Leon Trotsky: Letter to Tsion [Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 13. Supplement (1929-1933), New York 1979, p. 180 f., title: “Answers to Personal Questions”] Dear Sir: The questions you pose, I must admit, surprise me somewhat: Are they really sufficiently appropriate for defining a person? “What is your favorite occupation, besides hunting and fishing?” Hunting and fishing, for me, are not occupations but relaxation. My “favorite occupation” is mental activity: reading, thinking, and perhaps, writing. My “favorite” Soviet writer? The events of the past twenty years have greatly narrowed down the amount of attention I could give to imaginative literature. I did have “favorite” writers twenty-five or thirty years ago. Now the person I read with perhaps the greatest interest is Babel. Of foreign writers it is even harder to speak. I do not know the contemporary writers well enough, and my comments would be totally accidental in nature. Your question about philosophers is also difficult. I look at philosophy (to the extent that I am familiar with it) in the way it develops. And I would be very hard put to specify by name a philosopher who in my view stood “higher than the others.” The same is true, in a certain sense, of historical figures as well. I can say that Friedrich Engels, as a human figure, impresses me in the highest degree. Of course, the historical role of Marx was much greater. What time of my life do I consider my happiest? I simply do not know how to respond to this question. In all periods of my life there has been a mixture of good and bad. To draw the “balance sheet” on particular periods is something I have no right to do, nor have I ever regarded my life in that way. That is all I can say. I wish you every success. |
Leon Trotsky > 1932 >