Meanwhile Eitingon continued his preparations, using two alternative strategies, as agreed in Moscow: one by means of the Mexican Communist Party and the other through individual agents. David Siqueiros, the well-known Mexican painter, has described in some detail the motives and intentions of his accomplices, who had determined that ‘Trotsky’s headquarters in Mexico must be destroyed, even if it means resorting to force.’121 Siqueiros, however, did not know the whole truth, or could not utter it. He says nothing of the role of the Communist Party of Mexico, nor of the non-Mexicans who planned the operation, and attempts to depict the operation as merely the expression of discontent by Mexican internationalists at the activities of the Trotskyists in Spain. His discussion of this topic is strained and historically unsound, to put it mildly, and it is impossible to believe that it was the intention of this large group to do no more than ‘to seize as many documents as possible, but to avoid bloodshed at all costs’.122 One wonders why they required a machine-gun for the purpose. It seems that all this was said for the Mexican court, for public opinion and to camouflage the savage action guided by Moscow. Siqueiros describes the attack on Trotsky’s life as virtually a spontaneous outburst of internationalists who had fought in Spain and who were intent on taking their revenge on him for the split in Republican ranks brought about by the POUM, a Marxist party under Trotsky’s influence. In his book The Spanish Communists, Jesus Fernandes Tomas writes that the crime of the POUM leaders, Andrés Nin and Joaquin Maurin, had consisted in not wishing blindly to copy the Soviet experience. As early as 1932, Maurin had written: ‘The Soviets are a Russian creation which cannot be adapted to just any other country … To submit oneself prematurely to any concrete structures means condemning oneself to defeat.’ Andrés Nin shared these views, a fact, Fernandes wrote, that condemned the leaders of POUM to destruction. The liquidation of Nin was carried out by Alexander Orlov. The legend still exists of a Trotskyist plot and uprising in Spain.123 If Siqueiros is to be believed, the operation against Trotsky would amount to no more than revolutionary revenge. He had commanded the 82nd Brigade in Spain and had been especially successful at Teruel. He formed a combat group for the terrorist operation in Mexico.
Eitingon’s group, in which Eitingon himself never appeared openly, continued intensive operations. Everything was foreseen: ways of neutralizing the police on the perimeter of Trotsky’s house, of disarming the interior guards, breaking telephone contact, the order in which groups designated to seize, burn and destroy archives should function, and so on. The two main objectives were to exterminate the master of the house and to destroy his papers. Everything seemed ready, but chance intervened.
On 1 May 1940 thousands of Mexican workers paraded through the squares and streets, bearing Communist placards and slogans calling on the President to throw Trotsky out of the country. Although he was used to them by now, the slander and insults were hard for Trotsky to bear. He spent the whole of May feverishly writing the next chapter of his book on Stalin as well as two articles, ‘The Role of the Kremlin in the European Catastrophe’ and ‘Bonapartism, Fascism, the War’, and answering letters. On the eve of the attempt on his life he wrote to Sara Weber, who was responsible for publishing the Bulletin in the USA, reassuring her that she should not become depressed over the lack of money: ‘We’ll publish the issue when there is money to do so.’124 He wrote a polemical letter to his opponent Weissbord, whom he accused of devaluing the work of the left opposition: ‘Of course you won’t find anything in Lenin about democratic centralism, because Stalin’s faction was formed after Lenin’s death.’125
By mid-May Trotsky was risking an hour or two beyond the gates of his fortress with a couple of bodyguards. As one of them, identified only by his initials, KM, recalled: ‘Usually each excursion was a small military expedition. We had to work out a plan in advance and arrange a precise timetable. “You treat me like an inanimate object,” he sometimes said, hiding his impatience with a smile.’126
In the early hours of 24 May Trotsky was still working. The rest of the family had long retired. At about 2.30 a.m., unable to sleep and agitated, he took a sedative and fell into a deep sleep. The most detailed account of what then transpired is given by Natalya in her book, written with Victor Serge, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky. At about 4 a.m. the household was awoken suddenly by the sound of wild gunfire outside. The police guards had been disarmed by a large group of armed men led by a portly ‘major’. Fragments of concrete were already flying off the walls before the inhabitants realized what was happening. The room filled with gunsmoke, and a constant stream of bullets flew in through the open window. Natalya pushed Trotsky into a corner behind the bed, shielding him with her own body. The gunfire lasted twenty minutes. From the next room came the piercing shriek of Trotsky’s terrified grandson: ‘Grandfather!’ Trotsky later recalled that the child’s cry had been the worst moment of the night. In the ensuing silence, they thought the boy had been kidnapped. With intense relief the grandparents found Seva safe, with no more than a graze from a ricochet on his face. In a state of shock the guards told Trotsky what had happened. Among those in the house were a terrified Marguerite and Alfred Rosmer. They had been staying for several weeks, having brought with them a large number of books and letters, and part of Trotsky’s archives. During one of their first conversations, Rosmer had described meetings with the wife of Ignaz Reiss, Estrin and Zborowski, in which they had discussed how they had all betrayed Trotsky. As for Zborowski, Rosmer said he ‘vouched for his reliability with his life’, and gave the best account of his character.127
The picture they all reconstructed of the attack was that more than two dozen men in police and army uniforms, armed even with a machine-gun, had suddenly driven up and instantly disarmed the guard. Robert Sheldon Harte, who had been on the gate, had opened it when told to do so by the ‘major’, and the raiding party had driven through, disarmed another guard and opened fire on the windows and doors of Trotsky’s study and bedroom. It seemed that no one could have survived the onslaught. Trotsky and Natalya had been saved by a small space in the corner beneath the window—a chance in a thousand. The countless bullets had ricocheted onto the bed, which protected them. Fate had once again been kind to the exile.
The early morning found the shaken residents of the house behind their concrete stockade gesticulating and talking in amazement of the narrow escape. Even the fact that Trotsky’s Ford and Dodge cars had been stolen seemed trivial by comparison. A small fire that had been started by the shooting had been quickly extinguished and Trotsky’s papers saved. A bomb, thrown into the house after the firing, had mercifully not exploded. The same morning a coded telephone message was sent from Mexico to New York. It was decoded and transmitted to Moscow later that day, and delivered to Stalin: ‘Operation carried out. Results known later.’
When Mexican secret police arrived to investigate, they found that more than two hundred bullets had been fired into the bedroom alone. Their enquiries dragged on for weeks without result. The Mexican Communist Party blamed reactionaries and American imperialism, and the Mexican Confederation of Labour, which was a Communist front, declared that the attack had been a provocation aimed at Mexico, and that Trotsky should be expelled. So intense was Communist propaganda about a ‘put-up job’ that three of Trotsky’s young companions, Charlie Cornell, Otto Schüssler and Jean Bazin, were arrested and interrogated about the ‘alleged attack that Trotsky himself had set up’.128 The public was being fed the story that Trotsky had organized an attempt on his own life in order to compromise Stalin, a notion reinforced when journalists learned what Trotsky had said to the police chief the morning after: ‘The attack was carried out by Josef Stalin with the help of the GPU. It was Stalin!’
Trotsky wrote to the President of Mexico, stating that ‘the house had been attacked by GPU gangs, but the investigation has taken a false path. I am not afraid to make this statement as every new day will refute the shameful theory of a fabricated event …’129 Hi
s letter had an effect, especially when Robert Sheldon Harte, who had been kidnapped, was found dead not far from the house. This gave Trotsky grounds for asserting that any attempt to represent the affair as a provocation was baseless. On the other hand, the fact that Harte had opened the gate on Eitingon’s order, and without resistance, and had left with the attackers, leaves open the question of whether he had been an undercover GPU agent who was murdered to make sure he did not ‘squeal’ under interrogation. Trotsky, however, insisted that Harte had been loyal and was an innocent victim, and ordered a metal plaque to be fixed to the wall of the house to commemorate him.
In his book Sudoplatov explains that the NKVD had an agent inside the house. She was Maria de la Sierra, who had provided Siqueiros with a detailed plan of Trotsky’s house and character analyses of his secretariat before being recalled to Moscow shortly before the attack.130 But it seems there may be another secret to be revealed. Sudoplatov said little of it, recalling only that in Trotsky’s house ‘we had our woman’ who was keeping Soviet intelligence informed. Her help was crucial. She had taken part in other operations, and died unnamed by Sudoplatov in Moscow in the 1980s.
In addition, according to present-day American Trotskyists, the FBI and US secret service were also involved in the operation. In a two-volume book published in the USA in 1985 and entitled The Gelfand Case, which contains a large collection of Mexican court papers, letters, notes of interrogation and the depositions of witnesses, it is asserted that the NKVD was in some indirect way linked with the FBI, or at least that some of the Soviet operatives were double agents. Analysis of the documents gave rise to this suggestion, and in May 1975 the International Secretariat of the Fourth International began to explore it. In particular, the author, Alan Gelfand, accuses Joseph Hansen, Trotsky’s former personal secretary, of protecting Sylvia Franklin, a closet American Communist and NKVD agent, who was also working for the FBI. It is difficult now to determine unequivocally the truth of this allegation. The fact that the chief operatives were Stalin’s own is plain enough, but there remains the possibility that the American special services were following, and perhaps in some sense influencing, events in Coyoacan.
After the turbulence had settled, it was felt acutely that Trotsky was doomed. Stalin would not stop until he had been exterminated. Trotsky’s entourage and his comrades-in-arms did what they could to protect their leader. They suggested he go to another country and go underground, mentioning France and the capitals of several Latin American countries. He listened but at once rejected the idea. He felt old, and was tired of running. Above all he had no intention of keeping silent, and if he continued as before to expose Stalin, his whereabouts would soon be discovered. James Cannon, one of the American Trotskyist leaders, later wrote that people from various organizations who now visited Trotsky felt they were seeing him for the last time: ‘After meeting Lev Davidovich, it was decided to launch a new campaign to strengthen his security. We collected … several thousand dollars to reinforce the house; all party members and sympathizers responded generously and unselfishly to the call.’131
As Sudoplatov confirms, news of the failure of the assassination attempt sent Stalin into a rage. Beria had to endure his angry words, while those associated with the operation could expect a fate similar to that of Shpigelglas, who was under arrest. Everything would now be staked on the action of an individual operator who had long been installed in Mexico, and who was preparing to carry out his mission.
August 1940
Every morning, after feeding his rabbits and chickens, and before breakfast, Trotsky would sit at his desk. The book on Stalin was going badly. Over the last decade he had written so much about this man that he was left feeling creatively ruined. He knew this was his worst book. The hatred froze his mind the minute he sat down to write. Yet he had to finish it, if only because the publishers were nagging him and threatening to demand repayment of their advances.
Stalin was pressing Beria to get on with the ‘operation’. After the failure of Siqueiros’s efforts it would have been unwise to turn again to the Mexican Communists. Siqueiros himself had to go into hiding for a long time, then serve a prison term and finally go into exile. Yet he had the courage in later years to admit that taking part in the attack on Trotsky had been a crime.132 This was not something that those who were working for the NKVD would ever confess. Right up to the collapse of Bolshevism, they and their successors in the KGB pretended they knew nothing of the affair, asserting that there were no relevant documents in their custody. (Indeed, it was so difficult for me to obtain material that in certain circumstances I have been able to give no references to sources, since I obtained them unofficially. This book was already at the presses for its Russian edition when the events of August 1991 in Moscow occurred, bringing the downfall of the totalitarian system.)
In the eyes of the Soviet Party’s leadership Siqueiros was not only a famous artist, but above all an orthodox Communist, capable of ‘revolutionary action’. Indeed, in 1966 he was awarded the International Lenin Prize for ‘the strengthening of peace between the peoples’. Perhaps it was his dedication in May 1940 that was being recognized. Be that as it may, after the failure of the attempt, Eitingon could no longer accept the help of Siqueiros’s people.
While Eitingon was working out a new plan, life in the little fortress gradually returned to something like normal. When the police finally ceased to suspect that the attempt had been engineered by Trotsky’s supporters, Trotsky and his friends set about strengthening the walls, building brick balustrades on the veranda, installing additional alarms and lighting the approaches. Despite the hubbub of all this activity, Trotsky and Natalya felt a new wave of depression and isolation. The Rosmers, who were so dear to them, had left for Paris, never to see them again.
Trotsky displayed an air of indifference to the warnings of his friends about the need to increase his vigilance and to avoid any contact with unknown people. After all, the claim given by his ‘well-wisher’ Orlov, that a murderer was hiding among his entourage, had proved groundless. The attack had been the work of an entirely outside force, and had not come from within, he was sure. He remembered how both he and Lenin had received warnings ofimminent danger to themselves soon after the revolution. On one occasion in 1919, as he arrived at a Central Committee meeting in Moscow, Lenin had passed him a telegram from a Red Army man at Saratov: ‘Comrade Lenin, Allow me the opportunity at once to tell you about secret military actions against the Soviet regime. Your enemies, all of whom I know, want to kill you and Trotsky.’133 Trotsky had merely smiled and pushed the paper back to Lenin. He had received such naive warnings repeatedly, and would continue to do so. In April 1921, for instance, he received a letter from a Party member called Stepan Zvanov: ‘With Communist greetings, Lev Davydovich Trotsky! Respecting you as I do as the leader of the world proletarian revolution, I urge you to be careful in [Petrograd]. I have learnt through rumours that the chief of army communications, Comrade Dmitriev, harbours some sort of ill will towards you. I am known to you. We worked together in America.’134
Now such warnings were no longer necessary. Everyone realized perfectly well that Stalin’s sword hung over the hideously reinforced villa. But how would the blow be delivered? Explosives? Machine-guns? Poison? Not even Stalin knew the answer, nor was he interested in such details. Only the end result mattered. As Sudoplatov remembered from his meeting with Stalin in the spring of 1939, the leader pronounced unequivocally: ‘War is coming. Trotskyism has become an accomplice of Fascism. We must strike a blow at the Fourth International. How? Decapitate it.’ A blow had been attempted in May, but a miracle had saved the leader of the World Party of Social Revolution. Eitingon knew there could be no more such errors. At stake were not only the life of the man who had barricaded himself in his Mexican villa, but Eitingon’s own and those of his family. He had to find a way to infiltrate his man into Trotsky’s house, as since the May attempt Trotsky had virtually given up his expeditions into the h
ills for cactuses. An attempt had already been made by Zborowski to install someone from Paris among Trotsky’s security personnel. He had written first to Trotsky and then his secretary, van Heijenoort, but Trotsky had been cautious and unwilling to extend the circle of people around him.135
Eitingon was therefore compelled to resort to his second plan, which was centred on a Spanish Communist called Ramon Mercader who had been in America since the beginning of 1939, first in the USA and then in Mexico. He had first moved from Spain to France under the name of Jacques Mornard. There, with Zborowski’s help, he had been introduced by US Communists to Sylvia Agelof, an active Trotskyist and a member of one of the American organizations of ‘Bolshevik-Leninists’. Sylvia’s mother was Russian and Sylvia, apart from English, French and Spanish, also spoke Russian. In September 1938, while attending the founding congress of the Fourth International, she met Jacques Mornard and a stormy romance ensued. He took the twenty-eight-year-old Sylvia—who was not especially attractive—to restaurants and theatres, and proposed marriage. They spent three happy and carefree months together; Jacques was good-looking and attentive, and not short of cash. Three or four months after Sylvia returned home to the USA in February 1939, Mornard turned up, giving business as the reason for his visit. He was now presenting himself as a Canadian called Frank Jacson, a metamorphosis, he explained to Sylvia, necessitated by the evasion of military service. In effect, Sylvia played the role of a reverse Mata Hari: she did not seduce the people she needed, they seduced her. She was head over heels in love, and with her help Mercader-Mornard-Jacson finally penetrated Trotsky’s household.
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