UNWANTED EXILE

Evening Star, Issue 22457, 30 September 1936, Page 12

UNWANTED EXILE

TROUBLES OF TROTSKY EPISODE IN FRANCE It was announced from Oslo recently that the Government of Norway has declined to accede to the request of the Soviet Government of Russia to expel Leon Trotsky from the country, says a writer in the Melbourne 1 Age.’ A previous report stated that the Norwegian Minister of Justice would he very glad if Trotsky could find a home in some other country. But apparently no other country will have him. He has been living in Norway since June, 1935, having gone there after the French Government had refused to allow hi lll to remain in France any longer. Not only is Trotsky unwelcome because of his revolutionary activities, but he has so many enemies wherever he goes that his life is in constant danger and no Government wants to undertake the task of protecting him. In many of the countries of Europe there are Russian exiles who fled from the country after the Bolshevik revolution, in which Trotsky played a leading part, and among these exiles are men who would be glad of an opportunity to kill .Trotsky in revenge for the ruin of the Russian nobility and-bourgeois, and thg execution of thousands of them by the Bolsheviks. When Trotsky was first expelled from Russia in 1929 by Stalin, his friends among the Labour Party in Norway endeavoured to secure him permission to reside in that country, and the matter was debated in the Norwegian Parliament, but the Government of the day refused to allow him to enter Norway. In his autobiography Trotsky referred to the difficulties he experienced in finding a country which would give him shelter. VARIETY OP REASONS. “ The variety of reasons that induce democracies to refuse a visa is great,” he wrote. “ The Norwegian Government, if you please, proceeds solely from considerations of my safety. I had never imagined that I had so many considerate friends in high places in Oslo. The Norwegian Government is, of course, unreservedly in favour of the right of asylum, just as the German, French, and English, and all other Governments. The right of asylum, as everyone knows, is a sacred and impregnable principle. But an exile must first of all submit to Oslo a certificate guaranteeing that he is not going .to be killed by anyone. They will extend hospitality to him—providing, of course, that there are no other obstacles. The two debates in the Storthing about nay visa constitute an inimitable political document. Reading it has given me at least a partial compensation for the refusal of the visa which my friends in Norway were trying to get for me. First the Norwegian Premier had, of course, a conversation in regard to my visa with the chief of the secret _ police, whose competence in democratic principles—l hasten to admit—is unquestioned.

“ The chief of the secret police, according to the Premier, put forward the consideration that the wisest thing to do was to let Trotsky’s enemies finish him off outside Norwegian territory. It was expressed not quite so precisely, but that was what it meant. The Minister of Justice, on his part, explained to the Norwegian Parliament that the cost of protecting Trotsky would be too great for the Norwegian Budget. The principle of State economy—also one of the indisputable democratic principles — proved this time to be an irreconcilable opposition to the right of asylum. At .all events, the conclusion was that the person who most needs an asylum has the least chance of obtaining it.” NOBODY LOVES HIM.

After the death of Lenin and the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin for the leadership of the Communist Party in Russia had resulted in the defeat of Trotsky, he was exiled to Siberia by Stalin. He spent two years at Alma Ata, in the far southwest of Siberia, close to the western frontier of China. Alma Ata was 160 miles from a railway, and 2,500 miles from Moscow. But even there Trotsky continued his _ political activities through those Russian Communists who believed in him, and in January, 1929, Stalin sent members of the Soviet secret police to arrest him and deport him from Russia. He was accused of ' 1 counter-revolutionary activity, expressing , itself in the organisation of an illegal anti-Soviet society.” He was taken to Odessa, one of the ports on the Black Sea, and put on a steamer bound for Constantinople. He protested against being deportedi to Turkey, and asked to bo allowed to go to Germany, but he was told that the German Government hadl refused to allow him to enter that country.. He stayed at Constantinople some weeks while endeavouring to obtain permission to Jive in some other European country. But every codntry approached, on his behalf, including Great Britain, refused to have him. The Communist members of the German Reichstag endeavoured to remove the obstacles in the way of providing him with an asylum in Germany, but even a request from him to be allowed to visit Germany for medical treatment was refused by the Government.

an uncancelled order

In his autobiography Trotsky gives an amusing account of the casuistry displayed by the French Government in reply to a request for permission to live in that country. In 1916 (the second year of the Great War), when Trotsky was in France, the Tsar’s Government induced the French Government to issue a deportation order expelling him from France, and this order remained among the official documents of the Ministry of the Interior for years. In 1929 the order was still in existence, and when Trotsky asked for permission to live in France he was told that could not be allowed, because the order for his expulsion had never been rescinded. “ This is added evidence that not all values were destroyed in the most terrible of world catastrophies,” commented Trotsky in his autobiography. < “During the 13 years that elapsed since this order was issued whole generations have been wiped out by shells: entire cities have been razed; imperial and royal crowns have been strewed about the waste lands of Europe; the boundaries of States have been changed; the frontiers of France, forbidden to me, have moved. And yet in the midst of this tremendous cataclysm the order signed by Minister Malv ; v in the early autumn of 1916 has happily been preserved.” A few months after Trotsky had been expelled from Russia he received an invitation from the Independent Labour Party in Great Britain to deliver a lecture in London. Doubtless this was intended to be a first step towards finding him a home in Englandl with the permission of the Labour Government, which was in office. But the Government would not allow him

to come to England even on a visit to deliver a lecture. “My application.for a visa was refused,” wrote Trotsky, “ Olynes, Labour Home Secretary, defended this refusal in the House of Commons. According to dynes,the right of asylum does not mean the right of an exile to demand asylum, but the right of the State to refuse it, INHERITED FROM CHURCH. “ The right of asylum, in the style of Clynes, always existed in Tsarist Russia. The pious Mr Clynes ought at least to have known that democracy, in a sense, inherited the right of asylum from the Christian Church, which in turn inherited it, with much besides, from paganism. It was enough for a pursued criminal to make his way, into a temple, sometimes even to touch only the ring of the door,' to be safe from persecution. Thus the church understood the right of asylum as th® right of the persecuted to an asylum, and not as an arbitrary exercise of will on the part of pagan or Christian priests. Until now I had thought th® pious Labourites, though . little _ informed on matters of Socialism, certainly well versed in the tradition of the church. Now 1 find that they ar® not even that.” Kamal Ataturk, the President of th* Republic of Turkey,, allowed Trotsky to remain on. Turkish soil after the failure to obtain permission to live in Germany, France, Great Britain, and Norway. The exiled .Bolshevist occupied a villa on Prinkipo, an island in. the Sea of and about eight miles from Constantinople. Prinkipo is the largest of a group of six small islands, four of which are inhabited as holiday resorts. Some of the wealthy, residents of Constantinople have summer villas on the islands, and during the summer months there is a regular service of boats between the islands and the city. Trotsky lived on Prinkipo four years. He was allowed to make a brief visit to Copenhagen to deliver a lecture, after permission had been obtained from each of the countries through which he had to travel to reach Denmark; but care was taken to see that he returned to Prinkipo without delay. • - 'ALLOWED INTO FRANCE.^ In 1933 it was suggested to him thafi a new Government in France would consider sympathetically a request to make his home in that country. As a first step permission was given to him to live in Corsica. A few months later he was allowed to visit France, ostensibly for medical treatment. No official announcement was made by the French, Government regarding this permission, and as Trotsky travelled under an assumed name, he was not recognised. In April, 1934, the public of France wer® amazed by the news that Trotsky had been living for eight months - at a. villa in 'Barbizon, on. the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainhleau. Th® people of the village of Barbizonhad been curious concerning. the foreign occupants of the villa, and this curiosity had been increased; by the air of mystery which surrounded the place. There was a high fence round the villa, and two Alsatian dogs were kept to discourage visitors. No letters wer® delivered at tb© villa by the local postman, but one of the occupants of the villa rode, away on ;af bicycle af regular intervals, and returned with a mail hag. It was tp® cyclist who was the cause of the official discovery that Trotsky was living at the villa. One evening the cyclist waa stopped by tbe village policeman because there was no lamp on tb© bicycle,The cyclist refused to give any inform*-.-tion about’ himself or the other oc.cupants of the villa, and as the villag® policeman was suspicious about what might be going on at the villa, be reported the matter to his superiors. Offi? cial action was soon taken. The villa was surrounded by_ gendarmes and soldiers, and a magistrate, accompanied by detectives from Paris, forced their way into the premises, where they found a number of foreigners, the chief of whom gave the name of Sardoff. But the magistrate recognised him as Trotsky. Trotsky produced an official permit for him to live iu the district j it had been issued by order of M. Chautemps, the Minister of the Interior in a former Government. In the drawers of Trotsky’s desk were found two revolvers. As there were thousands of Whit® Russians living in exile in. Paris, Trotsky’s life might have been endangered if the fact that he was living close to Paris had become known. _ _ There was a loud outcry in Franc® when Trotsky’s retreat at Barbizon waa discovered, and a demand was mad® for his immediate expulsion from the country. The villa was besieged by reporters and Press photographers, mit Trotsky managed to elude them. H® disappeared, and it was generally assumed that, he had left France, but h® did not arrive at Oslo, the capital _of Norway, until 14 months after leaving Barbizon. During that period fruitless efforts were made to find a country which would give him a home. Ireland and Great Britain both _ refused requests. Trotsky remained hidden in France, the fact being unknown to everyone except a few officials. The return of a Labour Government to power in Norway enabled Trotsky to find an asylum in that country, where he now remains, though a somewhat unwel««n® guest.