a lived experience cannot be passed on
like an object. Its communication is a reconstruction for the writer and
sometimes a different one for the reader. Because I wrote the original
text in French, my native language, and subsequently translated it into
English, I beg the reader's further indulgence on that score.
This being said, here is my story.
CONTENTS
1. PRINKIPO 1
2. FRANCE 49
3. NORWAY 79
,
4. COYOACAN 104
Afterword 149
Appendix. Correction
of Errors in Writings
about Trotsky 151
Index 161
ILLUSTRATIONS
Jean van Heijenoort and Trotsky after a session of the
Dewey Commission, Coyoacan, April 1937 m
Trotsky and Natalia lvanovna Sedova at the time of their
arrival in Turkey, 1929 4
Otto Schussler, Jean van Heijenoort, and Pierre Frank in the
garden of the house at Prinkipo, early 1933 8
The house on Hamladji Street in Prinkipo, where Trotsky lived
fromJanuary 1932 to July 1933 10
Trotsky, Natalia, and Kharalambos fishing off Prinkipo 12
Trotsky in his study at the Izzet Pasha villa, early 1931 15
Jean van Heijenoort on the balcony of the house in Prinkipo,
spring 1933 19
Christian Rakovsky in Barnaul, Siberia, 1932 29
Trotsky near Marseilles on his way to Copenhagen,
November21, 1932 30
Zinaida Lvovna Volkova in Moda, 1931 36
Trotsky, Ame Swabeck, Pierre Frank.Jean van Heijenoort,
and Rudolf Klement in the garden at Prinkipo, May 1933 44
Jean van Heijenoort and Max Shachtman in Istanbul,
July 12, 1933 46
Jan Frankel, Jean van Heijenoort, and Max Shachtman in the
garden at Prinkipo, July 17, 1933 47
Trotsky and Liova in front of the Sea Spray villa in
Saint-Palais, August 1933 50
Rudolf Klement, Trotsky, Yvan Craipeau, Jeanne Martin,
Sara Jacobs, and Jean van Heijenoort in Saint-Palais,
August 1933 53
Trotsky with Benno and Stella behind the villa in Saint-Palais,
August 1933 53
The Ker Monique villa in Barbizon 59