The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

“And how is my young philosopher?” he said to Pavel. “I was at your place this morning, but found you out, Pasha.”

“I’ll see you later on,” Pavel said dryly. “Philosopher” referred to the nature of the studies which Pavel’s mother thought him to be pursuing. There was a touch of patronage in the way Zachar used the word, and Pavel resented it.

As the gathering began to lapse into a graver mood the conversation was expectantly left to Zachar, who by degrees accepted the rôle of the principal speaker of the evening. That he relished this rôle and was fond of a well turned phrase became apparent at once, but the impression soon wore off. He compelled attention.

“The practice of nations being inherited like furniture or chickens has been out of date for centuries,” he said in the course of a ferocious attack on the existing adjustment of things. “But our party does not demand full justice at once. The Will of the People is not inconsiderate. We are willing to project ourselves into the position of an old chap with whom the love of power has been bred in the bone. All our party does demand, as a first step, is some regard for the rights of the individual; of those rights without which the word civilisation is of a piece with that puerile sort of hypocrisy as our late war with Turkey, when the ambitious old fellow in his unquenchable thirst for territory sent his subjects to die for the liberty of Bulgarians so that their own children at home might be plunged into more abject slavery than ever.

“The government knows, of course, that its days are numbered and that it is only cowardice and incapacity for concerted action which make its brief respite possible. To retreat honourably, before it is too late, to yield to the stern voice of the revolution under some specious pretext—this is the step indicated by the political situation, but then this is not what the ambitious oldster is after. Is there any wonder he has lost his head? So much the better for the revolution. One or two decisive blows and the government will topple over. Thanks to the splendid army section of the Will of the People, on the one hand, and to our powerful Workingmen’s Section, on the other, one hundred resolute men will be enough to seize the Winter Palace, to cut off all egress, arrest the new Czar and, amid the general confusion following the death of the old tyrant, proclaim a provisional government. What a glorious opportunity to serve one’s country!”

His speech lasted an hour and a half. Most of his hearers were recent converts, and these the matter-of-fact tone of his utterances took by storm. The Third Section had heard of him as an irresistible agitator. So he was, and the chief secret of his success lay—despite an effect of conscious floridity and bravado—in a sincere depth of conviction manifested by a volcanic vehemence of delivery. His speeches took it for granted that Russia was at the threshold of a great historical change and that his organisation was going to play a leading part in that change. He gathered particular assurance from the fact that the “army section” that had been formed by his efforts included several officers of the court guard whose number he hoped to increase. These court officers it was whom his imagination pictured as “cutting off all egress” at the Winter Palace. The funds of his party included contributions from some high sources. Things seemed to be coming the “Will of the People’s” way. As he spoke his strong physique seemed to be aflame with contagious passion, sweeping along audience and speaker. The harshness of his mighty baritone was gone; his peasant face was beautiful. Words like “party,” “citizen,” “National Assembly,” are winged with the glamour of forbidden fruit in Russia, and when Zachar uttered these words, in accents implying that these things were as good as realised, his audience was enravished. To all of which, in the present instance, should be added the psychological effect of a group of dashing army officers, all members of the nobility, reverently listening to an address by a peasant. He struck one as a giant of energy and courage, of nervous vitality as well as of bodily strength. He had the stuff of a political leader in him. Under favourable conditions he would have left his mark as one of the strong men of the nineteenth century. He carried people along current-fashion rather than magnetised them.

Pavel was the next speaker, but the outraged sense of justice which was the keynote of his impassioned plea, coming as it did upon the heels of Zachar’s peremptory and matter-of-course declarations, sounded out of date.

“Oh, it takes an idiot to talk after you, Zachar,” he said, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. “One feels like being up and doing things, not talking. I wonder why we don’t start for the Winter Palace, at once.”

“That’s the way I feel, too,” chimed in a very young cavalry officer, while two older men in brilliant uniforms, were grasping Zachar each by one hand. The long-necked hostess was brushing the tears from her eyes and calling herself “fool,” for joy.