Fear of assassination and childhood innocence

Mina Urgan (1915–2000), a professor of English literature, writer, philologist, translator, and socialist, recounts in her book "Bir Dinazorun Anıları" [Memoirs of a Dinosaur] how, at the age of 14, she caught a glimpse of Trotsky, who was living in Büyükada at the time:

Trotsky lived on Büyükada, on Nizam Street, in a mansion with a garden that extended down to the sea. He never walked the streets but went fishing almost every day in a rowboat. One day, while swimming offshore, I spotted Trotsky’s boat. We could recognise the boat from a distance because two Russian guards with pistols sat at the bow and stern. In the middle, there was the Greek fisherman rowing and Trotsky with his fishing rod. I immediately swam towards the boat, grabbed the side, and found myself almost nose-to-nose with Trotsky. One of the guards said, "git, git" ["go, go" in English]. (In fact, he pronounced it as "get, get" with a Russian accent.) Pretending to be tired, I tried to hold onto the edge of the boat a little longer and continue looking at Trotsky. But when the guard raised his pistol as if to hit my fingers with its butt, I let go of the boat. They were evidently so afraid of an assassination that they even suspected an unarmed girl in the sea and wouldn’t let her near Trotsky.

It would have been nice if this great man, instead of looking at me with cold eyes as if I weren’t even there, had said, "Let the child come aboard the boat and rest for a while." It would have been nice if he had spoken a little French with me, asked how I had learned French, where I studied, and so on, or even handed me a towel to dry my face and eyes. It was obvious that I posed no threat to him. Yet years later, in Mexico, Ramón Mercader, a man who had entered and exited Trotsky’s house freely as a family friend, would easily assassinate him—hitting him on the head with an ice pick. (Mina Urgan, Bir Dinazorun Anıları, YKY, 31st edition, September 1998, Istanbul, pp. 155–156.)

This intriguing anecdote vividly captures Trotsky’s isolation and the tense political atmosphere of the time. (Note: The assassin who would later kill Trotsky in Mexico in 1940 was surnamed Mercader, not “Mercedes” as Urgan mistakenly recalled.)

On the other hand, Çağatay Anadol, a leading member of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey (TSİP) and one of the founders of the Socialist Unity Party, the United Socialist Party (BSP), and the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), recounts in his political memoirs, “Şu Bizim Sosyalist İşçi Partisi” [That’s Our Socialist Workers’ Party], how he heard this anecdote from Urgan on 23 June 1990, during a train journey from Istanbul to Ankara for the BSP preparatory congress, and how they joked about it:

I was among those who travelled to Ankara by train. I remember that we made our way to the restaurant carriage and enjoyed a lively journey, cramming six people into tables meant for four. My dear Mina Urgan was also travelling to the congress. In the restaurant carriage, she told me, in her hoarse voice, how one day, while swimming off Büyükada, she approached Trotsky’s rowboat, locked eyes with him, and was signalled away by his guards. Ms Urgan must have been about 15 or 17 years old at the time. We were all astonished to realise that someone among us could link the time of a historical figure like Trotsky to the present. In fact, when our Ethem (Kiper) jokingly said, "Ask her if she has any memories of Engels," we all burst into laughter, including Ms Mina. (Çağatay Anadol, Şu Bizim Sosyalist İşçi Partisi: "Bir Barbar Aşısı" (TSİP 1974-1990), İletişim Yayınları, 1st edition, 2022, Istanbul, p. 240.)

(Note: Anadol had likely not read Urgan’s book, and since human memory is as prone to error as it is to forgetfulness, he misremembered Urgan’s age during her encounter with Trotsky.)