Lev Bronstein: A Life in Pictures

I am a Trotsky specialist. Well, this is not entirely true. Technically, I am also a Bronstein specialist. Trotsky only came into existence with Bronstein’s final name change in 1902, half way through my research project. But Trotsky’s presence in the action and historiography of the Russian revolution is such an overpowering one that Lev Bronstein has been all but forgotten. I would like to introduce him here.

This is young Lev Bronstein. The son of David and Anna, Lev was born in 1879 in Kherson region, Ukraine, in the Pale of Settlement. The Bronsteins were landowners, tough and enterprising folk, and for the most part illiterate. They had eight children of whom four survived. A precocious child and, even by his own account, rather difficult, Lev was sent to Odessa at the age of nine to stay with his cousin Moishe Shpentser and his family while going to school. As you can see, he was very proud of his school uniform. Writing his memoirs in 1929, the older Trotsky maintains that his political awareness started early, and that he was made the scapegoat for an episode of disruptive classroom behaviour that almost got him expelled. Unfortunately, we have only his word for it, as for any event in this period of his life. Trotsky’s earliest biographer (Max Eastman, writing in 1925) gathered many first hand accounts from his subject’s contemporaries but sadly failed to cite, footnote or attribute any of them. This is very, very frustrating. *shakes fist*

Members of a socialist discussion circle in Nikolaev, Ukraine, in 1896. Bronstein is seated on the right; Alexandra Sokolovskaia standing. At that time, Bronstein identified as a Narodnik, or Populist. Naturally, he dressed accordingly. Sokolovskaia was older and a Marxist, and the two became closer through their heated political debates. Grigorii Ziv (reclining) would come to write a scathing and rather funny series of allegations about Bronstein’s character in 1921, from exile. Unfortunately, it’s also impossible to substantiate. In 1897 Bronstein and others formed the South Russian Workers’ Union, and in 1898 the members of the Union were arrested. Bronstein and Sokolovskaia married in the transfer prison on their way to Siberian exile. In his memoirs, Trotsky tells us that this was purely out of comradeship and political understanding. The one surviving letter from Bronstein to Sokolovskaia rather suggests otherwise.

A long and difficult journey finally brought Bronstein and Sokolovskaia to Ust-Kut, Irkutsk region. Here Bronstein began to write for “The Eastern Observer”, an Irkustk-based legal Marxist publication. At that time certain socialist publications were deemed legal, but were strictly controlled. With his new Italianate pen name of Antid Oto (antidote), Bronstein wrote about a great deal of things: from Gogol and Nekrasov to Nietzsche and Ibsen to feminism and peasant life. It is my particular privilege to spend a lot of time reading these writings, which are very far from the stylistic heights of his later works, but which show a vast fertility of intellect and a great diversity of interests. A diversity, in fact, that would not have been tolerable to the strict Commissar Trotsky of later years. Trotsky subsequently located his final conversion to Marxism in this first period of exile; certainly he began to read Marx, but this historian is yet to be convinced. Bronstein’s exile lasted two years, during which time his incomparable political comradeship with Sokolovskaia produced two daughters.

1902, the start of a new era. With Sokolovskaia’s help, Bronstein managed to escape and make his way to Europe. Along the way, he acquired a new name: Trotsky. The journey was long, secretive and dangerous. It was obscenely early one October morning when the “young eagle” knocked on the door of the London house where Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaia were staying. He arrived with nothing (Krupskaia had to pay for the cab) but he would acquire a great deal during his first European period: most notably political experience, a number of antagonists, a new audience for his writing and even a new partner. Trotsky had arrived.

Reading Recommendations:

Trotsky, My Life, available in translation from Pathfinder Press (ISBN 978-0873481441)

The most engaging and vivid account of Trotsky’s life although not, obviously, the most objective. First published in 1930 following his exile from the USSR, My Life is not just a reminiscence; it is Trotsky’s speech in his own defence, and it’s not exactly sparing on the attack either. The chapters about his childhood and youth are charming to read. Keep a critical eye on the text and you can see how carefully he structures his story.  You can see a brief, introductory response to My Life here.

Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879-1921, Verso Books (ISBN 978-1859844410)

Part One of Isaac Deutscher’s partisan but rigorous three-volume Trotsky biography. Absolutely to be recommended, but with a liberal amount of salt. Deutscher does not go far beyond Trotsky’s own account of his childhood and youth, but excerpts from Eastman and Ziv provide some engaging context.

Images courtesy of the Marxists Internet Archive.