Youtor
Yakov Sverdlov ☭
YOUR LINK HERE:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MqO2Pr6brGc
Yakov Sverdlov, Bolshevik activist. • *** • http://www.marxists.org/archive/trots... • • AN IMPERIOUS CHAIRMAN • • Sverdlov had to preside a great deal. He was Chairman of many bodies and at many meetings. He was an imperious Chairman. Not in the sense that he shut off discussion, or curbed the speakers, and so on. Not at all. On the contrary, he never quibbled or insisted on formalities. His imperiousness as Chairman consisted in this, that he always knew exactly what practical decision was before the body; he understood who would speak, what would be said, and why; he was quite familiar with the backstage aspects of the issue -- and every big and complex issue has its own backstage; he was adept at giving the floor in time to speakers who were needed; he knew how to put the proposition to a vote in time; he knew what could be carried and he was able to carry what he wanted. These traits of his as Chairman were bound up indissolubly with all his qualities as a practical leader, with his ability to appraise people in the flesh, realistically, with his inexhaustible inventiveness in the field of organizational and personnel combinations. • • During stormy sessions he was adept at permitting the assembly to become noisy and let off steam; and then at the proper moment he would intervene to restore order with a firm hand and a metallic voice. • • Sverdlov was of medium height, of dark complexion, thin and gaunt; his face, lean; his features, angular. His powerful and even mighty voice might have seemed out of consonance with his physique. To an even greater degree this might be said of his character. But such an impression could be only fleeting. And then the physical image became fused with the spiritual. Nor is this all, for this gaunt figure with its calm unconquerable and inflexible will and with its powerful but not flexible voice would then stand forth as a finished image. • • Nichevo, Valdimir Ilyich would sometimes say in a difficult situation. Sverdlov will tell them about it in his Sverdlovian bass and the matter will be settled ... • • In these words there was affectionate irony. • • In the initial post-October period the Communists were, as is well-known, called leatherites, by our enemies, because of the way in which we dressed. I believe that Sverdlov s example played a major role in introducing the leather uniform among us. At all events he invariably walked around encased in leather from head to toe, from his leather cap to his leather boots. This costume, which somehow corresponded with the character of those days, radiated far and wide from him, as the central organizational figure. • • Comrades who knew Sverdlov in the underground days remember a different Sverdlov. But in my memory Sverdlov remains clothed in leather as in an armor grown black under the blows of the first years of the Civil War. • • We were gathered at a session of the Political Bureau when Sverdlov, who was burning up with fever at home, took a turn for the worse. E.D. Stassova, the then Secretary of the Central Committee, came in during the session. She had come from Sverdlov s apartment. Her face was unrecognizable. • • Jacob Mikhailovich feels poorly, very poorly, she said. A glance at her sufficed to understand that there was no hope. We cut the session short. Vladimir Ilyich went to Sverdlov s apartment, and I left for the Commissariat to prepare to depart immediately to the front. In about 15 minutes a phone call came from Lenin, who said in that special muted voice which meant great strain: He is gone. He is gone. He is gone. For a while each of us held the receiver in our hands and each could feel the silence at the other end. Then we hung up. There was nothing more to say. Jacob Mikhailovich was gone. Sverdlov was no longer among us. • March 13, 1925
#############################
