At the head of the table, our brilliant little hostess in Petrograd, sat Madame Angelica Balabanov. This lady is one of the most wonderful linguists I have ever met. She seems to have all the languages on the tip of her tongue. She is a speaker of enormous power and eloquence, so eloquent indeed, and so fiery, that I am certain, given the right kind of human material to work upon, she could make a revolution by herself. Small wonder the Soviet Government wished to make her their ambassador to Rome. No wonder at all that the Italians were too frightened to have her. She loves Italy passionately. She looks like an Italian with her dark skin, mysterious glowing eyes and twin plaits of long black hair reaching far below her waist when uncoiled; and with this appearance and her magic tongue, she might soon have won the Italians for Bolshevism. She is one of the kindest of women in all normal relationships. But I could well imagine her destroying her best friend for the glory of Bolshevism, should such a sacrifice appear to be necessary.
After that first breakfast the Delegation met in the bedroom of the chairman to discuss our programme and the plans which we saw had been prepared for us, and the methods of investigation we proposed to adopt. There was a division of opinion about the latter, which hinged upon the propriety or otherwise of delivering ourselves into the hands of our hosts.
In numerous speeches, both public and private, we had been assured not only of the warmth of our welcome, but of the intention of the Bolsheviki to let us see everything—good, bad and indifferent. “We have nothing whatever to hide, so why should you not be free to go where you will and see what you wish.” This sounded splendid. We heaved a sigh of relief. We had been in mortal terror of being a conducted party.
The theory was, therefore, that we were to go where we pleased and see what we chose and speak to whom we desired to speak; in short, to have perfect freedom. But in practice this freedom was every whit as illusory as the raising of the British blockade. As events transpired, we were everywhere accompanied by representatives of the Authorities, who were sent, it was said, partly to act as interpreters and partly to protect us from counter-revolutionaries and Polish spies who might be lurking about with bombs! The number of such persons who accompanied us on most of our visits, whether to inspect a factory or a workshop or to interview a Commissar, was seldom less than half a dozen and generally was ten or even twenty. Sometimes as many as fifty people by actual count accompanied us round a factory. They got fearfully in the way, and often crowded out members of the Delegation eager to get close to charts and maps and anxious to ask questions. But we were all very good-humoured about this, because we realised that this was the first time for five years that these people had been permitted to look upon the face of the foreigner, and that a perfectly natural curiosity was entitled to be satisfied.
It was not so much the number of persons who accompanied us that was the trouble, although this host of followers gave our enterprise a circus-like quality which some of us would have been glad to exchange for a more business-like atmosphere. There is certainly a lack of freedom in the feeling that one is being watched all the time, and one’s words and actions and the people with whom one speaks noted by gentlemen who hold positions in Government service, either in connection with the Foreign Office or the Extraordinary Commission, as was the case with several of our closest attendants.
But there were other factors which operated to place a check upon our activities.
In the first place a programme of places to be visited and things to be seen was presented to us which, if carried out only in part, would have absorbed every second of our time and lessened still further the number of hours to be devoted to sleep. The time-tables given to us when we entered Petrograd and Moscow were simply staggering. “Can human beings go through that and live?” we asked one another. We thought we began to see some of the reasons why Russian men and women look ten years older than they are—no sleep, too much tea, and this sort of thing! Needless to say, we edited those programmes with much firmness and vigour. And even so, some of us found it extremely difficult to get as much time to ourselves as was necessary to take a bath or darn a sock.
Another curious fact speedily unfolded itself. The real nature of our mission to Russia appeared not to be understood. It was believed, or the belief was affected, that we had come in the spirit of full agreement with them, whereas we were there to enquire and to inform ourselves. It was frequently suggested, both privately and publicly, that “the representatives of the revolutionary working-class movement in Great Britain had come to bring greetings and assistance to the revolutionary Government of Russia.” From this belief, or the affectation of it, sprang the clever notion of using us in every possible way to advance their propaganda. Immense public demonstrations, both indoor and outdoor, at which we were expected to make speeches were already arranged for us when we arrived there. We were never consulted about our desires in the matter. There were enormous military parades and Trade Union marches, which we were made to watch from a high platform, where we became the easy victims of the Government Press photographer and the moving picture operator.
On several occasions members of the Delegation addressed the troops in language eminently satisfying to the Bolshevik Commissars, and those like myself, who declined to do this on the ground that we had not come for such a purpose, became objects of suspicion and of quiet dislike. Dinners and suppers followed each other in quick succession, at which the soon-to-be-familiar revolutionary toasts were made the occasion for more speeches. We were displayed in the box of the late Czar at the Opera to interested spectators numbering several thousands on each occasion both in Petrograd and Moscow. The way in which our clever hosts contrived to place us under a very real and lasting obligation by their generous regard for our physical welfare during the whole period of our visit, and at the same time to extract from us for their own purposes the last ounce of propaganda usefulness excited my warmest admiration.
As propagandists there is surely no race and no class to surpass the Russian Communists. At such work they are simply superb. I am quite convinced from my own observation that they have won their victories on the battlefield far more through their leaflets than their bullets. The propaganda trains they are sending daily to the Polish front are marvels of ingenuity. Inside and outside these trains are covered with vivid pictures portraying side by side the horrors of Capitalism and the glories of Communism in simple intelligible form, the horrid capitalist murdering the poor peasant or standing triumphant over a dying woman and child, whilst Communist fields bursting with grain yield to the sickle of the happy, sun-browned, well-fed harvester. Posters giving simple but effective figures, making glowing promises, or issuing electric appeals to the proletariat to “rise and shake off the hated chains of the bourgeoisie” decorate these railway carriages through the whole of their length. Over the Polish lines burst shrapnel cases filled with leaflets. Or they scatter Russian passports for all the Poles who wish to desert and come over the lines.