Omaha daily bee., 1919-04-17
Pen Portrait of Trotsky
From the London Times.

From the London Times.
A more complete contrast than that which
| exists between Lenine and Trotsky it would be
| difficult to imagine While Lenine might easily
escape notice ia q gathering of Sunday school
teachers. Trotsky, with his long, prominent
nose. his fierce, black eyes, his huge forehead
| surmounted by great masses of black, waving
hair, his pointed beard and mustache, and his
heavy, cruel, protruding lips is the very incar-
| nation of the revolutionary of the picture books.
Born in 1877 in the government of Kherson,
the son OF provincial chemist, Leila Bronstein,
or, as he is now known to the world, Lev Da-
vidovitch Trotsky, is Jew of the Jews. From
his earliest years he has been in revolt against
society, and as boy of IS we hear of his being
expelled from school for desecreating an ikon.
When only u he was arrested at Odessa on
account Of his connection with the South Rus
sion Workmen's league, and was banished for
four years to eastern Siberia. In the third year
of his exile he escaped from the town of Verk-
holensk, to appear again in the revolution of
1905 as president OF the Petrograd Council OF
Workmen at the early age of g. Alter the col
lapse of the revolution he was again arrested.
On this occasion he was deprived Of all his
rights as citizen and was again exed-this
time for life-to eastern Siberia. Here he lived
at Berezof, the last resting place Of more than
one great Russian statesman who had lost the
favor of his imperial master or mistress Trot-
sky, however, must have genius for escape,
more evaded his guards and disappeared abroad.
During the succeeding 10 years he lived in
turn in France, Switzerland, Austria and Ger
many, supporting himself mainly by journalism,
for which he has decided bent In Vienna he
edited an Austrian Pravada. while in Germany
Russian revolution. Like Lenine, he has an
excellent knowledge Of German, speaks fluent
French, and understands little English His
powers OF conversation, however, in the last
named language are decidedly limited.
At the beginning of the war he was in Paris,
Nashe Slovo and the Golos. Unlike Lenine,
Trotsky has not always been bolshevist, and
his Paris articles were subjected to severe
criticism from the pen of his present chief and
colleague. After the great split in the Russian
ssocial.-democratic party Trotsky sided with the
ing which party was destined to come to the
top he formed small party Of his own, known
as the "Trotsksts," whose aim was to steer a
middle course between the two currents of Men
shevsm and bolshevism.
Today, however, Trotsky has committed
himself irrevocably to the bolshevist cause, but
it can not be said that he has the same rigid
political principles as Lenine
Among his colleagues Trotsky does not
enjoy the same respect or admiration as Lenlne,
and in this connection too much importance
should not be attached to the frequent rumors
probably untrue. Bolshevist commissaries will
always smile whenever one mentions the posi-
bty of Lenine- Trotsky split. Trotsky, after
all, is only one of themselves. Lenine is of the
gods.
This does not mean that Trotsky is to be
considered as an insignificant factor in the boil
shevist movement. Originally useful as jour
nalist and pamphleteer, he has become today
the boshevist man of action, the bolshevist I'M
peralist. The red army, such as it is, is largely
his creation, and the methods which he has en-
ployed in restoring some resemblance of disclp-
line have been very different from the per-
suasive oratory of a Kerensky.
As an orator Trotsky is powerful dema-
gogue, kissing out his words with degree OF
hate which is not without effect He is apt,
however to lose his temper in the face of oppo-
sition and to take refuge in mere abuse.
his private life and his commercial honesty.
They may be untrue, but they give an illustra-
ton of the different estimate of the characters
of Lenine and Trotsky which exists in the mind
of the Russian people. Always neatly dressed
and with carefully mancured nails, he is the
best dressed of all the bolshevist commissaries.
Vain and easily susceptible to fattery he is by
no means averse from publicity and is, or at
any rate was, far more. accessible to foreign
journalists than his more famous colleague.
Today, he has initiated Kerenskys fashion of
appearing at red army concerts or parades
in a semi-uniform of khaki, and even his own
friends have tainted him with Napoleonic de-
signs.
When the world is going we'll with him. he
can be very affable and indeed is not without
certain charm of manner. In this way he has
been able at times to make favorable first
impression upon foreigners, one American in a
fit of exuberation once describing him as "the
greatest Jew since Christ" These impressions.
however, do not stand the test of time. Behind
those fierce, black eyes turks ever the demon of
suspicion and mistrust 1t is this ever-present
fear of treachery which inspires the terrible,
ptiless cruelty of which he has been guilty
1t was probably after much hesitation and with
some misgivngs that Trotsky finally threw in
his lot with the bolshevists. Today, however,
he knows that he has crossed Rubicon to
which there is no returning. More conscious
Of less indifferent too, than Lenine to the fate
that awaits him in the event of failure, he is
prepared to sell his life dearly and to shrink
before nothing in his attempt to carry bolshe-
vlsm by fair means orloul into the four corners
of Europe.