Siberia To-Day

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

This relation to work and play in connection with Siberia I believe to be vital both in Siberia and in other parts of the world. And I feel it necessary to become personal in order to make clear what I mean in a chapter dealing primarily with Siberian love of amusement.

As a boy I worked in a woolen mill as a weaver. In order to study while my loom was running, I fastened books to the top of the frame and in moments when the loom did not need my attention, I would read a page or two out of a book. By this method I often got through a book a day in addition to producing the regular quantity of cloth. The odd moments I gave to my books were spent by my fellow-weavers in friendly conversation or in skylarking.

I was laughed at for trying to acquire an education. I lost caste with young chaps of my own age for “trying to be better than a weaver.” And right then I learned this truth: People write or talk about autocracy of capital, or autocracy of government, or autocracy of class, but—the greatest autocrat in the world is the ignorant person—he resents everybody who is not as ignorant as himself, and he seeks to pull down to his level those who would surpass him in ability, manual or mental.

I mention this because I found exactly the same attitude of mind on the part of the “workers” in Siberia, as I found among my former loom-mates. It was that no one works unless he wears old clothes and appears at a certain place at a certain time to labor for a certain period.

The Siberian has much more reason for having that attitude than the American, for the former has been prevented from gaining an education, or thinks he has, and has been told repeatedly that only such labor as he understands, produces anything.

Just as many a laborer resents a white shirt, a collar and cuffs, a well-tailored suit worn by a man who apparently does no hard work, the laborer sometimes resents good grammar and good manners from any man who is thrown in contact with him.

It is said that Trotsky goes about unshaven, and in an old suit of clothes, when he wishes to speak to his adherents on terms of familiarity. Having taught the proletariat to destroy the upper classes, he is consistent enough outwardly to pull himself down to the level of his dupes. This is merely the trick of the sly demagogue, who, when he goes among working men seeking votes, puts off the frock coat and silk hat and gets into a cap and overalls. The inference is that he must be honest and is sincerely seeking to represent the working man because he appears in the habiliments of labor.

This spirit of class hatred has been developed to the ultimate degree in Siberia, and the man with a clean collar, a shave, and clean hands must be an enemy of the proletariat, as the proletarian sees him, simply by having those things.

I heard the provodnik of my fourth-class car refer to me insolently as an aristocrat because he observed me trying to shave and wash my face. Two days later, having allowed myself to become unshaven and otherwise unkempt, he became most friendly, and instead of regarding me as an aristocrat, began to address me as “comrade.” I had evidently won his good regard by being dirty.

So amusement is closely identified with the condition of a people, both in their material and spiritual welfare, as well as in the evils of a bad government. When people insist upon having amusement which they cannot afford, they are ripe for the tyrant, and their government goes to pot. Prosperity has done more damage to the human race than adversity—prosperity which is used only for an excess of amusement.