A Allen: Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“What are you doing now?” he called out.

“I’m just scattering some snow out on top of the hay so that it looks like it’s been out all night. Lie still.”

Hidden beneath the snow covered straw, Trotsky gave a tiny nod of approval. It was touches like that that mattered. It was not important that the warmth of his breath was melting the snow above him, that wet flakes were already starting to splash his face. It was the growing confidence that in two or three weeks he could be walking the streets of Petersburg, or crossing over to Helsingfors, that would keep him going.

Without warning, his body was jolted from head to foot. The next moment he heard the sleigh creak and felt it begin to move beneath him. A great rush of excitement filled him as he felt the perceptible change in temperature and heard the sound of snow beneath the runners. They had left the stable. Somewhere, above the straw and the snow, a church bell was beginning to toll. In his excitement, the pounding in his ears almost drowned out the sound of the trotting pony.

At last! he thought. This is the beginning.

He was going home, back to the outer world beyond his country’s borders; where passports were not required. Where minor officials did not hold the power of life or death over ordinary people. Where workers were free to march and sing in the streets. Where they had the freedom to organise, and to say, “ No, get lost! ” He was going home to Natalya’s love and Baby Lev’s needs, to Nicolai’s manoeuvrings and to the smell of fresh newsprint.

The sleigh bumped over an obstruction in the road and, despite the discomfort caused by his cramped position and his ice cold fingers, he smiled. He was once more on the road to freedom.

The next time I return to Russia , he vowed, I will be millions.

It takes more than one person to write a book. I am profoundly grateful to my family for allowing me the time and the space to finish the three books that constitute the first part of ‘Berezovo’, and especially to my wife for her patient and perceptive reading of its many drafts. I am hugely indebted to Scott Pack of the excellent Abandoned Bookshop who took a chance on a new author and to Katherine Stephen for her gentle but persuasive editing. I also wish to thank Iain Millar, Michael Bhaskar and Nick Barreto and everyone at Canelo Digital Publishing who have helped bring this story to your screen with such boldness, confidence and expertise.

This is a work of historical fiction and so partly rests on the hard work of other writers. I am grateful principally to L.D. Bronstein/Leon Trotsky himself for leaving at least three differing autobiographical accounts of his journey to, and his escape from, Berezovo in 1907 and also to Malcolm Campbell for his exciting translation of Trotsky’s hastily written celebrity pot boiler My Flight from Siberia publ. Young Socialist Publications 1969. Of the more recent authors writing on this period the following provided rich source material for this work and I am grateful for their labours: Helen Rappaport Conspirator: Lenin in Exile publ. Hutchinson 2009; Ana Siljak Angel of Vengeance publ. St Martin’s Press 1967; Brian Pearce for his translation of the proceedings of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (“1903”) publ. New Park Publications 1978; Margaret Maxwell Narodniki Women publ. Pergamon Press 1990; Edward Crankshaw The Shadow of the Winter Palace publ. Penguin Books 1976; Robert H. McNeal Bride of the Revolution: Krupskaya and Lenin publ. Gollancz 1973; N.K. Krupskaya Reminiscences of Lenin publ. Lawrence & Wishart 1975; Isaac Deutscher The Prophet Armed publ. Oxford University Press 1954; Edmund Wilson To the Finland Station publ. Phoenix 2004; Richard Pipes Russia under the Old Regime publ. Penguin Books 1987; Charles A Ruud & Sergei A Stepanov Fontanka 16 The Tsar’s Secret Police publ. Sutton Publishing 1999; Teodor Shanin Russia, 1905-1907: Revolution as a moment of truth publ. Macmillan 1986; The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution ed. A Ascher publ. Thames & Hudson 1976.

Lastly I would like to express my appreciation for the small band of (genuinely) anonymous reviewers who have gone to the trouble of posting their reviews of the first two titles in this series A Small Town in Siberia and The Rising Storm online. I hope that this third book will provide the temporary closure that some of them are seeking.

First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Canelo

This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

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Copyright © A.J. Allen, 2016

The moral right of A.J. Allen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788630498

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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