They Lie About Me in America: Trotsky Tells Bessie Beatty

Bessie Beatty interviewed Leon Trotsky in October, 1917. "There was keen intelligence here, nerve, a certain uncompromising streak of iron, a sense of power; yet I little suspected I was talking to the man whose name within a few brief weeks would be a familiar word on every tongue - the most talked of human being in an age of spectacular figures."An excerpt from "They Lie About Me in America" as published by Hearst International in 1922:The Man Who Never Laughs...Trotsky had always been a vague figure in our minds. Then came two things to give us a vivid picture of the second most powerful leader in Russia. First, Nikita Balieff, Russia's foremost comedian, now in New York, told us, "I ppeared before the Tsar and he laughed. I appeared before Trotsky and I never before worked so hard or tried to be so funny. But I could not make Trotzky laugh. He never laughs." Now we have Miss Beatty's interview and we understand why Leon Trotsky seldom laughs, for her story tells — more than anything you have read of the trials and triumphs of the pacifist refugee who today heads the hardest fighting army in the world.