Leon Trotsky: Yevno Azef

[My own translation of the Russian text in "Kievskaya Mysl" No. 126, 8/21 May 1911, reprinted in Sochineniya, Vol. 8, Moscow-Leningrad 1926, compared to the German translation. Corrections by English native speakers would be extremely welcome]

The "Conclusion of the Judicial Investigation Commission on the Azef case" was recently published in Paris in the form of a 108-page pamphlet. The Judicial Investigation Commission chaired by A. Bach had 73 sessions, questioned 31 persons. The investigative material is over 1,300 pages in folio. The printed "Conclusion" is a summary of the most important findings of the investigation, and the main conclusions from them.

I read this pamphlet with the liveliest interest. Since January 1909, when Yevno Filippovich Azef, a member of the Combat Organisation and the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, was declared a professional provocateur, a vast international literature grew up around this figure. It stood mainly under the sign of sensation. And no wonder: the very fact was too monstrously sensational, too much it excited the imagination. In the soul of almost every person, especially in the soul of a philistine, lives a kind of - how can I put it? - a romantic visceral worm that freezes in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but, once awakened by a sensation, demands new and new food, more and more extraordinary things. This is the curiosity that makes you sick in the stomach. In our merciless newspaper time, every event reaches the reader in an infinite number of reflections, more and more moving away from the source. Deprived of new food, the sensation feeds on the reflection of reflections - second, third ... n + first degree. Finally, the designated time passes, determined by the psycho-physiological nature of the visceral worms of romanticism, the sensation becomes corkscrewed, and the event that gave rise to it is buried under a mound of newsprint.

The public psyche, irritated by the sensation, not only demands more and more extreme versions, but even notes such explanations that bring the event into realistic limits with some resentment. It does not want explanations at all in such cases; it requires the mysterious, the problematic. The most powerful terrorist in the police department; the most trusted agent organising the assassinations of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Grand Duke - isn't this a titanic figure in its internal contradictions, far beyond the human and only human? The most sober-minded people, with some kind of psychological sensuality, were perplexed by the problem of the "greatest provocateur." They even added to this feeling a certain shade of national pride. "Azef, one might say, teached Europe a lesson." In the international society of European cafés, many Russians looked at that time like people celebrating their name day.

There were protesters, too, and even quite a few. One of my mates, a person of bilious nature and not even a graduate from the university, was extremely malignant about the cult of Azef's demonism. “I don’t know Azef,” he said, “and I have never heard of him before, but I allow myself to think and even dare to express this idea loudly that he cannot have any demonic qualities, for he must be the most perfect log by his nature. To play a devilish game for 17 years, lie without being checked, cheat without getting caught, you need to be either a genius of seven spans in your forehead, or, on the contrary, a person with head and heart mechanics simplified to the extreme, simply a fool who plays his game rudely, straightforwardly, arrogantly, not adapting to someone else's psychology, not wasting on details and that is why he comes out the winner. But you must agree that it is incomparably more natural to assume a dullard in Azef than a genius. Firstly, because dullards are found in nature incomparably more often, and, secondly, and most importantly, because geniuses have a habit of finding use for their powers outside the walls of the secret police."

This paradoxical hypothesis, which seemed to me very tempting from the very beginning, received in my eyes a high degree of probability by comparing it with one instructive anecdote told by Mr. Struve à propos Azef. The anecdote belonged to that almost diluvial era, when the red radical Struve edited the Marxist journal "Nachalo" and was still very far from the intention of lightly slapping the penny-pincher (of course, in the highest asemitic sense¹). At that time, our future conservative national liberal was himself a tasty morsel for the police department, which sent Gurovich to him as "collaborator". The ignorant spy turned out to be the co-publisher of the venerable magazine, without paying, by the way, a penny to the publishing fund, although he got the share owed from him from the treasury, one must think, in full, about which one could make inquiries from the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Witte, who is now busy with revelations ... In his blunder, Mr. Struve justified himself by the fact that Gurovich was too stupid, so that no reasonable person could even imagine that the police department could use such an inveterate fool to catch the most educated writers. With all the seriousness of an incorrigible doctrinaire, Mr. Struve even slightly poked the department in the face with the stupidity of Gurovich: "Shame on you”, he said, you are called a state institution, but you have not managed to provide an intelligent person!" However, go ahead: for all his stupidity, Gurovich bypassed the enlightened wiseacres, called himself their companion, signed a leftist magazine with his own name, and, above all, put a publishing share in his pocket, so he covered up his employers for something. So a fool for this mission was not so bad at all. And Mr. Struve, as an ideologogist of conservative statehood, should least of all underestimate, let alone humiliate fools ...

“God bless stupidity, it's so brave, so fearless,

it does not allow itself to be intimidated

of high latitudes, but treats mountains

as if they were hills, and places

a little grain of sand so insanely stupid, that the genius stumbles

and makes a somersault."

Intelligence and sensitivity are not always an advantage. If Azef began to weave a delicate psychological lace in that society of intelligent, perceptive and venerable people, in which he moved, he would inevitably break through and screw up at every step. From under the mask of a person of ideas, standing on an equal footing with others, the taxed face of the spy would certainly stick out, like a dirty foot rag from a pierced patent shoe. But it is another matter, since Azef did not attempt such a game at all, but openly wore his physical and spiritual face. He made people get used to himself – not by the force of thoughtful and planned behaviour, but solely by the automatic pressure of his stupid inability to change himself. His companions looked at him and said to themselves (they had to say to themselves): "After all, this subject is a pure boor – and yet his deeds bear witness for him." Not everyone, of course, dared to call him a boor, even if only to himself, but everyone should have felt something like this. And that saved him. He acquired once and for all the right to discord with his environment and openly carry his Azefian essence with him.

In the materials of the "Conclusion" there are scattered indications that Azef "looked" as a narrow-minded, stupid and ignorant person. Almost everyone complains about the first impression he makes. One of the interviewees summed up this "first impression" as follows: "If you look at the person, you won't give a penny for him, but in fact, people are like that." "He mutters a little," said Gotz, who appreciated him very much, about Azef. The "Judicial Investigation Commission" itself, very conscientious in the selection of material, but extremely half-hearted in all its conclusions, considers the opinion of Azef as a mental insignificance to be "extreme". In doing so it refers to the testimony of one of the witnesses about a speech that Azef made in 1901 in a Moscow Marxist circle in defence of Mikhailovsky's ideas and especially of his "struggle for individuality." But how many speeches were made for and against Mikhailovsky – in 1901! And the very fact that after a thorough investigation it turned out to be possible to enter into the intellectual form of Azef only one "excited" speech, delivered ten years ago, best of all shows that his mental creativity did not fountain. And how could it be otherwise? The subject, accustomed to translating everything into rubles, both the head of Plehve and the head of Gershuni, who speculated on Browning and dynamite, as if in Provençal oil, was absolutely unable to imitate any serious interest in the issues of socialisation, cooperation and the struggle for individuality. That is why he was more silent at party conferences, sometimes he "muttered a little" – and he appealed to his comrades not with his thoughts, and not with speeches. On the contrary, he did not at all hide his businesslike contempt for all kinds of intelligence, even flaunting it, in every possible way exposing it. And this was put to him by the ideologists, theoreticians and writers of the party as a kind of plus, as a sign of the attitude of a truly military man to civilian activities. And if then, against the background of this firmly established attitude towards him, he drops some kind of "theoretical" consideration, albeit a completely petty one, one of those that can be raised on the street, then everyone exchanges glances with each other with that ironic respectful air with which Ostap [Bulba] thought about his father Taras: he only pretended to be a fool and was well-versed in Latin wisdom.

But if the "Conclusion" speaks without great confidence about the mental and theoretical merits of Azef, which could to some extent explain his influence, then the more energetically the commission of inquiry insists on Azef as a genius hypocrite. Azef allegedly played his role of a true party man "to perfection," as if he carried out his plan with amazing skill: without jumping out, without being put forward or being imposed. However, the data of the commission itself do not fully confirm this characteristic. It turns out that "sometimes" Azef broke through and showed the inherent rigidity and callousness of his nature. Thus, for example, reports of the horrors of torture and prison torture did not touch him at all, which could not but produce a strange impression on his friends. But, pressing on everyone with his dull immobility, he forced to take himself as he is: "The strangeness of his character" was explained, in the words of the "Conclusion," "by a lack of mental sensitivity and that firmness, which, within certain limits, is the duty of a person who bears responsibility for the Combat Organisation". So, after all, harshness and callousness and other "weirdness of character" stuck out, embarrassed and gave rise to the need for an explanation? But where, then, is the "perfection of the game"?

The materials of the commission do not at all confirm its statement that Azef did not stick his head out and did not impose himself, observing his "plan". In fact, only in the very first period Azef did not stick his head out, when, like any spy, he was shy and lost. Yes, and there was no place to stick out especially, since the party of socialist-revolutionaries did not yet exist, and Azef had to deal with individuals and groups. But, since he was beginning to smell fried somewhere, Azef jumped forward already at that time and, moreover, very awkwardly. In Switzerland, he advertised himself in 1893 as an "extreme terrorist". When Burtsev, unsupported by anyone, in the nineties from London raised an agitation for the renewal of terror, Azef, then still little known, greeted him with a letter and offered his services. This means that he sticked his head out and imposed hinself. Much later, after the Plehve affair, when Azef found himself not only at the head of the Combat Organisation, but also at the head of the entire party, at least organisationally, he began to act with such despotic impudence of an arrogant spy that aroused serious fear in some of his comrades whether the great conspirator has gone mad. This means that he buried himself and lost every measure.

But he didn't get caught! – That's where the riddle of all riddles is. With amazement, they referred to the fact – and this amazement went around literally all the newspapers in the world – that Azef never gave himself away ... even in the fever delirium of his dreams. Isn't this superhuman self-control, demonic strength? But, firstly: who stenographed the Azefian dreams and who then subjected them to forensic analysis? Secondly: in this respect, cannot unfaithful wives compete with the devil of provocation, about whom it has also not been established that they would engage in credulous confessions to deceived husbands in their sleep?

But whatever the case of Azef's dreams, the fact remains: for a number of years of his provocative "work" Azef did not come across, and this alone should, obviously, serve as the best proof of his extraordinary endurance. How, however, is this sacramental "not caught" to be understood? Does this mean: did not make mistakes, at least rough ones? Or should this be understood simply in the sense that even the grossest blunders, under the conditions that arose around Azef, were incapable of ruining him? This is where the root of the whole question lies. And it is worth approaching the riddle from this side, so that one truly amazing circumstance immediately catches the eye: in almost the entire continuation of Azef's career, rumors and direct accusations of provocation followed him on his heels. Back in Darmstadt, where Azef was a student, one of the professors spoke about him in a private conversation with the words: "dieser Spion" ("this spy").

In 1903, a student accused Azef of provocation. In August 1903, a prominent social revolutionary received an anonymous letter (written, as is now known, by Menshchikov² – not by the one who serves in Novoye Vremya, but by the one who served in the police department) with very definite and convincing indications of an "engineer Aziev" as a provocateur. Azef, who was acquainted with the letter, was frightened to the point of hysteria: he tore his shirt, hiccupped and cried. But after making sure that his chances were not shaken, he came "in a joking mood." At the beginning of 1906, the party obtained testimony against Azef from agents of the Saratov secret police. In the fall of 1906 – the same kind of testimony from a Okhrana official in a southern city. In the fall of 1907, the so-called "Saratov letter" appeared on the scene with completely definite, factual indications that were easily verifiable; however, it, like all the previous ones, has not been tested. Finally, when, after all this, Burtsev begins his exposure campaign in 1908, he meets desperate resistance from the leading spheres of the party. Moreover: already when it was known that Lopukhin fully confirmed Burtsev's suspicions and that the latter was going to publish Azef as a provocateur in a printed sheet, a member of the central committee returned Burtsev a proofreading of his sheet with the words: "Azef and the party are one and the same same ... Act as you want. "

In view of all these facts, one has to ask: what significance could these or those indirect blunders of Azef have in comparison with these direct accusations? If they did not believe in the highly convincing Okhrana reports outlining the circumstances of the case, if they were so inclined that they did not believe the data of Menshchikov, Bakai and Lopukhin, could they, were they able to notice the gaps in the behaviour of Azef himself, his awkward gestures and even his gross mistakes ?

It is clear that the secret of Azef's success lay not in the devil's dexterity, and in no way in his personal charm: we already know that his appearance is repulsive, he always makes an unpleasant, sometimes disgusting first impression, he is free of interests in ideas, barely mutters. Deprived of sensitivity, cruel, rude in his feelings and in their outward expression, at first he hiccups with fear, and, having calmed down, falls into a "joking mood" ...

The secret of Azefism is beyond Azef itself; it is in that hypnosis that allowed his fellow party members to put their finger in the ulcers of provocation and – to deny these ulcers; in that collective hypnosis, which was not created by Azef, but by terror as a system. The importance that the top of the party attached to terror led, in the words of the Conclusion, “on the one hand, to the construction of a completely separate supra-party Combat Organisation, which became a submissive weapon in the hands of Azef; on the other, to the creation of an atmosphere of worship and boundless trust around people who successfully practiced terror, precisely around Azef." ...

Already Gershuni has surrounded his post with a semi-mystical halo in the eyes of his party. Azef inherited his aura from Gershuni along with the post of head of the Combat Organisation. It is not surprising that Azef, who had offered his services to Burtsev for terrorist missions several years before, now found Gershuni. And it is not surprising that Gershuni accepted Azef. First of all, the choice in those days was still extremely small. The terrorist current was weak. The main revolutionary forces were in the opposite, Marxist camp. And a person who knew no fundamental doubts or political vacillations, who was ready for anything, was a true treasure for a romanticist of terrorism, such as Gershuni. But how, after all, the idealist Gershuni could morally trust such a figure as Azef? But this is the old question about the relationship of the romantic to the rogue. The rogue always impresses the romantic. The romantic falls in love with the petty and vulgar practicalism of the rogue, endowing him with other qualities from his own excesses. Because he is a romantic, he creates an environment for himself out of imaginary circumstances and imaginary people – in his own image and model.

The Judicial Investigation Commission reveals a clear desire to allot the widest possible field to the "subjective factor" at the expense of objective circumstances. In particular, it insistently repeats that the isolation and seclusion of the Combat Organisation were the result of Azef's deliberately thought out and skillfully pursued policy. However, from the same commission we heard earlier that the isolation of the Combat Organisation stemmed from the very nature of the ultra-conspirational and closed-circle practice of terrorism. And this is perfectly confirmed by the investigative materials. Gershuni not only prepared the organisational position of Azef, but also created it entirely. Gershuni, the creator of the Combat Organisation, in which he himself, according to the "Conclusion," was a dictator, linked it with the Central Committee by purely personal ties and thus turned it into an institution above the party; and then, through all the authority of the CO, which he embodied in himself, Gershuni acquired a decisive influence also in the CC. When the mechanism was created, Gershuni was withdrawn – he was replaced by Azef, whom Gershuni himself had designated as his successor. Having taken a position isolated from the party and towering over the party, Azef found himself in a kind of armoured fortress: all the other party members could not attack him. In the creation of this position, we do not find Azef's personal "creativity": he simply took what the system gave to him.

Trust in Azef as the "great practitioner" grew. And his main, if not the only practical talent was that he did not fall into the hands of the political police. This advantage did not belong to his personality, but to his profession; but it was credited to his skill, resourcefulness and endurance. According to the reviews of the "fighters," “Azef did not even know what fear was." Hence their admiration for Azef, who in their eyes personified the ideal of a "fighter", as did the Combat Organisation as a whole in the eyes of the rest of the party. Then everything went almost automatically. Those who committed an assassination attempt with the assistance of Azef perished – also with the assistance of Azef; but a glare of the accomplished remains on Azef, as on an elusive organiser and leader. Abroad, in the leading circles of the party in he field of ideas, Azef, according to the commission's account, "appeared like a meteor, appeared surrounded by a halo of exploits, the details of which very few were privy to."

He extradited those who opposed him or worked besides him; it was a natural, almost reflexive gesture of self-defence; and as a result – the Azefian authority grew in both camps. After too many extraditions, he – perhaps with the knowledge of his closest partners on the right – allowed such terrorist acts to be committed, which were supposed to strengthen his position in the face of his partners on the left. This again freed his hands to fulfill his police duties. He betrayed, and behind his back worked his superiors, directing all their efforts to keep their "employee" and cover his tracks. And the spy rose upward with an almost fatal force.

What has been said does not need to be understood in the sense that Yevno Azef, did not enter with any side of his personality the game of impersonal political forces that made him a historical figure. It means that there was something in him that set him apart from the ranks of the Judases, who are no less vile, but even more insignificant. More self-confident bluntness, greater cunning, a higher public rank (an engineer graduated abroad), all this was necessary for Azef so that the teeth of the terrorist and police gear wheels had something to cling to in this human figure and raise it to such a height of horror and disgrace. But the solution to this amazing fate is not in the figure itself, but in the structure of the gear wheels and in their coupling. The shocking is in Azefism, not in Azef. The "greatest provocateur" has nothing demonic in him – he was and remains a scoundrel tout court.