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A recently released Turkish intelligence report concerning Trotsky

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Visitors to Büyükada: From left to right – Pierre Naville, Trotsky, Gérard Rosenthal, and Pierre Naville’s wife. Pierre Naville was expelled from the French Communist Party in 1927 for his Trotskyist sympathies. Rosenthal, meanwhile, served as Trotsky’s lawyer in France.

Further into the intelligence report, we learn that Davranof, anticipating potential difficulties the translator (whom he intended to use as an informant but who was in fact working for Turkish intelligence) might encounter in gathering information, advised him to turn to “Police Officer Salih Efendi”. Davranof told MAH’s translator that Salih Efendi had already been leaking information to “others” (possibly referring to local or foreign journalists, or agents of third countries), most likely in return for payment. The OGPU agent also revealed his intention to establish a dual relationship by offering money to both the translator and Salih Efendi.

The document further highlights that Turkish intelligence confirmed both the existence of the individuals mentioned by Davranof and that Salih Efendi was indeed stationed in Büyükada. A noteworthy detail is the observation that Salih Efendi “did not accompany Trotsky to Kadıköy”. This remark most likely refers to Trotsky’s relocation from Büyükada to Moda—which was then considered a peripheral district of Kadıköy—following the fire at the İzzet Paşa Yalısı (a waterfront mansion) in March 1931. [*]

By process of elimination, it is possible to conclude that MAH had no intention of disciplining or reassigning police officer Salih Efendi, despite his passing on information about Trotsky and his household to various parties. Clearly, this tactic—tolerating the breach while continuing surveillance in order to gather intelligence—was precisely the kind of approach one would expect from an intelligence agency.

At this point, it is worth pausing to briefly consider Trotsky’s relationship with the Turkish police, along with that of his secretaries and guards. From the memoirs of Trotsky’s political secretaries and associates—including Jean van Heijenoort—as well as from the works of renowned historians such as Isaac Deutscher and Pierre Broué, both of whom wrote major biographies of Trotsky, we know that during his years in Turkey, a Turkish police unit—usually comprising between two and four officers—was stationed at the entrance to his residence. According to van Heijenoort, who arrived in Büyükada on 20 October 1932, the unit was headed by a police commissioner named Ömer Efendi, of Caucasian origin, who spoke Russian and some French. Van Heijenoort also recalls that the secretaries and guards, who took turns standing 24-hour watch, would occasionally—though rarely—take one of the Turkish officers with them on a patrol around the house.

However, in the final volume of his Trotsky trilogy, Deutscher presents the relationship between the household and the police as being more intimate than it likely was:

The police guards, placed at the gate of the villa, attached themselves so much to their ward that they also became part of the household, running errands, and helping in domestic chores. (Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast - Trotsky: 1929-1940, Oxford University Press, London, 1963, p. 20)

Van Heijenoort, however, firmly rejects Deutscher’s claims on this point in the appendix to his memoirs:

I saw no such thing when I was in Prinkipo. In fact, we were careful not to increase our contact with the Turkish policemen beyond the necessary minimum. As for Trotsky, he was never familiar with them. (Jean van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile: From Prinkipo to Coyoacan, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 1978, p. 154)

It is neither plausible nor convincing that the household could have maintained the kind of relationship with the Turkish police that Deutscher “conjured up” in 1932, as such familiarity would have entailed serious security risks. One must bear in mind that by 1932, Trotsky and his comrades had begun to suspect that Stalin might already have come to view Trotsky’s exile from the Soviet Union as a blunder. Contrary to Stalin’s intentions, Trotsky had not remained isolated and ineffectual in exile; he had attracted supporters in several countries—though not in vast numbers—and was publishing books, pamphlets, and articles that made some impact, alongside the Opposition Bulletin aimed at the Soviet Union.

Trotsky at his writing desk during his exile on Büyükada

Towards the end of the intelligence report, it is noted that an individual previously reported to be travelling from the United Kingdom to join Trotsky had arrived on the island. He was identified as “Osias Rosenzweig”. The report states that although Rosenzweig was described as “English” by birth, he held German nationality and worked as a music teacher.

I have found no trace of Osias Rosenzweig’s identity in the sources available to me or through online searches. The name is also missing from The Bibliography of Lev Trotsky and Trotskyism [**], edited by Wolfgang Lubitz—a comprehensive reference work exceeding 600 pages. The surname “Rosenzweig”, of German origin and commonly associated with Ashkenazi Jews, means “rose tree” or “rose branch” in German. Thus, it seems unlikely that the name is the result of a mere typographical error.

The report also notes that, along with Rosenzweig, a Frenchman named Raymond Moulinière had arrived to join Trotsky. A well-known figure in the Trotskyist movement, Moulinière played a key role in facilitating Trotsky’s settlement on Büyükada in 1929. [***] He is known to have visited Trotsky on the island several times in subsequent years.

However, the report’s claim that Moulinière spoke fluent Turkish and Greek [****] seems rather puzzling. I could find no supporting evidence for this assertion in either the sources at my disposal or in online research. It is possible that Moulinière had only a basic knowledge of both languages, and that his command of Turkish and Greek was exaggerated in the report—whether intentionally or not.

Finally, the report notes that certain information would be passed on to OGPU agent Davranof—who was attempting to gather intelligence on Trotsky—via an Armenian translator working for Turkish intelligence. By tracking the money and directives provided by the Soviet agent, it was anticipated that this approach might help to uncover another spy network operating on behalf of Soviet intelligence. This indicates that during that period, the MAH was not merely engaged in intelligence gathering but was also proactively conducting counterintelligence operations aimed at exposing Soviet espionage networks.

Naturally, it would be misleading to infer from these developments that MAH was a more capable or effective intelligence organisation than the OGPU in the 1930s. With a significantly more limited international reach than the OGPU, MAH benefited in this case from a key advantage afforded by its position as the host country in efforts to counter Soviet intelligence operations.

[*] Trotsky returned to Büyükada in January 1932 and took up residence in a different waterfront mansion.

[**] Wolfgang Lubitz (ed.), Bibliography – A Classified List of Published Items About Leon Trotsky and Trotskyism, 2nd ed., Munich, 1988.

[***] On 25 January 2025, we also published on this blog the Turkish translation of a short article by Moulinière, in which he recounts how he first met Trotsky in Istanbul.

[****] The report uses the term “Rumca” (lit. “Romaic”), referring specifically to the variety of Greek spoken by the Ottoman Greek (Rum) community, which differs slightly from standard Modern Greek. Moulinière’s alleged fluency in both Turkish and "Rumca" would have been highly unusual for a French Trotskyist.

Concluded