THE RED ARMY
The ordinary Red soldier gets 400 rubles a month, with rations and clothes. Soviet officials told me that there were 2,000,000 thoroughly trained and equipped men in the fighting forces, with another million in reserve and under training. About 50,000 young officers, they said, chosen from the most capable peasants and workers, had already graduated from the officers’ training schools under the Soviet Government. Thousands of others had been developed from the ranks.
It is easy for the casual observer to misjudge that subtle and all-important element known as “morale.” I think that I am perhaps more than ordinarily skeptical of manifestations of patriotic fervor, knowing something of the means by which every general staff keeps up the fighting spirit of the ranks. But I retain from my contact with the Red soldiers a sense of peculiar zeal and dogged grit. Certainly they do not want to fight. They want to go home and settle down in peace. But this frankly confessed distaste for slaughter seems only to emphasize their determination to see the struggle through to the end. For all their war weariness they did not act like men driven unwillingly into battle. I tried to imagine myself enduring what many of them have endured for over five years, betrayed by their first leaders, overwhelmingly defeated by their first enemy, and still struggling on against new assaults from those they had been taught to believe were their friends and allies.
I tried to imagine what vast process of propaganda could have stimulated this unyielding endurance. Propaganda there undoubtedly was. Just as the Allied armies had their attendant organizations of welfare workers and entertainers to keep up the morale, so the Red Army was accompanied by a carefully organized system of revolutionary propaganda. I suppose the American soldier would not have fought so well had he not been constantly reminded that he was fighting to make the world safe for Democracy. The Red soldier is persuaded that he fights to keep Russia safe for the Revolution. This ideal is deeply personal. He feels it is his revolution; he feels that he accomplished it regardless of his leaders, certainly in spite of some of them; and now it is his to defend against attacks from without and within. In judging this thing I find myself turning away from generalizations and disregarding what I was told by those enthusiasts who have the Red Army in their keeping. I come back again and again to the men themselves. Before I left Russia I had seen a great many soldiers. I had lived with them, traveled with them, slept in their barracks, eaten in their mess. To the American of course, the conditions under which the European masses manage to maintain existence, even in normal times, is always a matter of surprise and wonder. The Soviet Government does everything possible for the Red Army. It is their constant thought and care. But the utmost that can be provided, even of bare subsistence, seems painfully inadequate to the westerner.
The preferential treatment of the soldiers, of which I had heard so much before I saw it and shared it, consists principally in maintaining an uninterrupted supply of black bread and tea. It may be propaganda, it may be a peculiar quality in the spiritual and physical composition of the Russian peasant. Whatever it is, I do not believe that any other European army would endure so long on a ration of black bread and tea. An occasional apple or cigarette were luxuries, all too quickly consumed and forgotten. The black bread and tea, constant and unvaried, will ever remain for me the symbol both of the efficiency of the Soviet Commissary and of the zeal of the Red soldier. Black bread and tea and song. Their love for song is amazing,—all songs, but principally the Internationale. They march off to the front singing, they limp back from battle singing, they sing on the trains, and in the barracks, and at mess; they sing while they are playing checkers and they sing while they are sweeping stables. They wake up at night and sing. I have heard them do it.
I was told that about seventy-five percent of the Czar’s officers were in the Soviet Army. This was no sign that they were converted to communism. Their spirit remained essentially patriotic. They supported the Soviet Government, not because it was a Socialist government, but because it was the government. They fought to defend Russia.
It was Trotzky who insisted on allowing these old officers to come into the army. Many of the Communists thought they would betray the soldiers on the front and turn them over to the enemy. But Trotzky said it was a question of permitting the experienced officers to train the men and teach them military tactics or the Red Army would be destroyed. Trotzky had his way. At every army post, whether it was a company, a brigade, a regiment or a division, wherever there was an old army officer there was a trusted Commissar who worked in the office, and every move the old army officer made was known to the Commissar.
The following manifesto, drawn up and signed by 137 officers of the old régime, appealing to their former messmates to quit the counter-revolution and stop making war upon the Soviet Government, which the people had established and would defend against all attacks, was sent through the Denikin lines:
"Officers—Comrades:
"We address this letter to you with the intention of avoiding useless and aimless shedding of blood. We know quite well that the army of General Denikin will be crushed, as was that of Kolchak and of many others who have tried to put at their mercy a working people of many millions of men. We know equally well that truth and justice are on the side of the Red Army, and that you only remain in the ranks of the White Army through ignorance regarding the Soviet Republic and the Red Army, or because you fear for your fate in case of the latter’s victory. We think it our duty above all to write you the truth about the position made for us in the Red Army. First we guarantee to you that no officers of the White Army passing over into our camp are shot. That is the order of the Supreme Revolutionary Council of War.
LENIN AND MRS. LENIN, MOSCOW, 1919
"If you come with the simple desire to lessen the sufferings of the working population, to lessen the shedding of blood, nobody will touch you. As to officers who express the desire to serve loyally in the Red Army they are received with respect and extreme courtesy. We have not to submit to any kind of outrage or humiliation. Everywhere our needs are attentively supplied. Full respect for the work of specialists of every kind is the fundamental motive of the policy of the present government and of its authorized representatives in the Red Army. Quite unlike the practice in the old army, you are not asked, ‘Who are your parents?’ but only one thing—‘Are you loyal?’ A loyal officer who is educated and who works advances rapidly on the ladder of military administration, is received everywhere with respect, attention, and kindness. Among the troops an exemplary discipline has been introduced.
“From the material point of view we could not be better treated. As for the Commissars, in the vast majority of cases we work hand in hand with them, and in case of disagreement the most highly authorized representatives of the power of the Soviets take rapidly decisive measures for getting rid of the differences. In a word, the longer we serve in the Red Army, the more we are convinced that service is not a burden to us. Many of us began to serve with a little sinking of the heart, solely to earn a living, but the longer our service has lasted the more we are convinced of the possibility of loyal and conscientious service in this army. That is why, officer comrades, we allow ourselves to call you such although we know that the word ‘comrade’ is considered insulting among you, because among us it indicates relations of simple cordiality and mutual respect. Without proposing that you should make any decision, we beg you to examine the question, and in your future conduct to take account of our evidence. We wish to say one thing more,—we congratulate ourselves that in fulfilling obligations loyally we are not the servants of any foreign government. We are glad to serve neither German imperialism, nor the imperialism which is Anglo-Franco-American. We do what our conscience dictates to us in the interest of millions and millions of workers, to which number the vast majority of the company of the officers belong.”
CHAPTER III
ON TO MOSCOW
Before leaving Velikie Luki I wandered with my guard down a street of the town and came upon a Soviet bookstore. Inside were thousands of books and pamphlets, in what seemed to me all the languages of the world. The store was full of men and women buying these books and pamphlets. I learned that this store and many others like it had been opened almost two years before, and that knowledge of history and social conditions throughout the world was thus being brought to millions of Russians formerly held in darkness.
Later in the afternoon of that day the Commissar informed me that I was free to go on to Smolensk and that if I passed muster there I could go anywhere I desired in Russia. I was given another guard, a big fellow who had spent ten years in England and returned to Russia when the Czar was overthrown. He so much resembled the Irish labor leader, Jim Larkin, that I called him “Larkin” throughout the course of our journey together.
He had an exclamation which he used frequently when I was too pertinacious to suit him.
“God love a duck, what do you want now?” he would roar with a despairing gesture, and the tone of his voice also was despairing. It may be that he was justified in his complaint, for there was much that I wanted to know and to see.
On the last day of our journey towards Moscow he turned to me and said, “I haven’t prayed for ten years or more,—not since I was down and out in Glasgow, Scotland, and wandered into a Salvation Army headquarters. Then I did go down on my knees and pray for help, but I decided since that praying wasn’t my job. But God love a duck, when I get you safely into Moscow I’m going down on my knees again and thank God that this job is over and ask Him to save me from any more Americans of your kind.”
But there was, after all, some excuse for my troubling him so often and so much. “Larkin” slept on every possible—and impossible—occasion, and the sound of his snores, with which I can think of nothing worthy of comparison, kept me awake, so that in self-defence I used to rouse him every time we reached a station to ask questions about where we were and why we had stopped there and what the people were doing and why they were doing it. When I had him sufficiently awake to begin to smoke I could snatch a bit of sleep for myself, for he invariably sat up until he had smoked eight or ten cigarettes, after which his snoring began again and my rest ended.
“Larkin’s” real name was August Grafman, which sounded Teutonic. He was a Russian Jew, however, and a good fellow. I hope to see him again sometime, and I commend him to any other Americans who want to see for themselves what is going on in Russia at the present time. He spoke English readily and perfectly, and from him I obtained much information I might otherwise have missed. There was the time when we waited for a train at a small station in the course of our journey towards Smolensk. All at once a commotion arose on the other side of the station. Hurrying around, we saw a man running, pursued by three or four Red soldiers. Two officers coming toward the station drew their sabres and held them before the man, who stopped and his pursuers captured him. They brought him back to the station and I observed that he was a Jew. I wondered if his crime was that of his race, remembering stories of pogroms. The Jew was brought into the station and seated on a bench. Immediately the soldiers surrounded him, and one of them stood up in front of him and made a long speech. At its conclusion he sat down, and another rose and made an address. Finally a third vociferously questioned the man. At last the Jew arose, the soldiers made way for him, and he left the station. “Larkin” who had been too much interested in the proceedings to talk to me, now satisfied my curiosity.
The Jew had been caught in the act of picking the pockets of a soldier. Furthermore it was his third offence. The first man who spoke had tried to impress the Jew with the enormity of the crime of robbing a man who was on his way to defend his country. He had said, “Don’t you realize that a man going out to fight carries nothing with him except what he actually needs, whether it be money or anything else, and that it is worse to rob a soldier on this account than an ordinary civilian, with a home, and all his treasures about him?” The second man had talked of the defence of the country; the soldiers were going to fight so that when the fighting ended there would be enough for every one and no need for stealing. The third had tried to obtain a promise that the man would not again steal from soldiers. He had been successful, and, “now the Jew is free,” said Larkin.
“But it was his third offense,” I said. “I should think they would punish him severely.”
“Larkin” gave me a pitying glance. “You don’t understand the Russians,” he said simply. “They are kind and in their own new born freedom they want every one to be free.”
At last our train arrived and we got on. To Smolensk and then to Moscow, I thought. But it was not so simple as that. Our train was going to Moghilev direct, so we had to get off again at Polotsk at nine in the evening, where we found that we were half an hour too late to catch the train for Smolensk. “Larkin” hunted around for a sleeping place for us when we learned that we would have to stay overnight in the town, and finally won the favor of the Commissar, who took us to what he called the “Trainmen’s Hotel,” a large building near the station. In the room into which we were ushered there were about twenty beds, the linen on which was far from clean. Two of the beds in one corner of the room were assigned to us and we lay down fully dressed. After what seemed a few minutes I was awakened by a vigorous kick, and found a huge Russian standing over me, brandishing his arms and speaking harshly and menacingly at me. I hurriedly shook “Larkin” out of his profound slumber, and at the end of a brief but spirited discussion between the two in Russian, he informed me that the man had been working all night in the railroad shop and had come in to sleep. He resented finding his bed occupied. I suspected “Larkin” of enjoying the joke on me, as I clambered out and shivered in the cold, but his enjoyment was brief, for he was almost immediately ordered out by another man who entered and claimed his bed.
The two of us wandered out forlornly into the cold foggy morning and went back to the station. The Commissar there made us comfortable in his office until daylight, when we went down the track to a water tank and had a “hobo wash” after which we ate our breakfast—one egg each, black bread and tea, in the Soviet restaurant in the station.
We had been told that we could not get a train to Smolensk before four o’clock in the afternoon, but at eleven the Commissar told us that a trainload of soldiers going to the Denikin front would be passing through at two in the afternoon and that it might be possible to arrange for our transportation on this train, if we wished it. We did wish it and at two o’clock we were in a box car full of soldiers en route to Smolensk, which we would reach at ten that night.
The soldiers sang all evening—Russian soldiers always sing, no matter how crowded, how hungry, or how weary—but one by one they dropped off to sleep, huddled up in all sorts of positions. The train jolted along, slowly, it seemed to me, and it was too dark to see anything through the window. My guard went to sleep, and I remember thinking we must be near Smolensk and that I would have to stay awake since he seemed to find his responsibilities resting lightly. The stopping of the train roused me, and thinking that we had arrived at Smolensk I shook “Larkin” who looked at his watch and exclaimed, “Why it’s midnight. We must have passed Smolensk.”
LENIN IN THE COURTYARD OF THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW, SUMMER OF 1919
Surely enough, we had gone through Smolensk and were seventy five versts on the other side of it, bound for the Denikin front. I had no objections to going there eventually but I preferred to have permission first, so we hastily bundled out of the train and went into the station. “Larkin” approached the door of the Commissar’s office and tried to brush past the Red Guard who sat there, and who objected to such an unceremonious entrance. After an interminable discussion—perhaps five minutes,—I said, “He wants to see your credentials. Why don’t you show them to him? Do you want us both to be arrested?”
But the Red guard had lost patience by this time. A snap of his fingers brought a policeman who arrested “Larkin” and before I had finished the “I told you so,” I could not restrain, I found the heavy hand of the law on my own shoulder. The two of us were marched down the street and locked in a little dark room in what was apparently the town jail.
In the two hours of solitude that followed I shared all my dismal forebodings with that unfortunate guard. We would be taken for spies and as spies we would certainly be shot. I couldn’t be sorry that this penalty would be inflicted upon anyone so stupid and obstinate and generally asinine as he, but I at least wanted to get back to America and tell people how stupid a big Russian could be. There were probably some adjectives also, I am not sure that he listened. In any event I could not see the signs of contrition that might at least have lightened my apprehensions.
At the end of two hours two Red soldiers opened the door of our cell and escorted us to the police station where we were taken at once before the judge, a simple, but very determined looking peasant, who examined first the Red Guard who had caused our arrest, the policeman who had arrested us, and two soldiers who had witnessed the affair.
“Larkin” in the meantime very reluctantly interpreted whatever comments and explanations I had to make. He became more and more stubborn and taciturn. The Red Guard told his story, which was verified by the policeman. The two soldiers further attested to the truth of the tale and stated that we had been entirely at fault. Then the judge asked my guard for an explanation, and with the air of one playing a forgotten ace which would take trick and game, “Larkin” produced our credentials and laid them triumphantly on the judge’s desk.
When he had read them the judge rose and made a statement which I demanded my guard should translate.
“Oh he is just saying,” said “Larkin,” “to please tell the American that we are sorry this thing happened. We are only working people and we must be careful to guard our country. The Red Guard at the door was simply obeying orders and doing his duty, and we want the American to understand that no deliberate offence was intended. There are so many people making war on us, both inside and outside, and we have to be careful.”
When “Larkin” had translated my reply, which was to the effect that we acknowledged our fault, and had only congratulations for the men who understood their duty and had the courage to perform it, and that I regretted having been the cause of so much trouble, the judge himself led us to a first-class train coach in the yards, unlocked it, and told us to enter and spend the rest of the night there.
“At eight o’clock in the morning this coach will be picked up by the train to Smolensk. Now, go to sleep, you won’t have to be on the watch this time,” he said with a suggestion of a smile.
Weary as I was I still remembered a few more things to say to “Larkin” who was by this time somewhat subdued. It was not until I had threatened to report him to the Moscow Government, and had again told him that it was a brutal thing to take advantage of men who were doing their duty under the most difficult circumstances conceivable, that my mind was lightened sufficiently so that I could go to sleep.
Of one thing I had been convinced—the general efficiency of organization which I had encountered again and again in Soviet Russia. The people were universally kind, but with strangers they took no chances. Well, I concluded, they could not have been blamed if they had kept us in jail for a long while, until they had checked up my entire record in Russia, at least. And I was grateful that my prison record amounted to two hours only, thanks to the expedition with which they administer trial to suspects in Red Russia.
Shut up in our coach we sped on to Smolensk the next day. Another twenty-four hours in Smolensk, where I was given permission to proceed to Moscow and again I boarded a train. I had been relayed from one army post to another; from the company to the regiment, from the regiment to the brigade, from the brigade to the division, from the division to the army command, and from the army command to the high command. And after eight days I was almost within reach of Moscow. On the morrow I would be off for Moscow itself.
LENIN AT HIS DESK IN KREMLIN, 1919
CHAPTER IV
MOSCOW
I reached Moscow on Sunday afternoon and was taken at once by “Larkin” to the Foreign Office at the Metropole hotel. As we drove through the picturesque town of many churches we passed great numbers of people enjoying the sunshine. The parks and squares were full of romping children.
In the Foreign Office I was greeted by Litvinoff, who gave me credentials which granted me freedom of action—freedom to go where I pleased and without a guard as long as I remained in Soviet Russia; and Communist life began for me.
The Metropole hotel, like all others in Soviet Russia, had been taken over by the Government. The rooms not occupied by the Foreign Office were used as living rooms by Government employees. The National hotel is used entirely for Soviet workers, and the beautiful residence in which Mirbach, the German ambassador, was assassinated is now the headquarters of the Third International.
No one was allowed to have more than one meal a day. This consisted of cabbage soup, a small piece of fish and black bread, and was served at Soviet restaurants at any time between one o’clock in the afternoon and seven at night. There were a few old cafés still in existence, run by private speculators, where it was possible to purchase a piece of meat at times, but the prices were exorbitant. In the Soviet restaurants ten rubles was charged for the meal, while in the cafés the same kind of meal would have cost from 100 to 150 rubles.
The Soviet restaurants had been established everywhere, in villages and small towns as well as in cities. In the villages and railway stations they were usually in the station building itself or near it. In the cities they were scattered everywhere, so as to be easily accessible to the workers. Some of them were run on the cafeteria plan; in others women carried the food to the tables for the other workers. One entered, showed his credentials to prove that he was a worker and was given a meal check, for which he paid a fixed sum. Needless to say, there was no tipping. I had not the courage to experiment by offering a tip to these dignified, self-respecting women. I think they would have laughed at my “stupid foreign ways” had I done so.
The old café life of Moscow was a thing of the past. If you wished anything to eat at night you had to purchase bread and tea earlier in the day and make tea in your room. This was very simple because the kitchens in hotels were used exclusively for heating water. At breakfast time and all through the evening a stream of people went to the kitchen with pails and pitchers for hot water which they carried to their rooms themselves where they made their tea and munched black bread. There were no maids or bell boys to do these errands for you, and the only service you got in a hotel was that of a maid who cleaned your room each morning.
The working people would buy a pound or two of black bread in the evening on their way home. They had their samovars on which they made tea, and if they felt so inclined ate in the evening. For breakfast they again had tea and black bread like every one else. As a result of this diet hundreds of thousands of people were suffering from malnutrition. The bulk of the people in the city were hungry all the time.
I found the tramway service,—reduced fifty percent because of the lack of fuel,—miserably inadequate for the needs of the population which had greatly increased since Moscow became the capital. The citizens in their necessity have developed the most extraordinary propensities in step-clinging. They swarm on the platforms and stand on one another’s feet with the greatest good nature, and then, when there isn’t room to wedge in another boot, the late-comers cling to the bodies of those who have been lucky enough to get a foothold, and still others cling to these, until the overhanging mass reaches half-way to the curb. I tried it once myself—and walked thereafter. There were not many automobiles to be seen. The Government had requisitioned all cars. The motors were run by coal oil and alcohol, and the Government had very little of these.
During my second day in Moscow I met some English prisoners walking quite freely in the streets. I went up to a group of three and told them I was an American, and asked how they were getting on. They said they wanted to go home because the food was scarce, but aside from the lack of food they had nothing to complain of.
“Of course food is scarce,” said one, “but we get just as much as anyone else. Nobody gets much. You see us walking about the streets. No one is following us. We are free to go where we please. They send us to the theatre three nights a week. We go to the opera and the ballet. That’s what they do with all prisoners.”
Another broke in enthusiastically to say that if there were only food enough he would be glad to stay in Russia. Several of their pals, they told me, were working in Soviet offices.
They belonged to a detachment of ninety English who had been captured six months before, on the Archangel front. Before they went into action, they said, their commanding officer told each one to carry a hand grenade in his pocket, and if taken prisoner to blow off his head.
“The Bolsheviki,” he told us, "would torture us—first they would cut off a finger, then an ear, then the tip of the nose, and they would keep stripping us and torturing us until we died twenty-one days later.
“Well, before we knew it the Bolsheviki had us surrounded. There was nothing to do but surrender—and none of us used his bomb. The Bolsheviks marched us back about ten miles to a barrack, where we were told to sit down. Pretty soon they brought in a samovar and gave us tea and bread, and when we were about half through eating they brought in bundles of pamphlets. The pamphlets were all printed in English, mind you, and they told us why we had been sent to Russia.”
I recognized in his description the thing I had seen myself on the Western Front a few days before. I asked him if that was the usual way of treating prisoners.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s the way they do it. They don’t kill you. They just feed you with tea and bread, and this—what they call on the outside ‘propaganda’ and they say to you, ‘you read this stuff for a week,’ and you do, and you believe it—you can’t help it.”
It was bitterly cold in Moscow, though the Bolshevists made light of the September weather and laughed at my complaints. “Stay the winter with us,” they said, “and you will learn what cold is.” The city was practically without heat. The chill and damp entered my bones and pursued me through the streets and into my bed at night. One can stand prolonged exposure and cold if there is only the sustaining thought of a glowing fire somewhere, and a warm bed. But in Moscow there was no respite from the relentless chill. One was cold all day and all night. The aching pinch of it tore at the nerves. I marvelled at the endurance of the undernourished clerks and officials in the great damp Government office buildings, where it was often colder than in the dry sunshine outside.
All the large department stores and the clothing and shoe shops had been taken over by the Government. Here and there, however, were small private shops, selling goods without regard to Government prices.
The Soviet stores were arranged much like our large department stores. One could go in and buy various commodities, shoes in one department, clothing in another, and so on. Soviet employees had the right at all times to purchase in these stores at Soviet prices. They carried credentials showing they were giving useful service to the Government. Without credentials one could buy nothing—not even food—except from the privately-owned shops.
To these the peasant speculators would bring home-made bread in sacks and sell it to the shop speculators, who in turn demanded as much as eighty rubles a pound. This was the only way of getting bread without credentials because the Government had taken control of the bakeries. In a Soviet store a pound of bread could be bought for ten rubles.
All unnecessary labor in Soviet stores had been eliminated. Young girls and women acted as clerks; very few men were employed in any capacity. The manager, who usually was to be found on the first floor, was a man, and he directed customers to the departments which sold the things they wished to purchase. The elevators were running not only in the stores, but in the office buildings.
White collars and white shirts could be bought in some stores, but they were rationed so that it would have been impossible to buy three or four shirts at one time. The windows in the stores were filled with articles, but there was no attempt to display goods, and there was no advertising.
A shine, a shave and a hair-cut were obtainable at the Soviet barber shops. They were not rationed; one could buy as many of these as desired.
Theatres and operas were open and largely attended in Moscow, and the actors and actresses, as well as the singers, did not seem to mind the cold.
The streets were but dimly lighted, because of the fuel shortage, but I saw and heard of no crimes being committed. I wandered about the city through many of its darkest streets, at all hours of the night, and was never molested. Now and then a policeman demanded my permit, which, when I had shown it, was accepted without question. The city was well policed, the streets fairly clean, and the government was doing everything possible to prevent disease. Orders were issued that all water must be boiled, but as all Russians drink tea this order was not unusual or difficult to carry out.
The telephone and telegraph systems seemed to me unusually good. Connections by telephone between Moscow and Petrograd were obtained in two minutes. Local service was prompt and efficient, and connections with wrong numbers were of rare occurrence.
Many newspapers were being published, the size of all being limited on account of the shortage of paper. In addition to the Government newspapers and the Bolshevist party papers there were papers of opposing parties, notably publications controlled by the Menshevists and the Social Revolutionists.
All of them were free from the advertising of business firms, since the Government had nationalized all trade. Of course there was no “funny page” or “Women’s Section.”
As soon as news came from the front great bulletins were distributed through the city and posted on the walls of buildings where every one could read them. These bulletins contained the news of both defeat and victory. If prisoners had been taken or a retreat had been necessary, the populace was informed of it frankly. There was no attempt to keep up the “morale” of the civilian population by assuring it that all went well and that victory was certain. Any one in Soviet Russia who accepted the responsibilities of the new order did so knowing that it meant hardship and defeat—for a time.
In Moscow many statues have been erected since the revolution. Skobileff Square,—now called Soviet Square,—has a statue of Liberty which takes the place of the old statue of Skobileff. I saw sculptors at work all over the city, putting in medallions and bas-reliefs, on public buildings. In Red Square, along the Kremlin wall, are the graves of many who fell in the revolution. Sverdlov, formerly president of the executive committee, and a close friend of Lenin, is buried here. I was told that his death had been a great loss to the Soviet Government.
Moscow, like all the other Russian cities I saw, had schools everywhere, art schools, musical conservatories, technical schools, in addition to the regular schools for children.
On “Speculator’s Street” in Moscow all kinds of private trading went on without interference. I found this street thronged with shoppers and with members of the old bourgeoisie selling their belongings along the curb; men and women unmistakably of the former privileged classes offering, dress suits, opera cloaks, evening gowns, shoes, hats, and jewelry to any one who would pay them the rubles that they, in turn, must give to the exorbitant speculators for the very necessities of life.
These irreconcilables of the old regime, unwilling to cooperate with the new government and refusing to engage in useful work which would entitle them to purchase their supplies at the Soviet shops, at Soviet prices, were compelled to resort to the speculators and under pressure of the constantly decreasing ruble and the wildly soaring prices, were driven to sacrifice their valuables in order to avoid starvation. Any one who desired and who had the money could buy from the speculators; but one pays dearly for pride in Soviet Russia. The speculators charged seventy-five rubles a pound for black bread that could be bought in the Government shops for ten rubles. The right to buy at the Soviet shops and to eat in the Soviet restaurants was to be had by the mere demonstration of a sincere desire to do useful work of hand or brain. Nevertheless these defenders of the old order still held out—fewer of them every day, to be sure—and the speculators throve accordingly.
It seemed at first glance a strange anomaly. I could see through the windows of the speculator’s shops canned goods and luxuries, and even necessities, for which the majority of the population were suffering. I asked why the Government did not put its principles into practice by requisitioning all these stocks and ending the speculation. There were many things in their program, the Bolshevists said, which could not be carried out at once because the energy of the Government was consumed in the mobilization of all available resources for national defence. There were thousands of speculators all over Russia, and it would take a small army to eliminate them entirely. Half measures would only drive them underground where they would be a constant source of irritation and anti-Government propaganda. It was better to let them operate in the open, they said, where they could be kept under observation and restrained within certain limits.
Meanwhile the speculators were eliminating themselves and dragging with them the recalcitrant bourgeoisie on whom they preyed. Hoarded wealth and old finery do not last forever. As the ruble falls and the speculator’s prices rise their victims are compelled to sacrifice more and more of their dwindling resources. The Government prices are a standing temptation to reconciliation. Only the obdurate bourgeoisie and the speculators suffer from the depreciation of the ruble. Every two months wages are adjusted to meet depreciation, by a Government commission which acts in conjunction with the Central Federation of All Russian Professional Alliances, representing skilled and unskilled labor. This serves to stabilize the purchasing power of the workers earnings, although in the past unavoidable and absolute dearth of necessities has tended to work against this stabilization.
In the meantime the falling ruble and the avaricious speculator between them drive thousands of the stubborn into the category of useful laborers. Every day brings numbers who have, either through a change of heart, or by economic necessity, been driven to ask for work which will entitle them to their bread and food cards. Thus the Communists, too busy with the military defence of their country to attend to the last measures of expropriation, make use of the irresistible economic forces of the old order and allow the capitalists to expropriate themselves.
LENIN IN SWITZERLAND, MARCH, 1916
I found no Red terror. There was serious restriction of personal liberty and stern enforcement of law and order, as might be expected in a nation threatened with foreign invasion, civil war, counter revolution, and an actual blockade. While I was in Moscow sixty men and seven women were shot for complicity in a counter revolutionary plot. They had arms stored in secret places and had been found guilty of circularizing the soldiers on the Denikin front, telling them that Petrograd and Moscow had both fallen. They made no concealment of their purpose to overthrow the Government and went bravely to their execution. Several days later two bombs were exploded under a building in which a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist party was being held. Eleven of the Communists were killed and more than twenty wounded. The cadet counter revolutionists, it was charged, committed this outrage as reprisal for the execution of their comrades. But no terror or persecution followed. Instead great mass meetings were held everywhere to protest against all terrorist acts. Intrigue and propaganda were met with counter propaganda and popular enthusiasm for the Soviet Government.
Before leaving Moscow for Petrograd I applied at the Foreign Office for permission to go to the Kremlin and interview Lenin. I was told that permission would be granted, and an appointment was made for me to meet Lenin at his office at three o’clock on the following day.
CHAPTER V
INTERVIEW WITH LENIN
A quarter of an hour ahead of the hour set for my appointment with Lenin, I hastened to the Kremlin enclosure, the well-guarded seat of the executive government. Two Russian soldiers inspected my pass and led me across a bridge to obtain another pass from a civilian to enter the Kremlin itself and to return to the outside. I had heard that Lenin was guarded by Chinese soldiers, but I looked in vain for a Chinese among the guards that surrounded the Kremlin. In fact I saw but two Chinese soldiers during my entire stay in Soviet Russia.
I mounted the hill and went toward the building where Lenin lives and has his office. At the outer door two more soldiers met me, inspected my passes, and directed me up a long staircase, at the top of which stood two more soldiers. They directed me down a long corridor to another soldier who sat before a door. This one inspected my passes and finally admitted me to a large room in which many clerks, both men and women, were busy over desks and typewriters. In the next room I found Lenin’s secretary who informed me that “Comrade Lenin will be at liberty in a few minutes.” It was then five minutes before three. A clerk gave me a copy of the London Times, dated September 2, 1919, and told me to sit down. While I read an editorial the secretary addressed me and asked me to go into the next room. As I turned to the door it opened, and Lenin stood waiting with a smile on his face.
It was twelve minutes past three, and Lenin’s first words were, “I am glad to meet you, and I apologize for keeping you waiting.”
Lenin is a man of middle height, close to fifty years of age. He is well proportioned, and very active, physically, in spite of the fact that he carries in his body two bullets fired at him in August, 1918. His head is large, massive in outline, and is set close to his shoulders. His forehead is broad and high, his mouth large, the eyes wide apart and there appears in them at times a very infectious twinkle. His hair, pointed beard, and mustache, have a brown tinge. His face has wrinkles,—said by some to be wrinkles of humor,—but I am inclined to believe them the result of deep study, and of the suffering he endured through long years of exile and persecution. I would not minimize the contribution that his sense of humor has made to these lines and wrinkles, for no man who lacked a sense of humor could have overcome the obstacles he has met.
During our conversation his eyes never left mine. This direct regard was not that of a man who wished to be on guard; it bespoke a frank interest, which seemed to me to say, “We shall be able to tell many things of interest to each other. I believe you to be a friend. In any event we shall have an interesting talk.”
He moved his chair close to his desk and turned so that his knees were close to mine. Almost at once he began asking me about the labor movement in America, and from that he went on to discuss the labor situation in other countries. He was thoroughly informed even as to the most recent developments everywhere. I soon found myself asking him questions.
I told him that the press of various countries had been saying that Soviet Russia was a dictatorship of a small minority. He replied, "Let those who believe that silly tale come here and mingle with the rank and file and learn the truth.
"The vast majority of industrial workers and at least one-half of the articulate peasantry are for Soviet rule, and are prepared to defend it with their lives.
“You say you have been along the Western Front,” he continued. “You admit that you have been allowed to mingle with the soldiers of Soviet Russia, that you have been unhampered in making your investigation. You have had a very good opportunity to understand the temper of the rank and file. You have seen thousands of men living from day to day on black bread and tea. You have probably seen more suffering in Soviet Russia than you had ever thought possible, and all this because of the unjust war being made upon us, including the economic blockade, in all of which your own country is playing a large part. Now I ask you what is your opinion about this being a dictatorship of the minority?”
I could only answer that from what I had seen and experienced I could not believe that these people, who had found their strength and overthrown a despotic Czar, would ever submit to such privations and sufferings except in defence of a government in which, however imperfect, they had ultimate faith, and which they were prepared to defend against all odds.
“What have you to say at this time about peace and foreign concessions?” I asked.
He answered, “I am often asked whether those American opponents of the war against Russia—as in the first place bourgeois—are right who expect from us, after peace is concluded, not only resumption of trade relations but also the possibility of securing concessions in Russia. I repeat once more that they are right. A durable peace would be such a relief to the toiling masses of Russia that these masses would undoubtedly agree to certain concessions being granted. The granting of concessions under reasonable terms is also desirable to us, as one of the means of attracting into Russia the technical help of the countries which are more advanced in this respect, during the co-existence side by side of Socialist and capitalist states.”
In reply to my next question about Soviet power he replied:
"As for the Soviet power, it has become familiar to the minds and hearts of the laboring masses of the whole world which clearly grasped its meaning. Everywhere the laboring masses, in spite of the influence of the old leaders with their chauvinism and opportunism which permeates them through and through, became aware of the rottenness of the bourgeois parliaments and of the necessity of the Soviet power, the power of the toiling masses, the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the sake of the emancipation of humanity from the yoke of capital. And the Soviet power will win in the whole world, however furiously, however frantically the bourgeoisie of all countries may rage and storm.
“The bourgeoisie inundates Russia with blood, waging war upon us and inciting against us the counter revolutionaries, those who wish the yoke of capital to be restored. The bourgeoisie inflict upon the working masses of Russia unprecedented sufferings, through the blockade, and through their help given to the counter revolutionaries, but we have already defeated Kolchak and we are carrying on the war against Denikin with the firm assurance of our coming victory.”
In his replies to my last questions he had covered the ground of the others on my list, and since the fifteen minutes allotted to me had extended to more than an hour, I rose to go. I intended to ask him about “nationalization of women.” I had never believed the story, and had already discovered that it was false, but I had thought to ask Lenin how the story arose. When I met him and had talked to him something in his face silenced the question. Perhaps it was the mocking humor that seemed ready to flash out of the wrinkled countenance in scathing ridicule, or perhaps it was the sign of long-suffering and profound thought that lay deeper. Whatever it was I did not ask that question. I had seen for myself that women in Soviet Russia are shown a respect and deference far exceeding the superficial politeness which in other countries too often serves to conceal political, economic, and domestic oppression. Women are on an equal footing in all respects with men in Russia, and they enjoy a greater measure of freedom and security than the women of other countries.
He shook hands cordially, and I went away cudgelling my brains to find another figure among the statesmen of the world with whom I might compare him. I could think only of our own Lincoln, whose image came to me, suggested perhaps by the simplicity and plainness of Lenin’s attire. Workman’s shoes, worn trousers, a soft shirt with a black four-in-hand tie, a cheap office coat, and the kindly strong face and figure,—these were my impressions of the man.
He works from fifteen to eighteen hours a day, receiving reports, keeping in touch with the situation all over Russia, attending committee meetings, making speeches, always ready to give anyone advice, counsel, or suggestion. He lives with his wife who is most loyal and devoted, in the same building where he has his office, in two modestly furnished rooms.
Soviet rule has captured not only the imagination, but also the intellects of the majority of the rank and file of Russia. Lenin is looked upon as the highest representative of that principle; he is trusted and he is loved. I was told that so many people come to see him from the outlying districts, men, women, and children, that it is impossible for him to see them all. They bring him bread, eggs, butter, and fruit,—and he turns all into the common fund.
EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF LENIN’S HOME IN ZURICH
Sometime in the future, whatever may happen to Soviet Russia, the true life of Lenin will be written, and when it is he will stand out as one of history’s most remarkable men.
CHAPTER VI
“WHO IS LENIN?”
Many conflicting stories were told and published about Lenin after the Bolshevist uprising in November, 1917. I decided to ascertain for myself during the two weeks I spent in Switzerland before going into Russia what the people of that country knew about him.
Lenin arrived in Switzerland in September, 1914, and left for Russia in March, 1917, with thirty other Russians, on the much-talked-of train that went through Germany with the sanction of the Kaiser.
A whole myth has grown up around Lenin since his return to Russia. He was a German agent; he was sent from Switzerland to Russia through Germany; he went for the express purpose of fomenting revolution in order to break down the morale of the Russian Army and to make it possible for German militarism to conquer. Document after document was printed to prove that this man was mercenary, that he was cold-blooded, without ideals of any kind, and that he had received millions in money from the Germans, whose plans he conscientiously carried out,—at least in connection with the disorganization of the Russian Army. While in Switzerland for two years during the war, he lived in luxury, always had plenty of money which was supplied from an unknown source, later discovered to be the banks of Germany.
I found when I went to Zurich that Lenin had passed the greater part of his time when in Switzerland in that town, and had lived in the poor quarter of the city. The house in which he and his wife lived, No. 14 Spiegelgasse, is on a very narrow street running down to the quay. They lived in one room on the second floor of this house. Their meagre furniture included a table, a washstand, two plain chairs, a small stove, a bed, a couch, and a petrol lamp. The room had a plaster ceiling and was unpapered, the bare board walls seeming most bleak. A cheap, dingy carpet covered the floor. The room was accessible only through a dark narrow corridor. On the same floor were three other rooms, two of which were occupied by two families, and the third was used as a common kitchen by every one. In this kitchen Lenin’s wife, who was his constant companion, only secretary and assistant, prepared their frugal meals and carried them to their room.
For these quarters Lenin paid thirty-eight francs a month, the equivalent of six dollars and sixty cents in American money.
I was told by many people who had known him in Zurich that Lenin seemed to wish to mingle only with working people there. His revolutionary friends took great pride in saying, “He never spent any time with mere intellectual reformers.” They told me that much of his time was passed in the Swiss Workers’ Assembly, where he talked to every one, but never made any speeches. He did speak, however, on many occasions in the Russian Assembly in Zurich.
His income was derived from articles written for Russian party papers. Before leaving for Russia he closed his account at a Zurich bank and drew out the balance on deposit there, which amounted to twenty-five francs.
For a short time while in Switzerland Lenin lived in Berne, in two rooms. I met the woman at whose Pension he dined while there. She said she had served Lenin, his wife, and his wife’s mother midday dinners while they stayed there. The price of those meals was eighty centimes each,—approximately sixteen cents. She informed me that they prepared their own breakfasts and evening meals.
The proprietor of the Wiener café, a coffee house located on the corner of Schrittfaren and Gurtengasse in Berne, told me that he remembered Lenin well, that he had come into his place on a number of occasions for a cup of coffee. “He spent most of his time here reading the papers and talking with the waiters,” he said, and described him as always being poorly dressed.
None of these simple people thought of Lenin as a person of any greater importance than themselves. He was one of them, a serious student who mingled with working people, eager to tell them of their importance in the political world.
When the Czar was overthrown and the Kerensky Government came into power, a committee of all the Socialist parties in Switzerland except the “Social Patriots” made an effort to assist in getting Russian exiles back to their own country. This committee collected the money for the transportation of the exiles. They endeavored to secure from France, England, and Switzerland permission for their passage through Archangel to Petrograd, but the Allied governments denied this permit. Then the Swiss Socialists entered into negotiations with the German Government to secure passage through Germany. On condition that an equal number of civilian prisoners then held in Russia be allowed to return to Germany, the German Government agreed to the passage of the immigrants through Germany.
The following statement, signed by the members of the Committee, is given in full, even to the peculiar English of the translation.
“The Return of the Russian Emigrants.”
In view of the fact that the Entente newspapers have recently published a series of sensational and false accounts and articles regarding the return of the Russian comrades (Lenin, Zinovieff and others) branding them as accomplices and agents of Imperial Germany, as coworkers of the German Government. Simultaneously the German and Austrian press is attempting to represent these Russian revolution comrades as pacifists and separate peace advocates, we therefore deem it necessary to publish the following explanation under the Signature of the Comrades of France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland to whitewash the Comrades that departed to Russia.
We the undersigned are aware of the hindrances which the governments of the Entente are putting in the way of our Russian Internationalists in their departure. They learned of the conditions which the German Government has placed before them for their passage through to Sweden.
Not having the slightest doubt as to the fact, that the German Government is speculating by it to strengthen the one-sided anti-war tendencies in Russia, we declare:
The Russian Internationalists who during the whole war period have been combating in the sharpest possible manner imperialism in general and the German imperialism in particular, and who are now going to Russia in order to work there for the cause of the Revolution, will thus be aiding the proletarians of all countries as well, and particularly the German and Austrian working class by encouraging them to the revolutionary struggle against their own governments.
Nothing can be more stimulating and inspiring in this respect than the example of the heroic struggle on the part of the Russian proletariat. For that reason we the undersigned Internationalists of France, Switzerland, Poland and Germany consider it to be not only the right but a duty on the part of our Russian comrades to use the opportunity for the voyage to Russia, which is offered to them.
We wish them the best results in the struggle against the Imperialistic policy of Russian bourgeoisie, which constitutes a part of our general struggle for the liberation of the working class, for the social revolution.
Bern, April 7, 1917.
Paul Hantstein, Germany
Henri Guilbeaux, France
F. Loriot, France
Bronski, Poland
F. Platten, Swiss
The above declaration has received the full approval and signature of the following Scandinavian comrades:
Lindhagen, Mayor of Stockholm
Strom, Congressman and Secretary of S. D. P. of Sweden
Karleson, Congressman and President of Trades Union Council
Fure Nerman, Editor Politiken
Tchilbun, Editor Steukleken
Hausen, Norway.
The next train left in May, 1917, carrying three hundred Russians, and another three hundred went through Germany in July, 1917. In July the French and English governments finally granted permission for a train-load to pass through those countries to Archangel and thence to Russia. This trip lasted two months. I learned that the May and July trains also carried to Russia many active Menshevists, supporters of the Kerensky Government.
In August another group tried to return, but because Kerensky protested, the French and English notified this group that they must have passports from Russia. It was then impossible to go through Germany because of battles going on along the front. They did not get to Russia until December, after the Russian-German armistice.
1. GORKY 2. ZINOVIEFF
Zinovieff, in an address to the Petrograd Soviet, September 6, 1918, told the story of the fabled armored train as follows:
“In March, 1917, Lenin returned to Russia. Do you remember the cries that went up about the ‘armored train’ on which Lenin and the rest of us returned? In reality Lenin felt a profound hatred of German imperialism. He hated it no less than he hated any other brand of imperialism.... When a prominent member of the Scheidemann party attempted to enter our car (which was not armored) in order to ‘greet’ us, he was told, at Lenin’s suggestion, that we would not speak to traitors and that he would be sparing himself insult if he refrained from trying to enter. The Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionists, who were rather stubborn at first, later on came back to Russia in the same way (more than three hundred of them). Lenin put the matter simply, ‘All bourgeois governments are brigands: we have no choice since we cannot get into Russia by any other way.’”
I found the following in a long article of appreciation written by Ernest Nobs, editor of the Swiss Volkrecht, published in Zurich in December, 1917.
“One who has seen the last winter, the medium-sized, square-built man, with a somewhat yellowish face and sharp, sparkling and flashing Mongol eyes, as he was steering towards some library in a wornout ulster coat, with a heap of books under his arm, could hardly foresee in him the future Russian premier.”
In the address mentioned on the foregoing page, delivered at the time Lenin was shot, Zinovieff said:
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanoff (Lenin) was born on April 10, 1870, in the city of Simbirsk. His father, who was of peasant descent, was employed as Director of Public Schools in the Volga region. His elder brother, Alexander Ulyanoff was executed by Czar Alexander III. From that time on his mother showered all her tender affections on Vladimir Ilyich, and Lenin in his turn dearly loved her. Living as an emigrant, an exile, persecuted by the Czar’s Government, Lenin used to tear himself away from the most urgent tasks to go to Switzerland to see his mother in her last days. She died in 1913.
Upon his graduation from high school (gymnasium) Vladimir Ilyich entered the law school at the Kazan University. The universities of the capitals were closed to him because he was the brother of an executed revolutionist. A month after his entry he was expelled from the University for participation in a revolutionary movement of the students. It was not until four years had gone by that he was allowed to resume his studies. The legal career held no attractions for Lenin. His natural inclinations lay towards the field of revolutionary activity.... When he was expelled from the Kazan University he went to Petrograd. The first phase of his activities was confined to student circles. A year or two later he created in Petrograd the first ‘workmen’s circles’ and a little later crossed swords on the literary arena with the old leader of the Populists, N. K. Mikhailovsky. Under the nom de plume of Ilyin, Lenin published a series of brilliant articles on economics which at once won him a name.
In Petrograd he, with other workers, founded the ‘Union for the Emancipation of the Working Class,’ and conducted the first labor strikes, writing meanwhile leaflets and pamphlets remarkable for their simplicity of style and clarity. These were printed on a hectograph and distributed.... Very often now workers coming from far off Siberia or the Ural to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets recall to him their activities together in the early 90’s. They recognize that he was their teacher, the first to kindle the spark of communism in them.
In the 90’s Lenin was sentenced to a long prison term and then exiled. While in exile he devoted himself to scientific and literary activities, and wrote a number of books. One of these reached a circle of exiles in Switzerland, among whom were Plekhanoff, Axelrod, and Zasulich, who welcomed Lenin as the harbinger of a coming season, and who could not find words of praise sufficiently strong. Another book, a truly scientific one, won the praise of Professor Maxim Kovalevsky of the Paris School of Social Science. “What a good professor Lenin would have made!” he said.
Vladimir Ilyich languished in exile like a caged lion. The only thing that saved him was the fact that he was leading the life of a scientist. He used to spend fifteen hours daily in the library over books, and it is not without reason that he is now one of the most cultured men of our time.... In 1901 Lenin, together with a group of intimate friends, began the publication of a newspaper, Iskra, The Spark. This paper not only waged a political struggle, but it carried on vast organizing activities, and Lenin was the soul of the organizing committee.
Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya Ulyanova was the secretary of Iskra and the secretary of the organizing committee. Throughout Lenin’s activities as an organizer a considerable share of the credit is due to his wife. All the correspondence was in her charge. At one time she was in communication with entire Russia. Who did not know her? Martov in his bitter controversy with Lenin once called her "Secretary of Lenin, the Super-Center."...
In the summer of 1905 the first conference of the Bolsheviki was called. Officially it was known as the Third Conference of the Revolutionary Social Democratic Labor Party. This conference laid the corner-stone for the present Communist Party.... In the revolution of 1905 Lenin’s part was enormous, although he was residing in Petrograd illegally and was forbidden by the party to attend its meetings openly.
Vladimir Ilyich was exiled for the second time in 1907. In Geneva, and later in Paris, chiefly through the efforts of Lenin, the newspapers, The Proletarian and The Social Democrat were founded. Complete decadence was reigning all around. Obscene literature took the place of art literature. The spirit of nihilism permeated the sphere of politics. Stolypin was indulging in his orgies. And it seemed as if there was no end to all this.
At such times true leaders reveal themselves. Vladimir Ilyich suffered at that time, as he did right along in exile, the greatest personal privations. He lived like a pauper, he was sick and starved, especially when he lived in Paris. But he retained his courage as no one else did. He stood firmly and bravely at his post. He alone knew how to weld together a circle of gallant fighters to whom he used to say, “Do not lose your courage. The dark days will pass, a few years will elapse, and the proletarian revolution will be revived.”
For two years Lenin scarcely left the national library at Paris, and during this time he accomplished such a large amount of work that even those very professors who were attempting to ridicule his philosophic works admitted that they could not understand how a man could do so much.
The years 1910–11 brought a fresh breeze to stir the atmosphere. It became clear in 1911 that the workers’ movement was beginning to revive. We had in Petrograd a paper, the Star, (Zviezda), and in Moscow a magazine, Thought (Mysl), and there was a small labor representation in the Duma. And the principal worker both on these papers and for the Duma representation was Lenin. He taught the principles of revolutionary parliamentarism to the labor deputies in the Duma. “You just get up and tell the whole of Russia plainly about the life of the worker. Depict the horrors of the capitalist galleys, call upon the workers to revolt, fling into the face of the black Duma the name of ‘scoundrels and exploiters.’” At first they found this strange advice. The entire Duma atmosphere was depressing, its members and ministers met in the Tauride palace, clad in full dress suits. They learned their lessons however.
In 1912 we started to lead a new life. At the January conference of that year the Bolsheviki reunited their ranks which had been broken up by the counter revolution. At the request of the new Central Executive Committee Lenin and myself went to Krakov (Cracow, in Galicia). There comrades began to come to us from Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere. I recall the first large general meeting of the Petrograd metal workers, in 1913. Two hours after our candidates had been elected to the executive committee Lenin received a wire from the metal workers, congratulating him upon the victory. He lived a thousand versts away from Petrograd, yet he was the very soul of the workers of Petrograd. It was a repetition of what took place in 1906–7 when Lenin lived in Finland, and we used to visit him every week to receive counsel from him. From the little village of Kuokalla, in Finland, he steered the labor movement of Petrograd.
In 1915–17 Lenin was leading a very peculiar life in Switzerland. The war and the collapse of the International had a very marked effect on him. Many of his comrades who knew him well were surprised at the changes wrought in him by the war.
He never felt very tenderly toward the bourgeoisie, but with the beginning of the war he began to nurture a concentrated, keen, intense hatred for them. It seemed that his very countenance had changed.
In Zurich he resided in the poorest quarter, in the flat of a shoemaker. He appeared to be after every single proletarian, trying as it were to get hold of him and explain that the war was an imperialistic slaughter.... Lenin has always understood what enormous difficulties would arise before the working class after it had seized all power. From the first days of his arrival in Petrograd he carefully observed the economic disruption. He valued his acquaintance with every bank employee, striving to penetrate into all the details of the banking business. He was well aware of the provisioning problem, and of other difficulties. In one of his most remarkable books he dwells at length on these difficulties. On the question of the nationalization of banks, in the domain of the provisioning policy and on the war question Lenin has said the decisive word. He worked out concretely the plan of practical measures to be adopted in all domains of national life, long before October 25, (November 7), 1917. The plan is clear, concrete, distinct, like all his works....
ZINOVIEFF
President of the Petrograd Soviet
CHAPTER VII
PETROGRAD
I arrived at the Nicolai station in Petrograd on the 24th of September, from Moscow, and went at once to the Astoria hotel on St. Isaac’s Square at the farther end of Nevsky Prospekt. As we drove along the thoroughfare I noticed workmen tearing out the wooden paving-blocks which covered that famous street, and recalled having read in New York papers that whole streets in Petrograd had been torn up and used for fuel. This seemed credible enough, even desirable, I thought, as I recalled the shivering nights I had spent in Russia. When my droshky came nearer to the crew of workers I saw worn and broken blocks piled to one side; in their places new blocks had been put in. Two days later I walked along this same thoroughfare from one end to the other, still looking for unmended gaps in the paving. My search was vain. And the pavements of the side streets, on which I walked miles during my stay in Petrograd, were in good condition.
Many of the shops along Nevsky Prospekt were closed and boarded up, and those that remained open had but few wares on their shelves. The large stores, however, now converted into Soviet stores, were all open and contained a goodly supply of various commodities, but the bright-colored toys that used to fill the shop windows of Petrograd had entirely disappeared. Apparently the peasants of Russia, busy with weightier matters, had found no time to carve grotesque wooden figures and charming dolls and the other gayly-colored toys they know so well how to make. The Russian child who does not have these toys left over from the old days has to do without.
Whatever beautiful things Russia still had, however, were placed in the stores along with the necessities. They were not regarded as luxuries for the few. Art belongs to every one in Soviet Russia.
I learned that the high wall which used to surround the Winter Palace of the Czar had been torn down, and when I asked why this had been done, was told that there was a beautiful garden back of this wall, and since “beauty should not be hidden from the people,” they had torn down the wall so that all might see the garden. The palace itself was unoccupied. Its art treasures had been removed to Moscow, and placed in museums there. It was planned to make a museum of the palace later.
On my second day in Petrograd I went out to Smolny Institute, a large stone structure overlooking the Neva, formerly a school for the daughters of the aristocracy, now the office building of the officials and workers of the Northern Commune and Petrograd Soviet.
In front of the institute there was set up a large statue of Karl Marx. It looked impressive enough from a distance. But when I passed on my way into the building and looked back at the statue I discovered Karl Marx—a silk hat in his hand. I have not yet been able to get over my memory of the great economist standing there, heroically erect, before the headquarters of the workingmen’s government, holding a silk hat.
In Smolny Institute I met Zinovieff, president of the Petrograd Soviet, a curly-haired, impetuous Jew, full of energy and with a deep understanding of the Russian revolutionary movement. He has been a life-long friend of Lenin and was his companion in exile. I found him distrustful at first, but very cordial when convinced that my intentions were honest.
“Do you still talk about nationalization of women in America?” he asked me with a broad grin. He was the only official in Soviet Russia who ever mentioned the subject to me.
Later in the day I attended a meeting of the Petrograd Soviets which included representatives of all unions, army, navy and peasants. They were assembled in the Tauride Palace, where the Duma met formerly. A decree for compulsory education for adults was under consideration, and Zinovieff spoke for the adoption of the decree. I could not, of course, understand his impassioned address, which subsequent translation revealed to be a clear analysis of the whole educational problem. He has a high-pitched voice, which grated on my ears sometimes, but rang with earnestness and conviction. The decree, which is now in effect, was passed by a practically unanimous vote.
It provided that after November 1, 1919, all adults of the Northern Commune unable to read and write would have to attend public school classes two hours daily for six months, at the end of which time those unable to pass the examinations were to be denied the right to work. For their hours of study the decree provided that they be paid wages at the rate in effect in their branches of industry.
For those illiterates in occupations requiring eight hours labor, the working day was reduced to six, giving them the opportunity to spend the full two hours in school. The six-hour day in force in the hazardous occupations was reduced to four hours.
Soviet officials informed me that passage of the decree did not mean that those who were unable to assimilate knowledge would be denied the right to work. That disciplining would be invoked only for those capable ones who wilfully refused to study. The measure was but one of the efforts of the Soviet Government to hasten the development of the intellectual side of the people’s life and to raise culture in general. Under Czars there were few public schools, and these were inefficiently conducted. Seventy-five percent of the people could not read or write.
I inquired about the “Red Terror” in Petrograd. “Yes,” I was informed, “there were two or three days of Red Terror in August, 1918, when Lenin was shot, in Moscow.” The rank and file were devoted to this man, and when they heard of the attempt on his life they turned loose, and it took three days of hard work on the part of the government officials and the government party members to stop the rush of the mob. Probably two thousand were killed, and during the six weeks that Lenin lay between life and death great crowds of working people watched the bulletins from his physicians that were posted on walls in all parts of the city from day to day. I was told that quite aside from his value to the government itself, it was a godsend to Russia that he survived, because his death would have meant an uprising that would have spared no human being believed to be in opposition to Lenin and the Soviet Government. Even Zinovieff is reported to have lost his head for a little time, when he heard of the precarious condition of his old friend and comrade.
A Russian friend of mine in America had asked me to look for his father who lived two or three blocks from St. Isaac’s Square when last heard from four years before.
I found the old man in his place of business—a picture frame store. He lived with his wife in two or three rooms in the rear. He had been in business for years, and was one of the bourgeoisie of the olden days. When I asked him if he had been disturbed by the Bolsheviki he said that during the two years since the revolution his store had been visited once by the authorities—an officer came to inquire for the address of some person living in the immediate neighborhood.
I asked him how he liked the new regime. “I don’t like it because food is scarce and prices high.” He showed me a small picture frame. “Before the war I could sell this for 70 kopecks, now I must charge 40 rubles,—but then maybe it was the war and not the revolution that caused the high prices,—I don’t know.”
He took me down the street three blocks to visit his daughter, so that when I returned to America I could assure my friend that his sister, too, was safe. She and her husband were both working for the Soviet Government and had but one complaint to make, “scarcity of food.” She was a teacher in one of the Soviet schools. They had two beautiful boys; the elder was studying sculpture in a Soviet art school, the younger was still in the grades. I asked this most intelligent and refined woman whether the Bolshevists had broken up the homes in Petrograd. She smiled and said, “Do they believe that in America?” When I had to answer that “some do,” she replied, “Please tell them it does not show intelligence to believe such things.”
I talked to three or four of the business men along the Nevsky Prospekt who were still clinging to their little shops, with their pitiful stocks of goods. These people have remained undisturbed for reasons I have already explained. In substance they all said the same thing: “It is terrible,—terrible. Before long we must quit business. The Bolshevists are setting up what they call ‘Soviet’ stores. The people don’t come to us now,—only a few of our old customers. The Soviet stores control the products and undersell us. Russia is doomed. We want to go away. How is it in America?”
The last cry of the private shopkeeper in Russia! Some day when the war is over and Russia is doing business with the rest of the world, these same shopkeepers will probably find the Soviet stores more attractive even than their own. They may remember, with no regret, their constant struggle to survive competition. Doubtless they will get behind the counters of the Soviet stores, as many of their kind have already done, and there find security of employment and compensation, and in the knowledge that they are rendering a real service to the New Russia they will find an adequate substitute for the stimulation of “private enterprise.”
With the removal of the capital to Moscow, the sending of thousands of workers to the army, the voluntary emigration to the villages of thousands of others, and the exodus of the bourgeoisie to Scandinavia, France, England and even America, Petrograd has probably one half the population it had under the Czar. Moscow had gained, however, during the same period in greater proportion than Petrograd lost.
CHICHERIN
Commissar of Foreign Affairs
Tram cars were running more regularly than in Moscow, so far as I could observe. The streets were poorly lighted, as in Moscow, and for the same reason. All automobiles had been requisitioned by the army and were used mostly for trucking. The city was policed by women in daytime, by men at night. It was rather startling to encounter a woman policeman with a rifle on her shoulder, but the people took it for granted, and I was told that the women were quite as efficient as the men. In spite of poor lighting, Petrograd is as safe as Moscow at night—or as safe as New York or Chicago, for that matter. Prostitution has lost its clientele. Thousands of women from the streets have found decent employment in various institutions of the Soviet Government, and are able to lead independent, normal lives.
I visited one of the large textile industries, which was in full operation, employing probably three thousand men and women. They were making civilian suits and overcoats and winter coats for the soldiers. Motor lorries drove up and carried away thousands of these winter coats for shipment to the soldiers at the front.
Some of the factories were closing down through lack of fuel. I asked what would become of the workers who were thrown out of employment, and was told that pending their re-employment they would be given “out of work” cards showing that their idleness was not voluntary, and the government would continue to pay them their regular wages.
I visited Maxim Gorky in his modest apartment near the Fortress of Peter and Paul. Gorky is typical of a large class of the intellectuals. Two years ago he was a bitter opponent of Bolshevism, and his writings violently attacked the government.
Of artistic rather than political temperament, and strongly pacifist, he was sickened by the killing on both sides. Since then, however, he has come to the support of the Soviet Government. His tribute to the constructive ability of the Soviet leaders was issued over his signature a year ago, and has been widely circulated.
I had been told that Maxim Gorky was suffering from tuberculosis, and after all the misery I had seen in Soviet Russia because of the lack of food, I expected to find him emaciated. Instead, he was vigorous and healthy. He stood before me tall, powerful, with a slight bend in his shoulders. He seemed with his mass of gray hair like some huge and fearless animal.
There was sadness in his voice and his gray eyes when he spoke of Russia’s suffering. Gorky himself was a child of the streets, and he feels keenly the suffering of the people.
But it was when he spoke of the future of his country that he was the true Russian. He told me he believed in the invincible spirit of the Russian masses and their determination to defend “their revolution.” He dwelt with pride upon the accomplishments of individual workers, whose native genius had been set free from the old bondage. I was surprised to find the interest he took in the industries. In one factory just outside of Petrograd, he told me, they were extracting sugar from the sawdust of certain woods by a process discovered by a workman. With equal enthusiasm he told me of another worker who had perfected a method of preserving fish nets so that their durability had been increased four hundred percent.
He told me a manifesto would soon be issued to the world, coming from a number of Russian scientists of established reputation, setting forth the scientific achievements accomplished under Soviet rule.
“Under two years of Soviet rule,” Gorky said, “there have been more discoveries made in Russia and there has been more progress in general than previously in twenty years under Czarism.”
The greatest joy that Gorky finds in his work for the Soviet Government is in the tremendous task of preserving the art of old Russia and creating new art. Even in the throes of the revolution when Gorky opposed the Bolshevik rule, he was working with the government to preserve the old art.
Under his direction a museum was established in a fine structure, wherein were stored thousands of art treasures recovered during the revolution. Bourgeoisie who fled to other countries left their unoccupied homes full of beautiful things. The Soviet Government took possession of these homes at once and removed valuable art to the museum. Manifestos were sent broadcast appealing to the people to preserve these things which were now theirs. In Petrograd the following bulletin, under the title “Appeal for the Preservation of Works of Art,” appeared:
“Citizens! The old landlords have gone. Behind them remains a tremendous inheritance. Now it belongs to the whole people. Guard this inheritance; take care of the palaces. They will stand as the palaces of the art of the whole people. Preserve the pictures, the statues, the buildings—these are a concentration of the spiritual force of yourselves and of your forefathers. Art is that beauty which men of talent have been able to create even under the lash of despotism. Do not touch a single stone, safeguard monuments, buildings, ancient things, and documents. All these are your history, your pride.”
“But it was impossible to save everything,” Gorky told me. “There were the soldiers and the peasants, who had never had a chance to see any of these beautiful things in the past. The people did not wish to destroy these things. They only threw away what seemed worthless to them. One priceless painting was found in a garbage can. But it was found and brought back by the people themselves. And now it is in the museum where every one may see it.”
Gorky is head of the “World Literature Publishing House,” a vast institution organized by the Soviet Government to publish the best literary and scientific productions of all countries in popular editions for the Russian masses. A great staff of literary and professional men and women are enrolled in this work. Already about six hundred books have been edited and are ready for publication, although only thirty volumes had been printed when the work had to stop on account of the lack of paper. As soon as paper is available they hope to begin printing millions of volumes in editions which will be within the reach of all the Russian people.
In addition to this work Gorky has been devoting much time to the preparation of a series of motion-picture scenarios, composed with scientific historical exactness, showing the history of man from the Stone Age down through the Middle Ages to the time of Louis XVI of France, and finally to the present day. This work was begun in July 1919, and when I talked with Gorky in September of the same year, he told me that they had already finished twenty-five scenarios. He described the extraordinary difficulties under which the work was going forward; the actors and actresses who were often undernourished, persevered over all obstacles, inspired by an enthusiasm which Gorky thought would have been impossible in any other country. The Soviet Government was aiding the production in every way. The best actors and actresses in the country had been enlisted in this work along with historians and scientists. The films were being sent into the remote towns and villages, and thousands of small theatres already were being built.
The motion picture theatres in general in Petrograd were not showing the ordinary romances that we see in this country in films. The motion picture was used largely for educating the people and showing the development of industry, the proper care of children and the advantages of sanitary conditions. Russia is in great need of education so far as sanitation is concerned. In the large cities the sanitation is modern, but in smaller towns and in the villages the people have no idea of a sewage system.
The theatre of Soviet Russia had already been organized throughout the country at the time of my visit. The production of plays and scenarios was included in the educational program of the government. The theatres were organized into one corporation and subsidized by the Soviet Government, which did not, however, interfere in any way with the artistic work of the producers. I saw Schiller’s “Robbers” and Gorky’s “Lower Depths” produced wonderfully. The people crowded to the theatres. The first four performances each week are set aside for the Soviet workers.
Gorky assured me that the elements opposed to Soviet rule “do not find any support among the rank and file. The working class strongly supports the Soviets, and most of the peasants approve, although the village youth is still indifferent.”
The Jewish people were playing an important part in the revolutionary reconstruction of the country, Gorky said, but added that he did not mean the class of Jews who had been influential in the old régime. The Jews who had come forward under the revolution were the ones who had formerly been kept within the pale. They felt that a new freedom had been offered them by the Soviet Government, that they would be treated as brothers, and so they were rendering valuable constructive service.
“If they would only leave us alone,” he cried out bitterly. “Tell America for the sake of humanity to leave Russia alone.” His words fairly burned as he sat there and talked, emphasizing each phrase with a gesture of his clenched fists. “Tell them to leave us alone. I know quite well that there are many persons in America who have no vision of this Russia, who have no comprehension of what Russia is. But after all, you have a few enlightened people in America. Please tell them that Russia is not Central Africa, without civilization or statesmanship. Russia is well able to take care of herself.”