Fighting the Strike in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs
Leon Trotsky, The October Revolution. November 8, 1917
Original Source: "Vospominaniia ob oktiabrskom perevorote," Proletarskaia Revoliutsiia, No. 10 (1922), pp. 59-61.
In connection with the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs I should like to say something about Comrade Markin who, to a, certain extent, organized the Ministry. Markin was a sailor in the Baltic fleet and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Second Congress.
I came to know him through my boys about two or three weeks before the revolution. He offered his services ... and when I went into the Ministry he came with me.
When I arrived at the Ministry some kind of prince named Tatishchev told me that there was no one there ... I demanded that the officials be summoned ... quite a crowd appeared ...
After I left, Markin arrested and locked up Tatishchev and Taube ... About two days later Markin sent for me, and I found Tatishchev ready to show us about. Markin got hold of the secret documents and proceeded to publish them." ... He was helped by an armless young man of about twenty-five ... He was a hard drinker and there were rumors that he was taking bribes. He was discharged for that ...
Markin was ... an intelligent man with strong will power. But could not write without making many mistakes ... Later on he commanded our flotilla on the Volga and there lost his life.
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 227-228.