The Daily Alaska empire., 1940-08-22

cution of his foe as traitor and Trotsky, according to confessions of his convicted followers, made the assassination of Stalin part of his scheme for a return to power. Exile, as such, held no terrors for Trotsky. In fact he passed only 30 years and six months free in his native Russia and 18 of those years covered the interval between birth and his first arrest.
 He was born October 26. 1879. the son of Davyd Bernstein, a pros porous Jewish farmer who lived i near zinoviesk, about 80 miles north of Odessa in the Ukraine. Family circumstances permitted unlimited schooling, but Lev Bronstain and his father disagreed on social ques- tions and the sire's choice of en- glneering as a profession for his son, and they parted company.
 In 1896, at Nikalyev, he and sev- eral other youths organized a social ist cell which grew into the South Russia Workers Union. On Janu- ary 28, 1898, young Bronstein and 65 of his associates were netted in police roundup. For two years he was in jail at Kherson and Odessa, then spent six months in the transfer prison at Moscow and in the spring of 1900 was banished to Ust Kutsk in Siberia.
 Exit 'Bronstein"; Enter "Trotsky'
 In the summer of 1902, aided by a peasant who hid him in a hay stack for two days and nights, he escaped and emerged as Leon TrotSky." He translated his given name Lev meaning "lion'D into the French form Leon" and then, with a sardonic gesture, added the surname of his Odessa jailer to the false passport on which he travelled to the outside world. For many years he spelled the surname with F." changing it to IS" in 1883 when he was in France, because the people of that country usually render the Russian character for "ts' with the softer sound.
 From his first Siberian exile he made his way to London and for the next few years moved around in Paris, Brussels, Liege and vari- ous cities of Germany. He met Len in in London but did not throw in his lot with the Bolshevist faction of the social democrat party which the latter headed after the 1903 split in the organization. Instead Trotsky remained a menshevist al- belt always rather Independent one, until 1917
 Flies To Finland
 Trotsky spent six months in St. Petersburg following Bloody Sun day. in January, 1905, then was forced to flee to Finland. Three months later he was back in the czars capital, becoming President of the St. Petersburg Soviet. He was presiding at a meeting when the czar's police captured all pres ent Trotsky was banished to Ob- dorsk, far beyond the Arctic Circle in Siberia. Again peasant helped him to escape, bundling him in a ! bale of frozen straw and hauling him on sled until they obtained reindeer which took TfotSky to the Ural railroad. He made his way to Finland where again he met Lenin.
 Came to New York
 There followed seven years of journalistic work, mostly in Vienna. When the World War broke out Trotsky was shipped to Switzer- land, to France, to Spain and fin- ally, in January. 1917, to New York.
 For ten weeks he lived in a fifth-story 'walk-up' flat at 1922 Vyse Avenue. The Bronx. Then the Czar was overthrown and on March 27, 1917, the family sailed for Russia. The British authorities took TrotSky off the steamer at Halifax and held him in an in- ternment camp for a month. He reached Petrograd in May, helped Lenin and the Bolshevists over throw the Kerensly regime in Oc- tober and became the Soviet Un- icn's first Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
 Four months later the treaty which definitely ended Russian par ticipation in the World War was signed at Brest Litovsk Trotsky was not present at the signing, his attitude in the preliminary negotia- tions having so antagonized tn e Germans that they had started a fresh campaign against Petrograd When Berlins terms were accepted lover his head" Trotsky, on March g, 1918, resigned as Foreign Com misSar
 Conscrip Army Organized
 Three weeks later he was chosen Chairman of the Bolshevist Su- preme War Council. On July 6 he ordered all men between l9 and 40 registered for military service. Out of this conscription he built the Red Army and for five and a half wears rode the tnn uaua in