The Duma had groped falteringly through six weeks’ existence and was at last emerging toward the light. At least so most of the deputies believed. In the meanwhile the military organization was working with an arduousness that was often stupidly reckless. The revolutionists had small faith in the first parliament. They preferred to count on the disloyalty of the army and navy, and their willingness to join the army of the revolution. Sveaborg, Reval, Sebastopol, Kronstadt, were all invaded by preachers and teachers—propagandists of the military organization, to whom the Duma was but a short-lived thing at best. Insurrection, mutiny, open revolt, these were the only forces, they thought, that could overcome the present régime. Therefore, while the Duma talked, the members of the military organization prepared quietly for what they expected would follow a dissolution.
Some of the prettiest girls attacked the guard regiments. They not only cultivated the soldiers; they also made love to the officers, who are notoriously susceptible to the enticing glances of lovely eyes and the flounce of lingerie.
This is one of the most remarkable features of propaganda work in Russia. Young women of finest sensibilities and strong character deliberately enter a life of prostitution among officers in order to win them to the cause. A man of my acquaintance in Helsingfors told me of a beautiful girl whom he knew intimately who took up this work in precisely the same spirit that a woman enters a religious order. To officers whom she felt she must convert to the revolution, she was ready to sell herself—or give herself—according as seemed diplomatic to the circumstances. But toward all others, her own comrades and near acquaintances, she was absolutely chaste and virtuous. From one standpoint she shrank and despised what she did; on the other hand, she believed that what she did in this way bore rich fruit for the movement, and to this movement she was not merely devoted—she was consecrated. This extraordinary state of affairs, of course, cannot be understood by Americans, but I give these details as an interesting phase of a great movement, and to illustrate the degree of self-sacrifice that is sometimes attained by ardent devotees of this work.
Individual propaganda of this nature, while less likely to lead to the gallows or to Siberia, is slower in aggregating results than other methods, and Pasha was one of the impatient ones who preferred to dare greatly in the hope of gaining much. Individual work accomplishes much with the officers, but to revolutionize the rank and file there must be a wholesale means. At considerable risk to herself and her co-workers, Pasha permitted me to go with her and Paul on a propagandist trip to Kronstadt.
Kronstadt lies fourteen versts below St. Petersburg on an island in the Gulf of Finland. It is the most important naval station in the empire, commanding the entrance to St. Petersburg, and the residence of the Czar, called Peterhof. Like most military stations it is a miserable little town that subsists chiefly on the garrison. The barracks are scattered close to the fortifications. There is a small park near the center of the town, but even the garrison doesn’t enjoy its monotonous greensward and unkempt walks.
Four or five boats a day ply between the capital and Kronstadt. Pasha told me the night before to board the first boat in the morning. We would meet there. Pasha and I arrived at the landing almost simultaneously from different directions, while Paul appeared just before the gang-plank was pulled away.
Pasha and Paul represented, to me, the whole rank and file of the revolution. They were so utterly different, yet so absolutely united in purpose. Pasha was a beautiful girl of noble family, educated abroad, fluent in five languages, and even in every-day garb she suggested boudoirs and drawing-rooms, just as lilacs suggest summer, or the tinkle of mandolins suggest soft moonlight, rippling water, and romance. Paul was a Jew. He fairly exuded intellectuality. His hair was towsled, his linen vile, his finger-nails long and black, and his clothes spotted and stained with the feasts of other days. Two personalities could not be more absolutely different, yet they called each other “comrade,” and together shared the perils of this, the most dangerous work of the revolution.
The little boat rose and dipped upon the waves and Pasha rested languidly against the deck-house, delighting in the beauty of the sunlight on the water. Paul was like a live wire afoul of other live wires. Pasha’s warm cheeks were fresh with the color of youth and pink with the flush of morning; Paul’s were dead white. Pasha’s eyes were mild and sometimes languorous; Paul’s were abnormally bright at all times, shining like burnished metal.
An hour after we left the capital we were bouncing over the crude cobbles of Kronstadt streets in a rickety carriage which left us at a corner near a group of barracks. Several warships were riding at anchor in the bay. We watched them a few minutes and Paul told us how many men of each ship were in the “organization.” Then we walked two blocks west, turned a corner, and entered a courtyard with several stairways leading off to the different apartments in the building. Paul led us to one of these inner entrances and up two flights. A girl opened a door to us and we all filed into a wide room which looked like the comfortable parlor of a small tradesman. There were ferns and rubber-plants in the windows and a canary-bird singing lustily in the warm sunlight that streamed in from the sea.
The developments of the next hour added momentarily to my mystification. Paul inquired for a certain man, whom we were informed was away. A brief parley ensued, during which I could see that the door of a room leading off was ajar, and behind this door was some one who seemed to be listening to what was said. The door was presently opened and he whom we sought appeared. We had not been long in this house when there came another ring at the door. A girl not yet out of her teens entered. To all appearances she was a factory-girl, or perhaps a servant. She wore a slatternly cotton dress, and a gray shawl over her head. “A message!” I wondered. The girl shook hands with us all, without uttering a word till she sat down. Then as she spoke I was struck with her expression, which was far too keenly intelligent for a girl of her apparent class. Suddenly she got up and left us without a word. The abruptness of her departure aroused my wonder. It was so un-Russian.