War-dated DS in Cyrillic, signed “L. Trotsky,” one page, 7.25 x 9, February 10, 1919. Official mandate No. 507 dispatched from Moscow, which reads (translated): “A bearer of this [document], comrade Pukhin is in charge of the movement of Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic’s train [and] is entrusted with overseeing of correct and timely movement of the train. All railroad organizations and official persons are to offer complete assistance to comrade Pukhin in fulfillment of his responsibilities.” Signed prominently at the conclusion in blue pencil by Leon Trotsky, and countersigned by his personal secretary, Mikhail Glazman. In very good to fine condition, with some light creasing, and show-through along the left edge from a clipping affixed to the back.
Perhaps one of history’s most storied locomotives was ‘the train of the Predrevoyensoviet,’ the train of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, which for two-and-a-half years carried Leon Trotsky, War Commissar of the new government of the Soviet Union, from one battle front to another during the chaotic civil war years of 1918 to 1920, when the Bolsheviks were fighting for their survival.
The train became more than a mobile supreme command post for the Red Army, and more than a permanent residence and safe haven for Trotsky. It assumed an almost mystical significance for the commanders and men of the Red Army, as it steamed into critical sectors of the fluctuating front line, bringing trained officers and specialists, fresh supplies, news of other sectors, and above all the reassuring and sometimes terrifying presence of the War Commissar himself.
According to Trotsky himself: ‘During the most strenuous years of the revolution, my own personal life was bound up inseparably with the life of that train. The train, on the other hand, was inseparably bound up with the life of the Red Army. The train linked the front with the base, solved urgent problems on the spot, educated, appealed, supplied, rewarded, and punished.’
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