As she sat down, or rather dropped exhausted into her seat, Mrs. Pankhurst stood up. She is a small woman, but when she is in certain moods she manages somehow to look tall. She looked tall on this occasion. She spoke in French and her talk lasted not longer than fifteen minutes, but when she finished half the women in the room would have gone into the trenches after her. The others looked frightened. Mrs. Pankhurst told the women that 250 Russian women had gone out of their homes, donned soldiers’ uniforms and were prepared to give their lives for their country and the democracy of the world. Mrs. Pankhurst was naturally an admirer of Botchkareva and her Battalion of Death, and had a few days before this meeting reviewed the regiment. She told these women of leisure that if working women were willing to risk their lives on the battlefield for the freedom of Russia the women who remained at home ought to be willing to risk their lives on the streets. Whenever a Bolshevik street orator preached separate peace or a cessation of fighting, a woman of education and ability ought to stand up and tell that same street crowd the truth. The women ought to storm the soviets all over Russia and force the men to support Kerensky and the Provisional Government in their effort to rally the army and defeat the Germans.
The movement, she told them, must be a Russian women’s movement only. No foreigners should appear in it at all. They must do the work, but she was there to give them the full benefit of her experience as an organizer. She would show them how to do the work, how to train speakers, how to manage politicians, how to arrange demonstrations. One of the first things she advised them to do was to establish a headquarters in a conspicuous place, and to get up a great demonstration of women to march in a body to the Winter Palace or the Tauride Palace, wherever the Provisional Government was holding its meetings at the time. They should offer their services to the government, and let the country see that women were in the field to support the war. That speech and that program swept the women off their feet. Immediate steps were taken to organize, and a few women, without waiting for organization, actually did go out into the streets and talk against the Bolsheviki.
Then came the days of the July revolution when all street speaking ceased, and that interfered with the women’s plan. What discouraged it most of all was Kerensky’s cynical attitude toward it. A woman of rank and of great ability, knowing Kerensky well, went to him and told him what they proposed to do, and asked for his coöperation. To her astonishment he refused point blank and he told her that the women would not be allowed to make a demonstration or to march to the palace. Naturally she asked him why, and he replied evasively that there had been too many demonstrations already.
Ambassador Francis shared the women’s disappointment to the extent of calling on Kerensky and trying to make him see the value of their assistance in an hour of crisis, but Kerensky persisted in his refusal.
I do not understand why he acted in this manner. His own domestic affairs were in a sad state at this time, a rumor stating that Mme. Kerenskaia was divorcing her famous husband. It may be that Kerensky was in a state of mind of general prejudice against all women. Perhaps he has the Napoleonic conception of the position of women in the state. I do not know. But if he is an anti-suffragist he is almost alone in his opinion in Russia. Mrs. Pankhurst did not have to convert the country to suffrage. There is no spoken opposition to it anywhere, as far as I could discover. It is taken for granted that women will vote under the new constitution. They have voted already in municipal elections, and in many cities they have been elected to the town dumas. Fourteen women were elected to the Moscow town duma last summer.
Neither is Russia opposed to militant suffragism. Mrs. Pankhurst was a guest of honor one night at the great congress of Cossacks in Petrograd. When she appeared on the platform she received an ovation, and Prof. Miliukoff’s introduction of the famous Englishwoman was a high eulogy. Mrs. Pankhurst’s autobiography has been translated into Russian and is widely circulated. Her mission failed because Kerensky killed it. That is all. Her visit to Russia was not a complete failure, however, for she succeeded in awakening at least one group of Russian women to a keen sense of their political responsibilities. They have begun to work, and when order is restored in the country, their work will be heard of.
They told her in my hearing that they had never before realized what was before them, and they did not intend that the new constitution should be written by any but the best men in Russia. Much can be expected of Russian women in the future, in my opinion.
Among the working people the women have shown themselves to be at least as ready for citizenship as the men. They appear among the Bolsheviki, of course, and they are seen among the slackers in industry. But one group of women workers played a loyal part throughout the February revolution and in the after troubles. This was the telephone force, especially the girls in the big central office in the Morskaia. These girls, without any direction or orders, joined in an absolute refusal to connect the headquarters of the Bolsheviki in the dancer’s palace on the Neva, or the munitions factory which was their other stronghold. Cut off from using the telephone the mutinous soldiers and workmen were severely handicapped, and the government was materially assisted.
Women of the educated classes will play an important part in the reconstruction of Russia. They will hold office, and may sit in the ministry. Already one woman has been appointed adjunct Minister of Public Welfare. This was the well known and efficient Countess Panine, whose civic work is famous throughout the empire. Countess Panine held office for a short time only, because no ministry held together long. That she will be returned to office when stability is secured, there seems to be no doubt.