p Sverdlov was exiled to Narym territory by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for four years, as from 5 May 1911. It was not forgotten that he had already escaped from there once; the Tomsk district police officer was sternly enjoined to keep him under the strictest possible surveillance.

p In tsarist times Narym was like a huge open prison, surrounded by boundless virgin taiga, by impassable bogs which swarmed with virulent mosquitoes in summer. In winter it was bitterly cold and the snow lay deep everywhere; in spring and autumn the area was cut off by a sea of mud. Nature had made it an ideal place for the autocracy to confine its political prisoners without need for walls or bars and to make their lives a misery.

p Before long the local officials sent Sverdlov even further from civilization—to settlement called Maksimkin Yar. He was the only exile there but, though he frankly admitted to me that at times life weighed heavy, he never let depression or despair get the better of him. Between the lines of every letter I saw his determination not to give in.

p The situation was bleak indeed: he was cut off from the world, from his comrades and family in that remote place, where mail came only once in two or three months; he often went hungry and lacked warm clothes and other basic necessities; his guards were constantly at his heels and the drunken priest harried him incessantly. But he would not break.

p On 13 October 1913 he told me how he was living:

p ’Imagine a narrow room, three paces across and seven long, like a prison cell. One little window on one side, two on the other. A plank bed on the wall nearest the street, like a prison bunk, a trunk, a little table...

p ’There is a small, dim, kerosene lamp, which I now find more adequate than I had thought I would. It is a low room, lined from top to bottom with my newspapers. All in all it is bearable, even quite comfortable, given that no one here has a better place, except the priest...

p ’You are always concerned about my food. It is not too good— 54 there is simply nothing to buy: no meat, no fish even until the river freezes, no milk, no white bread, no eggs or butter... It’s like this—for four days we have been living on tea and boiled potatoes with beer. I smoke rough-cut, there is no other tobacco to be found. I could get coarse flour but money is short—I have three roubles and 20 kopeks to last me until 20 November—I had to have a warm shirt made because the one I had was not adequate and I have no winter coat.

p ’But it is not too bad. I will survive and emerge in one piece. It seems that the outdoor life has done me good; I have begun to feel a little better over the summer.’

p I have an earlier letter from September 1911, consisting of densely crowded lines of miniscule script on a scrap of thin grey cigarette paper. It no doubt evaded the tsarist censorship by travelling inside someone’s clothing. It reads:

p ‘The weather has changed. We have had several falls of powdery snow and the river is beginning to freeze. The long, cold Siberian winter is coming and I am so unprepared that I hardly dare think about it. I have no warm clothes or underwear, I am short of books, there is no paper... But I should not complain. After all, I will not be going anywhere this winter. Where would I go? The taiga will be deep in snow. I’d go in up to my neck and never get out. It will be unpleasant without books, if none come on the next boat in four or five days time, which is highly likely. I feel I can take almost anything but how it will be when the post, which is reliable although infrequent, stops coming I dare not think...

p ’Bad news from all around. I do not know where my comrades are or what they are doing. I write not knowing if or when the letter will get there.

p ’And yet I am not disconsolate. I assure you again that I have not lost my good spirits nor even my zest for life. A contradiction, if you like, but it is so. I try not to think too much about my situation. I base myself on facts, as ever, and if it is a fact that I have to spend the winter here, then so be it. And it is not too bad: I will survive and retain my good spirits and my vigour. I will not dissipate my energies in a battle with myself—I have a better use for them.’

p If the police counted on wearing Sverdlov down through sheer boredom in the wilds of Siberia they were mistaken. He kept busy, involving himself in local life and quickly making friends with his neighbours. In October 1911 he wrote:

p ‘It will soon be time to go out with the nets again and check the “garrets” (a special kind of fish trap)... The yard has to be cleared of snow, the horses cared for... It leaves little time for study. I am also 55 coaching my landlady and another girl to become teachers, which takes up two hours every evening.’

p ’And besides all this,’ he wrote two months later, ’I have patients to visit sometimes. I am their doctor since my comrades sent me some medical supplies—for my own use, it is true, but I hand them out.’ He became more involved, helping people from all over the area to compose official petitions, giving them advice and writing letters for the illiterate. ’I have doctored almost everyone here, or done them some other favour,’ he wrote, ’... and take nothing for it, which still bewilders them all...’

p A group of young people gathered around him. He got them to stage Chekhov’s play The Bear, communicating his enthusiasm to his hesitant troupe—hesitant with good reason, as none of them had even seen a theatre, much less been in a play—until everyone was so inspired that he had more volunteers than he needed.

p The interests of this group, first confined to the play, began to extend and Sverdlov formed a circle to study various topics of general interest. All this intense activity deeply disturbed the guards and the priest, and together they decided what to do. One evening, when the young people were gathered in Sverdlov’s room, both guards (who rejoiced in the names Pristavka and Mungalov) suddenly appeared. In a fit of official fervour they tipped up all the exile’s poor belongings, ransacked his bed, desk and trunk—and emerged victorious. They had discovered the group drawing mysterious signs and diagrams on pieces of paper, which they confiscated as clear evidence of Sverdlov’s seditious dealings—though quite what it all meant they did not think to find out.

p They sent the papers off and waited in pleasurable anticipation of congratulations for their diligence. However, what they finally received was not congratulations but a ticking off from their superior, who called them blockheads and clowns. Those seditious symbols were geometrical diagrams and the most terrible of all was a Pythagorean triangle.

p So Sverdlov’s popularity and influence continued to grow, while the alarm of the guards grew in like measure.

p But his health was suffering. On 25 September he wrote to me that he had ’no intention of falling seriously ill; it would be worse than dangerous because there’s no medical treatment available here’. Three months later he reported that he was sleeping badly, that "my brains are in such a state that I could not do a simple little problem that I had set my students. I had to call off the lesson. Yesterday 1 felt so bad: I wanted to cry, I could not sleep, I really had to pull myself together. Well, now I have told you how awful it all is and I feel better 56 for it... I know I will be fine in a day or two... Darling, don’t be upset. I will not break down, I will not come out of this a physical or emotional cripple. I will still be a whole person when they release me’.

p After a day or two his condition did not improve, however. ’I did not sleep and felt very bad towards evening... Oh, it’s all so dreadful! And I have no one here—even if I were to go under completely nobody would know for months...’

But he was wrong—his comrades, the Bolshevik exiles in Narym and Kolpashevo, in Parabel and Togur, knew. They had received a note from him through a trusted friend: ’Stop the preparations for escape. I fear the journey would be too much.’ If Yakov Sverdlov, the eternally cheerful, strong, confident Comrade Andrei, was feeling like that, then the situation was grave indeed...