series of resignations: Minutes of meeting of Trotsky defense committee, March 1, 1937, TC 25:5; Novack to “Committee Member,” March 16, 1937, TC 25:5.
signed a petition: Harvey Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade (Basic Books, 1984), 360; George Novack, “Radical Intellectuals in the 1930s,” International Socialist Review, Vol. 29, No. 2, March-April 1968, 21–34; Deutscher III, 299.
morally responsible…positive achievements: Mauritz A. Hallgren to Hortense Alden, February 11, 1937, TC 25:5; Mauritz A. Hallgren, Why I Resigned From the Trotsky Defense Committee (International Publishers [1937]); James T. Farrell to Trotsky, February 8, 1937, TEP 936.
John Dewey viewed the matter: TC 25:5.
Dreyfus affair: Craig I, 331–35.
Dewey was by reputation: David C. Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development (Harvard University Press, 2003), 174–84.
Dewey’s reluctance: George Novack to Trotsky, March 22, 1937, TC 13:62.
Sidney Hook: Wald, 130, 132.
Trotsky himself was enlisted: Trotsky to Suzanne La Follette, March 15, 1937, TEP 8741.
Dewey relented: James Cannon to Bernard Wolfe, March 19, 1937, TEP 480.
“a great holiday in my life”: Case, 584.
overdrive: Van, 108–9.
calls for Trotsky’s expulsion: George Novack to American Committee, April 28, 1937, TC 25:6.
hearings in a public hall: Press release for May 10, 1937, TC 25:7.
magenta blossoms: Dewey to Robbie Lowitz, undated [April 11, 1937], Glotzer papers, box 11.
six-foot barricades…atmosphere inside the Blue House: James T. Farrell, “Dewey in Mexico,” in John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom (The Dial Press, 1950), 361; Glotzer, 259; Van, 108.
turned away: Glotzer, 259.
Klieg lights: Herbert Solow to Margaret de Silver, April 10, 1937, Solow papers, box 1.
pitch of his voice: Albert Glotzer to Alan Wald, March 16, 1977, Glotzer papers, box 35.
“expulsed”: Farrell, “Dewey in Mexico,” 361.
the fate of his children: Solow to Margaret de Silver, April 10, 1937, Solow papers, box 1; The New York Times, April 18, 1937; Case, 41–42.
Hotel Bristol: Case, 167–73.
Berlin to Oslo, Case, 204–26.
invited representatives: Case, 64–65.
“Truth, justice, humanity”: Dewey to Robbie Lowitz, undated [April 15, 1937], Glotzer papers, box 11.
“dictatorship for the proletariat”: Case, 357.
Dewey remained skeptical: Case, 437.
Trotsky’s prophetic formulation: Deutscher I, 74, 79.
“permanent revolution”: Howe, 25–33; Knei-Paz, 108–74.
New Economic Policy: Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938 (Vintage Books, 1975), 123–59.
“socialism in one country”: Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 368–94.
“super-industrializer”: Case, 245.
slaughtered by the millions: Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (Oxford University Press, 1986).
“brute force”…“successes”…unnecessary brutality: Case, 248–51.
“degenerated”: Case, 282.
“under the Iron Heel”: Trotsky to Margaret de Silver, October 25, 1937, TEP 7672.
Carleton Beals…Frank Kluckhohn: Glotzer 266–69; Case, 411–18; The New York Times, April 18 and 19, 1937; News Bulletin of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, May 3, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 4; Dewey to Robbie Lowitz, April 20, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 11; Felix Morrow to Edwin L. James, April 5, 1937, TC 25:6; Wolfe, Van, and Frankel to Felix Morrow, April 22, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 4; Bernard Wolfe to Edwin James, May 21, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 4.
Dewey called it “a book”: Dewey to Robbie Lowitz, undated [April 15, 1937], Glotzer papers, box 11; Trotsky’s closing statement is in Case, 459–585.
“And when he finished”: Glotzer to Alan Wald, March 16, 1977, Glotzer papers, box 35.
Dewey avoided stepping: Case, 585.
“lion in a circus”: Dewey to Robbie Lowitz, undated [April 15, 1937], Glotzer papers, box 11.
Dewey said to Trotsky: Glotzer, 271; Van, 110.
“You were right about one thing”: Dewey to Max Eastman, May 12, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 11.
American press coverage: Pearl Kluger to Bernard Wolfe, May 12, 1937, TEP 6778.
Dewey came out fighting: text of Dewey’s speech is in TC 25:7.
best speech of his career…Hook told Dewey: Pearl Kluger to Bernard Wolfe, May 12, 1937, TEP 6778; Harold Isaacs to Cdes, May 10, 1937, TEP 6481.
thunderclap out of Moscow: Tucker, Stalin in Power, 435–38; Volkogonov, 316–29; Schapiro, The Communist Party, 423–24.
Kronstadt rebellion: Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921 (W. W Norton & Company, 1974); Ulam, 472–73; Schapiro, The Communist Party, 205–8.
memory of Kronstadt: Wendelin Thomas to Trotsky, June 24, 1937, TEP 5504; Knei-Paz, 556–57; Volkogonov, 393–94.
“One would think”: Deutscher III, 353–54; Trotsky to Wendelin Thomas, July 6, 1937, TEP 10569.
“shot like partridges”: Avrich, 146.
special source of concern: Trotsky to Goldman, September 5, 1937, TEP 8289; Trotsky to Dear Friend [Jan Frankel], January 26, 1938, TEP 8158.
announced its verdict: press release of December 12, 1937, TC 25:8.
“our first great victory”: Hansen to Harold Isaacs, December 16, 1937, TEP 11535.
“tremendous”: Trotsky to Albert Goldman, December 21, 1937, TEP 8291.
“great moral shock”: Trotsky to Suzanne La Follette, December 22, 1937, TEP 8765.
Dewey made a radio broadcast: The New York Times, December 14, 1937.
Dewey expanded: The Washington Post, December 19, 1937, quoted in Glotzer, 137–38.
Trotsky…was indignant: Trotsky to Walker, January 12, 1938, TEP 10766; Van, 110.
one long essay: “Their Morals and Ours,” New International, June 1938; Knei-Paz, 556–67; Howe, 165–173.
“Idealists and pacifists”: Knei-Paz, 557.
“the end is justified”: Knei-Paz, 559.
“Means and Ends”: published in New International, August 1938.
“He was tragic”: Farrell, “Dewey in Mexico,” 374; Louis Menand, “The Real John Dewey,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 39, No. 12 (June 25, 1992).
Chapter Three: Man of October
“The old man relaxed”: Bernard Wolfe to James Cannon, May 26, 1937, TC 23:2.
“Trotsky displayed all his amiability”…“like an object”…“most brusque”: Van, 26.
“slammed the door”: Van, 109–10.
“all my predictions”…“real prisoner”…“it would be a catastrophe”: Jan Frankel to Charles Walker, June 8, 1937, Glotzer papers, box 2.
experienced philanderer: Van, 114.
“richest vocabulary of obscenities”: Wolfe, 240–41.
considerable hardship: Herrera, chs. 4, 5; Wolfe, 242–43.
best-known work of art: Herrera, 109–11; Wolfe, 395.
Henry Ford Hospital: Herrera, 143–45.
the fantastic and the grotesque: Wolfe, 394.
Fulang-Chang and I: Herrera, 209–10.
“Frida did not hesitate”: Van, 110–12.
Diego’s own brazen philandering: Wolfe, 357–58; Herrera, 181, 199, 209.
“Make love, take a bath”: Herrera, 199.
“little goatee”: Herrera, 209.
Cristina’s house: Herrera, 210.
“Natalia was suffering”: Van, 112.
“one of the saddest faces”: Farrell, “A Memoir on Leon Trotsky,” University of Kansas City Review 23 (1957), 293–98.
athletic Seryozha: Diary, 58–60, 69–70; Deutscher II, 311–12.
Kirov’s murder: Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder (Oxford University Press, 1989).
“proving extremely difficult”: Seryozha to Natalia, December 9, 1934, TEP 13521; Diary, 108.
brutally interrogated…blamed themselves…“they will torture him”: Diary, 60, 62–63, 69–70, 108, 129–30, 134–35.
Natalia issued an open letter: Deutscher III, 233.
“N. is haunted”: Diary, 70.
mass poisoning of workers: Deutscher III, 294.
“To the Conscience of the World”: February 4, 1937, TEP 17310.
the “poisoner”: Case, 40.
“drive Sergei to insanity”: Deutscher III, 294.
“ventured to speak to Trotsky”…“morbidly jealous”: Van, 112.
“Diego came by with a gun”: Herrera, 200–1.
habit of threatening people: Feferman, 144–45.
temporary separation: Van, 112.
Frida paid him a visit…“The stakes were too high”: Van, 112.
“very tired of the old man”: Herrera, 212.
Trotsky and Natalia’s correspondence, July 11–22, 1937: TEP 5573–75, 10613–27; published in French translation as Correspondance 1933–1938 (Gallimard, 1980), translated, annotated, and with an introduction by Jean van Heijenoort.
They had met in Paris…“exceeded all expectations”…“Resembles Odessa”: Joel Carmichael, Trotsky: An Appreciation of His Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1975), 70–73; My Life, 142–49; Natalia, 11–12.
“face to face with real art”: My Life, 147.
“He never forgave me”: Van, 113.
“Old age is the most unexpected”: Diary, 106.
“A distance had been established”…“the hands of the G.P.U.”: Van, 114.
blow hot and cold: Herrera, 468–69; Hansen, “With Trotsky in Coyoacan,” xx–xxi.
self-portrait: Herrera, 213–14.
more prolific…best thing that had ever happened: Herrera, 215.
Trotsky’s plan of escape: Van, 118–19.
Chapter Four: Day of the Dead
the scene of a fiesta: description of the November 7 fiesta draws on Hansen, “With Trotsky in Coyoacan,” xiv-xv; Hansen to James Cannon, November 7, 1937, TC 23:3; Hansen to Pearl Kluger, November 9, 1937, TEP 11828.
“whirl of mass meetings”: My Life, 294.
“speaking simultaneously”: Nikolai Sukhanov, quoted in Volkogonov, 84.
“hidden reserve of nervous energy”: My Life, 294–95.
“bare, gloomy amphitheatre”: John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (Boni & Liveright, 1919), 21.
a human tinderbox…“nipples of the revolution”…“like a sleepwalker”: My Life, 295–96.
revolutionary oath: Volkogonov, 88.
“willingly die fighting”: R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent (Putnam, 1932), 26–27.
“float on countless arms”: My Life, 296.
Trotsky managed to find his voice: Hansen, “With Trotsky in Coyoacan,” xv.
“great and swelling stream”: Hansen to Pearl Kluger, November 9, 1937, TEP 11828.
Seryozha…was executed: Volkogonov, 354–55.
October’s “greatest interpreter”…“breadth and profundity”: Trotsky letter to Partisan Review, June 17, 1938, published as “Art and Politics in Our Epoch,” Partisan Review, August-September 1938.
tumultuous revolutionary decade: Rochfort, 11–21.
Rivera…settled in Paris: Wolfe, 64–75.
Mexican Renaissance…Three major figures: Rochfort, 24–33; Wolfe, 118, 141–49, 154–57, 159–61.
Ministry of Education building: Rochfort, 51–67; Wolfe, 167–81; Brenner, 277–87.
“frog-faced man”…“frog or a housefly”: Wolfe, 179.
“Frog-toad”: Herrera, 109.
“so-called easel art”: Herrera, 82–83; Rochfort, 38–39; Brenner, 244–59.
party of radical painters: Wolfe, 151, 384.
“passionate dilettante”…“commonplace slogans”: Wolfe, 384–85, 419.
tenth-anniversary celebrations: Wolfe, 214–24.
anniversary demonstrations: Deutscher II, 312–18; Volkogonov, 300–1.
Sergei Eisenstein: Wolfe, 215.
“Look at your icon painters”: Wolfe, 221.
Moscow’s Red Army Club: Wolfe, 217–20.
“millionaire artist for the establishment”: Rochfort, 123; Wolfe, 259; Herrera, 201–2.
unmask the “Right Danger”: Bertram D. Wolfe, A Life in Two Centuries: An Autobiography (Stein and Day, 1981), 305.
Rivera fit the description: Wolfe, 230–36.
popular one-man show: Wolfe, 300–2.
San Francisco…Detroit Institute of Arts: Rochfort, 121–30; Wolfe, 280–96, 302–16.
Battle of Rockefeller Center: Wolfe, 317–41; Rochfort, 130–37.
Trotsky expressed his admiration: Trotsky to Rivera, June 7, 1933, TEP 9790.
“Rockefeller exploiters”…two minor fresco panels: Wolfe, 333–38; Diego Rivera, Portrait of America (Covici, Friede, 1934), 31, 178–79, 228–29.
“lifeless faces”…“rhythmic dance”: Wolfe, 425.
attacks on Rivera became an onslaught: Wolfe, 238.
“Do you wish to see with your own eyes the hidden springs…?”: Trotsky, “Art and Politics in Our Epoch,” Partisan Review, August-September 1938.
“a bit of an anarchist”…Trotsky reproached him: Van, 134.
Ilya Ehrenburg: Wolfe, 65.
“Rivera was the one”: Van, 134.
risqué jokes: Curtiss memoir, in Buchman papers, box 3, folder “Mexico 1987.”
telling of tall tales: Wolfe, 6.
not exotic enough…“white, red, and black”: Wolfe, 13–14.
Frida used hand signals: Herrera, 362.
“stupid or banal”: Wolfe, 398.
bathed irregularly: Wolfe, 26.
“enemy of clocks and calendars”: Wolfe, 226, 255.
“the considerable subtlety”: [Unidentified] to University of Chicago, August 31, 1938, TEP 17402.
“spontaneity was kept in check”: Farrell, “A Memoir on Leon Trotsky.”
“haughty and arrogant”…Karl Radek: Natalia, 120–21.
“gift of personal friendship”: Eastman, Heroes, 247–49.
“servants to an aim”: Farrell, “A Memoir on Leon Trotsky.”
“anniversary smoker”: Eastman, Heroes, 247.
“I can’t stand it”: Natalia, 120–21.
“we drove in the Dodge”: Hansen to Sara Weber, November 3, 1937, TEP 12491.
“few days relaxing”: Hansen to James Cannon, November 22, 1937, TEP 11049.
“The Old Man enjoyed…mud holes”: Hansen to Pearl Kluger, July 21, 1938, TEP 11857.
tiny scratch pad…“funeral was in process”: Hansen to Reba Hansen, November 1, 1937, Hansen papers, 18:5.
“LD lost patience”: “Joe’s notes on Trotsky,” Hansen papers, 40:7.
retrieve a Thompson submachine gun: Dugrand, 18.
Restaurant Acapulco: Wolfe, 360–61.
perpetual disorder…had not made him rich: Wolfe, 202, 354; Max Shachtman to Felix Morrow, January 5, 1937, TC 23:2; Van to Jan Frankel, February 16, 1938, and March 3, 1938, TC 23:4.
man arrived at the door: Van to Jan Frankel, February 4, 1938, TC 23:4; Trotsky to James Cannon, February 15, 1938, TC 9:54; Hansen to James Cannon, February 3, 1938, TC 23:4.
Trotsky was irate…“criminal lightmindedness”: Van to Jan Frankel, February 4, 1938, TC 23:4.
comings and goings: Van, 118–19.
Diego mortgaged his home: Van to Jan Frankel, January 16, 1938, TC 23:4.
slid into the backseat…arranged pillows: Van, 119.
“house is in an uproar”: Hansen to Reba Hansen, February 14, 1938, Hansen papers, 18:8.
angry clashes: Van to Jan Frankel, February 16, 1938, TC 23:4.
“the blackest day”: Writings, 10:177.
thunderstruck…“Does Natalia know?”:
Van, 119–20.
“Lyova is ill”: Natalia, 228.
Chapter Five: The Trouble with Father
“Goodbye, Leon”…moving tribute: “Leon Sedov—Son, Friend, Fighter,” Writings, 10:166–79.
stormy scene erupted…“gravedigger”…“I have smelled gunpowder”: Deutscher II, 247–49; Diary, 69; Natalia, 149.
“children and grandchildren”: Diary, 69.
Whether Lyova died a natural death: Broué, Léon Sedov, 219–64.
Lyova’s appendicitis became acute…the patient died: Volkogonov, 357–61; Deutscher 111, 320–23; Gérard Rosenthal, Avocat de Trotsky (Éditions Robert Laf-font, 1975), 229–35.
no sign of poisoning: the documentation in Trotsky’s archives of the investigation and speculations surrounding Lyova’s death is substantial; among the key documents are Henri Molinier to Trotsky, February 22 and 25, 1938, TEP 3188, 3190; Gérard Rosenthal to Trotsky, February 23, 1938, TEP 4336; Pierre Naville to Trotsky, February 22, 1938, TEP 3522; reports of Elsa Reiss (February 23, 1938), Lelia Estrin (February 24, 1938), and Mark Zborowski (February 25, 1938), TEP 17131, 15949, 17388; report of Dr. Marcel Thalheimer, February 18, 1938, TEP 15532; Trotsky to Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, March 14, 1938, TEP 2995; Trotsky to Examining Magistrate of the Lower Court, Department of the Seine, July 19 and August 24, 1938, Writings, 10:386–91, 421–25.
“terrible cry”: “Joe’s notes on Trotsky,” Hansen papers, 40:7.
mere sight of them: Hansen to Pearl Kluger, February 26, 1938, TEP 11843; Hansen to Rose Karsner, February 17, 1938, TEP 11760; Van, 120.
“my best friend”: Writings, 10:163.
idolized his father: Volkogonov, 357; Deutscher II, 311; Deutscher, III, 115–17.
“politics in his blood”: Diary, 69–70.
On the evening of January 16, 1928: My Life, 539–42; Natalia, 155–57.
“He will remind Seryozha”: Diary, 62–63.
“We called him our minister of foreign affairs”: Writings, 10:168.
Lyova became homesick: Volkogonov, 324–25; Van, 26–27.
Relations between Trotsky and Lyova: Deutscher III, 116; Van, 102.
Lyova’s involvement with a woman: Van, 24, 85.
gone to live in Berlin: Deutscher III, 117.
Stalin said with a sneer: Volkogonov, 325.
“singsong Moscow accent”: Diary, 58–59.