Trotzky's Week

War Lord Leon Trotzky passed an exciting week--according to the press.

The Daily Telegraph of London gave the lie to a report (TIME, Dec. 22) that the War Lord had left Moscow for the Caucasus. According to this newspaper, his enemies had jailed him.

Comrade Semashko, Commissar of Public Health, averred that the War Lord was in Moscow, that his health had forced him at the last moment to cancel his trip to the Caucasus, that he was busy on some literary work, his health meantime much improved. The Commissar said that the War Lord was not in prison, but living quietly in a modest apartment in Moscow and would go south in a few days.

The Tageblalt of Berlin had it that the War Lord was living at Archangelskoye, a suburb of Moscow, in the palace of Prince Yusupov. This newspaper claimed that he was sick abed with consumption and stomach trouble, whereas he has usually been reported as suffering from some bronchial affliction. The same paper declared that the Bolshevik Triumvirate--Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, all enemies of the War Lord--was conducting a campaign of hate against him by means of flaming illuminated signs.

The Moscow press was full of acrimonious assaults upon the War Lord's alleged criticisms of the Bolshevik regime.

From Copenhagen came the news that the War Lord had offered to leave Moscow, provided that the Triumvirate would reinstate his dismissed , adherents, oust General Frunze, the acting War Lord.

A Bucharest despatch, unconfirmed, stated laconically: "Trotzky was assassinated at Kishinev while on his way to the Crimea."