Chapter One
Armored Train
On the night of January 1, 1937, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the Norwegian oil tanker Ruth greeted the New Year by blaring its two sirens and twice firing its alarm gun. The tanker carried no oil, only 1,200 tons of seawater for ballast and two very special passengers: Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary exile, and his wife, Natalia. In fact, the Trotskys were the ship’s only passengers, strictly speaking, although a Norwegian policeman was on board to escort them. They had sailed from Norway on December 19, after four miserable months of house arrest, which Trotsky said had aged him five years. In spite of this, the -couple carried with them warm memories of a marvelous snowy land of forests and fjords, skis and sleighs.
They would sail another week or so before reaching their new home, Mexico-although they were in the dark about what awaited them there, even the port of arrival. The tanker steered an irregular course. The Norwegian government was eager to be rid of Trotsky but anxious to deliver him without mishap-such as what might result from an NKVD bomb-so the ship’s departure had been shrouded in secrecy. On board, Trotsky and Natalia were forbidden to use the ship’s radio. They were cut off from the outside world.
At the start of the voyage, the seas were rough, and Trotsky found it difficult to write, so instead he avidly read the books about Mexico he had bought just before their departure. Once out on the Atlantic, the seas turned calm, in fact remarkably so for that time of year, and Trotsky began to work intensively, writing an analysis of the Moscow trial that had made him a pariah in Norway and almost everywhere else. Only Mexico had opened its doors to him-“mysterious Mexico,” Trotsky called it, wondering to what extent it deserved its reputation for political violence and lawlessness.
The passengers’ sense of apprehension rose with the temperature; as the ship entered the Gulf of Mexico on January 6, the cabins grew stiflingly hot. It was early Saturday morning, on January 9, when the tanker finally entered the harbor of Tampico. The oil derricks reminded the couple of Baku, on the Caspian Sea, but otherwise this was terra incognita. They had no idea who or what was waiting for them onshore, and Trotsky warned the captain and the police minder that unless they were met by friends, they would not disembark voluntarily.
Toward 9 a.m. a tugboat approached the Ruth, and as it drew up alongside, Trotsky and Natalia caught sight of a familiar face, friendly and smiling, and their worst fears evaporated. The man they recognized was Max Shachtman, an American Trotskyist who had visited them over the years in Turkey, France, and then Norway. He was the first friend Trotsky had laid eyes on in more than two months, and when he stepped aboard the Ruth, the two men warmly embraced.
Shachtman was accompanied by the artist Frida Kahlo, introduced as Frida Rivera, wife of the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera. Ill health had kept Rivera off the flight from Mexico City. Frida, darkly beautiful in tightly braided hair and dangling jade earrings and wearing a rebozo and a long black skirt, stood out among the suits and uniforms of the government, military, and police officials there to receive Trotsky. Even the uniformed officers seemed relaxed and friendly, and they made the visitors feel safe and welcome.
A second boat trailed after the tug carrying representatives of the press, who were impatient to interview and photograph the Great Exile. Trotsky was eager to speak, and he answered questions for two hours straight, talking mostly about the Moscow trial. The thumbnail briefing he received from Shachtman, combined with the nature and tone of the reporters’ questions, lifted Trotsky’s spirits. As Natalia remarked, “the whole New World seemed to have been incensed by the Moscow crimes.”
Close to noon, the tugboat brought the Trotskys ashore. Photographers and a newsreel cameraman captured their walk down the wooden pier. Trotsky had performed a number of dramatic entrances and exits over his tumultuous political career, typically adopting a demeanor of stern arrogance. Now, however, as he stepped onto Mexican soil, he looked somewhat tentative and uncertain of himself. Dressed in a tweed suit and knickerbockers, carrying a cane and a briefcase, he projected an image of civilized respectability, looking not at all like a defiant revolutionary. And at five feet eleven inches tall, he hardly resembled the Soviet cartoon image of him as “the little Napoleon.” Only when he removed his white cap and exposed his irrepressible white hair did he suggest his old fanatical self. Natalia, conservatively attired in a suit and heels, also looked the part of the harmless bourgeoise, although she seemed frail and uneasy.
At the dock, a Packard was waiting for them. It belonged to the head of the local garrison, General BeltrA!n, who was the boss of Tampico and had been asked by President CA!rdenas to do everything possible to facilitate Trotsky’s arrival. CA!rdenas had arranged for Trotsky to travel to Mexico City by airplane or by train, whichever he favored. The plane was waiting to take off, but reports of bad weather ruled out flying. The train was still en route from the capital, so the guests were checked into a hotel for the day. From there, Trotsky sent a telegram to President CA!rdenas expressing his gratitude and pledging to honor the terms of his asylum. Trotsky and Natalia then retired to their room, reeling from culture shock and frustrated by their ignorance of the Spanish language.
El Hidalgo (The Nobleman), the luxury train that President CA!rdenas sent to transport Trotsky to Mexico City, rolled into the Tampico station at eleven o’clock that evening. On board was George Novack, acting secretary of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, the miscellaneous collection of liberals and socialists that had initiated the campaign to find Trotsky a safe haven. Novack arrived in the company of a Mexican lieutenant colonel and a captain of the regular army, a contingent of soldiers from the Presidential Guard, civilian representatives of the CA!rdenas administration, and a Russian-language interpreter for Trotsky.
Fifteen minutes later, Trotsky and Natalia, along with Novack, Shachtman, Frida, and the soldiers and officials from Mexico City boarded the train. They were joined by General BeltrA!n and a number of the most important officials from Tampico, as well as local police officials and detectives. The train, which had once belonged to former President Pascual Ortiz Rubio, was armored with bombproof steel plates and bulletproof windows. President Rubio had had good reason to insist on special protection. On February 5, 1930, his first day in office, as he was leaving the National Palace, a man fired a handgun into his automobile, one of the bullets shattering Rubio’s jaw.
Trotsky and Natalia and their friends were placed in the middle car of the train; the car in front of theirs was occupied entirely by soldiers. The train finally pulled out of Tampico at four o’clock in the morning, as the passengers dozed. When daylight came, they looked out on a sunbaked landscape dotted with palm trees and cacti, mountains blazing in the distance. Trotsky’s curiosity about the scenery competed with his thirst for information as he huddled in a compartment with Shachtman and Novack, who brought him up to date on what had been happening in the world during his three-week voyage from Norway.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary
by Bertrand M. Patenaude
Copyright © 2009 by Bertrand M. Patenaude.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2009
Bertrand M. Patenaude
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060820691
