s. As early as 1900 his activities as a Socialist
propagandist among students had landed him in prison in solitary
confinement. In 1902 he was exiled to eastern Siberia, whence he managed to
escape. During the next three years he lived abroad, except for brief
intervals spent in Russia, devoting himself to Socialist journalism. His
first pamphlet, published in Geneva in 1903, was an attempt to reconcile
the two factions in the Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviki and the
Mensheviki. He was an orthodox Marxist of the most extreme doctrinaire
type, and naturally inclined to the Bolshevik view. Yet he never joined the
Bolsheviki, preferring to remain aloof from both factions and steadfastly
and earnestly striving to unite them.

When the Revolution of 1905 broke out Trotzky had already attained
considerable influence among the Socialists. He was regarded as one of the
ablest of the younger Marxians, and men spoke of him as destined to occupy
the place of Plechanov. He became one of the most influential leaders of
the St. Petersburg Soviet, and was elected its president. In that capacity
he labored with titanic energy and manifested great versatility, as
organizer, writer, speaker, and arbiter of disputes among warring
individuals and groups. When the end came he was arrested and thrown into
prison, where he remained for twelve months. After that he was tried and
sentenced to life-exile in northern Siberia. From this he managed to
escape, however, and from 1907 until the outbreak of the war in 1914 he
lived in Vienna.

The first two years of the war he lived in France, doing editorial work for
a radical Russian Socialist daily paper, the _Nashe Slovo_. His writing,
together with his activity in the Zimmerwald movement of anti-war
Socialists, caused his expulsion from France. The Swiss government having
refused to permit him to enter Switzerland, he sought refuge in Spain,
where he was once more arrested and imprisoned for a short time. Released
through the intervention of Spanish Socialists, he set sail with his family
for New York, where he arrived early in January, 1917. Soon after the news
of the Russian Revolution thrilled the world Trotzky, like many other
Russian exiles, made hasty preparations to return, sailing on March 27th
on a Norwegian steamer. At Halifax he and his family, together with a
number of other Russian revolutionists, were taken from the ship and
interned in a camp for war prisoners, Trotzky resist