Table Of ContentU.S. $30.00
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Advance Praise for Trotsky in New York 1917
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“Ackerman creates a lively portrait of this tireless agitator adjusting his personal life and his poli-
Trotsky
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tics to a strange country a few months before the Bolsheviks seized power at home. In boisterous burst onto the world stage in November
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prose well-matched to his topic, the author also convincingly evokes the social ferment of New 1917 as co-leader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power
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York’s huge immigrant community . . . Ackerman succeeds in presenting Trotsky’s little-known in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized
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weeks in New York as an absorbing adventure, though much greater adventures lay ahead. An n personalities of the twentieth century, a global icon
entertaining and informative account of a footnote to the life of one of the 20th century’s most of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same
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charismatic leaders.” —Kirkus Lev Davidovich Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee
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w expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and
“D.C. lawyer and author Ackerman (Young J. Edgar) takes the obscure story of Leon Trotsky’s speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow
10-week stay in New York City in early 1917 and succeeds in painting a picture of a man on the y travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia
cusp of greatness . . . His brief stay in N.Y.C. may remain a historical footnote, but Ackerman o and change the world? Where else? New York City.
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clearly demonstrates the forcefulness of Trotsky’s revolutionary spirit.” —Publishers Weekly Between January and March 1917, Trotsky found
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refuge in the United States. America had kept itself
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out of the European Great War, leaving New York the
Praise for Boss Tweed: The Corrupt Pol
Kenneth D. Ackerman freest city on earth. During his time there—just over
has made old New York a 9
Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York ten weeks—Trotsky immersed himself in the local
favorite subject in his writing, including his critically
1 scene. He settled his family in the Bronx, edited a rad-
acclaimed biography Boss Tweed: The Corrupt Pol Who “[An] excellent new biography of the Boss . . . superb on the creation of the Tweed system and
Conceived the Soul of Modern New York. He now re- its expansion from acceptable petty skimming to the glittering fellowship of the ring . . . told in 7 ical left wing tabloid in Greenwich Village, sampled
the lifestyle, and plunged headlong into local politics.
turns to New York in a different era, the exciting eve a crisp, clear way.” —Pete Hamill, New York Times Book Review
His clashes with leading New York socialists over the
of American entry into World War I, for his first major
question of US entry into World War I would reshape
new book in nine years. “Ackerman has fashioned a notable career chronicling with obvious relish the tarnished politics
the American left for the next fifty years. His frantic
Beyond his writing, Ackerman has served a of the Gilded Age.” —Boston Globe
AK attempt to return to Russia to lead the revolution
long legal career in Washington, D.C., both in and
out of government, including as counsel to two U.S. “Absolutely fascinating.” —Washington Post ce there, and the attempt by British intelligence to stop
kn him, was the stuff of thrillers.
Senate committees, regulatory posts in both the
Reagan and Clinton administrations, and as manager of “Replete with rich biographical details and colorful anecdotes that bring the period to life . . . en Trotsky’s sojourn in New York City is a story
USDA’s Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. He A pleasure to read.” —Kenneth T. Jackson, Washington Post Book World re rarely told, and never with the fullness and verve of the
m current title. As we approach the 100th anniversary of
has also served on the boards of the Writers Center in t
the Russian Revolution, it presents a portrait not only
Bethesda, Maryland, and the Washington Independent ah
of a towering yet all-too-human political figure on the
Review of Books. He lives with his wife Karen in Falls n
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cusp of history, but also of the city itself at a special
Church, Virginia. ISBN: 978-1-61902-607-0 .
53000 moment in our collective memory.
Jacket design: Faceout Studio, Charles Brock
Cover photos: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division COUNTERPOINT
Leon Trotsky and New York from tower of Brooklyn Bridge
www.COUNTERPOINTPREss.COm
Author photo: © J. Larry Golfer 9 781619 026070
DIsTRIbUTED by PUblIshERs GROUP wEsT
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1917
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Kenneth D.
A C K E R M A N
Copyright © 2016 by Kenneth D. Ackerman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available
Cover design by Faceout Studios
Interior design by Megan Jones Design
ISBN 978-1-61902-607-0
COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my grandparents Rubin Mendel and Ides Bronfeld—loved, remem-
bered, and appreciated by five generations of descendants—who fled
Poland for America as a result of the 1920 Soviet Russian invasion
of Poland led by the then Soviet people’s commissar for military and
naval affairs, Leon Trotsky.
And to my friend and colleague Bob Hahn, part of our OFW Law fam-
ily, who touched all who knew him and who, typically, dropped all else
to share with me his clear-eyed insights on this manuscript, before we
lost him without warning and far too soon. I hope his sense of excel-
lence has rubbed off on these pages.
45678679
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Act I:
1: Montserrat ................................................. 5
2: Times Square.............................................29
3: Saint Marks Place .......................................41
4: Brooklyn ...................................................55
5: Riverside Drive I ........................................65
6: Paterson ...................................................73
7: The Bronx.................................................75
8: Cooper Union.............................................79
9: Riverside Drive II .......................................89
10: Wilson ......................................................95
)52):,"
Act II:
11: Spy versus Spy ......................................... 103
12: Carnegie Hall .......................................... 115
13: Ziv ......................................................... 129
14: Zurich.................................................... 139
15: East Broadway ......................................... 145
16: The Committee ......................................... 157
17: Lenox Casino ........................................... 169
18: Russia .................................................... 177
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Act III:
19: The Whirlwind ......................................... 185
20: Spies Again ............................................. 197
21: Consulates .............................................. 213
22: Missing .................................................. 225
23: Harlem River Casino................................. 231
24: Kristianiafjord ......................................... 239
25: Nova Scotia ............................................. 251
26: Petrograd ................................................ 273
Loose Ends.......................................................... 291
Acknowledgments ................................................ 331
Selected Sources .................................................. 335
Endnotes............................................................. 343
Index.................................................................. 365
