And Trotsky is also wrong about being a more important writer than me. As a communist, Trotsky knows that the significance of literature is determined exclusively by how well it serves the cause. His own writing must be of no significance because, so far at least, his own cause is lost. But the fact that Trotsky is alone in exile surrounded by a mere handful of devoted followers does not reassure me in the least. Lenin too was alone in exile surrounded by a mere handful of devoted followers and he overturned all Russia.
Impact is what counts.
Know this, he who fell to earth like ashes and was so very long oppressed, will rise higher than great mountains on the wings of shining hope. These lines capture the spirit of that Georgian youth who would rise from poverty and obscurity to rule all Russia. Certainly no other poem, nothing by Homer, Shakespeare, Pushkin, has ever played a role in human events like those four lines. At one of the great low points of my life, when I was lost in doubt and despair, those lines gave me the heart to commit the one crime that Trotsky must never live to uncover. All rights reserved.